[chase19]

Michael Blayhost?sp (a professor at John Hopkins) is just saying to a radio talkshow host about how Ronald Reagan's funeral is like that of a Roman Emperor that "symbolizes sacred figures" and that Reagan has become some kind of Diety - he thinks that even Chris Mathews is gushing too much. This professor goes on to say how the Roman's fell and how alike we are to them. He continues with how the problem with Empires are the need to galvanize people to do things a country we shouldn't do (I guess the Iraqi war). How much we are dependent on the big eagle <---the president, and how weak we are as a country. Then he goes on to talk about the Iran-contra and demonizes Ronald Reagan big time. Guess who he wants to fall?! and he teaches our kids!!! No wonder there's disunity in this country - we got the so-called pessimistic elitists like this dude speaking from his tenured glass tower and then there's the rest of us working slobs who continue to stay focussed and optimistic.

[Torie]

A tenuous and tendentious and superficial, and therefore, quite silly, analogy, in so many ways. For starters, the US spends about 3% of its GNP on "empire building" (I am just being polite in buying into the empire thingie, which in and of itself is also superficial, and a provocative word used in lieu of thought) - Rome spent maybe 50%, and much of that was financed by plunder. I won't go on.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Michael Blayhost?sp

BARF!!!

[piasa]

That's the kind of guy who doesn't want people to mention that before Rome's fall... the men were spending way too much time drinking lead-tainted wine and peeking under each other's togas to run their empire.

[arthurus]

some kind of Diety

Is that the god of lite?calories?