2. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 6:52 PM PDT
Hey Fraygod - interesting thread idea! I haven't kept up with the suggestions thread, so I don't have a clue as to where this came from - but I just got back from the future and this thread has legs. Long ones.
3. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 6:54 PM PDT
Anyone ever read "The man who folded himself?" Interesting Time Travel (TT) paradigm.
4. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:10 PM PDT
Just for simple curiousity, I wouldn't mind standing on or behind the grassy knoll in 1963.
I saw a documentary on PBS about 6 years ago where the reporter interviewed an old mobster about to die, and this man said he knew who the assissins were and why they were hired. He said the aim was to get rid of Bobby Kennedy -- the Attorney General -- and they knew that the only way to accomplish this goal was to "cut off the head of the snake" itself. That is, if they just killed Bobby, Jack would appoint someone else to continue with his work, and that wouldn't accomplish their goal.
5. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:22 PM PDT
For sheer spectator value, I would like to have seen the call to penance by Henry IV at Canossa, where he waited in the snow barefoot until Gregory would receive his penance in one of the most dramatic of all confrontations of lay and spiritual authority.
(I have forgotten, but was it Henry IV who was whipped, or was that another King?)
6. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:27 PM PDT
PD,
Interesting. You want to travel back to watch, I would choose to go back and change things. In the context of the Fray, i would choose to visit with Jefferson and clue him in on how things turned out. Maybe he would change some of his official writings to be more explicit in declaring his intentions.
7. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:33 PM PDT
I would have loved to actually be a participant in the early days of America. The action, the intrigue, the tension, the wilderness, the questions, the challenges.
I would have loved to argue Thomas Paine's _Common Sense_ in a pub with some Loyalists -- I would consider that Fraying in its purest form, where many of the ideas were so new and revolutionary.
8. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:34 PM PDT
If I were to go back just to watch...
1) Easter.
2) First organism to crawl from the sea.
3) First human sentence.
9. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:35 PM PDT
pe,
Debating Common Sense back then probably wouldn't be much different that debating freedom with elliot today.
10. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:38 PM PDT
Adam,
I am currently trying to come up with a good example where I would like to try and change things. I was thinking of maybe Thomas Beckett and Henry V (?), or Thomas Moore and another King Henry (I forget the numbers). But I can't decide if changing the outcome of their encounters would have really mattered too much in the end. I need to pull out some history books and refresh my memeory to come up with a good situation.
What would you have counseled Jeffereson to do, specifically?
11. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:41 PM PDT
Hey PD!
Was Henry IV the one who William (the Conqueror) was allied with? If so that makes the timing correct (Pope Gregory? 11th century?)
I would have a hard time choosing only one place of interest. I can think of at least 5 time travel experiences I'd love to undertake:
1) to go back to the dawn of agriculture (around the 9th millennium) to settle the nagging question in my mind of women's role in it's development;
2) to travel to the Minoan Culture in around 1200 bce. The Minoans may represent the last great culture where women held relatively high status until the modern age;
3) to meet and talk to Aristotle (Greece 360's). I'm an unabashed groupie of his writings;
4) to participate in the American Revolution and observe the Constitution Convention (I'd have to switch sex to do this, but hey, if I can travel through time, I can become a man.). I want to hear and see what actually happened and how the events unfolded;
5) to travel 200 years in the future to see what our culture and the world has become. I'd like to know if we've managed to avoid ruining our economy, our eco-system, or blowing ourselves to bits.
There are many more historical eras I'd be interested in visiting and some I'd be interested in trying to live in, but I'll save those for another post.
12. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:46 PM PDT
Henry IV (the hero of Shakespeare's two-part history and father of Henry V) and William the Conqueror are separated by about 250 years.
13. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:47 PM PDT
PE
Which Henry was it then? II? III?
14. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:51 PM PDT
Hey, there are only two reasons to go back in time: 1) to photocopy every damned parchment lost in the mist of antiquity, so that we have a text w/o any of the monk-brain adulterations... um, rescensions. And, yes, we could get the "book-form" Aristotle, instead of the scatter-brain lectures notes we are left with.
2) to collect field data. Would love to compare the per capita income of England or France in 1500-1600 and China 1500-1600. Today we extrapolate from crap like grain prices & urban populations, themselves extrapolations from even more dubious data.
15. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:52 PM PDT
Who wants to meet Aristotle? In fact, anybody else before the 20th century? You might catch some horrid disfiguring disease.
16. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:54 PM PDT
PE
I'd add to record pre-historical events accurately and collect better information on the civilizations that existed during that period.
However, there are more reasons than this for time travel, I'd just like to get the feel for the world at different points in our history.
17. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:54 PM PDT
Anyone ever read "The Cross-Time Engineer?" About a modern day engineer who visited Europe just before the Dark Ages and taught them enough to fend off the hordes? That. I'd do that.
18. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:55 PM PDT
Don't be an idiot, one would travel back with innoculations firmly in place.
19. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:57 PM PDT
You're calling me an idiot? What the hell brought that on?
20. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 7:58 PM PDT
Message #15, and it wasn't meant seriously.
21. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:00 PM PDT
Then, you have yet to master amiable hostility.
22. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:01 PM PDT
Henry II can't have been allied with William the Conqueror. The one follows the other.
23. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:03 PM PDT
"Oh PE, now *don't* be an idiot!!! You should know I'd be well innoculated before undertaking any 'lil ole trip like that!!!"
24. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:05 PM PDT
Well, hell, he was allied with one of the Henry's. I remember this from my distant reading of the trials and tribulations of one William the Conqueror.
25. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:08 PM PDT
This germ issue is a pain.
I am going to assume I'm always protected in the past (innoculations), but what about travel to the future?
Would they shoot me on sight because I'm a germ carrier for diseases they've forgotten about?
Nononono, I refuse to be shot before finding out the scoop. We'll assume this one away, too (just like a good little economist!).
26. Snowowl - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:08 PM PDT
Msivorytower,
Henry I was the son of William the Conqueror, I guess that makes them allied in some way.
27. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:10 PM PDT
Henry of France?
Nono, he was allied with one of the Henrys from the French regimes. He named his son after the man. This I remember.
28. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:13 PM PDT
One reason to back in time would to prevent a personal tragedy that affected someone close to you, or a distant relative.
One of my students last year told me his great, great, (I forget how many greats) grandfather was the treasurer of the Confederate States of America, and he stole a bunch of Confederate dollars and headed for Mexico. Of course, the stuff became worthless and he ended up burning it to keep warm.
I am convinced that his family is still trying to live down or genetically transcend the embarrassing nature of this past relative's actions. The ignominious nature of this distant relative still seems to reside within the fibers of that family.
29. Snowowl - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:14 PM PDT
I think you might be getting confused with Edward the Confessor, who promised the throne to William, in return for Norman support during a fight with his father-in-law.
30. coralreef - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:15 PM PDT
Yes, William the Conqueror was helped by his uncle Henry I of France. They later had a falling out.
31. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:16 PM PDT
I would go back to 1760 and the reign of George III of Britain. His era, and that of the Prince Regent, later George IV (1810 - 1820 as regent; 1820 - 1830 as George IV), seethed with change and turmoil.
I would love to meet the people of the era: Horace Walpole, Byron, Beau Brummell, Keats, the Patronesses at Almack's, the future Queen Victoria, Prinny himself, and so many more.
It was also an era on the brink of even greater change: the era of the Industrial Revolution, that, like a genie, could not be put back in its bottle.
32. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:17 PM PDT
I would have liked to stomp out of Massachessetts with Roger Williams, and cast a dark look backwards, as we stumped off to Rhode Island and the notion of fair play and religious freedom.
33. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:17 PM PDT
First trip: to tell myself which lottery number to buy last week.
34. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:18 PM PDT
Going back in time to change history creates one of the classic problems in time travel, the paradox of existence. If you change something that wipes out the present as you know it, do you then become non-existent when you return to your own time? Or do you live out your time in a world unfamiliar to you?
What happens if you go back in time during your lifetime, and meet yourself as a child? Do you remember this suddenly as an adult?
These are often talked about as paradoxes wrt time travel. Certainly, though, the question of alternative paths in history can cause major dilemmas wrt the impact of changes on your present reality.
35. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:18 PM PDT
Henry II killed Beckett (and I thought he was the son of William (I happen to be an illegitimate direct descendant)). Henry VIII put Thomas More to the axe. Henry V did Agincourt, Henry IV overthrew Dick II.
36. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:19 PM PDT
CR!!
Yes! that's the one. Thanks, for the memory.....
37. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:19 PM PDT
Second trip: tell myself about the career I would end up choosing, and which girls to not waste time on, (and which ones...) so that my youth would have been much, much better spent.
38. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:20 PM PDT
Come on guys, there are more Henrys than the Brits......
39. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:22 PM PDT
MsIT,
I think I should shut up. I've obviously read so much more TT stories than the other posters here that I have an unfair advantage.
To your question: the dominant theme is to assume sideways causality - that is, subjective reality depends on subjective causality. If you change something in the past, you're future experineces (whenever they occur) depend on that action.
40. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:23 PM PDT
Raskolnikov
In order to find out how undistinguished & common royal lineage is, check this
site.
41. PseudoErasmus - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:24 PM PDT
shit.
Virtually everyone is descended from royalty.
42. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:24 PM PDT
I have a theory that HenryII and Henry VIII, as well as Beckett and More, were the same souls reincarnated together. They had the same sort of battle with each other twice over the same sort of isues two lifetimes in a row.
In this scenario, Becket/More was definitly the superior soul, and Henry didn't take an advantage to balance his karma.
43. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:24 PM PDT
Adam,
I bet you haven't read more than I have. TT was my first intro to science fiction, and I have been a faithful follower for many years.
44. 109109 - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:27 PM PDT
I am descended from Oliver Cromwell, which made me very popular on my last visit to Ireland. But I do not have the same absurd haircut.
45. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:27 PM PDT
Selene and ATS
Then expand on this assumption of sideways causality - implications for present reality?
46. LadyChaos - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:27 PM PDT
I would go to early 17th century Amsterdam, meet Jan Van Loon, share a beer with him, and give him some encouragement. Possibly buy a Rembrandt on the cheap.
47. CalGal - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:29 PM PDT
1) Hang out watching the design of the atom bomb at Alamagordo. And, yes, the test.
2) The Black Death (1348?) In England, preferably. With all immunizations in place. Including the one for bubonic plague, thankyouverymuch.
3) Find out where my family got its motto from.
4) Check out India or China--wherever acupuncture actually started, and be there when someone said-you know, maybe if I stick this needle in *here*, the pain will go away.
48. 109109 - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:30 PM PDT
I would go back as Jefferson Davis. I'd like to see if I could give the Confederacy a go.
49. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:30 PM PDT
Arial,
"The man who folded himself?" (most introspective) "Cross-time Engineer?" (Best anti-prime directive)
Your choices?
50. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:32 PM PDT
If I could time travel:
1) Slap myself silly over asking a certain woman out on a date in 1987.
2) Get Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, and Woody Allen in the same room, and sit back and listen.
3)Have a chat with Dostoevsky
4) Rescue Welles' ending to Magnificent Ambersons and the rest of Stroheim's Greed.
5) invest in Microsoft
6) watch dozens of events (Kennedy assassination, Trafalgar, Thermopyle, Shakespeare's orginal performances, my parents' wedding, etc)
7) If I feel lucky, show Kaiser Wilhem the long term consequences of his idioitic foreign policy, and thus avoid lots of nasty events like two workd wars, the holocaust, the Bolshevik revolution, and the bad fallout of the cold war, like Pol Pot.
51. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:33 PM PDT
MsIT,
It's simple (sorta). Just think of causality as functioning on the a subjective timeline. If you go back and kill your grandfather before your Mom was born, you don't just fade away! Your personal history hasn't changed at all. But if you travel back to the "present", no one's heard of you. Get it?
Another way to look at it: parallel universes. Every quantum decision is made each way - time bifurcates at each instant. So, when you time-travel, you come back to a different parallel universe with a different causal history - the one you remember plus any changes you've made.
52. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:34 PM PDT
Pseudo, yeah, I know, but it is fun to name drop when talking about Plantagenants,
53. 109109 - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:35 PM PDT
Rask
Oh nice. Now we're talking about the chance of a lifetime, and no. 1 is bagging a babe in 1987.
54. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:36 PM PDT
niner: No, AVOIDING bagging the babe is number one.
55. CalGal - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:36 PM PDT
Rask,
I always want to tell Gary Kildall--DON'T go flying. And tell his wife....SIGN THE NDA!!!
But if I'd done that, your MS investment might not be as safe.
56. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:37 PM PDT
Selene
Yes, that's what I was suggesting in my earlier message. So, you change your present and lose any history as you knew it. Makes surviving in the present damn uncomfortable, I'd think.
This passion for changing the past intrigues me. What makes any of you assume that OTHER consequences that result from the changes you bring wouldn't be equally horrific, or devastating, or painful?
57. 109109 - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:39 PM PDT
Rask
Oh, okay. Avoidance is proper.
58. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:41 PM PDT
The Ms, the theory says that your very presence will influence the future, for good or ill.
Present reality as you knew it before you traveled back in time will not exist upon your return. The changes might be minor, but things will not be the same.
I remember a story I read a long time ago (I wish I could remember the name!) where a group of time travelers labored mightily to not interfere with anything at all. They were successful until one member accidentally stepped on a butterfly; Earth was in ruins when they returned or something equally dramatic - it's been 30 years!.
Adam, 'The Sands of Time' by P. Schuyler and 'Time Travel Happens!_ by A.M. Phillips - oldies but goodies.
