Letters From Rome Arrive: Sanudo Diaries: April 30, 1519

An interesting anecdote can be inserted here. In it Marin Sanudo offers particulars of provenance, the details of the transmission of certain letters and historical papers. For some reason he summarizes the reception of these into the city, for his diary and us.

 Sanudo Diaries: April 30, 1519; (27:223-23) "Summary of letters from ser Marco Antonio Michiel in Rome to don Nicolo Tiepolo, university laureate, dated 17 April 1519.
According to what ser Piero Sumontio [Pietro Summonte] has told me, when he has completed having the works of Pontano copied in fine and elegant form on good paper, he would like to come to Venice to present them to our most illustrious Signoria. This matter was planned by Pontano while he was still alive." [p. 445]

Our Editors explain that the Venetian Marco Antonio Michiel [1484 - 1552] was a patrician art patron living in Rome who sent word back to Venice on antiquities, painting and 'was well known in literary circles in Venice'. Officially ser Michiel was part of Cardinal Francesco Pisani's entourage in Rome for the years 1518-20. Later, this same cardinal would become bishop of Padua, Narbonne and Ostia and commission the Villa Pisani in Montagnana and the altarpiece there by Paolo Veronese. [p. 459]

nedits: Nicolo Tiepolo was the son of a famous family and would go on to be an ambassador, a courtier and writer of letters.

Pietro Summonte was acting, according to our editors as the agent of Pontano and was then living in Rome. Sanudo explains that he wanted to come to visit Venice personally rather than send someone else but was prevented by illness.

Giovanni Pontano [1429 - 1503] was a poet, politician and writer associated with the Aragonese court of King Ferdinand and Alfonso in Naples. The same Alfonso that saw the French march across the Alps to take his kingdom. Our Editors tell us he came to the court in Naples at eighteen. "Pontano's Opera had already been published by Aldo Manuzio in 1505 and by Manuzio and Torresani in 1513." [p. 445]
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notes from 'our editors', pagination and Sanudo Diaries from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection 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

more news later April, 2014

A more random than usual bunch of news stories filtered to the top this month. Again, the news is terrible - all month - and as more & more of it piles on there continues that 'blurred' effect. Like the common slush and mud in the roads, this time of year in northern climes, the news gets you mired if you look at it too long. Lots of spinning wheels out there. Here it's been dry, until this week. Plenty of storms this April drift across the US: seasonal, political, economic. I was expecting a call for work but, because of the rains, I haven't received one. I mention all this becasue it speaks to, shows another side to, even reflects on, the transitions that many of the posts that this blog highlights.
Across the country: Guns are allowed everywhere in Georgia now, personal security issues flared, building to building takeovers continued in E Ukraine, the war in Syria stepped up, bombings all over Iraq continued, more drone attacks in Yemen killed scores, the FOXnews standoff in Nevada came and went, killings by law enforcement in Albuquerque, NM outraged: all were like cyclones sucking in anyone who got near, increasing tempers and fueling more divisions.

I said slushy, muddy, blurry, but this also reflects the feeling I get with reading the news of the last several weeks. It's harder to disentangle and lay out into clear neat rows when so much of it is so interconnected. But it's also depressing so I want to turn away from it. I find little time or patience to want to write any down.

There were a couple good news items in there.

President Obama put off deciding about the Keystone XL pipeline which would connect Canada's tarsands oilfields with Texas refineries. Republicans have been pushing it for years while environmentalists have also been saying for years that it would be an ecological disaster. Republicans say it would create 60-80,000 jobs, sceptics say as few as 35 new jobs. You would think in this day and age you could find definitive answers to bridge this ridiculous gap in understanding or presentation. Not these days, not in Washington. Not on twitter either. So that's a maddening thing. However it broughts Cowboys & Indians into Washington, on horsebcak to protest the proposed pipe.

Cowboys & Indians Ride Through DC to Protest Keystone XL Pipeline http://t.co/a0k1ONTDsv @EdShow @cspanwj #KeystoneXL pic.twitter.com/DCCK0M8Ozd
— Maverick™ (@spooney35) April 23, 2014

Princeton Study found the US was most like a growing plutocracy in years 1981-2000. And since then, is there any wonder? But while this is not good news, it is good that it got reported. Harder for those many who would deny it to try. But in this day when any can say anything and act like it's so, what used to pass as accepted wisdom, is just some opinion, nowadays. Hence the blurriness. It becomes very important who the author is and why they tell it like they do.

