You may think it's Tuesday, but since Disneyland-on-the-Potomac was shut down yesterday for our latest face shot from Old Man Winter, it's really Monday. And since I spent so much of yesterday shoveling away our six inches or so of the white stuff, I didn't get a lot of other things done. That, of course, means that I'll be doing a simple post today so that I can free up time to catch up with other chores.
You already know that I'm a great history buff ... I love the study of history and the idea that the world we know is the end result of the lives and the actions taken by countless billions of other people who came before us. At the moment, I'm reading a marvelous book by British historian Max Hastings titled Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War, about the outbreak and the first few months of the First World War. And although you might not think of the First World War as being in any way "funny," I think you'll enjoy this piece that I found out there on the internet, in which "The War to End All Wars*" is compared to a common bar fight. Click to giganticize (NOTE: if you still can't read the text, download the image to your desktop and open it with your image viewer in actual size) ...
I have things to do before I can go to work and catch up for the day we lost yesterday, so I'll sign off now. Come back tomorrow for more thoughts ... hopefully without snow.
Have a good day. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
* It wasn't, of course.
7 comments:
World War One seemed retrospectively to be in the making for a long time; but a series of accidents and miscalculations, and plain buffoonery brought it about.
I am appalled.
....And, afterwards, everyone wondered how it got so much out of hand.
So ultimately World War I happened by accident?
It was the war to end all uncivilized wars. Wait....
If you have any interest at all in the subject, I encourage you to read Max Hastings' book. Heidi, the war didn't happen by accident, although once the momentum was created by the actions of various participants, it took on a life of its own and - quite literally - couldn't be stopped. It makes for a great cautionary tale about the importance of diplomacy.
How horrible the way things turned out!
And we still have to go through WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing in politics is by accident, just look at who makes money at the end. It is all about money!!
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