Looks like our right-wing friends is gonna e-volve themselves right outta existence…

Chas. Darwin
(the early years)

In his 1859 publication of On The Origin of Species, Charlie Darwin concluded that his notion of natural selection provided a much more serene and magisterial approach to the origin of life within our natural world:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

The seriously cool part about Darwin’s (some say Satan-inspired) little idea is not merely his “grandeur view of life,” but rather that his (not entirely original – yup, it also evolved) “theory” is proven time and time, and time – and yes, time again to…to be…to be, oh, what’s that word? Oh, yeah, that’s right – it's true! Don’t believe me? Check-it-out, here’s a contemporary and real world, objective and even tangible example illustrating Darwin’s notion of natural selection in all its subtle glory.

Between March and April 2013, The Pew’s Religion & Public Life Project randomly polled over 1900 adults throughout the U.S., and asked a number of questions about religious beliefs, political affiliations, gender, race, and even if the respondents “believed” in evolution or rather, were they adherents of the notion of a divinely inspired creation.

God
(or Santa?)

(looks like God)

That is, did those polled believe that some invisible, all-knowing, all-powerful, deity who, by definition, existed before even time, energy, matter, gravity and all that other groovy stuff – and even though middle eastern Jews first wrote about him, somehow managed to look a lot like a seriously buffed Santa, or Ian McKellen (à la Gandalf, minus the gay of course); one day apparently felt that whole self-worship thing wasn’t cutting it, ‘n decided that what he really needed to make his godliness more better were a couple of minions to worship and admire him in all his splendor and greatness, an up ‘n decided to create life, the Universe and darn near everything (thanks Doug Adams) – especially including man and again, even though he had every opportunity to do it anywhere he wanted – Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon or anywhere nice would have been…nice, heck, the North Shore of Hawaii still makes for a splendid paradise (if'n he could just get rid of those annoying tourists), but apparently chose that freakin’ god forsaken land between the Tigris and Euphrates (been there, it seriously blows – big time) and, again, even though it’s in the middle of the middle east, decided to up ‘n create a European lookin’ dude ‘n dudette (I guess ‘cause Europe is much classier than…not Europe?). And then decided, well...you get the idea.

(definitely a white dude...)

So, did those polled believe than life was created, in its present form by God (no, not Gods)? Or in the alternative, did they essentially believe the Universe started some 13.5 billion years ago, the Galaxy 13 billion years ago, the Solar System 4.8 billion, the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago; did simple cells develop some 3.6 billion years ago, complex cells 2 billion years ago, multi-celled organisms 1 billion years ago, simple "animals" 600 million years, mammals 200 million, primates 60 million, hominids some 20 million years ago, and well, heck…‘Voila! Present day dudes ‘n dudettes!

Back to the whole point of this thing. Last spring the nice folks at Pew polled them folks, just like they did four years earlier. They then did what any good, reality-based thinkers do – they compared the results. Here's the deal:

In 2009, 64% of Democrats said humans evolved over time, while 4 years later, that number increased to over two-thirds or fully 67% of Democrats saying folks done e-volved over time. With just about every bit of polling data showing that Democrats continue to outnumber their Republican opponents, and especially when considering the increase in the U.S. population, it’s easy to see how the left is surviving – nay, even flourishing.

It's not just natural, natural selection!

Prof. Megginson

But who said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”? No, while most folks like to give him credit, it certainly wasn’t Chuck Darwin (it’s actually a paraphrase from a Professor Leon C. Megginson, a marketing professor at LSU who wrote something pretty close to it back in ‘63)?

Point being is that them infernal lefties is clearly adaptable to change. Heck, pretty sure that’s the bedrock foundation of their “Liberal” ideology – that whole inclusive, “changey” thing (a demonic euphemism for evolution, to be sure).

Wha-What’s that? What about them other guys? See, in that same study, 54% of Republicans said they believed folks evolved over time and now, nearly 4 years later with our Tea Baggin’ friends seizing control of Lincoln’s GOP, the number of Republicans stating that humans have evolved, dropped to 43%. Corresponding with this fairly substantial decline is the Gallup party affiliation tracking poll  which shows that as recently as September 2004, fully 39% of registered voters identified themselves as Republicans. By October 2008, the number of folks claiming GOP loyalty had dropped to 33%, by May 2010, to 30%, and by the end of 2012, the number had plummeted to 24%.