Marketplace on the US Supreme Court hearing Aereo case  4 min audio. And here is the transcript of the Supreme Court oral arguments.

Is it the end of the internet-as-we-know-it? Another case involving Comcast looks to dispense with Net Neutrality. More on that from the NYT a few days ago.

Harith al-Dari, a leading Sunni cleric in Iraq tells on April 19, why they are battling with Shi'a government. Elections occurred April 29.

April 20 was St Agnes' Day of Montepulciano's fame. The old place of the convent is an address in Abruzzo, near Siena, Italy.

April 21 was St Anselm's Day. He spent  years as Benedictine monk at the monastery in Bec, Normandy, before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.

April 27 was St Zita's Day. She was a serving maid to the Fatinelli household in Lucca, Italy in the thirteenth century. She became popular as patron saint of servants, bakers and women throughout Europe. Even as far as Lincolnshire, UK where she is called St Sithes. In our time, pope Francis canonized prior popes John XXIII and John Paul II on this day. Here is the text of Francis' homily on this important occasion.

April 29 was Catherine of Siena's Day. She is one of two patron saints of Italy, the other being St Francis of Assisi. Born the spring that the black plague ravaged Italy in 1347, she became a healer, an ambassador to Florence to plead before the pope in France, and may have induced pope Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome. She's also considered a Catholic mystic today and pope John Paul II made her one of six patron saints of Europe.

Columbus Shows Clemency To Locals: On Second Voyage, later April 1494

The son of Christopher Columbus in his biography of his father, took the opportunity at this point in the chronology to give example of the kind of clemency he offered to the locals. Also to show their fear of horses. Columbus had sent the man Hojeda inland with more than 400 men to relieve Pedro Margarit at the new settlement of Santo Tomas.

Bad news had been arriving about uprisings and conflicts with the locals and Columbus needed to reassure his men both about their own strength but also the justice of their methods. When the captain Hojeda, after marching inland and had crossed the aforementioned Rio del Oro, he captured the local chieftain and a couple of his relatives and sent them back to Isabela in chains. Additionally, he

"... took one of their chieftains too and had one of his ears cut off in the centre of his village because of his treatment of three Christians on their way from Isabela to Santo Tomas: this chieftain had lent them [the Christians] five Indians to carry their clothing across the river ford, and when the Christians were half-way across these Indians had run off to his village with their clothes and the cacique instead of punishing theor crime had taken the clothing himself and refused to return it."

One could make a case here, even with this scant evidence or testimony that these locals were being punished for betraying the trust bestowed on them by these Christian explorers. Whether cutting off the ear of a chief was appropriate justice for this betrayal is an entirely different matter. But the cacique on the near side of the river, closer to Isabela, decided to take this opportunity to show his merit in the matter, according to Hernan Colon.

"The cacique who ruled on the other side of the river, however, relying on the services he had rendered to the Christians, decided to accompany the prisoners to Isabela and intercede for them with the Admiral. The Admiral received him politely and ordered that the Indians with their hands tied should be sentenced to death by public proclamation. The good cacique wept at the sight and their lives were granted him, the guilty Indians promising by signs that they would never commit another crime."

Remember this is an example of how the son showed that his father the Admiral provided justice on the locals. This is all he says about the matter. If only we knew more. Still more messages arrived from Santo Tomas.

"No sooner had the Admiral set these Indians at liberty than a horseman from Santo Tomas arrived with bad news. On passing through the town of the cacique who had been made prisoner he had found that this man's subjects had seized five Christians on their way back from Sannto Tomas to Isabela. Arriving suddenly on his horse he had terrified the Indians and freed his fellow-Christians, putting more than 500 of the natives to flight, and wounding two of them in the chase. He [this messenger] said that on reaching the further side of the river he had seen the Indians coming back to attack the Christians, but when they saw his horse they had again run away, terrified that the creature might fly back across the river."

