Happy 250th

Below is a post I frequently put up on the 4th of July. I think Americans forget just how radical the Declaration of Independence is. "All men are created equal..." is very influential, and very destructive of the old order.   

The normal state of human affairs is for societies to divide into hierarchies, with the favored elites on the top, and the rest of us strung out below. Today you can see that old order still striving to exert itself. With our credentialed elites jetting off to Bali while they would like nothing less than to cram the rest of us into apartments where they could, for our own good of course, regulate, surveil and dictate terms to us.

The struggle continues and yet, for now at least, "all men are created equal... " is the fulcrum the world balances on.

Above is the song Dimonkransa sung by Myra Andrade of the Cape Verde Islands. Cape Verde received their independence from Portugal on July 5th, 1975. The liberation movement was led by the socialist African Party of Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV). Andrade's father was a member of it, and in fact she was born in Cuba.

Upon independence Cape Verde was a single party government, but in 1990 at a party congress the PAICV approved the introduction of multiparty democracy. In the election that followed the opposition fared well, and Cape Verde has evolved into a stable multi-party democracy.

However, this is not a post about her politics, nor the sort of third world socialism that bubbles through the undeveloped world. It seems to me there is a deeper strata, a bedrock so to speak, which lies under the languid melancholy of her lyrics.

It was said that democracy,
Lopsided democracy,
It was said that democracy
Was like a hidden treasure,
But now that it has been found.
We have all opened our eyes
And each one, relying on his judgment,
Confidently declared that what was round was in fact square,
And went to work, with a great many theories,
To prove that he was right.

(lyrics from the version she sung on her first album Navega)

Andrade is ill at ease with democracy, but for social rather than political reasons. Early in the song she calls it 'lopsided democracy' and as its lyrics unfold her complaint is that each person, not matter how foolish they are (and she clearly thinks many if not most of them are fools), now express a cacophony of opinions and arguments that bury the truth. 

She ends the song singing of English businessman and listing names from Cape Verde's past, some who have been elevated and some who she fears are being forgotten and expresses distress at this reordering of authority. 

Stripped to its bone, the song is about a lost elite. Andrade is expressing nostalgia for a short-lived one-party rule and for an escape from European domination. Of course, it is her party that should rule and she now makes her home in Paris. Perhaps it is she that is lopsided, rather than all of the happy fools she mocks?

The time will come when old Náxu’s opinions
Will not be held in higher esteem than those of a babe in arms.
People will come together and cry: enough!    

Americans forget how revolutionary we are. Jefferson's "all men are created equal..." is both intoxicating and destructive. It is a hell of a thing not to have to step into the gutter to clear the sidewalk for a swaggering aristocrat. Andrade is intimidated by and dismissive of people who have opened their eyes, and each one, relied on their own judgment, but a free man knows better.

As for coming together and crying "enough"? That is exactly what our 4th of July celebrates. Happy 4th of July to you all.

America the Beautiful

Get ready for a flag waving weekend with Lina Frances.

 

The last battle of the American Revolutionary War

Naval battle of Gondelour, June 20, 1783 by Auguste Jugelet
(click image to enlarge)

If asked, most Americans would think that Yorktown was the last battle of the Revolutionary War. However, in the years before Yorktown, what had been an English civil war expended to a global war as France, Spain and the Netherlands took advantage of England's problems to declare war on therm. 

That war continued well after Yorktown and even after peace negotiations had begun. As pointed out in the article India: The Last Battle of the American Revolutionary War:  

A preliminary treaty finally came on November 30, 1782, a year after Yorktown… but there was still no formal treaty. Washington remembered what Ben Franklin had said, “The British Nation seems… unable to carry on the War and too proud to make peace.” The politicians were all still talking in Paris. Washington instinctively didn’t trust the British and knew it could be a mistake to lower his guard of them, even while talks were going on. As late as January 1783, from Newburgh, New York, he wrote to Maj. John Armstrong that he suspected Parliament would still “provide vigorously for the prosecution of the war.”

But in the meantime, between Yorktown and the preliminary peace treaty, there were at least forty-four more documented world-wide battles, sieges, actions, incidents, and skirmishes of the American Revolutionary War.

The last Revolutionary War battle, the Naval Battle of Cuddalore, took place off the coast of India. It occurred after the treaty ending the war had been signed, but before news of it could reach the distant combatants.

The French were occupying the city of Cuddalore and the British were besieging it. English naval forces were bombarding the city in support of the siege, so the French sent a naval squadron to intervene. For a few days light and variable winds kept the two forces apart, but on June 20th the French closed with the English ships for combat. 

The battle that followed was rather desultory, with little damage on either side. The battle lasted 3 hours and the British withdrew. There was still a bit of back and forth with the siege, but that naval battle counts as the last battle fought in the American Revolutionary War.  

 

Winslow Homer

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With our 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence nearly upon us, I thought I would feature an American artist. Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is arguably America's finest painter. Although he spent some time in Paris and England, he was primarily based out of New England. He started as a magazine illustrator but moved on to oils and watercolors. He grew increasingly more reclusive as he aged.

