[meteorite-list] Meteorite novels -gifts II

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all - 

I considered labeling this OT or AD, but...

Sterling - 

I cover the Native American epidemics in "Man and
Impact in the Americas".  While there was a major
epidemic ca. 1200 C.E. (A.D.) it does not appear to
have been Black Death, which occured 1347 CE and
following years. The symptoms of the ca. 1200 CE
epidemic seem to have been different than Black Death.

If you have any info otherwise, Sterling, please share
it with me for the second edition.

Ed

--- "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Doug, Martin, List,
> 
>     Operating on the principle that the longer I
> talk,
> the more likely my chance to really annoy someone
> becomes, I snipped a lot of sentences out of what
> I originally wrote.
> 
>     The history of the USA up until 1900-1910 is
> best
> described as a kind of "ongoing conflict," somewhat
> short of formal war. I was going to say that, so no
> disagreement there. In fact, the history of most
> nations
> can be so described with some accuracy.
> 
>     Even with Martin's addition of a few hundred
> more
> wars for Europe, there's a background of conflict
> that
> generates them. The Serbian obsession with Kosovo,
> its ancient "homeland," dates from a conquest late
> in
> the first millennium AD of the people who still live
> there,
> the Illyrians, or rather their descendents, who were
> there
> before the first millennium BC, which makes the
> Serbian
> "historical" claim look a little silly.
> 
>     But these ethnic histories solve nothing; one
> has only
> to look at the Middle East to have that
> demonstrated.
> Such arguments over who is exclusively entitled to
> the
> "land" are endless, unending, and productive of
> nothing
> but carnage, even between folks as completely and
> totally indistinguishable as two Irishmen.
> 
>     United Statesians (so as to avoid the over-broad
> usage
> of "Americans") mostly have what is so often called
> a
> "naive" view: "Why doesn't everybody just forget
> about
> settling the score for the past and try to work on
> solving
> the problems that exist NOW?"
> 
>     The scorn of the sophisticated not withstanding,
> there
> is a another name for this: SANITY. If the price of
> this
> mental health is to be achieved by, say, modern
> Europeans,
> acting as if THEY never had a war, being morally
> superior
> to those so backward as to get stuck in conflicts,
> well,
> sanity is worth that. That IS the idea -- to dump
> the past.
> "History," said James Joyce a century ago, "is a
> nightmare
> I'm trying to wake up from."
> 
> > does Europe have a "Battle of Little Bighorn",
> which...
> > was the fight leading to the demise of a race of
> people?
> 
>     Duh. Yeah! And the Sioux (and all the other
> tribes
> that participated in an INDIAN victory there) still
> exist,
> no thanks to General Custer, just as Jews still
> exist, no
> thanks to... We weren't going to drag up the past,
> were we?
> 
> > if the Indians had caught on quicker...
> 
>     American natives caught on right away. They each
> and all sat in council about what to do about the
> odd
> newcomers from the very year they first showed up!
> Every strategy you can imagine was tried. It's
> common-
> place to present these centuries of native
> statecraft as
> if they all sat there like idiots until the late
> 1800's, but
> that notion is what is really demeaning. A delay of
> a
> potential annihilation for centuries is a major
> achievement;
> there are innumerable spots around the globe where
> indigenous peoples have been destroyed in a decade
> or three. As for uniting scores, even hundreds, of
> nations with no common language, belief, or culture,
> ask Tecumseh about how that worked out...
> 
>     The real "war" was epidemiological. The "Black
> Death" made its way into North America ahead of the
> Europeans, in the 15th century, and was followed
> shortly by a flood of new European diseases in the
> next century. Europeans, in person, were entering
> devastated and de-populated lands everywhere in
> the "New World," north and south. Not that they
> weren't trying to kill the locals, just that their
> efforts
> were puny compared to what the microbes (whose
> existence both sides were unaware of) accomplished.
> It's hard to slow down an invasion when your own
> population is reduced by up to 90%!
> 
>     I'm sorry you were so upset by General
> Oglethorpe
> and the Battle of Bloody Marsh, Doug, but I will
> remind
> you that it took place after Jerkins carted his
> ear-in-a-jar
