Clipmarks | ouyangwulong's 'history' clips

Karen Hess on Food, Faith, and that "Dithering Idiot" Julia Child ...(Orgasm)

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:31:33 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: I have a soft spot for cantankerous Americans with borderline personalities. Probably because I am one myself. In this regards, Karen Hess is a true blue, red-blooded American original.

She called Julia Child a dithering idiot!

But I think it is interesting, the characteristics of the classic American crank:

Surly iconoclasm
A hate for anyone up on top of the hill
A pastoral nostalgia for the past
A mania for the rustic and natural
And a certain "messianic fervor."

It is interesting that what is true of Hess' thoughts on food is also true of many other Americans on many other subjects.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

It was 1977 when Karen Hess and her husband, John, hurled “The Taste of America” at us with the gleeful abandon

like other zealots in America’s long history of food reformers, from Bronson Alcott to Adelle Davis, they preached a vision of lost Eden with the messianic fervor of born-agains.

they also advised us: “Buy the best butter you can find — we make ours, but decent cream is getting more and more difficult to find. . . . As for the fish, catch it.”

As despoilers of America’s promise, all were fair game to the Hesses. “If one is making enemies,” the Hesses said, “one might as well go whole hog.”

what H. L. Mencken called the “booboisie”: America’s middle class, always hungry for the phony and pretentious.

To the Hesses, anyone famous was phony.

she called Julia Child a “dithering idiot,”

She helped make food history in America a subject worth studying and created a canon of colonial foodways by publishing recipe collections in facsimile, with fulsome scholarly comments

Tags: orgasm, food, natural, organic, rustic, original, american, history, julia child is an idiot, faith

History of Coffee

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:29:16 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: Austin's clipping brought to you by: COFFEE!

It is my firm belief that coffee is at the root of all modern western scholarship.

Clip Source: www.answers.com

coffee

The history of coffee can be traced to at least as early as the 9th century, when it appeared in the highlands of Ethiopia. Shepherds were the first to observe the influences of caffeine from the coffee beans when, after their goats consumed some naturally occurring coffee beans in the pasture, the goats appeared to "dance" and have an increased level of energy. From Ethiopia, it spread to Egypt and Yemen,^[8] and by the fifteenth century had reached Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa.

Coffee plays an important role in many societies throughout the world today. From the coffeehouses of the 16th century to modern day cafés, coffee has had a profound effect on the lifestyles of people from all walks of life.

This usage in religious rites among the Sufi branch of Islam led to it being put on trial in Mecca for being a "heretic" substance much as wine was

At least 1,000 years ago, traders brought coffee across the Red Sea into Arabia

The History of Tea

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:16:57 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong

Clip Source: www.answers.com

tea

There are four basic types of true tea: black tea, oolong tea, green tea and white tea. The term "herbal tea" usually refers to infusions of fruit or of herbs (such as rosehip, chamomile, or jiaogulan) that contain no C. sinensis.^[2] (Alternative terms for herbal tea that avoid the word "tea" are tisane and herbal infusion.) This article is concerned exclusively with preparations and uses of the tea plant C. sinensis.

China is considered to have the earliest records of tea drinking, with recorded tea use in its history dating back to the first millennium BC. The Han Dynasty used tea as medicine.

Darjeeling tea is grown in the foothills of the Himalayas, and is a prized Indian black tea. The use of milk and sugar in tea is also linked to India. This convention may have originated during the British Raj. It is also possible that the Indians, who had enjoyed cow's milk as a favorite beverage, developed it on their own and passed it on to the British.

Foucault: sex, madness and society

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:11:07 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.edstrong.blog-city.com

Michel Foucault, a magnificent eclectic thinker
One reason why his writings can be hard
to grasp is that they undermine
“common sense” notions about history
His work describes the history of things
that are typically assumed not to have a “history”
– madness, medicine, prisons or sexuality

It is typically accepted that people “go mad”, “develop mental health problems”, or “lose the use of their reason” – in all periods and all societies.

Likewise, sex is often presented as a biological function, which suggests you can’t write a history of sex any more than you can write a history of breathing.

It follows that the historian can only describe attitudes to madness or sex. Mad people are put in chains, asked to talk about their dreams or given pills. Men who have sex with other men are hanged or allowed to marry.

In Shakespeare’s era, madness was believed to provide a fascinating opening into a different level of reality. Nowadays we treat it as an illness to be cured.

Tags: foucault, sex, madness

Marvelous Mysteries of Cartography

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:58:14 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: As a huge fan of Martin Waldseemuller, I'm glad to see his work in the news. Cartography used to be a really cool job, requiering research and interviews, and a healthy dose of speculation.

