Archive for the ‘Native Americans’ Category
MEMORIAL DAY
Another Memorial Day. I guess a BBQ is the tradition. Mexican food here, I live in a pretty secular household. Just another day on the farm. Memorial Day is an American holiday, it started after the Civil War. The only American War where the homeland suffered. The death toll was also horrific, by most measures the first or second worse mass death event in US history. I know I was taught in high school that the period after the Civil War was one of the most peaceful in US history. Ostensibly because the country was tired of war. I’m older now, and I suspect a lot of natives would question that assessment. Much of the west was being constantly warred on after the Civil War, some of the worst massacres of natives occured after the Civil War. And, well, primarily in the Southern US, terrorist wars were launched and conducted against African Americans. Hardly a nation at peace. The figures I looked up say the US has been at war over 91% of its existence.
And a lot of Americans died in those wars, this is the day we remember them. Soldiers who lost their lives fighting in America’s wars. Well, skol, here’s to them. Most of them were good people fighting for their country. Even the ones that weren’t, well, being killed in a war is a hell of a price to pay for whatever their situation might have been. I’ve spent my whole life studying war, such exquisite madness. I have nothing but respect for those who served, I served myself. And the ones who died, in battle or of their wounds later, I hope their families and loved ones keep their memory alive, this day and all days.
That’s acknowledging their sacrifice with words, but I’d like to go a bit further. What was their sacrifice for? I would guess many would say to protect America and its freedoms. Certainly those in my lifetimes. And here’s my first divergence with the standard narrative, no matter how noble their sacrifice, that doesn’t mean the wars America’s soldiers died in were noble. In my opinion none of America’s wars in my lifetime have been just wars, they have all been foreign wars of choice. And I think it’s a damned shame Americans died in those wars, and the best way I can honor their sacrifice is to be a voice for peace, so no more Americans die in stupid foreign wars.
A mission I think is even more important today than ever before in my life. The US is deeply involved in a pointless foreign war, the Russo-Ukrainian War, that America played a huge role in instigating. A terrible war, though all wars are terrible. This is the big lie that has been foisted on the American people, the idea that war is noble. That there is such a thing as a good war. And so so many Americans are convinced that this war is it, this is the good war, a war that brings back memories of ‘The Greatest Generation.’ That would be the World War Two generation, arguably America’s last just war. Putin is the next Hitler, destroying him is our only best choice, he is a monster who can’t be trusted. Snort. That’s a “does not follow” false argument for readers who stay up on such things.
While the Russo-Ukrainian War is terrible, it’s not the epic stand of freedom and democracy against tyranny. And ruthless though Putin may be in the defense of Russia, he’s not Hitler hell bent on recreating the Soviet empire. Or to put it in perspective, Hitler was in charge of the world’s second most powerful nation, modern Russia is barely in the top twenty. US military aid to Ukraine is already more than Russia’s annual budget for God’s sake. This is a war America should be trying to end, not promoting. People are dying, the sooner the war stops the better, then people can sit down and work out a solution. Diplomacy, it’s worked before.
I hope all had a good Memorial Day, and celebrated it as they thought appropriate. I drink to peace and those who pursue it.
Copyright © 2022 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Public Domain colorized World War One photograph. “29 May 1918 The Third Battle of the Aisne. French infantry coming back through Passy-sur-Marne, pass a British regimental band resting by the roadside.” When I first saw this picture I wrote: ‘They’re all dead now, some didn’t live out the war, some may not have lived out the week. All real people with lives, hopes, dreams. Even the people who remember them as grandparents and the like are getting long in the tooth.’ Kinda how I feel this Memorial Day, all those who died in war were real people with loves and lives. Tragically cut short. We can do better.)
TAHLEQUAH AND THE STATE OF THE UNION
Here I am in beautiful Tahlequah Oklahoma. This is the gravesite of Mr Ed of 1960s TV fame. He was a horse of course. His real name was Bamboo Harvester. I think horse names are drawn from a hat, but to all his fans he will be forever Mr Ed. His grave is in a back yard, and not well kept up, but at least someone left flowers. And he is surrounded by woods, meadows, songbirds, and wildflowers. A pretty nice place to spend eternity. And it’s possible I may spend a big chunk of my remaining living eternity around here myself.
So I am on vacation. I had to flee Iowa. Drove to Oregon, was underwhelmed by the town I arrived at. Drove to Tahlequah, like what I see, and will be here for a few more days seeing the sites. Soon I will visit the only Civil War battle site where whites were in the minority on both sides! Tahlequah is where the Cherokee were brought to after the Trail of Tears, and it’s been the heart of the Cherokee nation since then. Lovely country. Lovely cats.
This is Luna. First time in 20 years a cat has bonded with me. Follows me around. Waits for me at the door. Suffers from CLS as one can tell from the picture. That’s a common but little known feline ailment: Collapsible Leg Syndrome. There is no known cure, but fortunately there is a highly effective treatment: Vigorously rub the belly. Luna obviously wants me to stick around. That may have been her mom’s plan all along. Invite me to Oklahoma, where I will fall in love with the beautiful country and her cats and stay forever. Her plan may work, especially since mom is the cat’s pajamas herself.
In world news:
How’s that for a segue? Times are not good: MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule. That’s the big picture. Lots of little just-as-ugly pictures. The “stop the Steal” insanity continues in the US. Hearings have started on the January 6th insurrection. The GOP (with a few rational exceptions) is trying to pretend it was just a boisterous but peaceful protest. And that it was the Democrats’ fault. All codswaddle.
