You don't know your Roman History unless...

you do. But if you don't, then you should really get your tail and ears over to Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast and blog. I'm only about 12 hours into it (!) but I can say it's fascinating, well paced, and very informative. Mike does a great job of distilling the most thoroughly researched ancient people in history down to digestable 20-ish minute podcasts that really show both the events and the uniquely Roman mindset that made them great (and then, later, not so great).

Don't let the author's somewhat deadpan delivery turn you off... it's a devious feint so his sardonic wit can catch you even further off guard. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the podcast so far:

On divination about an impending naval battle with Carthage:

What made [the Romans] think they'd be victorious without the approval of
the sacred chickens is beyond me.

On the less-than-honest actions of a certain senator:

Boo, Claudius. Boooo. (Sounding bored now) Booooo-oooo-oooooooooooooo. Ooo.

On the conversation between Hannibal and Scippio Africanus in Syria some years after the 3rd Punic war:

Who's the best general now, suckah?

In the interest of full disclosure, The History of Rome may not keep you enthralled if you're already a keen student of Roman history - it does too good a job of hitting high points and keeping the facts breezy to allow for deep exploration. But for those of us whose knowledge of Rome doesn't challenge that of their stolen Gods, this is a great find.

"You got your etymology on my nautical history!"

All 569 pages of To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World by Arthur Herman are dense, interesting, insightful, and eminently readable (so far, at least). But page 162 in particular coughs up an excellent etymological insight. It turns out that while the term 'starboard', describing the right side of a ship, has been around for 700+ years, the convention of using 'port' to describe the right side is a comparable bouncing baby of less than 200.

Starboard is an evolution of steerboard. In the 1300's, the steering oar was mounted on the right-hand side of the ship. Simple enough.

The left-hand side was originally called the landboard side, as it was the side closest to land when in port (presumably to prevent damage to the steering oar...). By 1550 or so, landboard had given way to larboard, which rhymes nicely with starboard. Bewilderingly, illiterate British sailors have always been suckers for word-play, homophones, and rhythmic speech.

It wasn't until the mid-1800's or so that sailors collectively agreed that larboard is a silly word, and came back to their senses to use port to describe the port-side of a ship.

The origin of both words makes straightforward sense, but I think it's amazing that while one side of the ship has carried the same name for centuries, the other has taken quite a trip.

Valkyrie: Cruise Is Crazy, But (probably) Isn't a Nazi

My dad and I just returned from seeing Valkyrie, the story of a failed assassination attempt on Hitler by a conspiracy consisting primarily of Wehrmacht officers in 1944. I have to tell you, people have been coming out of the woodwork to tell me they hate Tom Cruise and this movie almost as much as they hate Nazis [insert intricate Scientology/Oprah's couch/Nazi joke here].

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I refuse to drag us all through the discussion of whether we hate Valkyrie because we hate Tom Cruise. In terms of Hollywood wingnut freaks, he's actually pretty benign.

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I won't go into the plot either, but here is what really happened. Short version: the movie is pretty accurate. That statement doesn't require a qualification, like "pretty accurate as far as Hollywood goes". It's just "pretty accurate".

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The biggest complaint I've heard is that the movie is boring and poorly paced. I hate to be a pedant, but let's refer to the paragraph and link above... this really happened. I'm not a turtleneck clad indie movie geek by any stretch, but if you were waiting for Vin Deisel to slide into the Nazi conference room on a burning motorcycle and stuff a plasma grenade down Hitler's leiderhosen while grunting an obscenity laced one-liner, y'all came to the wrong hoe-down.

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The second big complaint is that Cruise's acting is wooden and boring. Cruise was asked to play a veteran military officer in an army that did it's best to hearken back to the ideals of Teutonic knighthood. Traditional stoicism was also a big movement in the Wehrmacht, especially later in the war when the military realized they didn't have much of Germany to cling to other than the national honor they themselves were generating by fighting honorably. In this respect, I thought Cruise nailed it.

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The last and most absurd complaint I heard was about the accents. Some actors went authentic German, most others sported British accents, and Cruise and a few others spoke in American accents. Honestly. Why is it that when the cast are supposed to be speaking a different language, movie-goers expect, nay demand, to hear a British accent? Is it like that in London too? Do all their German soldiers sound like they're from Utah? If you want to pick lingual nits in movies, then only go to movies with subtitles or shut up. And shut up In English.

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Oh, and while we're on the language thing, Valkyrie did the second best audience language transition moment I've seen in a movie. Second best, mind you.