Author Archives: RF_Alum

Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

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guns-germs-steel book cvrI posted a two part review of this book in 2011, but was inspired to reread parts of it as I was doing some other reading about history. The book by Jared Diamond won several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. It is an excellent book that deserved awards and I decided it deserved a second review.

The Prologue is titled “Yali’s Question, The regionally differing courses of history.” The author explains that New Guineans had tens of thousands of years of history and were still using stone tools when the Europeans showed up with all manner of manufactured goods, including steel axes. New Guineans called all those goods “cargo.” Yali was a New Guinean politician who inquired, “Why do white people have so much cargo, but we New Guineans have so little?” The Europeans used their superior technology to impose a centralized government and dominate the New Guineans, who they considered to be primitive. Yali’s question is mentioned often in the author’s quest to understand how Europeans and Asians were able to dominate original occupants of many lands, such as Native Americans, despite having no genetic superiority.

Part I gives chilling descriptions of man’s actions against man.  One is about the Maori invading the Chatman Islands 500 miles East of New Zealand.  The Moriori who lived there had originated from the same Polynesian origins, but the Maori developed into highly organized warriors while the Moriori had lived peacefully.  The Maori told the Moriori they were their slaves, and those who resisted were killed and consumed.  The others were kept and killed like sheep.  One Maori explained what happened was “…in accordance with our custom.”   Continue reading →

Tooth and Nail

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The Grammarphobia Blog explains that the origin of the expression is pretty much what you would expect.  It literally means fighting “…with the use of one’s teeth and nails as weapons; by biting and scratching.” It also explains that it means to attack or defend “…vigorously, fiercely, with one’s utmost efforts, with all one’s might.” The first recorded mention was by Sir Thomas More in 1535 while he was waiting execution. I typically don’t make editorial comments about expressions, but think fighting “tooth and nail” against an executioner or someone with an axe, spear, or gun means you are merely trying to maintain some semblance of dignity or prolonging the inevitable.

Voter Turnout for 2014 Midterm Elections

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The Denver Post published an editorial declaring that the “…test of the state’s all-mail ballot and vote center system…” was a success because 2 million votes were cast compared to 1.8 million for the 2010 midterm election. The sad fact is that the Post was bragging about a 53% voter participation despite the ease of voting by mail.

Colorado voters were significantly more engaged that the nation as a whole. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that just 36.4% of eligible voters in the nation cast votes, which was the lowest turnout since 1942. There were seven states with turnout less than 30%. The worst result was in Indiana at 28%. Even the Kansas Senate race that was given nationwide attention only had turnout of a bit less than 43%.

Another scary statistic is that the nationwide campaigns were estimated to have cost $3.67 billion. I know that there was a constant barrage of television ads for the Colorado Senate election. That one campaign had a total cost of 97 million dollars, which equates to about $50 for each vote that was cast. I will admit that the ads toward the end of the campaigning did sometimes count as entertainment. I particularly liked the one portraying a couple desperately searching for a place to buy condoms because Senatorial candidate Cory Gardner had outlawed them as part of his quest to prohibit all forms of birth control.

There have been all manner of suggestions on how to get more voters to participate. Both political parties have spent huge amounts of time and money on their get out the vote efforts. Perhaps they should think about political ads that are less insulting.

Killing Patton

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killing patton book cvrThis is another in the series of “Killing” books written by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, and my wife says this is her favorite book in the series. The subtitle of the book is “The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General.” The book does present some compelling evidence that Patton may have been killed. He did create some powerful enemies, including some in the U.S. military, Stalin, and some Germans.

The book begins with a description of Private First Class Robert W. Holmund, an explosives expert in Patton’s army. Private Holmund and his fellow soldiers have been ordered to attack a heavily fortified and mostly underground fortification called Fort Driant. The bombing and artillery strikes that preceded the assault have had no effect on the Wehrmacht fighters who have remained safe within the fort’s fifteen-food thick walls and hidden forest pillboxes. Machine guns that the soldiers have named “Hitler’s Zipper” because of the high-speed ripping sound as it fires twelve hundred rounds a minute open up on the attackers as their advance stalls at the barbed wire around the fort. The machine guns are joined by rifle fire, mortars, and artillery. The Americans eventually disengage and crawl back to safety. Eighteen have been killed or wounded. And that’s just the start.

The soldiers try again a few days later, and this time they make it through the barbed wire to again be faced with precision fire from everything the Germans have. The survivors are forced to hastily dig foxholes to escape the barrage. The medics race from foxhole to foxhole to tend to the wounded until they are killed. The soldiers find a way into to the tunnels and battle the Germans underground. The survivors withdraw to the foxholes and the Germans mount a counterattack. There are only four of Holmlund’s squad left alive by the time a sniper’s bullet fells him. The descriptions of the combat are vivid.

The book intersperses descriptions of Patton and the speeches he gave his troops to prepare them for war with descriptions of the war. He said, for example, “Americans despise cowards.” “Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.” I wondered whether the parents of Private Holmlund wished he had been a little less brave. Continue reading →

Chickens Come Home to Roost

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There is little disagreement that the expression refers to bad things happening as the result of past offensive words or actions. World Wide Words explains that the idea “…goes back to Chaucer, though he expressed it rather differently…writing that curses are like ‘a bird that returns again to his own nest’.” Chickens appeared in a poem by Robert Southey in 1890. He relied on the image of farm chickens “…foraging during the day but coming back to the safety of the hen-house at dusk…” There have been many variations, including “…curses come home to roost, which is in Margret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.”

Darkest Before the Dawn

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The Phrase Finder explains that the expression means there is hope even in the worst of circumstances. There are many examples  in print from the late 1700s. An English theologian and historian named Thomas Fuller used a version of the term in writings dating 1650. It isn’t known whether Fuller originated the expression or whether “…he may have been recording a piece of folk wisdom.”