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John

@johnlk.bsky.social

@johnlk_80 on twitter. Comics, history, politics and such.

created June 12, 2023

998 followers 278 following 17,822 posts

view profile on Bluesky

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Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I will say that I hink Shelley's reach exceeds her grasp and that I think an adaptation can do a lot to make the monster's characterization more nuanced. Like, yes, I think the intention is as you say, but as written the Monster's cruelty comes off as excessive.

2/9/2025, 2:18:55 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

To be sure

2/9/2025, 2:13:55 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

The book is very anti-Frankenstein but also not very sympathetic to the monster, who is a child murdering psychopath.

2/9/2025, 1:40:57 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Gonna throw out the Dylan/Knopfler collaborations as underrated. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpRK...

2/9/2025, 1:10:36 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Labour's origins and self-conception as explicitly a working class party make it make some sense why they have it much worse than the Democrats do.

1/9/2025, 11:13:37 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Yes, this. It's about how you frame your target.

1/9/2025, 11:11:56 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

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1/9/2025, 11:09:28 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Only North Dakota! Thune was the junior senator from South Dakota at that point.

1/9/2025, 11:08:28 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

If he kept it he wouldn't be Spider-Man.

1/9/2025, 10:37:48 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Peter's basic view is that whenever he does basically anything that is primarily about looking out for himself, disaster strikes. Any kind of windfall and he's going to be looking to construct a reason he has to nobly turn it down (even if he'd be using the money for a good cause).

1/9/2025, 10:37:36 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

*I* think it would have been totally morally justified for Peter to sell the solid gold notebook to save Aunt May's house, but it is entirely in keeping with Spidey's view of his own moral code that he wouldn't think so.

1/9/2025, 10:35:56 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

There's obviously significant individual variation in how cooked people's brains gets on social media. The ones who say things like that are the ones most liable to get cooked.

1/9/2025, 7:41:15 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Also about protecting elderly family members. It is not a coincidence that urban school systems were often the last to reopen, since those were the districts with the largest numbers of multi-generational households!

1/9/2025, 7:31:28 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Heritage not hate.

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1/9/2025, 4:59:12 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Anyway, I still think "end qualified immunity" and "make it much much much easier to fire cops for misconduct, incompetence, and wildcat strikes" are pretty simple steps that haven't really been tried.

1/9/2025, 4:56:37 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

If we hack off all the non-killing people parts of police responsibilities it's going to make the police with guns part even more violent

1/9/2025, 4:54:49 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

oops, some quote tweet confusion, was thinking the reply was in this theo thread. bsky.app/profile/theo...

1/9/2025, 4:54:09 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

that's literally the opposite of what Theophite is saying, I think.

1/9/2025, 4:52:25 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

(The diplomacy of 1715-1729 is really screwy and weird because of this. There was a brief war that was every major power in Europe vs. Spain.)

1/9/2025, 4:50:00 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Even after Philip renounced the French throne in the Treaty of Utrecht, there was a strong sense among many Frenchmen that his renunciation was invalid. If Louis XV had died any time before his son was born in 1729 it's quite possible shenanigans would have ensued.

1/9/2025, 4:45:13 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

There's others, too -- Lannoy, the victor of Pavia, was from the Netherlands; Chapuys, his longtime ambassador to England, was from Savoy; Andrea Doria was Genoese. Obviously there were Spanish and German advisors, too, but it seems notable how many were neither.

1/9/2025, 4:31:58 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Further thought: Charles V's empire also the last gasp of Lotharingia. Not just Charles himself and his sisters and aunt, but many of his closest advisors were all from bits of what had been the Middle Kingdom. Chièvres (Netherlands), Gattinara (Piedmont), the Granvelles (Franche Comté).

1/9/2025, 4:28:05 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

There was also a lot of fear that the duc de Bourgogne would die childless and leave Anjou as heir to France as well. It very nearly happened!

