The Story of Civilization

This is an 11-volume bookshelf buster written by Will and Ariel Durant. First published in 1934, it has been updated numerous times. 

I grew up in a family with lots of books, including all 11 volumes of this one. As a child I was puzzled by the title of the first volume: "Our Oriental Heritage."  How could that be correct? The Orient is China, Japan, Hong Kong and the like, is it not? But the Durants define it in broader terms, including the Near East. They maintain that written history is at least six thousand years old and for half of that period "the center of human affairs was in the Near East....The Aryans did not establish civilization - they took it from Babylon and Sumeria."

Further support for an Oriental heritage: in the ancient city of Susa, located in what is now Iran, French archaeologists found human remains dating back 20,000 years, and evidence of an advanced culture around 4500 BC.  Arabic numerals and the decimal system "came to us through the Arabs from India." Now I begin to see their point.

The Durants explain not just Indian history but also Hindu philosophy, literature and religion. For example, they tackle the concept of Brahman: a creator above the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses, "that from which all existence proceeds, and to which everything returns, the cause of all that exists. Brahman is everywhere and inside each living being, and there is connected spiritual oneness in all existence."  In this world view, there is no world, no Sun, no reality, only Brahman which encompasses everything, including what we think of as ourselves. To the Hindu"the purpose of knowledge and philosophy is not control of the world so much as release from it"  and "the goal of thought is to find freedom from the suffering of frustrated desire by achieving freedom from desire itself." The Durants  magnanimously decline to judge such beliefs, "for our judgments in the West are usually based on corporeal experience and material results, which seem irrelevant and superficial to the Hindu saint." 

Still ahead lies Chinese and Japanese history. And that's just in volume 1. Ahead are 10 more volumes of more familiar stuff, such as "Rousseau and Revolution" and "The Age of Napoleon." I hope I live long enough, and retain my eyesight long enough, to read them all.

Is Trump Building His Own Paramilitary Militia?

Our democracy is in danger. This article from The Economist (January 31, 2026) makes some excellent points. I agree with all of them.

ICE's Impunity is a Formula for More Violence.

Venezuelan Adventure

Today's news of the U.S. intervention in Venezuela sent me rushing to my search engine. How many times has the USA done such a thing in the past? The list is sobering. I remember when the USA invaded Panama and deposed Noriega. And Iraq, Afghanistan and Grenada. Not to mention Vietnam. I understand the reasons for those adventures, sort of. Now we can add Venezuela to the list. 

After watching today's Trump news conference, I have grave concerns about this incursion. At first I thought it was being done to stop drug smuggling into the US by deposing a corrupt dictator. But who gave him the authority to step in and kick over a sovereign nation's government?

I doubt today's action will have much effect on stopping illegal drug imports. The US is a huge market for high-stakes smugglers. Illegal substances have a way of finding new ways around barriers because there is so much demand, and so much money, in the USA. Despite the actions announced today, the problem of drug abuse and addiction will pop up again and again, even if we stop the outflow from Venezuela. How about attacking the demand side of this problem? More federal funding for drug education and help for the addicted? Our federal goverment doesn't seem to even consider a two-prong approach.

Even worse were Trump's statements that "we" (meaning him and his minions) are going to run Venezuela now, and U.S. oil companies will run the Venezuelan oil industry. That sounds like a takeover of the entire country, including its economy. I have the sickening feeling that Mr. President decided to make those sweeping statements on the spur of the moment, without first having a robust debate with his own advisors. I shudder to think of how that unexpected statement must have been received by Venezuelans. They're losing the right to rule themselves without foreign interference.

Trump's Decisive Leadership

Just noticed this header on the U.S. Department of the Treasury "Resource Center" web page:

"President Donald J. Trump has signed a Continuing Resolution through January 30th. Thanks to the President’s decisive leadership in the face of radical left-wing obstructionism, the Department of the Treasury has now resumed normal operations."

See for yourself here:

U.S. Department of The Treasury>Resource Center

King of Ashes by S.A. Crosby

I read this entire book on a 7-hour airline flight. Squeezed into a bulkhead seat in tourist class, it was a way to pass the time. 

I'm not a picky reader. After all, I am the guy who read all the way through Dividend of Death by Brett Halliday (reviewed elsewhere 0n this web site). But I found the first two-thirds of King of Ashes slow, meandering and overall disappointing compared to this author's previous work. 

Under different circumstances I might have tossed it aside. But I soldiered on, hour after hour. In the last third, things really start moving, so it was worthwhile in the end.

