Insomniac's Corner

This uniquely American instrument is actually less a product of the European violin-making tradition than of the Puritan practice of congregational singing. The reverent Pilgrims who arrived at the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1620 brought their tradition of unaccompanied psalm singing. Some of the original settlers had musical training, but as the next generations struggled to survive in harsh conditions, the skills required for high-quality singing were lost. All but a dozen melodies in the simplest meters were forgotten. Because so many people could not read words, let alone music, the practice of “lining out” or “deaconing” developed. In that practice, the church deacon would read a line of text, then sing it, then the congregation would repeat it.

“Praising God by piecemeal,” as a critic of the time archly described it.

By 1720, congregational singing had reached a low point. The problems of illiteracy and a shortage of psalm books had been largely resolved, but the practice of lining out continued. Once-vigorous psalm tunes were flattened by giving all notes equal length, “supposedly in the service of solemnity.” Not only that, uncertain singers would wait for their neighbor to intone the next pitch before attempting it themselves, dragging the tempo even further and resulting in several pitches sounding at the same time.

The sound? Ghastly.

http://stringsmagazine.com/pilgrims-pride/


(Here, pondering the construction of the fiber, of a New England Yankee. They found a way to make music unpleasant, and un- enjoyable. Therefore, virtuous ?)

"They’re awfully ugly,” opines violin auctioneer Jason Price.

St. Olaf, still has a holiday in his name.

Died of rye ergot poisoning ?

(Was it murder ?)


http://www.scriptoriumnovum.com/l/olaf01.html

So many TV series are re- visiting the presence of Vikings, ect.


Then said Ingegerd, "If I go east to Russia, I must choose the man in Svithjod whom I think most suitable to accompany me; and I must stipulate that he shall not have any less title, or in any respect less dignity, privilege, and consideration there, than he has, here." This the king and the ambassadors agreed to, and gave their hands upon it in confirmation of the condition.

"And who," asked the king, "is the man thou wilt take with thee as thy attendant?"

"That man," she replied, "is my relation Earl Ragnvald."

The king replies, "I have resolved to reward Earl Ragnvald in a different manner for his treason against his master in going to Norway with my daughter, and giving her as a concubine to that fellow, who he knew was my greatest enemy. I shall hang him up this summer."

Then Ingegerd begged her father to be true to the promise he had made her, and had confirmed by giving his hand upon it. By her entreaties it was at last agreed that the king should promise to let Earl Ragnvald go in peace from Svithjod, but that he should never again appear in the king's presence, or come back to Svithjod while Olaf reigned. Ingegerd then sent messengers to the earl to bring him these tidings, and to appoint a place of meeting. The earl immediately prepared for his journey; rode up to East Gautland; procured there a vessel, and, with his retinue, joined Ingegerd, and they proceeded together eastward to Russia. There Ingegerd was married to King Jarisleif; and their children were Valdemar, Vissivald, and Holte the Bold. Queen Ingegerd gave Earl Ragnvald the town of Ladoga, and earldom belonging to it. Earl Ragnvald was there a long time, and was a celebrated man. His sons and Ingebjorg's were Earl Ulf and Earl Eilif.

http://www.scriptoriumnovum.com/l/olaf01.html

Generally we keep archaeological findings private to prevent looting,” Spiess said, but because public knowledge of the sites already exists, he detailed Penobscot Native American tribe and other pre-European artifacts found in 1936-37 and in 2015 at the Nevin site, and Native American and early settler artifacts found in the Luskey site and Roundy site.

The Nevin site is “highly unusual” because shell fragments in the soil have preserved the artifacts by reducing the acidity of the soil, Spiess said. For those reasons, it is “critically important to archaeology to have [the Nevin site] left untouched.”

At the Luskey site, Native American artifacts include a 2,000-year-old wigwam floor while the Roundy site, which partially overlaps the Luskey site, contains relics of John Roundy, one of the first settlers of Blue Hill, who arrived in 1762, was elected selectman in 1767, and died in 1799.


http://weeklypacket.com/news/2017/m...falls-bridge-site-will-impact-p/#.WSB7NTkpAv5

How did I miss this ?

