Postblogging Technology, October 1954, I: Brain Child in Long Pants

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

It seems as though I will be writing a fairly short note this week with very little to say about exciting family news or world events. I would like to blame the press of very important business, but in fact everything has screeched to a halt as we wait for the results of the Congressional elections. If Knowland isn't the Senate Majority Leader this time next month, we can start winding things down. If he is, you probably need to buy a bomb shelter and a Geiger counter. (Or just move house to Nakusp or Campbell River. That works, too!)

Oh? My excuse! I was doing very important things that didn't involve dandling around the house, sleeping in and then playing with my children. Very important things indeed! 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Early Iron Age Revival of the State, XXIX: Wood For Greeks

 In the relatively small genre of modern scholarly syntheses of Classical literature and current (as of writing) archaeology on some specific subject, timber is actually pretty well treated, though it turns out there's a bit of a controversy behind this.

This is a "Garden pavilion celebrating the origins of Classical architecture, designed by Gervase Jackson-Stops with Ian Kerby" www.follies.uk, July 2008." I'd like to give credit where credit is due, but the link has been redirected to some nice service offering body paint. The source from which I scraped the photo is Philip Steadman's Cabinet of Curiosities (as of date of access, https://www.philipsteadman.com/blog/greek-temples-made-of-wood/). Steadman explains that Jackson-Stops actually started work on two architectural follies in the gardens of the former Horton House, Northamptonshire, upon his 1973 purchase of the property, but does not date or otherwise attribute this very striking photograph of what a timber/wattle-and-daub precursor to a Classical Greek temple might have looked like. The columns, considering that they are made of untrimmed tree trunks, are especially striking. (And seem abundantly supported by the evidence.) Wiki gives Jackson-Stops' dates as 1947--1995, but the look of the photo, to my eye, is closer to the 1970s than the 1990s. 

Steadman blogs on architectural history and this entry covers the Classical evidence that the first generation of Greek sanctuaries were made of timber (Classical authors say so!) and more specifically that the forms, and in particular many decorative elements are skueomorphs of elements of the timber construction. This was the point at which architectural historians of the "late 19th Century" found an opportunity to stand up for the honour of Classical Antiquity and deny the legacy of an age of primitive construction methods preceding the Classical Age of Marble. Exactly how far one might want to push this is a question for someone who wants to push. I mention because it might explain why the modern conversation occasionally sounds a bit tentative. 

The Early Iron Age Revival of the State, XXVIII: Quotidian Huelva

 Let's round up this quotidian technology-reconstructed-from-debitage (and other garbage) thing. 

I have it on the good authority of Carolina Lopez-Ruiz that in the early Antique period, Gadir (Cadiz) issued coins with tuna emblems. But then I said to myself, "That's what Google Image Search is for!"

Who's the cutest fishy fellow? Who? She also mentions its reputation as a prodigious exporter of ancient Roman fish sauce, but I don't know if I want to make anything of that because everyone talks about garum and it seems like maybe it was some kind of byproduct industry? It's not like oily fish  are hard to preserve, at least within a reasonable timeframe, and we have plenty of evidence of the Phoenicians moving fish, in the form of storage amphorae recovered from shipwrecks. I feel like I might be accused of monomania, but let's talk about "Tartessia" and marine resources, and not purple dye.

Postblogging Technology, September 1954, II: Teenagers Out of Control!

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver, Canada

Dear Father:

So, here we are in Taipei carrying out OPERATION FAN OUT AND TALK EVERYONE OUT OF STARTING WWIII. (It's in capitals because it's official! In a completely unofficial "Everyone is cashiered if this gets to the press" kind of way. The dead hand of the Administration lies heavily on Taipei; there is no-one to take the reins because the President is sulking, Dulles and Knowland are idiots on collision courses, and Radford is an idiot. That leaves Felix, and even Ambassador  Rankin out on a limb. Felix has Ray Spruance's ear, and Spruance out of the public eye in Manila now that the Seato Conference is over, and has been meeting with Frank Gibbs. So, to make a long story short, we might be agents of perfidious Albion.  And everyone of any sense, really. 

We've been to Keelung, doing our best to pass as Koumintang worthies in front of the internees. My impression is that the propaganda line that the Tuapse internees have been abused, is justified. Karl is talking about sending us out to the Soviet blockade flotilla, for lack of anyone who can make an official approach. I don't know what we're supposed to do there. Knowing the Red Navy, I'm sure everyone is eager to be back in Vladivostok. It might not be much, but it's better than an extended cruise on a Soviet destroyer! But the Reds going to need one hell of an excuse to leave, and right now I have no idea what it would be. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

PS Of course all of this activity is a most excellent excuse for not bringing back Engineering and Aviation Week. 

