Life is a State of Mind

Oops - forgot to post about the point of the whole weekend shindig at our house, it was the publishing party for 1381: The Peel Affinity, An English Knight’s Household in the Fourteenth Century (please order directly from the publisher through that link). I am of course already familiar with the material, but seeing it in final form is splendid and I am reading it cover to cover for fun now. The pictures came out better than I’d hoped, hurrah!

Shumacher Publishing and Amazon have it at the same price ($49.95), but you’ll get it faster direct through Shumacher (who should be accepting paypal and credit cards soon).

For those of you who know about us through La Belle Compagnie, the book we worked on for a long time is finally getting published and is expected sometime in 2008 (February is tentative). The Peel Affinity has it’s own website, thanks to our amazing publisher, Shumacher Publishing, LLC.

Wow, three absolutely gorgeous days in a row here in Virginia. 68 - 86 degrees, low humidity, light breezes, cloudless skies, and all on a long weekend! Even better, we spent them with La Belle Compagnie friends, recruits, and members at our Summer Gathering and then visiting the Sackler Gallery of Art to see the Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries exhibit (on for a few more weeks, btw). Exhibits are beautiful and very well written.

I love having our home filled with happy friendly people. We had another fabulous La Belle Compagnie meeting/workshop/gathering at our place and continued making progress on preparations for the spring reenactor show season. We’ll be going to Military Through the Ages (March 17-18, Jamestown, VA), and to Marching Through Time again (April 14-15, Marietta Manor in Bowie, MD). We are also presenting at the 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 10-13, UMich, Kalamazoo, MI).

It will be quite a race against the clock to get all the material goods and clothing made in time for the shows, but we have risen to the challenge before.

So I just finished “Lies my Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen and recommend this book to everyone educated in the United States and to everyone interested in American history.

Mr. Loewen sometimes beats a point to death, but in general it is excellent, exhaustively researched and packed with citations and bibliographic details. The author explores a whole lot of myths and deliberate deceptions found in high school history textbooks and examines why the myths have evolved the way they have. It is an interesting exercise and it is sure to broaden your perspective a little. I learned many new things and learned to dig a little and find out more; which should be the point of most schooling.

This just about sums up my feelings about the U.S. administration so eloquently and succinctly that it deserves spreading around. Sorry if the language is not suitable for certain environment… it is a flash slideshow with music, runs a few minutes. Worth every precious moment it takes to watch.

FilmStripInternational

Thanks Kate!

I continue to enjoy reading Richard N. Goodwin’s excellent book “Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties” and had a sudden inspiration while reading about how America backed and stumbled into the Vietnam war. Conventional wisdom is that America became involved in Vietnam as a result of the continuation of a foreign policy practiced steadily since the end of World War II, a foreign policy centered on resistance to communist expansion. Why was United States policy geared to focus on the expansion of communism rather than the spread of totalitarianism?

On the surface, it may seem to be a small distinction, for many people the terms are synonyms. The truth is that communism can be anywhere on the spectrum between democratic and totalitarian, and while it is true that most of the world’s attention on communist nations through 1965 was exclusively focused on totalitarian communist regimes, there have been a few examples of communism that are more democratic (mostly amongst Native Americans). A change of policy so that America would focus on resistance to totalitarianism would also prohibit the support of capitalist totalitarian regimes as a way of blocking the spread of totalitarianism. What I am getting at, is that the terms used to justify a policy matter, and by focusing American attention (in 1965) on communism, the U.S. government felt free to back the regimes in Saigon, despite the knowledge that those regimes were repressive and authoritarian. Is it possible that if the fight had been against the real problem, governments that did not represent the people, that the United States would never have gotten involved in Vietnam? Guatemala? The Philippines? Angola?

Of course this ignores the business interests of certain companies who always profit from war and from exploitation of humans; but I remain convinced that they are a small group with well funded lobbies, but lobbies that are easy to shame with public opinion if one can pick the right terms. Imagine if Lyndon Johnson (or even Ike or Kennedy) had been able to frame a policy of non-involvement in Vietnam in terms of not supporting one authoritarian regime against another, rather than getting caught up in a reactionary resistance to expansion of communism? Might that same policy have kept Reagan out of Grenada in 1983? We’ll probably never know for sure, but it sure makes an interesting idea.

