Heartbeat of the world

The feistiest blogger I know came across a neat flash map that shows in 90 seconds who's controlled what in the Middle East over recorded history. It gives you a good feel for just how much history there's been; this, too shall pass has gotta be the motto of the region.

There are only a few other maps on the site at the moment, but I totally look forward to more. Kids in the future are totally going to be learning from visual representations like this, along with immersive video games. It's so much more clear than reading reams of text.

At the moment, trapped in 2006, I'm reading Tom Holland's Persian Fire, a look at the Persian-Greek wars that in addition to shaping the foundations of the Mideast for generations to come also, in Holland's view, hold lessons for today's East vs. West standoff.

I'll write more when I finish, but one thing he's already got me thinking about is how Babylon was the first multicultural city, in contrast to the Greek city-states, who were proudly xenophobic and labeled all non-Greeks barbarian.

It's interesting how we venerate those ancient Greeks; Holland has some interesting things to say about Sparta, in particular, that are at odds with the popular view of those clear-eyed ancients. Hitler didn't admire those Spartans for nothing, you know.

And if you take a look at this map of active U.S. hate groups, you'll see there are quite a few Americans today who'd fit right into that police state (as long as they got to do the 'policing').

In case you're interested, among the states with no hate groups are Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine--perhaps because everyone in those states are white. The rest of the hate-group-less states are North Dakota and New Mexico, which may be a more meaningful standing since both have a significant minority Native American, and in NM's case Hispanic population. And Hawaii.

Which is probably too beautiful for people to wanna spend their time hating.