A look at history and popular culture
This is part II of our four-part series (I, IIIa, IIIb, interlude, IV) looking at what I've termed 'the Fremen mirage,' after the fiction people from the science fiction novel Dune. If you are just tuning in, we defined the core tenants of the Fremen Mirage back in more detail in the first post: The … Continue reading Collections: The Fremen Mirage, Part II: Water Spilled on the Sand
Hey folks. Apologies to those who were eagerly awaiting Part II of the Fremen Mirage series. While I have a draft of the next installment done, I don't feel like it is quite where I want it be, so I'm going to hold on to it for another week. Normally, I'd just push a bit … Continue reading Gap Week Roundup, Jan. 24, 2020
This week's post is the first in a four part series (II, IIIa, IIIb, interlude, IV) looking at what I'm going to term the Fremen Mirage (a play on Le Mirage Spartiate, which we've already discussed in some detail), a term I'm creating to encompass a set of related pop-history theories which are flourish, evergreen … Continue reading Collections: The Fremen Mirage, Part I: War at the Dawn of Civilization
This is actually a neat kit review to pick up with after the last one, since this is essentially a more successful effort to construct a fantasy panoply for a plate-armored common infantryman. Today we're looking at the Gondor Heavy Infantry from Peter Jackson's adaptation of Return of the King. Compared to the Lannister armor … Continue reading Collections: Gondor Heavy Infantry Kit Review
Dear readers! Alas, no regular post this Friday, for it is conference season. In particular, this is the weekend of the Joint Annual Meeting for the Society of Classical Studies and Archaeological Institute of America (Classics represent!), where I will be giving a short paper detailing some of my current research. One function of these … Continue reading Miscellanea: SCS-AIA Conference, 2020!
The following is a somewhat polished (but not very polished!), consolidated version of my response to watching The Last Jedi and the problems I had with it. The core of this was something I wrote on social media back in January, 2018; note that since this was originally intended for a small group of friends … Continue reading Miscellanea: The Latest Jedi
This week's post will be a bit shorter, as the holidays are now upon us and the year is winding down (but don't worry - I have a humdinger of a series planned for January - no, not that one; one you did not expect). This week is going to serve as a bit of … Continue reading Collections: Starships in Silhouette
This week, we're taking another trip through an ancient author, in this case looking at a passage from Cicero's De legibus ("On the Laws") and discussing Cicero's vision of the origin of laws and how those ideas have found their way into current thinking. Cicero was a remarkably prolific author, and a tremendous amount of … Continue reading Collections: A Trip Through Cicero (Natural Law)
Welcome to the first of a new set of a posts, which I'm calling A Trip Through the Classics. This won't be a series so much as a new format we'll have sometimes (like the kit reviews). For each trip through, I'm going to pull a key passage from a historical author - mostly ancient … Continue reading Collections: A Trip Through Thucydides (Fear, Honor and Interest)
This week, we look at the positioning of main gun batteries and see what the Battlestar Galactica could use to learn from the USS South Carolina (BB-26).