 Here, Colon has given example to the idea that the locals could not be trusted left to their own devices, that Christians were under attack - a common Spanish claim back in Spain as well - and that the appearance of a horse could scare hundreds of locals. Never mind that this was not India, so the locals were not actually Indian and that horses were known and common in actual India.
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quotes, from p. 167 in: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, 1969 and for The Penguin Group, London, 1969

Bernal Diaz Begins Story of Moctezuma Capture: c. 1520

Bernal Diaz gives us a longer description of the 'capture' of Moctezuma. This roughly, can be split into three stories. One when Cortes talked to his men after viewing the great market and great temples and their interiors The time after Cortes first asked to build a church and the men found a secret treasure room. One story that involves the intrigue at Nautla / Almeria. And one talking around the happenings directly surrounding the 'arrest'. Diaz helpfully provides setting, mood, a speech he attributes to Cortes, all in the midst of things. Even here, he uses his long-winded declaiming style, with clauses on top of clauses, and further asides and more clauses. He evinces a great deal of fear.

"... as we had such brave captains and soldiers and of such good counsel and judgment, and primarily as we were very certain Our Lord Jesus Christ put his divine hand on all our affairs, four of our captains took Cortes aside in the [temporary makeshift] church together with twelve soldiers in whom he had confidence and confided, and I was one of them; we asked him to look at the net and trap we were in, the great strength of that city, the bridges and causeways, the words of warning they gave us in all the towns through which we had come that [the great god] Huichilobos had advised Montezuma to let us enter his city and they would kill us there; we said he should understand that the hearts of men are very changeable, especially among the Indians, and he should not have confidence in the goodwill and kindness Montezuma was showing us, because from one hour to the next he would change when he felt like attacking; and if he should stop our food or water or raise any bridge, we would not be able to fend for ourselves; and we told him to look at the great number of Indian warriors Montezuma had as his guard, and what could we do to attack them or defend ourselves, because all the houses were in the water? How could our friends the Tlaxcalans enter to help us?" [p. 219]

Then if that weren't enough to proclaim their intense sense of urgency, Diaz leaps several flights of order in order to bring the point home.

"Since all this we were telling him was something to think about, he should right away seize Montezuma if we wanted to secure our lives... he should consider ... all the gold Montezuma gave us and what we had seen in the treasury of his father, Axayaca, and all the food we were eating would turn into arsenic in our body, that neither day nor night could we rest nor sleep with this thought, and that if any of our soldiers told him anything other than this, they would be like senseless beasts drawn to the sweetness of the gold, not seeing death staring them in the face." [pp. 219-20]

Prior to this, literally in the text, the men had found a new hidden treasure room and sealed it back up. Prior to that they had asked to build their own church. And this request followed close after having been allowed to view and enter the interior of the inner temple of Huichilobos high atop the great cu. Montezuma had excused himself after this, explaining they had probably offended the god by their presence as outsiders. The sense of doom was apparent to them.

"When Cortes heard this, he said: "Don't believe, gentlemen, that I'm asleep or that I don't have the same concern; I'm sure you must have felt it in me; but, what power do we have to be so bold as to sieze such a great lord in his own palace with his guards and warriors? What means can be found to try to put it into effect without his giving the alarm to his warriors and their attacking us immediately?" [p. 220]

A couple of the captains give a couple more reasons to seize the great king before being attacked. Some said the servants were becoming insolent with the soldiers and the Tlaxcalans agreed that the Mexica were not acting as kind as they had when first the Europeans arrived. They all discussed it at great length, Diaz tell us, and agreed to act quickly but not on one certain plan for that day. The next day, two Tlaxcala arrived with messages from Villa Rica, the settlement built on the coast.
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from ch xciii in Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

news early April 2014

There has been a lot of news the last couple weeks. There were some clarifications,

• healthcare goals met, and Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius stepped down. Steve Kornacki recap, 6 min video  
• Today is tax day and with the IRS budgets cut, the agency under six different investigations by the Republican led House Oversight Committee and widespread antipathy expressed on the right, the government still presents an optimistic face. npr has a great interview in 8 min audio piece.
• a ridiculous stand-off in Nevada and  Bureau of Land Management decided to change tactics. Cattle Rancher still Cliven Bundy needs to pay a million bucks after not paying his fee for using federal land for 20 years. 5 min video w/ @chrislhayes
• the slow overtaking of Eastern Ukraine by forces claiming to be with the Russian army. Russia denies this, but the forces take city governmnet buildings, assume control and expand their forces. This has been a slow process over the last weeks. US and Europe talk about imposing more sanctions. Despite communications between Presidents Obama & Putin, little if anything is resolved.

