Feature History
Published on 12 Mar 2017Hello and welcome to Feature History, featuring The Spanish Civil War, zero mic etiquette, and a super subtle political lesson.
March 22, 2018
Feature History – Spanish Civil War
Comments Off on Feature History – Spanish Civil War
February 10, 2018
Johann Sebastian Bach; Toccata & Fugue in Dm, by Sinfonity
SinfonityTV Guitar
Published on Dec 14, 2014Johann Sebastian Bach; Toccata & Fugue in Dm, BWV 565
Live recorded in Segovia (Spain), Aug 2014. Video produced by NURILANDS FILMS, directed by Núria García.
Comments Off on Johann Sebastian Bach; Toccata & Fugue in Dm, by Sinfonity
November 13, 2017
Otto von Bismarck – V: Prussia Ascendant – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 11 Nov 2017The northern German states now looked to Prussia for leadership, but that power brought increased attention from their enemies. Bismarck engineered a war with France by striking at Napoleon III’s pride and wound up winning a runaway victory to secure Prussia’s diplomatic power.
Comments Off on Otto von Bismarck – V: Prussia Ascendant – Extra History
November 1, 2017
Spain versus Catalonia
Tim Black on the situation in Catalonia after the abortive declaration of independence:
L’Estelada Blava, the “blue-starred flag” of the Catalonian independence movement
(Via Wikimedia)
An excessive focus on history can obscure the real dynamic informing the Catalonia autonomous community’s push for independence from Spain. It makes it look as if what we’re seeing now is a revival of a longstanding strain of Catalan nationalism, drawing on its 12th-century legacy as a principality, fired up by the divided union of Aragon and Catalonia during the early modern era, and burnished with the left-wing romance of Catalonia’s stand-alone, red-and-black resistance to General Franco during the 1930s. It makes it look, ultimately, as if Catalonia is not only an entity distinct from the rest of Spain, it is also a victim of, if not Spain, than certainly the Spanish state.
Not that matters have been helped by the Spanish government’s brutal, anti-democratic response to Catalonia’s independence referendum, as unconstitutional and therefore illegal as it was. It merely reinforced the impression that this is a conflict between an oppressive state and an oppressed people. After all, such is the defensiveness and weakness of the Spanish political class, we saw armed units of Guardia Civil assaulting Catalan voters, forcibly shutting polling stations and confiscating ballot boxes, and now we see charges of rebellion and sedition being laid at the doors of the leading pro-independence Catalan politicians, which has even prompted the Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to flee to Brussels. This really does look like a conflict rooted in some longstanding desire of the Spanish state to bend the Catalans to its will.
But to think that misses the real catalyst for the Spanish crisis, which lies less in Madrid or Barcelona, than in the European Union’s HQ in Brussels. That’s because, in the EU’s flight, manned by Western Europe’s political classes, from the democratic accountability of national peoples, in its demonisation of the very idea of national sovereignty as a species of 1930s-style nationalism, indeed in its essential anti-national elitism, it has created a transnational, technocratic set of institutions that necessarily weakens national state structures, depriving nations of numerous lawmaking powers, border controls and economic independence. Admittedly, the Spanish nation state has never been particularly strong. In common with the rest of Europe, its party-political system is in disarray, with its two traditional behemoths, the Socialist and Popular parties, hollowed out, and populist rivals exploding on to the scene. And, specific to Spain, the state has failed properly to cohere itself as a state, with suppressed regional antagonisms re-emerging in the post-Franco era. But the EU has not only exacerbated the internal weaknesses of the Spanish state; it has also fundamentally undermined even the possibility of a functioning nation state.
