Rhone Red blends from Cotes du Roussillon, Roussillon, South of France, France
Syrah 70%. Grenache 30%.
Purchase price: $13.99
Rankings: Robert Parker 91. ElsBob 91-93.
ABV: 14.5%
A pale to medium purple, full-bodied, with aromas of black fruit and pepper, high tannins and a very nice long finish. A great sipping red wine for your wine-thirty affair or pair with anything spicy, gamey, or blue and pecorino cheeses.
An excellent wine at a very good price. Buy a case, or two, and hold.
This week in 1968, San Diego psychedelic, hard rock band, Iron Butterfly released their second album, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” which sold a record, at the time, 8 million copies in its first year and a reputed 30 million, to date, worldwide. The song was voted the 24th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1 in 2009 and also contained the 10th greatest drum solo of all time, as voted WatchMojo.
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” was planned as a love song to Adam and Eve tentatively titled “In the Garden of Eden” but when vocalist and song writer Doug Ingle, sang the song after drinking a whole freaking gallon of Red Mountain wine, he slurred the words so badly that drummer, Ron Bushy, transcribing the lyrics, mis-interpreted “In the Garden of Eden” as what became one of the great rock songs, ever.
In the 1995 episode “The Simpsons – Bart Sells His Soul”, Bart pranks his church into singing “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for the opening hymn which he labeled as “In the Garden of Eden” by I. Ron Butterfly in the sheet music handout.
Source: Simpson Wiki. Watch Mojo. Graphic: Album cover, Atco Records.
Shortly after the Israelites exodus from Egypt around 1500 BC Moses received the Ten Commandments from God who further instructed Moses to have Bezalel build an Ark to house the commandments and He gives specific instructions on how the Ark should be built. Since no pictures are known to exist for the actual Ark, Spielberg’s rendition, built for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” movie, is as good as anything that currently depicts it.
The Ark was initially kept in the ancient Samarian sanctuary city of Shiloh in a tabernacle built under Moses direction and remained there for 369 years.
During the battle of Eben-ezer in 1180 BC the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines, bringing the Ark back to the Philistine pentapolis city of Ashdod, just south of the present-day Tel Aviv, as part of their plunder of Shiloh. Upon capturing the Ark, the Philistines were beset by plagues and misfortune and decided that it would be best to return it to the Israelites.
After its return it eventually settled in Kiriath-Jearim where it remained for about 20 years. King David eventually brought the Ark to Zion or the City of David. When Solomon succeeded David, he had the Ark brought to his temple in Jerusalem sometime in the 10th century BC, no earlier than 957 BC.
Around 586 BC the Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple. After this destruction the Ark disappeared, and its location has been a mystery ever since.
Legends and myths say the Ark was destroyed, or it is currently in Ethiopia, or in the Philistine city of Ekron, or beneath Jerusalem, or on Mount Nebo, or in a cave near the Dead Sea, or the Romans captured it during the Jewish revolts in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, or aliens took it.
Source: Bible. BibleArchaeology.org. Wikipedia. Graphic: Ark from “The Raiders of the Lost Ark”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, author of the transcendental essay, “Self-Reliance” is often credited with saying, “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” The exact setting and time for the quote is unknown but Ann Althouse believes it was said during a conversation with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., one of the most widely cited Supreme Court justices, after Holmes attacked Plato. Emerson’s parried with the quote above, meaning that if you strike at the philosopher king you must be thorough.
Niccolò Machiavelli, in his book “The Prince”, didn’t specifically mention the need to “kill the king” however, he did say, “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared,” and he also added “People should either be caressed or crushed. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”
Source: The Prince, Machiavelli. Emerson, Althouse Blog, 2019. Graphic: Emerson by Hawes, 1857, Public Domain.
The Beatle’s most innovative album originally titled The Beatles was released 55 years ago, plus a few months, in November of 1968. It was the group’s only double album containing 30 new tracks, mostly written between February and April of 1968. The album cover was released in pure white with the simple and only words The Beatles stamped on the front, causing it to be known forever more as the White Album.
The album followed Sgt Pepper, and Ringo remarks that recording the White Album calmed the seas, “Sgt Pepper did its thing, it was the album of the decade – of the century maybe. It was very innovative. Great songs, glad I was on it. But the White Album…We ended up being more of a band again and that’s what I always love, I love being in a band.”
The album went number 1 on the UK charts for eight weeks and stayed in the charts for 22 weeks. In the US it ran at number 1 for 9 weeks and stayed in the charts for an astounding 65 weeks. The 2018 50th anniversary album reissue entered the Billboard 200 at number 6. None of the 30 tracks from the original album were issued in single format. The songs covered a broad range of genres including rock, pop, folk, country rock, blues, Ska, proto-metal, and avant-garde.
Source: Apple Corp, thebeatles.com. Genius.com. Graphic: Cover of the White Album, by Beat 768, 2010, Public Domain.
During the first and second centuries AD there were 3 major Jewish revolts against Roman rule in Judea: The first war from 66-73 AD, the Kitos War from 115-117 AD, and the Bar Kokhba Revolt from 132-135 AD. Roman taxation, financial exploitation, religious persecution, oppression, extrajudicial executions, and the plundering of the Second Jewish Temple all contributed to the conflicts.
