The Rhine River

Random Notes

Rock Star: INXS is winding down. Got over my Jordis love, and I am ready for her to go back to the coffee shop. I loved last night's performances of "new songs", especially JD's road song, "Pretty Vegas".

Speaking of mad music genius, who new that our president was one? This picture had been circulating the internet, showing the president playing the guitar with Clint Black. Mercy, has it been misunderstood. What chord is that? I'm thinking an A flat maj -9, but it could be more complex if the 3rd and 4th strings are open. He could be making a transition in a jazz standard to d flat min 7. But I always assumed that his tastes were more country, so maybe this is part of some master plan to revitalize Memphis.



Lots of NOLA blogging out there. Pearsall, who should have settled into his new home by now, has a useful collection of links (here and here). Should conservatives be mad about the federal response? Ask Andrew Sullivan. Fafblog comes out with some useful information of what to do if you are facing a disaster like Katrina and are particularly crafty. Take it with a grain of salt:

You will need:
# construction paper
# glue or glue sticks
# a can of baking soda
# some play-doh (optional)
# 200 gallons of distilled water and 100 pounds of canned food

Make-And-Bake Clay Levee!

Make flood prevention easy AND fun with this emergency arts and crafts project!

1. Mix some cornstarch, baking soda, and water in a large bowl. Make sure it's evenly mixed!
2. Cook over low heat, stirring for about 15 minutes
3. When your mixture starts to thicken, take it off the stove and let it cool
4. Mold into an 8 foot high 20 foot wide levee
5. Decorate with seashells and macaroni!

Creature of the Shade, a self-proclaimed literary geographer, asks, "is New Orleans dead?" They are more resilient:

When we speak of the death of a city, then, all we really mean is a wound, some change that will always be manifest. And if we really mean death in the permanent sense -- well, that only comes to a city when we stop mourning it. On that score, New Orleans has many great years ahead, and today, I wish it long life.

Geitner and Ted have some personal reflections. The former is the observations of the evacuation that took place more than a week ago before the storm hit. In the latter, Ted recovers his memories of the Bayeau.

Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, one of my favorites, may go to jail for admitting genocide -- for saying that Turkey is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Kurds. (At Cronaca) The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung interviews Harald Welzer, whose new book, Täter, deals with genocide.

Viele Täter aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg argumentieren, sie wären selbst erschossen worden, wenn sie sich geweigert hätten.

Das sagen alle. Aber es hat mit der Realität nichts zu tun. Für die Zeit des „Dritten Reichs” gibt es keinen einzigen nachweisbaren Fall, wo jemand, weil er sich weigerte, an einer Massenerschießung teilzunehmen, gravierende Folgen zu tragen gehabt hätte. Den Mythos des Befehlsnotstands hat die historische Forschung längst widerlegt.

(Briefly: Everyone says that, but that has nothing to do with reality. During the time of the Third Reich there was not one single referenceable case where someone, because they refused to participate in a mass execution, had suffered grave consequences.)

Muninn is blogging up a storm about his native Norway. Lots of posts on history and patrimony, many from his cycling excursions. Check out this one on Mosterøy and the Utstein Kloster. Keeping in Scandinavia, Peter Levine reflects his reading of the Saga of Laxdaela, one of the regional sagas, in his trip to Iceland. The sagas are some of my favorite literature because of their near realism and reflection on social and legal conventions. Furthermore, there has never since been a hero like Egil.

On other historical stuff: the latest Carnivalesque is out at (a)musings of a graduate student. Sorry I didn't notice, Sharon. Also, Figoblog links to a number of places to find digital books and texts (post in French, although the linked sites are in various languages). I am going to look through the Electronic Ecclesiastical Codices of Cologne, although my Latin sucks.

posted by Nathanael @ 9:17 AM