So you want to grow a garden, but you have a serious black thumb. You’ve killed cactuses. You plant seeds, but they don’t come up. Your tomatoes rot on the vine before they ripen. Luckily for you, I’ve put together this handy absolute beginner’s guide to gardening.
Have you considered growing weeds?
I’m serious.
Okay, half serious.
Take a good look at what grows well in your area, particularly in your yard and neighborhood. Mint dies in my neighborhood but bulbs grow well; at a friend’s house some 20 miles away, mint grows rampant but bulbs die. Do you live in a wooded area with lots of pines, or a dry area with succulents and cacti? Do strawberries grow wild in your yard?
If you see a flower or plant you love growing wild near your house, chances are good it will grow in your yard. If you can just dig it up and take it home without running afoul of the law, go ahead! If not, take a couple of good picture of it and take the pictures to your local garden store. While you’re there, ask the employees what they recommend for your area.
(Note: I’m pretty sure that most big-box stores that sell plants, like Walmart or Lowes, sell similar plants all over the country. These are kind of generic and will probably work fine in your area, but if you want local plant varieties that may be better adapted to your area, try a local garden store.)
The most successful plants in my garden are actually plants I found growing “wild” in the area–a couple of domesticated plants that were growing so abundantly they had escaped their original garden and the gardener was fine with me digging up and taking home the shoots that were cluttering up her yard and some wild flowers I liked. These hardy plants have survived and thrived despite, in one case, being nearly murdered in the process of tearing it out the anti-weed mesh it was growing in.
2. Now take a good look at your microclimate–the specific place where you are trying to grow plants.
Are you putting potted plants on a cement porch with no shade in front of a glass door, where they’re going to get direct and reflected sunlight all day? Temperatures here can easily reach 100 degrees every day. Or are you trying to grow plants in the shade under a large tree, where the ground is always damp and they receive no direct sunlight? You can easily have both microclimates in the same yard, and the plants that grow well in one spot definitely won’t grow well in the other. If you’re confined to gardening in an ultra-sunny location, you’ll need heat and drought-tolerant plants. If you’re gardening in the shade, look for shade-tolerant plants.
In my experience, fruits won’t ripen in the shade. I’ve grown plenty of strawberry, tomato, and pumpkin plants in the shade, (strawberries make a lovely, shade-tolerant groundcover,) and never gotten a single decent fruit off of them. My tomatoes, yes, rotted before they ripened.
It’s okay. I don’t even like fresh tomatoes. I was just growing them because everyone else does.
I can get fruit to ripen on the sunny side of the house. I’ve gotten lots of tasty fruit on the sunny side of the house. Unfortunately that’s the patio side, so everything there has to be grown in pots and watered often because they dry out quickly.
I have had luck, however, growing some vegetables in the shade.
C’est la vie!
3. Start small, simple, and easy.
Some plants grow easily and will work almost anywhere. Peas, for example, have never failed me, whether planted in way too hot, dry, dusty soil or in a pot in the shade. Soy beans and regular beans grow well, too. (And personally, I like the taste.)
By contrast, some seeds come with a list of instructions six months long:
“Put these seeds in a container of sterile sand in your refrigerator for 3 months. Mist them once a week so they don’t dry out, but don’t get them wet. Then warm them up slowly. Put them in a container with sandpaper and shake them, and if that doesn’t work, nick them with a knife. Then plant them 1/4 inch deep in a mix of 1 part peat moss, 1 part sterile potting mix, and 1 part sand. Water once a day for 3 months, until you give up and plant peas instead.”
You see, some seeds are designed by nature to just fall on the ground and start growing; some seeds are designed to get eaten, pass through a digestive tract without getting destroyed, and then sprout; and some seeds are designed to sit around all winter until they sprout in the spring. You want the first kind of seeds. If you really want a plant grown from more difficult seeds, just go buy a plant. Trust me, it’s better to spend $8 on one plant that’s actually alive than $4 on 30 seeds that won’t grow.
While we’re on the subject of seeds that don’t grow, remember that unlike people, most plants produce hundreds or thousands of seeds during their lives. Obviously not all of these seeds can possibly turn into new plants. So if some of your seeds didn’t sprout, remember that the average tree sends out thousands of seeds that don’t sprout, either. So don’t feel bad! You probably still have a better success rate than nature!
Some plants don’t even like using seeds. Strawberries prefer to propagate via runners (which is why they make such nice groundcover.)
Additionally, some plants will live for years, while others live for only a season and then pass away.
If your plants keep dying, you might have annuals! They’re supposed to do that.
If you enjoy digging in the dirt and want an excuse to get outside more often, plant annuals. Annuals tend to grow quickly and look nice right away–lots of pretty flowers are annuals. If you get lucky, they might even sow their seeds in your garden, resulting in new flowers popping up next year, but there’s no guarantee.
If you want a garden that will keep going without you having to start over from scratch every year, plant perennials. I’m lazy, so I have perennials. (Except the peas.)
Perennials can take a while to get going. For example, while your peas might be ready to harvest after a mere two months in the ground, asparagus takes 2 to 4 years to develop. But once you do have a mature plant, you can harvest it every year for decades. Apple trees take 4+ years to mature, but again, last for decades. (There’s an apple tree in Germany that’s 185 years old.)
By the way, you might think cactuses and succulents are the easiest plants to grow, but my cactuses always die. Always. I am the cactus murderer. I don’t know. I over-water them or something.
ETA: 3B. Start seeds in pots:
This has become such an established part of my gardening routine that I nearly forgot how much I struggled before I figured it out: sow your seeds in small pots, not directly into the ground.
I don’t know why it works, but I have spent years watering long rows of flower seeds I planted directly in my garden, only to get nothing in return. (Except weeds. Lots of weeds.) By contrast, when I start seeds in pots, at least some of them almost always come up. They are much more convenient, as well, because I can keep all of the little pots together on one rack on the porch and water them all at once rather than hauling the hose up and down the garden, and if you have one set of pots positioned above another set, water from the first group can drip down and water the second.
When the plants get big enough, (about the same size as the ones growing in similar pots in the garden store if you have one per pot,) transfer them to the ground.
Speaking of which:
4. Dirt, water, and fertilizer.
You probably know all about these already, but remember that plants like dirt with plenty of nutrients. If your dirt is bad, you’ll need to fertilize. If things have been growing in your garden for a while, you’ll need to fertilize. If you want to grow corn, you’ll need to fertilize.
But… like everything, there’s too much of a good thing, and you can over-fertilize plants. Each plant has its own needs, so read up on the plants you have.
5. What if I’ve done everything right, and my plants are still producing mealy, unpleasant fruit?
The plants/seeds sold at garden stores, nurseries, Walmart, etc., have been optimized for all sorts of traits, like fast growth, attractive leaves, beautiful flowers, pest resistance, ease of sprouting, etc. Some of them have been bred to taste good, but plenty of them haven’t–honestly, I’ve been surprised at what a high percent of fruit plants sold at regular stores actually produce totally inferior, unpleasant-tasting fruits.
