“I stayed there for a long, long time. Later, I discovered that this island was a moving island. It would never stay for long in one place......" Gu Mang and Mo Xi exchanged glances. What kind of island was this? Covered in flowers and moving around in the sea, truly something unheard of. "All four seasons were like spring, probably because an immortal lived here, so the spirit of plants flourished,” Wuyan said. “But, even though there were a lot of plants, there weren't very many living things that could speak. On this island, other than me, there was only the immortal who saved me. His everything was good, but he was just too mysterious. He wouldn't tell me where he came from. He wouldn't even tell me his name. After knowing him for so long, all I knew was that his last name was Chen.”
In early September 1458, having bloodlessly taken possession of Athens and unpredictably spared its population out of respect for the ancient culture of Greece, Mehmet paid an impromptu ‘friendly’ visit to Negroponte with a force of a thousand cavalry. The terrified population thought that their last hour had come. They came out to greet the sultan with rich gifts. He jingled across the bridge connecting the island to mainland Greece and inspected the place.
It was a warning. Such visits were never innocent; Mehmet had sat outside the walls of Constantinople for three days in 1452, appraising its defences.
ACHILLES
The battle was won by soldiers. The soldiers know who fought.
AGAMEMNON
History remembers the kings, not the soldiers.
Tomorrow we'll batter down the gates of Troy. I'll build monuments to victory on every island of Greece, and carve Agamemnon in the stone. My name will last forever. Your name is written in the sand, for the waves to wash away.
ACHILLES
First you need the victory.
NAPOLYON BONAPART: SONU GELMEZ ATLANTİK DALGALARINI İZLEYEREK ÖLMEK
İşin tuhaf kısmı, Trafalgar'ın yenilen ismi Napolyon'un Güney Atlantik'te yaşamına son vermesiydi. Akdeniz'de bulunan Elba Adası'ndaki ilk sürgününden başarıyla kaçtıktan sonra Waterloo'da yenilmiş ve Avrupa'nın çok ama çok uzağına gönderilmişti: Ufacık bir volkanik ada olan Saint Helena'ya. Böylece, büyük ölçüde küçülmüş bir figür olan Napolyon'un hayatı, coşkulu tavrını söndürerek ve sadık saray mensuplarından oluşan küçük maiyetini üzerek üzerine çöktü. Hem adadaki hayatı hem de son günleri Julia Blackburn'ün The Emperor's Last Island adlı kitabında harika bir biçimde tasvir edilir. Bu kitap, ada ve okyanusla olduğu kadar Napolyon'la da ilgilidir. Bonapart, 8'e 16 km’lik bir adada geçirdiği altı uzun yılın ardından 1821'de öldü. Son yıllarını büyük çoğunlukla, fethetmeyi başaramadığı Atlantik’in sonu gelmez dalgalarını izleyerek geçirdi.
Sayfa 96Kitabı okudu
Have Ithaca always in your mind. Your destination is to arrive there; but do not hurry your journey at all. Better that it should last for many years, that you cast anchor at the island when you are old, rich with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaca to give you wealth; Ithaca has given you that splendid journey. Without Ithaca you would not have set out. Ithaca has no more to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not cheated you. You have acquired such wisdom, so much experience, that you will have understood what Ithaca means.
Columbus & America
Columbus was filled with pride and joy. The Indies at last! The friendly people on the shore must be Indians, or as the Spanish sailors called them, 'Indios!' Now, of course, you know that he was wrong. Columbus was nowhere near India, but on an island off America. Thanks to his mistake we still call the original inhabitants of America 'Indians' and the islands where Columbus landed the 'West Indies'.
Sayfa 174Kitabı okudu
But the Anthropocene isn't a novel phenomenon of the last few centuries. Already tens of thousands of years ago, when our Stone Age ancestors spread from East Africa to the four corners of the earth, they changed the flora and fauna of every continent and island on which they settled. They drove the extinction all the other human species of the world, 90 per cent of the large animals of Australia, 75 per cent of the large mammals of America and about 50 per cent of all the large land mammals of the planet.
Large animals were the main victims because they were relatively few, and they breed slowly. Compare, for example, mammoths to rabbits. A troop of mammoths numbered no more than few dozen individuals, and bred at a rate of perhaps two youngsters per year. Hence if the local human tribe hunted just 3 mammoths a year, it would have been enough for deaths to outstrip births, and within a few generations the mammoths disappeared. Rabbits, in contrast, bred like rabbits. Even if humans hunted hundreds of rabbits each year, it was not enough to drive them to extinction.
Not that our ancestors planned on wiping out the mammoths; they were simply unaware of the consequences of their actions.
Sayfa 87Kitabı okudu
Bir Ülkeye Göçmen Alırken Uygulanması Gereken Politika Kesinlikle...
New immigrants stood at last on American land. But the big question was this: Could they stay?
Most people took between two and five hours to pass through Ellis Island. In the station's early years, immigrants had to complete these tests:
*First, they answered 29 questions. (How old were they? What job did they do in their old country? Were they married? Could they read?)
*Then immigrants were sent to the second floor of the building. This was the second test. Doctors watched people as they walked up the stairs. If they were not healty, they had to have more tests. Very sick people were sent back home.
* Immigrants were then asked the same 29 questions again. Were their answers the same as the first time? (1892 - 1954)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeni göçmenler sonunda Amerikan topraklarında durdular. Ama asıl soru şuydu: Onlar kalabilirler mi?
Ellis Adası'ndan geçmek çoğu insanın iki ila beş saatini aldı. İstasyonun ilk yıllarında, göçmenler bu testleri tamamlamak zorunda kaldılar:
* İlk olarak 29 soruya cevap verdiler. (Kaç yaşındaydılar? Eski ülkelerinde ne iş yaptılar? Evlendiler mi? Okuyabilirler miydi?)
* Daha sonra göçmenler binanın ikinci katına gönderildi. Bu ikinci testti. Doktorlar insanları merdivenlerden yukarı yürürken izlediler. Eğer sağlıklı olmasalardı, daha fazla test yaptırmak zorundaydılar. Çok hasta insanlar eve geri gönderildi.
* Daha sonra göçmenlere aynı 29 soruyu yeniden sordular. Cevapları ilk olanlarla aynı mıydı? (1892 - 1954)
Sayfa 12