> up to the British Parliment and got Walpole to
> declare
> the Ear War. Had the fortunes of war fallen
> differently,
> why, you would be walking the picturesque calles de
> Neuvo Atlanta, capitol of Las Floridas del Norte,
> while
> avoiding the camera-toting USian tourists in their
> garish
> shirts and plastic flip-flops...
> 
>     I would love to "kick around" the causes of the
> five-day "Football War" with you, Doug, but I think
> that it breaks the tenuous chain that links Jenkins'
> ear
> to a wet meteorite in a moat surrounded by mocking
> Frenchmen!
> 
> 
> Sterling K. Webb
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
> And Bill just summed it up in three sentences better
> than either of us, I think...
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "MexicoDoug" <MexicoDoug at aim.com>
> To: "Sterling K. Webb"
> <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 8:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Meteorite novels
> -gifts II
> 
> 
> > Sterling wrote:
> > "1739-1740 War of Jenkins' Ear"
> > "And [the USA's] certainly never managed to have a
> war as magnificently 
> > named as "The War of Jenkins' Ear"! Now, that's
> how to name a war! Clear, 
> > concise, and everybody knows exactly what it's all
> about."
> >
> > Hey Sterling,
> >
> > Hah! remember studies in Western Civ - between
> Physics and philosophy 
> > class :-) -, really, the USA has darn well so
> managed to have a war 
> > equally magnificient in name as the "War of
> Jenkin's Ear".
> >
> > It was called "The War of Jenkin's Ear"; Same
> Jenkins - and it wasn't 
> > Jenkin's other ear.  Don't forget that Jenkin's
> ear was supposedly severed 
> > in the Americas, and he was as English as George
> Washington at the time. 
> > So I'd Argue that not only did the Americans
> participate in that war - 
> > they also started it.  Not to mention the USA
> started the funiest named 
> > war of all: The "Quasi-War" as thanks to the
> French right after the French 
> > supported the American Independence effort.
> >
> > That particular Jenkin's Ear war in the 1740's is
> actually the same war 
> > that was contracted by the European continent and
> spread to Bohemia and 
> > resulted in the French tossing the Elbogen Iron
> meteorite down the to the 
> > bottom of the Bohemian well where it rusted for 40
> years.  It was a small 
> > world back then, too.  In the USA, in the great
> American State of Georgia, 
> > the military general who founded Georgia wasted no
> time to marshal his 
> > proud Savannah compatriots and adventurous
> Charlestonians out of South 
> > Carolina to pillage everything from Jacksonville,
> Florida to St. 
> > Augustine, and that was only openers.
> >
> > Oh the United States has had oogles more
> practically nameless wars than 
> > you give it credit for in those years.  They don't
> Google easily out of a 
> > database like your nice European ones, but they
> were bloodier if Indians 
> > are men considered equal in the eyes of the
> Creator.  You've got to 
> > consider that in Europe all those wars were spread
> among 20-30 countries. 
> > How many Indian real nations do you think the
> singular USA trounced in a 
> > religious ferver to achieve its destiny?  The USA
> is a nation that was 
> > perpetually at war on its own and its extended
> frontiers.  There are more 
> > Indian wars alone, than Indian nations that
> yielded in defeat against the 
> > cleansing of the continent from Atlantic to
> Pacific.  Take Florida, which 
> > heaped war upon wars, genocide and forced
> relocation.  Or maybe Missouri - 
> > if the Indians had caught on quicker, you might be
> living in a teepee 
> > today, or at least your neighbor  :-)
> >
> > As for the lack of colorful names of wars in the
> USA even without 
> > considering who started the War of Jenkin's Ear,
> does Europe have a 
> > "Battle of Little Bighorn", which is a battle the
> war easily can assume 
> > for the name, and really was the fight leading to
> the demise of a race of 
> > people? If that isn't enough, how about the
> Gipper's "Star Wars", who has 
> > one of those programs besides George Lucas?  And I
> am convinced that the 
> > US participated as a silent partner in the
> infamous "Football War," as 
> > well...
> >
> > Best wishes, Doug
> > (no slights to any nation, no offense; we are who
> we are and I can live 
> > with that just fine, until someone else tosses a
> spectacular iron in a 
> > well to fester.  Guess the Evian was too depleted
> in minerals for their 
> > taste)
> >
> >
> > thread truncated...
> 
> 
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