Ergo (one ‘o them fancy-schmancy words meaning, therefore), the political party most adaptable to change is the one that will clearly survive. With the number of registered Republicans dropping faster than a hooker’s panties at a political convention (or hooker’s at the C-Street House or dropping faster’n David Vitter’s diapers, take yer pick), looks like our right-wing friends is gonna e-volve themselves right outta existence…

Links:
Darwin's On The Origin of Species (.pdf format)
Publics views on human evolution

Gallup poll party affiliation

The Darwin Project, Six things Darwin never said

The first life on Earth

Human evolution research (Smithsonian Institution)

Hard Year?

As we reflect upon this year that was anything but memorable for us, what say a brief reflection on a time more than 50 years earlier in order to keep things in perspective? Here’s a young Bob Dylan interviewed in 1963 by the great Studs Terkel. Studs asks Bob about his song, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall; Bob’s take on the 18^th c. Scottish ballad Lord Randal that models the question/answer narrative throughout Dylan’s Hard Rain:

I wrote that when I didn’t figure – I didn’t know how many other songs I could write. That was during October of last year. I remember sitting up all night with a bunch of people someplace and I wanted to get the most down that I knew about into one song as I possibly could, so I wrote that…That was during that blockade…I was a little worried.

While the interview is typical Dylan myth-making (interviewed in spring '63 with Dylan referencing the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, he first performed the song at Carnegie Hall in September ’62), it does provide a glimpse into the tension and immediacy of that year, fifty years ago.

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall:

New York Times Oct. '62 headlines

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all brokenI saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?

And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?

Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

See: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and Carnegie Hall, September 22, 1962

Lord Rendel:

“O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?

And where ha you been, my handsome young man?”
“I ha been at the greenwood; mother, mak my bed soon,

"Lord Randal", by Arthur Rackham.
llustration from Some British ballads,
published in about 1919: wikipedia

For I’m wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.”

“An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son?
An wha met you there, my handsome young man?”
“O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, an fain wad lie down.”

“And what did she give you, Lord Randal, my son?
And what did she give you, my handsome young man?”
“Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied with huntin, and fain wad lie down.”

“And wha gat your leavins, Lord Randal, my son?
And what gat your leavins, my handsom young man?”
“My hawks and my hounds; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.”

“And what becam of them, Lord Randall, my son?
And what became of them, my handsome young man?”
“They stretched their legs out an died; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.”

“O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!
I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man!”
“O yes, I am poisoned; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ye leave to your mother, my handsome young man?”
“Four and twenty milk kye; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?”
“My gold and my silver; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, an I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my son?

What d’ ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?”
“My house and my lands; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

“What d’ ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?”
“I leave her hell and fire; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”

(Anonymous Traditional Folk Ballad, published by Sir Walter Scott in 1803)
Lord Rendal

Better late than never...

On November 24, 1863, the forefathers of The Patriot & Union, predecessor to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s Patriot News "brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed."

The offense? The newspaper passed "over the silly remarks" of President Lincoln. The "silly remarks?" Well those were the 270-words Lincoln spoke on November 19, 1863, dedicating the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Yup, the Gettysburg Address that the Patriot Union magnanimously vowed, "for the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of."

"Whatever may be the President's virtues, he does not possess sense…"

Providing a contemporaneous glimpse into the past, the Patriot & Union wrote how:

The dead of Gettysburg will speak from their tombs; they will raise their voices against this great wickedness and implore our rulers to discard from their councils the folly which is destroying us, and return to the wise doctrines of the Fathers, to the pleadings of Christianity, to the compromises of the Constitution, which can alone save us. Let our rulers hearken to the dead, if they will not to the living - for from every tomb which covers a dead soldier, if they listen attentively they will hear a solemn sound invoking them to renounce partisanship for patriotism, and to save the country from the misery and desolation which, under their present policy, is inevitable.

There is so much in that paragraph to chew on...

In any event, some seven score and ten years later and appreciating that their "predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink," might just have gotten that one wrong, the Editors reconsidered the paper's position:

In the fullness of time, we have come to a different conclusion. No mere utterance, then or now, could do justice to the soaring heights of language Mr. Lincoln reached that day. By today's words alone, we cannot exalt, we cannot hallow, we cannot venerate this sacred text, for a grateful nation long ago came to view those words with reverence, without guidance from this chagrined member of the mainstream media. The world will little note nor long remember our emendation of this institution"s record – but we must do as conscience demands.

November 24, 1863 Patriot & Union 

In Their Own Words: Now That We're at the 150th Anniversary of America's "Bloodies Day," Let's Briefly Revist The Cause...

