DOWNWARD SPIRAL: Readers of the New York Times speak!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017

Interlude—Troubling shoes:
At some point, we humans need to come to terms with who and what we are.

This very morning, page A3 in the (hard-copy) New York Times gives us a chance to do that.

First, a quick bit of background. When the Times "reimagined" page A3 this summer, it launched its new format under this controversial motto:
You are the dumbest people on earth.
We at the Times want to serve you.
This morning, the Times seems to claim that it was right in its controversial assessment of us, the newspaper's readers. In its daily feature, The Conversation, the Times attacks us in the following way:
The Conversation
THREE OF THE MOST READ, SHARED AND DISCUSSED POSTS FROM ACROSS NYTIMES.COM

1. Melania Trump, Off to Texas, Finds Herself on Thin Heels
Eight of the 10 most read articles Wednesday focused on Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath. The most popular, written by The Times's fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, concerned the optics of wearing stiletto heels to a disaster area—and why the first lady's sartorial choices matter in our current moment of political division. Commenters were struck as much by the ostentatious footwear as by the sheer impracticality of wearing heels in a flood zone.
Good God. That piece about Mrs. Trump's high heels was yesterday's "most read article" across the whole New York Times!

Needless to say, the nonsense doesn't stop there. The precis which we have posted was accompanied by a photograph of Melania Trump boarding Air Force One in Maryland, where it was raining a bit. Rather clearly, the photo supports the false impression that she wore her very high heels in the disaster area, in the actual flood zone.

Which, in fact, she didn't. Until you read the brainless remarks by readers of the Times—brainless remarks which are reinforced all through this morning's precis.

How about more background? Vanessa Friedman is the soul of the Times' plu-foppish upper-class culture. To its credit, though, the Times is willing to tell the truth today about its subscribers and readers:

Yesterday, this silly analysis piece by Friedman
was the most-read ("most popular") article in the paper's whole empire! As it tattles on its readers, the Times seems to say it was right all along when it reinvented pages A2 and A3 in the dumbest possible way.

Let's get clear on what the Times has told us today. Friedman's discussion of Mrs. Trump's shoes wasn't the most popular article among Those People, the dumb/stupid folk who voted for Trump, the nincompoops found Over There.

Friedman's piece was the "most popular" article among our tribe Over Here! We brilliant Times readers selected that piece over all other displays.

To its credit, the Times was willing to make that confession about its own dull-witted base. On the down side, the unnamed person who wrote that precis mistakenly implied, at two separate points, that Trump had worn those very high heels down in Texas, which in fact she did not.

The photograph pimped that false belief further. This is the way the Times rolls!

Let's be fair to the Times. The silly piece by the upper-class Friedman did not appear in the paper's hard-copy editions. By way of contrast, the Washington Post positioned Robin Givhan's equally unfortunate piece on the first page of yesterday's Style section in our hard-copy edition.

That's the section the Post mainatins to show that it can be just as foppish as the Hamptons-drenched Times. Givhan's piece was headlined thusly:
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
In this case, fashion sense eclipsed common sense
Melania's shoes eclipsed common sense? So did the Post's decision to rehire Givhan in 2014, after giving readers a four-year reprieve from her important work. Remember when Givhan shot her wad, in 2007, about Senator Clinton's cleavage?

More props to the Times! In today's paper, the Times runs a letter, from a Trump non-supporter, complaining about the inanity of Friedman's piece. But above all else, we note that key fact:

Of all the material in yesterday's Times, the lordly Friedman's discussion of heels was the piece we rational animals read more than any other. At such moments, we may start to get a sense of who and what we actually are.

Are we being unfair to Times readers today? Our lizard brains will always insist that we liberals are very bright, while the dumb ridiculous ones are widely found Over There.

Like script, lizards never sleep! But in this moment, we're able to see the hive mind which crawls around the glorious Times. Also on today's A3, we get this bit of help:
Here to Help
HOW TO START A FANTASY FOOTBALL TEAM
The New York Times is here to serve—and the newspaper knows who we are.

We mention this matter today for several reasons. In a more rational world, the Post and the Times would have been savaged, long ago, for the way they frisked every article of a certain candidate's clothing during Campaign 2000.

His boots, his suits, his troubling polo shirts? The number of buttons (three) on the jackets of his suits? The troubling fact that he sometimes wore earth tones?

The height at which he was hemming his pants, the better to show us his cowboy boots? The unholy signals his troubling wardrobe was sending to female voters? In the end, when the deviants finally went there, the sock he'd stuffed in his pants?