If your plants aren’t making tasty fruit, it might not be your fault at all. You may have to experiment with several different varieties before you find one you like, or do some research into the best varieties for your region. This year I ended up mail-ordering a specific variety of fruit plants that are supposed to be tasty and grow well in my area, but aren’t available at my local big-box garden store. (Probably because they’re a local variety and I hear they have some issues with pest resistance/rot.) Wish me luck.
Just like the seeds, don’t get discouraged if your first few plants don’t work out. Plants are dynamic. They grow, flower, seed, wither, and start again. If one thing doesn’t work, try something else. Remember, humans have been growing plants for 10,000 years, and it has generally worked out well.
So that’s my absolute newbies’ guide to growing plants. I hope it helps.
As Progressive ideology has wormed its way into academic departments all over the country, it has also wormed its way into the nation’s divinity schools.
Let’s run down a quick summary of the Duke Divinity “Crisis”:
On February 6, associate professor Anathea Portier-Young sent out an email to the Duke Divinity Faculty:
On behalf of the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee, I strongly urge you to participate in the Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training planned for March 4 and 5. We have secured funding from the Provost to provide this training free to our community and we hope that this will be a first step in a longer process of working to ensure that DDS is an institution that is both equitable and anti-racist in its practices and culture. While a number of DDS faculty, staff, and students have been able to participate in REI training in recent years, we have never before hosted a training at DDS. Those who have participated in the training have described it as transformative, powerful, and life-changing. …
ALL Staff and Faculty are invited to register for this important event by which DDS can begin its own commitment to become an anti-racist institution.
The email continues, but you get the gist and the tone: Mrs. Portier-Young has joined a cult, and she would like it very much if you joined, too. Also, Duke Divinity is totally super racist, and if you don’t come join this (totally not mandatory) two-day weekend event outside of your normal work hours, we won’t even be able to begin to stop being racist.
So who is this Anathea Portier-Young? According to Duke News, “She studied English and French at Yale University before settling on classical languages and literature, graduating in 1995 with Phi Beta Kappa honors.” She then attended the “Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley,” which has since changed its name to “Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University,” probably to reduce confusion because the “at Berkeley” referred to the city, not the university. Returning to the Duke News article, according to divinity School Dean L. Gregory Jones:
“…as a Roman Catholic [Portier-Young] adds a rich perspective both to our faculty and to the Divinity School community. We look forward to her leadership in our faculty with great expectation.”
An example of that leadership came during Portier-Young’s student days. As a Catholic, she was in a distinct minority in the divinity school. To create a space for conscious reflection on issues of Catholic identity and the Catholic intellectual and spiritual life, she helped found Catholics at Duke Divinity School. They invited faculty and students from the divinity school and religion department to listen to speakers and engage in roundtable discussions.
Obviously the Jesuit school is Catholic; it’s primary purpose is to train Catholic priests. Duke is officially a Methodist seminary, so presumably they are training Methodist ministers, though obviously they’re flexible about whom they hire. I’m not sure how all of that works out on a practical level–is a Methodist minister who was trained by a Catholic woman still valid? Is Portier-Young circumventing the Catholic Church’s position that women cannot be priests? What is the role of an academic Catholic scholar working outside the Catholic church, but employed by Methodists? What about students who believe in 1 Timothy 2:11?
Despite being definitely not a preacher, because that would be a violation of Catholic theology, she writes for the website WorkingPreacher.org. I searched for her articles and happened upon her Commentary on Jeremiah 8:18-9:1:
As I write (the date is July 8, 2016), it is three days since the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, two days since the fatal shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, one day since the fatal shooting of five police officers during a subsequent protest in Dallas, Texas.
Our nation is reeling from shockwaves of violence, intolerance, anger, suspicion, and fear. At this moment it feels like our whole country is a powder keg, about to ignite, fueled by long legacies of racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, religious intolerance.
If you’re like me, you might be wondering what “heterosexism” is. Google defines it as “discrimination or prejudice against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation.” I don’t know what that has to do with black folks getting shot by the police and vice versa, but I guarantee you Jeremiah was in favor of heterosexism:
I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. —Jeremiah 23:14
But back to Portier-Young’s Jeremiah:
My joy is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” … “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? Oh that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! (Jeremiah 8:18-9:1)
Did you notice the ellipsis? She left out a line–the line that directly answers the questions, “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?”
Jeremiah gives God’s answer: “Why have they aroused my anger with their images,with their worthless foreign idols?”
They have been worshiping foreign idols. Not just metaphorically, in the loving money sense, but in the literal “building altars to Baal and sacrificing your children to Moloch” sense.
Indeed, the whole of Chapter 8 kicks off with:
‘At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings and officials of Judah, the bones of the priests and prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.2 They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshiped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like dung lying on the ground.3 Wherever I banish them, all the survivors of this evil nation will prefer death to life, declares the Lord Almighty.’
Jeremiah doesn’t beat around the bush.
Back to Portier-Young:
Earlier in chapter 8, Jeremiah demands that the people of Judah behold the mortal wound that afflicts their entire nation. They must stop pretending that nothing is wrong, stop turning away from the blood and the stench, stop ignoring the voices of the wounded and oppressed, stop silencing those who testify to the wrongs that have been done them.
Really? Here is what Jeremiah actually says:
Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. 6 I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle. 7 Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.
The law. He’s talking about the Law of Moses, which is kind of a big deal in Judaism.
8 “‘How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? 9 The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom do they have? 10 Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. …
Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there! For the Lord our God has doomed us to perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him. …
16 The snorting of the enemy’s horses is heard from Dan; at the neighing of their stallions the whole land trembles. They have come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.
17 “See, I will send venomous snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,” declares the Lord.
In summary: You have worshiped false gods and not kept God’s Laws. Therefore you will be conquered and suffer terribly.
While Jeremiah does call people liars, there is nothing here about listening to the wounded or the oppressed, nor about not silencing testimony. If anything, in Jeremiah’s account of things, when your enemies come and murder you, it’s it’s because YOU SINNED. You suffer because God is PUNISHING you for worshiping false gods and not keeping the Law. Jeremiah is really clear about this.
Back to Portier-Young:
Jeremiah looks upon the wound. Jeremiah hears the cry. And Jeremiah’s response is overwhelming grief and sorrow. It afflicts his body at the core of his being. He repeats the testimony of people from across the nation.
“Testimony.” Jeremiah does not use that word. He does use quotes, (at least in this translation–I can’t read more than a few words in Hebrew, but I don’t see anything that looks like a quotation mark in the Hebrew version.) I see no reason to assume that these are meant to be literal quotations of what people are saying and not rhetorical paraphrases. Continuing:
They do not all offer the same testimony. Some are searching for God and not finding her.
Testimony. Her. Words that do not occur in this passage.
