mansion of many apartments

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Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:19:21 -0400

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Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:10:16 -0400

spx: by Paul Hornschemeier

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:05:32 -0400

spx:

by Paul Hornschemeier

Eyes On The Future

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:03:37 -0400

Eyes On The Future:

posthorn:

The year 2050 according to the American public.

This infographic displays the results of a survey conducted by Pew Research and Smithsonian magazine.

hotelforghosts: 1

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:00:04 -0400

hotelforghosts:

1

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Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:12:45 -0400

"I prefer fiction to non-fiction because it’s better written. From the time I was young, it was my..."

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:37:01 -0400

“I prefer fiction to non-fiction because it’s better written. From the time I was young, it was my favorite ficiton writers who inspired me to write non-fiction as if it were fiction. Not faking information or changing information or exagerrating information—the storytelling technique.”

- Legendary journalist Gay Talese lays out his media diet. Read the rest at The Atlantic Wire. (via theatlantic)

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Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:50:52 -0400

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Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:00:48 -0400

theyroaredvintage: Why indeed? Thanks, “Mad Men”.

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:57:52 -0400

theyroaredvintage:

Why indeed? Thanks, “Mad Men”.

theyroaredvintage: When you have a kick-ass vintage top, belt,...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:55:05 -0400

theyroaredvintage:

When you have a kick-ass vintage top, belt, and bracelet, who needs pants???

posthorn: The Metropolitan Sepulcher, a proposal for a London...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:46:52 -0400

posthorn:

The Metropolitan Sepulcher, a proposal for a London necropolis circa 1820 designed by Thomas Wilson.

dominicsworld: Loved this image the moment I heard the story...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:32:44 -0400

dominicsworld:

Loved this image the moment I heard the story behind it. It’s very touching to see that even in war there is a part in everyone’s being to show mercy. Even to your enemies.

The German pilot got so close to the plane saw the faces of the dead and injured American pilots through the bullet holes in the American Bomber and could not bring himself to open fire on them, even though he wanted to avenge his brother who died at the beginning of the war. He instead escorted them to the North Sea.

Here is the full story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigler_incident

forthosewhofell: WW2 in color

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:32:06 -0400

forthosewhofell:

WW2 in color

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Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:24:40 -0400

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Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:23:17 -0400

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Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:19:47 -0400

“In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:09:45 -0400

“In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion mingle and delight each other, the absurd man discovers a discipline that will make up the greatest of his strengths. The required diligence and doggedness and lucidity thus resemble the conqueror’s attitude. To create is likewise to give a shape to one’s fate. For all these characters, their work defines them at least as much as it is defined by them. The actor taught us this: There is no frontier between being and appearing.” - Camus

candybrains: go head

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:35:42 -0400

candybrains:

go head

When asked who was the best Federal commander the South ever...

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:14:00 -0400

When asked who was the best Federal commander the South ever faced in the War, John Mosby, the famous Gray Ghost and Confederate guerrilla (and later staunch Republican and supporter of Reconstruction), replied:

McClellan, by all odds. I think he is the only man on the Federal side who could have organized the army as it was. Grant had, of course, more successes in the field in the latter part of the war, but Grant only came in to reap the benefits of McClellan’s previous efforts. At the same time, I do not wish to disparage General Grant, for he has many abilities, but if Grant had commanded during the first years of the war, we would have gained our independence. Grant’s policy of attacking would have been a blessing to us, for we lost more by inaction than we would have lost in battle. After the first Manassas the army took a sort of ‘dry rot’, and we lost more men by camp diseases than we would have by fighting.

In my opinion, Mosby’s analysis - and we should take him at his word, being the well-placed and highly successful Confederate soldier he was - is spot on. McClellan’s actions were comparable to the strategy employed by Fabius in the Hannibalic Wars.