Speaking of codswaddle, Mike Lindell continues to claim that on August 13th Biden and Harris will resign after Lindell presents his proof of the election steal. Apparently unaware that if Biden and Harris did resign (please, please Trump supporters, do hold your breath,) Nancy Pelosi would be sworn in as president, not Trump. Yeah, I have a hard time with people who still support Trump. His lies about winning the election are just that, lies. And the January 6th insurrection was a treasonous Trump incited attempt to overturn a free and fair election. Trump is the only president in modern times never to even hit a 50% approval rating, he was a terribly unpopular president, and it’s no surprise he lost the election. His hordes of still loyal followers are misguided, sorry my fellow Trump loving Americans, your boy is lying to you.
But no, I don’t want right wingers destroyed, I just want them to have universal health care, a living wage, affordable college education, and bodily autonomy. What a monster I am for thinking Americans deserve as good a deal as the residents of the rest of the developed world. Yes, we’d have to cut our beyond bloated war budget and raise taxes on the rich, but neither would be a problem for America.
One last meme:
I agree, sums it up nicely. Real faith respects all life, political or performative faith kills to get votes. Pretty sure God appreciates the guys on the left, not the God poser on the right.
Stay safe and cool everyone. “Satan called, he wants his weather bacK” pretty much sums it up. #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Images: Top and second: Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved. Bottom two, found on Facebook, attribution in images, shared without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
HEAR THAT POPPING SOUND IN THE DISTANCE? THAT’S EVANGELICAL’S HEADS EXPLODING …
Because: Nevada pageant winner to become 1st transgender Miss USA contestant Saw this posted on Facebook, the outrage in some comments was, sadly, predictable. Something that quite literally has zero effect on them or society is somehow personally enraging to them. The nation and world has all sorts of terrible ongoing problems that are most definitely impacting everyone’s lives in negative ways … but they are outraged because a Miss USA contestant was born with male genitals. Go figure.
Might have linked this before, but it’s worth another look: Why Biden’s American election meddling comments in Geneva were such a bad look Basically Biden lectured Putin on election interference, claiming it made Russia look bad. Apparently Biden was utterly oblivious to the fact that it’s the USA that is the world’s number one meddler in foreign elections. Pot calls kettle black in other words.
A good article about France hopefully coming to grips with sexual abuse and pedophilia: Omerta in France. France has a long proud history of romance and seduction, but a lot of it is actually pretty nasty.
Another one from the trending “I’m going to change the facts to fit my narrative” file: Horses in Pre-Columbian America. Horses became extinct in North America something like ten thousand years ago, and didn’t return until the European conquest began after 1492. However, three modern groups are disputing that. One is some native groups, basically based on oral traditions, and the fact that they aren’t comfortable with the idea that the horse, which was such a central part of plains indian culture, originated with the European invaders. Hey, I can understand that. Second, by wild horse aficionados who want wild horses to get protected status, which is only granted to native species, not invasive species. Their hearts are in a good place. Lastly, the LDS Church. Because … the Book of Mormon written in the 19th century clearly claims there were horses in the New World in Biblical times. And of course since they claim it was written by God or such, it must be true. Right.
They’re all wrong of course. Well, wrong so far as current science understands it. Scientists do make mistakes though, that’s why scientific research is ongoing: It’s OK to be Wrong | NeuroLogica Blog. There was some thinking in the mid 19th century that science was on the verge of discovering everything there was to know and soon humans would have God’s creation all figured out. Ah, the folly of youth. Interestingly enough science is now able to find DNA in soil layers and determine what animals were around when the soil was deposited: All the major players spent time in the Denisovan cave. This is actually going to revolutionize archeology and paleontology. Not to mention putting the final nail in the coffin of such imaginary animals as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
Speaking of imaginary creatures, the much awaited Pentagon report of UFOs came out. Oh, wait, they’re UAPs now because UFOs have such a bad name. Of course the report contained absolutely nothing new, because UFOs are one big nothingburger. Great for scaring up defense dollars though: UFO Report Provides No New Information But Plenty Of Fodder For Cold Warrior Policymakers. I know some will say, but reliable people have seen them! Um, when someone sees something in the sky the human eye cannot determine how big it is, how far away it is, or how fast it is moving. Then there’s the fact that UFOs have only been reported in modern times in regions with a history of UFO sightings, no one has ever hit one, none have ever crashed, and no one has gotten a good picture of one.
When I was younger people would say, no one ever got a picture of a car crash either! Well, decades later, we have lots of car crash pictures, still no UFO, Bigfoot, or Nessie pics. And of course SETI has come up with absolutely nada, and they’ve tried a lot of promising approaches. If alien intelligent life is ever discovered, I will of course be thrilled, but right now the overwhelming evidence is that UFOs are mythological, sociological, and psychological constructs like ghosts and angels.
Getting more random here: ‘Dragon man’ claimed as new species of ancient human but doubts remain. Long story short, during WW2 Chinese laborers found a weird skull, didn’t want the Japanese occupiers to know about it, and it was hidden until just recently. And lo and behold it’s one of the most unusual ancient skulls ever found and some are claiming it’s a new human lineage like Denosovians or Neanderthals. Yeah, one skull, no context, no DNA. Let’s not get carried away, maybe it was a Denosovian Andre the Giant. Neat find, and our understanding of just how complicated the human lineage is grows all the time, but we are not going to be rewriting textbooks on the basis of one skull.
