ERIC ZUESSE—tarting in 2015, Gallup has asked over 133,000 people around the world the following 3 questions, to score (from 0 to 100) and rank nations on “Law and Order” — and they issued their first, the “2016 Global Law and Order” report, on this basis.
Category:
CULTURE & HISTORY
- CULTURE & HISTORY
Roman citizens were free to travel throughout the Empire unimpeded, but how did they prove they were Roman? Did they have the equivalent of a passport?
Most people before the 20th century didn’t travel far. Even in the days of Rome, the most common reasons to travel between cities was to move home, march as a soldier or cross the empire as a merchant or travelling actor. Most people, Roman or not, would spend their entire lives in their home provinces, with travelling beyond that often being considered some grand endeavour.
- AMERICAN STUDIESAMERICAN WAY OF LIFECULTURE & CRITICISMCULTURE & HISTORY
The Woodstock Summer of Love?
PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—Yes, those were truly the ‘ Dog days of summer’ that August of ’69. This writer’s ‘ street smarts ‘ were fine tuned a bit by becoming a yellow cab driver during my summer break from college. Driving the day shift in Brooklyn and Manhattan revealed so much to me. Like Travis Bickell in the film Taxi Driver, the smell and sense of the Big Apple was eye ( and ear ) opening. From the businessmen in Manhattan to the hookers going from score to score, to the blue collar working stiffs of Brooklyn , this talkative young man learned so much about people.
ED CURTIN—The Spaniard, Ignatius of Loyola, was a soldier seriously wounded in war at the age of thirty. He subsequently underwent a religious conversion. He founded the Jesuit order eighteen years later and was sainted in 1556, sixty-six years after his death.
ROB URIE—Since 2016, race activists have faced the political paradox of affirming the restorationist’s ‘America was already great’ thesis by 1) claiming great difference between then and now that isn’t supported by the evidence and 2) promoting the circular theory that racists are self-generated. To the latter point: if racism causes racists, then what causes racism? Necessarily, racists cause racism. This isn’t an empty logical point. It illustrates the closed (metaphysical) nature of the concept of race being used. One more time now, if dog whistles don’t appeal to ‘real’ racists, to whom do they appeal?