1/9/2025, 2:49:56 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Warhammer 40k Emperor is basically Charles V through the intermediary of the Warhammer Fantasy Emperor, I think?

1/9/2025, 2:42:48 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

It was much more a last expression of an older Medieval notion of universal monarchy

1/9/2025, 2:40:50 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Complicated! He tried to centralize where he could (he did in Castile and the Netherlands) but was realistic about the limits of this. I don't think he ever had a real project of uniting even his hereditary lands into a single "state" (a concept which only sort of existed), much less the Empire

1/9/2025, 2:40:12 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Also, the greatest Belgian of all time.

1/9/2025, 2:38:03 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I was thinking of an alternate history where Ferdinand dies somewhere around 1550 and Charles succeeds in getting Philip elected as King of the Romans, but you know Philip would fuck it up. Too Spanish, not enough Belgian.

1/9/2025, 2:37:22 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

You know that guy would

1/9/2025, 2:34:48 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

lol

1/9/2025, 2:34:21 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

What's the point of departure?

1/9/2025, 2:31:08 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

If not for that pesky king of France... One gets the impression that Francis I must have just irked him tremendously. The Turk and the German princes at least believed in something; Francis was opposing him entirely out of ego.

1/9/2025, 2:27:36 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Was he a Great Man of History? Kind of not? He seems to have been very ordinary as a human. But maybe the single most powerful western European ruler between Charlemagne and Napoleon?

1/9/2025, 2:24:42 PM | 12 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Dude was everywhere, and not just in terms of his influence, he was literally constantly traveling around across western Europe. He's the last real exponent of imperial universalism in western Europe and he almost made it work.

1/9/2025, 2:22:53 PM | 17 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

-- the Valois-Habsburg wars; the end of the Renaissance in Italy; the Reformation in Germany, England and the Low Countries; the expansion of the Spanish Empire in the New World; the European response to Ottoman aggression in Central Europe and the Mediterranean.

1/9/2025, 2:21:10 PM | 8 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Gonna Charles V post a bit today, because he's such an interesting figure to me. We have a few big STORIES of the first half of the sixteenth century, and somehow he is right there in the middle of all of them

1/9/2025, 2:19:50 PM | 9 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social)

16th century hot take: Charles V is like if the Triple Entente was embodied in an individual human. His existence was basically a foreign policy initiative to contain Valois France. And it (mostly) worked!

1/9/2025, 2:18:43 PM | 30 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

China and India hate each other!

1/9/2025, 2:11:01 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Seems unnecessarily rude.

1/9/2025, 1:14:46 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I can answer that because -- you don't. You explicitly say you don't! What are we doing here?

1/9/2025, 12:59:36 PM | 24 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Do you think blood feud is a best practice from peers?

1/9/2025, 12:59:10 PM | 32 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I have no idea whether 600k daily posters is enough? What's the revenue model here anyway?

1/9/2025, 12:24:34 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Also Tex-Mex is sometimes called that, but often just "Mexican". We just mostly don't take credit for food invented here by first generation immigrants.

1/9/2025, 11:57:53 AM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social)

Outside the local Catholic Church

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1/9/2025, 1:16:01 AM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Apparently lots of parents are psycho about being able to contact their children at all times?

1/9/2025, 12:10:33 AM | 13 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I don't think they took the threat seriously at all, and hard to say how much they care, but if one wants to argue that they actively want vaccines to be banned I think one needs more evidence than "didn't take RFK Jr. seriously enough".

1/9/2025, 12:08:37 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

The news media sucks horribly in many ways but I don't think they've shown any sign at any point that they want vaccines to be banned.

31/8/2025, 11:31:45 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I don't think this is true.

31/8/2025, 11:30:48 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Adolf Wilhelm, Fürst von Schlossberg, a distant cousin of George V, changed his name to Adolphus William Mountcastle in 1917 and was created Earl of Hampshire.

