At the conclusion of World War II, the economist John K. Galbraith was appointed director of USBUS — United States Strategic Bombing Survey — which was tasked with assessing the effects of Allied aerial bombing on German industry and military. He summarizes the board’s findings:

In Germany the strategic bombing, that of industry, transportation and cities, was gravely disappointing. The war was not shortened. Attacks on factories that made such seemingly crucial components as ball bearings and eventually on aircraft plants were sadly useless. With plant and machinery relocation and better, more determined management, fighter aircraft production actually increased in early 1944 after major bombing. In the cities the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on war production or the war.¹

Not only did the Allied command with the rest of the military establishment deny these findings, they persecuted Galbraith with the help of their allies in academia.

¹ John, K. Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud, 54. #

It seems that my opinion of the Byzantines was shared by Arab scholars. Al-Jahiz in his al-Radd ‘ala al-nasara says:

The Rum subsequently attributed to themselves some of the books of the ancient Greeks. SInce the Rum could not change the names of the most famous Greek authors, they ended by claiming that the Yunan are actually a tribe of the Rum…. Kitab al-Mantiq and Kitab al-Kawn wa al-Fasad were written by Aristotle, who was neither Byzantine [Rum] nor Christian; the Almagest was written by Ptolemy, and he was neither Byzantine nor Christian; the Elements was written by Euclid, and he was neither Byzantine nor Christian; medical books were written by Galen, who [also] was neither Byzantine nor Christian; and similarly with the books by Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, and many others who were neither Byzantine nor Christian…. In reality, the Christians and the Rum have neither science, nor expository literature, nor vision, and their names should be erased from registers of the philosophers and the sages.

The philosopher Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi says:

We also found it a generally valid proposition that no other nation has a more subtle falir, no ra more manifest wisdom, than the Greek nation.

Of course Islam was at war with Byzantium and naturally they would hold negative attitudes of their enemy.

Anatole France, Revolt of the Angels:

“he saw that this country, under the name of a republic, was constituted a plutocracy, and that under the appearance of a democratic government, high finance exercised sovereign sway, untrammelled and unchecked.”

Turn of the 20th century France resembles present-day America.

Jenni Vartiainen – En Haluu Kuolla Tänä Yönä (I don’t want to die to-night)

http://twitter.com/jennivartiainen

“But the time will come when it will all turn into a memory, and you’ll reason coldly and regard it as completely trifling…” — Anton Chekhov, Three Years.

When I look back at the imbricated memories of my life, in one instance I envisage a small boy of eight with branch-like arms, emaciated almost diaphanous, stretching into the far-stretching California sky. They are arms sprouting from a tiny wind-pliable frame, insignificant human edifice almost fading into the monotonous background. This shadow is only able to free itself from the darkness of oblivion because he is me. I am that boy, a realization I am able to assimilate after much rigorous mental acrobatics that temporarily bridge the palpable linear disconnect.

But the phenomenon is not limited to this one example but runs through the disparate memories that constitute the tessellation of my childhood. The further they are, the more demanding the acrobatics become.