Missive #144

5. NASRUDDIN, HIS SON, AND THE DONKEY

Nasruddin was going to town with his son. Nasruddin walked while his son rode their donkey.

Someone saw them and scoffed. “Lazy boy! Why must your father walk?”

So the son got off, and Nasruddin got on.

Farther down the road, someone else saw them and said, “Cruel father, making your son walk!”

So they both rode the donkey.

“Poor donkey, carrying two riders!” said the next person they met.

So then they both got off.

“Idiots!” laughed the next person. “At least one of you should ride the donkey!”

“Take note, my son,” Nasruddin said. “There’s no pleasing everyone.”

This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-2022 Laura Gibbs.

[T]his is chronologically first as it sets the stage for the subsequent volumes. The pageant of discovery Journeys to the New World with Columbus, Verrazano, Vespucci, DeSoto, Cabot, Champlain, and carries as ballast the personal dreams and natural aims which inspired all these and their fellow adventurers. Then continuing on into the 16th century, when discoverers replaced explorers flashing back to pre-history and the dawn-age hunter- ranging from the Inca civilization to the French in Canada, the book has a welcome expansiveness. A very good beginning for the Mainstream Of America Series. However, it is mostly about discovering much more of the world than just North America. It also covers a lot of the discovery of what we in the United States call America long before what is taught as ‘American’ history. I’ll be reading more of the series in the days to come. It probes skillfully the economical and political causes of conquest, particularly in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and England. It explores the development of primitive astrolabes and sextants; principles of Mercator projection and improved cartography; Hakluyt’s chronicles and the published accounts of returning explorers; the intellectual forces of every type that helped shape the course of empire. The pageant of discovery is brought down to its crudest motives. Senseless warfare with the natives stemmed out of senseless quests for El Dorado. Explorers turned into ghouls and slave traders, they burned a village because a silver cup was missing, they used the seductive manners of the court to connive to get the pearls off the neck of a princess. The narrative, rich with incident, detail and quotation from primary sources deliberately individualizes history and puts it on its most instructive level. Adult readers will relish what adolescents newly awakened to their heritage will cherish.& mdash; Kirkus Reviews

A shopping trip in Sierra Vista went well yesterday. There was the windshield replacement that was also on the agenda that didn’t go nearly as well. I had three possible suppliers identified. The first one I misremembered where it was so didn’t find it and went to the second one. I didn’t stop there because it looked like it would be a difficult place to get in and out of. Looked up the first shop on Google maps and went back to them. They couldn’t do the replacement in a morning appointment until 16 November and then wanted me to leave Desperado with them all day. Went to the third shop, Safelite, and made an appointment to have the windshield replaced here in the Park this Saturday.

I also picked up a package from the VA at my UPS Store while next door to Safeway. While at Safeway I asked if they could order a case of Kite Hill Almond Milk Yogurt. Maybe get an answer from them before going back next week. Last stop on the way home was at WalMart Vision where I asked them to do an adjustment to my reading glasses that would keep them from sliding down my nose all the time. We will see how that works out during the next few days.

Today we are continuing our discussion of de-dollarization. As many of you know we have structured our discussion around some ten questions, and last time we dealt with the first five… in this show we will discuss the next five questions which are, how did the sterling system end? What really happened between the world wars? something on which Michael has written an enormous amount and he knows a great deal. Trade Theory: No Room for Gunboats