The Fall of Rome, VI: Flying Canoes and Revolutionary Santas

 

There's nothing to discourage a guy from amateur FallofRomeism than the "Men think about Rome a lot" thing of a few years back, for which reason I haven't visited this thread in a long time. I'd like to say that I was into the fall of Rome before it went mainstream, but, yeah, no. Gibbon  might be the most influential historian in history, and I will actually read Pocock's Gibbon if someone can make  a case that he didn't have Seventeenth Century precursors. What brings me back this week is, first of all, a Quora answer about Picts that reminded me of a small bit of loose ends, and second the fact that it's Christmas, and I am off to meet my first great-nephew in Campbell River on Boxing Day, which is anything but a guaranteed day off in my line of work. O. is six months old, so a bit young for Christmas, but soon! I, on the other hand, am totally ready for Christmas, which the visiting and the family reunions and the long walks with dogs and the Baldur's Gate 3 marathons . . .Oops, definitely shouldn't have said that last bit. 

It has also been suggested that for various more widely applicable reasons that we should lighten up and just enjoy a Christmas for a change. And I don't disagree, so here's a Christmas message calling for peace on Earth, good will to all, and a proletarian revolution!

Yeah, Angela didn't say that last bit.

Postblogging Technology, September 1954, I: A Theory of Capital Goods Might Be Just The Thing!

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

So let this be a lesson to everyone. If you're ever tempted to make friends with a nice admiral that nobody loves, you might just live to regret it if he gets promoted after all. Considering that Felix is Ray Spruance's man through and through, I guess it's no surprise that he doesn't get along with Radford. Unfortunately, Wild Bill is in Washington, and Felix is out here managing the Straits, as far as Chiang will let him. There are rumours of a split between Radford and the President, but he still has Dulles' ear, and what they're talking about is a preventive nuclear war against China. Churchill has been able to impress on Ike just how crazy this is, but there's no talking to the Dulles brothers. (I'm told there was a long lecture about Marlborough, Queen Anne, and the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in general, to the effect of not letting ideology get in the way of diplomacy --the sort of thing that Churchill would never dare say in public, which is unfortunate because Tony seems to have taken the public Churchill to heart, but now I'm just passing on the rumours I hear to make myself look important.) 

So the gist of it is that Chiang, and many of his subordinates, are ready to start a war in a hot minute if he gets the chance. That's the reason he sent those troops to Quemoy in the first place --that and to get their officers out of his nonexistent hair. If Felix doesn't stop them from crossing over to the mainland, he completely undermines the United States' argument for being in the Strait to start with. If he does, he has to shoot at Nationalists. The obvious way out of this is to let the Reds shoot the Nationalists --Oopsie doopsie, silly me, must have been looking in the wrong direction. The problem is that this has to be made clear not to Chiang, but all the rambunctious types underneath of him, especially the ones unhappy with the Koumintang, and it sure as heck can't go through State because the leak will be on Knowland's deck before it even clears the cable office.

So who can do that? How about a fluent American naval aviator with inside connections and his incredibly beautiful young wife? Which is why this letter is coming to you from Taipei and why I had to give my notice. Your country calls, and all of that. James hasn't been formally transferred because that would raise all sorts of red flags. So James is here on leave to do something because something, and unless someone backs down soon, he will continue to be on leave here in Taipei through the end of next summer, and hopefully not longer than that, because I will be off to take the bar in San Francisco. 

Unless we're fighting giant ants in the radioactive rubble of civilisation, I mean. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

PS: Lots of talk about "capital goods" in the press this time around. I honestly had no idea that economic theory could be so sophisticated and nuanced, and in spite of my education, this is the first time I've heard the field discussed in such a way that I feel like I need to understand WHY Karl Marx thought he had to write Das Kapital. I don't think I did the Fortune article on the subject justice, never mind the field, but it is definitely something that I will be turning over in my head as I burble on about "technology" here.

Genocide with weapons of mass destruction is the only answer to Comm ---Ants. Ants.

The Early Iron Age Revival of the State, XXVII: Ahousat/Huelva

 Let's see how far we can push this. 

Huelva from orbit, and a satellite map of Ahousaht from Google. The conjoint estuaries of the Odiel and Tinto have been progressively silting in, while in the post-glacial period Ahousat is located at the conjunction of two drowned valleys, or fjords. I do not see archaeologists going as far out on a limb as to tell us the situation of ancient Onoba ("Fortress of Baal"), but depending on the extent of the silting it might have been an estuarine island. Ahousat isn't technically an estuarine island, but there is significant outflow from the two fjords, both of which have productive watersheds in spite of their small size, due to the heavy precipitation of the region. 

We do not normally think of any place on the northwest coast as flat and fertile, but Ahousaht (technically Marktosis Indian Reservation 15) is almost as close to an exception as it gets:

 
The Ahousaht band is actually a confederation of eight tribal entities and has 25 smaller reserves attached, all seasonal fishing and resource extraction sites.