Changes

[poliphilo]

Yesterday was such a lovely day I got the loungey chairs out of the shed and Ailz and I sat in our newly paved yard- under the shade of the holly bushes- and looked up at the very blue sky.  After a while she went back inside, and I dozed, with my book of crossword puzzles in my lap.

No planes flying, the economic system in meltdown, the catholic church wilting under attack, Russia and the USA agreeing to cut their nuclear arsenals, earthquakes, political ferment, Goldman Sachs getting sued for fraud- is this a freak in the time-flow- a brief cross-current- or are we living through a period of quite extraordinary change?

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Bonnie Prince Charlie is an excellent parallel, in part because his supporters and the core of Confederate dead-enders are ethnically, and in some sense culturally, the same people. The Highlands were pacified by relocating the population to Ireland. From there, they came to the Colonies in overwhelming numbers, landing mostly in Pennsylvania and then traveling down the Valley Road to Virginia and North Carolina and subsequently to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennesse and beyond.

Among other things, it's one reason the Indian wars were so incredibly vicious. One tribal society started a blood-feud with another and the result was entirely predictable. As a friend of mine of both Native-American and Scots-Irish descent once noted, the problem was not the disparity between the two cultures. The problem was that they understood each other's motives all too well and were both capable and eager to respond in kind.