Well, a few more links, but tomorrow! Or whenever. Interesting time in my life indeed. So the pics above! Both were taken in the 1930s. The one on the left is a group of Soviet Young Pioneers. Kinda Stalin’s equivalent of Hitler Youth. On the right, a Mickey Mouse Club meeting. The similarities and differences are telling. Even by the thirties American youth were living in a fantasy world.
So final nice story and segue. During Kristallnacht, a Jewish family was in their home as a mob came up the street burning and looting Jewish homes. Just before it got there, their 17 year old neighbor ran into their house wearing his Hitler Youth uniform. When the mob arrived he yelled out of an upstairs window that the home had been sold to a good German family, and the Jews were gone. Saving their home and valuables, and ultimately saving their lives as it left them with the resources to flee Germany before the war.
Stay cool and safe everyone. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Described in text, both are Public Domain images to the best of my knowledge.)
CANADIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR CHILDREN, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, WW2 TRUTHERS, HISTORY, AND OTHER NEWS OF THE WEEK
Fun headline recently: Canada: 751 unmarked graves found at residential school. This is the second such mass grave found in recent months, 215 graves were found earlier. Residential schools were government funded church run schools where native children were forcibly relocated in order to convert them into good little English speaking Canadians. The schools were expressly for the purpose of wiping out native culture and “assimilating” natives. The schools were by all accounts horrible places, with children dying regularly of disease and abuse, and then buried in unmarked graves. Apologists like to claim they are ‘unmarked graves’ not ‘mass graves.’ Whether you kill people all at once and shove them into a pit, or kill them periodically and shove them into individual pits makes no difference, it’s still a mass grave.
Horrors of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries? Nope, the last residential school closed in 1996. Growing up in Canada I was exposed to a lot of racist attitudes towards natives, but I never imagined things like this existed. Now at least it’s coming out, but my image of Canada as some sort of positive force in the world is now finally and completely shattered. And the Canadian government’s more or less tepid response confirms it. This should be investigated and prosecuted with all the vigor of any gross human rights crime, but it won’t be. Baby steps I guess, it is good that things like this and the Tulsa race massacre are getting dragged out of the shadows, but we’ve got a long way to go.
In the US this is particularly the case, with the GOP and religious right fervently opposing even discussion of these sorts of crimes or the removal of monuments to criminals. That’s what the whole hysteria over Critical Race Theory is all about, preventing even discussion and education about the role that race played and plays in American. The evangelical right does this by pretending that CRT is about teaching white people that they are bad or guilty because of the color of their skin. And by pretending that removing statues of Civil War traitors is somehow erasing history. No, it’s about unwhitewashing history so people can understand and move on together. I mean, the paranoia in some quarters is frightening. Nick Fuentes: Making Juneteenth A Federal Holiday Is ‘About Furthering The Genocide Of White People’
It’s why I write, but I feel more pessimistic all the time both globally and nationally. Nationally it’s a mess. Biden is like Bush 41 was to Reagan, he’s an uninspiring copy of Obama. He’s basically undone a few of Trump’s more egregious nonsense, but otherwise it’s already clear he’s not going to rock the boat. And yet Biden is being portrayed as some sort of secret commie who is destroying America. Some of this stuff is just crazy: OAN Host Calls for Execution of Anyone Who Stole the Election and Tucker Carlson: Critical race theory will lead to the genocide of white Americans. These aren’t fringe people either.
So I guess I will try to get past my dismay and writer’s block by commenting on the news. George Floyd’s murderer got sentenced to 22 years. I’ve heard progressives claim he got off too lightly, conservatives outraged it was so much. I’m just glad there was a trial, there should be a trial pretty much every time a cop kills someone. My way of thinking has always been, would it be OK if the killer was a civilian? And all too often the answer is “Sheet no.” Qualified immunity needs to end, cops should be trained to not kill people. Bidens is adding more cops so, problem fixed? Snort.
A terrible building collapse in Miami. There’s actually footage of it going down, which I won’t link to because it’s too horrible. It’s clear from the video, they did not all die quickly in their sleep. How did this happen? Safe to say the Swiss cheese model will unravel it all. A chain of events happened, and they all lined up like symbols on a slot machine. God rest their souls, and my heart goes out to friends and family, I can’t imagine. Hopefully after investigation we will learn something from this tragedy that will save lives down the road.
Like the Victoria Hall Disaster in 1883. 1500 kids were in a theatre to watch a magic show, and after the show hundreds of kids in the balconies tried to rush down to the bottom floor where candy was being tossed to the children (very few adults were present.) The stair down was blocked by a door bolted almost closed with an opening only big enough for one child. Likely to facilitate ticket collection. Long story short, there was a crush in the stairwell, and nearly 200 children died. A nightmare remembered to this day. On the plus side, a child in the town became so determined to prevent it from ever happening again, he eventually invented the first “push bar” door openers. The handles we have in almost every public building in the world, especially on exit doors, just push on the bar from inside and the door opens. This invention has saved thousands and thousands of lives.
Maybe there’s some really smart kid somewhere now so horrified by the state of the world that they are determined to fix it. And they will come up with a solution, a global push bar of sorts. A man can dream. Hope all are having a good weekend. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Photographic proof that World War Two was faked! Hell, if you’re gonna deny the holocaust, why not go whole hog? Actually, no, modern reenactment of the Battle of Osuchy, one of the largest battles between Polish partisans and Nazi troops during WW2. Will there be Trump rally reenactors someday? Credit: Adam Niedźwiecki, used legally: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)
DEBATE IS A LOST ART, DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME, AND MASS SHOOTER MADNESS
Debate? A dying art at least. I’ve more or less pulled out of Facebook. Partly because of an embarrassing romantic disaster. When it comes to those, I’m a Viking. It’s a gift apparently. They aren’t even interesting to write about. Self deprecation I can enjoy, but when it comes to dating fiascos, about as much fun to write about as to endure.
