Tag: History

  • Collected quotes, 6 of n: Language, translation, identity, empire (1)

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    A confluence of things, lately: And as a result, then, a lot of simmering thoughts these days on the many ways to set the protocols and criteria and languages (in the broadest sense of the word) for sustaining or challenging various systems. Mythic language is discourse, that is, it cannot be anything but systematic; one…

  • Notes from “The Guns of August”

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    Here’s my first book for this year’s Read Harder Challenge! I first started reading The Guns of August two years ago. “Started,” because work quickly caught up with me, leading to a slow abandonment of the book around the halfway point. That was a shame, since this is–despite the heft and subject matter–an eminently readable book. Barbara…

  • Defining Dictatorship

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    Last Friday, November 18, the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos secreted his body into the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) for a long-contested burial. The Philippine National Police and the country’s armed forces secured the area, and a chopper from the national air force flew the strongman’s body down from Ilocos to…

  • Cross-posted from Tumblr: Unit 731

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    (In response to this post.) I’ve been interested in Japan’s Unit 731 since it came up in a bioethics class back in college. Recently, I read a journal article on the subject written by Tsuneishi Keiichi, one of Japan’s top biowarfare specialists, and several details stood out. “It is said that Ishii [Lt. Gen. Ishii Shiro, the…

  • Ancient civilizations and failures of imagination

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    A couple of months ago, the BBC reported new findings on puquios, which  are spiralling holes scattered across Peru’s Nasca region. Through satellite imagery, a team of Italian researchers deduced the purpose of the once-mysterious holes: based on their placement and proximity to settlements, puquios seem to be part of a complex water retrieval and…