Columbus Battles To Redress Navidad: On Second Voyage: March 26, 1495

Mention must be made here of the battle led by Christopher Columbus against the locals of Hispaniola (now Dominica) in the Caribbean. His son who chronicled his life posits a number of causes but spends little time detailing any of it.

Formerly, Margalit had gone a fair distance - back to Spain - after ruining things.
The resulting report of the bad leadership by Pedro Margalit - set glowingly aright with the arrival of Admiral Columbus - looks nearly predictable in hindsight.
The rebellious underlings that were massacring locals, were swiftly brought to heel and made obedient by decisive leadership.
The swarm of several local chiefs setting their people in acts of vengeance against the Spaniards, were in turn, found out not to be that many after all, then captured and cowed into submission.

One chief, ahead of and apart from the others, came to Columbus and had his version of events told to the great Colon. He said he'd always welcomed the Europeans and provided all that was needed, so he had not got into any arrangement with the other caciques. Columbus accepted this, made himself an ally to this cacique, that the son Colon called Guacanagari, and set out again from Isabela 'prepared for war' to set things aright on March 24, 1495. Guacanagari, conveniently 'was most eager to conquer his enemies' and joined in, even though-  the son protests - it would be most difficult.

Only 200 Christians, 20 horses and about the same number of hunting dogs - that could also hunt people - were had by Guacanagari's new ally, but they were ready to go against what Colon the son estimates as  'more than 100,000 Indians'. They must have all been very good swimmers, too.

Also conveniently, Columbus knew his adversaries very well. By 26 March, Columbus split his forces with his brother Bartolome. Thus surrounding as many as possible, the intention was to then frighten the locals by discharging firearms from both directions at once. This was done, then the infantry on both sides attacked and then the dogs were set loose.

"The Indians fled like cowards in all directions, and our men pursued them, killing so many and wreaking such havoc among them that, to be brief, by God's will victory was achieved, many Indians being killed and many others captured and executed. Caonabo, the principal king of all, was taken alive with his sons and women."

The king confessed to killing 20 Christians, in Navidad on Colon's first voyage. That he had at first feigning friendship, tried to learn about the fortification-town of Isabel, just like the garrison had expected. They expected him to try to attack and told the Admiral so, such that he had 'complete knowledge' from 'various informants'.

"... and it was to punish the king for this crime and for his subsequent rebellion and raising of the Indians that the Admiral had marched against him."

Columbus sent the king and one of his brothers, to Spain. But "... since he did not want to execute justice on so important a person without the knowledge of the Catholic sovereigns. he contented himself with sentencing many of the most guilty."

What these sentences were are not mentioned. The inhabitants however, became 'obedient' and pacific, paying in Cibao, a per capita gold tribute that, the son says, made the christians very prosperous. The son then spends less than three additional pages [ch 62] on the foodstuffs, culture and political organization of the locals. In Chapter 63, on March 10, 1496 Columbus returns to Castile for the ending of the Second Voyage.
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quotes, from pp. 189-90 in: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, 1969 and for The Penguin Group, London, 1969

Letters From Innsbruck, Augsburg: Sanudo Diaries: March 27, 1504: 5:1004-64

In the ten years since the French had come to Italy under Charles VIII, much had changed for Marin Sanudo's Venice. The French had left, but the old Francophile Giuliano della Rovere was now pope. News had arrived that Emperor Maximilian was nearing some sort of pact with both the French and the Spanish monarchs and the pope. But despite her reputation, Venice often had great difficulty figuring the intentions or, even the existing alliances or, the ongoing projects among the major powers. As well known an appetite as Venice had in her so avidly seeking information, the reality could often be a much leaner fare. Sometimes the news travelled only as fast as horses could run. What if the horses were never sent, or letters were captured? There were so many potential problems to prepare for.

The arrival of letters from Alvise Mocenigo, ambassador at the Imperial court in Innsbruck, then, this time in the spring of 1504, is a great example of how distant the halls of state of even Venice could be kept apart from the highest terrestrial conversations. The other great powers now and then, by keeping her rotating ambassaors out of the central information loop (until perceived dangers had passed and actions could proceed to other activities), these actors could then act in more relative freedom from the prying eyes of the supposedly all-seeing Venice. Sometimes the changes in administration from one pope to another, or, from one ambassador or informant to another, could open up huge vistas of information and potential consequences, and thus necessitate increased airing of details of past activities that reflected on the torrid current of state policies. These bits of new information that did make it back to Venice often caused turbulent discussion there.