Moving right along, I realized there just isn’t debate anymore on Facebook. One can agree with what people post, and beyond that it’s a waste of time. As I predate the internet I think I can safely say there’s been a subtle (OK, not that subtle) change in people over the past few decades. Most of them have become utterly sure of themselves. And it’s all over the map. Try to debate with an anti-Vaxxer? No point. Or someone who hates GMOs and glyphosate? The same. Or just about anything, people can’t even accept the idea that they might be mistaken in whatever it is they know.
It used to be that this kind of certainty was limited to know-it-alls and evangelicals. Now it seems that “Evidence, schmevidence, I know I’m right” is infecting all sorts of people and infiltrating the mainstream. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert’s latest conspiracy theory sort of ties it all up. She’s convinced all sorts of Democrats will be arrested and the GOP will get control of both houses of Congress before the 2022 elections even. I’d say it’s bonkers as well, but tens of millions of people believe QAnon’s ever changing predictions. She’s not alone. What’s going to happen when everyone in America just makes up their reality as they go along?
Who knows, but there will be lots to blog about I suppose. Moving right along, I got my clocks all changed finally. Yes, the biannual blood sacrifice to time zones. Why do we change our clocks twice a year? It’s like the old joke: Q: “How many men does it take to put a new roll of toilet paper on the dispenser?” A: “No one knows.” Basically only golf courses really benefit from daylight saving time. And I mean blood sacrifice literally. After the time change there’s an uptick in strokes, heart attacks, car accidents, and workplace accidents. People die. If that’s not a good reason to scrap the whole thing, I don’t know what is. The golf courses will survive.
I guess illogical stuff is the theme for the day. So how about the guy who shot eight people to death because of his “sex addiction?” Worst mass shooting in two years. Woohoo! No worries though, the US is still the developed world’s mass shooter winner. Hell, everything shooter winner. So yeah, white guy goes nuts and shoots a bunch of Asian women working in spas. He apparently thought they were prostitutes tempting men? He’d been to an Evangelical “Clinic” to be treated for “sex addiction.” In other words he was a guy confused about his sexuality, and he went to religious quacks for “treatment.” Didn’t end well. Oh, yeah, the sheriff said “He was having a bad day.” Yeah, pretty sure his day was nowhere near as bad as the friends and loved ones of the people he killed. America, where punching down is manly. Got Trump elected, and re-elected if one buys the “Stop the Steal” nonsense. Snort.
I have applied to be the first blogger to circle the Moon. Fingers crossed. Tomorrow’s post. Stay safe gentle reader. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Meme found online. Claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. The link in the meme is a dead link, so attribution unknown.)
BORDERS
OK, off we go. News? I used to get a lot of news from the Wapo and the NYT, not anymore for reasons I explained at length in recent blogs. Now my top two news sites are the BBC and The Guardian. Plus other sites too, one should get their news from a wide variety of sources, international ones for sure. Haaretz and Al Jazeera are good for example. They all have their biases, blind spots, propaganda. This is what God gave us brains for, to separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ve never seen any major fact checking errors on Snopes for example, the truth is out there. In fact how people react to Snopes pretty much tells one if they are connected to reality or live in a fantasy world. I often hear a nice selection of false arguments from Snopes deniers. “They’re not professional fact checkers!” is my favorite. Um, so what? Show me a topic where Snope’s is factually in error. I’ll wait. And then Wikipedia is a great source for non controversial topics. A topic that corporate America or the US government wants to control the narrative on, skip Wikipedia entirely. What’s there may not be wrong, but it certainly won’t represent reality.
So, back to news, China threatens war if Taiwan declares independence.* Taiwan is a small island off the coast of China, a little bit bigger than Maryland, a little bit smaller than the Netherlands. It’s yet another relic of the Cold War. When Mao and his communists won the Chinese Civil War after World War Two, the US backed side fled to the island of Taiwan, and protected by the United States, there they remained. If the US hadn’t protected them, Taiwan would just be another province in China that no one outside of China had ever heard of.
And as I understand it, most people in China are adamant that Taiwan is indeed part of China, no discussion allowed. And this, in a nutshell, is why nationalism sucks sheet. The idea of a nation is great from many perspectives, but when that idea runs roughshod over self determination, it’s simply tyranny. When the United States declared independence from Britain, its revolution was based ostensibly on the ideals of self determination, not to mention inalienable human rights. Yes, the founding fathers were hideous hypocrites who completely dishonored these ideals in the breach, founding a nation based on slavery and propertied white male supremacy, but the concepts are stll valid.
Alas, the world’s governments only apply them when it is in their interest to do so. America’s hypocrisy on this level is mind numbing, but of course completely normalized by the western press. To the point that many (most?) Americans are all for Taiwan being independent, but Crimea wanting to be part of Russia, that’s a terrible crime! The borders of the world were drawn up by the European colonial powers for their own exploitive ends, there’s nothing “normal” about them, but they are treated as such by the western press. A huge percentage of the world’s people, it must be in the 100s of millions, would rather be independent or part of another country than the one they are in.
