Long I have been curious about the Great Pestilence that trimmed the population of Britain and Europe by a third or more, in the fourteenth century. I make too much of it; the plague was a recurring event for centuries before and after. I notice from the tabloids that it is returning, through Africa this time. I know there will be pestilence to come, when we will all think it terribly important. It rivetted attention, I’m sure, in the autumn of 1348, and through the summer of 1349. And yet within a generation it is hardly mentioned.
England, below the Ribble and Tees, is special, thanks to the Domesday Book of the invading, tax-loving Normans, and their general propensity to good record-keeping. The towns and villages ennumerated in 1086 can be traced to the present day; nineteen in twenty are still there. Having figures to start, and through the parish books later, we can track an economic and demographic history with an accuracy possible in no other country. We can know, for instance, of the population boom through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which had slackened well before the “Black Death.” And with that boom, impressive advances in farming, technology, and building, as today. Nothing conduces to technical improvement, as a bit of crowding.
This proportion I cited — the nineteen-in-twenty (or more) — which I have from reading in economic history mostly years ago, fascinates my attention. We know large tracts were depopulated, we find the archaeological evidence easily enough. They were planting rye within the walls of Winchester, and many other towns. Everywhere, they had elbow-room again. Our deep ecologists would have been pleased — those who think life on this planet would be better had a few billion souls not been born. As Christianity, and environmentalism, are mortally opposed, and the fourteenth century was overwhelmingly Christian, I expect complaints of overpopulation were differently expressed at the time. Mostly it would have been moaning from younger brothers about the distribution of inherited land.
Always, there have been younger brothers. Always, there have been survivors. What delighted me was the speed with which all the vacant places were filled. As we’ve seen, too, after ghastly wars, demography abhors a vacuum.
David Warren, “Death the real illusion”, Essays in Idleness, 2017-11-04.
December 16, 2019
QotD: The Great Pestilence of 1348
December 15, 2019
Policing London – The Bow Street Runners – Extra History – #3
Extra Credits
Published 14 Dec 2019Henry Fielding was a dangerous man … with a pen. He had a razor-sharp wit and created the page-turner novel, but that’s not what we want to focus on here. Because Henry Fielding is also responsible for assembling London’s first organized police force. The Bow Street Runners were inspired by Wilde’s operation just … not corrupt. But Fielding quickly found that in London’s justice system, corruption was the assumed default, not the exception. He certainly had his work cut out for him!
Henry Fielding – Everything Wilde did but you know… without the whole… being morally bankrupt bit.
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From “mascupathy” to “toxic masculinity”
Suzanne Venker on the well-aired notion that males are suffering from “toxic masculinity”, and must be “cured” by being more like females:
“End Toxic Masculinity” by labnusantara is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
I’ve always been fascinated at the ease with which specious ideas spread. One day you’re living your life, and unbeknownst to you, someone who holds a reasonable measure of power has an idea based on his or her “research.” That person tells someone else, and then that person tells someone else, and the next thing you know, this new idea has spread like wildfire and people everywhere who are clamoring for answers to complex problems jump on board and say, “Yes, that’s it! That must be it!” All of a sudden, you start reading and hearing about it in the news. An idea has been born. It is now a fact.
That’s how I imagine we arrived at the bogus concept known as “toxic masculinity,” which was apparently deemed “mascupathy” 10 years go by psychotherapist Randy Flood. Mascupathy, Flood and his colleagues decided, is the failure of a man to shed his traditional manly ways. At that point, he officially has a disease.
“We just believe,” writes Flood in Mascupathy: Understanding and Healing The Malaise of American Manhood, “that there is a disease process that goes on when we raise boys to cut off half of their humanity in order to pursue the pinnacle of masculinity.”
This is the conclusion some, such as Flood, have come to for why men and boys are struggling:
Women are graduating from college at higher levels. the male suicide rate is four times that of women, men have a harder time moving out of their parents’ homes than women. There are so many statistics that are telling us that men are struggling. Ninety-eight percent of mass shooters are men, but when there is a shooting we don’t talk about men’s mental health.
Actually, many people have addressed men’s mental health. We simply didn’t arrive at the same conclusion. Men and boys aren’t suffering from an overdose of masculinity; they’re suffering from a dearth of masculinity.