St. Volodymyr's Cathedral Kiev pic.twitter.com/CnodprH0vs
— Maria Boedeker (@MariaBoedeker) April 15, 2014

The moment caught in time:

“Russia doesn’t care abt the opinion of the West. If it did, I would not have a Russian paratrooper in my office.” http://t.co/VlWfsXghJu
— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) April 15, 2014

Meanwhile, back in the states.

• A number of shooting in the Kansas City metro area has shaken a number of communities. One by an ex-KKK grand master was targeting Jews at a suburban community center and killed three other people who weren't Jewish. This happened during Passover this year. 
• The twentieth victim of a roadway shooting occurred yesterday in Kansas City , as well. It does seem to be a thing with cars. Twelve of them seem 'related'.
• The Guardian and the Washington Post won Pulitzer's and Glenn Greewald and Laura Poitras received Polk awards for reporting on Edward Snowden revelations about governement surveillance.
• Last night there was a lunar eclipse.

Ann Stuble from Atlantic Beach sent in this shot of the Blood Moon. pic.twitter.com/NkJ7PdKZce
— Steve Smith (@fcnsteve) April 15, 2014

• If you support the humanities, the NEH is spreading a petition

70 Kansans have added their names to a letter in support of @NEHgov funding. Will you join them? http://t.co/EAIprwOUCd #humanitiesmatter

— Kansas Humanities (@kshumanities) April 15, 2014

Notes From Burckhardt: On French Invasion, 1494

Lecture notes of Jacob Burckhardt, history professor at the University of Basel were collected from the years 1865-85. Emil Dürr edited and assembled these and they were published under the title of Historiche Fragmente as volume seven of Burckhardt's Collected Works in 1929. The translation of this by Harry Zohn that I have is from 1958 and was a find of pure luck. Burckhardt is a favorite historian, still widely admired for his conclusions, deep understanding and passion for history. He has a reputation for clarity and even almost a  kind of certainty, that stems from his works, but a position in his own world as a kind of outsider, not unlike Alexis de Tocqueville or even Frederich Nietzsche. He also may have shared certain aristocratic sensibilities or judgements from his upbringing, but there is where similarities with de Tocqueville probably end. A biographic sketch of him and his times will come later.

In the broadest section of the book are notes from the period 1450-1589. Big sections on the French Invasion of 1494 follow.

"Basically, this campaign was pure folly. It would have been to the real French interest, at any rate, that Naples should belong to an Aragonese bastard line rather than to that Aragonese who already possessed Sicily. The greatest significance of these lands was to be the vanguard against Islam, a very difficult honorary privilege! ... On the other hand, Naples was at best a valueless possession for France, and Charles VIII would not have set out merely for the sake of Naples; could designs on Constantinople and Jerusalem have been the decisive factor?"

 Some today say this was the young king's big motivation, to take Naples and start a crusade.

"Could this whole swindle with Constantinople and Jesrusalem have been only a mask -- to lend a campaign of conquest the character of a crusade? Considering the Turkish menace at that time, a mere campaign of conquest against Naples was an enormous scandal; [pope] Alexander VI (in February of 1494?) reminds Charles that such a campaign could really not be undertaken importuniori tempore [at a less favorable time]; Ferrante might  in utter despair throw himself into the arms of the Turks. Then, too, 30,000 men were quite insufficient for a crusade. But the main consideration is one that is hardly ever brought up: through her invading zeal France incited the Spanish power, which was bent on increasing its might anyway, to apply itself likewise to further occupation of outside areas." 

Burckhardt starts his denouncement of this adventure simply as "... grand politics directed toward the outside."

"It was as though France wanted to compensate for the austere prose of Louis XI. Romanticism burgeons on every side. To the realist... it had to happen that his so well guarded son must become a visionary (the daughter, Anne de Beaujeu, was a realist)."

"The other side of the French mind, the imaginative, comes brilliantly to the fore. It was in this light that the Italians regarded Charles VIII. To Savonarola he is the great, exalted head of the Guelphs; to Pisa he is a liberator; to Naples a ...[sacred crown]; to all a great new chance in that land of chances, Italy."

