I've been reading Mary Beards, SPQR-AHistory of Rome and it is fantastic. Imagine that you are public intellectual and on TV a reporter asks a little girl "Who do you want to be when you grow up?" and the girl just beams and smiles and says, "Mary Beard." Not Duchess Kate? Somewhere, a unicorn may have died, but I think the English Women's Rugby Team will continue to put the Men's Team to shame.
I was having a bit of writer's block and came upon a piece on Premier Guitar. Their Chief Content Officer, whatever the hell that is that's different from Managing Editor, Shawn Hammond had a great piece about shoulder devils and guardian angels and what to do when you are hearing a constant refrain of "You suck..."in your head. He recommends watching "The Young Ones" which might work for most people...especially if somehow you missed Rick and Vivian and Alexi and the Boys raising hell on BBC or PBS.
Anyway, I went through a couple of re-writes -- I never re-write; Crispin gave me a C- on a post just to get me to proof-read and edit, and produced this - part review of Beard's really good book; part discussion of her most key point, at least for me -- Rome provides a context and a model for us, but don't look there for solutions. We're on our own here, and trying to do a double envelopment like Hannibal at Cannae won't help with DAESH.