Mocenigo, confirmed in Venice November 1502, relieved his predecessor in Augsburg by December. The situation was one of flux then. A year later, old news was still coming to light.

Letters from March 5 tell how the royal secretary Don Matteo Lang spoke of a three-year truce between France and Spain and Maximilian, the 'king of the Romans.' This was what Venice called him, unless they referred to him as 'the archduke' of Austria. Max was meanwhile off to Bavaria to settle things there but would return. The ambassadors from Milan were in despair since, the last time Emperor Max and Louis XII the King of France made a pact, Milan had lost her independence. A rumor floated that France would cede Naples to the king of the Romans and, Milan's position would be left little more than as another pawn, or worse, vassals of Innsbruck.

By March 18, Sanudo tells us the city had received more letters from Mocenigo, dated March 8. This time he said he had received a gift of fish from the Emperor and, word that the Germans should consume that gift with him and thus that the Germans should go meet them. Perhaps this is a bit more clever than merely odd. Ambassador Mocenigo said he himself had sent 'one of his men' to lodge with the head of the French king's couriers, to be 'on the lookout' for nunzios and letters from Rome. He also reported that 'people in Germany' thought that Louis was consumptive and would soon die - which was far from the case. He would last another ten years.

On March 27, more letters from the week before (the 16th) arrived. Some of this was in code and advised Venice to make overtures to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, king of the Romans. More specifically he said, that if Max did acquire Naples and Milan in these negotiations with poope Julius II and the king of Aragon, and the king of France, that things would turn out badly for Venice. That there were items or, potential circumstances in these treaties, where the king of France would be obligated 'to oppose our Signoria', Venice. Another letter dated on the 17th, said the ambassador had at last spoken to the king who seemed firmly against the interests of Venice. That yes, he had just come from Rome but would not speak of that, but that there was peace between France and Spain. That he had come from Bavaria and was preparing for war to take a piece of that.

On the same day, another letter arrived from the same ambassador, dated the 18th that was still more urgent.

Sanudo Diaries: March 27, 1504; (5:1044-45); "From the same of the 18th. He spoke with someone from the entourage of ser Constantin Arniti, the king's ambassador in Rome, who had received letters from Rome, and he describes their tenor, etc. Nevertheless, the ambassador complains that he is not advised by our Signoria about these urgent matters, that he has not had letters from our Signoria since January 26, and that he does not take as a good sign the fact that the king has not told him that he has had letters from Rome...."

The following day, from the 21st, another letter came with news that the pope had agreed to give money to the German king of the Romans, Archduke of Austria for the crusade to the Holy Land. But that the pope had made three requests. First that he should come to Rome to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor, that he thereby swear to defend and guarantee the traditional rights of the church and, that he would spend such moneys 'against the infidels' and 'for the church'. But these letters also explained that the king had not agreed to these 'stipulations'.  He couldn't come to Rome then, because war was brewing in Bavaria. that he would always defend the church in Italy or anywhere else, and that he could not obligate himself with regard to expenditures. This would be a pattern with Max and money.
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Topic in original: 5:1008-64; All quotes as Sanudo Diaries from   Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

Celestina Operates On Several Levels In Character Driven Drama

Celestina first published in Burgos in 1499, predates most 'plays' in Castillian Spanish. Initially the book was such a huge success, reprinted several times, 'translated to Italian in 1506', it may even have become, the first bestseller of its kind in Europe. Its author, Fernando de Rojas didn't get paid. When he died, his second son, got a value on the original manuscript as worth 'half a chicken'. More about the life and times of Rojas and how the 'play' was originally developed and presented, later.

What follows are some of the first lines that the character Celestina says during this first depicted drama in the famous, culturally very rich but overlooked Spanish play, with questionable morals. The range of her behaviors is astonishing.

Importunate:
"You come back here! Leave her be. She's livid and broody. Full of madness at your absence. It's been driving her out her right mind. She'll talk no end of nonsense. You come with me and we'll talk together. Don't let's allow time to pass for nothing."