[…]
Yes, the cultural distinction between Catalonia and the rest of Spain has come to the fore in recent decades, with the red-yellow-and-blue Estelada a familiar sight hanging from buildings, and Catalan a familiar sound on the streets. But it’s clear that the driving force is less cultural difference, no matter how divisive, than the experience of EU-driven austerity as an unnecessary drain on an economically rich region. This is why support for Catalan independence has only risen dramatically since the economic crisis. As the Financial Times puts it: ‘After decades during which Catalan support for independence hovered between 15 and 20 per cent, secessionist sentiment started climbing rapidly in 2009. By 2011, according to the closely followed survey by the Catalan Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), support for independence was above 30 per cent. Two years later, it reached an all-time high of 48.5 per cent.’
This is not a uniquely Spanish phenomenon, either. In other EU member states, the same dynamic is at work, with richer regions or areas with a sufficiently distinct cultural identity seeking to unfasten themselves from the rest of their respective nations. You can see it in the desire for greater economic autonomy of the rich Lombardy and Veneto regions in northern Italy. And you can see it again in Belgium, with the wealthy northern region of Flanders continually seeking to decouple itself from the de-industrialised, relatively impoverished southern region of Wallonia.
Comments Off on Spain versus Catalonia
October 16, 2017
What Happens When You Inbreed? – Brit Lab
BBC Earth Lab
Published on 17 Dec 2015Does inbreeding really lead to deformities and nasty diseases could inbreeding actually be a good thing? Greg Foot finds out the answers.
Comments Off on What Happens When You Inbreed? – Brit Lab
September 18, 2017
5 Medieval Dynasties That Still Exist Today
Published on 18 Aug 2017
The medieval period produced a lot of powerful dynasties which fought for influence and wealth in Europe. These families where once the most powerful people on the planet, but who and where are they today? Here are 5 Medieval dynasties that still exist today.
Comments Off on 5 Medieval Dynasties That Still Exist Today
July 24, 2017
QotD: Salvador Dali, in his own words
Here, then, are some of the episodes in Dali’s life, from his earliest years onward. Which of them are true and which are imaginary hardly matters: the point is that this is the kind of thing that Dali would have liked to do.
When he is six years old there is some excitement over the appearance of Halley’s comet:
Suddenly one of my father’s office clerks appeared in the drawing-room doorway and announced that the comet could be seen from the terrace… While crossing the hall I caught sight of my little three-year-old sister crawling unobtrusively through a doorway. I stopped, hesitated a second, then gave her a terrible kick in the head as though it had been a ball, and continued running, carried away with a ‘delirious joy’ induced by this savage act. But my father, who was behind me, caught me and led me down in to his office, where I remained as a punishment till dinner-time.
A year earlier than this Dali had ‘suddenly, as most of my ideas occur,’ flung another little boy off a suspension bridge. Several other incidents of the same kind are recorded, including (this was when he was twenty-nine years old) knocking down and trampling on a girl ‘until they had to tear her, bleeding, out of my reach.’
When he is about five he gets hold of a wounded bat which he puts into a tin pail. Next morning he finds that the bat is almost dead and is covered with ants which are devouring it. He puts it in his mouth, ants and all, and bites it almost in half.
When he is an adolescent a girl falls desperately in love with him. He kisses and caresses her so as to excite her as much as possible, but refuses to go further. He resolves to keep this up for five years (he calls it his ‘five-year plan’), enjoying her humiliation and the sense of power it gives him. He frequently tells her that at the end of the five years he will desert her, and when the time comes he does so.
Till well into adult life he keeps up the practice of masturbation, and likes to do this, apparently, in front of a looking-glass. For ordinary purposes he is impotent, it appears, till the age of thirty or so. When he first meets his future wife, Gala, he is greatly tempted to push her off a precipice. He is aware that there is something that she wants him to do to her, and after their first kiss the confession is made:
I threw back Gala’s head, pulling it by the hair, and trembling with complete hysteria, I commanded:
‘Now tell me what you want me to do with you! But tell me slowly, looking me in the eye, with the crudest, the most ferociously erotic words that can make both of us feel the greatest shame!’
Then Gala, transforming the last glimmer of her expression of pleasure into the hard light of her own tyranny, answered:
‘I want you to kill me!’He is somewhat disappointed by this demand, since it is merely what he wanted to do already. He contemplates throwing her off the bell-tower of the Cathedral of Toledo, but refrains from doing so.
