Category Archive: HISTORY
Khe Sanh
Songs in Our Heart # 71 Khe Sanh (by Cold Chisel) (written by Don Walker; released May 1978) [On 21 January (1968) the North Vietnamese forces commenced an attack that became the four-month battle of Khe Sanh. And in 1978 Cold Chisel released this wonderful, rolling, almost-formless, sad adieu to that terrible campaign, where a disillusioned vet remembers the troubled times in that benighted country, synthesising the post-war mood (and foreshadowing the film The Deer Hunter). “I’ve been back to South East Asia but the answer sure ain’t there…the last plane outta Sydney’s almost gone.”]
Continue Reading →Being Nixon
Being Nixon – A Man Divided by Evan Thomas (2015) Sentimentality – which friend and foe agreed Nixon had in spades – was probably the trait that betrayed him. The Peter Sellers of politicians, Nixon (9 January 1913 – 22 April 1994) never got comfortable with his own skin, so he posed as – machismo, family-man, kindly, bold, psycho, sucker and reclusive seer, etc., those personas he schmaltzily thought would play with the silent majority, or make him feel better. In this very balanced and readable book, Mr. Thomas gets fairly close to the enigma of ‘Tricky Dick‘ without vituperation or high-falootin’ prose. Nixon’s life is…
Continue Reading →French Connection
Pope Innocent X (who held the Keys to the Kingdom from 15 September 1644 to 1 January 1655) and whose name, in the world, was Giambattista Pamfili, died today (7 January) in 1655. A wily operator in the Age of Absolutism, Innocent flailed vainly against the rise of nations and decline of Catholic hegemony – his papal bull directing ripping-up of the Treaties of Westphalia was simply ignored. P is not so keen on Innocent as he was rather anti-Bernini (L would be favourably disposed to His Holiness for the same reason). On the other hand, the Holy See had…
Continue Reading →While I breathe, I hope
Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) Before Cavanagh QC, before Matlock, before Perry Mason, there was Cicero, one of the greatest orators in history. He more-or-less invented the attacking closing address, pointing the finger at real culprits whilst fiercely defending his clients. Lawyers inevitably stray into politics, with varying degrees of success: Cicero repeatedly condemned Marc Anthony as far worse than Catiline. It cost him both his head and his hands – even his tongue was ripped away, a symbol of the power of his words. He went to his death calmly, like a true Roman of the Republic. …
Continue Reading →When Empirical Observation is Dangerous
"Gee whiz, I only said I THOUGHT I saw Neptune..." (painting by Rubens)
28 December 1612: heretical heliocentrist Galileo Galiliei (1564 – 1642) observes the heavenly body later identified as the planet Neptune. Twenty one years later he would be punished with permanent home detention because he would not adhere to the received wisdom that all moved around the static earth. “And yet it moves…” Galilei, in the play by Bertolt Brecht*, says: I offer my observations, and they smile. I place my telescope at their disposal so they can convince themselves, and they quote Aristotle. But the man had no telescope!…Truth is the child of time, not of authority. Our ignorance is…
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