Last night we had the great pleasure of listening to Harvard President and History Professor Drew Gilpin Faust deliver her wonderful "Reflections of a Civil War Historian" lecture (2011 NEH Jefferson Lecturer) at the commemoration to the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Harpers Ferry. Was more than thrilled to hear Prof. Faust mirror my often repeated assertion in response to the question about historical revisionists proclaiming how America’s "Grand Terrible Drama" was somehow fought over the notion of "States rights;" and that answering that question is not an obscure or abstract undertaking – that one simply needed to look at the actual, contemporaneous written words of those participants. We don't need to look to fanciful excuses made years and decades after the fact, but rather to the participant’s various "Declarations" of secession--telling the world exactly why they were seceeding.

Texas for example, in its February 2, 1861, "Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union," would, in typical loud and proud fashion, (as only a Texan like little Ricky Perry can) declare how:

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

Like that? The real and contemporaneous words from those who started the whole thing and their assertion was that enslaving another human being was an intrinsic good, and that masters were somehow "beneficent" – nay, even "patriarchal." Our Texas friends went further to chastise the very notion of a "doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color—a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind." They even went so far as to up the ante, declaring how the very idea was "in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law."

In any event…bully for them for speaking their clear, unequivocal (albeit racist) mind – in their own words!

It's a darn shame their supporters (those same supporters who continuously tell us how much they worship Declarations of Independence) don't share that same courage and instead, are compelled to fashion elaborate and fanciful excuses…

Here's a copy of Drew Gilpin Faust’s lecture: Telling War Stories: Reflections of a Civil War Historian

Here's a link to the Texas "Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union:" Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

BTW and if interested, I did something along the lines of slavery and "the plainest revelations of Divine Law" awhile back: The Bible and Slavery

"The present seems to be the most propitious time, since the commencement of the war:" Robert E. Lee's Maryland Campaign

On September 3, 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, lacking the military strength to attack Washington, D.C., directly, yet embolden from what can only be characterized as a series of brilliant military victories culminating in the the September 1, 1862, Confederate victory at the Battle of Chantilly that brought an end to Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Northern Virginia Campaign (which included the August 28 - 30, 1862, Union defeat during the Battle of Second Manassas) coupled with the Union defeat the previous month during Union Maj. Gen. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign (March through July 1862 – who could possibly forget McClellan and his famously bad case of "the slows"?), wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis how:

The present seems to be the most propitious time, since the commencement of the war, for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland. The two grand armies of the U. S. that have been operating in Virginia, though now united, are much weakened and demoralized. Their new levees, of which, I understand, sixty thousand men have already been posted in Washington, are not yet organized, and will take some time to prepare for the field. If it is ever desired to give material aid to Maryland, and afford her an opportunity of throwing off the oppression to which she is now subject, this would seem the most favorable. After the enemy had disappeared from the vicinity of Fairfax C. H. and taken the road to Alexandri[a] & Washington, I did not think it would be advantageous to follow him further. I had no intention of attacking him in his fortifications, and am not prepared to invest them. If I possessed the necessary munitions, I should be unable to supply provisions for the troops. I therefore determined while threatening the approaches to Washington to draw the troops into Loudon, where forage and some provisions can be obtained, menace their possession of the Shenandoah Valley, and if found practicable, to cross into Maryland.
 

Original unknown: http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=111

Lee ordered his 55,000 man Army of Northern Virginia north through the Shenandoah Valley for the purpose of invading the north into Maryland; thus beginning the first of three separate Confederate invasions of the North (in the eastern theater).  Lee’s purposes were varied: to resupply his army in an area untouched by the war that was destroying the Virginia countryside; to increase his troop count by the thousands of Marylanders he just knew were chomping at the bit to rise up and fight their Northern oppressors; to severe the Baltimore & Ohio railroad supplying Washington; and most importantly, to draw the Union Army into the open for a decisive victory that would pressure Lincoln into negotiating an end of the war.

150 years ago today, advance elements from Lee's Army crossed from Leesburg, Virginia through White’s Ford, across the Potomac River and into Maryland through Point of Rocks and headed north toward Frederick, Maryland…

Wonder how that whole thing turns out?

The Ides of March are come

“Beware the Ides of March”

- William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2

 The "Tusculum portrait" of Julius Caesar
made during his lifetime.