Your nation's major mainstream "journalists" spent months discussing these crucial matters. Over Here, in our liberal tents, we sub-humans sat there and took it.

We were too dumb to speak up or complain as our major mainstream "journalists" conducted this ludicrous war. Yesterday, we brilliantly flocked to Friedman's thoughts about you-know-who's ill-chosen shoes.

We mention Friedman's ratings triumph for a second reason. The popularity of her piece connects to Hillary Clinton's new novel—and to our tribe's increasingly sad desire to swallow whatever we're served.

How in the world did Donald J. Trump ever end up in the White House? The Friedmans and the Givhans are one part of that story, along with the nameless editors who shovel their prose into print.

More than anything else, though, we the liberals were the key players in that decades-long story. Yesterday, we gobbled the porridge we were served about Mrs. Trump's hideous heels.

We're also being asked this week to swallow Candidate Clinton's guff about her second debate with the ridiculous Candidate Trump. As we rush to swallow her (truly sad) novel, the dumbnification of us our tribe is more and more complete.

In case you haven't noticed yet, a modern society can't function this way. Tomorrow, what actually happened.

Tomorrow: What actually happened

82 comments:

  1. I don't know if ad hominem hurts or helps, but it is certainly the order of the day here, and with more sadness than rancor, it is impossible to escape the fact Bob Somerby's skin is an idiot.

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  2. Where to start?

    1. "shot her wad" is an offensive term referring not to ancient firearms but to sexual release in MEN. It doesn't make sense applied to a woman. There is no need to include male sexual references in a post presumably intended to be read by both sexes.

    2. To quote from the article: "The most popular, written by The Times's fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, concerned the optics of wearing stiletto heels to a disaster area—and why the first lady's sartorial choices matter in our current moment of political division. "

    Either the author was able to relate the shoes to our moment of political division in a convincing manner, or she wasn't. That should be the point, not whether shoes, on their face, deserve comment in the NY Times. New York is, after all, the center of the fashion industry in the US, and comment on fashion is appropriate, just as comment on the entertainment industry is frequent and appropriate in the LA Times, where movies stars are often discussed, including where they live and how much they pay for their homes.

    3. Melania is an appendage, a status symbol of Trump's, a symbol not of our nation but of a man's financial acquisitiveness. Those shoes matter a great deal. To wear them at all is ridiculous because they hobble a woman to the point where she is useless in any physical endeavor, including walking. Why does any woman wear such shoes under any circumstance?

    4. Melania doesn't give two hoots about those disaster victims, any more than Trump does. That was the NY Times point -- and they did make it effectively. If Somerby missed that, he is focused too narrowly on embarrassing the NY Times to see the forest for the trees. We all got that point and so did Times readers.

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    1. Dave the Guitar PlayerAugust 31, 2017 at 12:19 PM

      There was a time when I was judged by the length of my hair. I have always hoped that there would be a day when everyone would be judged by what they said and what they did. Your reaction to Bob's post convinces me that have not yet reached that day. Sad.

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    2. ""shot her wad" is an offensive term"

      Micro-aggression! Everyone, to the safe space, quick!

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    3. Dave the Guitar PlayerAugust 31, 2017 at 12:55 PM

      Mao: I thought you said you only comment on the blogger's post and did not understand why other posters targeted you. Explain.

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    4. Why, innit absolutely farcical that these clowns here suddenly find something "offensive"?

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    5. Go ahead, shoot your wad.

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    6. Wad shooting is for wankers.

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    7. There is no need to include male sexual references in a post presumably intended to be read by both sexes.

      LOL, what a faggot.

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    8. Why not just write about how she doesn't care about the disaster victims? If that is true, why not just address it directly?

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    9. If you were to assert that she doesn't care, people would justifiably ask "How do you know she doesn't care?" The shoes are part of the answer to how we know.

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    10. > “‘shot her wad’ is an offensive term referring not to ancient firearms...” — You could at least have Googled the term before making this historically ignorant claim: a “wad” was a gunner’s cloth, used in musketry to hold the shot and powder inside the barrel until fired, and in cannonry to keep a full charge of powder sealed together below the cannonball, in both cases for best explosive force. If a stray spark left over in an improperly cleaned cannon ignited the powder, you might “shoot your wad” before even loading the cannonball. If you were too forceful with the ramrod of your musket, you might shoot not only your wad but also your ramrod... and let’s hope you were not using the palm of your hand to force the ramrod in (best practice is to hold it by fingertips, from the side)....