All of them are asking questions, and so is Jeremiah. Don’t we have resources? Don’t we have medicine? Don’t we know, somewhere, what kind of radical change is needed, and how to bring it about? Why haven’t we committed? Why do we keep suffering from the same affliction? The prophet, too, feels powerless, and in this moment can only weep for those who have been slain.
Yes, we know the change that’s needed, Jeremiah is very explicit on this point: stop worshiping false gods and start following the Law. But does Portier-Young suggest that we renew our commitment to God?
The preacher must listen to the testimonies, not just of those who are close, but also of those who are far. I speak of geography, but I also speak of identity, ideology, politics, culture, history. It is easy to listen to those who are like us, who share our views, and it is easy to mourn when they mourn. But why are those people so angry? What history separates “them” from “us”? What hard words do they have for me and my congregation?
I have spent at least 15 minutes of my life reading Leviticus and researching things like, “Can Jews Use Refrigerators on Saturday?” and I guarantee you that there is nothing in Jewish law regarding “identity” in the sense that it is used here, aside from a ban on homosexuality and cross-dressing. There’s also nothing in Jeremiah about how the Israelites need to listen more to the folks from Judah, or to women or Moabites or Egyptians. It is not the Hebrews who have hard words for each other, but Jeremiah who has hard words for everyone.
Jeremiah’s testimony and prayer offers an opportunity to teach the people to grieve together, to create space for shared lament, and to surrender to the overwhelming sorrow that courage and virtue are not strong enough to vanquish.
You know, in the very next verse, Jeremiah says:
Oh, that I had in the desert a lodging place for travelers, so that I might leave my people and go away from them; for they are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people.
Jeremiah doesn’t want to grieve with you. He wants to get away from you.
Does Portier-Young suggest, at any point in her essay, that maybe we should return to God as Jeremiah exhorts? Does she caution against false gods, of the literal or metaphorical sort?
If you are tempted to follow the lament with words and rites of assurance, of comfort, of hope, talk of resurrection and new covenant, new creation, reconciliation — hold back. Don’t give in to that urge. Not yet. On the day we let ourselves grieve together, we must not move too quickly for that quick fix. It won’t fix it. It will not restore our sight and health, but submerge us once more in the dark disease of denial.
Hold. Back.
You have one job. ONE JOB. It’s to bring people to Christ so they can be saved. And you are advising other priests/ministers to delay salvation in order to prolong suffering in the darkness of sin. You are telling them that Christ’s salvation won’t “fix” our problems. I’m pretty sure that’s the entire point of salvation, but then, what do I know?
If atheists have one advantage in reading the Bible, it’s that we might be slightly less tempted to try to twist the text to support whatever causes are currently fashionable. We have no need for a god who supports transgender people or has an opinion on police killings.
When I see a “Catholic” advocate denying people salvation, I conclude that she is not a Catholic. For it is not in Catholicism–nor in Christianity at large–that one finds any reason to deny salvation. One only denies salvation if 1. You want the other person to burn in hell, or 2. You don’t believe salvation is actually possible.
Let’s talk for a minute about anti-racism and what religious people can actually do if they want to help the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden of various walks of life:
Tend the sick.
Feed the homeless.
Minister to prisoners.
Fight for the lives of innocents stuck in war zones. Move to the Congo and help people there learn better farming techniques.
Tutor kids who are falling behind in school.
Adopt a foster child.
Comfort a widow.
Befriend a disabled person.
But I do not think there is a line anywhere in the Bible that says, “For I was discriminated against, and you attended a conference on anti-racism.”
I’m responding to Thea’s exhortation that we should attend the Racial Equity Institute Phase 1 Training scheduled for 4-5 March. In her message she made her ideological commitments clear. I’ll do the same, in the interests of free exchange.
I exhort you not to attend this training. Don’t lay waste your time by doing so. It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual. (Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history; I hope you’ll keep that history in mind as you think about this instance.
We here at Duke Divinity have a mission. Such things as this training are at best a distraction from it and at worst inimical to it. Our mission is to thnk, read, write, and teach about the triune Lord of Christian confession. …
This sounds totally reasonable to me, but the Dean, Elaine Heath, decided she needed to steep in:
First, I am looking forward to participating in the REI training, and I am proud that we are hosting it at Duke Divinity School. Thea, thank you for your part in helping us to offer this important event. I am deeply committed to increasing our school’s intellectual strength, spiritual vitality, and moral authority, and this training event will help with all three.
On another matter: It is certainly appropriate to use mass emails to share announcements or information that is helpful to the larger community, such as information about the REI training opportunity. It is inappropriate and unprofessional to use mass emails to make disparaging statements–including arguments ad hominem–in order to humiliate or undermine individual colleagues or groups of colleagues with whom we disagree. The use of mass emails to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable, especially in a Christian institution.
Yes, she is accusing Griffiths of expressing racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry because he said he thought a conference would be a waste of time.
I’m not going to dig up and dissect Heath’s writing, but I wager it’s as bad as Portier-Young’s, because she actually lists under publications on her Duke bio, “The Gospel According to Twilight: Women, Sex, and God (2011).”
No. Just no.
Thomas Pfau speaks up on behalf of Griffiths, and Heath and Portier-Young, being highly reasonable, caring, Christian people, decide to launch disciplinary actions against Griffiths:
In February 2017, Heath contacts Griffiths and asks for an appointment in which she’ll communicate her expectations for professional conduct at Duke Divinity. … No agreement is reached about conditions for meeting: Griffiths and Heath each have conditions unacceptable to the other. Standoff. No meeting has occurred at the date of this writing. In a hardcopy letter (PDF attached) dated 3/10/17 [see below — RD], Heath initiates financial and administrative reprisals against Griffiths. Those reprisals ban him from faculty meetings, and, thereby, from voting in faculty affairs; and promise (contra the conditions stated in his letter of appointment) to ban him from future access to research or travel funds. Heath’s letter contains one material falsehood (item #1 in her letter; the accurate account is here, in this paragraph), together with several disputable interpretive claims. More reprisals are adumbrated, but not specified, in the letter. There that disciplinary procedure for the moment rests.
In the comments, someone notes that Heath has only been dean since last summer, and so could not have experience with Graiffiths’s behavior for the past two yeas. I would also point out that this means that Griffith has been at this job for far longer than Heath, and therefore probably knows far more about “professional conduct” than she does. Continuing:
Discipline initiated by Portier-Young against Griffiths, via the University’s Office for Institutional Equity (OIE). In early March, Griffiths hears by telephone from Cynthia Clinton, an officer of the OIE, that a complaint of harassment has been lodged against him by Portier-Young, the gravamen of which is the use of racist and/or sexist speech in such a way as to constitute a hostile workplace.
I’m pretty sure Jesus said things like “turn the other cheek” and “forgive each other 7 times 7 times” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” but maybe I just missed the verse where he said, “If a guy doesn’t want to come to your seminar, totally ruin his life.”
Long story short, Griffiths has resigned, driven out of his job by a couple of catty harridans who understand nothing about Christ. If you ask me, Jesus would drive these two out with a whip if he saw what they were doing in his name.