On March 15, 44 BC, Emperor Julius Caesar (July 100 BC - March 15, 44 BC) was assassinated (murdered?) in the Roman Senate, stabbed 23 times by conspirators led in part by his friend, Marcus Junius Brutus.  Recall that it was Caesar who conquered Gaul, invaded Britain, with his Roman Legions crossed the Rhine, became a Roman Governor, fought numerous wars (defeated  Pontus in Zela, Turkey and famously wrote to his friend Amantius how he “Came, saw, conquered”), was believed to have amassed too much military and political power, charged with treason; and with a Roman Legion “Crossed the Rubicon” (the river separating Italy from Gaul to the north) uttering the famous line “The die is cast” (or perhaps “Let the die be cast”) thereby igniting the Roman civil war that ended with the defeat and death of Pompey; and who famously sided with Cleopatra during an Egyptian civil war, and was utimately declared “Dictator in Perpetuity” and “Father of the Fatherland;” enacted a number of social and political reforms including ordering a census, sought to reduce public debt, extended the right of Roman citizenship throughout the empire, instituted political term limits, and adopted the Julian calendar (adopted from the Egyptian calendar which aligned the calendar with the sun and seasons as opposed to the moon, added three months to the calendar year, included a leap year every fourth year, and provided for 365.25 days per year beginning on January 1, 45 BC); and who wrote of his exploits in his Commentaries on the Gallic War and Commentaries on the Civil War.

Caesar's Commentaries on the
Gallic Wars

The Greek historian Plutarch wrote how Roman politicians had come to fear and distrust Caesar believing (not without merit) that Caesar was ambitious and sought to make himself King of the Roman Empire for Life, thereby destroying the Republic.  A conspiracy to overthrow Caesar was born that consisted of sixty Roman senators led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and supported by Caesar’s one-time ally, Marcus Junius Brutus.  Plutarch wrote how one day, while walking through a market, a seer had warned Caesar to be on guard come the Ides (day of the full moon).  Shakespeare famously wrote of this encounter in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar when a soothsayer warned Caesar to “Beware the Ides of March” (Act 1, S 2).

Caesar's Commentaries on the
Civil Wars

Plutarch wrote how suspicions of conspiracy swirled and on March 15, Caesar’s wife told him that she had dreamt of seeing his body streaming with blood.  She begged Caesar not to go to attend the senate that day.  Caesar’s departure was delay and as walked to the Theater of Pompeii (where the senate met), he passed the seer, “when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said:

“Well, the Ides of March are come,”

Soothsayer: "Ay, Caesar; but not gone."

Plutarch wrote how Caesar entered the senate chamber, sat in his chair as the senator Tullius Climber delivered a petition to recall an exiled brother.  The conspirators, in excess of 60 surrounded Caesar as though in support of Climber’s petition and as Caesar waved the group away, Tullius pulled Caesar’s toga down from his neck.  Plutarch wrote how:

“This was the signal for the assault.  It was Casca who gave him the first blow with his dagger, in the neck, not a mortal wound, nor even a deep one, for which he was too much confused, as was natural at the beginning of a deed of great daring; so that Caesar turned about, grasped the knife, and held it fast.  At almost the same instant both cried out, the smitten man in Latin: ‘Accursed Casca, what does thou?’ and the smiter, in Greek, to his brother: ‘Brother, help!’

The Death of Caesar (Mort de César), Vincenzo Camuccini, 1798

So the affair began, and those who were not privy to the plot were filled with consternation and horror at what was going on; they dared not fly, nor go to Caesar's help, nay, nor even utter a word.

But those who had prepared themselves for the murder bared each of them his dagger, and Caesar, hemmed in on all sides, whichever way he turned confronting blows of weapons aimed at his face and eyes, driven hither and thither like a wild beast, was entangled in the hands of all; for all had to take part in the sacrifice and taste of the slaughter. Therefore Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin.

 Death of Caesar, Jean-Leon Gerome, 1867

And it is said by some writers that although Caesar defended himself against the rest and darted this way and that and cried aloud, when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he pulled his toga down over his head and sank, either by chance or because pushed there by his murderers, against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood.”

Shakespeare's The Tragedy
of Julius Caesar (from the First Folio)

We recall how in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare wrote how seeing his friend Brutus attack him, Caesar cried “Et tu, Brute?” – “And you, Brutus?” (See: Julius Caesar: Act 1, Scene 2)

Plutarch concluded:

“And the pedestal was drenched with his blood, so that one might have thought that Pompey himself was presiding over this vengeance upon his enemy, who now lay prostrate at his feet, quivering from a multitude of wounds.  For it is said that he received twenty-three; and many of the conspirators were wounded by one another, as they struggled to plant all those blows in one body.

Caesar thus done to death, the senators, although Brutus came forward as if to say something about what had been done, would not wait to hear him, but burst out of doors and fled, thus filling the people with confusion and helpless fear…”

Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, pp. 64-67 (See: Plutarch, The Parallel Lives. The Life of Julius ).

February 22, 1632, Galileo publishes his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Ptolemaic and Copernican



The engraved frontispiece from Galileo's Dialogue depicts three great students of astronomy
 in dialogue: from left to right, Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Ptolemy (90–168 CE), and
Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543). Ptolemy holds an armillary sphere with the
Earth at its center, while Copernicus grasps a heliocentric model of the solar system.

