It’s that time again: Election USA. As we enter the new election cycle, we can look forward to the customary effusions of democratic rhetoric. The socialists known as Democrats, while deploring the American past, will tell us, in language hallowed by the Clintons and Obamas, that we have moved beyond patriarchy, superstition, and the irrational preference for personal liberty—the prejudices of the poor savages who cling to their guns and religion.
Pisa helped the maritime cities in Southern Italy to resist Saracen attacks. As early as 828 Pisan vessels were raiding North Africa and in 871 they defended Salerno Her ships fought them in Calabria in the 10th century and drove the infidels out of Reggio in Calabria.
The death of Simpson brought it all back for a moment, and I recall how uncomfortable felt when I gave people my “take” on the murders. Now it is your turn.
One day last week I stopped to buy some spring onions, now in season, from a farmer selling them by the roadside. They have sizeable bulbs, which is the part the Italians eat, discarding the tops. It’s a common sight here.
If the most popular legend of its founding had any validity, Pisa would have been originally a Greek colony, founded by people from Elis in the Peloponnesus, who named it after their own Pisa, the nearest town to the site of the Olympic Games.
A new movie I might see is “Civil War.” Texas, Florida and California supposedly secede together and fight the rest of the ex-USA. Most people are thinking, No way nutty California would join with sensible Florida and Texas. But that’s just the moviemakers gaining free publicity.
A slightly revised version. To avoid any misunderstanding, the speaker is the eternal spirit of Simon Magus.
This Monday a great solar eclipse will cross the United States. It is the second such omen in the last decade, which is itself an omen, as one total eclipse so closely followed by another has not been seen in the country since its founding. Hence commentators are quoting the Book of Exodus: “And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.”
In Pisa every year on the last Saturday in June, two groups of representatives from the different areas of the city meet at either end of the Ponte di Mezzo. The representatives are dressed in Medieval garb and divided into two teams, one for the north side of the river, the other for the south.
