User:WCCasey

W elcome 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

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:
 * "Correlation does not imply causation"

Future article subjects

 * Joseph Chapman (done - Feb 2014)
 * Timeline of the Portola expedition (done)
 * Interim government of California (done)
 * James Miller (J. M.) Guinn, early 20th-century California historian
 * 1852 California Fugitive Slave Act: add section/paragraphs to one or more articles. Cite California Historical Society article.
 * An Act to Encourage Immigration, 1864 law (done - Mar 2024)

Portola expedition sources and notes

 * Crespi diary of Portola expedition
 * Vila and Costansó diaries of Portola expedition
 * Fages' report, written in 1775
 * Later, explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, on his way north in 1774
 * On de Anza's second expedition (1775–76), diarist Father Pedro Font
 * California mission history
 * Palou's life of Serra
 * California Place Names
 * Santa Cruz County Place Names
 * The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture

Other California history sources

 * Engelhardt, Z. (1929). The Missions and Missionaries of California. Santa Barbara, Calif: Mission Santa Barbara.
 * Volume One (1908) online at Google Books
 * Volume Two (1912) online at Google Books
 * Volume Three (1912) online at Google Books
 * Volume Four (1915) online at Google Books
 * Priestley, H. I. (1916). José de Gálvez: Visitor-general of New Spain (1765-1771). Berkeley [Calif.: University of California press. Online at Google Books