ok so i've admitted a zillion times that i am a poor student of history, but i am working on fixing that. my recent trip to gettysburg was educational for me in the way it should have been when i was an 10 year old. also heaps of reading has been helping. right now i am in mythology mode, reading one book on native american myths and legends and re-reading edith hamilton's 'mythology'. i enjoy discovering the parallels between the religions, but i found this mega interesting too. she discusses hesiod's writing and the 5 ages of man. we are still in the iron age: "As the generations pass, they grow worse; sons are always inferior to their fathers. A time will come when they have grown so wicked that they will worship power; might will be right to them, and reverence for the good will cease to be. At last when no man is angry any more at wrongdoing or feels shame in the presence of the miserable, Zeus will destroy them too. And yet even then something might be done, if only the common people would arise and put down rulers that oppress them."

eh, just seemed timely...