      That phrase had a double reference even before the quite recent (third) sexual meaning got added to it: in the early 20th century, circa 1914, there are documented usages by gamblers of “shoot your wad” regarding gambling away the “wad” of money one started with... but again this means exhausting one’s stock of possibilities, without any sexual implication.

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    11. Raven, we are neither gamblers nor militiamen here. Context matters. Somerby used a term that currently has a sexual connotation. It was inappropriate.

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    12. That some people have chosen to use the term with a sexual connotation does not take away from others their right or ability to continue to use the term with its pre-existing connotation(s). You have presented no persuasive argument that in all cases the newest slang usage should consistently displace all older usages; so is this a one-time, this-case-only argument?

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    13. Those time periods and contexts don't exist now. The meanings of all words depend on context. You cannot ignore context.

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    14. Yesterday doesn't exist now, only today does, right.

      But that applies just as much to the 1990s as to the 1910s, 1860s, and 1770s.

      The meanings of all words depend on contexts, but why insist Bob Somerby was using a recent (and, as stated above, offensive) rapper-sexual-slang context, rather than the much older, generally used, and inoffensive context dating back in continual usage to the very beginnings of this Republic?

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    15. Melania wears pumps to get on the plane to go to Houston = she doesn't care about disaster victims?

      BOB IS RIGHT WE *ARE* DUMB! WE ARE JUST LIKE FOX!

      I mean that is a really dumb assertion.

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    16. Raven, in the context of Somerby's statement about Clinton, it is clear he doesn't like her or approve of her. He is trying to show disrespect to her. He can be crude about it, sometimes. Remember when he talked about Maddow shoving money down her pants? He isn't trying to talk like a gambler or rapper or artilleryman. He is trying to show disrespect to Clinton because he thinks she is unfairly maligning Trump and being a whiny bitch in order to sell books. So he uses a demeaning sexual term that applies mainly to men, to put her in her place. He probably isn't aware he is doing that, since the reasons why we choose our words are often subconscious. I am objecting in order to make his usage explicit and to point out that he doesn't like Clinton much and is being unfair to her.

      Talking about a woman using male sexual language is offensive precisely because it introduces a sexual context, so it reduces women to sexual objects (reminding them of their sexual role), and by applying male language to a female, it is like when Maureen Dowd referred to Edwards as the Breck Girl. It is ugly. And yes, Somerby did it on purpose and did not accidentally mean a gambling or wartime reference.

      And the sexual context predates rap. Rappers used it because of the sexual meaning but they didn't invent that meaning.

      Somerby can be a not very nice person sometimes.

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    17. Melania doesn't care about storm victims because she uses a visit to Houston to sell hats and because she didn't dress appropriately because she had no intention of going anywhere near the storm. That is the point. She cannot visit the victims if she is not wearing shoes that would permit her to do so. Choosing the wrong shoes signals she has no intention of visiting them, on a trip ostensibly for that purpose.

      If she wore those shoes on a hike, you would assume she had no intention of hiking. It is the same thing.

      She changed her shoes on the plane to some nifty white sneakers. She apparently doesn't own any sneakers (another message there) so they had to supply them on the plane. Or she wouldn't be caught dead in sneakers unless visiting a disaster area (another message there).

      She wants people to notice the hat, but the press is focusing on her feet instead. Another message there. I think she was forced to wear the hat by Trump, another message there. She certainly wouldn't wear a hat like that otherwise. It makes me feel sorry for her again, but by all accounts, she colludes with Trump on his crap, so my feelings may be misplaced. She may be enthusiastically wearing the hat and only reluctant about visiting the storm-damaged areas (the message her poor choice of footware sends).

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    18. Anonymous @ 9:57 AM: Somerby isn't disrepecting Hilary Clinton in that segment; he specifically refers to WaPo fashion writer Robin Givhan as the one having “shot her wad”, and provides a link.

      Clearly you did not read that linked article, or you would not now be making the most ironic complaint that [this term] “introduces a sexual context, so it reduces women to sexual objects (reminding them of their sexual role)” — as that’s exactly what the linked article points out Robin Givhan herself did to Hilary Clinton.

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    19. Melania doesn't care about the victims because she wears high heels when she gets on the plane in DC? The shoes "signal" her intention and attitude? That's like Hannity saying Obama is elitist because he eats asparagus. (Something I heard him claim once).

      Pure stupidity. Pure projection.

      That's why it's good Bob writes what he does so we can see we are susceptible to to the same types of bs as right wing dittoheads.