Under the heading of-

Italy- Energy, Thoughts, Beauty



Created by Gino De Dominicis, this giant skeleton sculpture was displayed in Milan’s Palazzo Reale in 2007. Named “Calamita Cosmica,” or “Cosmic Magnet,” the sculpture is 28 meters long and weighs about eight tons, or 16,000 pounds. The artist completed this work shortly before his death.


http://www.dw.com/de/skelett-ragt-in-die-skyline-von-florenz/a-39065541

oops, left out a link to Calamita Cosmica
Giant skeleton sculpture in Milan's Palazzo Reale

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/giant-skeleton-sculpture

What was it, that defended her from a false accusation ? Witnesses, that did not owe her anything.

What was revealed ? A well hidden enemy.


"Having made it a constant rule, before and after I married, as long as I remained in the Court of the Queen my mother, to go to no place without her permission, I waited on her, at her return from mass, and asked leave to be present at this banquet. She refused to give any leave, and said she did not care where I went. I leave you to judge, who know my temper, whether I was not greatly mortified at this rebuff."

"Whilst we were enjoying this entertainment, the King, having spoken with Liancourt, Camille, and Mademoiselle Montigny, was apprised of the mistake which the malice or misapprehension of Ruff had led him into. Accordingly, he went to the Queen my mother and related the whole truth, entreating her to remove any ill impressions that might remain with me, as he perceived that I was not deficient in point of understanding, and feared that I might be induced to engage in some plan of revenge."

"When I returned from the banquet before mentioned, I found that what the King my husband had foretold was come to pass; for the Queen my mother sent for me into her back closet, which was adjoining the King’s, and told me that she was now acquainted with the truth, and found I had not deceived her with a false story. She had discovered, she said, that there was not the least foundation for the report her valet de chambre had made, and should dismiss him from her service as a bad man. As she perceived by my looks that I saw through this disguise, she said everything she could think of to persuade me to a belief that the King had not mentioned it to her. She continued her arguments, and I still appeared incredulous. At length the King entered the closet, and made many apologies, declaring he had been imposed on, and assuring me of his most cordial friendship and esteem; and thus matters were set to rights again."

Carvel's Fudgie the Whale was originally a Father's Day cake.Created in Yonkers, circa 1977.


"Whale of a Dad," written in white icing.
(In the age of interwebs, the meaning of inscription has wandered away for from the original compliment.)



I suppose that this statement might trigger a blank-faced look-
"We had a 'whale of a time' at the water slide."


40 years of ice cream and cake goodness. The children from the birthday parties, and family celebrations, are now over 40 years old.

http://gothamist.com/2017/05/30/fudgie_whale_interview_carvel.php#photo-1

The Strange History Of Carvel's Cookie Puss

Cookie Puss was created at the request of Tom Carvel to offer guests a new character cake to enjoy. However, Tom didn’t ask for it to resemble him. Folklore has it that Cookie Puss was created by some franchisees to resemble Tom’s likeness, and was created using product items already in shop.

(Cake was decorated with cute and goofy face, with cartoonish googly eyes made of icing on cookies, a nose made from a filled ice cream cone, and smile drawn on, with icing.)

I've heard Cookie Puss is really a space alien, is this correct?

"We can’t confirm nor deny."

Later, Carvel finally admitted that Cookie Puss was a space alien, telling us that he resides on Planet Birthday, and is "known throughout the galaxy for his fun and quirky personality. Mr. Puss never sours and always brings a smile to the boys and girls of Planet Earth."


http://gothamist.com/2014/06/25/cookie_puss_is_from_outer_space.php

Article writer's aside-

"At press time, Cookie Puss was not available to comment on his feelings about the Beastie Boys and their harassing prank calls of the early 1980s."

Featured-

Youtube
Beastie Boys - Cookie Puss

Oh, dear.

There was a fuzzy Fudgie the Whale mascot, present at the 70th anniversary of Carvel.

Rule# strikes, again.

World's Biggest Ice Cream Cake served at celebration

"Carvel created ice cream sheet cakes at a temperature of minus 120 degrees, and maintained in a freezer truck at minus 20 degrees. A trial run was held in Jessup, Maryland two weeks ago to ensure success."

http://gothamist.com/2004/05/26/biggest_ice_cream_cake_in_the_world.php

Why is the world's largest collection of Hemingway's personal writings is located at the JFK library in Boston?

http://news.wgbh.org/post/how-did-largest-collection-hemingways-writings-end-boston

When Ernest Hemingway died in 1961, a large portion of his literary and personal estate remained at his Cuban home, the Finca Vigia, which he had left during Fidel Castro’s revolution. Despite a U.S. ban on travel to Cuba – the result of high tensions between the two countries following the Bay of Pigs incident – President Kennedy made arrangements for Mary Hemingway, Ernest’s widow, to enter Cuba to claim family documents and belongings.