A final, anonymous comment notes:
I’m a recent graduate of DDS, and while this story saddens me, it doesn’t really surprise me. … I thought the environment at DDS concerning racism was totalitarian and oppressive. I am a white female, and I was second-career student with about 15 years of experience in the corporate world. What I saw was way worse than the corporate world. …
Note that everyone arguing here about racism–Anathea, Heath, Graiffiths, Pfau, and this lady–is white. One white person is bringing a disciplinary action against another white person for using “racist speech” to make the workforce hostile to A WHITE PERSON.
It’s all the petty, sophomoric Mean Girls social preening of highschool, now at grad school.
How many divinity schools are gone? How many are left?
Welcome back to Anthropology Friday. Today we’ll be looking at the Sioux Indians, from Hofsinde Gray-Wolf’s series about Native American culture with selections from Indian Warriors and their Weapons. According to Wikipedia, there are about 170,000 Sioux alive today, primarily the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota. (I’m going to hazard a guess that Da, La, and Na are prefixes that refer to directions or locations.)
Hofsinde Gray-Wolf begins the section on the Sioux with an entertaining (but too long to recount here) story about a Sioux scout who spots some Pawnee hunting on Sioux land. A band of Sioux warriors pursues and surprises the Pawnee, getting the upper hand on them. Wikipedia notes:
Author and historian Mark van de Logt wrote: “Although military historians tend to reserve the concept of “total war” for conflicts between modern industrial nations, the term nevertheless most closely approaches the state of affairs between the Pawnees and the Sioux and Cheyennes. Both sides directed their actions not solely against warrior-combatants but against the people as a whole. Noncombatants were legitimate targets. … It is within this context that the military service of the Pawnee Scouts must be viewed.”[16]
The battle of Massacre Canyon on August 5, 1873, was the last major battle between the Pawnee and the Sioux.[17]
The Massacre Canyon Battle took place on August 5, 1873, in Hitchcock County, Nebraska. It was one of the last battles between the Pawnee and the Sioux (or Lakota) and the last large-scale battle between Native American tribes in the area of the present-day United States of America.[2] The battle occurred when a combined Oglala/Brulé Sioux war party of over 1000 warriors attacked a party of Pawnee on their summer buffalo hunt. More than 60 Pawnees died, mostly women and children. Along with the assault on Pawnee chief Blue Coat’s village in 1843, this battle range among “the bloodiest attacks by the Sioux” in Pawnee history.[3] …
John Williamson (23), was assigned as the Pawnee trail-agent at the Genoa Agency, the Pawnee reservation, and accompanied the Pawnee on their hunt. He wrote his recollections of the battle decades after the incident.[24]
“On the fourth day of August we reached the north bank of the Republican River and went into camp. At 9 o’clock that evening, three white men came into camp and reported to me that a large band of Sioux warriors were camped 25 miles [40 km] northwest, waiting for an opportunity to attack the Pawnees for several days, anticipating that we would move up the river where buffaloes were feeding. Previous to this, white men visited us and warned us to be on our guard against Sioux attacks, and I was a trifle skeptical as to the truth of the story told by our white visitors. But one of the men, a young man about my age at the time, appeared to be so sincere in his efforts to impress upon me that the warning should be heeded, that I took him to Sky Chief who was in command that day, for a conference. Sky Chief said the men were liars; that they wanted to scare the Pawnees away from the hunting grounds so that white men could kill buffaloes for hides. He told me I was squaw and a coward. I took exception to his remarks, and retorted: ‘I will go as far as you dare go. Don’t forget that.’
Chief Bone Necklace an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (1899)
“The following morning August 5, we broke camp and started north, up the divide between the Republican and the Frenchman Rivers. Soon after leaving camp, Sky Chief rode up to me and extending his hand said, ‘Shake, brother.’ He recalled our little unpleasantness the night previous and said he did not believe there was cause for alarm, and was so impressed with the belief that he had not taken the precaution to throw out scouts in the direction the Sioux were reported to be. A few minutes later a buffalo scout signaled that buffaloes had been sighted in the distance, and Sky Chief rode off to engage in the hunt. I never saw him again. He had killed a buffalo and was skinning it when the advance guard of the Sioux shot and wounded him. The Chief attempted to reach his horse, but before he was able to mount, several of the enemy surrounded him. He died fighting. A Pawnee, who was skinning a buffalo a short distance away, but managed to escape, told me how Sky Chief died.” …
The whites rode up the canyon in the afternoon. “The first body we came upon was that of a woman”, remembered Platt.[32] Army doctor David Franklin Powell described the march up the battleground, “We advanced from the mouth of the ravine to its head and found fifty-nine dead Pawnees …”.[33] A number of the killed women lay naked. “Although the Pawnees made a stand and fought through the day, over a hundred were wounded, killed, or raped and mutilated”.[34]
(So much for “Primitive people were peaceful and never made war.”)
The last week of August, Williamson was back in Massacre Canyon. He covered the dead with dirt broken down from the banks.[43] …
This incident, in particular, caused the government nationwide to intensify “its efforts to keep the Indians confined to their reservation” in an endeavor to curtail intertribal warfare.[49] On local level, Major General George Crook “dispatched a small force” to protect the Pawnee Agency. The presence of troops did not stop the Sioux Raids.[50]
It would take half a century, before the Pawnee and the Sioux smoked the pipe of peace during the Massacre Canyon Pow Wow in 1925.[51]
“On their return to the Sioux encampment the men rode around the village. They had lost only warrior and only one other was wounded, so there was great jubilation. …
“In the evening a victory dance was held. The victory dance was also called a scalp dance because during it the warriors displayed the scalps they had taken. Afterwards the scalps were burned. … Those men who had earned coups in the battle had prepared their coup feathers before the dance. Two of the warriors wore and eagle feather standing upright behind their head. To the tip of the feather they had tied a tuft of horsehair, dyed brilliant red. Those coup feathers were of the highest order and showed that the wearers had, without any weapons in their hands, ridden in among the enemy. … they had dared to ride close enough to strike warriors with their bare hands. … One warrior hand a notch cut into the edge of his feather, and by this sign everyone knew that he had cut an enemy throat. …
“When he had won thirty coup feathers, a Sioux had earned the right to wear a full war bonnet.”
EvX:One of the men in the band is considered a coward, and publicly shamed:
“Suddenly three older women stepped out of the dark outer circle. Each had been widowed when her husband had been killed in battle. Each had been left crying when her son had followed his father to the land beyond. … the middle woman carried a full war bonnet before her. …they turned their steps directly toward the great boaster, the toucher of dead enemies, and to him they presented the bonnet. …
“Would the coward run out of the circle? If he did, he would be banned forever from the tribe and become an outcast. If he accepted the bonnet, he wold have to go on the war trail at once, not returning until he could bring back proof that he was a man and a warrior. …
“Very slowly, he reached for the bonnet, took it, and with bowed head left the circle.