Impertinent:
"Do you really want to know?"
--
"It's a girl on order for a friar."
"And no, you can't have her too."
"Do you really insist on knowing? The fat one in charge of the monastery."
"We have to put up with everything. No one's ever rubbed your belly raw."
"Joker."

Opportunistic:
"Truncate the prelude and cut to the point, There's no profit in using many words to express something that can be said with a few. ... Well said. I'm with you altogether. I like the sound of your news. I like it the way a surgeon likes to hear of broken heads."

Conspiratorial, Resolute:
"I hear footsteps. They're coming down. Sempronio, make as if we haven't heard them. Listen well, Let me say what is good for you and good for me."
"Do not harass or importune me. For to overburden with care is uselessly to distress the overburdened beast. You so greatly feel for your master Callisto's distress it seems you are he and he is you. For the torments you describe have residence in one single heart, Believe me, I did not come here to leave this case go unresolved. I will resolve it or die in the attempt."

"Sempronio, if I could live off words I'd be a rich lady! Tell him to shut his mouth and open his purse."

The Pitch:
"The pleasure it gives me ... that we should have the opportunity for you to know the love I feel for you and the unmerited place you occupy in my heart. And I say unmerited, for what I have heard you murmuring, of which I take no notice, because virtue admonishes us to resist temptation and not repay evil with evil in return, especially when tempted by those of little instruction in the ways of the world, who with foolish and misplaced loyalty ruin their masters and their own selves, as you do now to Calisto. I hear you very clearly ... and do not imagine that in my old age I have lost my hearing nor my other external senses. For I know not only what I see and hear but also with my intellectual eyes I can penetrate even to the innermost soul. You must know ... that Calisto treads this earth suffering from love, and love is overmastering and conquers everything. ... that the person who truly loves needs must be disordered by the sweetness of sovereign delight...."

Letter 16: From Alessandra Strozzi To Filippo Strozzi, In Naples: March 22, 1464

A letter from the house of Strozzi and the pen of Alessandra (1406-71), the mother to her elder son, Filippo (1428-91). It was the son that kept the letters received from his mother. He had been sent to Naples in the 1440's after Cosimo d'Medici had banned several members of his rival's house. There, in Naples Filippo had become a successful banker, wholesale merchant and eventually a statesman.

In 1464 his mother Alessandra sent him this letter (excerpted here) along with a young relative 'from a poorer branch of the family'.

"In the name of God, 22 March 1464.

I wrote to you on the 15th, by Francesco di Sandro Strozzi. I didn't answer yours of the 6th because I didn't have time; I'll answer in this letter.

Francesco will have arrived there by now, and you'll get a good look at him and see whether he looks like Nofri [Filippo's younger brother], which I don't think he does.  I've told him he has me to thank for his position with you and that if he does well, I will get the credit because I asked you to take him on. And if he doesn't behave well, I told him you will blame me but that it would be his loss and shame and he would be sent back here. He told me he meant to do me credit, and all the others as well. I'll be more than pleased if he does."

Along with this bit of matronly encouragement, couched in threat of punishment, four florins were sent as well. These, for the youth's expenses on the way to Naples, he would have to account to Filippo, when he got there.

"I do ask you to look after him, because his father has entrusted him to me; I said if he does well his deeds will speak for themselves."

It was fairly common for poorer families to send offspring to familial concerns in the cities, to learn a trade or find other suitable education or employment and hopeful advancement. Indeed, this seems to be one of those archetypal lives, one taken afar by circumstances, that populate any age. This trip to Naples made more sense even for a youth as young as fourteen, since the Strozzi name was stll currently out of favor - after twenty years - in Florence.

On Filippo's own reputation, his mother was watchful, if disdainful of the source of the current rumor, left unsaid.

"About the accusation I said had been made about you ... we have to keep in mind where it comes from, and I certainly hope that it's all lies, rather than the truth. If anyone says something which isn't true, may God let them see the light; we should be sorry for anyone like that. The truth always has its place. Do try to do the right and as you say, be sure of not doing wrong by anyone because you'll offend God, who sits in judgement over us. Our life in this world is so short we have to try to make sure we live in peace in the next life, which lasts forever.... the Bible says: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I know you already know what I am telling you, but I'm reminding you about it because you're my flesh and blood.... you should always do the right thing, in spite of the words of slanderers, and look after your immortal soul...."

