History this Week I’m not really clear about the connection between the book “Goodbye Christopher Robin” by Anne Thwaites and the movie of the same name that was written by someone else, but this episode The True Winnie-the-Pooh features Anne Thwaites, who sounds rather elderly. The ‘true’ Winnie was a Canadian bear, purchased from a railway station in Winnipeg by the military veterinarian as the mascot for his troop of Canadian soldiers during WWI. Of course, ‘Winnie’ couldn’t accompany them to the Somme, so he ended up in a London zoo, loved by the children who came to see him. There he was seen by Christopher Robin Milne, who named his own bear after her. When his father A. A. Milne drew on the bedtime stories he told his son to write a children’s book, Winnie-the-Pooh was born.
The History of Rome So much fighting, extending over decades and generations. Episode 24 The Second Macedonia War sees Rome deciding to straight away launch into leveraging their big-boy status into a war with Philip V of Macedon. They were then dragged further east into the Syrian War in Episode 25: The Syrian War when who should they encounter again but Hannibal! He had gone into exile from Carthage, and he was engaged by Antiochus III the Great. There is a story that Hannibal and Scipio met at a banquet and Scipio asked Hannibal who he thought was the greatest general. Hannibal enumerated Alexander the Great (Scipio agreed) and then Phyruss (who fought against the Romans) and then himself. Scipio was not impressed. Hannibal himself is said to have committed suicide when he realized that Roman assassins were on his trail- or else he did of a wounded finger- take your pick. In Episode 26 The Third Macedonian War the sons of Phillip V and Antiochus the Great pick up their fathers’ mantles and start up the Third Macedonian War. Just like their fathers, they were soundly beaten, leaving Rome the unchallenged power in the Mediterranean. Episode 27 Mopping Up sees Rome going back to absolutely crush Macedon, and even more importantly Carthage. Back in the Roman Senate, Cato was going on and on about the dangers of Carthage, so Rome invaded it again and it is said (so may not be true) that they sowed their fields with salt, to make sure that nothing grew there. Either way, Carthage was completely destroyed and there was no other power left to threaten Rome. Now that there was no external enemy to fight, they could only fight among themselves.
Rear Vision (ABC) With the Taliban back in the news, Who are the Taliban? takes us back to the emergence of the Taliban from the rubble of the Soviet-Afghan War. It’s quite a condemnation that their straight-dealing, black-and-white, anti-corruption view of the world has led to people acquiescing to the thought that they couldn’t be worse than the existing Western-backed Afghan government. What a f**k-up.
Revisionist History Enough of all this war! How about Malcolm Gladwell deconstructing the Little Mermaid instead? In Little Mermaid Part I: the Golden Contract law professor Laura Beth Neilson points out that in the Disney version, the written contract is portrayed as all powerful (there was no contract in the original story). Worse still, it is an unconscionable contract where a legal child contracts away body parts into slavery. Little Mermaid Part 2: The Fairytale Twist looks at the uses of fairytales, and children’s responses to them, drawing on Bruno Bettelheim and Angus Fletcher. Finally in Little Mermaid Part 3: Honestly Ever After they re-write the ending of The Little Mermaid, avoiding Hans Christian Anderson’s sad ending but giving back Ariel her voice and her agency. And they got Jodie Foster and Glen Close to do the voices!
Democracy Sausage (Mark Kenny). This episode Britain’s ‘Freedom Day’ from 20 July 2021 interviews Europe Correspondent Bevan Shields and Atalanta’s Elizabeth Ames from England on Britain’s “Freedom Day”. Probably too early to know even now, a month later, what the effect will be. However, they both seemed to be fairly optimistic and rather nonplussed by excessive caution in Australia.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 