Winslow Homer

Justifications for resentment

An anarchist

All of these people — back to Marx himself — spend far more time naming who deserves to be on the receiving end of theft and violence than working out how their ideal society would actually function, let alone building it.

This is the difference between a genuine grievance and a pathological one. Ressentiment only subtracts. It locates the entire source of its suffering outside itself and proposes to remove that source from the face of the earth. Take off the billionaires’ heads. Liquidate the favored men. Cut down the one who said the wrong pronoun. None of these are doctrines aimed at stability or coherence. They are justifications for resentment.

That is why these movements hate the language of self-improvement — why the manifesto sneers at lifting weights, at becoming confident, at building something. It is why all the blame falls on the health insurance CEO and none on the millions living with lifestyle-induced chronic disease. It is why billionaires’ heads become the cause of all your problems. To improve yourself is to admit you have agency over your own life, and agency is surrendered long before ressentiment swallows the soul. That is what the sane are truly up against. Not a single ideology, but the spirit that spawns them all.

Above is an excerpt from a post at Pergelator's blog. He swiped it entirely from My Daily Kona who swiped it from Liam Out Loud. It is a succinct, and I think very accurate, discussion of one of the currents underlying a lot of today's political violence. It is well worth reading it in full.

 

Red River Valley

Get ready for a terminating weekend with Tony Trischka and Molly Tuttle.

 

Chowing down in Imperial Rome

This video discusses meals in ancient Rome. The food they ate is also explained. Also, most Romans didn't have a means for cooking food at home, so they used street vendors to get their meals. Herculaneum and Pompeii were both buried in volcanic ash, so we have well preserved examples of the infrastructure to support their daily dining.

  

Judge magazine covers

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Judge magazine was an American satirical magazine published from 1881 to 1947. It was founded by people who left Puck. It was aligned with the Republicans and published a lot of overtly political content. Many of its early covers are in the style of that era's political cartoons.

I liked the cover immediately below. My grandparents came over on one of those European Garbage Ships where they got dumped on Ellis Island. Eastern Europeans were the riffraff of the day. Riffraff or not, they were legal and sought to acclimate. However, the last image is rather more immigrant friendly, showing Uncle Sam's face as a melting pot of ethnicities.

Take a Look

Get ready for a catty weekend with Sokun Nisa and Rolin.

 

Does lightning go up or down?

Lightning strikes travel too fast to see. So, do they move from cloud to ground or vice versa? This video has some slow-motion video that shows the evolution of a lightning strike. It turns out to be far more complex.

As thunderstorms form air current rapidly life water upwards. As the water vapor quickly moves up, electrons are knocked loose resulting in a positively charge anvil and a negatively charge cloud base. The negatively charge cloud bases causes a positive charge to build in the ground. Tendrils of current begin to form, in both the cloud and the ground, and when they connect, we have the lightning bolt. 

The NOAA website has a more detailed explanation of lightning.

 

The Menologion of Basil II

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The Menologion of Basil II is an 11th century Byzantian manuscript. It was a liturgical book that showed the lives of the Saints as well as martial feats by Emporer Bail II against the Bulgarians. Its style is of the Macedonian Renaissance which was a return to a more naturalistic look. The images were accompanied by text stressing important points about the Saints. After passing through several hands, it is now in the Vatican Library.  

Earlier I've posted about The Codex Laud which is an Aztec religious text. I mentioned that, because of its religious topic, it came across as being rather bloodthirsty. The same applies to the Menologion. Without trying to draw an equivalence between the two religions, when the topic is the tribulations of mankind there will be ghastly scenes portrayed.  

Dream a Little Dream of Me

Get ready for a hypnagogic weekend with Connie Evingson.

 

Car morticians

A forklift places a Dodge Caravan into a car crusher, and it gets crushed. Then another car gets loaded in and it get crushed. Then another and another and another until we have a stack of crushed cars. In the video below we have a car shredder. Drop a car into the bin and it gets randomly disassembled.

I suppose to a motorhead, thinking of when these cars were new and sparkly on a dealer's lot, this is all a bit of a tragedy. To the rest of us it is oddly fascinating.

  

Nautical art of Dominic Serres

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Dominic Serres (1722–1793) was born in France. After studying at a seminary, he moved to Spain where he became a merchant sailor. Eventually, in the Caribbean, he was captured by the British and imprisoned. While in prison he took up painting. Upon release he moved to England and began his career as a painter of maritime subjects, most generally warships of the time. 

Dominic Serres

500 Miles | Jab Koi Baat (Mashup)

Get ready for a two for one weekend with Rishikesh Kamerkar.

 

Walking in Bukit Bintang

Bukit Bintang is an upscale shopping district located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Compared to many of the areas we've walked through in this series, it is very nice looking. The place is lively, with a lot of shops, restaurants, cafes, and food stalls.

