Oh little heart
What mountains will you climb?
What vistas will you take in?
What heights will you tumble down from?
What snakes will you uncover?
What rock will hold firm, and
What sand will crumble below?
What blades will you cross?
What wings will shelter you?
What misty frontiers will you push?
What great and terrible things,
What horrors inside and out
Will spur you and haunt you?
But earn your scars and stories and tears
And come home safely
Wherever that is.
Immortals, 300-style vs Persian Wars-style
Speed draw of the thureophoroi, medium close-combat infantry of the Hellenistic world.
Speed draw of the super heavy cavalry of the ancient world, the mighty cataphracts.
Speed draw of the evolution of the Japanese Bushi (Samurai), 8th to 16th centuries.
I’ve wanted to throttle a stranger twice in the past year, both in the same week of a renewed viral surge: when a man wearing his mask sub-nose started coughing on the bus, and when a man on the train walked by and grabbed my arm — he was either addled out of his head or he’d mistaken me for a train pole.
Both cases awoke a sudden disgust reaction: wear your mask properly you GODDAMN BARBARIAN, and OMYGOD where have your filthy monkey paws been before this?? Not particularly forbearing or loving.
Continue reading “love in a time of corona”A vaguely rhyming A to Z of warriors from all over the world, from the Bronze Age to today.
William Wallace is one of the great names of Scottish history, quite possibly the country’s George Washington (though unlike Washington he didn’t survive his War of Independence to rule the new country — that would fall to Robert the Bruce). Like Washington, Wallace’s ghost has been periodically called up to support this or that cause. This essay will briefly explore how Wallace’s legacy has been handled and manipulated in the centuries after his death. Continue reading “on William Wallace’s ghost”
The evolution of Roman and Byzantine infantry, from the dawn of Rome to the fall of Constantinople and beyond.
We’re at a delicate moment right now.
Now that the spectre of human extinction has passed – though there may yet be dark days ahead for many countries – we’re approaching the recovery phase, and most sensationally, the planning-who-to-tar-and-feather-for-this-whole-fiasco phase.
Two things we should think about looking ahead:
Disinformation is here to stay. Given that world leaders and state apparatuses at large have been guilty of this for the past five years or so, it’s not surprising at all that the sword of untruth has been wielded these past few months to silence dissent and rally wavering political foundations.
One thing though is now different. Continue reading “on truth and blame”
Remember, My Lord 