Random Notes
Amazing Race: Last nights Amazing Race rocked! Well, the last hour did. I can't believe that Uchenna and Joyce made up the time deficit. I liked them from the start, but I didn't think they had the drive to win. And they showed class by waiting to pay the cabbie before running to the finish line.Different Modern Eras: City Comforts has been at the center of a discussion about the usefulness of the "codeword" modernism in architecture and urban planning (here, here, here, and probably a few other places). (In my opinion, it is difficult to define architectural modernism in terms of its attitude towards the city. Was Hausmannization modern? Yes, to the extent that it attempted to engineer the urban milieu in order to improve social conditions. Certainly the nineteenth century was the era in which urban planning matured, reforming the city to improve its citizens. But this is different from architectural modernism's fuck the street attitude (of course, I am just an historian).)
Search for Epilepsy: Sharon wants physicians researching the diseases of historical figures to pay attention to historical methods.
Aftermath of the Big War: Historian Ian Kershaw talks about the meaning of the Zero Hour in Germany. Le Monde has an article about the failed negotiations for the common European army in 1954.
posted by Nathanael @ 4:48 AM
3 Comments:
The thing that amuses me the most is that it came down to having a spanish speaking cabdriver who had to ask for directions - how many other times has that been a death knell for a team rather than a lifesaver?
-brdgt
LOL!
I am surprised that Romber wandered so far from their cab, or they could not find a guide like they normally would. They were actually crappy racers, but usually they convinced locals to help them out.
Oh and concerning "retroactive diagnoses" - I am against them. We need to understand how historical actors diagnosed themselves, because that is what had meaning to them and affected their actions.
As Cunningham and Grell said in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (talking about infectious disease, but relevant to all illness):
"For the identity of an infectious disease, even today, does not consist soley of its causative micro-organism, its pathogen. A significant part of its identity is consituted by how it is experienced by those who suffer it: that is to say, by people's perception of it." (page 299)
-brdgt
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