Modern Life and Rome

Roman neighborhood street and sidewalks

How modern ancient Rome was!

Or, perhaps, as Solomon reminds us, there is nothing new under the sun and we are just continuing what has been during the more prosperous times of history.

The following are some things modern life has in common with ancient Rome.

Romans enjoyed  hot and cold running water in  homes and if there was no plumbing in the house, one could find hot water at the public baths. 
Bathroom sinks and toilets were much like ours today. Sinks were on the wall and had hot and cold taps (faucets).

Bathrooms sported flush toilets and there were public toilets for travelers.

Fast food restaurants lined the streets. You could buy sweets,  fruit, bread, soup, stew all piping hot to eat there or take home with  you.
There were kosher inns and restaurants also. Rome was very cosmopolitan and had something for everyone.

Graffiti was popular with young folks who left their mark on public walls in the form of  criticism, compliments and barbs at famous people, favorite singers , actors and gladiators who had the popularity of modern sports heroes and rock stars.
Graffiti was also illegal then too.
Graffiti of the day was not much different than today though I think a bit more crude.

"We two dear men, friends forever, were here.  If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus."
"Antiochus hung out here with his girlfriend Cithera."
"Epaphra, you are bald!"
"The city block of the Arrii Pollii in the possession of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius is available to rent from July 1^st.  There are shops on the first floor, upper stories, high-class rooms and a house.  A person interested in renting this property should contact Primus, the slave of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius."

Can you translate the picture (graffiti) to the left?
I can... roughly it tells us that the boss(Dominus) isn't worth a rat's behind.
That saying is with  us today  "I dont give a rat's a--."
Some graffiti was pretty raw  just as it is today.




Jars and containers of the day had the names of the manufacturer and advertizements telling you the quality and characteristics of what was inside. Just like today.

Garum was a fermented fish sauce used on many foods as a condiment. There was kosher garum and non kosher garum and it's praises and character was listed on the jar.
One jar advertizes the contents as Castum (Kosher) Garum" made only from fish with fins and scales.
And Garum is still available today.

Villas were heated with underground furnaces that blew hot air into rooms through duct work.   They were called Hypocausts.

They built apartment houses and high rises (high for the day) just like we do today. People could rent or buy into condos and associations as well.

There were straight, flat highways built for heavy traffic and trade. They knew that a good well kept road system was one part of what made Rome strong.     Strong infrastructure was known to be a backbone of a strong nation.

Spectator sports were all the rage as were health club memberships and working out. They spent time at health resorts, retreats, spas and sea side vacation towns. Games and shows drew huge crowds.
Summer saw Romans heading to the seashore or the mountains for relaxation.
Children were sent to camp in the Alps and other mountain ranges.

Building and the arts were subsidized by the government to keep them going.
Stringent building codes were in place in Rome but ghetto high rises were poorly constructed and inspectors paid off to get a pass on code violations.

Urban development lead to problems of gridlock and  traffic congestion, noise pollution, rising rental fees, ghettos and urban blight, unemployment, racial tension, increase in crime and an ever increasing cost of living.

Unrest due to political challenges lead to riots, demonstrations and even fires during their 'long hot summers'.

Rome began to crumble under the twin burdens of inflation and increased taxation.As well as unbridled immigration.
As a trade deficit developed and jobs 'moved overseas' Romans found themselves increasingly hard pressed to make a  proper living.
Immigrants replaced Romans at an extremely high rate as well. Everyone wanted to take advantage of the Roman system.

The Empire imported far more than it was producing and the result was a crushing blow to the economy.
War became an industry as Rome insisted that Pax Romana could only be secured through perpetual war.

Just like today.

If Only We Heeded the Warnings

Sign of the times....

The End of the Age of Confidence

American life has changed far more drastically than most realize and Americans have taken on a mentality that is very UN-America since the arrival of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the third world. They have begun to change how America thinks. The rugged individualism, the desire for a certain national isolationism has all but disappeared...

Almanso Wilder

One of the greatest things about America was that it encouraged innovation and discovery. Freedom was the bright background against which anyone with an idea could have his say and put his plans into action. You only needed to be a 'go-getter' to make your way in society.

But over the past century that dream, that way has been slowly undermined and replaced by a welfare mentality that wants to be served, offered ways, given chances and a leg up rather than fight their way up to the top by ingenuity and rugged individualism.

Our society and culture moved forward by leaps and bounds and by the early days of the 1900's America was prosperous and moving ahead in invention and spirit. The individual was everything. Laisez faire was the idea of the moment.

Today ideas have filtered into the nation about how you are owed certain things and how you have a right to things once considered privileges. No one was about to give you a free ride in the old days but today it's almost expected. Then , if you were out of work that was your hard luck. If you were in need you had better scramble to get up off the ground. The sickly and elderly had their families and charity was for those who did not.In those days you could scramble, you could get ahead because individuals could set up their own way to make a living. Today, not so much and government has made both farming and business ownership a nightmare for many.