During the Spanish Civil War he astutely avoids taking sides, and makes a trip to Italy. He feels himself more and more drawn towards the aristocracy, frequents smart salons, finds himself wealthy patrons, and is photographed with the plump Vicomte de Noailles, whom he describes as his ‘Maecenas.’ When the European War approaches he has one preoccupation only: how to find a place which has good cookery and from which he can make a quick bolt if danger comes too near. He fixes on Bordeaux, and duly flees to Spain during the Battle of France. He stays in Spain long enough to pick up a few anti-red atrocity stories, then makes for America. The story ends in a blaze of respectability. Dali, at thirty-seven, has become a devoted husband, is cured of his aberrations, or some of them, and is completely reconciled to the Catholic Church. He is also, one gathers, making a good deal of money.
George Orwell, “Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali”, Saturday Book for 1944, 1944.
Comments Off on QotD: Salvador Dali, in his own words
June 25, 2017
Spain and the Spanish Arms Industry in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special feat. C&Rsenal
Published on 24 Jun 2017
Spain was one of the neutral nations of World War 1. A deep social divide and a decline from world power meant that they stayed out of the global conflict. Still, the war affected Spain in many ways. One of the consequences was the establishment of a huge arms industry that supported France and other fighting nations.
Comments Off on Spain and the Spanish Arms Industry in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special feat. C&Rsenal
June 20, 2017
QotD: The essential horror of army life
One of the essential experiences of war is never being able to escape from disgusting smells of human origin. Latrines are an overworked subject in war literature, and I would not mention them if it were not that the latrine in our barracks did its necessary bit towards puncturing my own illusions about the Spanish civil war. The Latin type of latrine, at which you have to squat, is bad enough at its best, but these were made of some kind of polished stone so slippery that it was all you could do to keep on your feet. In addition they were always blocked. Now I have plenty of other disgusting things in my memory, but I believe it was these latrines that first brought home to me the thought, so often to recur: ‘Here we are, soldiers of a revolutionary army, defending Democracy against Fascism, fighting a war which is about something, and the detail of our lives is just as sordid and degrading as it could be in prison, let alone in a bourgeois army.’ Many other things reinforced this impression later; for instance, the boredom and animal hunger of trench life, the squalid intrigues over scraps of food, the mean, nagging quarrels which people exhausted by lack of sleep indulge in.
The essential horror of army life (whoever has been a soldier will know what I mean by the essential horror of army life) is barely affected by the nature of the war you happen to be fighting in. Discipline, for instance, is ultimately the same in all armies. Orders have to be obeyed and enforced by punishment if necessary, the relationship of officer and man has to be the relationship of superior and inferior. The picture of war set forth in books like All Quiet on the Western Front is substantially true. Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers. It is true that the social background from which an army springs will colour its training, tactics and general efficiency, and also that the consciousness of being in the right can bolster up morale, though this affects the civilian population more than the troops. (People forget that a soldier anywhere near the front line is usually too hungry, or frightened, or cold, or, above all, too tired to bother about the political origins of the war.) But the laws of nature are not suspended for a ‘red’ army any more than for a ‘white’ one. A louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, even though the cause you are fighting for happens to be just.
George Orwell, “Looking back on the Spanish War”, New Road, 1943 (republished in England, Your England and Other Essays, 1953).
Comments Off on QotD: The essential horror of army life
May 8, 2017
Spanish Civil War – Lessons NOT Learned – The British, French & US
Published on 28 Mar 2017
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was probably the most significant war between the First and the Second World War. [M]any important lessons were learned and NOT learned by the British, French, US, German, Italian and Soviet Forces.
Military History Visualized provides a series of short narrative and visual presentations like documentaries based on academic literature or sometimes primary sources. Videos are intended as introduction to military history, but also contain a lot of details for history buffs. Since the aim is to keep the episodes short and comprehensive some details are often cut.