How could it be the former when millions of boys come from fatherless homes and when most boys are products of public schools, where only 23% of teachers are male? Single motherhood has skyrocketed over the last five decades — a whopping 40% increase. Who do we suppose is encouraging boys to “pursue the pinnacle of masculinity”? Their mothers and their female teachers?
Hardly. In schools, girls have the upper hand while boys go along for the ride. Their interests and their innate aggression were stifled the moment we got rid of recess and told boys to sit still and read books centered on women and girls. At home, boys of single mothers are largely responsible for themselves, which is why so many get into trouble. To the extent that single mothers are home, they may be very good at mothering. But they can’t be a father.
The Empire Strikes Back – Britain’s Operation Compass – WW2 – 068 – December 14, 1940
World War Two
Published 14 Dec 2019The First British offensive of the War begins in North Africa. Meanwhile, the German Knickebein system is designed for bombers to accurately bomb British targets at night. This is what the Brits do to stop them.
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A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
Every time the “wrong” side wins an election…
… we get all the media talking about how the winner needs to tack to the left:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson at his first Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, 25 July 2019.
Official photograph via Wikimedia Commons.
Every single time. Whenever the left is slapped by voters like a bony Antifa moll at a street riot, “expert” analysts rush to the scene of democracy, cordon it off with police tape and announce through a bullhorn that there’s nothing to see here. Move along. They then propose that the winner is morally obliged to sideline the constituency that just elected him and heed the boutique preoccupations of the vanquished instead. Successful right-of-centre candidates must govern for All of Us. Successful leftists, on the other hand, are encouraged to give leftism to the enemy good and hard for the next few-to-several years. Possibly the first man to pull out his ‘horn following Boris Johnson’s emphatic victory is Philip Williams.
The sullen acceptance that Brexit will happen but will unleash crises that – alas – must be solved by a buffoon: check. Schools and hospitals: check. The problem of “an economy excised from Europe”: check. Williams’ piece is the Tate of tropes. But no: Johnson won’t faulter by being true to the shy nationalists who elected him but he might antagonise them by pivoting left to usher Hugh Grant’s coterie into a broader Boris marquee. Given his track record, that is very likely. Let’s not get carried away: Johnson did his Conservative duty regarding Brexit, nothing more. The question is whether or not he has the panache to hold on to his base while trying to expand it. The media will be a huge asset. They are certain to make daily sport of Johnson’s “gaffes,” eccentricities and less than squared away private life. This will endear him to everyman even more.
On the other hand, when the “correct” side wins an election, we’re assured that “elections have consequences”, the’ve been “keeping score”, and that the losers must strap in tight and hold on for dear life because we’re going further left than we ever were promised during the campaign.
Update: Related.
Every US pundit today: pic.twitter.com/smSJRTBQW9
— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) December 13, 2019
The Nine Situations | The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Eudaimonia
Published 26 Nov 2017Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/EudaimoniaCha…
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QotD: Naming military actions
Not that there’s anything wrong with a dose of belligerent overkill in your naming conventions…
Posted on the old blog (no longer online), 2004-09-09.
December 14, 2019
Huot Automatic Rifle: The Ross Goes Full Auto
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Dec 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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During World War One, Joseph Alphonse Huot, a Canadian machinist and blacksmith living in Quebec, designed a conversion of the Ross MkIII rifle to become an automatic rifle. The Ross was the standard issue Canadian rifle at the beginning of the war, and Huot wanted to find a way to economically provide Canadian forces with an automatic weapon. His conversion functioned by mounting a gas piston onto the side of the Ross barrel, adding a large action cover and 25-round drum magazine, and a Lewis-style cooling shroud over the barrel.
In initial testing with the Canadian army, the Huot performed well. It was seriously considered for adoption, but had to undergo British testing and approval before that could happen. In British testing (by now near the end of the war), it was found to run well enough and have some positive attributes, but not sufficient to justify replacement of the Lewis Gun. It was rejected, and the Canadian Corps finished the war with the Lewis instead. Huot had spent several years privately developing the weapon and two more working on salary for the Canadian military, and had gone into considerable personal debt for the project. He had secured a deal to receive royalties on production, but that of course came to naught when the design was rejected. Ultimately, he was compensated $25,000 in 1936 (of the $36,000 he claimed to have spent).
