Cybernetic Atheist

  I was listening to a podcast — Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History — where Dan was, again, explaining history in his wonderful way of colorizing the past, when he was ruminating about the many wars and unsettling events that had occurred in the part of the world he was talking about, the Near East, what we call today the Middle East. It occurred to me that there are two different fields of study (of the past) that aren’t often connected in people’s minds, yet should be intimately intertwined — History and Genealogy. Now, I’ve been a genealogy buff for years (thanks, Mormons!), and yes, I’ve tried where I could to fill in the “human interest” story where I could. Human record keeping, however, unless you are wealthy and influential, is always rather sparse on color. So, it’s hard. But Dan got me thinking. Genealogists usually think of a generation as being about 40 years, on average, but I found a generation calculator that uses 30 years. Using it, if you go back a thousand years (to yo...

  Today’s rant is brought to you by — a lesson in history. If you will, step into my Time Machine, and let’s take a trip back into European history. In the year 1631, during the period called the Thirty Years War, a General Tilly conquered the German city of Rothenburg, o.d. Tauber after a siege of the city. During their surrender, he offered to save the city from immediate and total death if one person in the city could drink — in one draught — a three liter carafe of wine. Fortunately, the city mayor did exactly that, and they celebrate that even today. But what’s the lesson there? What can we learn? That drinking wine is a saving grace? Hardly, tho it makes a great story that draws tourists! No, the lesson is more down to earth, and it goes to the construction of our Constitution and the First Amendment. So, think past the wine. What was the true horror of that story? It’s the fact that Rothenburg’s residents were really, truly in deep, recognizable, and totally justified fear t...