An Almanack

Tammany Hall was the nickname given to the Executive Committee of the Democratic party that controlled New York throughout the nineteenth century. Although it suffered a few setbacks, Tammany remained a force until the middle of the twentieth century. The base of its strength were the new immigrants, for a time mostly Irish, that flocked to the United States through Ellis Island during this time. The tough unemployed youth were the enforcers of party discipline. More established immigrants contributed money and votes. The bosses had much patronage to hand out as rewards to the faithful. If you do a good job all your life as a precinct captain, maybe your nephew would get a plum job as a bridge inspector. That is, if he agreed to pass along part of his income to the party.
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The Jaataka tales are a collection of parables about the 500 lives of the Buddha until he achieved Nirvana, salvation. After that there are no more re-incarnations. The stories proceed from simple morality tales in which the Bodhisatva ( the soul of the Budha) was alive in the body of a lower life-form: a rabbit, an elephant and so on. Until he attains human form and the stories get more sophisticated. Various versions of these stories have been told and retold over many generations all over the Eastern World.
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Athens and Sparta are prototypical early civilizations we learn to write essays about in high school. Even with the hind sight of middle age they remain interesting.

Most of what we know of the Spartans is from their arch-rivals, the Athenians. So we have to be a little skeptical of what we hear. Still, we know that they were a city state that was dominated by a small tribe of warriors. They had an underclass of agricultural workers,the helots. These were descendants of the messenians whom they had subjugated in earlier wars. The young men and women of Sparta were separated early on. The men received military training. Women received education as well, unusual in ancient societies. Spartan way of life was austere, based on a system of honor that emphasized valor above all else. They are most famous for the battle of Thermopylae, in which a small band of Spartan braves fought off the invading Persian army.
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Living in Rochester, one hears a lot about how science is done at Xerox and Kodak. Xerox was a little better at it, but their experience was still rather painful. It looks like the company has recovered from some of its stumbles and has posted a reasonable record in recent years.
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