Only five of the guns were made in total, with four known to still exist. Two of them are in Ottawa at the Canadian War Museum and one in the Seaforth Highlanders Museum in Vancouver and one in the Army Museum in Halifax.
Thanks to the Canadian War Museum for providing me access to film this Huot for you!
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Livingstone announced Labour’s defeat was at least partially down to “the Jewish vote”
Barbara Kay on the British general election results:
“Palace of Westminster” by michaelhenley is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Boris Johnson’s Conservatives racked up a stunning victory in the U.K. elections, with numbers so decisive — 365 of 650 seats — we will hear no more rumblings about a “second referendum” on Brexit. You can love Boris or hate him, or struggle with mixed feelings (as I confess I do), but he now has a mandate to get Brexit done.
But I have no mixed feelings about the Labour Party’s humiliating loss, at 203 seats their lowest ebb since pre-World War Two. If ever a party leader deserved a definitive smackdown, it was Jeremy Corbyn, and a victory lap is in order for democracy doing what it does best.
On seeing the results, I said to myself, “Yay!” The second thing I said to myself was, “Who will be the first to pull a Jacques Parizeau and how long will it take?” As it turned out, not long at all, and it was former London mayor Ken Livingstone who reprised Parizeau’s infamous “money and the ethnic vote” blame-shift after the Yes side’s narrow loss in the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum.
As soon as it was clear the U.K. Conservatives had crossed the threshold majority number of 326 seats, Livingstone announced Labour’s defeat was at least partially down to “the Jewish vote.” In fact, a Jewish population of 260,000 could not by itself have greatly influenced the result, but it is a mark of the anti-Semitic mindset to constantly exaggerate Jewish power.
Livingstone, who has called allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party “lies and smears,” was himself suspended from Labour in 2016 over an assertion that Hitler supported Zionism. It was by no means Livingstone’s only egregiously insensitive remark. In April, he reportedly told the group Labour Against the Witchhunt that “It is not anti-Semitic to hate the Jews of Israel.”
Disappointed progressives, of course, are handling the Labour defeat with calm resignation, patience, and a spot of rioting.
History of Space Travel – Guided by Starlight – Extra History – #6
Extra Credits
Published 12 Dec 2019What happened after we touched down on the moon? And where are we going in the future? While we may have lost the glitz and glamor of the Space Race, we have continued to make incredible progress in reaching the stars. We’ve come together to build space stations while in space, create the international space station, and started developing new technologies that could take us to Mars and beyond.
Start your Warframe journey now and prepare to face your personal nemesis, the Kuva Lich — an enemy that only grows stronger with every defeat. Take down this deadly foe, then get ready to take flight in Empyrean! Coming soon! http://bit.ly/EHWarframe
Who will “Big Dairy” push as the next Conservative leader?
The Canadian supply management system is a classic case of concentrated benefits and diffused costs … all Canadians pay more for milk, cheese, and other dairy products, but the extra profits go to those who hold the quota allotment for production. During the last federal Conservative leadership race, the “temporary conservatives” were enough to push the Milk Dud over the top to defeat Maxime Bernier — because Bernier was outspoken in his opposition to the whole supply management cartel and threatened those guaranteed profits for the insiders. The Milk Dud has announced he’s stepping down, so who will Big Dairy choose to replace him?
Andrew Scheer, paid tool of Big Dairy, chugs some milk during a Press Gallery speech in 2017. I’ve called him the “Milk Dud” ever since.
Screencapture from a CTV video uploaded to YouTube.
To my mind the defining image of Andrew Scheer’s efforts to become prime minister of Canada, which officially came to an end Thursday, comes from the 2017 Press Gallery Dinner in Ottawa. “There’s some suggestion out there that I’m beholden to a certain group within the Conservative family,” he told the crowd, grinning. And then, dimples at maximum, he took a swig from a one-litre carton of Neilson two-per-cent milk.
