Feb 29, 2012

The Normans

The Norsemen ranged very far afield, and some, as rational beings, opted to settle in more hospitable places than their icy homeland.

In Sicily they established the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. ‘Mafia’ is a Norse word meaning ‘Our side.’

They also formed the body guard of the ruler of the Ottoman empire, the only people he could trust. (Circassians, cousins to the Chechen, have long performed the same function for the monarchs of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.)

They showed a strong approval of viniculture, naming one of their temporary settlements on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean Vinland the Good.

Perhaps their most important area of settlement was the area named after them, Normandy in France, still the producer of claret and the best wines.

England also interested them, and they poured in and settled there. The river Humber was established as the boundary, north of which was Danelaw, the Norse area.

William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, reputedly born the wrong side of the blanket, invaded from Normandy to conquer England in AD 1066, and won at the battle of Hastings, where the last Saxon king, Harold, was killed, leaving only the areas of the West Saxons, Wessex, and the East Saxons, Essex, and a few scattered enclaves to the native Saxon kings, like Alfred.

The English language still carries the marks of the divisions, with all words for animals as food having Norman French roots, such as beef, and all words describing animals from the view of the Saxon herdsmen having Germanic roots, such as cow. (See also mutton and sheep, and so forth.)

Cross-posted from Wahyusamputra at UK, at
revolutionnotontv

Feb 27, 2012

Nowolvesnowater

No Wolves, No Water Here’s the piece we still don’t get: when we exterminated wolves from Yellowstone in the early 1900s, killing every last one, we de-watered the land. That’s right -- no wolves eventually meant fewer streams, creeks, marshes, and springs across western landscapes like Yellowstone where wolves had once thrived. The chain of effects went roughly like this: no wolves meant that many more elk crowded onto inviting river and stream banks where the grass is green and the livin’ easy. A growing population of fat elk, in no danger of being turned into prey, gnawed down willow and aspen seedlings before they could mature. Willows are both food and building material for beavers. As the willows declined, so did beaver populations. When beavers build dams and ponds, they create wetland habitats for countless bugs, amphibians, fish, birds, and plants, as well as slowing the flow of water and distributing it over broad areas. The consequences of their decline rippled across the land. Meanwhile, as the land dried up, Yellowstone’s overgrazed riverbanks eroded. Life-giving river water receded, leaving those banks barren. Spawning beds for fish were silted over. Amphibians lost precious shade where they could have sheltered and hidden. Yellowstone’s web of life was fraying and becoming threadbare.

Feb 24, 2012

Nothingknown

In trials of criminal cases in England, a small country on the nearer edge of Europe, over the Atlantic Ocean, the previous record of the accused, the defendant, can not be mentioned during the trial. It would be impossible, or at least very difficult, not to be influenced by the knowledge that the defendant has many previous convictions for check forgery and mugging old ladies for their pensions. It would be difficult, that is to say, to arrive at a fair and objective conclusion as to whether they’re guilty of the particular crime they’re on trial for. When the hearing of all the evidence is finished, however, and the time has come for sentencing, the judge will turn to the police representative at the trial and ask “Any previous convictions?” That seems fair. It may be prejudicial to the accused to know of their record during the proceedings, but when the judge has to decide on a penalty, then whether this is an old lag who does this all the time, or a decent upstanding citizen guilty of an unfortunate lapse, then it’s worth asking about previous convictions. The police response will be either to read a list of previous convictions, or to say “Nothing known.” This may be interpreted as meaning “God only knows what else they may have done and been convicted of, but we’ve done a search, and we didn’t find anything,” a cautious and noncommittal answer. The standard form of political discussion in America, (and not only America, of course) is when Mr. A makes a statement, that, let us say, water is wet, or that when things fall they fall downwards, is for Mr. B to attack Mr. A personally. Mr. B may be employed by some powerful entity but is not obliged to reveal that. Mr. A’s intelligence and academic record, his morals and sexual escapades, his acquaintance with criminal elements will all be catalogued. They may of course be entirely invented. Whether his statement is correct or not, whether water is really wet or not will be entirely ignored, though Mr. B may perhaps refer tangentially to the “dry water” recently produced by a certain company, or the secret weapon produced by a famous terrorist group that makes things fall upwards. These are smaller supports, however. The main effort goes into the total destruction of Mr. A. Politics in practice is entirely adversarial. It makes a better show. To be anonymous, to operate covered by a nickname, strikes some people as suspicious. “Why can’t you come out openly and say ‘I’m Joe Bloggs, of Seaview, Nebraska, a plumber by trade’ and have done with it” they ask. Because you will be tempted to slip into the standard “Ah yes, we know about those people in Nebraska” and slip back into the old routine is the answer. It comes down to what happened to Daniel Cohn-Bendit, “Danny the Red,” back in the scorching sixties. Coming down the steps of an arriving airliner, he found a journalist’s microphone thrust in his face with the question “What did he think of yadder yadder yadder?” “You might just as well ask the next guy behind me in the line,” Danny replied. “We don’t have leaders like that any more.” So there ye go. We don’t have leaders like that any more. Whether I am old or young, black or white, male or female, incarcerated for life or in the middle of a round the world yacht race is none of your business.

Feb 20, 2012

Dragon

The Year of the Dragon began on January 23, 2012.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all foreigners are mad. The United States of America differs from other countries in that it needs no commentary to illustrate this.

A scheme to charge the population a fee for the use of rainwater was abandoned. No way of establishing the source of household water stocks could be found.

In celebration of the New Year the ruler of the USA signed into law a regulation allowing him to kill or imprison for ever any of the citizens of his country at his sole discretion, a power possessed and ruthlessly applied world wide, but openly declared only by him. All other countries profess the conventional formula that they rule in the interests of their populations.

The climate of the planet Earth has become noticeably warmer owing to the burning of fossil fuels, mainly coal and oil, which puts millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. The net result of this warming can be easily summarized: wet places will get wetter, dry places drier, hot places hotter, cold places colder, effects difficult to hide from the population without immense effort. The great majority of candidates for the presidency of the USA deny climate warming as a hoax.

The profits of the oil companies break new records every year, and the companies encourage the burning of as much coal and oil as possible. If consumption slowed or stopped, or were abandoned in favor of other technologies, their large inventories of coal and oil would be worthless.

Initiatives for new foreign wars, and intensification of old ones drive the main effort. No one can say what these wars hope to accomplish in any conventional war making sense. There is no such purpose.

In the New Empire success at war no longer matters. The extraction takes place by being at war.

No one can say what the purpose of these wars is, or what would constitute victory, because no such purpose exists. They are there to keep the system going, that’s all, buttressed by the financial system, where the population, not only of the US, but of all western states, has had a declining income, and rising costs of goods and services, for thirty years. That’s in a paper currency, worth less and less every day, carried upwards on the winds. No one has any money.

Not generally known is that Norwegians were literally starving to death until they changed their system to become the most stable and prosperous country on earth.

Now it’s the turn of the Egyptians. And the Bahrainies. And the Iranians, and South Sudanese.

What is left? To do what the hand finds to do, before the darkness arrives that always. has. the last word.