links for 2010-11-01

  • In the early 1400s, Chinese explorer Zheng He led a multi-year expedition of 300 ships all the way to east Africa, carrying nearly 28,000 men. His enormous ships dwarfed those that Christopher Columbus would sail westward later in the century. By the time Zheng's expeditions were completed, the Genoan explorer was not yet born.
    (tags: history china)
  • I was wondering where Amish people live. Turns out that they live in these places. I didn't think that we had any populations of note in Virginia, but I was wrong.
    (tags: religion map)
  • All three waves of the Black Plague appear to have spread from China, moving west via the Silk Road. It was never quite clear where the disease got it start, but this seems like some pretty solid evidence.
  • At a State of the Union, a president lauding a hero he's invited to sit in the audience is the political equivalent of a late-night TV show having a band that plays a quick riff when a joke flops. It's a cheap trick that's all too common. That trend began with Lenny Skutnik, who saved the life of a victim of the plane crash into the Potomac in 1982. Reagan invited him to the SOTU that year. Many SOTUs since have featured a Skutnik, though almost all have been under Reagan and Bush 43.
  • This vaudeville-style banjo-and-bass duo is a lot of fun—clever, original, smart, and as unabashedly bawdy as a lot of the music of this style was originally.
    (tags: music)
  • A preacher regularly shows up on Minnesota campuses to preach vile messages of hate. (Any public college student has witnessed this at their school, no doubt.) As his right to free expression allows him to do. One group of Minnesota State University has responded in kind: they visited his church during his Sunday service, carrying protest signs. The preacher is upset—he thinks it was rude. *Now* he's getting it.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

6 replies on “links for 2010-11-01”

  1. re: Zheng He – It makes one wonder how different history may have been had China not gotten to isolationist. And to imagine the sight and awe of a nearly 30,000 man fleet arriving on your shores in 1403

  2. Zheng He- just goes to show you don’t really need those testicles in order to do great things. He was a eunuch. His voyages were also over regular trade routes. He mostly stayed fairly close to shore and wasn’t the adventurer of the likes of Magellan, Columbus, etc. But those ships sure were big. There was an article in Nat Geo about him a few years ago.

  3. I read a couple good books this summer about Zheng He…
    “1421” and “1433.” Both highly recommended.

  4. If you like the Two Man Gentleman Band, you might also enjoy the Asylum Street Spankers, coming to the Southern Nov 11.

    As a matter of fact I do enjoy them. :) I haven’t gotten around to buying any albums, but I did see them at Starr Hill back in ~2003, and thought they were really good.

    Look at Robert and I.Publius, already hip to Zheng He. And I’d never even heard of the guy! Jason, I share your wonder about how different the world would be if China hadn’t turned inward. If they’d been expansionist, they surely could have conquered east Africa, taken Australia in a walk, and colonized North America. Maybe Europeans would have been the railroad-building labor for the Chinese. :)

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