      You're projecting darkness and anger and negativity on Melania and your brain is contorting logic in order to justify it. Sad! But not surprising.

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    20. Melania walks in darkness.

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  3. Thanks Bob, I really enjoyed reading this one.

    "In case you haven't noticed yet, a modern society can't function this way."

    And why not? The decline and fall of the Roman Empire took what? 1500 years? Obviously these are different times (MODERN society!), but I imagine this period of steady decay might still drag out for decades. So don't get too passionate: you might burn out.

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  4. How about more background? Vanessa Friedman is the soul of the Times' plu-foppish upper-class culture.

    Bang on. This jewess perfectly personifies the utterly jewish soul of the Times in particular, but our entire media in general. Vain, shallow, cheap, focused on the scatological, and hostile to anything that in any way symbolizes goyish culture. This is what our media has been since the jews took over in the 50s.

    It's not going to get any better until we get rid of these jews.

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    1. I don't think that's what Somerby meant to say.

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    2. The replacement scheme enacted by hostile kikes started in 1965 with the Hart (((Cellar))) act. Problem: the goys caught on before we became a minority. This is why the jews reliably get pogromed: their schemes get sniffed out eventually.

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    3. The (((2%))) are getting nervous. The 98% are catching on to their Power and influence. They're going to need more name changes and rhinoplasties to fool the masses...

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    4. Half of that 2% are small children, elderly and stay-at-home moms. That means you are worrying a lot about a handful of people. Doesn't that strike you as silly?

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  5. Some guy disagrees with the way a woman characterized an event in HER life in HER memoir, so he has the right to call her memoir a "novel," implying that it is fiction and invalidating HER lived experience.

    Not very liberal, Somerby.

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    1. Somerby's attitude toward Hillary and his attempts to cool sales of her book make me so angry that I am going to buy two copies -- one for me and one for my daughter. I urge you to do the same.

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    2. Do you really think he could affect sales of her book? I didn't realize he had that much influence.

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    3. LOL, I love the "lived experience" narrative. Whatever jew came up with that one probably got a giant gold star of David prize for exemplary jewish tricks. Once you can get fools to believe objective reality is a false concept, you can literally get them to believe anything. And here we are, with serious publications talking about "female penises."

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    4. If anyone knows about strap-ons, it has to be you.

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  6. Bob, maybe you ought to consider shutting down the comments section. There's some awfuly offensive stuff here.

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    1. Unfortunately, Bob's comments section is almost never worthwhile other than as a glimpse into the psyche of some people who seem truly disturbed. I agree that it probably isn't worth it.

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    2. It went down with Bob's own work, believe me.

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  7. 1500 years, Mao? When did the decline begin, and when did it end?

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    1. I think I heard a rat scurrying to Wikipedia.

      Leroy

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    2. Māo 猫 means “cat”, actually.

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    3. It depends on pronunciation.

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Gibbon dates "the decline" of the Roman Empire from the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 180 C.E. The Empire ends 1273 years later when the Ottomans breach the walls of Constantinople with their cannon in 1453 C.E.

      Despite a temporary reconquest of the Italian peninsula by the Byzantine(/Roman) Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, the Roman Empire in the West is understood to have ended in 476 C.E. when the most ironically named figure in all of history, the child Emperor Romulus Augustus, was deposed by Odoacer.

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    6. @ 12:21 AM: So look at context, his full user name. Then look here.

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    7. Excet Mao (the leader of China) has a name that does not mean cat. As pronounced, it can refer to hair, but is generally thought to mean nothing, it is just a name. Lao's work may be a satire but not because of its name.

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    8. Thanks, CMike. Even after 180CE, the Roman Empire had ups as well as downs, so we don't see 1273 years of decline, let alone 1500. Mao should restrict his comments to empires he knows more about, empires more relevant to his own country's history.

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    9. Máo 毛, as in “Máo Zédōng” or “Máo Tsétūng” 毛泽东 (the former leader, who died in 1976), is indeed a different character; but I cited specifically:...

      Māo 猫, as in the 1933 novel Māo Chéng Jì 貓城記 (“Cat Country”) by Lao She, namesake of our blog’s own troll.

      ... and gave you a link above.

      Different words, pronounced with different tones. That’s why I included the tone markers.

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    10. Oh no, impCaesarAvg, our troll isn’t Chinese himself.