The great thing is that history is so much more complex than the writing of it, and this map is a perfect example of that. Maps were very cloak and dagger stuff back in their day. Although the story comes down that Columbus discovered America and Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean. But a clever sleuth could have figured out that there must have been something dividing the eastern coast of China from the eastern coast of the new continent.

Also, there is the very sexy possibility that other unknown explorers had already made forays into the Pacific before Balboa got the credit.

I think its great when history starts to sound like an Arturo Perez Reverte novel!

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

December 4, 2007—As the U.S. Library of Congress readies the first map to use the name "America" for its public debut, some researchers are wondering where in the world the mapmaker got his information.

The world map, created by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in 1507, is the first document to show a separate Western Hemisphere and label the Pacific Ocean as its own body of water.

Before he drew the document, Waldseemüller had pored over notes from explorers Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, as well as other unknown Portuguese and Spanish sources, according to a statement from the Library of Congress.

But some scholars are confused as to how the mapmaker knew the Pacific Ocean existed years before explorers found it, and how he depicted South America so accurately.

"From the writings of Vespucci you couldn't have prepared [this] map," John Hebert, chief of the geography and map division at the library, told Reuters.

Tags: i'm a total cartography nerd

A Literary Perspective on the Subjective Nature of Memory

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:38:17 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: I am consistently impressed with Hungarian literature, and the language is moving up my "Must Learn" list.

Nadas Peter seems like a particularly relevant novelist today, in an era where facts, and even recent history are extraordinarily maliable. The most amazing part is the way in which the "free" press has been not only complacent but complicit in these revisions.

More than any time in the recent passed, these days we need to be reminded that human beings are not inheriently empirical creatures. Emotions and perceptions; desires and frustarations; these are the key architects of our collective memories.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A Writer Who Always Sees History in the Present Tense

From Spain recently came news of a proposal by the government to erase all physical signs of the Franco dictatorship, as if by getting rid of the plaques and statues and street names from the old regime the country could rectify and obliterate a past it has preferred not to linger over.

Americans tend to be amnesiacs. Europeans, however, worry history, and no writer in Europe today has dealt more eloquently with the obligations and moral conundrums of memory, private and collective, than the Hungarian novelist and essayist Peter Nadas. Berlin, it happens, is where he came years ago to work on what turned into “A Book of Memories,” which, when the Hungarian censors finally consented in 1986 to let it be published, invited comparison to Proust and Thomas Mann, and caused Susan Sontag, after its translation into English 11 years later, to call it “the greatest novel written in our time, and one of the great books of the century.”

Tags: hungary, hungarian literature, literature, history, memory

Historical Atlas with 4000 year map animation

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:22:31 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: The Download is 2.6 MB and fairly easy to use

Clip Source: www.atlasofworldhistory.com

Free historical atlas software for Windows PCs

4000 year map animation shows change over time.
Click nations on maps for history at that time and place.
Africa, Asia, and Europe to the year 1000.

Download Free

For Windows XP and Vista PCs.
Free version is full feature. FAQ.

For Teachers For Students About Us

Copyright © 2002-2007 Atlas of World History Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Website updated: November 4, 2007 Software updated: October 29, 2007

Tags: world, atlas, map, history, animation

Architectual Interface between Modernity and Antiquity

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:15:07 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: I think that the narative aspect of architecture is often overlooked. Here it is brought inescapably yet eloquently to life. There is a narrative in the reflection of the Parthenon in the glass of the new museum, the interplay between the ancient past and the approaching future. In both ancient cities and modern museums, we navigate history and culture, spatially arranged and physically enclosing us, and it is the architect who controls the course of this narrative.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

No sane architect, one can assume, would want to invite comparisons between his building and the Parthenon. So it comes as little surprise that the New Acropolis Museum, which stands at the foot of one of the great achievements of human history, is a quiet work, especially by the standards of its flamboyant Swiss-born architect, Bernard Tschumi.

But in mastering his ego, Tschumi pulled off an impressive accomplishment: a building that is both an enlightening meditation on the Parthenon and a mesmerizing work in its own right. I can't remember seeing a design that is so eloquent about another work of architecture.

But by fusing sculpture, architecture and the ancient landscape into a forceful visual narrative, the New Acropolis Museum delivers a revelation that trumps the tired arguments and incessant flag waving by both sides. It's impossible to stand in the top-floor galleries, in full view of the Parthenon's ravaged, sun-bleached frame, without craving the marbles' return.