 

Paintings of windows

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Windows are a transparent division between the inside and the outside. You can view things from either side of a window, looking into privacy or out to the fragment of the public world outside. Of course, they can be metaphorical -- windows into the soul and whatnot -- but mainly they let in light and generally you really just look through them to enjoy the view.

Oh! Susanna

Get ready for an orientalized minstrel weekend with Musk Ming.

 

Baking bread in the sand

For some reason I have oddly large number of Mongolian posts on this blog, at least more than you would expect. This one is from Inner Mongolia, which is within Chinese territory. It starts with a video of some nomads baking bread in the sand. They heat up the sand with dung and then bury the dough and leave it to cook. The dunes are amazing, a very desolate looking place. 

The next video is of a Mongolian family having breakfast. What is particularly interesting about the video, to me at least, it is the furnishings and decor of their home. We end by touring a ranch which ends in some sort of incomprehensible 'fire ceremony' at the end of the day.

I have featured Artger's videos before -- a meal with a Mongolian opera singer, a hot pot delivery, and the Mongolian versions of hamburgers and hotdogs.  

 

Memorial Day remembrance

His Bunkie by William James Aylward

The Death of a Soldier - Wallace Stevens

Life contracts and death is expected,

As in a season of autumn.

The soldier falls.

He does not become a three-days personage,

Imposing his separation,

Calling for pomp.

Death is absolute and without memorial,

As in a season of autumn,

When the wind stops,

When the wind stops and, over the heavens,

The clouds go, nevertheless,

In their direction.

 

Jan Steen paintings

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Jan Steen (1626-1679) was a Dutch baroque painter known for his genre (everyday household) paintings. His scenes were often very chaotic, with a lot of humor built into them. While many of his jokes are obscure to us today, there is still a Dutch saying "Jan Steen household" to describe a chaotic home.

While his works were popular in his day, he was a poor money manager and left a lot of debt when he died. His work is still highly regarded. 

Jan Steen self-portrait

Pennies from Heaven

Get ready for a collecting extinct coins weekend with The Vintage Explosion.

 

The Paris Morgue as a tourist trap

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The was a time when the Paris Morgue was an attraction. In 19th century Paris unidentified corpses were brought in from the streets or the river. In an attempt to identify them it was decided to display them in the hope a relative or acquittance would claim them. They were frozen, displayed on angled iron tables, and their clothes displayed. They would be publicly exhibited for three days.

Entry to the viewing area was free, and soon it became a popular destination for the curious. Newspapers would print lurid details of the cadavers, and the more infamous ones (decapitations, mutilation or children) would draw large crowds.

From the article The Paris Morgue: A Gruesome Tourist Attraction in the 19th Century:

The Paris Morgue was open seven days a week from dawn to 6pm and was drawing up to 40,000 visitors a day. Parisians and tourists mingled side by side. It became a family day out at weekends, the respectable mixing with the disreputable, young and old, male and female, small children and workers on their lunch break; all filed past the bodies with unabated curiosity.

The more horrendous or gruesome a death, the longer the queues grew. Decapitated, or limbless bodies, tiny children, only added to the morbid desire to see the bodies up close.

Of course what was undeniably adding to the dubious attraction of seeing dead bodies on display was that it was free to enter.

A glimpse of the Paris Morgue’s interior. The left wall of the entrance hall consisted of a row of windows through which guests could see the “salle d’exposition” where cadavers were laid out on iron tables, their clothes hung from thick iron hooks over their heads. 

Indeed if on a rare day, the morgue was empty of bodies, the dissatisfaction of the crowd was made apparent. Their appetite for death up close had become almost insatiable.

Because of the guarantee of daily crowds, street vendors set up outside the morgue selling oranges, coconut ice or whatever else they thought would tempt the queue.

It all sounds rather macabre and gruesome, but then again, we all slow down and rubberneck for traffic accidents, don't we?  

Jacob Philipp Hackert's paintings

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Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737–1807) was a German painter known for his landscapes. He was a neo-classicist and a romanticist. He was quite successful in his life. He moved to Italy where he was the court painter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples. Eventually, wars in northern Italy forced him south where he was to spend the remainder of his life. 

Jacob Philipp Hackert by Wilhelm Titel

Egyptian Ella

Get ready for a bulbous weekend with the Blue Heathens.

 

Riding the rails in Bangladesh

This is a chaotic and at times faintly alarming trip down a rail line in Bangladesh. The line is actually not in use, it was closed some 20 years ago, and this is a maintenance carriage checking the tracks. The tracks are covered with straw and other debris and livestock are tied to it. People have to run ahead to clear them.

It is a trip through rural Bangladesh. There used to be a ferry at its end by the river. A newer track with a bridge has replaced it. In the comments there is a lot of nostalgia over this route, people fondly remembering riding the train in their youth.

 

Weird Tales

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Weird Tales was a very influential 20th Century pulp magazine. It featured horror, the supernatural and sci-fi. Among writers it discovered and promoted were H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, and Robert E. Howard. It discontinued publication in 1954 but has had several attempts to restart. Since 1988 it has been published under its current incarnation.

These covers are from the original 1923 to 1954 run.