31/8/2025, 10:53:01 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

What kind of name is "Mountcastle"? Is he a member of a German dynasty who had to change their names during World War I?

31/8/2025, 10:51:08 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Why is he showing his house to some barefoot girl with no family in sight?

31/8/2025, 10:49:11 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

He's about 30 in X-Men #1! But yeah, that's fine, but understanding how it developed is important to analyzing what's going on and how we got where we are now.

31/8/2025, 9:09:57 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Sounds like a literal Guy Gardner proposal

31/8/2025, 6:35:26 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

So Claremont has said, yeah.

31/8/2025, 5:41:12 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I feel like a lot of people read Marvels #2 and think that's what Silver Age X-Men is like.

31/8/2025, 4:53:10 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Like reading the first 13 issues of X-Men, which came out literally at the height of the success of the Civil Rights Movement (roughly from the March on Washington through to passage of the VRA), what was not able to me was how much it *didn't* feel like it was inspired by any of that.

31/8/2025, 4:52:31 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I mean, what's the broad argument for Silver Age Magneto being "right" or sympathetic, or the secret hero, or whatever it is you're arguing? Take me through it.

31/8/2025, 4:40:30 PM | 8 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Yes, didn't mean to exclude Weezy from credit.

31/8/2025, 4:37:47 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I tend to think Jewish assimilation is a more obvious model for most of Silver Age X-Men 's dealing with questions of prejudice. (Chris Claremont clearly thought of this too) The first Sentinels story *maaaaybe* drawing on civil rights, though.

31/8/2025, 4:34:58 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Maybe a member of the Irgun after the war? Who can say?

31/8/2025, 4:31:47 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Man literally lived in Israel and probably voted for Herut

31/8/2025, 4:31:16 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Want to see the "Hans Gruber was right" takes.

31/8/2025, 4:29:54 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Why don't you stick with making an argument about Silver Age Magneto, then, instead of just asserting that I'm wrong?

31/8/2025, 3:47:19 PM | 15 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

There was only a brief window in 1985 where comics were good. Presumably because of that Shooter memo.

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31/8/2025, 3:46:31 PM | 3 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Yup. Including taking credit for "creating" characters that at other times he acknowledged were entirely created by his collaborator (Doctor Strange and Silver Surfer, notably)

31/8/2025, 3:44:35 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Remember: aside from a few good character designs (mostly by Jack Kirby and Dave Cockrum), basically everything anyone likes about the X-Men was (co-)created by Chris Claremont. between 1975 and 1991.

31/8/2025, 3:40:42 PM | 23 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I'm not convinced the parallels to the civil rights movement were intentional in the Silver Age. Stan Lee has definitely said that's what he was doing. I feel like God Loves, Man Kills is the first story that really engages with real world prejudice in a convincing way.

31/8/2025, 3:39:25 PM | 13 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Nute (@nutedawn.bsky.social) reposted

I mean, the lie in this is that it is literally not what happened at all; the character became a hero by dramatically changing his beliefs and actions to the point that fans rebelled when some writers tried to revert him to his original set

31/8/2025, 3:26:35 PM | 35 7 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Literal aristocrats!

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31/8/2025, 3:32:50 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

The book by a Palestinian Obama should have recommended:

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31/8/2025, 3:00:07 PM | 13 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Royal edicts have a mixed history.

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31/8/2025, 2:55:31 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Nobody suddenly realized that Magneto was a good guy all along. Chris Claremont created a bunch of sympathetic stuff about Magneto as *PART OF A FACE TURN*, which was already fully complete by the time Venom was even created.

31/8/2025, 2:39:40 PM | 14 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Like the key thing is that all the sympathetic things about Magneto were created by Claremont as part of a redemption arc. The premise of the OP is just completely wrong.

31/8/2025, 2:36:58 PM | 168 4 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Oh yeah, Hickman knew exactly what he was doing.

31/8/2025, 2:35:12 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Magneto became a metaphor for Revionist Zionist at the same time he was doing a pretty comprehensive face turn.