Countless examples. The Kurds, 30 million of them, Kurdistan should have been a country after World War One. Kashmir, if they ever got to vote, would almost certainly want to be part of Pakistan. Large parts of Pakistan would rather be part of Pashtun Afghanistan. Tibet was once an independent country. I wouldn’t even know where to start in Africa, it’s a nightmare of colonial boundaries. And then countless indigenous people around the world would rather be their own country as much as possible. Why not, there’s at least 5000 ethnic groups on the planet, why should there be only 300 countries? Andorra, a nation the size of Peoria Illinois, has been independent for over 500 years. It can be done. And there are many others.
This, at the core of it, is why the aliens fly right by us. About 300 armed gangs control Earth for the benefit of a tiny number of people already so rich they could live a thousand lifetimes and not spend it all. Any sane species would long ago have fixed this. Give people self determination, and the border problems sort themselves out. And put mechanisms in place to make sure everyone benefits from the world’s wealth, it is a collective effort. Make it so businesses can’t pass health and environmental costs onto the public, the free market will indeed fix things like global warming. No ideology or religion need apply. They are the problem, not the solution. Granted some are worse problems than others. Anti-vaxxers. White Supremacists. Nazis. Yeah, I’m still anti-Nazi. Convince me otherwise. Though I do accept and try to understand the appeal. Germany was a modern educated land.
The above map is a preliminary speculation about a balkanized America. The native peoples especially should be scattered about in ancestral lands, but it’s a start. I don’t think the world colonial government is going to collapse anytime soon, but many people were surprised by the fall of Rome and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Times change, I plan to blog about it as long as I can. The Earth Burning blog. Stay safe gentle readers. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
*China tends to be more forthwith than doublespeak western diplomacy, this is likely a promise, not a threat.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Map by blog author: Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.)
HISTORY QUIZ!
As per a commenter’s suggestion, a history quiz. No particular topic but since my main interest is military history, that will be the lion’s share of the questions. Ten questions, some trivia, some obscure, most because I thought they were interesting in some ways. (Basically this is just an excuse for me to tell stories about history. People do the most amazing sheet.) Pencil and paper required if one wants to be serious I suppose. Answers at bottom.Good luck, enjoy!
- How many times was Greenland colonised? Including successful and unsuccessful attempts. By human beings, just to be clear. The 47 failed penguin colonies don’t count.
- What exotic animal did Roman Emperor Commodus publicly slay in the colosseum to demonstrate his godhood? (No, I’m not making these up, people do weird sheet.)
- Who was Gil-Galad’s standard bearer at the siege of Barad Dur?
- How many tanks did Germany build in World War One? (World War One, not World War Two, where they built thousands.)
- What was the only daylight surface battle between battleships in World War Two?
- Everyone (well, primarily Americans I expect) knows about the first battle between ironclad warships, the Monitor vs the Merrimac during the American Civil War. What was the only battle ever fought between two fleets of ironclad warships? (Hint, no, it wasn’t during the American Civil War.)
- What weapon did a fully armored knight typically carry into battle during the late Middle Ages?
- When the British attacked the City of Buenos Aires during the 2nd Battle of Buenos Aires, how many directions did they attack from?
- What was the greatest defeat of an American army by native warriors during America’s conquest of the western Americas?
- When was the only time an entire American army surrendered to an enemy army?
ANSWERS:
- Greenland was colonized at least five times, only twice successfully. Pretty good for a remote barely inhabitable island. There were at least two failed North American native colonizations before the Vikings arrived in 980. The Viking settlement failed due to being cut off from Europe by the Little Ice Age. While the Vikings were there, the Inuit settled in Northern Greenland, the first successful colonization of Greenland. The Viking colony died out, but they returned some centuries later in the second successful colonization of Greenland.
- Emperor Commodus went nuts in his later years, deciding he was Hercules reborn, naming Rome after himself and other nonsense. He “fought” many gladiators in the Colosseum, though none actually fought him, they were all wise enough to know that submitting right away was their only chance of living to sundown. And Commodus was still sane enough to know that killing men who submitted to him in public wasn’t wise. (He had no such qualms about killing men in gladiator practice. Gladiators were slaves by the way.) This was all considered outrageous by the Romans, as if the US President decided to take up WWE wrestling. The animal he killed to prove his godhood? A giraffe. While very few Romans had ever seen a giraffe, they could tell it was just a helpless terrified exotic animal, the killing impressed no one. Though it further cemented opinion that the Emperor was losing it.
- Elrond! What, fantasy history is history, right? (Recounted in the Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien.)
- Germany ordered only a 100 A7V tanks (see image) during the course of World War One. The Allies built thousands. And only 15-20 of the German tanks were completed in time to see action. They didn’t change the course of the war of course, but they did get to be part of the world’s first tank battle.
- The Battle of the Denmark Strait. Two British battleships vs the Nazi battleship Bismark and cruiser Prinz Eugen. This is the one where the Bismark sunk the Hood with one shot, the flagship of the British fleet. One of the flashes in this film (taken from the Prinz Eugen during the battle blew up the Hood killing 1500 Brits. Three Brits survived.
- The Battle of Lissa, 1866, between Italy and Austria. A brilliantly led Austrian fleet defeated a much larger but incompetently led Italian fleet. IThe battle basically accomplished nothing except humiliating the Italians: The Italian fleet got home, its admiral declared he’d won a great victory even though two of Italy’s finest warships had gone down, and he was the toast of the town. He probably got laid, but that’s just historical conjecture. By the next day word got to Italy that no Austrian ships had been sunk, and the admiral’s partying days limply ended.