While in Cuba, Mrs. Hemingway met with Fidel Castro who allowed her to take her husband’s papers and the artwork he collected in exchange for the donation of their Finca Vigia home and its remaining belongings to the Cuban people. With Fidel Castro’s personal approval she was able to ship crates of papers and paintings on a shrimp boat from Havana to Tampa.Mary gathered more material from other places Hemingway had lived and placed the resulting mass of documents and artifacts in storage while she weighed offers from several prospective repositories.

Mary wanted the various drafts – many written in Hemingway's "big sprawling hand" – available so people could see the writing process from initial idea "to the point where it is finally published the way the author thinks is the best." And she wanted to give the collection "to some place where [Hemingway] would be to himself and have a little personal distinction."

https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research...tion/History-of-the-Hemingway-Collection.aspx

Ernest Hemingway's children
John (Jack) Nicanor Hemingway died 2000
Patrick Hemingway
June 28, 1928
Gregory Hancock Hemingway
died 2001

12 grandchildren

ouch
http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=7/2/1961

July 2, 1961

Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

On this day, 1961 Ernest Hemingway committed suicide at the age of sixty-one.

(Perhaps, soon, there will be medical treatments for what was harming him.)

Key West house
http://www.hemingwayhome.com/construction/

When he committed suicide in 1961, following in the tragic footsteps of his brother, sister, and father, all of whom also took their own lives, one might have expected his remains to return to his beloved cats in Key West, but instead they were simply lain to rest in a small Ketchum, Idaho plot.


http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ernest-hemingway-s-grave

Hemingway wrestled tremendously with the ending of his book, and in a new edition, forty-seven alternate endings to the tale that he wrote but subsequently discarded will be published together, according to the The New York Times.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/05/ernest-hemingways-alternate-endings-to-a-farewell-to-arms/

(Seán Hemingway found 47 endings to Farewell to Arms)

“Hemingway’s Brain"

Dr. Andrew Farah

April 28, 2017

Dr. Andrew Farah dates Hemingway’s first known concussion to World War I, several years before he wrote his short story, “The Battler.”

A bomb exploded about three feet from his teenage frame.

(200 pieces of shrapnel removed from his legs ?)

Another likely concussion came in 1928, when Hemingway yanked what he thought was a toilet chain and brought a skylight crashing down on him — causing what Farah describes as “giddy concussive ramblings … about his own blood’s smell and taste.”

Then came a car accident in London — then more injuries as a reporter during World War II, when a German antitank gun blew Hemingway into a ditch.

Then came a car accident in London — then more injuries as a reporter during World War II, when a German antitank gun blew Hemingway into a ditch.

After the war: another car accident. Then a fall on his boat “Pilar,” two years before he published “The Old Man and the Sea,” which a book reviewer called Hemingway’s “last generally admired book.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-may-have-killed-him/?utm_term=.2885dbe47aa5

The snails are among the oldest known markers of where the terrane likely began its long journey from Eurasia during the Permian period, some 290 million years ago.

It drifted south and escaped being absorbed when the continents huddled to form the supercontinent known as Pangea.

Blodgett says it then veered east and eventually north again, moving between plates and coming to rest against North America, where it formed the island-dotted topography of southeast Alaska's slender panhandle.

Rohr and Blodgett excavated the snail fossils in 2004 from a ton of limestone on Prince of Wales Island, a part of the Alexander terrane that's particularly rich in Eurasian links.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081118-alaska-seashell-fossils-missions_2.html

But there's something else going on here, because we've also found fossilized corals on a neighboring island, and they're much older than the palm frond.

We know these corals lived near the equator, so how did their fossils wind up here, in Alaska? Turns out the corals hitched a ride on strings of islands moving up from the Pacific, smacking into North America over millions of years.

These travelling landmasses radically re-shaped our Pacific coastline. Imagine an island the size of Japan, and imagine that island, off the coast of North America, drifting towards the coast at about three inches a year. Then imagine this field of logs is like lots of little Japans, log after log, smacking in and sliding north, smacking in and sliding north.

And you start to see a model for how the west coast of North America grew.

