Throwing someone under the bus: circa 900

If through a servant misfortune befall thee, Spare not to save thine own
life at his cost. Servants in plenty thou'lt find to replace him, Life for life never, once
it is lost.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

It was what servants were for. In some circles today, this is wisdom.

Women in the media: circa 900

...I am head of my family and mistress over men and slaves and servants. I have here a ship laden with merchandise...

An independent business woman.

"O sister, what wilt thou do with this handsome young man?" "I purpose to make him my husband," answered I; and I turned to the prince and said, "O my lord, I have that to propose to thee, in which I will not have thee cross me: and it is that, when we reach Baghdad, I will give myself to thee as a handmaid in the way of marriage, and thou shalt be my husband and I thy wife."

And not afraid to ask a man to marry her either.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

A good man: circa 900

After a while, they said to me, "O sister, we desire to marry again, for we can no longer endure to live without husbands." "O my dear ones," answered I, "there is no good in marriage, for now-a-days good men are rare to find; nor do I see the advantage of marrying again, since ye have already made trial of matrimony and it has profited you nothing."

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

Now-a-days?

Prozac: circa 900

Morn struggles through the dusk; so pour me out, I pray, Of wine,
such wine as makes the saddest-hearted gay!
So pure and bright it is, that whether wine in glass Or glass in
wine be held, i' faith, 'tis hard to say.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

Do people take too many pills? Well the pills aren't the problem and the practice isn't new.

Reflections on Francis Bacon: 2009

Often disagreements about God degenerate into shouting matches because the participants aren't there to discuss, they are there to live out a revenge fantasy against those who have taken away their faith in God, or made them have the faith in the first place.

The deists think the proponents of science are like they themselves used to be, people who have given in to doubt but not yet repented. The hard-core atheists think the deists are like they used to be, proponents of ideas that will lead to shameful self-realizations. Both are worried about backsliding and science gets stuck in the middle.

But what neither of them understand is that some of us have faith in science; we haven't given up our faith as either of them have, we never lost it. And I call it faith because of the enormity of the questions we seek to answer and the inadequacy of the tools with which we seek to answer them: our fragile human reason and our frail human senses.

Female sexuality: circa 900

So for fear of the genie, they lay with her one after the other, and when they had done, she bade them arise, and took out of her bosom a purse containing a necklace made of five hundred and seventy rings, and said to them, "Know ye what these are?" They answered, "No." And she said, "Every one of the owners of these rings has had to do with me in despite of this Afrit. And now give me your rings, both of you." So each of them took off a ring and gave it to her. And she said to them, "Know that this genie carried me off on my wedding night and laid me in a box and shut the box up in a glass chest, on which he clapped seven strong locks and sank it to the bottom of the roaring stormy sea, knowing not that nothing can hinder a woman, when she desires aught...

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

We didn't invent it, and in comparison to this, we sound like we're in the closet about it.

Cats: 1893

The violent lyrics of today's music is without precedent. (I almost can't believe that song is from 1893.)

Flying: 1893

If you wanted to do it without a balloon, you needed a hill to jump off of.

The pilot died three years after this, from breaking his spine in a flying accident.

We always say how sad it is when people die in stunts, but people like this weren't in it for just the thrill, they were really doing something!

--From Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution--

America: 1774

That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, without having an opportunity of making his defence.

--From A Letter from the General Congress, to the People of Great Britain--

I wonder what what the Founding Fathers would say about water-boarding? People ask it about all sorts of other things.

The prevention of wars: 1812

The question of why violence seems to have decreased over the last few centuries was brought up again recently. Here's an example from the past which might be of help:

Allow me to recommend the following means of obviating Scarcity of Corn [wheat] in future, and rendering ourselves truly independent, and no more obliged to bend contemptibly to the Americans, as we have now done; instead of declaring War against them a twelvemonth ago, as our honour imperiously called upon us to do.

The British would have declared war on America, but they were dependent on wheat imports from and couldn't bring themselves to it, even though their honor was at stake.

The proponents of free trade have claim that it would decreases wars by removing the need to fight over resources and increasing interdependence. Here's an example.

Oh, and how badly did the British need wheat? Here are some policies the well-to-do were asked to follow to help keep prices down:

1. They make a distinction between the Bread consumed by the Family and the Servants: that for the Family being baked in tins; as the Servants cannot then lay their own profusion on the Parlour.

2. They never suffer a loaf to be cut until after the second or third day of baking; for, when eaten new, the consumption is greater, and much waste is occasioned.

3. No toast is permitted; for the same portion cut into bread-and-butter goes one-third farther.

4. No rolls, French bread, or muffins; as all these are needless incentives to appetite.

5. No more cut for dinner than absolutely requisite; for which one piece, half an inch thick, of a round cut in four, will be found sufficient for each. By this means all broken pieces are prevented.

6. No flour used in pies and puddings; for which rice, variously prepared, will prove an excellent substitute.

Look at number 2! What is the point of making bread if you can't eat it fresh?

--From The Gentleman's magazine--

The National Debt: 1812

The American finances, however, seem little able to sustain the expenses of these warlike preparations. It appears from Mr. Gallatin's budget, that the national expenditure exceeds the receipts by 2,600,000 dollars; to cover this deficit it is proposed to make an addition of 50 per cent, to the present amount of duties, or to resort to the the funding system, and raise an loan of three millions of dollars.

--From The Gentleman's magazine--

A country with shaky finances isn't hard to defeat in a war. I wonder if many foreign leaders aren't secretly happy with our spending habits.