- A sword! No, of course not, what good would a sword do against a guy wearing steel armor? A hammer of some sort was their primary weapon, designed specifically to damage armor. The sword though was already steeped in mythology, and certainly was still widely in use, just not against guys wearing armor.
- 12. That’s right, they attacked a hostile city from twelve different directions. In 1808. This was part of one of Britain’s tragicomedy attempts to conquer Spanish colonies in South America. Britain made a number of attempts to seize the supposedly weak colonies from Spain’s decaying and definitely weak empire, all ended badly. In this case the British commander apparently thought the tiny number of Spanish troops in the city would be quickly located and defeated. And if the residents of the city had stood meekly by and watched, great plan. No, the residents, including quite a few actual militias (no bison horns, Chewbacca robes, or silly flags) didn’t particularly want to be part of the Spanish Empire (Argentina would be independent within a decade;) but the definitely didn’t want to be conquered and ruled by Britain. It ended badly for Britain, thousands dead all told and a humiliating surrender.
- No, it wasn’t Little Big Horn, that was just the most famous native defeat of American forces. It was in 1791, The Battle of the Thousand Slain, or as the less imaginative Americans called it, The Battle of the Wabash. Basically a poorly planned, poorly equipped, poorly supplied, poorly manned, and most especially poorly led American army marched into what was then the wilderness of Ohio to teach the natives a lesson for defeating an American army the previous year! Even the not particularly astute reader can guess how this turned out. 24 Americans out of about 1,000 made it back safely.
- The Siege of Detroit, during the War of 1812, America’s misbegotten attempt to make Canada the “14th colony” of the United States. Basically a brilliant British general psyched out the American commander, and tricked him into surrendering to a much smaller British/native army.
That’s that, some of this was from memory, if I made any egregious mistakes please excoriate me in a comment. I write history posts provoke thought and curiosity, not to recount history for academic purposes. Don’t worry, more Trump antics soon enough. What a time to be alive. Future blog suggestions welcome. I hope everyone had a safe and warm weekend. I’m ready for spring. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Captured world War One German tank “Mephisto.” Australians captured it, hauled it back to Australia, where it’s in a war museum and is indeed the only German World War One tank still in existence. Photo taken in 1918 and is Public Domain under applicable copyright law.)
TREPPENWITZ, AND TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE DIET COKE BUTTON
Ah, treppenwitz. Or esprit de l’escalier, the wit of the stairway. When someone claimed that having tens of thousands of troops in Washington for the inauguration was like being in a third world country, I should have replied: “Like one of those countries where the president incites a mob to attack the capitol to overturn a free and fair election?” The same person would have been apoplectic if the mob had been a BLM/Antifa mob. Of course they don’t think it was a fair election, because how could their anointed by God leader possibly lose an election? Especially if he insisted he’d been cheated? I and many others have said it before, Trump supporters are now living in an alternate reality. Here is a great example: Sen. Graham calls out Biden administration’s claims that ‘everything is in shambles’. No Mr Graham, this isn’t the Obama playbook, Trump wasn’t a particularly good president, and after the election he basically ignored the exploding pandemic and everything else to concentrate on his fantasy quest to overturn the election. And his administration’s essential refusal to coordinate with the incoming Biden administration was historically unprecedented in modern times.
To back my point up, here are three of Trump’s most unqualified and corrupt appointments, all fired by Biden on his first day in office. The information comes from Slate.com, but since it’s paywalled, I’m rephrasing it here:
Michael Pack. He was appointed in June to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The Voice of America international broadcaster. He tried to transform it into a propaganda outlet for Trump, despite a mandate that prohibits such political interference. He purged the staff of the VOA and sister networks, replacing them with Trump loyalists, insisted on pro-Trump coverage, and unconstitutionally punished reporters who didn’t toe the pro-Trump line. He also illegally fired the board of the Open Technology Fund, which promotes international internet freedom, and replaced them with Republican activists. After whistleblower complaints, the U.S. Office of Special Counselfound it very likely that Pack had broken federal law. After being fired by Biden, he whined that his termination “was a partisan act,” talk about self-owning irony.
Kathleen Kraninger, confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018. She had no previous experience in consumer protection. She scrapped a rule that restricted predatory payday lending, insisting that her staff downplay the harm to consumers. She refused to enforce a federal law that protected military personnel from predatory payday lending, basically allowing them to be defrauded by said lenders. She also approved a rule allowing debt collectors to harass Americans with limitless texts and emails. Charming, appointed to protect consumers, instead she protected predatory lenders.
Lastly, Peter Robb. Confirmed as the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel in 2017. The NLRB’s mandate is to enforce federal laws that protect workers’ right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. Mr Robb is brutally anti-union. He tried to limit employees’ free speech, gave employers more ability to practice wage theft, crippled unions’ ability to collect dues, and helped prevent employees from organizing unions. He also tried to seize total control of the agency by demoting regional directors and consolidating power in his office, giving him unheard of power to bust unions and prevent new ones from forming. Biden fired his sorry a** after he refused to resign.
I’d link to the original Slate article, but I’m going to try to avoid linking to all unreasonably paywalled articles, what’s the point? I doubt very many of my readers subscribe to Slate. By the same token I unsubscribed to the New York Times today. I love many of their guest editorials, but I can’t share them with my friends and readers, so what’s the point? And boy, they made me jump through hoops to unsubscribe, further increasing my antipathy towards them. I swear, a lot of modern marketing seems to have avoided, I dunno, actually asking real people what they thought?
