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User:WCCasey

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Welcome to my user page. I've been editing and creating new articles since mid-2009. Primary interests include history (esp. Roman, British and U.S.A./California), biography, historical fiction, futurism and architecture. I can sometimes be obsessive about spelling (not, however, one of those who replace British spellings with American or vice versa), grammar, syntax and punctuation. All comments are welcome on my Talk page.

Favorite quotes. Since one of my main interests is history, the list begins with a few about history:

  • "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." - George Bernard Shaw (paraphrase of Hegel)
  • “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” – Mark Twain
  • "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
  • "You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem." - Eldridge Cleaver
  • "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know", and...
  • "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein
  • "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." (The best [or perfect] is the enemy of the good) - Voltaire
  • "Life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards" - Kierkegaard
  • "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" (The more things change, the more they stay the same) - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
  • "When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision." - Lord Falkland
  • "It ain’t what you don’t know that hurts you, it’s what you don’t know you don’t know." - Mark Twain
  • "We have met the enemy, and he is us" - Pogo
  • “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” - Robert J. Hanlon
  • "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there" - Lewis Carroll
  • "Progress includes Order, but Order does not include Progress." John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (1861)
  • "To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child." - Cicero
  • "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • “For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.” Benjamin Franklin

I'll add this one; not because I'm a mathematician but because I'm mysteriously attracted to aphorisms couched in this form:

  • “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” - Albert Einstein

Favorite rebuttal of a logical fallacy:

Future article subjects

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Portola expedition sources and notes

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  • Juan Crespí, edited and translated by Alan K. Brown, A Description of Distant Roads, (San Diego, California: San Diego State University Press, 2001). [Before Brown's translation of the original Crespí journals, we depended on translations of the Palou biography of Crespí biography, which purported to include Crespí's journal words verbatim. Palou's version of Crespí's words was accepted as faithful repetition by Bolton (the original journals were not available at that time). Thanks to Brown, we now know that Palou took considerable liberties with Crespí's words.]
  • Herbert E. Bolton, editor/translator. "Fray Juan Crespi: Missionary Explorer on the Pacific Coast, 1769-1774", 1927. Now available online at HathiTrust Digital Library, url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000288788.
  • Vila and Costansó diaries of Portola expedition[1]
  • Fages' report, written in 1775[2]
  • Later, explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, on his way north in 1774[3]
  • On de Anza's second expedition (1775–76), diarist Father Pedro Font[4]
  • California mission history[5]
  • Palou's life of Serra[6]
  • California Place Names[7]
  • Santa Cruz County Place Names[8]
  • The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture[9]
  1. ^ Vila, V., & Rose, R. S. (1911). The Portola expedition of 1769-1770: Diary of Vicente Vila. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) [This volume also contains translations of the Costansó diary and the Fages 1770 diary].
  2. ^ Fages, P., Priestley, H. I., & Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Historia y Etnografía (Mexico) (1937). A historical, political, and natural description of California. University of California Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ Bolton, Herbert E. (1930). Anza's California Expeditions, Volume II. Internet Archive. p. 102.
  4. ^ Bolton, Herbert E. (1930). Anza's California Expeditions, Volume IV. Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Englehardt, Zephyrin (1912). The Missions and Missionaries of California. Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Palóu, Francisco, with an introduction and notes by George Wharton James (1913). Life and Apostolic Labors of the Venerable Father Junipero Serra. Google Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Gudde, Erwin G. (1969). California Place Names. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
  8. ^ Clark, Donald Thomas, and Sandy Lydon (2008). Santa Cruz County place names: a geographical dictionary. Scotts Valley, Calif: Kestrel Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ Chase, John L. (2023). The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture, 4th edition. Santa Cruz, Calif: Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.

Other California history sources

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  • Engelhardt, Z. (1929). The Missions and Missionaries of California. Santa Barbara, Calif: Mission Santa Barbara. [Caveat: being a priest himself, Englehardt's viewpoint is understandably biased.]
  • Priestley, H. I. (1916). José de Gálvez: Visitor-general of New Spain (1765-1771). Berkeley [Calif.: University of California press. Online at Google Books
This user works in and/or appreciates Architecture