Later:

"The plague has started up again here, but only a little and only among the laboring people. We keep a close eye on it and don't hear anything about it for fifteen days or so, but then it turns up again among the lower-class people. And while there's some risk involved in staying here, the citizens are staying, all the same. After Easter I'm sure everyone who has a country house in a healthy district will go and stay there. So we'll see what happens."

Alessandra names a couple places she could go if the plague returned again in Florence. News in Florence would be sent out all spring in her name as well as her thoughts on all manner of subjects.
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translated with notes by Heather Gregory: Selected Letters of Alessandra Strozzi : Bilingual Edition, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997

Chaucer's Sir John, The Nun's Priest Tells A Distracting Tale of a Poor, Widow Woman

It was that rooster Chanticleer that Chaucer and his Nun's Priest went on at length about for the retelling of the much older tale of the fox and the chicken. They were found in the yard of 'a poor old widow/ In a small cottage, by a little meadow'. She had two daughters, three sows, three cows 'and a sheep named Molly.'  Still, 'enough to keep them going.'

Just a few lines here gives a pictorial sketch in place, subjects, activity. But very quickly this priest of a nun slips easily into a confiding, conversational listing, in this localized telling. Chaucer's Priest, Sir John, strings rhymed couplets among many personal, even intimate details of this widow's little world - her diet, fashions, means of production - before launching into the particularities of the rooster and his abode.

"Sooty her hall, her kitchen melancholy,
And there she ate full many a slender meal;
There was no sauce piquante to spice her veal,
 No dainty morsel ever passed her throat,
 According to her cloth she cut her coat."

How could he know, from descriptions of her plate and coat, the priest turns to appetite, attitude and activity.

"Repletion never left her in disquiet
And all her physic was a temperate diet,
Hard work for exercise and heart's content.
And rich man's gout did nothing to prev ent
Her dancing, apoplexy struck her not;
She drank no wine, nor white, nor red had got.
Her board was mostly served with white and black,
Milk and brown bread, in which she found no lack;
Broiled bacon or an egg or two were common,
She was in fact a sort of dairy-woman."

repletion: n. anything filled, sated; as in any vessel, appetite or state of being filled. From Old French replet(e) or Latin repletus , past participle of replere, from re- 'again, back' + plere 'to fill'.

It makes sense to see the 'rich man's disease' for what is still called acute purine arthritis, or gout. The medical dictionary says even today that dairy use can decrease chances of gout. But it didn't effect her dancing, or strike as apoplexy of the tongue.  Fruits, we are led to believe, of a 'temperate diet'.

The woman had a yard - 'a stockade enclosed in a big ditch' - and in it some chickens.
But wait. Is there any more of the life of this woman beyond setting? Does the widow ever speak to us? No. Will we learn at least about her daughters or the sheep that has more of a name than she? No. The story turns to the cheeky hero.
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Nevill Coghill was an Oxford English Lit Professor of the twentieth century - and who reached a wider audience than many - with his 1951 translation of Chaucer quoted and excerpted  here. He works it happily into a mid-century idiom that makes sense and captures the rolling rhythms of Chaucer easily. It was a bestseller for decades apparently. Here's a charming bit about him and his papers.

news briefs, comments and an important birthday: March 20, 2015

It was about a year ago a number of quotes from Rabelais appeared here. This week, this year, they seem apt again in regard to the dominance shown for Isreali Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu by the media. Like Hurtaly that sat astride Noah's ark, A few weeks ago, Bibi came to the US and spoke before US Congress, but not with the President.

Then he continued, like Hurtaly steering Noah's ark with his feet, and listening to the people inside as Jupiter listened to Icaromenippus, thru the chimney... Bibi in Isreal campaigned before the elections, saying seemingly contradictory things.

Netanyahu Backpedals on Two-State Comments pic.twitter.com/lzRXGPYShw
— John Ferguson (@Fearguth) March 20, 2015

This also generated attention for himself. The issue remains however about so many settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, all in lands that historically have been Palestine. Troublingly the effects of the bombing campaign by Isreal on Gaza over the last several months is largely left off the news-tickers or discussions in the west. Except on social media.

