History

Mexico’s Bicentennial celebration starts the night of September 15, 2010 — 200 years of independence party SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico- I was looking at a package of rather large fake mustaches displayed on a rack full of paraphernalia for Mexico’s bicentennial celebration, which is set to begin tomorrow night. I understood why Mexicans [...]

SOSUA, Dominican Republic- The beating of a legion of drummers woke me up from a sound slumber, and I stumbled out the door to see who or what invading army was marching into town on the morning of February 27 in the Dominican Republic.

I found school children. Thousands of them.

There was a meeting in Evian-les-Bains in 1938 where 38 heads of state gathered to address the “Jewish issue.” Germany made it clear that they were expelling the race from their realms in Europe, and the call was offered up: “What country will take the Jews?” The British capped emigration to Palestine at 75,000 over [...]

As I travel through the western reaches of the United States of America I become suspicious of a pattern that I see all around me: the romance and idealism of what was. The over-glorification of the past: a smiling glimmer tossed backwards that would not be so peachy if the temporal mediums were to meet. [...]

I enjoy the stories that often get attributed to the naming of things. There are many things that have a nomenclature that was obviously influenced from a story, a legend, a cultural pattern, or history. I like all of the gun and shooting references in modern English: “On target,” “Taking aim,” Trigger happy,” “Cocked and [...]

Jerome, Arizona Wicked City Amidst Good Hospitality — The mining town of Jerome very nearly became the state capital of Arizona. And then it fell off of a mountain. Well, half the town did anyway. The rubble was then made into a parking lot, still in use today. But having half the town fall off [...]

Jerome Arizona Copper Mines — It was a flash of an orangish metallic vein in a rock outcrop near Cleopatra Hill that transformed a mountain top into a wide open, gaping, billion dollar hole in the earth. As the old story goes: a 19th century white guy just happens to notice an Indian trail one [...]

Antiquities Act of 1906 – A haphazard explanation The Antiquities Act of 1906 was enacted by the US congress in reaction to profiteering easterners traveling out west and looting archaeology sites. The government of the USA did not take too kindly to its prehistoric spoils being removed from context and brought to such dubious institutions [...]

Hi Jolly and the US Camel Corps — In the mid 1850’s a group of Manifest Destinyists got the great idea to fight back the Indjins of the Western USA with a Calvary of camels. Jefferson Davis approved the plan and the trading route he sought to establish — “across the Great Desert”– from Texas [...]