Tags: athens, acropolis museum, parthenon, modernity, antiquity, architecture

A History of Dissidence: Wiretapping Studs Terkel

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 06:45:18 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: This column offers a sweeping history of dissidence in America by Studs Terkel merely examining the history of conservatives who have wiretapped and blacklisted him.

It's fascinating to see someone who's life spans so much history, and who is still mad as hell.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

The wiretap this time

By Studs Terkel

Published: October 29, 2007

Earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the White House agreed to allow the executive branch to conduct dragnet interceptions of the electronic communications of people in the United States. They also agreed to "immunize" American telephone companies from lawsuits charging that after 9/11 some companies collaborated with the government to violate the Constitution and existing federal law.

I am a plaintiff in one of those lawsuits, and I hope Congress thinks carefully before denying me, and millions of other Americans, our day in court.

During my lifetime, there has been a sea change in the way that politically active Americans view their relationship with government.

Tags: hoover, mccarthy, nixon, bush, versus, studs turkel

If Bush is lying, we are lying too.

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:05:52 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: Is not accepting a lie and allowing it to become truth just as bad as telling the lie? Isn't it criminal negligence when we overlook uncomfortable truths? Why are the lies Bush tells so effective, even after they are exposed? Because they are convenient, because they are what we would like to believe.

I've always guided my politics by one principle:

I see the Germans on the History Channel, awkwardly trying to explain why they served the Third Reich. They always say things like "How could we have known?" or "If you'd have been there, you would have too." or "We thought we were doing something good!"

My goal is never to have to explain myself on the History Channel. Never to be blinded by political charisma or naive devotion to powerful institutions. I'd rather be skeptical than be an accomplice.

I have no sympathy for someone who pleads ignorance.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Frank Rich: The 'Good Germans' among us

NEW YORK: 'Bush lies" doesn't cut it anymore. It's time to confront the darker reality that we Americans are lying to ourselves.

As Laura Bush spoke, two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers. On this matter, the White House has been silent.

There will be no trial. We will never find out what happened. A new bill passed by the House to regulate contractor behavior will have little effect, even if it becomes law in its current form.

Ten days ago The New York Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President George W. Bush gave his standard response: "This government does not torture people."

As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin.

Tags: bush, lies, america, culpability

Apparently, India Rules, while the rest of us drool

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:33:17 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: Check this out, you bunch of nomadic forest dwellers! You think you're all high and mighty just because you all invented toilet paper? Not only did India invent math, food and breathing, they also invented Snakes & Ladders! Take that, British Empire!

And they never invaded a country in 10,000 years. It almost makes sense, if you can force yourself to think of India as a single nation with a single people.

Clip Source: india.gov.in

India never invaded any country in her last 100000 years of history.

When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization)

The game of Snakes & Ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat'. The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. In time, the game underwent several modifications, but its meaning remained the same, i.e good deeds take people to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.

The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level.

Tags: india, history, nationalism

A Melancholy Bush Legacy

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 02:19:25 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: Although opinions may very, I personally don't think Bush will have any significant legacy at all. Most of his best ideas were either glib comments in State of the Union addresses (Hydrogen Cars, Mars etc.) or things he talked about but never followed through on (the promised funding for AIDS research and even some assistance to 9/11 victims has yet to actually be allocated.) Empty promises may be impressive now, but they won't be in a hundred years when the rhetoric has faded.

So what will people say of Bush once he has passed out of living memory? Conservatives seem to cling to him as a symbol of the strength of their ideas, because he won't compromise and doesn't blink when he continues to push the conservative agenda against mounting popular opposition. But he won't be a conservative rallying cry forever. What actual achievements will last in the record of history?

Clip Source: www.iht.com

In book, Bush peeks ahead to his legacy

Then he said, "We'll have a nice place in Dallas," where he will be running what he called "a fantastic Freedom Institute" promoting democracy around the world. But he added, "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch."

Bush went on to share private thoughts that appeared to reflect a level of sorrow and presidential isolation that he strongly implied he took pains to hide, a state of being that he seemed to view as coming with the presidency and with which he professed to be at peace.

The transcripts and the book show Bush as being keenly interested in what history will say about his term despite his frequent comments to the contrary; as being in a reflective mode as his time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue dwindles; and, ultimately, as being at once sorrowful and optimistic - but virtually alone as commander in chief, and aware of it.