Burckhardt then quotes contemporary French historian Henri Martin for the effects of this newfound belligerence. In translation:

"The revolutionary and warlike element in the French population retained, after the campaign of Naples, a blind passion for remote conquests, a deadly infatuation with its military superiority...".

It was these advances and trials that would awaken Spain. It was the abandonment he says, of Artois and Franche-Comte in 1493 by the French in favor of Italian prospects that kept France from advancing into Flanders. This would create a vacuum there that the later Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V would exploit and his son Phillip II would claim to crush the Reformation in Holland. It would also throw Italy into war for sixty years.
______________________________________________
from pp 87-90 of Jacob Burckhardt: Judgments on History and Historians translated by Harry Zohn, Beacon Press, Boston, 1958

At Isabela, Columbus Encounters Many Difficulties: On Second Voyage, early April, 1494

The first week of April for Columbus on Hispaniola during the second voyage, was very busy. Though he had returned to his fort Isabela and was gratified with the rapid growth of produce grown there, a number of other events soon  piled up quickly. The tales of them, by his son, are notably unsettling. Chief among these concerns seemed to be lack of available food. But there were conflicts with the locals as well and the Admiral decided to return to the sea in order to find 'the mainland', as well as send more supplies inland to the new fort Santo Tomas. In taking this biography by the son as a source, we must remember to be careful. It's still quite possible that the son embellished some things to protect the honor and prestige of his father who, overall, led a troubled life despite his long time notoriety.  Hernando Colon published the book about his father in 1571.

On April 1, 1494, relates his son, a message sent from Santo Tomas by Pedro Margarit, Columbus' captain there, said that the 'natives were fleeing their homes and a local cacique was coming to burn the fort.'

"But the Admiral, knowing that these Indians were cowards, did not make much of this rumour, especially as he trusted in the horses, of which the Indians were very much afraid, fearing that they [the horses] would eat them. In fact, they were in such dread of horses that they dare not enter any building in which one of them was. But as an added precaution the Admiral decided to send more men and food, for he intended to go in the three caravels remaining, to discover the mainland, and thought it wise to ensure the complete peace and security of the island."

These statements of the son aren't explained. Columbus theought the locals were afraid of horses and he knew 'peace and security' was uncertain, yet he wanted to find the mainland. Without more facts it is hard to follow this kind of logic. But the next day he sent 70 men inland to Santo Tomas w/ food and munitions with directions to build a new road, "... for on the original road it was difficult to cross the river fords."

Columbus turned to improving the - still very new-  fort of Isabela and expanded the place into a town.

"He divided it into streets with a convenient central square and endeavoured to bring the river to it in a broad canal, for which he would construct a dam that would also serve to drive mills." [p.165]

But this was given as his response to his people being ill from 'thin air which did not suit them'. They suffered from numerous sicknesses, had only biscuits and wine left as provisions from Spain,

"... since the captains of the ships had failed to look after their stores, and they do not keep as well in that country as in ours [Spain]. And although they received plenty of victuals from the Indians, these disagreed with them badly, since they were not used to them. For this reason the Admiral had decided not to leave more than 300 men on the island, and to send the rest back to Castile, since he considered this number sufficient to keep it at peace and obedient to the rule of the Catholic sovereigns. And because by this time the biscuit was used up and they had wheat but no flour, he decided to construct mills; but there was no spate of water to drive them within a league and a half of the town." [p. 166]

There was no food but that of the locals which many couldn't or wouldn't eat. So Columbus directs them to expand the town and build a ditch nearly four miles in order to direct water, to an as yet, unbuilt mill. A league for the Spanish in those days was around 2.5 miles.

 "In order to hurry the workmen on this job and all the others, the Admiral had himself supervise them, for they all tried to avoid work. He decided to send everyone who was fit except the master craftsmen and workers to march through the Vega Real in order to pacify it and strike fear into the Indians and also gradually to accustom his men to the local food, because the stores they had brought from Castile were diminishing every day." [p. 166]

Columbus put one Hojeda in charge of this force with orders to march inland to Santo Tomas, rebuild the road along the way and when they arrived there to take command of the inland fort. They could rest and remain there but were to send Pedro Margarit ahead to discover new lands. This order was given the week after they received word that they were suffering attacks in Santo Tomas.
On Wednesday, April 9, 1494, this Hojeda set out with 400 men to venture inland to the newer fort.[p.167]

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quotes, pagination from: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, 1969 and for The Penguin Group, London, 

Found On Internet: some news & opinion early April 2014

It's been a busy week with the news.

