In 1993, 103 years after the passing of the Sherman Act, the US Supreme Court stated that the Act’s purpose: … is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even… Continue reading #OTD 30 November – The good oil
Category: The Calendar
#OTD 29 November – Stop the presses
In November 1999 the New York Times ran a piece by a well-known London journalist and historian headed “Walking Wapping’s Streets”: … Wapping, one of the oldest stretches of Thames-side harbor, is a secret place still only hazily located in Londoners’ minds. It is often confused with the Isle of Dogs dockland redevelopment (Canary Wharf… Continue reading #OTD 29 November – Stop the presses
#OTD 28 November – Irish politics
One hesitates to make generalisations about any nation’s political parties and Ireland provides more cause for hesitation than most. Like most countries, there are parties with identifiable although often fluid leftishnesses and rightishnesses. But this all comes with a complex backdrop. There is of course the initial difficulty of “what is Ireland?” Then – or… Continue reading #OTD 28 November – Irish politics
#OTD 27 November – The count is on
A census, or official enumeration of people, is as old as officialdom for the good reason that it is a precursor for officials raising taxes on people or their property. According to Luke, a taking of a census was the reason Joseph and Mary found themselves in Bethlehem. Although they lived in Nazareth, Joseph belonged… Continue reading #OTD 27 November – The count is on
#OTD 25 November – Blood and water
In our democratic world, wealth is corporate and anonymous and political power fleeting. Our historians, whatever their own hue, reflect that reality and deprecate earlier historians who dwelt too long in the minutiae of the births, deaths and marriages of monarchs. This is good, I suppose, but it is well to remember that these births,… Continue reading #OTD 25 November – Blood and water
#OTD 24 November – Brave new world
Voltaire wrote much about man and nature. A short letter to a friend on 24 November 1755 in the wake of the Lisbon earthquake picks up some perennial themes: This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful disasters…… Continue reading #OTD 24 November – Brave new world
#OTD 23 November – The world’s but an act
The phrase “according to tradition” confesses and avoids falsehood to justify a truth. It is apt for 23 November 534 BC, the day Thespis became the first “actor”. It is also apt that most online sources justify the assertion along the lines “according to Aristotle in his Poetics“. Aristotle says no such thing in that… Continue reading #OTD 23 November – The world’s but an act
#OTD 22 November – Where were you the day…
“Where were you the day…” Over the decades, there has been the landing on the moon – an interesting choice of “landing” – and the death of Princess Diana, the visually overwhelming 9/11 and the coronation of King Charles III. Many outside – and no few inside – the Anglosphere point to many others. 22… Continue reading #OTD 22 November – Where were you the day…
#OTD 21 November – Jewishness and the US
The idea that there is a “Judeo-Christian” moral tradition is a recent one. George Orwell used it in the 1940s and in 1952 President-elect Eisenhower famously stated: Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is. With us of course… Continue reading #OTD 21 November – Jewishness and the US
#OTD 20 November – The beast on sea and land
On 20 November 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the south Pacific. The Essex was 87′ 7″ while one report put the whale at 85′. First mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson each wrote accounts, the first an inspiration for Moby-Dick. Chase and Nickerson… Continue reading #OTD 20 November – The beast on sea and land