Comments on: Back to School Week at the University of Arizona

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 23:54:30 +0000

Apologies for the terse tone, but there’s a reason lots of medievalists (the people who kinda know a little something about it) call it “the ‘F’ word.” I don’t think Brown is completely right about it (Brown, Elizabeth A.R. “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe,” AHR 79 (1974), pp. 1063-1088), but I also would argue that most of us don’t completely buy Bloch’s interpretation, or at least might say that he’s often misinterpreted in terms of what the actual feudal relationship is. [got a 500 error, and am trying to post again—sorry if it duplicates]

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 23:50:01 +0000

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 23:18:51 +0000

Well, you could start out by remembering that there is no such thing as a transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, since the former is a very loose term that covers a set of political and social relationships, while the other is all to do with economics. Perhaps you mean manorialism?

By: Todd Fletcher

Todd Fletcher — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 21:08:06 +0000

Deserts are healthy places to live. No nasty mold and mildew. I get sick a lot less here in AZ than I did when I lived on the East Coast. Besides, why are people so surprised at desert cities? Many of the earliest civilizations arose in deserts or semi-deserts, like Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley. Besides, there’s good mexican food here.

By: Lysander

Lysander — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:13:06 +0000

I’m still stuck with “is kind of a litany ”

By: jif

jif — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:59:32 +0000

Which is preferrable- the stoner students who can’t remember that they have a little stash in their pocket, or the student who answered her cell phone in a class of 15, and who stated during a discussion of class in American society that “well, like, there’s only so much stuff and some people have it and some people don’t, so, like, whatever.” ? Not that I’m advocating drug use, but sometimes I wondered if a bong hit or two wouldn’t have helped.

By: rea

rea — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:36:16 +0000

“Would the answer be the nearby Colorado river?” Tuscon is not particularly near the Colorado, unless “within 300 miles” counts.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:20:41 +0000

I suppose the two big eras of this kind of cities are pre air conditioning and post a-c. Still doesn’t really explain the “why” though.

By: Dutch

Dutch — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 13:54:32 +0000

A description of luddites in a police state? (c) Where else could you find students without a cellphone, and students arrested for having a bit of marijuana? The current page again has someone unable to call the police from his cellphone, and the following crime: Police searched the room and found a Corona beer in the bathroom. Anyone knows beer should be kept in a fridge before consumption. But the real crime is what the locals here call 'alcohol abuse': the Corona was poured out, reports stated. What a waste!

By: Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 09:27:53 +0000

I’d be more interested in the related question “Why the hell can there be nearly a million people living here in the desert?” Would the answer be the nearby Colorado river?

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 09:20:24 +0000

Yeah, well, maybe that’s the sort of kids you get in Arizona. In my college years we had helicopters tear-gassing us, we faced National Guardsmen with drawn bayonets, policemen on horseback, bean-bag guns and rubber bullets. (And we walked five miles to school uphill both ways in the rain.) I can only remember one instance of sharing a joint on campus, after a fencing bout. That probably says more about my memory than my behavior, though.