Port from Douro, Portugal
Purchase Price: $109.99
Robert Parker 98-100, James Suckling 99, Wine Spectator 97, Wine Enthusiast 97, Wine & Spirits 96, ElsBob 98
ABV 20%
A very complex purple late-bottled vintage port with aromas of black fruits, earth, and chocolate. A full body wine with a medium sweetness perfect for dessert cakes, chocolates, or mild cheeses.
A classic port that will keep for decades. It probably would have been best if I had waited until 2027-2035 before opening…oh well.
Slash’s 2nd solo studio album, Orgy of the Damned, a rockin’ blues compilation released in May of 2024, is his best effort since GNR’s 1987 release ‘Appetite for Destruction’.
Following closely in the concept album footsteps of Carlos Santana’s ‘Supernatural and Shaman’, the album contains 11 standards and covers written by a who’s who list of American bluesmen including Robert Johnson (‘Crossroads’), Aaron Walker (‘Stormy Monday’), and Chester Burnett (‘Killing Floor’) plus a new instrumental, ‘Metal Chestnut’ written by Slash.
Slash assembled some of rock’s great guitarists and vocalists to accompany him on the album including Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Brian Johnson (AC/DC), Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), Chris Robinson (Black Crowes), and blues vocalist Beth Hart.
Slash, with little memorable musical output since GNR, may have finally found his solo groove sans Axl.
Source: ALLMUSIC.com Graphic: Slash: ‘Orgy of the Damned’ albumcover, 2024, copyright: Gibson.
Henry Hazlitt in 1946 published one of the greatest books on economics ever written: ‘Economics in One Lesson’. It’s concise, lucid, factual, and in respect to deductive reasoning on par with Fredrich Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’ and Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’.
Hazlitt, like Hayek, was a student of the Austrian school of economics which advocated for minimal government intervention, was against central planning, and believed in gold-standard like currencies.
Hazlitt sums up his short book in one sentence, ‘The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.’ What’s good for the gander is likely not good for the goose.
He expands this thought by showing that economics is about tradeoffs and choices or to simplify it further, when it comes to government spending there is no free lunch. Spending money on guns means less money spent on butter. When President Johnson, in the 1960s after the book was written, tried to spend money on both guns and butter we received inflation. When our current politicians spent unlimited amounts of money on everything imaginable, we received inflation.
History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Source: Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, 1946. Graphic: Economics in One Lesson, Hardcover, 2008 Edition, public domain.
In 2007 The New Republic published three articles by an American Army private, Scott Thomas Beauchamp serving in Iraq titled “Shock Troops”, detailing misdeeds and possible war crimes occurring in and near his forward operating base, Falcon, in Bagdad. The articles were, in part, fact checked by The New Republic Fact-Checker Elspeth Reeve who was also Private Beauchamp’s wife.
Beauchamp claimed that army personnel found mass graves that contained children, and targeted wild dogs for fun, and Beauchamp horribly insulted a woman disfigured by an IED.
The US Army and other news outlets could find no collaboration or substantiation for the events described by Beauchamp. In late 2007 The New Republic stated that they could no longer stand by Beauchamp’s stories.
Reeve is currently a correspondent for CNN. There is no information on the current activities or whereabouts of Beauchamp.
Source: Fog of War, The New Republic. Alchetron, 2024. Graphic: Beauchamp by Alchetron, copyright unknown.
Five thousand years ago, Sumerians and Akkadians, occupying what is now southern and central Iraq, respectively, believed souls or spirits after death occupied a subterranean world called Kur or Irkalla.
All those who entered this underworld could not leave but it was not hell or heaven but more of a place to exist after death; as a ghost of your past.
There is no record that Mesopotamians in 3000 BC believed in reincarnation, resurrection, or any form or transmigration of the soul.
With many exceptions, the spirit or ghost that existed in the netherworld maintained the social status that they had when alive. Thus, kings were still kings, slaves were still slaves.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, he and his friend Enkidu ventured into this underworld to retrieve their lost magical objects and to seek immortality. They did not find the magical objects, but they did find the Plant of Immortality but promptly lost it to a serpent, learning one of the earliest lessons for humanity: never entrust your life to a snake.