I like your selections a lot too.
59. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:42 PM PDT
MsIT,
No guarentees - but most actions fade into the noise. It's pretty obvoius which ones would have significant effect - like killing Hitler in 1938.
One school of thought is that events shape the participants, so that if you killed Hitler then someone else would have filled his role - I don't buy that at all.
Sure, it's possible that some action would have unintended consequences, but that's no more true in the past that it is in the present.
60. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:43 PM PDT
ariel, sound of thunder by bradbury.
61. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:46 PM PDT
ariel,
Another one: "The distant Past" ( I think) short story by Asimov. Premise: the past is only nanaoseconds away....
62. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:48 PM PDT
Rask, you are a Prince!!! (No irony intended.)
63. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:50 PM PDT
I remember seeing a cartoon a few years ago, which had the protagonist slipping back in time right before Pearl Harbor. He asks himself: "If I try to stop the planes, many lives would be saved, but the consequences on the future could be disastrous, or they could be incredible. Do I dare? Do I dare play God and cast dice with history?" He then answers, "why not? I';ve got nothing better planned for today."
64. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:53 PM PDT
Adam, yes! I love that one. There's another I'm beating up what few brain cells are left, but it involves future travel.
65. Msivorytower - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:54 PM PDT
"No guarentees - but most actions fade into the noise."
You must be assuming only one person is engaged in such activities. If time travel were possible, then a large number of people would be going back in time, all changing history according to their whims, and eventually affecting everyone else's present reality.
Sounds like the potential for a hell of a lot more than white noise.
ATS
I suppose I've known about these ideas, but not categorized them with the same language.
And I still see the problem of interferring in historical events as enormous if many are doing so.
66. LadyChaos - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:55 PM PDT
I would perhaps want to go to Fredericksburg in the late Fall of 1862, and try to discourage Burnside from ordering the attack on the wall. It was such a waste of humanity; many Irishmen died senselessly.
67. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:55 PM PDT
'Time Locker' by Lewis Padgett! It is worth rereading whenever I get the urge.
68. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:55 PM PDT
Rask,
Sounds like the tv movie with Kirt Douglass as the captain of an aircraft carrier that goes back in time. It was on about 10 years ago - anyone remember the name?
69. LadyChaos - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:56 PM PDT
I would want the chance to bend Chamberlain's ear, maybe strap him down to keep him from flying to Munich. If that failed, I would want to encourage Benes to put up a fight over the Sudetenland.
70. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:56 PM PDT
Me, too, the Ms. I agree with Bradbury.
71. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:58 PM PDT
arial,
Ok, I'll confess, I don't know that one. I'll look for it.
MsIt - Robert Silverberg (right, Arial?), among others, wrote about "time travel agencies" that would take people back to witness important events. Where do you think Jesus's big crowds came from? *G*
72. Raskolnikov - Sep. 9, 1998 - 8:58 PM PDT
Adam: "Philadelphia Experiment". The cartoon was doing a send up.
73. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:01 PM PDT
I'd just like to be an invisible observant.
Another famous era is that of the 'Lost Generation'. Here in the US it meant the likes of Dorothy Parker, the Murphys, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Harold Ross, etc.
I'd like to observe the same period of time (between the wars) in England, of course.
74. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:04 PM PDT
Adam, you have to read it! It even includes the fourth dimension. The twist at the end is worth it's weight in gold (that includes the weight of all participants).
75. 109109 - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:05 PM PDT
Adam
I thought it was the Final Countdown.
76. LadyChaos - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:06 PM PDT
To see Paris in the 20's would be enough for me, actually. Or to visit Hemingway in Havana for some marlin fishing.
77. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:08 PM PDT
Milady, you'd be one town over from my home.
78. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:10 PM PDT
109 - Yes! The Final Countdown was the tv move. The Philedelphia Experiment was a theatrical release - not nearly as much fun. Time travel stories are no fun if the paradoxes aren't explored.
Well, except maybe for Crosstime Engineer. That was loads of fun!
79. JJBiener - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:10 PM PDT
Adam - The movie was (I think) Final Countdown. It was the USS Nimitz going back to WWII.
Speaking of time travel stories. . .on of my favorites is about a scientist in the 19th century who builds a time machine and travels forward to the 1950's (the present when the story was written). When he returns he is relating all of the wonderous things he has seen and how everyone took these things for granted. His friend refuses to believe he had actually travelled in time. He could accept that all the things the man described could actually exist. What he couldn't accept is that people could possibly take them granted.
80. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:10 PM PDT
I am reading The Old Man in the Sea in class, LadyChaos.
