"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you believe that, Sir, you will believe anything" The Duke of Wellington, greeted by a stranger in a park with "Mr. Smith, I believe?" (according to Anthony de Jasay, The State)

January 2nd was not a great day for the Roman Empire back in 366 AD. For on that date a Germanic tribe called the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine river. It wasn’t the first time they invaded the Empire nor the last. But it was part of an ominous movement of barbarians from east to west that overwhelmed the overstretched defences and led to the sack and "fall" of Rome.

In fact the Alemanni had been trouble for the Romans for centuries, manageable much of the time as barbarian ferment on the borders generally was. And to be fair the Romans had behaved badly toward the Alemanni on occasion as well as the reverse. But what strikes me as interesting here is the way this tribe rocketed across the stage of history and fell into the orchestra pit but somehow kept their name on the program.

You see, the Alemanni were given a pretty bad beating by the Franks under Clovis I in 496 AD in the squabbling over the ruins of Rome. And after exactly 250 years of Frankish rule they launched an uprising that didn’t work out well at all, with all their nobles executed. Which was pretty much the end of them except to linguists, who still talk about Alemanic dialects of High German in, for instance, Baden-Württemberg (which unless you’re German you had to Google it too). And, speaking of language, in the French word Allemagne which means, of course, Germany.

Now it is no secret that relations between the French and the Germans have not always been smooth. Indeed the common nickname "Boche" is a French word for "rascal" or perhaps something a bit stronger (and semi-literally means "cabbage head"). And then there’s "Hun" and so on. But the French to this day use the moniker of a violent and disruptive tribe for the entire nation of Germany.

Odd, really, given that "France" and "French" come from the Franks who were, uh, this Germanic tribe who came west and… Oh well. There was a lot of that going on at the time. And in fact the Franks were on the side of the Romans more often than not and in a very real sense could and did claim to be the heirs of the Roman Empire rather than its conquerors, including founding the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne.

So the Franks did better overall than the Alemanni even if the European country they named got rather the worse of recent contests with the latter despite getting Alsace back after World War I which includes part of by now very historic Alemannia. But I suppose the Alemanni might be happy to know that although crushed and dispersed, they are not entirely forgotten and their name is still spoken with a mixture of apprehension and grudging respect almost 1,300 years after that unfortunate uprising and nearly 750 years since even the duchy of Alemannia went away.

"Abandon all hopelessness, ye who enter here" Dale Ahlquist opening the 2006 Chesterton Conference in St. Paul, MN

It’s a brand new year and the brand old "It Happened Today" is back. Thanks for your patience during the December respite. I do hope to continue the feature through 2017 and beyond with your help. As a crowd-funded commentator, I respond to your priorities. But I also do need your help. As I explained in a video last fall, I’m privileged to have a number of outlets for my work. But despite the fancy title my position with the U of O is sessional. I get paid a fixed fee per course, with no benefits or pension and no guarantee of teaching in any given year. Likewise my newspaper and radio work is freelance. And while I’m grateful to all those employers, the core of my livelihood is your crowd-funding of the documentaries and your general support through Patreon and other platforms.

So here’s the thing. My daily "Wish I’d said that" and "It Happened Today" features currently earn me about 57 cents each, assuming all the money pledged via Patreon is for them alone. Mind you, they’re U.S. half-dollars. But still, much as I enjoy creating the quotations and historical vignettes, I simply can’t afford to do it indefinitely at that rate. I have to put my time and effort where people really value them, meaning reward them, so my work pays the bills and feeds my family.

A lot of people are dismayed by the way things are going in Canada and want to fix it. And I’m doing my best to reclaim true Canadian values, to change the culture so we can change the politics. But one thing Canadians need to get better at if they want to remain True, Strong and Free is to give more. A new Fraser Institute study confirms that we still lag far behind our American neighbours in voluntary giving. Only in one American state, West Virginia, do people give a smaller share of total income to charity than in any Canadian province, and only Manitoba is above West Virginia. But it’s voluntary giving that really helps people in need, and sustains voices like mine that don’t parrot the CBC vision of Canada.

I’m not asking for a million dollars. I’m asking for three bucks a month from anyone willing to pay a dime, or $7.50 from anyone good for an entire quarter, per "It Happened Today" and "Wish I’d Said That" daily combo. So if you enjoy them and want them to continue, and you’re not already a backer of the documentaries or a patron, please visit www.johnrobson.ca and follow the links to make a monthly pledge. I quite literally can’t do it without you.

Thanks.

In my latest National Post column I argue that while history doesn't repeat, its lessons do... especially for those not paying attention. (Due to an editing mishap, at the end of the 3rd paragraph, between the sentence ending "great and small." and the one beginning "Regrettably, as with...", the sentence "But I am sure we’re not going to fight World War One again." was omitted.)

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." St. Augustine, quoted in Jon Winokur, Zen To Go

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack