Who Knew Draco Was So Draconian

Etymology is something I've always found highly interesting--or pretty dang interesting, if you will. Do you ever stop and wonder where some of these words we use come from? That's etymology.

In reading Beacon Lights of History, Vol. 3, by John Lord, I came across the etymology of the word "draconian." Of course, the definition of the word is "rigorous; unusually severe or cruel."

Well, turns out that in ancient Greece there was a fellow named . . . drum roll . . . Draco. And Draco was appointed to compile an unstructured collection of court rulings into a coherent set of laws. Draco did as he was asked but, as Lord explains:

Draco's laws were extraordinarily severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death.

Wow--punish laziness with death! It kind of makes you wonder how many Athenian teenagers managed to live to adulthood!

Lord adds that:

The formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected.

It was not until Solon several decades later, that an acceptable code of laws was assembled.

So there you go: draconian.

Even the Indians Had Church/State Conflicts

OK, fourth and final remarks on Canyons of the Colorado, John Wesley Powell's account of his boat trip down the river in 1869, since renamed The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons.

We all know that separation of church and state is an important element in our system of government, and the degree of separation in some countries varies from 0% to nearly 100%. Do you have the idea that this sort of conflict is something born of advanced societies? Guess again. Take a look at what Powell had to say about the tribal politics of the Zuni peoples he encountered.

In addition to the secular government there is always a cult government. In every tribe there are Shamans . . . In many tribes, perhaps in all, the people are organized into Shamanistic societies: but that these societies are invariably recognized is not certain. The Shamans are always found.

The purpose of the Shamanistic institutions is to control the conduct of the members of the tribe in relation to mythic personages, the mysterious beings in which the savage men believe . . . It is deemed of prime importance that such deities should be induced to act in the interest of men. Thus it is that Shamanistic government is held to be of as great importance as tribal government, and the Shamans are the peers of the chiefs . . . but always there is a conflict of authority, and there is a perpetual war between Shamanistic and civil government.

Politics and religion. Apparently you can't live with them and you can't live without them!

Random Interesting Tidbits from WWII France

I just finished reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, by William Shirer, about how the government and military of France came to be so weak and divided that Nazi Germany could sweep in and conquer the nation in just one month. This is a book that is hard to put down but it is also hard to keep reading at times because it is downright painful to witness the short-sightedness and timidity that led to bloody catastrophe.

I'm not going to get into that; you can read the book yourself. It's worth reading.

What I want to make note of are just a few of the surprising bits of information I ran across in the book.

For example, when France was on the verge of collapse they continued to have one of the strongest navy fleets in the world. Great Britain was extremely worried about those ships falling into German hands. The French were guaranteeing the British that they would never allow that to happen, but considering all the other failed guarantees France had given in so many other situations, it is not surprising that the British were a bit doubtful.

Winston Churchill was not timid. He gave the order for the seizure of all French vessels possible and sinking of the rest if that were the only recourse. Most were seized with little bloodshed but at Mers-el-Kebir, in French Algeria, the two navies fought a lop-sided battle that resulted in the sinking or destruction of all but one of the French ships in the port. The French soon capitulated to Germany and the Petain dictatorship made common cause with Hitler.

That led to another of the points I want to note. With the French government at Vichy now on the side of the Axis powers, the Nazis were able to walk into the French African possessions. This of course was the setting for the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall flick "Casablanca." When the time came for the British and American troops to invade North Africa, the French fought them. Approximately 1,500 French and a like number of Americans killed each other in that initial battle. Sort of like if the Kuwaiti military had fought the U.S. military when the Americans came in to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Lastly, I remembered from childhood that Charles De Gaulle was the leader of France at that time. During the period the book covers he was a colonel and then a general, and he did not capitulate, but rather went on to lead the French resistance (I'm not clear on details here, haven't read about that yet). I guess I just assumed that he became president after the war and that he headed the Fourth French Republic.

Well, not exactly. First off, De Gaulle did not immediately become the French head of state. He eventually did become the last Premier of the Fourth Republic and then he became the first President of the Fifth Republic. Apparently they rewrote their constitution again at that point. I'm only assuming that the government of France today is still the Fifth Republic.

So those are the particular things that struck me. Of course the whole book really struck me. Everything is so clear in hindsight but there are always at least a few people who see it clearly in foresight. If only it weren't so difficult to figure out who those people are and who they are not.

The Euro to Be a Failed Currency?

Now I find this extremely dang interesting. According to a column in the April 21, 2008, issue of Forbes magazine, there is some possibility that the whole common currency thing in Europe is failing. That is to say, the Euro will fail and the countries over there will revert to their old currencies, i.e., the franc, the deutsche mark, the lira, etc. Who knew?

The writer, Avi Tiomkin, is described as a "macroeconomic adviser to hedge funds." The gist of his argument is that different countries want and need different things economically, and it is these tensions that will ultimately lead some countries to abandon the euro and return to what they used before. He begins the column stating that

It is only a matter of time, probably less than three years, until the euro experiment meets its end.

He also states that

Along with the steep selloff that will precede the disintegration of the high-flying euro, other markets will be shaken.

He then goes on to recommend that investors should

Gradually start to hoard dollars and short the euro. Another strategy is to sell investments in Italy and Spain and buy German fixed-income assets.

I don't know about you but this is the first I've heard of this. Not that I'm some big investor to take measures to prepare, but I never dreamed something like a currency in use in such a large area even could fail. You live and learn, I guess. I know I'll be watching with interest in the next three years.

Our Twisted Farm Policy: Tobacco Farmers Thrive After Subsidies Cut

If this doesn't demonstrate that our farm subsidy program is doing more harm than good I don't know what does. The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 18, 2007, ran a front page article about how tobacco farmers are absolutely thriving since subsidies for the crop were ended three years ago.

How is that? Apparently what has happened is that farmers who never grew tobacco now find that they can be competitive, now that the other guys don't have us giving them loads of cash. Here's part of the article:

Since 2005, U.S. tobacco acreage has risen 20%. Fields are now filled with it in places like southern Illinois, which hasn't grown any substantial amounts since the end of World War I.

The fellow they use to illustrate the article, Martin Barbre, says he is making $1,800 per acre on tobacco, while he can only make $250 per acre on corn. That's in spite of corn hitting all-time highs due to the demand for use in ethanol.

So tell me again, why are we subsidizing other farmers to grow other things? Is that money all being wasted? Would our farmers be more profitable if we stopped throwing tax dollars at them?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I'm not sure I even know what factors you'd need to consider to find the answers. But I think it is an absolute truth that these questions need to be asked and answered before Congress again votes a single dollar more for farm subsidies.