Sententiae meae

This is my blog, Sententiae, which is simply Latin for "opinions". That is all this blog intends to be: my opinions on anything I feel like. This breaks the number one rule for creating a popular blog - having a sharp focus so readers know what to expect. But then, it's my blog. Its utility is to provide an outlet for me to say whatever I want, no matter how ill-considered, ignorant, or just plain silly. It is not intended to be autobiographical.

Yet there must be some idea of who I am as an author. It is not terribly impressive. I have no special knowledge of politics, nor of popular culture, nor of any of the hot topics in blogdom. The history of the human race is what I am most interested in, and knowledgable about. History is virtually a religion for me, and the labroratory for philosophy. In fact, history is empirical philosophy and provides me with my anthropology. We have no way to test how humans behave under stress except by a knowledge of history.

What happens to a city of human beings when an atom bomb is dropped on it? Or many nuclear bombs? No amount of ahistorical imagining will tell you. Nor will your knowledge be fleshed out by a close reading of the book of Revelations, nor of the Koran. Forget Heidegger and Nietzsche. But if you know the facts of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 Aug and 9 Aug 1945, you know that it would be a very bad thing.

Such certainty kept us from blowing up the world sometime in the early 50's, when I was a toddler. It also caused Khrushchev, a man who had survived both Stalin and Stalingrad, to back down over missiles in Cuba rather than risk having Soviet cities be the next chapter in our history book on Nuclear Destruction.

That's enough of an introduction to get started.