31/8/2025, 2:33:56 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

None of you people have read actual Silver Age Magneto and it shows.

31/8/2025, 2:30:40 PM | 192 7 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

The core of "Erik Lehnsherr" was maybe never reformed or softened, but "Erik Lehnsherr" is a creation of the 1990s. Magneto had already had a full redemption arc before there was such a thing as "Erik Lehnsherr"

31/8/2025, 2:28:43 PM | 13 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Magneto is a character who evolved into a hero because Chris Claremont decided to take possibly the most beard-twirling one-dimensional villain in all of Marvel and find the humanity in him, and turned him into a hero within five years in the early 1980s.

31/8/2025, 2:27:43 PM | 325 18 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

If Republicans hold the House none of this matters anyway.

31/8/2025, 12:49:43 PM | 2 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

If Democrats win the House it's nowhere near as easy for Republicans to "refuse to seat them" as people seem to be dooming about.

31/8/2025, 12:44:04 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

The old Congress has no power to do anything with respect to "rejecting" or "accepting" votes. The new Congress has always had the power to refuse to seat presumptive members, but that is up to the presumptive members.

31/8/2025, 12:43:40 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

There's still a sizeable Hungarian minority in Romania!

31/8/2025, 3:45:43 AM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

What problem do you foresee with the seating? It's not that I'm not concerned, but I haven't yet seen anyone provide a plausible scenario for how it could play out in a way that would result in a Democratic majority not being allowed to be seated.

31/8/2025, 3:44:51 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social)

The Pitt really a show premised on the idea of making it 1995 again by science or magic.

31/8/2025, 1:15:09 AM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Doc Revan (@docrevan.bsky.social) reposted

No War Department unless the SECNAV is restored to the Cabinet

30/8/2025, 11:01:15 PM | 24 6 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

The Navy should be up in arms about this.

30/8/2025, 11:00:26 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

You'd *think* his mother wouldn't have turned on him. Shuisky also had reason to know what had happened to the real Dmitri, though hard to say he's particularly trustworthy.

30/8/2025, 10:33:45 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Always root for the Mets to lose.

30/8/2025, 8:46:18 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

"When will Chuck Schumer stop holding these meaningless fake hearings and DO SOMETHING real about the problem?"

30/8/2025, 8:19:59 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

He can't hold hearings

30/8/2025, 8:19:30 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

I like how Dmitri's mother was like "my beloved son! It is a miracle" and then a year later is like "that fool's not my son."

30/8/2025, 7:50:32 PM | 8 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Is it weird?

30/8/2025, 6:20:09 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

What?

30/8/2025, 4:47:19 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

That doesn't make it better!

30/8/2025, 4:36:23 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

"I can tell from some of the pixels" is indeed expert-sounding.

30/8/2025, 4:35:20 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

2 is insane from a historical perspective! Nobody in 1787 thought they were giving the president the constitutional authority to unilaterally set tariff rates

30/8/2025, 4:14:33 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social)

He slapped a comedian in the face on national TV for making a pretty tame joke about his wife being bald on the same night he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Is it really surprising it was a big story? Also it was 2022, when it seemed plausibly like things were normal again.

30/8/2025, 4:07:07 PM | 7 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Nic Morton (@nicmorton.bsky.social) reposted

What C.S Lewis wrote to J.R.R.Tolkien after reading Lord of the Rings ... #Tolkien #LordoftheRings

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30/8/2025, 3:58:21 PM | 108 20 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

(Ferenc Gyulay is Hungarian for George Brinton McClellan)

30/8/2025, 4:01:11 PM | 16 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John (@johnlk.bsky.social) reply parent

Robert E. Lee an overrated general, but certainly superior to Gyulai or MacMahon (to say nothing of Franz Joseph and Napoleon III)

30/8/2025, 3:57:25 PM | 22 0 | View on Bluesky | view