On April 3, Alec MacGillis had a strong going over of the effects that our current shift to plutocracy means to our country, with a quick daily drip of news for The New Republic over the previous week.

On Tuesday, April 1, the Republican budget plan was presented by US House of Representatives Budget Committee chair and former vice-president candidate Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. It is a simple rework of the same budget the Republican party has presented for the last twenty years. The two main mechanisms this proposal underscores in order to implement their vision of responsible conservative economic policy  - cutting taxes and cutting spending, especially in Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security funds - have been Republican claims since Reagan. But there is little evidence to support the idea that these policies actually benefit the economy, let alone society. Instead it is driven by the belief that smaller government is better and that any way to get there is preferrable to even, 'knowledgable improvements', however described, by people of the opposing party. In light of this, those against the consistent but so far, ineffective republican policies came out to say what they think. An example, plucked,

in response to: 

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2014/04/01/how-paul-ryans-budget-proves-the-federal-debt-isnt-a-priority-for-republicans/ by Jon Walker, 

So  you and I know that the Republicans aren’t actually ‘fiscally conservative’. “Deficits don’t matter.” vice-president Dick Cheney said as recently as 2006.
We know that they, the Republicans are not actually strong on defense and don’t in reality support our troops. Sequestration cuts and failure to rnew benefits for military veterans should prove that.
We know that despite all the patriotic fervor and bunting and grandstanding that all of that is a show for the rubes who pine for a past that never existed. That the real show and real decisions are made with lobbyists and think-tanks and special interest donors.

Bringing light to all that is an important first step. The busybees out here can tweet it and post it on fb, or rail about it on their blogs, can yell at their congresscritters, go to city council meetings and hold fundraisers.

But how do we reach the low-info FOX watchers? The Rush, beck and TedCruz, George Zimmerman fans who would rather kill somebody than listen to a cognitively dissonant word? They’ll just start shooting cuz they ‘felt threatened’.

Using a well-worded, reasonable treatment like you offer here (it is!), just doesn’t get through to these people. Saying the truth, that Ryan has no math skills or economic sense, pointing out his racist dogwhistles or classist ideations make us instead the ‘race-hustlers’ that O’Reilly’s current harangue inflates out of all proportion or sense.

Depending on law enforcement or the courts to do their job is no longer an option out here. Not for justice or economics. Saving netflix and coffee money for more bullets is what makes sense to them. And if the R’s don’t get control of Senate in November, the low-info voters out in flyover country – where there is no press – will take matters farther into their own hands.

Also on April 1, there was an internet discussion with social policy wonks over the hopeful benefits and proven detractions of an imperial-acting but nominal neo-liberal regime for the US into the future. The ridiculous hilaity that ensued was well captured by DSWright, also at fdl, from a leftist point of view. But again, a commenter piped up and gave a different view of what a 'culture of poverty' might look like to different cultures, in time.

found in response to:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/04/01/ta-nehisi-coates-jonathan-chait-and-the-logic-of-liberal-imperialism/ by DSWright 1737 Tuesday 01April14:

 I agree that to get people out of poverty, literally means raising their standard of living: Putting more $ in their hands to spend.
You and I also probably agree that as Lincoln said, ‘labor is prior to capital’. The worker is more important than the goods manufactured or even the credit it takes to get the venture up and going.
These are logical ideas which have also been proven in reality again and again.
But for all that, they still sound like Marxism and worse to the low-info voter out in flyover country. Unfortunately, for Modern Monetary theorists and neo-liberals alike, the ‘culture of poverty’ is centuries older than Marxism, fans of new-deal type credit schemes, or tax-and-spend liberals of any other modern econ theories I have heard.
Centuries older – people feel it in their bones. People out here simply don’t believe more money in the pocket of ‘the other’ – however defined – will help anything. We can call it racism or zero-sum economics or even the supply-siders can say their trickle-down theories are working. People don’t care. They’re still gonna think some other – now the GOV – is taking their goodies.
An example. I learned a lot watching The Wire. Living most of life in white suburbia it opened my eyes to the impossible life of inner cities. So amazed I was at the clear depictions, revealing story lines, entrenched interests, my heart opened up to the dispossessed, impossibly living with the despair of the dog-eat-dog. And I had always prior to that saw myself as seeing things from the pov of the homeless, the disenfranchised, the left behinds of corporate greed.
But one of the themes of that series, understood by professionals and academics in the abstract is that with hard work, we may be able to move on this or that piece of progress. Get those people voting, give intuitive, thoughtful classes to those who never knew a one-on-one teacher-student rapport, fund this investigation into that crime problem, try a new tactic in the drug war, etc.
But with every step forward there always seems to be two or three steps backward. The right numbers may be up, but the people in power see it as not politically expedient. It may be the right thing to do but this powerful city councilman, cop chief, preacher or lobbyist is all against it. The union boss may not like it but will turn a blind eye, so long as no one gets caught. The result is that fixing things becomes reason and basis for corruption, bending the rules, crime, loss of justice.