Families were not far flung and distanced in those bygone days . You married someone close to home and you stayed close to home (with the exception of the pioneers but even they brought large numbers of family westward with them ) so that children had lots of family ties around them. Today families are encouraged to move on and go far from their origins. It has not brought good things with it.

In the true story of the boyhood of Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband Almanzo, there is a vignette of his boyhood and it shows how the mindset in America has changed quite drastically.

In the small one room school house in Malone , New York where Almanzo lived, the older teen boys in the school were more than a handful and intimidated teachers. Many would and could not find a way to stay on. In fact, so aggressive were these boys that in the year previous to this story, they had injured the male teacher in charge of the school to the point that he later died of his injuries it was thought.

When a new teacher arrived all of the good children were scared and worried for him. Almanzo's father, Mr. Wilder was not. As he said, when a man takes a job he ought to be man enough to keep it, man enough to handle it and if not, that was his lookout. That, the suggestion went, was how a man was made. Men were to be rugged and able to take it on the chin without whining.

One day when the older boys came to school they were now itching to test the mettle of the new teacher and one boy advanced on him to provoke a serious fight. From under his desk the teacher brought forth a huge black snake whip and with a handle hard and thick enough to stun and ox. With it, he whipped those boys as they came at him even to the point of creating welts on them and finally, winding that whip around them, threw them out into the school yard . They were never a problem again. Mr. Wilders , though telling his son that a man had to fight his own battles had provided the black snake whip to the new teacher, but the teacher stood up for himself in making use of it.

Today that teacher would be in jail and the boys would be pitied as victims of cruelty even though they had been a source of serious trouble for the community for a long time. Much would be said about "where" their parents were in all this but the point is that in those times it was handled very differently on the edge of the frontier. And in the 1860's Malone, NY was the edge of the frontier up on the Canadian border.

Laura Ingall's Wilder presents this memory of her husband as matter of fact. Today there will be much clucking of tongues over it though. Yet, you can see how it shows how things have changed. Some for the better but much for the worst.

The senior Mr Wilder was adamant that being a farmer was the noblest career for any man since it afforded him self reliance and complete self respect if he was a good man. No one made his hours, no one commanded his steps and he could provide for and take care of his family on his own without government interference.This was a source of great pride to men in that day. Mr Wilder pitied businessmen who had to dance to customer's tunes. How different than for farmer's today who are indebted to the government, told what to grow and when at times and heavily in debt.

While I also see that the school board of Malone should have gotten serious about those bad boys and done something, the story points to the individualism that was part and parcel of America. No government was going to provide for you. If you went to the frontier the US Army had forts to protect you, but on the whole you were on your own. No one told you what kind of house to build. Today, licenses and permits are prohibitive in places. As I have mentioned on my personal blog my house is in dire need of repair but I cannot afford to make them because of permits and this and that.

Can you see how far we have come from those days? How much people have come to depend on a huge government to save and provide for them in so many circumstances?
This post is not about what the school board of that small town should have done or not done and it's not meant to open debate on whether the boys should have gone to jail for the previous problems/crimes. It is meant to show the vast difference in mind set that has taken place.

In those days men relied on themselves and the charity of neighbors and the love of G-d to aid them in their lives.Today it has all been moved over to reliance on the god of government I think.

Rose WilderAlmanzo's daughter said , "It took seven successive years of complete crop failure, with work, weather and sickness that wrecked his health permanently, and interest rates of 36 per cent on money borrowed to buy food, to dislodge us from that land." That was by the 1930's when things began to really change in America.

In his book The Age of Confidence, Life in the 90's (1890s) By Henry Seidel Canby, he states that in the 1930's the generation gap was almost completely closed with childish adults who wanted to hold onto childhood raising children.

How different also from the cry of the 1960's when teens bewailed a "generation gap" which in reality according to those of previous generations hardly existed anymore at all!

Valentines Bah, Humbug

I don't celebrate Valentine's Day though I would if I could. Like a shot.
It's pagan origin precludes it for me, however.

But in reading around the net today I noticed a theme from women and men on the custom
of giving a card and/or candy to someone you love or are thinking fondly of and found the reactions interesting. Here is one example.

The logic goes that since men hate the day it should not exist.
Men concur. Valentine's Day, like birthdays and anniversaries, Mother's Day and other holidays were simply a way for the card manufacturers to make a buck and besides you can tell someone you love them anytime , not just one day a year.

Nice but no cigar. That is an excuse to do nothing.

Problem is the men who think such things probably never tell anyone they love them let alone once a year . Men seem to be of the almost universal opinion that talk is cheap. It can be. But for women, talk is important.
Women relate through conversation as well as actions.

Guys insist they struggle to make a living for their wives. This is the proof of the love. Okay, fair enough in some cases but ...
They would be making a living wife or not. That's an excuse. Money interests men, success and power too, and they would be out there slugging wife or not.

