In the world of Patrick O'Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, Stephen Maturin is a man of many layers—naturalist, spy, and skilled physician. But for those of us who dive deep into the historical mechanics of his life, one detail has always invited curiosity: Why did he need two different universities to complete his medical education? While previous posts explored the scattered fragments of Stephen's childhood, tracing his path through the medical wards of the late 18th century proved to be a much more complex puzzle. It required looking past the fiction and into the shifting sands of the French Revolution and the strict religious barriers of Trinity College Dublin. In today's post, we're "walking the wards" of 1780s Paris and the delivery rooms of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital to organize Stephen's training timeline. From cheering the fall of the Bastille to earning the right to wear the scarlet robes of a Doctor of Medicine, this is how political upheaval an...
From the National Post: Pierre Elliott Obama For Canadians, Trudeaumania was a magic elixir that blotted out the troubles of the modern world. Barack Obama is now selling the United States the same poisonous political opium Lionel Chetwynd, Special to the National Post Trudeaumania was the magic elixir that blotted out the modern world. It was political opium. It was also, by any intelligent measure, a disaster, one Canadians are only now beginning to understand. Rather than reconcile the two founding cultures, Trudeau so alienated Quebec that there were soon troops in the streets of Montreal, where he had declared martial law. The de facto leader of the francophones, Rene Levesque routinely called him "Elliott," (his mother's name; she was an anglophone). The division became so bitter that, in time, a separatist party would go on to become the official opposition in Ottawa. Trudeau also devastated a once friendly relationship with the United States. His pet project, the ...
I always knew there was a reason my I’m a materialist. Steven Den Beste lays out an interesting comparison on Materialism and Teleology. Or common sense versus wishful thinking. Materialists look at history since Marx and point out that socialism has been tried many times, in many nations, in various forms, and it has always failed. … So to materialists, it’s apparent that socialism is a nice idea, but one that doesn’t work and shouldn’t be adopted. To teleologists, none of that matters. What matters is the fact that it’s a beautiful idea. It’s how things should be. In a world in which socialism was implemented and which worked the way the teleologists think it should work, you really would have a utopia. The fact that it’s invariably failed when used doesn’t change any of that. … It’s teleologists who drive around with bumper stickers that say, “Imagine world peace.” I can imagine it just fine…. … Teleologists b...
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