History – Geoff Arnold's Blog

A quote for our times

geoff — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:56:05 +0000

“The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.”

The end of an era

geoff — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:53:27 +0000

Here’s Jonathan’s allsun@ email announcing the Oracle acquisition of Sun.

“To me, this proposed acquisition totally redefines the industry,” wrote Jonathan Schwartz this morning to Sun’s employees in a company-wide email announcing the acquisition of Sun by Oracle. Among other remarks, Schwartz adds: “Let me assure you [Oracle is] single minded in [its] focus on the one asset that doesn’t appear in our financial statements: our people.”

Wing Luke Asian Museum

geoff — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:59:31 +0000

Kate, Hannah and I spent the morning on a guided tour around the Wing Luke Asian Museum, just a couple of blocks from the apartment. It’s a really great place to visit, but don’t just go to the museum. Take a tour. It costs a dollar more, but you see many additional exhibits, including the painstakingly restored rooms of the old hotel that once occupied the top two floors of the building.
Rather than trying to give my impressions of the museum, let me refer you to this excellent review from the New York Times which describes it much better than I could.

Sorting out history

geoff — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:31:04 +0000

When I was planning to visit Iasi in Romania, I looked at a map, saw that it was in the northern part of the country, and casually assumed that this meant that it was in Transylvania. Well, no. I’ve spent the last hour reading up in Wikipedia on the history of Iasi, Romania, Transylvania, and Moldavia, and I think I have it sorted at a superficial level. And calling someone from Iasi (Jassy) a “Transylvanian” would seem to be a bit like calling someone from Durham a Scot…

Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania at the end of the XVIth century

Another thing I’m sorting out is geography. I had looked at Google Maps images like this, and had assumed that Iasi was in a mountainous region – part of the Carpathians. Well, no. If I’d zoomed out a bit, like this, I’d have seen that it’s well to the east of the mountains, in what looks like a prime agricultural region.
Speaking of agriculture, can someone explain why all of the fields show this fine-grained irregular striping pattern. The link’s to a Google map zoom-in satellite view of fields just to the east of the Iasi airport, but I saw this pattern all over the country. (Here’s the same kind of thing just outside Bucharest.)

Going to see the Mekons

geoff — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:30:52 +0000

I’m planning to celebrate my birthday, and the 50th anniversary of the Windscale nuclear accident ((Speaking of which, Palgrave has just issued a new edition of my mother’s book Windscale 1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident.)), by going to see the Mekons at Town Hall Seattle tomorrow. I vaguely remember them as a highly-political punk band, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of their “post-modern country” work. However, as a loyal reader of Dan Dare in my childhood, how could I pass up an opportunity to see a band that was named after his arch-enemy? ((Bizarrely, the write-up at the Town Hall website states that “they took their name from a classic British science fiction comic hero”. Hero?! That leader of a bunch of green jackbooted Venusian thugs? Hardly…))

The most important statue in Edinburgh

geoff — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:16:10 +0000

David Hume, of course.

The irreducible minimum…..

geoff — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:46:03 +0000

This morning I arrived at work to find an email requesting me to complete an on-line survey about my commuting pattern. It’s all part of the Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) law, which requires participating employers to survey their staff regularly.
I was happy to fill in the survey, but I did encounter some problems. For example, it wanted to know my one-way commute in (integer) miles. I rounded to zero; I hope that’s not going to cause problems. And then it wanted me to select three factors that might persuade me to abandon my personal car in favour of more efficient commuting styles. I searched in vain for the check-box labelled “None of the above – the only way to make my commute more efficient or environmentally friendly would be for me to camp in my office.”

Happy solstice to all

geoff — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:28:10 +0000

Seasonal greetings to all who are celebrating the longest-running holiday in the world. People have been marking this occasion ever since they were able to make calendars, and I don’t expect that to change as long as there are (moderately) intelligent species inhabiting the planet. The event has always been tricked out with various cultural and mythological decorations, and most of them are entirely charming. (There are some obvious exceptions, like “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” and store-bought egg nog.) Just don’t let any group claim that their “meaning” of the season is The One True Way. Those silly folks just have no sense of history.

50 years ago today: High Court Rules Bus Segregation Unconstitutional

geoff — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:20:19 +0000

Some things are worth remembering, and celebrating. This is one of them. And, pace Andrew, this was not the product of any kind of conservatism. It was the product of liberal consciousness: the kind of “liberal” whose opposite is “illiberal”.

High Court Rules Bus Segregation Unconstitutional
Alabama and Montgomery Laws Held in Violation of the 14th Amendment
SCHOOL DECISION CITED
Case Involves Bus Company Boycotted by Negroes- Some Whites Bitter
By LUTHER A. HUSTON
Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES
Washington, Nov. 13: An Alabama law and a city ordinance requiring segregation of races on intrastate buses were declared invalid by the Supreme Court today.

Failure

geoff — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 20:29:05 +0000

Fareed Zakaria comes to a conclusion:

When Iraq’s current government was formed last April, after four months of bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis, many voices in America and in Iraq said the next six months would be the crucial testing period…. It has now been almost six months, [and] the violence has gotten worse, sectarian tensions have risen steeply and ethnic cleansing is now in full swing. There is really no functioning government south of Kurdistan…. It is time… to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America’s mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

I don’t quote this with any joy, but nor do I feel any surprise. Think back over the last 100 years: how many unilateral attempts to impose political change on another country have succeeded? Italy over Ethiopia? Russia over Eastern Europe? Germany over Poland (and then Europe, and then Russia)? Japan over China and SE Asia? France and the US over Vietnam? The UK and France over Egypt? The US over Cuba? Israel over Lebanon? Russia over Afghanistan? Iraq over Iran? Argentina over the Falklands?

All failed. Arguably the only relatively durable large-scale changes over the last century arose from civil wars, such as in Spain and China, and from post-colonial effects such as the slow-motion revolution in South Africa.

And so when I supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, I did so for purely tactical reasons; I had no expectation that any lasting changes would arise. And when I opposed the invasion of Iraq, it was not simply a question of illegality: it seemed such a profoundly stupid, historically ignorant thing to do. A blood-soaked failure seemed inevitable. (The extraordinary rapidity and cluelessness of that failure belongs solely to the Cheney administration, however.)

(Via Sully.)

UPDATE: In the comments, Chas argues against me and Zakaria, but the evidence is mounting that the only thing holding back a radical shift in policy is…. domestic politics. Yup. Same as always. Sigh…..