Factoids and history

GetReligion blog discusses questions, and this week a reader asks why some verses were removed from her newfangled Bible.

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I ran across the 8 bells lecture series at the Naval war college.

LINK

or this one, about an expedition up the Congo River 150 years ago

I just finished a book about journalist Stanley's expedition to find Livingstone. Maybe nature lovers need to read how life was in the good old days, when Africans were preyed upon by their neighbors, wild animals, and Arab slave traders. Of course, those regions are still in the midst of civil wars where millions have died...

So was colonialism better? Maybe, maybe not. I still have on my "to read" list about King Leopold's colonial empire that enslaved millions in the name of his empire, which Stanley was also involved in (indirectly) by exploring that area.

And it mentions Conrad's Heart of Darkness was based on that journey.

And, of course, Heart of Darkness was the book that Apocolypse now was loosely based on.

but don't read The Poisonwood Bible for your view of Africa either: I can't get through the book because she caricatures Africans, and also whites....maybe because although she had lived in Africa, she based her book on Marxist type anti colonial books she read...

I'm also slowly working my way through a book (on Scribd) about the medical epidemics of the 1800's in the Philippines, which the author blames on the Spanish for bringing Pinoys into towns etc. where disease could spread, and also blamed the population explosion for making more people available to die. Uh, the reason for the population explosion was that the high death rate in traditional villages wasn't written down or noticed by any western writer...

so was European colonialism good or bad?


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at least the queen remembers VJ Day



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Two US Marines (unarmed) take down a terrorist with an assault rifle trying to shoot passengers in a European high speed train.

headsup Instapundit.