81. 109109 - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:12 PM PDT
I sleep now, but "Time After Time" where HG Wells chases Jack the Ripper to 80s San Francisco is a treat.
82. Philistine - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:12 PM PDT
Ariel, don't forget Tim Powers' "The Anubis Gates", in which a scholar goes back to 1810 to meet an obscure poet, fails to find him, and writes out all the nonexistent poets wokrs from memory!
So who wrote those poems?
83. Philistine - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:14 PM PDT
Also, I can't be the only one who would like to hear JS Bach improvise counterpoint on a church organ, or any number of similar fantasies.
84. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:14 PM PDT
Philistine -
One of my favorite paradoxes! (paradoxi?)
85. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:14 PM PDT
(paradoxies?)
86. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:15 PM PDT
JJ, Was that _Looking Backward_ by Edward Bellamy?
87. Philistine - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:18 PM PDT
Terrific parody of "The Sound Of Thunder" in one of the Simpsons' Halloween specials, btw.
88. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:20 PM PDT
Philistine, how could I forget? I've managed to get all of Powers' books by hook or by crook, and am waiting for him to go back to _The Anubis Gates_.
There's also a good series by Dave Duncan, _The Great Game_.
I wrote the poems, natch.
89. AdamSelene - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:21 PM PDT
One of my favorite old tt fantasies - whenever asked a question in class, slip out and find the answer. Take a nap, score a chick, then slip back into class with just the right phrasing to make the teacher look stupid.
And, since I can't time travel, I now have to sleep. (
90. arielthesprite - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:21 PM PDT
Somebody crunches Homer?
91. Random - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:22 PM PDT
The trip I would take would be to about 1860 (Ireland) then to Canada and finally into the Western US about 1882 with the Jesuits who came from Canada, too, to tame the Indians. I would like to stay around from that period of settling the west, raising cattle, tending herds and fighting the weather in Montana, and then see the 1929 crash, the first of the model A's the
depression, the WWI, WWII when people were people, Americans were American.
I'd like to feel the pride those people felt, work as hard as they did,
appreciate and dote on family and country as those folks did. I could achieve some of this first hand experience in the Judith Basin branding when the herds were brought in. Charlie Russell,the westerm artist, would be by the campfires. As the large herds were assembled for branding more and more family members assembled for this yearly ritual.
I could feel it again when the men came back from wars, when the wars ended, the wars were won.
I'd like to know what it felt like to go through experiences of great accomplishment when the measure of them was in part the amount of humility you displayed in accepting the reward.
In 1960 I would go to another place, come back in Oct. 1973 to say 'goodbye' to great aunt Kate, now 103, before she died in October of that year. Then I'd move on, back to Ireland and get to know James Connolly.
92. KurtMondaugen - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:23 PM PDT
Adam:
paradeuce
93. KurtMondaugen - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:26 PM PDT
provided you're choosing between two, of course. forgive me.
94. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:27 PM PDT
I would love to go back to 1854 and slap some sense into Roger B. Taney, the chief justice in both the Amistad and Dred Scott cases.
"Negroes," he said, were "a subordinate and inferior class of beings." They had "none of the rights and privileges" of citizens of the United States.
95. ScottLoar - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:31 PM PDT
My father died when I was just above a year old. I would want to see his face, beyond the few fading photos I have. The rest, the past, belongs to those who lived it.
96. CalGal - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:36 PM PDT
Scott,
I'm sorry you've never seen your father.
And that's probably the sweetest post that will appear in this thread. Thanks for pointing out what's important.
97. phillipdavid - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:36 PM PDT
I would love to sit with Lao Tzu and get some instruction regarding what he was trying to communicate in the Tao Te Ching.
98. hashke - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:40 PM PDT
I would go back to the very beginning, if indeed there was one, to check out the Big Bang. But mind you, I would journey fully innoculated and with as much amiable hostility musterable. Then I would slip forward a notch or two to see if the Old Guy really touched the finger of Adam.
99. KurtMondaugen - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:45 PM PDT
1) Beat Duchamp to the "ready-made" punch....by about 400 years
2) Bring 12-Tone Theory to America....before the Europeans get here
3) Deliver patents to Nikolai Tesla and Leon Scott (inventor of a superior 'phonograph') with great expedience
4) Pick up Walter Gropius along the way and drop him off in Mesopotamia
(all in a philanthropic cultural interest, naturally...no mischief here)
100. Random - Sep. 9, 1998 - 9:47 PM PDT
Another great trip would be to visit the Dalai Lama. Remember that
great movie with Tyrone Power when he traveled high up in the mountains of Tibet. What is the name?