It was a titanic geological logjam that grafted thousands of miles of new coastline onto our continent and still had enough power to push up the spectacular coastal mountain ranges of Alaska and British Columbia.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/making-north-america.html#north-america-origins

15 Movies With No Female Characters Whatsoever

1. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

2. BILLY BUDD

3. MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

4. OUTPOST

5. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

6. SLEUTH

Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine,


7. THE LORD OF THE FLIES

gsgs comment-

Girls have caught up to boys, thanks to the inter-webs. An all female version, could be made, today.


8. THE ENEMY BELOW


9. ALL IS LOST

Starring only Robert Redford, it follows a sailor dealing with a series of disasters on the open sea and, bar a hand of god at the end, features no other actors – male or female. The closest we get to another a character is a glimpse of the unnamed man’s wife, but that never goes beyond thematic motivation.


10. NO ESCAPE

11. 12 ANGRY MEN

12. MY DINNER WITH ANDRE

13. FIRST BLOOD

14. THE GREAT ESCAPE


15. THE THING

The prequel/remake in 2011 attempted to combat the gender imbalance by putting Mary Elizabeth Winstead at the helm.

Only one film, with only women-

When I was a child, I watched the TV version of the 1939 version of "The Women." I watched the 2008 remake on DVD.

July 7, 2017

The Little Hours” (film) is based on “The Decameron,” the 14th-century collection of novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio.

In an interview with IndieWire, Baena was quick to point out that all of the controversial content in the movie is actually rooted in history.

Baena added that while researching “The Decameron,” he interviewed religious scholars who confirmed that the stories in “The Decameron” were factual.

The Catholic League story, entitled “Sundance Film Festival Trashes Nuns,” was not a review — the writer hadn’t seen the movie — but instead criticized the festival for accepting “The Little Hours” and “Novitiate,” the drama about Catholic nuns set during the era of Vatican II.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/th...sundance-aubrey-plaza-alison-brie-1201851161/

wahhhhhh! Sundance Film Festival’s latest attack on the Catholic Church !
wahhhhhh! Sticking it to Catholics!
" This year there are two nun-bashing movies to pick from."

gsgs comment-The Catholic Church used the name of dead Mary Magdalene to slut shame women for centuries. We do not truly know who she was, anymore than we truly know who their Jesus the Christ, was.

One story, that has emerged, is that MM was a wealthy woman, that supported whatever the man was trying to accomplish.


The supporters of the Catholic Church now make demands that we respect the dead, and leave their sex lives out of the public eye?

Some are still dragging MM's corpse into arguments about hoors, sluts, sex workers, and prostitutes, in 2017.


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-mary-magdalene-119565482/




/end gsgs comment

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/th...sundance-aubrey-plaza-alison-brie-1201851161/

10 February 2016

The reaction to angry facial expressions was particularly clear – there was a quicker increase in their heart rate, and the horses moved their heads to look at the angry faces with their left eye.”

Dogs have been shown to look at angry human faces with the left eye: the reasoning is that the brain’s right hemisphere – where information from the left eye is recorded and interpreted - is specialized for dealing with scary or threatening stimuli.

These findings raise interesting questions about the nature of emotional expression recognition, including the relative roles of learning and innate skills in its development,” the scientists say.

Karen McComb, who heads the research group and co-lead author of the study, said “Horses may have adopted an ancestral ability for reading emotional cues in other horses to respond appropriately to human facial expressions during their co-evolution. Alternatively, individual horses may have learned to interpret human expressions during their own lifetime.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/10/horses-can-recognise-human-emotion-new-study-shows

These same University of Sussex scientists found last year that horses have 17 distinct facial expressions—more than dogs’ 16, or chimpanzees’ 14—many of which are similar to humans’ 27 facial movements, like creased brows or eyes widened in fear.


However, since the horses tested in this particular study came from riding schools, where they interact with humans all day every day, their face-reading ability may also have been learned within their lifetime. Previous research has demonstrated that familiarity was a significant factor in dog’s ability to recognize human expressions—they performed better when faced with their owners than with a stranger.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/how-horses-read-human-emotions/471264/

There are important differences between the left and right sides of the horse; in a sense, we have 2 horses in one skin – a left horse, and a right horse, and each has its own character and behaviour patterns.

Recent research indicates that the left is usually the “rapid reaction” side, and the side the horse prefers to have anything it is unsure about or anything to which it wishes to react quickly. It is also the side on which most horses learn more quickly.