Fabius knew Hannibal’s armies couldn’t sustain a war in Italy indefinitely. In contrast to the impulsive Varro, Fabius preferred to avoid pitched battle and instead force Hannibal to attack fortified positions, where his natural genius at battle would be at least partially mitigated. When Fabius was deposed from command of the Roman consular armies, it was transferred to the aforementioned Varro, who sought a general engagement immediately. The result was the disaster at Cannae, which has since become a byword for total annihilation on the field. At the end of the grueling 17 year war, Fabius was vindicated by his countrymen who recognized his caution had spared the Republic.

Still, the war could not have been concluded without the elevation of the Scipio later awarded the agnomen Africanus. (Fabius’s agnomen, Cunctator, means ‘delayer’ or ‘ditherer’ - what began as an insult was later regarded as an honorific) Africanus was unafraid to seek battle with Hannibal and, in a daring expedition launched at the Carthaginian capital, managed to defeat the great Punic strategist in the Battle of Zama. Livy credits Scipio’s successes to both the war-weariness and general supply problems of Carthage, Hannibal’s own difficulties with the Carthaginian Senate, but also to the fact that Scipio was able to imitate Hannibal’s own method of warfare. Hannibal’s habitual use of feints and flanking attacks was turned against him by Scipio at Zama.

Lee bemoaned the replacement of McClellan, upon hearing of the news he said,

“We always understood each other so well. . . . I fear they may continue to make these changes till they find someone whom I don’t understand.”

Eventually the Union happened upon Grant, who Lee understood, but couldn’t beat- Grant’s strategy was a withering, persistent assault, best typified by his protracted siege of Vicksburg. There he ordered charge after charge of exposed infantry against withering Confederate fire, only stopping when he could no longer guarantee the safety of his own lines. Nevertheless, Vicksburg eventually fell to the Union host. The Confederacy had neither the men nor the money to fight a war that heavy, and subsequently lost.

The analogy is not perfect, admittedly. Lee makes a compelling Hannibal, and McClellan is an admirable Fabius, but Grant is no Scipio- rather than preferring to imitate Lee, Grant chose to utilize the strengths of the Union, which were its ample supplies of men and materiel. But a strategy like Grant’s would not have succeeded in the close-run years of 1861 and 1862. Then, the European great powers were eagerly waiting for an opportunity to recognize the fledgling Southern nation and insist on an end of hostilities. Forced to contend with Britain and France, the United States would’ve had a totally different - and possibly unwinnable - war on its hands.

But after Antietam, and the Emancipation Proclamation, the landscape changed. The European powers could ill-afford opposing a war against slavery. By changing the reason why the war was fought, Lincoln effectively boxed out the European powers from the conflict. After 1862, the North can afford to fight bloody battles and, if necessary, lose them, if only because it knows it has all its resources to fight against only one enemy.

Looking at the war from this angle, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for McClellan. He was constantly opposed by his so-called friends in the Lincoln Administration and was routinely fed faulty intelligence by Lincoln’s own Pinkerton men. Still, he managed to evade and confound Lee’s designs at almost every turn, and if he had not been withdrawn from the Peninsula in 1862, might very well have ended the war then and there. There are those who maintain that McClellan’s so-called caution was simply a way to conceal his own cowardice, but McClellan’s considerable bravery in the West at the beginning of the war and his actions at Contreras and Churubusco in the Mexican-American War easily refute this charge. Indeed, McClellan’s caution, if anything, seems to me an act of great self-control when all around him were urging an ill-advised advance. Pope’s Varro-like behavior led to a second Union defeat on the fields of Bull Run.

McClellan’s subsequent performance at Antietam was admittedly lackluster, but the draw enabled Lincoln to propose the Emancipation Proclamation, which in turn made McClellan’s presence at the head of the Army of the Potomac no longer a necessity. Lincoln replaced McClellan with Burnside, knowing that the war could now be fought on Union terms, with no one defeat being fatal. After Antietam, the odds against the South grow increasingly longer, until, after Gettysburg, there is no real hope for victory.