The culture of poverty is real and has morphed since St Francis of Assissi’s day. No longer based on humility and social justice, St Reagan popularized a false welfare queen mentality. Gave the poor white south a demon to attack: ‘They’re taking yer goodies!’
No longer about justice for social weal or community well-being. It’s been morphed into keeping the blood in your turnip before ‘the other’, ‘those poor’ who might get yer cookies.
The right wing has learned this well, and ***holes like brietbart, Beck, Malkin, FOX et al took it and ran, for example, toppling ACORN based on obviously fraudulent, farcical means. Congress still handily voted to repeal all their funding.

I agree it may be folly to export imperialism as based on our western ‘successes’. But this ain’t about what intellectuals say, warring on the direction of liberalism anymore.
People I’m talking abt, that I touted The Wire to didn’t see that and say, ‘OMG how awful that people have to live like that! What can we do?’
They said, ‘Can you believe how awful those people are? We’re gonna shut those liberals & all their ‘good works’ down, once and for all. You’ll see.’
For people like me, and probably you, a cold dose of reality is enough to get me going in the right direction. But for many, “soaring ideals” optically placed, repeatedly rung with a strong injection of ‘other-disdain’ wins the very real ‘culture of poverty’ wars. From St Francis, and friar Savonarola to Reagan and Sarah Palin. Their grandaddy hated Communism and they’ll shoot you before they listen to anything resembling that.

 There were several other stories of prominent imporatnce last week as well.

Footnotes of Anthony Pagden: What Happened In Nautla

In a footnote, Anthony Pagden explains, the stated desire by Cortes for himself and Moctezuma to stay together, near each other, 'was a ruse to imprison Motecuzoma.' The difficult question of what to do about attacked members of his own party, Cortes took as reason to demand the proximity to, if not yet, control of the local King's person, according to his own Second Letter to his King and Emperor written before October 1520, some ten to twelve months after these events. What an enormous ruse this had to be.
But Pagden as voluminous researcher and translator also gives more evidence showing some of the variations.

One Juan Alvarez was said to testify, years later, that the captain Cortes said was mistreated or killed was named Escalante. He said, according to this Second Letter footnote 43:

"Escalante had gone to Nautla with a force of Spaniards and Totonaque to look for gold. The Indians refused to give them any, and a fight ensued in which the Spaniards were defeated, losing two of their men."

Nautla was the local name for Almeria, the town Cortes said was 'neighboring Vera Cruz.' The one destroyed and set fire to, but used as a landmark throughout these tales.

Diaz in his chp xciv, says there were six that were killed, as well as Escalante.

Pagden also mentions that Gomara, Cortes' secretary and later official biographer said,

"... that it was not Escalante but Pedro de Ircio who was killed. He also says that the expedition was sent to prevent Francisco de Garay from settling on the coast..."

And this is referenced from Wagner, pp 208-9, which must be the HR Wagner 1942 Berkeley Publication,  The Discovery of Yucatan, which included 'Documents and Narratives concerning the Discovery and Conquest of Latin America'.

 The local chief who was killed in the affair was called "Bright Eagle" or Cuauhpopoca and he may have been the chief for the entire north coast. Cortes called him Qualpopoca, Pagden also notes taht Eulalia Guzman disagrees and says that was a confusion of two different people. There is also evidence this leader was instead shot full of arrows, rather than as Cortes depicted him being burned alive.

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quoted footnote 43, p 469, from The Second Letter from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001