You won't hear these same Scroogey sentiments said about the NBA playoffs or SuperBowl Sunday.
Most women have no use for football or basketball really. Left to their druthers they would sooner watch a chick flick or do something entirely different. There are a whole lot of women, however, who make a big to do for their men on those days making sure the guys and their pals have snacks, dinners, etc. And, many of the women join in and watch, a significant number of them doing it for him, for them, etc.
Now it's true, most men don't care if women like sports or not. They don't care if women watch with them or not. They probably don't care much if women make a big to do or not either. But if someone goes out of their way to make it nicer for you.... well you know what I mean.
But women do care about things men believe are the little things.
Girly girls do that is. The macho babes might not, but the rest do care a lot. And I don't just mean Valentine's Day.

The scuttlebutt around women is that most men in their lives do not celebrate or remember anniversary days, birthdays and if they do, it is with dread and lack of care.
Most women say their men rarely if ever say "I love you". To women, if you don't say it, you don't feel it, arguments to the contrary. It is also cruel to deny someone something they need.
So that one day a year is too much to ask. Well according to most of what I read, it is.

Mike Wallace and Ayn Rand

"So Judah and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba....."I Kings.
private ownership and free enterprise.

I  find this interview of Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace interesting because he never does understand anything she is talking about. His own prejudices and lack of knowledge are such a handicap that he is incapable of following what she is really saying..
But, Mike Wallace is typical of so many interviewers who don't understand the subject being discussed and who are so heavily steeped in their own ideas that they cannot hear anyone else .So the interview is Wallace bumbling along on false assumptions and trite but pompous rhetoric.
On building of schools and hospitals Wallace is seemingly clueless as to what she is saying.
On democracy putting socialism into play, he misses the point entirely that Americans are no longer given the opportunity to even vote on anything but socialism as put forth by both political parties in the nation.
I especially find the unions and "robber barons" part interesting as he never "gets" what she is saying. He sees so one dimensionally that he can't follow her.
She warns that we are approaching a dictatorship in this anti-constitutional nation in which we now live. Ayn Rand predicted it if we keep on in our march toward collectivism, which, we are doing.


Many today are completely ignorant of what the nation was supposed to stand for.
While I do not agree with her on belief in G-d or faith,  she is one brilliant cookie , that's for sure.
Her mind soars above Wallace's. There is no denying her brilliance as a thinker.  If only she had added G-d to the mix.

The whole interview is very short, though on three videos.
It is well worth your time to hear her out with an open mind, putting aside your preconceived prejudices and notions if you are able. Most are not.

I am not asking you to believe her philosophy.
I have only begun to study her. I have not yet made my decision on all she has to say nor have I heard or read all she has to say as yet. I will, though.
What I am saying it that you cannot understand your own philosophy if you have not one thing to compare it to and most Americans today have nothing other than what they are taught in government run schools or the opinions they got from their parents. A reasoned life is better than one you fall into by inheritance and blunder into blindly.

If you are in a hurry, try 2 and 3 and skip 1. But, if you are interested in learning a bit, try all three and add to your knowledge base and think about what you hear.


She was born in 1905 St. Petersburg Russia as Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum.

This interview took place in 1959 and as she foresaw we are now getting deep into collectivism in the US.

Now the Three Little Pigs Get British Jackboot.

Just last year British Jackbooted perveyors of Dhimmitude axed Piglet simply because he is a pig!! That's right, these race conscious, sex conscious hypocrits got rid of Piglet for the sole reason that he is a tiny piggy!!

See my post on that HERE.


This time it is the 3 Little Pigs, that famous ,valient trio who fought off the wicked, ugly, satanic wolf of evil who tried with all his might to destroy their home and eat them alive! Sound familiar? Of course it does. Don't we wish that there were manly men in government who didn't fear wolves in sheep's clothing? Yes, of course we do.
And, of course, it is axiomatic that anyone who tries to destroy the Three Little Piggies automatically aligns themself with the Wicked, Evil, Rotten, ravening wolf.

And we all know that storybook wolves are always evil to the core! Why they even make peepee on everything in your home given half a chance. Just try housebreaking one. They mark their territory with their own peepee(the technical storybook term for the process of micturition or urination).
Piggies on the other hand do no such thing as they build their OWN HOMES just as the story illustrates.
Wolves do not build their own homes and take over the homes of others.
Also, Piggies actually rid you of vermin! Pigs are the best defense against rattlesnakes. I have seen the introduction of piggies into a field rid that place of those poisonous vermin in just a little while!(true piggy fact)
Yes, Piggies are heroes in the animal world and heroes to the human race whom they protect from poisonous creatures of all kinds. All Hail the Piggy,the little pink heros of animaldom.

I made Piglet part of the crew here because I refuse to ban him from my site. I find him to be protective and cute. He keeps the wolves out.
Now the Three Little Pigs , available at amazon or your local bookstore, must also be made a banner cause of those who love liberty and freedom and despise venomous rattlesnakes.

Don't allow the Wolves of Gloom and Doom to ban Piggies of any sort from your life. Take a stand.




 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

wolf meets his end
in 3  Little Pigs Tale

Above all remember that in the end the wolf always loses!!......
.