1. The correct answer to the question “Am I a racist?” is “I don’t care.”

2. Listening to podcasts about Napoleon from Apostolic Majesty (an excellent and very thorough history channel, by the way). Napoleon, as I think I’ve mentioned, strikes me as one of the closest examples we’ve had in history to a genuine Supervillain: someone who essentially can do whatever he wants for the simple reason that his personal abilities make it impossible for anyone to stop him. He ran roughshod over all continental Europe and freely broke any and all diplomatic agreements he made the moment it became beneficial to do so, and (for a long time) got away with it because his military genius and ability to levy enormous armies at will meant that he couldn’t really be punished for it.

3. Of course, Napoleon shows the problem with this, which is that he wasn’t able to form any genuine alliances, everyone quickly learned that they couldn’t trust him, and he became increasingly isolated and unstable while his mistakes compounded until they became insurmountable by any strategic prowess.

4. Speaking of generals, I do admire George Washington a good deal; one cannot say too many good things about him as a leader, or of his personal courage. As a general, however, it must be said that he was pretty mediocre, from all I can tell. He made a lot of colossal strategic errors (e.g. trying to hold New York City against the British without a navy, wanting to try to re-take the city instead of heading for Yorktown, etc.), which, in any other war, would have certainly led to his defeat. When he faced the British in major set-piece battles, he almost always lost, even when he had the advantage of numbers (e.g. Germantown) or else ended inconclusively. His victories were mostly in small battles in which he held significant advantages.

One need only consider the fact that Washington’s most famous and significant victory (not counting Yorktown, where he was backed up by the French and which, again, he had argued against) involved ambushing an outnumbered force of sleeping men the day after Christmas. It’d be hard to imagine a less impressive set of circumstances in which to win a battle (The follow-up victory at Princeton involved the Colonials outnumbering the British about three-to-one).

Contrast that with Robert E. Lee, whose most famous victory (Chancellorsville) involved splitting his army in the face of a superior force and ordering a mad-dash pincer maneuver.

Of course, the importance of Trenton was more in seeing that the rebels desperately needed a victory and seizing the opportunity to give them one, and Washington’s really indispensable skill lay in holding the ramshackle Colonial Army together (which is undoubtedly more important under the circumstances than strategic genius). But if we’re talking American generals, I’d much rather have Jackson or Lee or even Grant directing the battlefield.

5. The pre-Civil War United States (between about 1780 and 1850) is rather like Prince of Space: its power lay mostly in having incompetent (or disinterested) enemies. Then, about the time of the Civil War, from one cause or another, it developed into an absolute military monster.

The United States is the Magikarp of nations.

6. I learned recently that the same screenwriter is responsible for Dracula: Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt, Power Rangers (2017), Morbius, and Madam Webb.

I guess that settles any question of Hollywood being a meritocracy.

7. In Japan, animal cafes are very popular: going in, having a drink, and playing with bunnies, puppies, kittens, etc. Entrepreneurial cafe owners, apparently, experiment with different types of friendly critters.

I was delighted to learn that someone came up with a capybara cafe.