Most horses will put a human on their left, or rather, look at the human with their left eye, given the choice. Many horses are nervous when we are on the right, and will try to place us back on the left.


http://www.thinkinghorse.org/equine-behaviour-psycholoy/left-and-right

One of the last Elms is nursed and coaxed into remaining alive. It is very tall and very old.


There were oaks we were not allowed to play on. They were enormous, and the roots of fantasies and dreams.

"12/9 – The historic swamp chestnut oak at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church near Chestertown, Kent County, was taken down beginning today. It was considered “Maryland’s Most Historic Tree”, having been listed in the original church records from 1692 as being on site when the first church building was constructed. It was one of seven oaks surrounding the church buildings; all of which had come down in the past. The last oak, prior to this one, was blown down during Hurricane Hazel in 1958. This tree survived until today, and was taken down due to poor health and liability concerns as it had dropped a large limb in November, which landed in the church parking lot."

Snailfish sets depth record at more than 8,000 metres below surface of Pacific

"Knowing these creatures exist is one thing, but to watch them alive in their natural habitat and interacting with other species is truly amazing, we have learnt a great deal.”

The team carried out 92 deployments of deep-sampling equipment across the entire depth range of the trench, from 5,000 metres to 10,600 metres.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/19/snailfish-depth-record-pacific-mariana-trench


Japanese footage of snailfish at deepest depth

http://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097

How English Was Made

http://www.neatorama.com/2017/09/08/How-English-Was-Made/

Scholars realized that they could use the printing press with everyday languages— even the debased English— to spread ideas. An audacious project was born: Translators would make Plutarch, Cicero, and ancient texts accessible for this uncultured lot.

Trouble was, English didn’t have the words they needed.

One scholar was frustrated that “there ys many wordes in Latyn that we haue no propre englyssh accordynge therto.” Another complained that, compared with Greek, “our grosse tongue is a rude and a barren tong.” To fill in the gaps, translators started to borrow and create words based on Latin and Greek. For example, there was no English word animal. The closest was beast, but that excluded humans. Animal, in Latin, had a broader meaning. It meant any being with anima- breath, soul, feeling. So they used animal in their translations as if it were an English word. And pretty soon, it was.

(The paragraph from the article above, by Arika Orent appeared in the May-June 2016 issue of mental_floss magazine.)

"The success or failure of a word has less to do with its origin than with whether we find it useful, or, sometimes more simply, whether we like it."

http://mentalfloss.com/article/503328/16-latin-question-words-hiding-english-language


Here are 16 English words constructed from some of the most basic building blocks of the Latin language.

1. QUALITY
2. QUANTITY
3. QUIDDITY
No, this word doesn’t size up your Quidditch skills. It literally means “whatness,” formed from the Latin quid, or “what.” Quiddity was introduced as a philosophical term in the Middle Ages for “what makes a thing what it is.” In the 16th century, English writers apparently mocked scholars’ overuse of the term, turning it into a term for a quibble.

4. QUIBBLE
5. QUIP

6. QUIDNUNC

A quidnunc is a fancy word for a “gossiper.” It’s from the Latin quid nunc, literally “what now,” which clever English speakers adopted for the incessant questioning of a nosy person.

7. QUID
8. QUANDARY
9. CUE

10. QUOTIENT
11. QUOTE
12. QUOTIDIAN
13. QUORUM
14. UBIQUITY

15. HIDALGO


So far, most of the words haven’t been hiding their “who” and “what” Latin roots. Not so for the final two. Hidalgo, a Spanish term for a “gentleman” and the name of a state in Mexico, is contracted from hijo de algo, “son of something” (think, a real someone). The algo comes from Latin’s aliquis, “anyone” or “someone,” which quis we previously saw in quip.

16. KICKSHAW

Finally, and most surprisingly, we have kickshaw, a “fancy but unsubstantial food dish.” This lively word is from the French quelque chose, “a little something.” As the OED explains, a kickshaw, adopted in the late 16th century, “was ‘something’ French, not one of the known ‘substantial’ English dishes.” The quelque in quelque chose goes back to the Latin qualis—the same qualis, to bring things full circle, we saw in quality.

(All of the words listed, have an explanation. See link)

King Henry II and Thomas a Becket's Sharp Elbow ?

27 May 2016

When Becket was reburied in 1220, relics from his body – fragments of bone, scraps of cloth – were taken and dispersed across Europe, with a shard of his elbow ending up in Esztergom.