Former Mossad boss to Netanyahu: “You and you alone turned the US from an ally into an enemy” http://t.co/jRMqo3GtJa pic.twitter.com/PnPz2rCyKs
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) March 16, 2015

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This is how they work to limit sniper fire in Syria now?

In Syria, they stack upright buses as barricade from sniper fire (Karam Al-Masiri/AFP) http://t.co/6lOV1zgiVG pic.twitter.com/UaXqB15NHg
— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) March 16, 2015

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Also, nine days ago noted economist Paul Krugman made this observation:

When Paul Krugman needs just three paragraphs (http://t.co/JZ4NbkagwZ) to say so much about both class & race. pic.twitter.com/vLvdWKzdE6
— Taniel (@Taniel) March 12, 2015

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A great hour long documentary on Sister Rosetta Tharpe made by the BBC. {The glitch corrects around 12:40}. Here's a shorter clip:
"Didn't It Rain?" Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1964:

Happy birthday, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, godmother of rock’n’roll—see her in her element in 1964 http://t.co/ETPLbplH2p pic.twitter.com/7iNQjLqHg4
— Maria Popova (@brainpicker) March 21, 2015

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A reminder of what women did in the west 500 years ago and more.

news bits early March 2015

Great stories from npr this week. The audio pieces here at the following links are, mostly brief, but compelling, immersive.

More Of Ancient Lost City Revealed in Honduras Jungle

Obama Administration Calls Venezuela A National Security Threat, and for Sanctions

Italian Architects Want To Build Elevated Train In Rome To Speed Transport

Famous Architect Renzo Piano Wants to Renovate Suburbs Into Active Centers Again

While the guardian looks at railway stations:

Railway stations around the world: share your photos via @GuardianWitness http://t.co/jtIxjVYHVO pic.twitter.com/Hl1guzIzns
— The Guardian (@guardian) March 7, 2015

Readers' assignment: share your railway stations from around the world via @GuardianWitness http://t.co/jtIxjVYHVO pic.twitter.com/iq2jUjOyZj
— The Guardian (@guardian) March 6, 2015

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A fun look at photos of doorways by Roy Colmer, in New York City, in the 1970's.
This reminds me that last week after the story of neighborhoods and classes and faiths in Paris, it occurred to me that it might be fun and interesting to do a photobook of doorways in that city, of different neighborhoods and kinds of places. Even better would be with local writers, guides, with meditations on interior and exterior lives. Here's a doorway the other day in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong justice is unfair” scrawled upon tree & pillars of Court of Final Appeal. SCMP: http://t.co/h7OPdNoamp pic.twitter.com/BWQuR3gJ8R

— Tom Grundy (@tomgrundy) March 9, 2015

In Iraq they are asking the US for help in safeguarding ancient art treasures  ISIS, bombs & looters.
This happens while Iraqi forces try for a second week to take the city of Tikrit.

In Ethiopia, learning what blue means and why they need an opposition party in a parliamentary democracy.

Snapshot of Portugal Looking Toward The Sun.

This shows how npr tackles a story like the seizing of tea by the British - a Scot, a botanist who 'thought tea was for everyone' - from China for transplanting in India in 1850's. Here's a longer version of the story with an excerpt from the book "For All The Tea In China" reviewed five years ago.

A Doctor Wonders Why Violence Keeps Occurring OnChildren: Poverty Begets Violence, Pain

Internal Circadian Rhythms Of Different Human Organs Seen Anew By Biologists

The Deadly Troubled Winter: On Second Voyage: thru March 1495

The son of Christopher Columbus gives us a brief glossing overview of the fall and winter that his father spent in the Caribbean 1494-5. The reason is the silence of the now lost logbook. His son tells us there were few mentions in it of this period of several months due to the Admiral's illness. He did return to the southern coast of  Hispaniola in late August of '94 from Jamaica. He did go on to Puerto Rico in late September.But there, the son tells us, the daily logbook breaks off.

"The reason for this was his exhaustion from the great hardships he had suffered and his weakness from lack of food. He was afflicted by a serious illness, something between an infectious fever and a lethargy, which suddenly blinded him, dulled his other senses and took away his memory."