Roman punishment increased with each successive war eventually leading to wholesale depopulation of Jewish communities by enslavement, death, and exile. It is believed that upwards of 1.3-1.4 million Jews were killed during these revolts, which would have been about one-third of the total worldwide Jewish population. After the Bar Kokhba Revolt the Romans renamed the area Palestina after the Philistines who populated the general area before the 6th century BC.
Source: Josephus. Wikipedia, Heritage-History, WorldHistory, Alchetron, Britannica. Graphic: Roman Triumphal panel from Beth Hatefutsoth showing spoils from the Jewish Temple. Max Morris 2016.
Willie Sutton, bank robber and writer, supposedly quipped when Mitch Ohnstad, a reporter asked him why he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is”.
In Sutton’s autobiography, he denied saying that he robbed banks because that’s where the money was, but he did say that he enjoyed robbing banks. It is estimated that he stole upwards to two million dollars from more than 100 banks over four decades starting in the 1920s.
His quaint response that he didn’t utter, has evolved into a rule of thumb for medical students now known as Sutton’s Law. It’s an instruction for medical students, and practitioners to accept the most likely diagnosis rather than spending inordinate amounts of time and money exploring all possible answers.
In accounting, a variant to Sutton’s Law is used to find savings in a budget, stating that the biggest savings will be found where the greatest costs occur.
Along a similar path of logic Occam’s Razor, attributed to the 14th century Englishman, William Ockham, states that when confronted with competing hypotheses to any given set of data one should select the least complicated proposition or as it is usually stated “The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”
Adding it all up leads one to the KISS Principle: Keep It Simple Stupid, first formulated by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at Lockheed’s Skunk Works.
Source: Sutton, Where the Money Was: Memoirs of a Bank Robber, 1976. Kaplan et al, Harvard BS, 1998, MSN, Wikipedia. Graphic: Sutton, DOJ, public domain.
Civil War:
Theaters: 12 April 2024
Streaming: 24 May 2024
Runtime: 109 minutes
Genre: Action – Drama – Suspense – Thriller – War
Els: 6.0/10
IMDB: 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 81/100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience: 71/100
Metacritic Metascore: 75/100
Metacritic User Score: 6.3/10
Directed: Alex Garland
Screenplay: Alex Garland
Music: Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow
Cast: Kristin Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny
Film Locations: Georgia, Philadelphia, England
Budget: $50 Million
Worldwide Box Office: $112.8 Million
During the end game of a future U.S. civil war, four Reuters’ journalists embark on a road odyssey from New York City to Washington D.C., through war-torn countryside and active battles, all in an attempt to interview the President of the U.S.
Civil War is not the movie you were expecting to see. This is a movie about the four journalists’ reaction to the war. It’s a movie about their fears, cowardice, and courage. In the end it is all about them. It is not a movie about what, why, and how the war came about; the war is just background except at the very end were the audience learns that the President is a gutless swine.
Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Graphic: Civil War movie poster, A24, DNA Films.
Get Back was released as a single 55 years ago in April of 1969 and as the final track on the album Let It Be in May of the following year. The song was recorded by The Beatles and Billy Preston at the band’s London Apple Studios.
Preston’s relationship with The Beatles goes back to 1962 when George Harrison met him while he was touring with Little Richard, and they became friends. George Harrison, after catching Presten at a Ray Charles show in London, invited him to play the electric piano for the recording of Get Back.
Preston, while in the studio, is credited with reducing the tension that was tearing the group apart, allowing them to finish what was to be the final Beatles’ album. His presence in the studio was so appreciated that he was given credit for the song, the first and last time The Beatles ever shared that honor.
Get Back, reached number one in the UK, the U.S., and a least 7 other countries. The song was the first single released in true stereo by the Beatles in the U.S.
Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it couldn’t last
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona
For some California grass
Source: The Beatles. Graphic: Sleave for UK Reissue of Get Back, Apple Corps, 1982.
Phaedo is the fourth and final Socratic dialogue by Plato (the others being Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito) discussing the day Socrates was put to death by the Athenian state. Phaedo, who was with Socrates on the day of his death, is in the Greek city of Phlius at a later time and is asked by his friend Echecrates to tell him all about that eventful day.
The dialogue begins with Socrates proposing that a philosopher should look forward to death, but it is immoral for one to take his own life. He posits that the soul is immortal and one’s life should be geared to keeping one’s soul pure. He then provides three, or four depending on interpretations, arguments for the immortality of the soul. First, he puts forth the cyclical argument that death follows life which is followed by death and so on. Second, he proposes that we are born knowing what our souls knew before birth, we just can’t remember it until the proper questions are raised. Finally, Socrates puts forth the Affinity argument which states that the body is mortal and visible, and the soul is immortal and invisible.
After these arguments Socrates introduces Forms, actually a Platonic idea, the fourth argument according to some, sometimes known as the two-world theory where reality is set against what our senses tell us. Our senses give us a visible but imperfect perception of the world as opposed to Forms which are only conceived in one’s mind and are invisible and unchanging.
At the end of the dialog Socrates tells his audience the myth of Er, a discussion of where to soul goes upon death. He then says his goodbyes, drinks hemlock, and slowly dies.
The Phaedo is more a compilation of Plato’s beliefs than a thorough discussion of Socratic philosophy, especially the discussions of Forms.
Source: Ancient Greek Philosophers, translated by Benjamin Jowett, published 2018. Phaedo by Tim Connolly, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Graphic: Copy of a Bust of Plato, original by Silanion. Photo of bust by Nguyen, 2009.
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