Three centuries later, during the Reformation, Henry VIII – determined to kill off the cult of St Thomas – ordered his shrine to be destroyed and his remains obliterated. The veneration of saints’ relics was condemned by the Protestant king as an idolatrous Catholic practice.

Following a Catholic mass on Sunday, the tiny fragment will return to Hungary. “We are steeped in Becket here, and this week’s reconnection is very special, but the relic belongs in Esztergom,” said Willis.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...est-elbow-return-to-site-of-murder-canterbury

Daylight Saving Time


2006, DST began the first Sunday in April and ended the last Sunday in October — a couple days before Halloween. Candy makers spent decades lobbying for DST to extend beyond Halloween. Why? Young trick-or-treaters going door-to-door collecting Kit Kats and such aren’t allowed out after dark.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/8-illuminating-facts-daylight-saving-time-article-1.2994488

Scientists have captured a "shark from the age of the dinosaurs" off the Algarve coast

The Institute said the male fish measured 1.5 metres (5ft) in length and was caught at a depth of 700 metres (2,300 ft) in waters off the resort of Portimao, Portugal


Frilled Shark

Professor Margarida Castro of the University of the Algarve told Sic Noticias that the shark gets its name from the frilled arrangement of its 300 teeth, "which allows it to trap squid, fish and other sharks in sudden lunges.


http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-41928537

80 million years, ago , a Frilled Shark lived its life. Sadly, one of the few that was born and survived, died this week.

Human beings are invading the depths to catch fish. Dragging the ocean floor at the depth of 700 metres (2,300 ft) is disturbing the last refuge that sea creatures have.

Backflipping Robot Is A Giant Leap For Robot

"In less than a minute, the video posted by Boston Dynamics inspired screaming emotions from all corners of the Internet. It's a revelation in robotics, some said. It's the beginning of humanity's end, chirped others."


video at link-


https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...ck-flipping-robot-a-giant-leap-for-robot-kind


New Atlas, the backflipping version, is shorter and lighter than the version used in the DARPA competition. Instead of 6 feet, 2 inches, the new Atlas is just about 5 feet tall, and instead of 330 pounds, it's about 165. The video shows a model that is untethered, meaning that it runs on battery power rather than being plugged into a stationary power source.


Boston Dynamics

(A robot that can perform parkour ?)

A University of Queensland (UQ)-led study has discovered a new genus and two new species of extinct kangaroos which couldn't hop, but may have been ancestral to all kangaroos and wallabies living today.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160222111230.htm

“Kill the Badger!” (An excerpt from William S. Burroughs’ novella The Cat Inside)

At Los Alamos Ranch School, where they later made the atom bomb and couldn’t wait to drop it on the Yellow Peril, the boys are sitting on logs and rocks, eating some sort of food. There is a stream at the end of a slope. The counselor was a Southerner with a politician’s look about him. He told us stories by the campfire, culled from the racist garbage of the insidious Sax Rohmer – East is evil, West is good.

Suddenly, a badger erupts among the boys – don’t know why he did it, just playful, friendly and inexperienced like the Aztec Indians who brought fruit down to the Spanish and got their hands cut off. So the counselor rushes for his saddlebag and gets out his 1911 Colt .45 auto and starts blasting at the badger, missing it with every shot at six feet. Finally he puts his gun three inches from the badger’s side and shoots. This time the badger rolls down the slope into the stream. I can see the stricken animal, the sad shrinking face, rolling down the slope, bleeding, dying.

“You see an animal, you kill it, don’t you? It might have bitten one of the boys.”

The badger just wanted to romp and play, and he gets shot with a .45 government issue. Contact that. Identify with that. Feel that. And ask yourself, whose life is worth more? The badger, or this evil piece of white shit?

The UK Christmas Pudding: A Form of Protest ?

Not everyone wanted to abandon traditions,
when Cromwell came into power.

Agriculture and animal husbandry followed natural cycles, and with them, markers for each season. Group efforts to harvest, butcher, and store food, led to enjoying the fruits of their labors. They gathered together for practical purposes. In Spring, the first vegetation to be consumed, is of immature crops. The internal organs of butchered animals must be consumed quickly. The Pope (At some point, warring Popes) and his bishops adapted to nature, and theft from Pagan holidays suited the Vatican's purposes.

The Cycle of Excess and Deprivation

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!