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    11. Raven, you cannot refer to a woman having "shot her wad" without it being demeaning. It is like when a coach calls his male athletes girls. It is intended as insulting. It is no different whether it is about Givhan (who he also clearly dislikes) or Clinton -- they are both female. Using gendered insults is not very liberal, just as gay insults aimed at straight people show disrespect toward gays as well as the people the comment is aimed at.

      If Somerby is liberal, he should know better. If he does know better and doesn't care, it is hard to consider him much of a liberal. These usages grate on people's nerves in ways that are secondary to the points he is trying to make.

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    12. Raven, I'll take your word for it, he's not Chinese. What do you suppose his true nationality is? He called Bob a little prat. Who says "prat"? A Brit or a foreign speaker of English, not an American. I doubt he's a Brit, but I can't be sure.

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    13. Anon, (1) You’re replying in the wrong subthread. (2) You continue to insist that Somerby intended the sexual connotation of the term, when the older and more widespread non-sexual meaning applies equally to men and women: Givhan had exhausted her ammunition [= journalistic reputation] on one misfired shot, her misjudged criticism of HRC’s wardrobe. — And this was not just Somerby’s own opinion, as his link, shows. Likewise, Orrin Hatch’s recent use of the same term with the non-sexual connotation shows it has not expired.

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    14. Caesar, he’s asserted a fondness for American Southern culture, but in other respects he behaves remarkably like that flood of Russian trolls that support Trump. The novel which is his namesake satirizes the Chinese government which was overthrown on the mainland in 1949... one might draw a parallel to the Leninist overthrow of the US government schemed by Steve Bannon in 2016, and where are we now?

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    15. OK, Raven, let's say he's Russian. He likes the Confederacy not for its culture but just because it fought the USA.

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    16. Encyclopedia Brittanica [LINK]:

      [QUOTE] Five Good Emperors, the ancient Roman imperial succession of Nerva (reigned 96–98 ce), Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138), Antoninus Pius (138–161), and Marcus Aurelius (161–180), who presided over the most majestic days of the Roman Empire. It was not a bloodline. Nerva was raised to the principate by the assassins of Domitian, and the others were successively adopted heirs, each only distantly related to his predecessor if at all. The last two—Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius—are often called the Antonines... [END QUOTE]

      Edward Gibbon, The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, volume 1, 1776

      [QUOTE] It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and after wards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth....

      If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus [son of Marcus Aurelius].

      The vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws.

      Such princes deserved the honour of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom. [END QUOTE]

      Granted, Gibbon largely ignores the plight of the slave demographic while accessing the happiness abounding throughout the Empire during this era.

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    17. Thanks CMike. This is the kind of stuff I like to find on this board. It's always a pleasure to read stuff I don't know about. And I think it was hugely important to include the last italicized paragraph.

      Despite what is "known" by historians, just how "great" were the times for average folk, even under Emperors described as benevolent? It seems to speak to our times, even now, as capitalism appearsto be in it's death throes.

      Glanced at the link, will peruse more studiously.

      BTW - if I may ask - how do you post anything with italics? Do I have to set up a ghost blogger site? If so, I'll just continue to _underline_ my emphases, but I'd like to know. Thanks.

      Cheers!

      Leroy

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    18. Leroy, the usual HTML tags work here:
      <b>bold</b>
      <i>italic</i>
      <a href="test.c">link</a>

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    19. Well done Raven, I was trying to explain it assuming the tags would disappear if I posted them like you did here. In fact now that I pasted your text I see they do disappear. So how did you do it?

      bold
      italic

      As to the last set of tags, maybe it would help if it read less than symbol a href="url" greater than symbol instead of "test.c"

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    20. Exactly what I did, CMike, if you "view source" on the page: [ampersand l t semicolon] or [ampersand g t semicolon] to illustrate the tags, vs. the actual tags to execute the effects.

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    21. ...just how "great" were the times for average folk, even under Emperors described as benevolent?

      Relative to the conditions that had come before and were to prevail later, pretty great.

      Hopefully this will play from 3:14 to 4:30 LINK.

      And appreciate, we're not just talking about in Rome itself, this technology could be found throughout the Empire LINK.

      Or to put it another way LINK.

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    22. Raven, thanks for the advice, much appreciated. I'll mess around with that. It seems quite like using the keyboard to effect different Latin (such as Spanish) iterations.

      Cmike, I checked out your first link, and what immediately stood out was the phrase “improve the life within the walls of the capitol city.” Loved the Python bit, but I really wonder to what extent those advancements affected the hoi paloi.