Comments Off on Spanish Civil War – Lessons NOT Learned – The British, French & US
March 4, 2017
Barcelona opens the first brothel in Europe “staffed” with sex dolls
I have to admit, I didn’t see this one coming (if you’ll pardon the expression):
A new brothel has opened in Barcelona that offers men the chance to fulfil all their fantasies – as long as their fantasies involve hyper-realistic silicone dolls.
Lumidolls, which operates from an apartment building in downtown Barcelona, claims to be the first sex doll agency in Europe and offers hour-long ‘appointments’ with one of its four dolls for just €80.
The dolls, which are individually crafted from thermoplastic elastomer to be unique, have three orifices and flexible limbs enabling them to be maneuvered in almost any position.
Such sex dolls have already proved a huge hit in Japan and China – especially with husbands working away from home who want to avoid being unfaithful – but Lumidoll claims to be the first such brothel to open in Europe.
H/T to Clodagh Doyle for the link.
Update: Amy Alkon on a related topic.
Men Aren’t “Dehumanized” By Vibrators And Women Aren’t “Dehumanized” By Sex Robots
People have intelligence higher than that of a cat, fooled by a laser pointer.
Yes, we are quite able to discern between, say, a microwave and a human chef and a sex robot and a woman. Despite what this hysterical numbskull writes at Prospect Magazine about the “huge problem!!!” in robotics and AI
And Maggie McNeill also chimes in:
Moon-barking lunatic argues that a woman-shaped toaster is actually a woman, because sadfeelz & magic. https://t.co/BvQwI5OShL
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) March 4, 2017
Update the second, 23 March: It was reported last week that the Barcelona sex doll brothel has been forced to move, due to opposition from non-sex-doll prostitutes and their union:
The original location in Barcelona at 2 Baixada de Sant Miquel had been in the Spanish city’s Gothic quarter, north of the cathedral.
But the brothel, not far from La Rambla in the heart of the city has now moved to a mystery new location with a receptionist saying the address would only be given out to paying customers.
Prostitutes who work in the city with Aprosex – the Association of Sex Professionals – objected saying a doll cannot match the services of a real person and denigrates real sex workers to merely being an object.
A statement on their website read: “The sex-affection of a person can not be provided by a doll. They are different and compatible services. They do not communicate.
“They do not listen to you or caress you, they do not comfort you or look at you. They do not give you their opinion or drink a glass of champagne with you.”
Janet, a prostitute with over 30 years in the industry, who works in the city’s Raval district said: “It is another strategy of the patriarchy that presents us as objects without rights or soul. A privilege of the wealthy classes.”
Comments Off on Barcelona opens the first brothel in Europe “staffed” with sex dolls
February 20, 2017
January 25, 2017
Simón Bolívar – IV: Defeat is Not Surrender – Extra History
Published on Dec 10, 2016
Failure had taught Simón Bolívar one important lesson: no single state in Spanish South America could win independence alone. To succeed, he needed to form one great state, united and able to stand up to the might of Spain.
Comments Off on Simón Bolívar – IV: Defeat is Not Surrender – Extra History
January 22, 2017
Simón Bolívar – III: Leavings and Returns – Extra History
Published on Dec 3, 2016
The failure of his first attempted revolution in Venezuela only fanned the flames of Simón Bolívar’s determination to end Spanish reign over South America. Convinced that he needed to unite the entire continent in freedom, he gathered troops and set out with a new purpose. But his ferocity threatened to overwhelm his ideals.
Comments Off on Simón Bolívar – III: Leavings and Returns – Extra History
January 19, 2017
Simón Bolívar – II: Francisco de Miranda – Extra History
Published on Nov 26, 2016
When Napoleon conquered Spain, the Spanish colonies no longer had a clear leader to follow. Bolívar seized on this opportunity to promote his dreams of Venezuelan independence, but he stumbled from lack of experience. A man named Francisco de Miranda took control instead.
Comments Off on Simón Bolívar – II: Francisco de Miranda – Extra History