“There was one other way in which a bonnet could be given as a challenge. from time to time, for various reason, two families within the tribe feud. Each family always tried to get the better of the other, especially in public. These feuds could last a long time before they came to a climax. On a night when the tribe had gathered for a dance, a member of one of the feuding families might step forward and present a bonnet to the young son of the other lodge.
“The challenge was a brutal one, for it offered no escape. The youth had to join the next war party that was formed. …
“War societies, which were somewhat like men’s club, existed among the various tribes. The members were warriors of proven merit, and they were usually grouped by age. Often the members of a war society carried shields bearing the same designs, and on the war trail they gave the same war cry. …
Pehriska-Ruhpa of the Dog Society of the Hidatsa tribe of Native Americans
“Among the Plains Indians the best bow makers were the Sioux and the Crow. …
“A lance bent at the top like a shepherd’s crook and wrapped in otter fur was the insignia of the Dog Soldiers, the Sioux tribal police. This society, made up of the bravest men of the village, ran the buffalo hunts, making sure no one started toward the herd until the proper signal was given. The members kept an eye on the sometimes hotheaded young men, to prevent hem from sneaking out of camp on horse-raiding expeditions. They kept order during ceremonies and, in general, acted to enforce the tribal laws.
“In battle the Dog Soldiers held the foremost position. …
“When the tied of battle turned against them, these great warriors dismounted and jabbed the sharp point of their lance through the trailing sash [that they wore.] Anchored to the ground by it, a Dog Soldier stood and fought to the end. Only a man of his own tribe could free him, and one who freed himself would be forever disgraced and dishonored. …
Sioux horse racing
EvX: Among Indians, the Sioux and tribes similar to them seem closest to our stereotypical idea of the “Wild West Indian.”
Note: I am not a doctor nor any other kind of medical professional. This post is not intended to be medical advice, but a description of one person’s personal experience. Please consult with a real medical professional if you need advice about any medical problems. Thank you.
Hypoglycemia is a medical condition in which the sufferer has too little sugar (glucose) in their bloodstream, like an inverse diabetes. Diabetics suffer an inability to produce/absorb insulin, without which their cells cannot properly absorb glucose from the blood. Hypoglycemics over-produce/absorb insulin, driving too much sugar into the body and leaving too little in the blood.
There are actually two kinds of hypoglycemia–general low blood sugar, which can be caused by not having eaten recently, and reactive hypoglycemia, caused by the body producing too much insulin in response to a sugar spike.
What does hypoglycemia feel like?
It’s difficult to describe, and I make no claim that this is how other hypoglycemics feel, but for me it’s a combination of feeling like my heart is beating too hard and weakness in my limbs. I start feeling light-headed, shaky, and in extreme cases, can collapse and pass out.
It’s not fun.
So how do I know it’s not just psychosomatic?
The simple answer is that sometimes I start feeling nasty after eating something I was told “has no sugar,” check the label, and sure enough, there’s sugar.
By the way, “evaporated cane juice” IS SUGAR.
It took several years to piece all of the symptoms together and figure out that my light-headed fainting spells were a result of eating specific foods, and that I could effectively prevent them by changing my diet and making sure I eat regularly.
I don’t fancy doing experiments on myself by purposefully trying to trigger hypoglycemia, so my list of foods I avoid can’t be exact, but extrapolated based on what I’ve experienced:
More than a couple bites of any high-sugar item like ice cream, candy, cookies, chocolate, or flavored yogurt.
Yes, yogurt. Lots of people like to tout flavored yogurts as “health food.” Bollocks. They strip out the good, tasty fats and then try make it palatable again by loading it up with sugar, creating an abomination that makes me feel as nasty as a bowl of ice cream. “Health food” my butt.
I also avoid all sugary drinks, like soda and fruit juice.
Yes, fruit juice. Fruit juice is mostly fructose, a kind of sugar, and your body processes it into glucose just like other sugars. A cup or two of juice and I start feeling the effects, just like any other sugary thing.
(Note: the exact mechanism of sugar metabolism varies according to the chemical structure of the individual sugar, but all sugars get broken down into glucose. Fruit sugar is fructose, the same stuff as is in High Fructose Corn Syrup.)
I generally don’t have a problem eating fruit.
I don’t eat/drink products with fake sugars, like Diet Soda or sugar-free ice cream, on the grounds that I don’t really know how the body will ultimately react to these artificial chemicals and because I don’t want to develop a taste for sweet things. There’s a lot of habit involved in eating, and if I start craving sweets that I can’t have, I’m going to be a lot more miserable than if I drink a glass of water now and forgo a Diet Soda.
A quick digression about artificial foods: once upon a time, people were very concerned about saturated fats in their diets, so they started eating foods with laboratory-produced “trans fats” instead. The differences between regular fats and trans fats are chemical; the regular fat it’s based on is typically a liquid, (that is, an oil,) and essentially moving one of the molecules in the fat from one side to the other creates a room-temperature solid. The great thing about trans fats is that they’re shelf-stable–that is, they won’t go rancid quickly at room temperature–and can be made from plant oils instead of animals fats. (Plants are much cheaper to grow than animals.) The downside to trans fats is that our bodies aren’t quite sure how to digest them and incorporate them into cell membranes and they appear to ultimately give you cancer.
So… You were probably better off just frying things in lard like the Amish do than switching to margarine.
The moral of the story is that I am skeptical of lab-derived foods. They might be just fine, but I have plenty to eat and drink already so I don’t see any reason to take a chance.
Finally, I eat bananas, pasta, and cereals in moderation, and certainly not in the morning. These are all items with complex sugars, so they aren’t as bad as the pure sugar items, but I am cautious about them.
Yes, timing matters–your body absorbs sugars more quickly after fasting than when you’ve already eaten, which is why your mother always told you to eat your dinner first and desert second. My hypoglycemia is therefore worst in the morning, when I haven’t eaten yet. Back in the day I had about 20 to 30 minutes after waking up to get breakfast or else I would start getting shaky and weak and have to lie down and try to convince someone else to get me some breakfast. Likewise, if I ate the wrong things for breakfast, like sugary cereals or bananas, I also had to lie down afterwards.
I’ve since discovered that if I have a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, my blood sugar doesn’t crash and I have a much longer window in which to eat breakfast, so I have time to get the kids ready for school and then eat. I don’t know what exactly it is about the coffee that helps–is it just having a cup of liquid? Is it the milk I put in there? The coffee itself? All three together? I just know that it works.
As with all things food and diet related, it’s probably more useful to know what I can eat than what I don’t: Meat, milk, cheese, sandwiches, lasagna, nuts, peanut butter, potatoes with butter + cheese, beets, soup, soy, coconuts, pizza, most fruit, coffee, tea, etc.
It’s really not bad.
In the beginning, I was occasionally sad because I’d get dragged to the ice cream shop and watch everyone else eat ice cream while I couldn’t have any (technically I can have a couple of bites but they don’t sell it in that quantity.) But when eating something makes you feel really bad, you tend to stop wanting to eat it.