It's been suggested he suffered from some form of nervous breakdown. Three ships returned to Isabela on the north coast of Hispaniola. There, over some time, Columbus returned to health but 'the illness did not abate for five months.' Hernan Colon the son, then used this opportunity to skim over and jot down various details, encounters, and even make some observations on the indigenous peoples.

The brother Don Bartolome had returned to Hispaniola saying that King Charles VIII of France had sent Columbus 100 escudos for his trip, but they had already left. He had also received a charge from Queen Isabela, then at Valladolid to go with three ships to the new world. It must have been quite a relief for Columbus to see his brother. He named him adelantado or military governor of the Indies. The locals had risen in revolt due to the 'misconduct' of Pedro Margalit, the man left in charge on Hispaniola.

Margalit had been ordered with his men to patrol the island and support the few camps they had and quell any disturbances. Colon, the son tells us that this is what Margalit did not do.

"On the contrary, by his fault quarrels and factions arose in Isabela. He tried to persuade the council, which the Admiral had formed there, to obey him, and most shamelessly sent them his orders. 

On finding that he could not make himself supreme commander, he decided not to wait for the Admiral, to whom he would have to make a complete account of his office, and with his men boarded one of the first ships to come from Castile, in which he returned home without giving any account of himself or reducing the population to order according to his instructions. As a result every Spaniard went out among the Indians [sic] robbing and siezing their women wherever he pleased, and doing the such injuries that they decided to take vengeance on any Spaniards they found isolated or unarmed. The cacique of Magdalena, whose name was Guatigana, killed ten Christians and secretly ordered the firing of a house in which forty men lay sick."

This chief was not captured but several of his men were and sent back to Castile with Antonio de Torres on the ship that left February 24, 1495. Other chiefs were punished in retribution to what they had done to Christians and a great number were killed. The numbers of the dead were not recorded by Columbus or his son. But his son does say Columbus found the island in 'a bad state':

"... the Christians were committing innumerable outrages for which they were mortally hated by the Indians [sic] and ...[who] were refusing to return to obedience. All the caciques and kings had agreed not to resume to obedience, and this agreement had not been difficult [as] ... there were only four principal rulers under whose soverignty all the rest lived."

Things came to a head and Columbus and Bartolome resorted to military means to put the population down. It seems quite clear, even from the mostly glowing reports from the son of Columbus, that the problems had originated from the Christians that were then living in such a foreign land.
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quotes, from pp. 184-88 in: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, 1969 and for The Penguin Group, London, 1969

news for March 3, 2015

A few more current npr versions of continuing stories that have captured attentions over the last while.

US Department oif Justice has released some of its findings in its probe of the local law enforcement police practices in and around Ferguson, MO. A DOJ probe had been ordered following the uprisings of people  after the killing of Michael Brown in Missouri last summer.

A conversation at the train station in Paris, a trip to the suburbs and a sit down cafe, reveal layers of context about French muslim youth. 8 min audio

A conversation shows some ways in which Jews in France can be uncomfortable politically.

Timeline documenting the shooting of three students in North Carolina. The motives are not known but the gunman turned himself in. The fact that they were muslim has attracted international attention.

Jury selection completed on the Tsarnaev Boston bombing case. The Dpartment of Justice is accusing Dzhokhar Tsarnaerv of thirty crimes, half of which receive the death penalty, if convicted. His defense attorneys are not happy about the jury selection. Tomorrow begin opening statements.

A quick primer on bribery to gain health care, education in developing countries.

Fly-on-the-wall source gives a view into House Speaker John Boehner speaking to his supporters in the House of Representatives. That the Senate Democrats blocked them in their attempt to block the President's executive action regarding immigration. So, after a big show of drama last week where the House ended up looking ridiculous, today, the House goes ahead and votes to fund the Department of Homeland Security until the end of the fiscal year. The House has been threatening to pull a stunt like this for over six months -- not to fund the DHS if the president's executive action remains -- so it seems just the way it blew up in their faces. Let them get blamed for the tactic as well, and with them in such a majority 'leadership' position.  Yes, they passsed the funding and didn't get their way and looked inept and petulant all last week.

