Socrates was born in 470, and in his youth he must have heard how his people had fought and won against the Persians. Socrates was called to arms, too, and served with distinction.

At the time Athen’s relevant citizens hired philosophers to prepare their kids to run for office. The idea was that the boy had to be taught the tactics to win a public debate. Truth was no priority, could not be known, and was at any rate not worth the effort. Socrates attacked that idea.

His opponents were usually masters of style rather than content, and Socrates’ approach was to try and trap them up in their own words. He encouraged both his adversaries and his students to expand on some idea and questioned them into self-contradiction. The debates took place in the town square and many important people must have felt publicly ridiculed, but Socrates never published, and so the details are known mainly through the writings of his most famous student, Plato. However, to the end Socrates was a model of equanimity and levelheadedness in the absence of certitude.

Socrates was sentenced to death, and according to the law he could only be executed once the sacred ship was back at harbor :

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According to http://tinyurl.com/5cxn8o , the Artists Rights Society and the Miró family asked Google to unpublish the logo designed to celebrate Miró’s birthday :

I thought that Google had dozens of copyright lawyers. Apparently these felt unable to show that the logo was a happy idea to celebrate Miró and make his name known all over the land. The Artists Rights Society represents 40 000 people, a real crowd. What did they think they were doing? Their initials would be ARS, and since I am not a native speaker of English, I thought this was pretty funny or audacious.

Google’s logo ideas are plenty as blackberries and as reminders just as sweet :

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There is Dalí with his watches, Picasso’s faces, more famous for his dove. And there is Einstein, not quite recognizable except for his formula, and even the DNA got a logo.

All those great names! Only Miró is not there, because that ARS intervened.

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Since this is so strange, it could also be that “the Miró family” don’t know what Google stands for, have never seen it.

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Has the ship come in? ……… This is how Socrates asked whether his death was imminent. He could not be executed until Athen’s sacred ship was at harbour.

¡No pasarán! …….. Call to resist Franco’s armed forces in Spain’s civil war. It dates back to the battle of Verdun in WWI : “on ne passera pas”.

Kill the cable! Kill the cable! ……….. The OPEC leaders meant to have a private meeting, but the TV feed was accidentally plugged into the wrong socket. See Tim Webb at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/

Eppur si muove! ……… And yet it does move! attributed to Galileo when the Church obliged him to withdraw his theory that the Earth turned around itself.

Se non è vero, è ben trovato. …….. If it is not true, it is very well invented.

Veni, vidi, vici…….. I came, saw, and won. With these three words Ceasar informed the Senate of an easy victory.

Thalassa! thalassa! ……… The sea, the sea! The Greek mercenaries shouted with joy when they discovered they were getting home at last after a defeat and a dangerous retreat under the orders of their general, Xenophon, who wrote the story.

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Olive trees on a summer afternoon. The ground is burnt white. They call it “calcinado”. Olive trees can live for months without rain.

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Bird on a wire : cheap land has been fenced off for somebody to build flats.
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This was to be called “Cat and Dog”. The dog is still there, but the cat left when the camera was ready. It is an early summer morning, and soon all the shutters will be down

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This photo should be named “Noblesse oblige”. The cathedral is in León.

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This photo is called “Not so poor anymore”. It could be anywhere in downtown Spain. Every kid has a little car, a little flat and a very large debt to keep him on course.

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Pueblo : tear it down and build 30000 flats instead.

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“How to reach the promised land”, but a plane ticket would be less risky and probably cheaper. Why should anyone tell them?
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If you do get there, you will be well received, see?
The photo is the property of “El Mundo“. The beautiful anonymous girl looks Spanish and does not sense she is in focus.

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The Mancha. This is where Don Quijote and Sancho Panza were trying to eliminate evil from this world. In his day it was even emptier and absolutely poor, but the clouds were the same. And all those little yellow flowers?

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The Mancha: big clouds and strong loud wind even on a sunny day. In the cloud at the top to the right you see a cargo plane : there is a military airfield near.

And below on that hill, but on the left of the picture, there are two small white rectangles: that is a penitentiary. And the rows of dark dots on the side of the hill: that is an olive grove.

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Sheep. It is spring, and the sheep have just been shorn. They must be cold. There is a proverb, though : “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.” And the Oxford dictionary says it is of French origin: “Dieu mesure le froid à la brebis tondue.”

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King Juan Carlos of Spain: his stats have been high for how long? 30 years? Both he and the Queen, Doña Sofia, are really well liked.

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There is always some fight going on about how much room the Catholic church should take up in the syllabus. The poster shows the children with those little carritos they have to drag their schoolbooks along, immense amounts of books. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Church. The children are the big publishers’ last captive market.

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Churchill received a military education. When he was in the army he found out that his pay was not enough to maintain himself and his horses. He was extremely well connected but not rich.
He had been working on a book, and his connections allowed him to be attached to the British military as a war correspondent. He was caught and interned, and suddenly he became famous because he escaped from prison and rode to safety by boarding a cargo train and hiding under the potato bags.

A reward of £ 25,- was offered for whoever captured him dead or alive. That fame, he thought, might allow him to get into politics. He ran for office and won. But at the time MPs were not salaried, and Churchill did not have the capital needed.

The sale of his book The River War and two books of war correspondence plus ten months’ salary from the Morning Post amounted to £ 4,000,- on his savings account. Churchill decided to go on a lecture tour to make about about £ 100,- a night. For five months he toured all of England and many cities in the United States and Canada to tell the story of his escape.

When he had about £ 10 000,- set aside, he felt wealthy enough to take up his seat as a member of the British Parliament.

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(with data from Churchill’s My Early Life)

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