(no subject)

[winterbadger]

Somewhere recently I saw a post (possibly on TMP, possibly on a blog) questioning the reputation of the "Charge of the Light Brigade" as a disaster. I was curious and investigated.

An after-action report by the ADC to the division commander recorded a 40% loss in men and a 50% loss in mounts as a result of the charge. If that isn't disaster, I don't know what is.

Some people love being contradictory and setting popular wisdom back on its heels. I find them annoying at the best of times, and when they are dead wrong I would love nothing better than to feed them into a fiery furnace. Or something.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Given that there was a huge investigation into the loss, I'd say the British government recognized it had been a disaster too. Even Tennyson, in his poem about the stark heroism, didn't try to say that the result hadn't been a disaster.

[winterbadger]

Yeah, it was someone trying to act like "Oh, well, everyone knows the poem, but it really wasn't like that at all". Yes, yes it was.

Something (Smithsonian, maybe?) had a similar "list of 12 myths about the American Revolution". At least half of them were things that I don't know anyone who seriously believes (and I include all my friends, classmates, and relatives who wouldn't know a Whig from a wig), and the other half were "facts" that aren't facts at all, but value judgments of the typical "everyone thinks that X caused Z, but it was really Y!". Where Z is a complex issue the boundaries of which are debated and the sources of which are many and varied.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

They're the same sort of people who, like Otto in A Fish Called Wanda, say that Vietnam was a tie.

[winterbadger]

And the kind who know, *KNOW*, what happened in Dallas on 11/22/63.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

Ha! There's a discussion today over on the ADF (Ar nDraiocht Fein) website forum for the Gael Kin. A guy just posted some shocking news that might affect those of us who worship the old Irish gods. Apparently the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland weren't Celtic.

He seems to think we should be shocked by this and rearrange our religious beliefs accordingly.

*yawn*

Anyway, it reminded me of this conversation. :-)

[winterbadger]

:-)