Occupation of Independence

If you are interested in the centenary of the Great War but don't know where to get started, consider this brief article by Eric Margolis. Recall the old quote by the Latin poet, Horace, that "fleeing vice is the beginning of virtue." In studying the origins of the Great War, the first mistake you must avoid is the British bias, which is also the bias of Anglophiles in the power establishment of the American Northeast. Many people see diplomats as empty talk, talk, talkers, as well as duplicitous scoundrels. But the diplomats at the end of the Napoleonic wars crafted a peace that lasted a hundred years in Europe -- not complete peace of course, but there were no general European-wide wars for a hundred years after their peace treaty. But halfway through that remarkable century of progress, something new happened: Germany became a united country, and started industrializing and arming itself at a rate that soon threatened to make it the Big Cheese of Europe. The former

The Great War started 100 years ago. Besides being of enormous importance to the world over this past century, it is an uncanny illustration of the old adage, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same.' An incident -- the assassination in Sarajevo -- was turned into the opportunity to kill millions by the blundering politicians and emperors that the sheeple stayed loyal to. A couple years later a suspicious or misinterpreted incident, the sinking of the Lusitania, was used to suck the USA into an unnecessary war. Consider such things in light of what has been going on in Ukraine the last week. And yet the general public learns nothing about how politicians use incidents to start wars. It is not easy finding good histories of the Great War. Oh sure, I've read Barbara Tuchman, Niall Ferguson, and Martin Gilbert. The difficulty is in finding a book not written from the British or American-interventionist angle. I had almost lost hope until Thomas Fleming's

Since the last post ended with a bit of a downer, let's see if we can crawl out of the slough of despair today. Let me be a good sport and admit that I am temporarily stymied in finding an economical, high-ground-clearance tow vehicle for pulling my 3000 pound converted cargo trailer/travel trailer and storing two bicycles inside. Usually when a problem has you temporarily beaten, it is best to put it aside and work on something else.  So let's get to work on reducing the weight of camping gear and personal possessions. One way or another, lighter loads will pay off when it comes time to select a new tow vehicle, whatever it is. After water -- be it clean, grey, or black -- batteries are the heaviest factor that an RVer has any control over. I am using four 6-volt, golf cart, flooded, lead acid batteries: model GC-2, made by Interstate. With cables, clamps and boxes, let's round off their weight to 70 pounds each. Downsizing from 4 to 2 such batteries reduces the we