Trump says he’s firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook

There's disturbing news in today's Associated Press feed: 

Trump say's he's firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, opening new front in fight for central bank control

By Christopher Rugaber and Will Weissert, August 26, 2025

We can safely assume that Trump wants to replace Federal Reserve Governor Cook with someone more sympathetic to his own ideas. That would set a terrible precedent. Packing the Fed with a President’s supporters is to be avoided, or so we were taught in our graduate school monetary policy class. On a personal level, the charge against Cook is almost nothing compared to the stunts I suspect Trump pulls with his real estate business. 

It’s outrageous. I don't dare put this in my social media posts. I'd lose friends. But still: sic temper tyrannis!

The Weaver's Answer

by Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney 

Weaver of life, let me look and see 

The pattern of my life gone by shown on your tapestry. 

 Just for one second, one glance upon your loom 

The flower of my childhood could appear within this room 

Does it of my youth show tears of yesterday 

Broken hearts within a heart as love first came my way. 

Did the lifeline patterns change as I became a man 

An added aura untold blends as I asked for her hand 

Did your golden needle sow its thread virginal white 

As lovers we embraced as one upon our wedding night. 

Did you capture all the joys, the birth of our first son 

The happiness of family made a brother for the one 

The growing of the brothers, the manliness that grew 

Is it there in detail, is it there to view 

 Do the sparks of life grow bright as one by one they wed 

To live as fathers, husbands, apart from lives they've led.

Are my lover's threads cut off when aged she laid to rest 

My sorrow blacking out a space upon our woven crest 

A gathering for the last time as her coffin slowly lain 

Ash to ashes, dust to dust, one day we will regain 

Does it show the visits when grandchildren on my knee 

But only hearing laughter when age took my sight from me. 

 Lastly through these last few years of loneliness maybe 

Does by sight a shooting star fade from your tapestry 

But wait, there in the distance your loom I think I see 

Could it be that after all my prayers you've answered me 

After days of wondering I see the reason why 

You've kept it to this minute for I'm about to die. 

 Weaver of life, at last now I can see 

The pattern of my life gone by upon your tapestry. 

"Dividend on Death" by Brett Halliday (1939)

Published in 1939, “Dividend On Death” introduces private investigator Mike Shayne, who later appeared in some 70-plus novels written under the pen name Brett Halliday (birth name: Davis Dresser). That intrigued me. Halliday/Dresser must have been a virtual writing machine. Imagine supporting your family by churning out such material, book after book, year after year. And apparently readers liked the character, because people kept buying them. 

Based in Miami, this tale name-checks familiar places such as Jackson Memorial Hospital, Flagler Street, Biscayne Boulevard and the Roney Plaza Hotel. It also contains steamy passages such as: “A woman was descending the stairway, and she reached the bottom just as Shayne passed. She wore the white uniform of a nurse and carried a napkin-covered tray. She was a full-bodied blond of about thirty, with predatory eyes. Shayne glanced at her as he passed and caught a fleeting, almost animal look on her face. Her lips were pouted as though in assent, thought he had not spoken to her.” 

Later on, this woman appears unannounced at Shayne’s apartment and insists that he make love to her. I leave it to the reader to imagine how that turned out. 

At no time does this hard-boiled private investigator brandish a gun or beat up anyone. In fact, he himself is beaten up, his pain and suffering described in detail. But he solves the case, an elaborate swindle involving a Raphael painting. This is where the tale strains credibility. In a many-paged discourse at the very end of the book, Shayne explains to a room full of people who the real swindlers are and the diabolical plot they put into action. But how did he figure that out? There is little or no previous plot exposition to support it. But with this one exception, the book is well-written and I tore through it like a house on fire. I’ll read more of this author’s work.

Further Reading: Brett Halliday by Hal Charles. EBSCO. 2023. 

David Souter, Julius Caesar and Donald Trump

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter died recently. This quote from his AP obituary caught my eye: 

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough...some one person will come forward and  say 'Give me total power and I will solve this problem.' That is how the Roman republic fell,  Souther said in a 2012 interview."

Associated Press obituary for David Souter, May 9, 2025 

After some digging, I found this:

"Having defeated all his enemies, Caesar was granted a 10-year dictatorship for purposes of restoring the republic. His solution was to reconstitute himself as a Roman form of Hellenistic divine king or ruler."

Purdue University Lecture 26: Fall of Roman Republic133-27 BC"