Erik Loomis

At least according to Wikipedia, France and Spain have been at war one way or another with each other a mere 37 times between 1209 and 1823. These two nations must hate each other! But they don't really seem to. Not even over the War of the Spanish Succession, though I guess Charles II of Spain did name the future Philip IV from France as his successor in his will. Or the Franco-Spanish War of 1635-59, where the French provided key help to the Dutch to kick out the Spanish. Or of course the Napoleonic occupation of Spain in 1808. Certainly you can't really choose which nation was worse as a colonial power. Spain pioneered a lot of these horrors and the French then perfected them.

This is the grave of Charles Anderson Dana. Born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire in 1819, Dana grew up not crazy rich but well off enough.

The year after I graduated from college, I taught English in South Korea. There, I noticed that a lot of the drink cans had pictures of these random rocks in the ocean. Finally, I either asked what was up or someone just told me. See, these rocks were owned by Japan. But by God, those should be KOREAN ROCKS! Now, these rocks were useless. It's not like you could have a port on them. No one lived there. But how dare Japan own these rocks!!! Nationalism takes weird forms and so do land claims with extremely dubious histories. Koreans have a lot of reasons to be resentful of Japan of course, but this was totally ridiculous. I do get national resentments where your nation once had land and it was lost in a war. I once saw a statue on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca expressing what would happen when that nation eventually reclaimed its path to the sea stolen by Chile in some distant war of the 19th century. It showed Bolivian soldiers shoving their bayonets through the throats of Chileans with a ton of blood spurting out. Bolivian iconography is full of blood, even more than the rest of Latin America, which says a lot about their history. Evidently, owning the Port of Antofagasta would bring Bolivia massive prosperity or something. Sure, OK.

This is the grave of Miantonomo. Born sometime around 1600, Miantonomo was one of many members of his family who were prominent leaders among the Narragansett people.

If there's one thing I believe in my life, it's that one should do everything they can not to inconvience another person, particularly a stranger. It's my very strongly held belief that if everyone believed–and this is correct–that they are the least important person in the world, then the world would get along much better. You are not more important than anyone else. Neither, by the way, are your kids, who have no greater value than any kid around the world. It might be your job to take care of them and you should do that, but thinking your child is special is the kind of individualist cancer that creates the hell of extremist individualism that we face in this society today.

This is the grave of Ricky Wilson. Born in 1953 in Athens, Georgia, Wilson stated playing the guitar as a kid.

Born in 1856 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Doheny grew up there, the son of an Irish immigrant who worked hard jobs and a Canadian mother.

The federal immigration agent who shot and killed a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford has been identified as David Michael Brouillette.

I haven't blogged a lot in Chile, but I have watched a ton of movies at night, enough for a lot of LGM Film Club posts, so I should start this again.

This is the grave of George Ross. Born in 1730 in New Castle, Delaware, Ross was pretty well off, the son of a prominent minister.