Mahatma Gandhi’s “seven modern sins”:
- Wealth without work
- Pleasure without conscience
- Knowledge without character
- Commerce without morality
- Science without humanity
- Worship without sacrifice
- Politics without principle
History
No Laughing Matter
Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz served as an infantry squad leader during World War II.
Every year on June 6 he used the comic strip to memorialize his comrades who fell at Normandy.
“Wonderful Peculiarity in the English Character!”
“The French, however wretched may be their condition, are attached to life, while the English frequently detest life in the midst of affluence and splendour. English criminals are not dragged, but run to the place of execution, where they laugh, sing, cut jokes, insult the spectators; and if no hangman happens to be present, frequently hang themselves.”
— Memoirs of Lewis Holberg, quoted in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, July 28, 1827
Plus Permits
In today’s dollars, the Taj Mahal cost more than $500 million.
A Common Theme
Deaths of selected Burmese kings:
- Uzana (1254): Trampled to death by an elephant
- Minrekyawswa (1417): Crushed to death by an elephant
- Razadarit (1423): Died while lassoing elephants
- Tabinshweti (1551): Beheaded while searching for an elephant
Draw your own conclusions.
Good Point
A samurai once asked Zen master Hakuin where he would go after he died. Hakuin answered, “How am I supposed to know?”
“How do you know? You’re a Zen master!” exclaimed the samurai.
“Yes, but not a dead one,” Hakuin answered.
The Mary Celeste
Passengers and crew of the Mary Celeste, a 103-foot brigantine that left New York for Genoa on Nov. 7, 1872:
- Benjamin S. Briggs, 37, captain
- Sarah Elizabeth Briggs, 30, captain’s wife
- Sophia Matilda Briggs, 2, captain’s daughter
- Albert C. Richardson, 28, mate
- Andrew Gilling, 25, second mate
- Edward W. Head, 23, steward and cook
- Volkert Lorenson, 29, seaman
- Arian Martens, 35, seaman
- Boy Lorenson, 23, seaman
- Gotlieb Gondeschall, 23, seaman
A month after she sailed, the ship was found abandoned off the coast of Portugal. Her cargo was intact, and she carried a six-month supply of food and water. The sextant, chronometer and lifeboat were missing, suggesting that the ship had been deliberately abandoned.
No survivors were ever found. The mystery has never been solved.
Chartres Labyrinth
Medieval worshipers who followed the labyrinth in France’s Chartres Cathedral had a surprisingly long ordeal — the path to the center is 150 meters long. Penitents sometimes walked it on their knees.
The Chaocipher
Somewhere, J.F. Byrne is laughing at all of us.
A friend of James Joyce (he was the basis for Cranley in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Byrne announced in 1918 that he had devised a simple and unbreakable code system, called the “Chaocipher,” that would fit into a cigar box:
I had, and still have in mind, the universal use of my machine and method by husband, wife, or lover. My machine would be on hire, as typewriter machines now are, in hotels, steamships, and, maybe even on trains and airlines, available for anyone anywhere and at any time. And I believe, too, the time will come — and come soon — when my system will be used in the publication of pamphlets and books written in cipher which will be unreadable except by those who are specially initiated.
Unfortunately, no one was interested. The U.S. Signal Corps, the State Department, the Department of the Navy, AT&T — all turned him down.
Finally, Byrne published a lengthy coded message in his autobiography, offering $5,000 to anyone who could decipher it. A few years later, he quietly died, taking the secret with him.
The cipher has never been solved.
01/29/2014 UPDATE: In 2010 Byrne’s family donated his papers to the National Cryptological Museum, so the algorithm is now known. (Thanks, Peter.)
Great Serpent Mound
Created by Native Americans at least 1,000 years ago, Ohio’s Serpent Mound is a double mystery.
First, while there are several burial mounds nearby, the serpent itself doesn’t contain any human remains. It’s just a giant earthen snake, 1,330 feet long.
Second, the site on which it’s built shows faulted and folded bedrock, meaning that a huge cataclysm, a meteorite or a volcanic explosion, happened here in the ancient past.
Is that why the serpent was built there? We may never know.