So long as I have my morning coffee, avoid sweets, and eat at regular intervals, I feel 100% fine. (And coffee excepted, this is what nutritionists say you’re supposed to do, anyway.) I don’t feel sick, I don’t feel weak or dizzy, I don’t shake, etc.
The only problem, such as it is, is that I live in a society that assumes I can eat sugar and assumes that I am concerned about diabetes and gaining weight. Every pregnancy, for example, doctors try to test me for gestational diabetes. The gestational diabetes test involves fasting, drinking a bottle of pure glucose, and then seeing what my insulin levels do. I have yet to talk to any ob-gyn (or midwife practice) with policies in place for handling hypoglycemic patients. Every single one has a blanket policy of making all of their patients drink bottles of glucose. No, I am not drinking your goddamn glucose.
Obviously I have to bring a sack lunch to group events where the “catered meal” turns out to be donuts and cookies. (“Oh but there is a tray with celery on it! You can eat that, right?” No. No I can’t. I can’t keep my blood sugar levels from dropping by eating celery.) And of course I look like a snob at parties (No, sorry, I don’t want the punch. No, no pie for me. No, no cookies. Ah, no, I don’t eat cake. Look, do you have any potatoes?) But these are minor quibbles, and easily dealt with. Certainly compared with Type I Diabetics who must constantly monitor their blood sugar levels and inject insulin, I have nothing to complain about. To be honest, I don’t even think of myself as having a problem, I just think of society as weird.
F. daltoniana, Himalayan strawberry
Step back a moment and look at matters in historical perspective. For about 190,000 years, all humans ate hunter-gatherer diets. About 10,000 years ago, more or less, our ancestors started practicing agriculture and began eating lots of grain. (Hunter-gatherers also ate grain, but not in the same quantities.) Only in the past couple of centuries has refined sugar become widespread, and only in the past few decades have sugars like HFCS become routinely added to regular foods.
Consider fruit juice, which seems natural. It actually takes a fair amount of energy (often mechanized) to squeeze the juice out of an apple. Most of the juice our ancestors drank was fermented, ie, hard cider or wine, which was necessary to keep it from going bad in the days before pasteurization and modern bottling techniques. Fermentation, of course, whether in pickles, yogurt, wine, or bread, transforms natural sugars into acids, alcohols, or gasses (the bubbles in bread.)
In other words, your ancestors probably didn’t drink too many glasses of fresh, unfermented juice. Even modern fruit is probably much sweeter than the fruits our ancestors ate–compare the sugar levels of modern hybrid corns developed in laboratories to their ancestors from the eighteen hundreds, for example. (Yes, I know corn is a “grain” and not a “fruit.” Also, a banana is technically a “berry” but a raspberry is not. It’s a “clusterfruit.” These distinctions are irrelevant to the question of how much fructose is in the plant.)
The apple was first brought to the United States by European settlers seeking freedom in a new world. At first, however, these European cultivars failed to thrive in the American climate, having adapted to environmental conditions an ocean away. They did, however, release seeds, leading to the fertilization and eventual germination of countless new apple breeds. Suddenly, the number of domesticated apples in North America skyrocketed, and the species displayed an amount of genetic diversity that far surpassed that of Europe or other areas of the world (Juniper).
…Traditionally, apple production had been a domestic affair, with most crops being grown on private properties and family orchards. However, a rise in commercial agriculture at the beginning of the twentieth century, the institution of industrial farming practices, and the introduction of electric refrigeration in transportation all impacted the process of growing apples, and these innovations caused the industry to grow. This expansion of commercial apple growing eventually caused apple biodiversity to decline because growers decided to narrow apple production to only a handful of select cultivars based primarily on two key selling factors: sweetness and appearance. In so doing, the thousands of other existing apple varieties, each specialized for a different use, started to become obsolete in the face of more universally accepted varieties, including the infamous Red Delicious, a sugary sweet and visually appealing apple that has become the poster child of the industry (Pollan). …
Rather than rely on natural crossbreeding and pure chance to hopefully create a successful apple variety, growers instead turned to science, and they began implementing breeding practices to develop superior apples that embodied their desired characteristics. … As a result, heirloom and other traditional varieties became all but irrelevant; banished from commercial orchards, they were left to grow in front yards, small local orchards, or in the wild. … Indeed, according to one study, of the 15,000 varieties of apples that were once grown in North America, about eighty percent have vanished (O’Driscoll). It should be noted that a number of these faded because they were originally grown for hard cider, a beverage that fell out of popularity during Prohibition. … Such practices now mean that forty percent of apples sold in grocery markets are a single variety: the Red Delicious (O’Driscoll).
There’s certainly nothing evolutionarily normal about eating ice cream for dinner–your ancestors didn’t even have refrigerators.
So to me, the odd thing isn’t that I can’t eat these strange new foods in large quantities, but that so many other people go ahead and eat them.
Yes, I know they taste good. But like most people, I have normative biases that make me assume that everyone else thinks the same way I do, so I find it weird that “food that makes people feel bad” is so common.
And you might say, “Well, it doesn’t actually make other people feel bad; everyone else can eat these things without trouble,” but last time I checked, society was “suffering an obesity epidemic,” the majority of people were overweight, “metabolic syndrome,” pre-diabetes and Type II Diabetes were rampant, etc., so I really don’t think everyone else can eat these things without trouble. Maybe it’s a different, less immediately noticeable kind of trouble, but it’s trouble nonetheless.
Ultimately, maybe hypoglycemia is a blessing in disguise.
DISCLAIMER: I am probably the last person you should listen to for advice about major investments. Please do lots and lots of your own research before buying anything big. Please take this post in the entertaining thought experiment style it is intended.
I’d like to start with an interesting story about Poland’s most famous daughter, Marie Curie, and her family:
1927 Solvay Conference. Marie is in the first row, between M. Planck and H. A. Lorentz
Marie was born in 1867 in what was then the Russian part of partitioned Poland. (Russia, Prussia, and Austria had carved up Poland into pieces back in the 1700s.) Her mother, father and grandfather were teachers–unsurprisingly, her father taught math and science. When the Russians decided to shut down science laboratories in Polish highschools, her father simply brought all of his equipment home and taught his kids how to use it instead.
Because of the Russian occupation and interference in the local schools, the Poles began operating their own, underground university known as the Flying University (there’s a name for you). As a woman, Marie couldn’t attend the official colleges in Warsaw, but was accepted to Flying U.
Marie’s sister wanted to study medicine in Paris, but unfortunately their parents and grandparents had lost all their money supporting Polish nationalist uprisings, and the girls were left to support themselves. So Marie and her sister had an agreement: Marie would work and send money to Paris while her sister studied, and then her sister would work and send Marie money while she finished her education.
Marie went to work as a governess for some distant relatives, and fell in love with one of the young men of the family, Kazimierz Żorawski, future mathematician. Unfortunately for the starry-eyed couple, his parents rejected the match on the grounds that Marie was penniless.
