In 2021 and 2022 I first came across the stories of Harry Washington and James Lafayette, two enslaved men with links to Revolutionary War heroes George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. I found their stories compelling and put together a lengthy post comparing their respective timelines. Since then, their stories have remained with me …
Contrasting African-American Experiences in the Revolutionary Era Last year I came across the story of Harry Washington, an African sold into slavery who escaped from George Washington’s Mount Vernon household to join the British side of the Revolution then eventually resettled to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. More recently I learned of James Lafayette, a …
I feel the need to reflect and digest some of the things I’ve learned over the past several years of armchair history reading, listening and viewing. I have no idea when Part Two of this lesson may come, but this is something of a mid-term to assess where I am. I am particularly glad I …
Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1977 and 1978. 1977 By January of 1977 I had survived the first semester of my freshman year at Georgetown, dealing with the questionable decision to study Chinese, …
Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1975 and 1976. 1975 As 1975 started, I was in 11th grade in Hong Kong and had just met Barb but we were not yet dating. I was …
Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974. 1971 We arrived in Hong Kong on August 15, 1971 with Typhoon Rose. It took us a while to come to terms with Hong …
It’s the evening of December 10, 2019, after the Democrats announced their anticlimactic popgun of two impeachment charges. Donald Trump’s 2020 Strategy just popped into my head. I haven’t had most of these ideas before and haven’t seen them written anywhere else before, so I want right of first appearance. The script outline for Trump’s …
Today’s (September 23, 2019) New York Times included a video editorial titled “Jaron Lanier Fixes the Internet.” It posits the idea that people should get paid for their internet activity, that they are inadvertently giving away a very valuable asset in the current model. I think there’s great merit in this concept. I hope there …
Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971. These five years, as I aged from 8 to 13 in Florida and New Jersey, were pivotal in forming my personality, memories and tastes. …
Events that crossed my radar and memories, these many years later. This effort is aided and abetted by reviewing Wikipedia’s listings of each year’s events, in this case, 1965 and 1966. The Sound of Music film debuted in early 1965 and we probably saw it that summer when we returned to the States for vacation. We also …