I have no problem with the foreign policy rhetoric that George W. Bush keeps pounding home again, and again: the attempt to spread democracy everywhere. The problem is that I trust neither him, nor his cronies, to actually carry out that lofty goal. They have shown no interest in actually improving the democracy we have right here in the United States (verified voting, anything better than pluralistic voting, really open debates, proportional representation), and they continue to back repressive and authoritarian dictatorships around the globe so long as it is good for business. Even if you help democracy in one country, it does not count in your favor if you have prevented it in other countries.

Monday evening we got back from a fabulous, if far too short, trip to Prague in the Czech Republic. Erci’s Aunt was there on business and invited her husband and us to come along for some tourism. I fell in love with a city.

Last Wednesday evening we jumped on a plane at Dulles. At that hour, with only a few people all heading for Europe, even the worst airport in North America is tolerable. We flew Air France to Paris (CDG) where Erci managed to catch a brief glimpse of the collapsed terminal roof (2E) while the plane was rolling towards our gate. We spotted an elderly woman with bright purple hair and wandered over to the old terminal 1 building that is famous from all the Hollywood movies. We could not find a bookstore in the airport to grab a copy of the new Paris 1400 (www.louvre.fr/archives/paris1400/paris1400/ book. We arrived in Prague early Thursday afternoon, and met Erci’s aunt and uncle at the airport, and caught a minivan/taxi to the Hotel Rott (hotelrott.cz).

After a quick shower and change of clothes, we walked around Prague’s beautiful old town square, watched the astronomical town clock mark the passing of an hour, and found a local restaurant serving beer and traditical Czech food called “Sveck” - which was hearty, good, cheap, though quite smoke-filled. We walked around the corner to the Cremaria Milano for some of the best gelato any of us had experienced (it was so good that all of us returned to this same establishment two more of the remaining three nights we were in Prague!).

Friday morning, Erci’s Uncle, Erci, and I made our way over the beautiful Karlov Most (Charles Bridge) and through some of the winding streets of old town and the little quarter, stopping often to shop or shoot pictures and visited the beautiful Vrtbovska Gardens (a UNESCO heritage sight, and beautiful Baroque terraced garden with views of Prague). Later that evening we all went to Ambiente, a Brazilian restaurant in a gothic cellar where we had excellent food and drinks.

Saturday, the whole group headed up to Prague’s enormous castle via the beautifully clean and efficient Soviet built metro and then electric tram (slower, but better views). The whole public transportation trip cost 12CK (about 50 cents) and only a few minutes. The Cathedral of Saint Vitus, the statue of Saint George slaying the dragon, the old royal palace, and the “Street of Gold” were the sights we went to in the Castle. The tomb of Charles IV was disappointing because the gothic effigy is no longer around, having been replaced with a Soviet era modern marker. The hall of the old royal palace is huge and has an amazing late 15th century vaulted roof. The street of gold is very picturesque, but has been entirely given over to cheap tourist junk sellers - and I get annoyed when I find out I have been charged money just for the “priveledge” of shopping… sigh. The group split up and headed different directions. Erci and I left the castle, and visited a folk craft shop, then rode the tram and metro/subway back to Charles Square where we glimpse the “Fred and Ginger” building from a distance, then to Wencelas Square where the Velvet Revolution took place. We wandered up Na Prikope and found Marks&Spence where I secured another installment of excellent men’s socks (why can’t American clothing companies figure out how to make proper socks?). Saturday dinner was simply stunning. We went to Mlynec (Novotneho Lavka 9, Prague, 221 082 208), which must be the best restaurant in the Czech republic. Truely stunning meal where we were served excellent Moravian wines (perhaps the best Riesling I have had, and a very good Pinot Noir), and had a meal to remember. Erci’s Uncle thinks it warrants a single Michelin star, though it is not listed currently.

Sunday morning we walked around the old town again, heading for Wencelas Square and modern shopping, then went to Obecni Dum (Municipal House) for lunch. Obecni Dum is a beautiful example of Art Deco, and it is opulently restored recently. Some of the group headed for the Jewish Museum and old Ghetto, the rest of us went shopping.

We need more time in Prague. I never did get to see the collection of 14th century Gothic Treasures at the Saint Agnes Convent, nor the Museum of Decorative Arts with it’s collection of Mucha paintings and a public library with early Guttenburg printed books. The whole town is a delight of short walks, coffea houses, affordable but excellent beer, delightful people, and great historic beauty.