A humble soup, of grain with nuts and dried fruit, made to extend a meager menu at the end of Winter. A food evolves into a political statement. "We will have our rich, delicious, alcohol laden pudding! We will share, and enjoy the delights of luxury and celebration. Fuck off, Puritan."

Who (or what) is the "scarlet Whore of Babylon, that the Quakers refer to ?

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/xy7je4/screw-the-puritans-and-eat-more-mince-pies


http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ilej/image1.pl?item=page&seq=1&size=1&id=gm.1733.12.x.3.x.x.652


Stir Up Sunday: The best Christmas pudding recipe for 2017

Friday 24 November 2017

Stir Up Sunday is a tradition that dates back to the Victorian times and refers to the last Sunday before the season of Advent. Historically a family would gather together to stir the Christmas pudding five weeks before Christmas.

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyl...y-best-christmas-pudding-recipe-a3701066.html

Somewhere, along the line, the simple soup transforms into a cake.

Once upon a time, on the GB at Lit, English Lady attended to her fruitcake. Bathing it in good English booze, at regular intervals.

"The Long Parliament, which put the Puritans in a position of power during the civil wars, had attempted godly reformation but encountered fierce opposition, leaving the reformation incomplete and confused by the end of the 1640s."


http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1346

"From the outset the Commonwealth had a major problem because many of those who actively supported a reformation in English society hated the new regime for the execution of Charles I and the establishment of a republic. As Capp notes, the reforming agenda attempted by the Commonwealth was highly ambitious and historians have declared that godly reformation failed during this decade – even from the outset the regime had trouble in removing all royal images from English society. The Rump Parliament also tried to reform the traditional English calendar by removing fairs and market days and Christmas. These reforms had a limited impact on daily life because the traditional calendar had been in use for generations and people continued old customs."


(What about the people that were too poor, to be able to afford a Christmas pudding ?)

"Almost every source on the history of Christmas pudding repeats the story that Oliver Cromwell somehow banned the dish. Rubbish. It's true that in 1644 the Long Parliament decreed in a gush of Puritan zeal that Christmas should be a fast day instead of a feast day (and what a difference that unassuming E makes), but Cromwell was then preoccupied with the small matter of the Civil War, so played no part in this legislation. In 1656, some even more fanatical Puritans sought to make celebrating Christmas itself illegal. But this bill got no further than its first reading and was subsequently dropped, and the feast/fast law lapsed at the Restoration."


'Nonetheless, religious killjoys persisted in their nagging and doomed attempts to oppose the pudding. George I proudly enjoyed "Christmas pottage" in 1714, the Quakers roaring that the dish was "the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon".'


https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/dec/21/consider-christmas-pudding


"From 1659 to 1681, Bostonians faced a five-shilling fine for celebrating Christmas, a law that followed a similar ban in England during Oliver Cromwell's rule, when the Parliament was controlled by a Puritan majority. Puritan Parliament there even decided to make Christmastime a period of "fasting and humiliation," for all of the sins of celebrations of Christmas past."


"In late 1644 it was noted that 25 December would fall on the last Wednesday of the month, the day of the regular monthly fast, and parliament stressed that 25 December was strictly to be kept as a time of fasting and humiliation, for remembering the sins of those who in the past had turned the day into a feast, sinfully and wrongfully ‘giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights’. Both Houses of Parliament attended intense fast sermons on 25 December 1644."

"During the late 1640s attempts to prevent public celebrations and to force shops and businesses to stay open had led to violent confrontations between supporters and opponents of Christmas in many towns, including London, Canterbury, Bury St Edmunds and Norwich. Many writers continued to argue in print (usually anonymously) that it was proper to mark Christ’s birth on 25 December and that the secular government had no right to interfere, and it is likely that in practice many people in mid seventeenth century England and Wales continued to mark both the religious and the secular aspects of the Christmas holiday."

http://www.olivercromwell.org/faqs4.htm

Event Horizon 'Scope
@ehtelescope
·
Jan 9
Black holes are mind-blowing, but what are they really? Find out in the new “Black Hole Apocalypse” show from @novapbs, hosted by astrophysicist and author @JannaLevin and featuring some of the world's top experts on black holes, including a few EHT members




Event Horizon 'Scope
@ehtelescope
·
Jan 5
Lots of work remain for the EHT scientists to produce the first image of a #blackhole, but there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the first results in 2018. The show does not stop there -- preparations are already underway for the next round of data-taking in the spring

10 million mph
zoom


http://eventhorizontelescope.org


It will take nearly two years for New Horizons to beam back all its data on 2014 MU69 back to Earth, transmitting through the vast black gulf of space at a glacial at 1 to 2 kilobits per second.