On February 22, 1632, Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564 to January 8, 1642) published “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Ptolemaic and Copernican”  Galileo’s famous work consists of a fictional conversation (a dialogue) between three people over the course of four days on the Ptolemaic and Copernican views of the world and its place in the universe.   Here's a link to Galileo's Dialogue: Galileo's Dialogue.

Galileo would begin his most famous of all his works work by telling the audience that: “since bitter death has deprived Venice and Florence [Ptolemy and Copernicus] of those two great luminaries in the very meridian of their years, I have resolved to make their fame live on in these pages, so far as my poor abilities will permit, by introducing them as interlocutors in the present argument.”

Within his book are three characters:

• Salviati, a proponent of the Copernican theory that (among other things) the earth revolves around the Sun of whom Galileo described as possessing “…a sublime intellect which fed no more hungrily upon any pleasure than it did upon fine meditations;
• Simplicio (oftentimes thought of as a simpleton) who is supporter of the Ptolemaic model that the earth is fixed within the universe, does not move, and that sun and all heavenly bodies revolve around our planet; and finally,
• Sagredo, “…a man of noble extraction and trenchant wit,” who represents an honest broker striving to hearing all sides.

From the Fourth Edition of Galileo's Dialogue (dated 1700) 

which includes an engraving depicting 

Aristotle, Copernicus and Ptolemy discussing the

heliocentric and geocentric models of the solar system.

The dialogue between these three fictional characters takes place over a four day period with Salviati arguing against Aristotelian physics.  Sagredo, the neutral observer, summarized the first day of the dialogue as consisting of:

[A] preliminary examination of the two following opinions as to which is the more probable and reasonable. The first holds the substance of the heavenly bodies to be ingenerable, incorruptible, inalterable, invariant, and in a word free from all mutations except those of situation, and accordingly to be a quintessence most different from our generable, corruptible, alterable bodies. The other opinion, removing this disparity from the world’s parts, considers the earth to enjoy the same perfection as other integral bodies of the universe; in short, to be a movable and a moving body no less than the moon, Jupiter, Venus, or any other planet. Later many detailed parallels were drawn between the earth and the moon. More comparisons were made with the moon than with other planets, perhaps from our having more and better sensible evidence about the former by reason of its lesser distance.

Day two involved discussing the law of inertia and whether or not the earth itself is immovable.  Interestingly, in defending his position that the earth does not move, among other things, Simplicio argues that:

·        An object dropped from a height will fall to the ground directly at a right angle), while an object dropped from the mast of a moving ship will not fall perpendicularly, but somewhat behind the direction of the ships motion. Similar results are obtained from throwing or shooting an object upwards to a great height.

·        Cannonballs fired point-blank east and west travel the same distance; those fired due north and due south do not deviate from their course.

·        If the earth were moving westerly at the speed required to complete one revolution in twenty-four hours, clouds could only move eastward, we should feel a constant easterly wind, and birds could never fly quickly enough to move westward; none of this occurs.

·        If the earth were spinning at such a rate, because of centrifugal force, pigs (and everyone and everything else) would fly off the face of the earth.

On Day three Salviati discusses astronomical phenomena and argues that:

[I]f it is true that the center of the universe is that point around which all the orbs and world bodies (that is, the planets) move, it is quite certain that not the earth, but the sun, is to be found at the center of the universe. Hence, as for this first general conception, the central place is the sun’s, and the earth is to be found as far away from the center as it is from the sun.

The fourth and final day of the discussion consists of Salviati discussing among other things, the ebb and flow of tides; the moon’s effect on the tides; points out that Aristotle “ascribes to miracles all things whose causes are hidden;” discusses wind currents; and in apparent frustration, tells Simplicio that, “…no one can ever win against you, but must always lose…it would be better not to play.”  Later Simplicio arrogantly  tells Salviati that he has “…nothing further to say; neither on my own account, because of my lack of inventiveness, nor on that of others, because of the novelty of the opinion. But I do indeed believe that if this were broadcast among the schools, there would be no lack of philosophers who would be able to cast doubt upon it.”
 

Galileo Galilei painted in 1636 by
Giusto Sustermans,
the 17th c. Baroque, Flemish painter.

Certainly a wildly oversimplification of Galileo’s February 22, 1632 Dialogue that resulted in his being convicted of hersey, forced to recant his ideas, and his work placed on Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books (not removed until 1835, here's a partical list: Catholic Church list of banned authors/books).

Iwo Jima Memorial

Iwo Jima Memorial, a set on Flickr.