Żorawski went on to become a professor of mathematics at Krakow University and later Warsaw Polytecnic. Marie went to Paris, married Pierre Curie, won two Nobel prizes, and founded the Radium Institute at Warsaw Polytecnic. A statue of Marie was erected here, and as an old man, Żorawski would come and sit before the image of his young love.
Poland has had a rough couple of centuries. According to Wikipedia:
An unsuccessful attempt at defending Poland’s sovereignty took place in 1794 during the Kościuszko Uprising, where a popular and distinguished general Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who had several years earlier served under Washington in the American Revolutionary War, led Polish insurrectionists against numerically superior Russian forces. Despite the victory at the Battle of Racławice, his ultimate defeat ended Poland’s independent existence for 123 years.[57]
Poland was unfortunately situated for both WWI and WWII, losing 1/5th of its population in the latter. The aftermath–occupation by the Soviets–wasn’t much better, as Ian Frazier recounts in his book, Travels in Siberia:
As Russia retook Poland, many Poles once again wound up in the gulag. Some who had lived through the Nazi occupation said Hitler was nothing compared to this, and they now wished they had fought on Hitler’s side. A prisoner who had survived Dachau hanged himself when he was shipped to Kolyma. Gulag prisoners who knew the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin regretted that fate had put them in thsi time and place, and not in slavery in the American South, a hundred years before. As Negro slaves, they reasoned, at least they would have lived someplace warm, and would have been whipped and branded but not worked to death outright. In 1945, news reached the camps that the United States now possessed the atomic bomb. According to Solzhenitsyn, this unexpected development gave hope to many prisoners, who began to pray for atomic war.
But despite all of these troubles, Poland remains one of the world’s better countries–it’s ranked 36th out of 188 nations on the Human Development Index, and has an average IQ of 99, the same as its neighbors, Germany and Finland.
Despite this, Poland is ranked only 68th in per capita GDP ($27,700, lower than Puerto Rico, which isn’t even a country,) and has had a net negative migration rate (that is, more people have left than arrived) for most of the past 60 years. (Poland lost a net of almost 74,000 in 2015, most of them to other EU countries.)
In sum, Poland is a country with high human capital whose economy was probably artificially depressed by Communism, but has been steadily improving since 1990.
Net immigration increases the number of people in a country*, putting pressure on the local housing market and raising land prices. Net emigration decreases pressure on housing, leading to lower prices.
*Assuming, of course, that fertility rates are not collapsing. Poland’s fertility rate is slightly lower than Japan’s.
Poles have emigrated to countries like Germany and the UK because of their stronger economies, but if Poland’s economy continues to improve relative to the rest of Europe, Brexit goes forward, etc., Poland may become a more attractive employment destination, attracting back its migrant diaspora.
All of which leads me to suspect that Polish land is probably undervalued relative to places with similar long-term potential.
EvX: Today we have an Anonymous Guest Post on the History of the Russia Conspiracy Hysteria. (Your normally scheduled anthropology will resume next Friday):
2011: Liberals get excited about Arab Spring. They love the idea of overthrowing dictators and replacing governments across the Middle East with democracies. They largely don’t realize that these democracies will be fundamentalist Islamic states.
Note that ISIS is also fighting against Assad, putting the US effectively on the ISIS side here. US support flowed to Syrian rebel forces, which may have included ISIS. ISIS is on the side of democracy and multiculturalism, after all.
Russia, meanwhile, is becoming more of a problem for the US Middle East agenda because of its support for Assad. In 2013, this comes to a head with the alleged Assad chemical weapons attack. Everyone gets very upset about chemical weapons and mad at the Russians for supporting Assad. Many calls for regime change in Syria were made. ISIS is also gaining power, and Russia is intervening directly against them. We can’t have Russia bombing ISIS, can we?
As a result, around 2013 Russia started to gain much more prominence as “our” enemy. This is about when I started to see the “Wikileaks is a Russian operation” and “ZeroHedge is Russian propaganda” memes, although there are archives of this theory from as early as 2011–Streetwise Professor: Peas in a PoD: Occupy, RT, and Zero Hedge.
There is, of course, negligible evidence for either of these theories, but that didn’t stop them from spreading. Many hackers have come from Russia over the years, and Russia was surely happy about many of Wikileaks’ releases, but that does not mean that they’re receiving money or orders from Russia.
In 2014, Russia held the Olympics, and around that time there was a lot of publicity about how Russia does not allow gay marriage. Surely only an evil country could prohibit it. Needless to say, I saw little said about Saudi Arabia’s position on gay marriage.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and sanctions were introduced against Russia. Most likely the annexation was opposed because this would mean that Crimean gays would not be able to get married any time soon.
[EvX: I think Anon is being sarcastic here and does actually understand geostrategy.]
The combination of Russian interference in opposition to ISIS plus the annexation of Crimea was just too much for liberals and cuckservatives still opposed to “Soviet” influence, and various aggressive statements toward Russia began to come from Hillary and members of Congress.
Trump enters the presidential race in 2015, and he wonders why we’re opposing Russian actions against ISIS. Why are we taking agressive stands that could lead to war with Russia? What’s in it for Americans?
Obviously could only mean that Trump was a Russian agent. And who would a Russian agent work with but Russian hackers and the Russian Wikileaks agency?
Wikileaks released the DNC emails in July 2016, and they released the Podesta emails shortly before the election. Since Americans were known to not have any access to any of the leaked information, it could only have come from Russian government hackers.
Liberals have assumed that any contacts between the Trump team and Russian diplomats prior to the election were related to illegal coordination to influence or “hack” the election. Never mind that communication between presidential campaigns and foreign diplomats is not uncommon–CNN Politics: Obama Takes Campaign Trail Overseas.
Following the election, Trump associate Flynn might have said to the Russians that the sanctions could possibly be reexamined at some point, thus obviously severely interfering with US diplomatic relations. Of course this statement has been worthy of an extensive FBI investigation.
Most recently we have the “leak” of classified information from Trump to Russia, in which Trump told the Russians to be on the lookout for ISIS bombs smuggled onto planes in laptops. Apparently this is very bad because it’s important for ISIS to successfully bomb Russian civilian planes if they feel like it.
Let’s sum up this logic:
Russia is bad because they oppose US efforts to install Islamic fundamentalist governments in the Middle East, because they oppose gay marriage, and because taking Crimea is basically the same as Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
Russia is full of hackers. Assange is a Russian agent since he publishes information leaked from the US. Trump is a Russian agent since he opposes war with Russia.
Russians hacked the DNC and Podesta at Trump’s request and gave the information to Wikileaks. Flynn interfered with US diplomacy. Trump is giving US secrets to Russia.
Note the strength of this narrative despite its very flimsy evidence. Investigations into Trump’s “Russian connections” can continue endlessly so long as people believe in them.