Source: Epic of Gilgamesh. Mesopotamian Beliefs by Chaksi, 2014, World History. The Afterlife by Enlightenment Journey. Graphic: Ziggurat of Ur, 21st century BC, dedicated to the Moon god Nanna.
220 years ago on 11 July 1804 Aaron Burr, Vice President of the US challenged and mortally wounded, in a duel, the US Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Burr claimed that Hamilton smeared his name by stating that he was a dangerous man and should not be in control of a government. Burr demanded a public apology. Hamilton refused to acknowledge, much less apologize to Burr for the alleged smear, triggering Burr to challenge Hamilton to a duel.
The duel occurred near Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson from Manhattan, and both men fired one round. Hamilton was hit in his side near the hip and died the next day from the wound.
Dueling at the time was illegal but Burr escaped without any charges being brought, although his political career lay in tatters.
Source: The Hamilton-Burr Duel by Josh Wood, Origins, 2019. Graphic: Hamilton-Burr Duel after a painting by J. Mund, public domain.220
Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina.
Purchase Price: $10.99
James Suckling 91, Robert Parker 90, ElsBob 92.
ABV 13.5%
A medium purple, aromas of black fruit and cherries, medium to full bodied, more smooth than tannic, dry, with a medium acidity. A versatile wine that will pair well with beef, chicken, pasta, and cheese.
An excellent wine at a very affordable price.
Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis album was released 50 years ago on 8 July 1974 by RCA Victor. The recording was captured at a Mid-South Coliseum concert in Memphis, Tennessee 14 weeks earlier on the 20th of March.
The Memphis ‘concert’ included two shows each on the 16th and 17th with the actual recording occurring during the fifth show on the 20th. The five sold-out shows were estimated to have sold more than 60,000 tickets with some seating going for as much as $10.
In addition to the Memphis shows a ‘rehearsal’ concert was held in Richmond, Virgina on 18th of March in which the album Forty-Eight Hours to Memphis was recorded. The set lists for the Richmond and Memphis recordings were nearly identical.
Although the concert and subsequent album release were not in the same league as Elvis’ 68 Comeback Special, the Memphis album contained a truer representation of his career and his genre crossing-over appeal.
The album was certified gold, reaching number 2 on Billboard’s Country chart, number 40 on Billboard 200 and garnered another Grammy for Elvis for his rendition of the gospel song “How Great Thou Art”.
The original 1974 album left out the concert songs “Suspicious Minds” and “Polk Salad Annie” but were re-inserted back into the FTD Records 2004 re-issue of Live on Stage in Memphis. Sony’s 2014 40-year re-issue of the album includes the FTD Records 2004 re-issue on disc one plus also including the ‘rehearsal’ concert preformed at the Richmond (Viginia) Coliseum two days before the Memphis concert.
Source: Sony Legacy Release by Troy Yeary, The Mystery Train Blog and Elvis Australia. Graphic: Elvis at the Richmond Coliseum, 18 March 1974, Copyright FTD Records.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt was painted by the Venetian Renaissance master Tiziano Vecellio, better known as Titian, while he was in his late teens or possibly 20 years old in the year 1508. The painting was inspired by Joseph’s dream, recounted in Matthew 2:13-23, telling him and his young family to flee Herod and Judea.
The painting has changed hands repeatedly over the centuries being possessed by Dukes, Archdukes, Marquess, thieves, and other rich and powerful people. Below is a compilation of known owners of the painting through the years:
Source: Christie’s June 2024. Artnet.com. The Art Newspaper. Graphic: Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Titian, 1508, Public Domain.
Ruth Shalit Barrett, American writer and journalist, resigned from The New Republic in 1999 for alleged instances of plagiarism and inaccurate reporting for stories written in 1994 and 1995. The Atlantic in 2020 retracted a freelance story by her for inventing sources and having lied to the editors and fact-checkers about details in her reporting.
In 2022 Shalit Barrett sued the Atlantic for $1 million claiming that the magazine “smeared” her reputation. The Atlantic says her lawsuit is without merit. The lawsuit is unresolved as of mid-2024.
Source: The Atlantic Issues Scathing Correction by Blake Montgomery, Daily Beast, 2020. Barrett Sues the Atlantic by Howie and Gerstein, Political, 2022. Graphic: Shalit Barrett, The Wrap, 2020.
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