In Oroville, CA, there's a dam for which the spillway is about to break down and the situation has prompted declaration of an emergency and an evacuation order has been issued for everyone in the flood plain for the dam. (RT: Spillway at tallest US dam in California about to collapse, tens of thousands evacuate)
Meanwhile, Donald Trump said he would put a trillion dollars into improving infrastructure in the United States but the only move he has made has been toward extending a wall with Mexico which already existed but George Bush was too half-ass to complete.
Ed: that's really not an example of vandalism but rather short-sighted negligence.
Fair enough and Trump is just another carny personality in a second-rate road show but the example is close enough to vandalism for our purposes.
When we're talking of Vandals, we don't want the corny cover songs; we want the originals. The Vandals came out of eastern Germany in the Fifth Century. (WIKI: Vandals)
Ed: same place we found the vandals in PEGIDA!
Not bad, Bueller. Apparently you have been paying attention after all. The observation is irrelevant but at least you made the geographic connection. Nevertheless, it has some marginal bearing on this with the observation eastern Germany hasn't evolved significantly in fifteen hundred years.
You may remember the Vandals from a turgid high school history class which recalled them as the ones who sacked Rome. In that context, it's presented as part of the general window dressing of the idea of the persecution of Christians through history but it turns out the reality was somewhat different.
Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, "sacking and looting" Rome. This led to the use of the term "vandalism" to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the "barbarian" defacing of artwork. However, modern historians tend to regard the Vandals during the transitional period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages as perpetuators, not destroyers, of Roman culture.
- WIKI
Regardless of your subjective perception of the Catholic Church, it was the cornerstone of Western civilization for centuries and any group which could challenge the Holy Roman Empire which grew around it had to be a formidable force. In all history, the group which challenges and loses is latterly known as having been comprised of terrorists, vandals, or both but nothing is ever so simple.
There are some parallels between the Vandals back then and IS-IS now in their passion for destroying antiquities but, as with the Vandals, we only have turgid history teachers (i.e. CNN / Fox) to explain why they do it so we don't know the rest of the story. Frankly, the Rockhouse doesn't care much about the rest of the story when IS-IS serves only as a convenient foil for American aggression and the real vandalism originates elsewhere.
"You can't bomb them back to the Stone Age when they're already there." - Lewis Black
The deep irony is the Holy Roman Empire or, in effect, the Catholic Church, turned the Vandals back. In other words, the state was saved by the Church and literally so. However, America today wouldn't revile Pope Francis more aggressively if he were throwing children out of the windows of the Vatican to feed the starving masses gathered below.
Ed: are the you, the committed heathen, seriously saying the Catholic Church could save what's left of America?
In fact, I'm not ... but I am saying America is doing everything possible ensure it will never find out whether that's true.
So ... how about we loop back to the top and review again what vandalism means.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump said he would put a trillion dollars into improving infrastructure in the United States but the only move he has made has been toward extending a wall with Mexico which already existed but George Bush was too half-ass to complete.
Ed: that's really not an example of vandalism but rather short-sighted negligence.
Fair enough and Trump is just another carny personality in a second-rate road show but the example is close enough to vandalism for our purposes.
When we're talking of Vandals, we don't want the corny cover songs; we want the originals. The Vandals came out of eastern Germany in the Fifth Century. (WIKI: Vandals)
Ed: same place we found the vandals in PEGIDA!
Not bad, Bueller. Apparently you have been paying attention after all. The observation is irrelevant but at least you made the geographic connection. Nevertheless, it has some marginal bearing on this with the observation eastern Germany hasn't evolved significantly in fifteen hundred years.
You may remember the Vandals from a turgid high school history class which recalled them as the ones who sacked Rome. In that context, it's presented as part of the general window dressing of the idea of the persecution of Christians through history but it turns out the reality was somewhat different.
Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, "sacking and looting" Rome. This led to the use of the term "vandalism" to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the "barbarian" defacing of artwork. However, modern historians tend to regard the Vandals during the transitional period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages as perpetuators, not destroyers, of Roman culture.
- WIKI
Regardless of your subjective perception of the Catholic Church, it was the cornerstone of Western civilization for centuries and any group which could challenge the Holy Roman Empire which grew around it had to be a formidable force. In all history, the group which challenges and loses is latterly known as having been comprised of terrorists, vandals, or both but nothing is ever so simple.
There are some parallels between the Vandals back then and IS-IS now in their passion for destroying antiquities but, as with the Vandals, we only have turgid history teachers (i.e. CNN / Fox) to explain why they do it so we don't know the rest of the story. Frankly, the Rockhouse doesn't care much about the rest of the story when IS-IS serves only as a convenient foil for American aggression and the real vandalism originates elsewhere.
"You can't bomb them back to the Stone Age when they're already there." - Lewis Black
The deep irony is the Holy Roman Empire or, in effect, the Catholic Church, turned the Vandals back. In other words, the state was saved by the Church and literally so. However, America today wouldn't revile Pope Francis more aggressively if he were throwing children out of the windows of the Vatican to feed the starving masses gathered below.
Ed: are the you, the committed heathen, seriously saying the Catholic Church could save what's left of America?
In fact, I'm not ... but I am saying America is doing everything possible ensure it will never find out whether that's true.
So ... how about we loop back to the top and review again what vandalism means.
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