Ages ago when I set off to college, my political views were fairly moderate and conventional, if passionately argued. (For that matter, I still consider myself a “moderate,” if an unconventional one.) At some point I read Persepolis (volume 2), Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of the Iranian Revolution and her childhood in Iran, college years in Germany, and return to post-revolution Iran. It’s a pretty good book, though I liked Vol. 1 better than Vol. 2.
While in Germany, Satrapi began reading Bakunin, whom she refers to as “The anarchist.”
So of course I read Bakunin. According to Wikipedia:
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin…. 30 May 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionaryanarchist, and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism, and one of the principal founders of the social anarchist tradition. Bakunin’s enormous prestige as an activist made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, and he gained substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe. …
Bakunin’s increasing radicalism – including staunch opposition to imperialism in east and central Europe by Russia and other powers – changed his life, putting an end to hopes of a professorial career. He was eventually deported from France for speaking against Russia’s oppression of Poland. In 1849, Bakunin was apprehended in Dresden for his participation in the Czech rebellion of 1848, and turned over to Russia where he was imprisoned in the Peter-Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg. He remained there until 1857, when he was exiled to a work camp in Siberia. Escaping to Japan, the US and finally ending up in London for a short time … In 1863, he left to join the insurrection in Poland, but he failed to reach his destination and instead spent some time in Switzerland and Italy.
In 1868, Bakunin joined the socialist International Working Men’s Association, a federation of trade unions and workers’ organizations, which had sections in many European countries, as well as in Latin America and (after 1872) in North Africa and the Middle East. The “Bakuninist” or anarchist trend rapidly expanded in influence, especially in Spain, which constituted the largest section of the International at the time. A showdown loomed with Marx, who was a key figure in the General Council of the International. The 1872 Hague Congress was dominated by a struggle between Marx and his followers, who argued for the use of the state to bring about socialism, and the Bakunin/anarchist faction, which argued instead for the replacement of the state by federations of self-governing workplaces and communes. Bakunin could not attend the congress, as he could not reach the Netherlands. Bakunin’s faction present at the conference lost, and Bakunin was (in Marx’s view) expelled for supposedly maintaining a secret organisation within the international.
However, the anarchists insisted the congress was unrepresentative and exceeded its powers, and held a rival conference of the International at Saint-Imier in Switzerland in 1872. This repudiated the Hague meeting, including Bakunin’s supposed expulsion.
Since then I’ve read a smattering of other anarchist writings, (eg, Thoreau,) but none of the major figures like Proudhon or Chomsky.
Wikipedia goes into a bit more detail about the Anarchist/Marxist split, quoting Bakunin:
They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.
Collectivism without the gulags and KGB certainly sounds like an improvement over collectivism with it. As a college student trying to reconcile libertarian-ish tendencies with SJW dogma, Anarchism seemed like a good fit, and I began calling myself an Anarchist.
To me, Anarchism was more of a starting point than an end point, a default position that you should leave people alone to regulate their own affairs unless you have proof that there’s an actual problem that needs fixing and that your fix won’t make things worse than the original problem. You might see parallels here with my current thinking. Society was full of rules, those rules seemed oppressive and arbitrary (Why can’t I eat waffles for dinner and lasagna for breakfast? Why do different states have different traffic laws? Why does copyright last for 90+ years? Just leave me alone, man!)
One of the most important anarchist insights was that “government” should be thought of as more than just the official, legally-defined “state.” “Government” is really the entire power structure of a country, from the domestic relationships of your own home to the influence of religious leaders to the power your boss wields over almost every aspect of your 9-5 daily life. What does it matter if you have “Freedom of Speech” on paper if in reality, speaking your mind results in instantly losing your job, and so no one does it? If the result of government pressuring businesses to fire outspoken employees is the same as businesses doing so voluntarily, the effect on liberty is the same either way, and your boss must be considered part of the power structure.
This is why argument along the lines of “It’s just fine for violent mobs to shut down speakers because Freedom Of Speech only applies to the government” are stupid.
So, armed with my shiny new philosophy, I marched out bravely to meet my fellow internet Anarchitsts.
Yeah…
That didn’t go well.
There were some interesting people in the community, like the guys who wanted to make their own Sea Land.
And there were a bunch of angry Marxist-Stalinist-Maoist who thought everyone who wasn’t in favor of forcefully redistributing wealth along racial lines and sending whites to re-education camps was a counter-revolutionary.
The presence of such people in Anarchist communities genuinely confused me. Didn’t these people know about the Marx-Bakunin split of 1872? Didn’t they understand they were advocating Communism, not Anarchism, and that in practice, these two were direct opposites? I spent a while trying to impress upon them the importance of leaving people alone to run their own lives, but this failed rather spectacularly and I began to seriously hate SJWs.
I eventually decided that there must be something about unusual philosophies that draws crazy people–perhaps folks who are already a little bit off are more willing to consider ideas outside of the mainstream–and while this didn’t necessarily mean that the actual principles of Anarchism itself were bad, it certainly meant that Anarchist communities were full of unhinged people I didn’t want to be around.
Some time later for totally independent reasons I became interested in what scientific research had to say on the effectiveness of parenting strategies on children’s life outcomes, (short answer: not much,) and more relatedly, the neurology underlying people’s political persuasions–why do some people turn out liberal and others conservatives?
That path, of course, eventually led me here.
It was only later that I connected these cranky internet communities to the now rather visible AntiFa who shut down Berkley and have been generally making a ruckus.
Some of my baby books make claims like, “Babies are born with blue or grey eyes, most of which gradually darken during their first year.” Some go so far as to claim that all babies are born with blue eyes.
This got me curious: what about Black / African American babies? Are they also born with blue/grey eyes which darken with time? Or were my books over-generalizing from a sample population composed primarily of whites?
The idea isn’t totally crazy. After all, I’ve observed plenty of Caucasian children’s eyes go from blue to brown. Pretty much all infants are born with less melanin than their parents, just because fetuses don’t need protection from sunlight.
To be fair, not all of these photos are necessarily of newborns, but could be somewhat older babies, but this is a process that is supposed to happen over the course of several months to a year, not days.
And while some of these infants do have a greyish or bluish tint to their eyes, the overall color is still brown, not blue.
I suppose I should look up photos of Asian babies while we’re at it.
*Googles*
And… they have brown eyes.
There you go, folks. Asian and African babies have brown eyes, not blue.
…we need to stop pretending that the worst thing the Athenians ever did was to execute Socrates and openly engage the true dark side of Classical Athens’ anti-immigration policies and the obsession with ethnic purity that lies at the heart of its literature, history, and philosophy….
Known as the Periclean Citizenship Law, the law passed around 451 BCE restricted access to political power and other legal rights to only those born of both a citizen mother and father.
You asked. I deliver.
(And yes, I did know about the Periclean Citizenship Law before she brought it up.)
So you want to grow a garden, but you have a serious black thumb. You’ve killed cactuses. You plant seeds, but they don’t come up. Your tomatoes rot on the vine before they ripen. Luckily for you, I’ve put together this handy absolute beginner’s guide to gardening.
evolutionistx 