In any event, these and so many other examples show Trump not only broke his promise to drain the swamp, he was possibly the worst president ever for appointing industry lobbyists and Trump loyalists to posts where they were supposed to regulate said industries in a non-partisan way. Sigh. Hey, Trump University, a scam to cheat poor people out of their life savings shows what Trump really thought about poor and working class Americans.
So far Biden is at least paying lip service to the idea he is serving all Americans. He cancelled the Keystone Pipeline, which was interesting. Basically the pipeline only benefited the rich, had very serious ecological concerns, defiled sacred native land, and would have only provided a trivial number of jobs. IDK, this certainly seems to indicate that Biden won’t completely be a slave to the oil lobby. He also is going to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, which despite its flaws, at least acknowledges that human caused global warming is real. Which it is, the scientific debate ended decades ago; there are certainly questions about how best to deal with global warming, but pretending it’s all a hoax and continuing to pump CO2 and methane into the atmosphere to protect fossil fuel profiteering isn’t one of them.
Predictably, Fox News and the rest are already screaming in outrage about Biden. Apparently condemning white supremacy is an insult to Trump voters: Fox News upset over Biden’s denouncement of white supremacy – because it might offend Trump voters. Frankly, anyone who is upset about Biden denouncing white supremacy can go jump in a lake. Or jump in a time machine and go live in Hitler’s Germany. Hell, a QAnon congresswoman is already filing articles of impeachment against Biden. Yeah, gonna be a fun four years.
Lastly, I just found out that Trump had a button on his oval office desk that when he pushed, a butler would bring him a Diet Coke. Really. To me, that’s kind of grotesque, especially on the taxpayer’s dime. I can’t imagine even having a butler, just have a freaking mini fridge in your office if you need Diet Coke available 24/7. I would have made a very poor lord I guess. The button is gone now, Biden had it removed.
Have a safe and warm weekend everyone. The above meme references the explosion of Bernie in mittens memes after the inauguration. All good fun, though I’m sure Trump supporters, wed to the idea that Sanders is Mao reborn, are horrified. Think of the Children! Or some such, idk. Trump has zero sense of humor, and apparently his followers don’t either. I’ll keep blogging as long as I can. Comments, suggestions, shares, and especially patrons appreciated. I’ll never paywall my blog, but donors are incredibly appreciated. Thanks in advance, thanks for reading in any case. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Meme found on Facebook, attribution in image, used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
WAS LINCOLN A MONSTER? THE DAKOTA WAR AND AMERICA’S LARGEST MASS HANGING.
Today a trip down history lane, Lincoln and the largest mass hanging in US history. On 26 December 1862 38 Indians were hung by the US Army in Mankato, Minnesota. I’ve seen a number of memes and discussions on Facebook about this event, and frankly I’m usually horrified by how it’s portrayed and discussed. Mostly discussion involves just what a farce their trials were, and they weren’t even up to the standards of the day; plus throwing in Lincoln as the bad guy in all of this. Lately I’ve seen a number of memes etc. to the effect that Lincoln was some sort of racist monster. I hate black and white depictions of complex historical events and people, they usually leave a lot out.
In any event, The Dakota War, the event that led to this mass execution. Minnesota was a frontier state at the time, it had only been a state for four years. Yes, natives were treated badly by America pretty much from the get go, privately genocide was the often path taken by whites. Cultural genocide was the national policy. There’d been a lot of conflict as settlers moved onto land basically just stolen from the people living there. Thus a lot of resentment on the natives part. And one day a native hunting party massacred a settler family, and that instigated a general uprising.
Numerous bands and tribes began to kill settlers in a bid to convince Americans to flee the region. Between 500 and 800 settlers were killed, often in truly heinous ways. Several small towns were completely destroyed, all their inhabitants killed or taken prisoner. Initially there was little resistance because this was the height of the Civil War and there were no federal troops in Minnesota at all. It should be pointed out that not all the native bands and tribes in the region participated, a number of chiefs refused to participate, one even ordered his warriors to protect the American settlers living nearby.
Within months though a combination of hastily organized militias and federal troops fought and won a number of battles with the Dakota, put down the uprising, and imprisoned hundreds of natives. The army tried over 300 of them for war crimes and sentenced them all to hang, 303 death sentences to be exact. And for the most part, Americans were just fine with this. The governor of Minnesota even warned that if they weren’t all hung, private citizens would enact their own retribution on whatever natives they could. We are talking about hundreds of settler families murdered, many memorials to those killed remain today.
And this is where Lincoln’s involvement comes in. He was, shall we say, kinda busy during this time. The Civil War was raging. He worked from before dawn to just before bed most days, his wife said she was lucky if she got 15 minutes of his company before he fell asleep at night. So he didn’t need to get involved at all, he could have just let the army hang all 303 prisoners, and that would have been that. That wasn’t Lincoln though, he personally reviewed every federal death sentence handed down during the Civil War, and he made no exception here. He had the trial transcripts, such as they were, sent to Washington, and over a month reviewed them all. And he commuted the death sentences of all but 39 of them, later commuting one more when a general wired him that new information cast doubt on one indian’s guilt.
And by every accounting, Lincoln was horrified by the corrupt and unjust way natives were treated, saying “If we get through this war, and I live, this Indian system shall be reformed.” He also said something to the effect that “You can’t hang an Indian just because he joined an uprising at his chief’s command.” Lincoln grew up on the frontier, and knew in fact how badly natives were treated. During the Blackhawk war he prevented his own men from murdering a native that wandered into their camp. Maybe if the Civil war hadn’t intervened he could have started reforms and maybe the whole damn uprising never would have happened.
