Category Archives: History

History, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Expect To See A Lot More Of This

8 Comments

People are starting to point out the potential similarities between 1979 Iran and 2011 Egypt. Thoughts from Michael Ledeen, Victor Davis Hanson, and Flopping Aces.

The Shah was no saint, but is Iran and the rest of the world better off, three decades later (or at any time over the past thirty years) for having deposed him and replaced him with a brutal theocracy? This is a situation where one should hope for the best, but fear the worst. And the history of that part of the world doesn’t give great cause for optimism. And the fact that we (incredibly as that may be) seem to have a president even more lacking feck than Jimmy Carter just depresses all the more.

History, Political Commentary, Space, Space History

Forty Four Years

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I remember very well the Apollo I fire and the loss of Grissom, Chafee and White. It was the day before my birthday, and it was a shock to the nation. But it was different than the later losses of Challenger (a quarter of a century ago tomorrow) and Columbia (seven years on Monday), because they were Cold-War warriors, and, unlike today’s human spaceflight program, what they were doing was important to the nation. So instead of shutting things down for years, as we did with the Shuttle each time, they overhauled the management at the contractor (even though it was really NASA’s fault) and a little less than two years later, we had sent men around the moon, and won the space race.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

If You Can’t Stand The Heat

18 Comments

A history lesson for modern pampered lily-livered politicians.

[Update a while later]

Sarah Palin responds to the vicious calumny. And no, she doesn’t “apologize.” Good for her.

[Another update]

Want to see a violent political culture? Go back to the sixties:

In a very real way the media were the secret sharers of the radical left. As a young media member and novelist, I knew this well. The most radical of us were acting out our hidden dreams for the rest. We condemned them occasionally and ritually, but rarely vehemently. The Weather Underground and even later the execrable Symbionese Liberation Army were never treated in the press with quite the opprobrium they now reserve for the tea party movement. As Baudelaire put it, “Mon semblable, mon frère.” The worst of the radical left were just like the rest of us, but with a little extra edge.

They weren’t anti-war — they were just on the other side.

And so many were disappointed, including Jackie Kennedy, when the assassin was determined to be a communist sympathizer. So much so, in fact, that many of them remain in denial about it today, as evidenced by all the conspiracy theories.

[Update a while later]

Good point: “If you really believed political rhetoric caused Jared Loughner’s killing spree, you wouldn’t dare to say it.”

General Science, History, Humor, Technology and Society

Thoughts On Eskimos

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From the strange mind of James Lileks:

As we were all taught in grade school, the Eskimos came across the land bridge from Russia, which broke once they were across, and then they settled down and built igloos, invented 37 words for snow, made parkas with fur around the face, and fished. the teacher would note that some continued to go south, and eventually populated the rest of the Americas, where they spent their time raising Maize and not inventing the wheel, hanging around wearing loincloths, and playing a game that involved putting a rubber ball through a stone circle. They also invented chocolate. Then the Spanish came, and –

Hold on, Teacher, why didn’t the Eskimos keep moving south?

We don’t know.

But why would anyone stay there? Especially when the rest of the guys are moving on?

We don’t know.

So the Eskimos are sitting in snow up to their eyebrows, and some guys say “hey, we’re going to keep moving, because this sucks,” and the Eskimos stay because they think it can’t possibly get any better?

We don’t know.

Also, some technological prognostication: videopaint.

History, Space, Technology and Society

107 Since Kitty Hawk

7 Comments

The Wrights first flew a controlled heavier-than-aircraft over a century ago, on this date in 1903. On the hundredth anniversary, I wrote three articles that are still worth reading if you haven’t, or rereading if you have. They contain a lot of lessons for spaceflight development.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I notice that the TCS Daily link from the old Instapundit post is busted. Here‘s another one.

History, Political Commentary, Space, Space History

A Sad Anniversary

27 Comments

I think that today is the thirty-eighth anniversary of the day that Gene Cernan climbed back into the LEM and headed off to lunar orbit with Jack Schmitt to meet up with the command module for the trip back to earth (perhaps depending on what time zone you use). Humans haven’t walked on the moon since, for many reasons, but foremost because too many people think that the only way to return was the way we went the first time, with massive government expenditures and a big rocket. This false perception has held us back for almost four decades now.