      I remain a skeptic about the greatness of Rome (it did burn, after all), and your previously italicized paragraph increases that feeling, only because I'm in fact ignorant of the “real” history of Rome. I'm embarrased to ask this, but do we have actual records of Roman life that weren’t written by scholars? Do we have records of the journalists of the times? I mean, didn’t Rome crucify Jesus?

      I’m skeptical of that story of course, more than any other I can think of, but it seems to have high pedigree. What of the rest?

      Thanks,

      Leroy

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    23. Leroy, you may also want to save this text-block someplace handy to copy-and-paste characters from....

      Accents:
      ÁĆÉÍĹŃÓŔŚÚŹáćéíĺńóŕśúź
      ÀÈÌÒÙàèìòù ÄËÏÖÜŸäëïöüÿ
      ÂĈÊĜĤÎĴÔŜÛŴŶâĉêĝĥîĵôŝûŵŷ
      ÃĨÑÕŨãĩñõũ ÅŮåů Çç ŐŰőű
      αβγδεζnηhθκλμξπρστφχψω ΓΔΘΛΞΠΣΦΨΩ
      ¿ ¡ € £ « » ß ° © ™ ®

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    24. In the matter of whether Rome crucified Jesus, most of that story comes from the Gospels and none of it from a contemporaneous source. According to the New Testament accounts, it would seem that the Jewish client king of the Romans in Judea and the Jewish elders in Jerusalem were, shall we say, more responsible for the condemnation of Jesus than was the Roman governor on the scene.

      This presumes, of course, that Jesus was an actual historical person. The closest thing to a contemporary verification that the holy man Jesus walked the earth is Paul's reference (Paul, himself, being indisputably an historical figure and chronicler) to having met Jesus's brother James in Jerusalem three years after Western Civilization's most iconic event had occurred.

      To be fair to the Romans, they were highly tolerant of the local religions in the lands they conquered. That policy has been recognized as a key to the success of their empire project.

      Of course, some people, or at least one people, could never by mollified. That's why you end up with a Masada LINK.

      Here are two summaries of the contemporaneous, or nearly contemporaneous, historical literature for ancient Rome.

      LINK
      LINK

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    25. Raven, thanks for the text block, but isn’t that cheating? : ) Next time I write in Spanish (as I occasionally do), this might indeed make things easier than changing the language bar. I’ll give it a go.

      Cmike, you’ve given me a lot to read, thanks! The reason I asked about contemporary literature of the time is that I like to try to keep discussions somewhat relative to this site’s raison d’etre, not to mention my own curiosity of the subject.

      And perhaps I was mistaken to mention Jesus as an example of historical record. As you suggest, there are real questions regarding the actual existence of Jesus, and I tend toward the belief that he never existed. Given that no written record seems to exists until decades after his supposed crucifixion, it makes more sense to me to view him as a fantastic conglomeration of the messianic, eschatological viewpoints that appeared in this period of history. Not that I have any real authority on the subject. I’m looking forward to examining those links!

      Thanks again comrades,

      Leroy

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    26. I meant to write "...as no written record seems to exist..." Sorry, I'm just a stickler when it comes to editing.

      Leroy

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    27. These days the two best places to start for free, in my opinion, are episodes 2 through 16 here LINK (skipping episode 1) or rush it and start at episode 8

      and

      at July 2007 here LINK.

      Comrade, you say? Then maybe this one, or its reviews at least, is more on the lines of what you'd be interested in LINK.

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  8. > “Rather clearly, the photo supports the false impression that she wore her very high heels in the disaster area, in the actual flood zone. Which, in fact, she didn’t.”

    Helped along, no doubt, by The Donald’s own tweet falsely claiming, “After witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey,...” — which, in fact, they hadn’t. (The Trumps made their press appearance in Austin, not Houston; the names may sound vaguely alike, but those cities are ~160 miles apart in the real world.)

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  9. Many people have been pushed beyond rational responses by Republicans and Trump. So stick it, Bob.

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  10. Why don't you show him how first, "Greg"?

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  11. "Friedman's piece was the "most popular" article among our tribe Over Here! We brilliant Times readers selected that piece over all other displays." You know, there's a lot of denial about who the Trump voters are. I don't remember the source, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but many months ago I read a report that the median income of Trump voters is $70,000. Please note, that's well above the median income of all American families, and also half of Trump voters had incomes greater than $70,000. Many of those people probably spend some of their lavish incomes on the New York Times. Of course the Times doesn't want you to know that, so they find weird, racist, dumb people to interview and pretend THOSE are the people who elected Trump.

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