Tags: bush, politics, legacy, history

The Ruined City of Jiaohe, and the exquisite art of Wu Guanzhong

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:22:20 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: In the works of Wu Guanzhong there is boldness, delicacy, and a certain base simplicity that becomes intricate by virtue of permutation and condensation. It feels like it can somehow capture the simoltaneous banality, simplicty, subtleness and complexity of the way man forms civilization around him. Thus the sprawling ruins of Jiaohe, a fortified city lost in the desert canyons of the Taklamakan, seems like a fitting subject.

This painting just sold in Beijing for over US$4,000,000

Clip Source: www.polypm.com.cn

Guanzhong Wu's “The Ancient City of Jiaohe”
2007-04-08

“From the view of historian, Jiaohe city has millions of stories to tell; from the view of artists, Jiaohe city is a wonderful subject for them to draw history. All history has been condensed to my one square feet painting.” This is the notes Mr. Guanzhong Wu wrote for this art work. “The Ancient City of Jiaohe” is undoubtedly one of highly important representative art works of Mr. Guanzhong Wu. When people are viewing this piece, they should naturally think of another “sister” piece, “Gaochang Ruins”. In 1989, “Gaochang Ruins” was hammered at 1.87 million HK dollars that created a new auction record of Chinese artists’ art works. Two years later, “The Ancient City of Jiaohe” was hammered at 2.55 million HK dollars that created a new auction record of Chinese alive artists in the world again, and this record has not been broken until 2004.

Tags: wu guanzhong, art, china, jiaohe, ruins

Some Common Myths About Hinduism Shattered

Tue, 22 May 2007 23:39:25 GMT

clipped by: sohil
clipper's remarks: I fully encourage people to read the rest at the source.

Clip Source: hinduism.about.com

The most obvious misconception about Hinduism is that we tend to see it as a religious faith. To be precise, Hinduism is a way of life, a dharma. Dharma does not mean religion. It is the law that governs all action. Thus, contrary to popular perception, Hinduism is not a religion. Out of this misinterpretation, has come most of the misconceptions about Hinduism.

Words like Hindu or Hinduism are ananchronisms. They do not exist in the Indian cultural lexicon. People have coined them to suit their needs in different points of history. Nowhere in the scriptures is there any reference to Hinduism.

Hinduism does not have any one founder, and it does not have a Bible or a Koran to which controversies can be referred for resolution.

Consequently, it does not require its adherents to accept any one idea. It is thus cultural, not creedal, with a history contemporaneous with the peoples with which it is associated.

Much More than Spirituality

A Common Faith of the Indian Subcontinent

Tags: hindu, hinduism, india, myths, history, culture, religion, ancient history, life

lost pleasure garden of the ancient Romans

Thu, 17 May 2007 08:12:12 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

lost pleasure garden of the ancient Romans

Mosaics from the fabled Gardens of Lucullus, one of the pioneering influences on gardening, have been brought to light after 2,000 years by archaeologists in Rome.

The vast terraced gardens, or Horti, covered what is now the built-up area above the Spanish Steps. The first known attempt in the West to “tame nature” through landscaping, the gardens were laid out around a patrician villa in the middle of the 1st century BC by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, one of Ancient Rome’s most celebrated generals, after he retired in disillusion from war and politics.

They were found nine metres (30ft) below street level during renovation work on the Hertzian Library (Biblioteca Hertziana), the German art history institute near the Spanish Steps run by the Max Planck Society.

Lucullus had invented the concept of the pleasure garden when he quit public life in disgust after his rival Pompey “robbed him of the credit for Rome’s conquests in the East”.

Tags: archaeology, history, rome, mosaics, art, lucullus

Clipmarks | ouyangwulong's 'history' clips

Karen Hess on Food, Faith, and that "Dithering Idiot" Julia Child ...(Orgasm)

History of Coffee

The History of Tea

Foucault: sex, madness and society

Michel Foucault, a magnificent eclectic thinkerOne reason why his writings can be hard to grasp is that they undermine “common sense” notions about history His work describes the history of things that are typically assumed not to have a “history” – madness, medicine, prisons or sexuality

Marvelous Mysteries of Cartography

A Literary Perspective on the Subjective Nature of Memory

Historical Atlas with 4000 year map animation

Architectual Interface between Modernity and Antiquity

A History of Dissidence: Wiretapping Studs Terkel

The wiretap this time

If Bush is lying, we are lying too.

Frank Rich: The 'Good Germans' among us

Apparently, India Rules, while the rest of us drool

A Melancholy Bush Legacy

In book, Bush peeks ahead to his legacy

The Ruined City of Jiaohe, and the exquisite art of Wu Guanzhong

Some Common Myths About Hinduism Shattered

lost pleasure garden of the ancient Romans