So yeah, a shameful chapter in American history. As is almost all of America’s history with the natives, and it’s still not exactly something to be proud of today. When Reagan visited the Soviet Union and pressed them on their human rights record, the Russian premier brought up America’s treatment of its natives. Reagan said “Why, we treat them fine. I’ll meet with Indians any day to discuss their concerns!” When he got back to Washington, a delegation of native leaders was literally waiting in front of the White House to meet with him. He refused.
All that being said, I don’t see how Lincoln comes off as the bad guy in this. It seems popular these days to portray Lincoln as a racist, but the cherry picked quotes I have seen don’t support that. Yes, he did regard whites as the “superior” race, that was kind of the scientific view at the time. However, and it’s a huge however, Lincoln thought that meant it was more important than ever to treat them with the exact same dignity and justice as anyone else. This was a man who his whole life was concerned with justice and fairness. He wasn’t popular among his fellow lawyers for example because he charged people what they could afford, and wouldn’t take on unjust cases.
And I’m no fan of Lincoln. As I have said before “Lincoln didn’t free the slaves, he enslaved the rest of us.” Lincoln was the one that laid the groundwork for the enormously expanded bloated monstrosity the federal government is today. Maybe if he had lived to finish his work, the country might be a better place today. In any event, even allowing the “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart…’ I think that whatever the result, Lincoln was an honorable man trying to leave the world a better place than he found it. Something I would say of very few other presidents.
Tomorrow, more covid horror and Trump’s fantasy about winning the election gets ever weirder. Stay safe, warm, and sane everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: “Attack on New Ulm” Oil on canvas, 1904, Anton Gag. Public Domain under US copyright law.)
SPREAD THE PLAGUE FOR CHRIST!
Well, we’re one big step further towards living in an Evangelical Christian Theocracy. The new SCOTUS struck down Covid-19 restrictions on religious gatherings. It’s claimed as a blow for religious freedom. It’s nothing of the kind. The Constitution protects one’s right to believe as one wants, the government can’t outlaw certain religions. It has nothing to do with people’s behaviour. One can’t act any way one wants, then claim it’s a religious practice. If that was the case sacrificing one’s neighbors to the Gods would be protected. And that’s pretty much what the SCOTUS just did, it said holding Covid-19 superspreader events in the midst of a pandemic was protected as a religious activity.
OK then. Many many people will die because of this ruling, it goes without saying. Sadly many of them won’t even be the people choosing to attend these “Spread the plague in the name of Christ!” events. People will get infected at these events and spread it among the community. All because an organized religion wants to control America. The Evangelicals are not shy about their desire to turn America into a “Christian Nation,” where their interpretation of the bible is the law of the land for all, Evangelical Christian or not. This isn’t religion, this is organized religion; organized religion has a history drenched in blood, and our nation’s founders very much wanted to prevent that here, a nation where government wasn’t in any way run by organized religion. They are spinning in their graves at SCOTUS rulings like this.
Speaking of spreading the plague, today is Thanksgiving in America! Wait, what does that have to do with plague? I’ll get there. I’ve had increasingly mixed feelings about Thanksgiving over the past few years. On the one hand, a fall gathering of loved ones to be thankful for the good fortunes of the summer, sure. People have been holding holidays like that forever. It’s the attachment to the Pilgrims that is problematic. The Pilgrims’ relationship with the natives was hardly as portrayed in the usual Thanksgiving narrative. Moreover the original Thanksgiving Holiday was explicitly celebrating a giant massacre of natives. Yikes. Only in the last century or so was the “feel good” version of Pilgrims and natives promulgated. Read about it all here.
So I’m not celebrating that. I am thankful for my good health, friends, and family. And skol to all celebrating with me in this regard. As for plague connections, two. First off, the arrival of Europeans unleashed terrible epidemics into the new world, tens of millions died, entire native nations were essentially wiped out. And while there is no evidence for Europeans deliberately spreading disease, nonetheless when one’s uninvited “guests” arrive with horrible contagious diseases, it’s nothing to celebrate.
And in contemporary America, where the Covid-19 pandemic is at its worst level ever, an American dying every 37 seconds now, over 2,000 a day … people getting together for Thanksgiving is going to just add gasoline to the fire. Way too many Americans still don’t understand how serious Covid-19 is, thanks to all the leaders and influencers spreading misinformation about it, so as I am typing this a nationwide superspreader event is underway. Jesus wept.
I’m still baffled daily about how we got here, a nation not divided by two ideologies, no, a nation where half of the nation has their own (imaginary) reality. Global warming is real, and caused by human activity. Covid-19 is real, and the worst new infectious disease to come along in a century, if not a millennia. And Donald Trump soundly lost the election. These aren’t debatablebateable, they are established facts. Yet Trump and his followers reject all three and insist their imagined reality is true, despite all evidence to the contrary. A mystery for the ages, here is an interesting take on it: The Rotting of the Republican Mind. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things, but at its core, propaganda and advertising are sciences now, and daily more effective as a result.
Science, the thing mostly responsible for all the marvels of the modern world, is powering forces that may well destroy it. It’s one of the lines of argument that makes me wonder if ultimately intelligence such as ours is an evolutionary dead end. I always like ending on a bleak note. Stay safe everyone, comments, likes, shares appreciated. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Found on Facebook, attribution in image, used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
Doug's Darkworld 