It’s nice when politicians can poke fun at themselves. Most are really bad at it, betraying only their own ego. Scheer’s routine, by contrast, reportedly brought the house down. The problem is that, by all the evidence, Scheer was utterly beholden to the dairy industry. And absent the effects of alcohol, that’s not really very funny.
We knew at the time that, days before, Scheer had barely beaten Maxime Bernier in the party leadership contest with help from a few thousand votes from people whom Bernier not unreasonably called “fake Conservatives” — i.e., people who had purchased memberships for the sole purpose of voting for Scheer, for the sole purpose of maintaining supply management in the dairy industry (which Bernier opposes) intact.
We came to know later, thanks to a Dairy Farmers of Canada briefing book discovered by an aggrieved delegate to the 2018 party convention in Halifax, that the dairy lobby considered Scheer a “safety net.” Regardless of any vote by the party membership that might recommend freer markets in dairy, the book alleged, the farmers had Scheer’s commitment never to undermine supply management in an election platform.
Scheer denied any such deal existed, of course. But it seemed doubtful the dairy industry’s notoriously fearsome, professional and effective lobbyists could have been so misinformed.
It ought to have been a liability from the start: Here was the self-styled middle-class alternative to Justin Trudeau, the man who knows what it’s like to plan a family budget around the breakfast table, to scrimp and save, whose parents didn’t own a car, declaring his fealty to a cartel dedicated to inflating milk prices for the benefit of wealthy businesses. Har, har, har.
The English Civil War Explained
Royal Armouries
Published 20 Dec 2017The Royal Armouries’ English Civil War collection boasts an array of infantry and cavalry arms and armour from the 1640s. Delve into this turbulent historical period with our resident Royalist, David.
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⚔Website: https://royalarmouries.org/home
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⚔Twitter: https://twitter.com/Royal_ArmouriesThe Royal Armouries is the United Kingdom’s national collection of arms and armour. On this channel, discover what goes on behind the scenes at the museum and to see our collection come to life. From combat demonstrations to jousting coverage to behind the scenes tours with our curators, we’ve got it covered.
Have a question about arms and armour? Feel free to leave us a comment and we’ll do our best to answer it.
QotD: Chocolate, Ankh-Morpork style
Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time, 2001.
December 13, 2019
Communist Boots Are Made For Walking – Mao‘s Long March | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1935 Part 3 of 4
TimeGhost History
Published 12 Dec 2019From 1927 to 1934, the Chinese Communists lived in a state within the National Chinese State led by Chiang Kai-Shek. In 1935, the Nationalists strike and the Communists follow their leader Mao Zedong on a Long March Northwards.
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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek KaminskiColorizations:
– Klimbim – https://klimbim2014.wordpress.comA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
We won’t have the Milk Dud to kick around any more … eventually
News of the moment in Canada is the sudden resignation of “Conservative” party leader Andrew “The Milk Dud” Scheer:
Andrew Scheer, paid tool of Big Dairy, chugs some milk during a Press Gallery speech in 2017. I’ve called him the “Milk Dud” ever since.
Screencapture from a CTV video uploaded to YouTube.
Andrew Scheer used money from the Conservative Party to pay costs of private schooling for his children, according to sources in contact with Global News. Some are suggesting this story might have ultimately let to Scheer’s resignation.
Scheer has since stepped down as leader of the Conservative Party, but he will not fully resign until the party has a replacement to fill the position.
According to some senior Conservative members, Scheer’s use of the Conservative Party of Canada funds was improper.
While in the House of Commons, Scheer said, “I just informed my colleagues in the Conservative caucus that I will be resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and I will be asking the Conservative Party national council to immediately begin the process of organizing a leadership contest.”
“In order to chart the course ahead in the direction this party is heading, the party needs someone who can give 100 percent.”
Dustin van Vugt, the Executive Director of the Conservative Party of Canada wrote a statement saying, “All proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people.”
Van Vugt talked about the party covering some of Scheer’s costs in the statement saying, “As is the normal practice for political parties, the Party offered to reimburse some of the costs associated with being a national leader and re-locating the family to Ottawa.”
Where, oh where will the “Conservatives” find a leader of Scheer’s “stature” to fill his dainty little shoes? Maybe Justin can spare one of his cast-offs…