Ex-CIA chief and Army General famous for having authored the surge in the Iraq War, The Man They Call Petraeus entered a plea in court responding to accusations by the Department of Justice. He apparently gave secret information to his mistress biographer. Just what army men and spooks are not supposed to do. They are calling them criminal misdemeanor charges.

Did Bibi have his last hooray before Congress today? A sober assessment.

Sanudo Diaries: Venetian New Year: March 1, 1498

In Marin Sanudo's day, this was the day Venice started its calendars. In 1498, he started afresh his diaries with a new volume after the first filled two years of his 'day-to-day accounts'.

Sanudo Diaries: March 1, 1498: (1:893); "Ever since I composed, with no small effort, the history of King Charles of France's expedition into Italy to acquire the Kingdom of Naples, the heavens have ordained that I be the one to write down each day's memorable events until such time as peace comes to Italy. I have often entertained the desire to put an end to these quite fatiguing lamplit studies. But after seeing, in this present age, the various schemes hatched among the powers that govern the world, and after writing another rather lengthy work about the retaking of Naples..., and deeming that the affairs of Italy remain in great turmoil, I wish now to begin the third volume, that is, ephemeris or day-to-day account. In it I will record, if the Supreme Creator is willing, the news as I hear it rather than using some polished style."

Editor's footnote: "Ephemeris is the term for a table that tracks the movements of the planets day by day through the 360 degrees of the heavens. See Carroll 1992, esp. 126n3. Sanudo compares the events of Venetian life and his discovering and recording of them with the stately progression of the heavens and its study by humans." [p.5]

They point out that as he sees this as a  'heaven-ordained' work, this 'sense of destiny puts him at the center of  his diaries and of this chapter.' It is, he claims, news 'as he hears it' and not 'some polished style'. It is his voice he is conscious of setting down. He had written a book about the history of King Charles coming to Italy to take Naples, and another about the retaking of Naples.

Venice was often at the center of things. In trade, politics, war, culture. But not always the center. News from afar travelled to it, every day. Sanudo was often in the Collegio or the Senate hearing the news as it was read out by the head of state or by the dignitary fresh off the boat. But not always. But he also clearly says above (even after a couple years of this process of news documenting) that it was because of 'the various schemes ... by great powers' and the 'great turmoil' in the affairs of Italy, that he wanted to continue, even in an 'unpolished style'.

Fantastically, I relate. The author here is far from the center of things. But in this era, we have access to so much of what is happening all over the actual world. Not just the Mediterranean and European worlds. And today it is from so many voices, not just those echoes which, for Sanudo, could be heard in Venice.  I'll not likely hold public office, but I can watch CSPAN and read their speeches from their other public appearances.  Sometimes it even happens to be news. But there is far more out there of import than public statements. The speculating classes - from finance, the markets and in academics, to the media - have their jobs and grow and change within their fields, these days, too. 

For Sanudo, setting as much of it down as possible was plenty. And then there was the town gossip. We have those outlets too. We must be able to distinguish these - as attempts are made to discern history from historiography, opinion from propaganda, reality from belief - in increasingly novel ways, as technology changes and as humans gain and must interpret new information. 

New ways of hearing, critiquing and disseminating info are changing under our chins as well as in closed committee and board rooms. Does it matter what the boardrooms decide if you already want to buy what Monsanto, CNN, McDonald's, apple,or  google are selling, anyway? In this way, the world today is much different than Sanudo's. For him, he could go down to the quay and see for himself if this seller or that had the best fish, spices or freshest flowers. Products that come from a closed shop, in today's parlance, or 'opaque sources' , while not necessarily deceptive or dishonest, still show a lack of transparency. For their own reasons, of course.

When Sanudo gives us the name of an ambassador, a dignitary reading a letter from afar, or a senator in the halls of state, he uses it like a citation. When he says 'people were saying' things we can usually tell if he finds it credible or not, because he tells us. He also knew that some stories spread were not so credible, and that people would also act on those bits as well. Still he would correct stories as new, more credible information came in, and would correct his own errors, like a 20th century trained journalist might. 

Today we can still sometimes recognize sincerity and truthfulness, but we also, in the west, enjoy saying the opposite of what we mean. Politicians, advertisers and everyday people do it all the time. But it can cause confusion, misunderstanding and distrust. Who benefits?
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All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or editor's notes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008