But broad strokes will land sooner, beginning in late December and extending through the first few days of January 2019, when the first high-resolution views will arrive on Earth.

“Spend your Christmas in the Kuiper Belt,” Stern said. “It’s going to be exciting, and there’s not going to be anything like it again. There’s no planned further exploration of the Kuiper Belt.”

One journalist asked scientists if they expect to get a lump of coal for Christmas in 2018.

“Maybe two of three lumps of coal,” Spencer joked.

https://astronomynow.com/2018/01/06/plot-thickens-as-new-horizons-moves-within-year-of-next-flyby/

SGR 1806-20

50,000 light years away
That’s 500 quadrillion kilometers (300 quadrillion miles)

Event- Dec. 27, 2004


A single cubic centimeter of neutron star material would have a mass of 1014 grams: 100 million tons. That’s very roughly the combined mass of every single car on the United States, squeezed down into the size of a sugar cube. The surface gravity of a neutron star is therefore unimaginably strong, tens or even hundreds of billion times that of the Earth.


Yikes. (He wrote the word, not me

There’s more. What makes a neutron star a magnetar is its magnetic field: it may be a quadrillion (a 1 followed by 15 zeros: 1,000,000,000,000,000) times stronger than that of the Earth! That makes the magnetic field of a magnetar as big a player as the gravity. In a magnetar, the magnetic field and the crust of the star are coupled together so strongly that a change in one affects the other drastically. What happened that fateful day on SGR 1806-20 was most likely a star quake, a crack in the crust. This shook the magnetic field of the star violently, and caused an eruption of energy.

The sheer amount energy generated is difficult to comprehend. Although the crust probably shifted by only a centimeter, the incredible density and gravity made that a violent event far beyond anything we mere humans have experienced. The quake itself would have registered as 23 on the Richter scale—mind you, the largest earthquake ever recorded was about 9 on that scale, and it’s a logarithmic scale. The blast of energy surged away from the magnetar, out into the galaxy. In just 200 milliseconds—a fifth of a second, literally the blink of an eye—the eruption gave off as much energy as the Sun does in a quarter of a million year.



This is the light curve that [Swift's Burst Alert Telescope] saw, showing how many gamma rays it counted in each sixteenth of a second during six minutes of observation. I didn’t draw the main spike because it was 10,000 times as bright as the tail emission, and you would need a monitor a thousand feet tall to look at it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...plosion_rocked_earth_on_december_27_2004.html

Not since 1649

10 January 2018

Royal Academy that brings the treasures amassed by Charles together again for the first time in 370 years.


He (Charles I) left behind the finest art collection ever assembled by a British monarch, and now London’s Royal Academy has reunited the greatest hits of his collection. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion when we can show them together,’ says Per Rumberg, co-curator of this extraordinary exhibition.


When Charles became King, in 1625, he set about assembling a collection to rival the one he’d seen in Spain. None of his predecessors had collected much – he had a lot of catching up to do. Over twenty years, he amassed 2000 artworks. ‘He spent a huge amount of money – it was hugely political’ says Rumberg. ‘It had to be funded, and signed off by parliament, and parliament wasn’t too keen because they needed money for wars.’

France and Spain, art was employed to bolster the godlike authority of these absolutist monarchs. Likewise, Rubens’ opulent paintings reinforced Charles’s vainglorious image as an enlightened autocrat. Charles liked these pictures, but he didn’t just collect them because he liked them. They were an affirmation of his right to rule.

After he’d signed Charles’s Death Warrant, Oliver Cromwell sold off this collection, at Somerset House.

It was a political statement,’ says Rumberg. ‘It wasn’t only enough to chop his head off – the pictures had to go as well.’ Many of the best pictures went abroad. Most ended up at the Prado, in Madrid, or in Paris, at the Louvre. In Britain, Renaissance art was still a new-fangled notion. Charles’s Titians returned to the Continent, where they were better known – and understood.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/art...-collectors-charles-is-art-treasures-reunited


Charles I: King & Collector is at the Royal Academy, London W1, from 27 January to 15 April 2018

(The French royal family suffered similar fates, but the Louvre lives, on.)

Are there royal possessions in the National Gallery ?