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A Central Park Wedding
While walking through Central Park today on the path that parallels 59th Street, we ran into a wedding ceremony by the Duck Pond. Even though it’s winter and also the middle of the week, there was a surprising number of people in the park today. As this wedding ceremony concluded and the bride and groom…
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Scammer Smurf and Friends
I should have known better, but while my wife and I were out today, I managed to get us stuck in a tourist trap. We were in Times Square, waiting to meet up with family for lunch at Olive Garden and I saw a person dressed up as a Smurf, so I asked my wife…
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US Government’s Illegal Torture Policies in the Middle East
A friend of mine came across this documentary and passed along the link. I’m studying Middle Eastern history as my major, so he thought it would be relevant to my interests. It’s 79 minutes and the audio gets steadily further and further out of sync with the video, but hey, it’s free, and it’s worth…
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Al-Andalus: From Convivencia to Limpieza de Sangre
The Rock of Gibraltar, the name of which is derived from the Arabic Jabal Tariq, “Mount of Tariq,” in honor of Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Berber Muslim conqueror of ancient Iberia, and essentially the founder of al-Andalus. In 711 CE, a force of Berber Muslims under the command of Tariq ibn Ziyad landed on the…
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Colbert’s 1664 Memorandum on Trade: Analysis
In 1664, Jean-Baptiste Colbert sent a letter to the King of France, Louis XIV, to appeal for economic reforms that would bring greater prosperity to the French people. This letter, now known as “Memorandum on Trade, 1664,” reveals the depths of the problems France faced, and Colbert’s desperation to find solutions. While writing his letter,…
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Analysis: “The Discovery of Brazil,” by Pero Vas de Caminha
The following is an analysis of a letter written to the king of Portugal by Pero Vas de Caminha, relating the ‘discovery’ of Brazil. The majority of the full text of the letter this is based on can be found here, though the book isn’t in the public domain, so two pages of it are…
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First Snow for New York City (Winter 2011)… in October.
It’s looking like a mini-blizzard out there. I didn’t expect to see this in October! I do remember it being so cold we had to bundle up tight for Trick-or-Treating when I was a kid though, back in the 80s, and that was in Maryland. Maybe this isn’t so unusual after all. Maybe it’s more…
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Faith and Unity: The ‘Ummah’ as the New Kinship Group
The Quran and prayer beads. In approximately 610 CE, a man named Muhammad ibn Abdallah went to a cave in the hills above Mecca to meditate, as he was accustomed to do. There, he had a powerful religious experience and began reciting verses of what would become known as the Quran, the holy book of…
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The Human Condition, Ch. 5 “Action”, Analysis
If you’ve never heard of Hannah Arendt, well, I wouldn’t be all that surprised. I’d never heard of her and her writing is very, very dense. Quite a few weeks ago I was given a writing assignment, to write an analysis of a piece of writing. We had a set of options, and I thought…
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Alabama Attempts to Usher in a New Dark Age
Officials in Bay Minette, Alabama delayed a new program that would allow some nonviolent offenders to choose church over jail after a civil liberties group objected. The “Operation Restore Our Community” initiative was slated to begin this week, but the southwest Alabama city’s legal team will take another look after the American Civil Liberties Union…
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