The whole language argument boiled down into a nice, tasty (heh) serving:
The post has a great summary of how Heller vs. DC entirely blew away the whole "the Second Amendment only applies to the militia" argument. And since this avenue of attack has been closed down, the anti gun crowd has shifted to "let's explore just how far we can restrict this individual right" (i.e. what's happening in Virginia).
It's been a long time since Heller (or MacDonald), and there are new Justices on the SCOTUS. I'm quite frankly suspicious of Roberts who seems entirely squishy, and so we'll need an "insurance" Justice*. Maybe two. The implication is that it will be 2-3 years before the court can seriously assess strict construction (assuming they want to).
Reciprocity has been the key to understanding Donald Trump. Whether you are a media figure or a mullah, a prime minister or a pope, he will be good to you if you are good to him. Say something mean, though, or work against his interests, and he will respond in force. It won’t be pretty. It won’t be polite. There will be fallout. But you may think twice before crossing him again.
Iran is just the latest to find this out; before that it was Hillary, and before that it was the seventeen Republican primary dwarfs. What is kind of strange is that this strategy keeps taking people by surprise when not only has he demonstrated its effectiveness time and again, but the strategy is mathematically provable as the optimum approach:
Enter Game Theory. "Play Nice" as a strategy simply isn't working. Trust in government has been declining for the same 40 years that the Middle Class has been shrinking, but the elites have gamed the system to ensure that no real change will get in the way of them fattening their portfolios at the Middle Class' expense. The urge to play Tit For Tat has been building, but has had no outlet. The field has been prepared, over the course of decades, for a candidate beyond the control of the elites.
Hello, Donald Trump. He was already a "name brand" to TV, and so the Media couldn't ignore him. He's a billionaire, and so the donors couldn't control him. He's a smart deal maker with a long history of persuading people to do things.
Right candidate, right time. Four decades of rapine has led to this point. The outcome was, you might say, inevitable.
I've been posting about the rotten state of the climate databases for a long time. Actually, the data as recorded are fine - the data are the data. It's what's happened after the data are recorded that are suspicious. This post from ten years ago goes pretty deep into this topic.
The most disturbing aspect of the whole Global Warming science debate is how raw temperature data is artificially adjusted, and how this modification seems to account for most or all of the reported warming. Well, it looks like we can now add a selection bias, too. Only a third of the available weather station thermometers seem to be used in the CRU data set (the one relied on by the UN IPCC).
So what happens if you include all the thermometers? What does the planet's temperature history look like?
First some quick background. There will be a short quiz at the end, so please pay attention:
1. The UN IPCC reports use data from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). The CRU guys, you will recall, are the folks behind the ClimateGate scandal.
2. The CRU data set (CRUTEM) contains data from 1741 weather stations (this is listed on their web site, or was before the web site was taken down during ClimateGate; I haven't checked to see if it's back up).
3. CRU does not directly collect weather station data. Rather, they collect it from organizations who do. The controversy over Freedom Of Information Act requests being denied due to confidentiality agreements with some of these organizations was what helped launch ClimateGate.
4. However, 1643 stations in the CRU data set contain the same station IDs as stations in the US Government's Global Historical Data Network (GHCN) data set. We know that GHCN is a major contributor of station data to CRU.
5. GHCN has had as few as 50 stations (in 1850) and as many as 4495 stations (at the height of the Cold War). Yet only 1741 are included by CRU.
OK, let's look at CRU's (adjusted) data from the 1741 stations:
There is a pronounced warming signal after 1960. Remember, this is a subset of the 4495 stations, and it is adjusted, not raw data.
Other than a short term blip in the 1990s, we see no warming at all since 1850. None.
Let me say this simply: The raw (unadjusted) weather data from the largest historical data set shows no warming for the last 150 years.
So what do you do if you're a climate scientist who wants to show warming?
1. You select a subset of the weather stations - the ones that show some warming (most of these likely would be due to increasing city size, where the "Urban Heat Island" effect - cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside). Remember, the Russians say that CRU did precisely this, and have specifics about which Russian stations CRU included and which they didn't.
The Queen Of The World points out that today is the great man's birthday, born on this date in 1892. I've said before (and unsurprisingly, at some length) that I think that The Lord Of The Rings is the greatest novel of the 20th century (I'm not the only one; see #5 below). It was certainly commercially successful, becoming the second best selling novel of all time (behind Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities).
There are some odd occurrences in his life:
1. Tolkien received a letter in March 1956 from a Mr. Sam Gamgee of Brixton Rd, London, asking how he came up with the name for the character. Tolkien sent him a letter that began and ended:
Dear Mr. Gamgee,
It was very kind of you to write. You can imagine my astonishment when I saw your signature! I can only say, for your comfort I hope, that the 'Sam Gamgee' of my story is a most heroic character, now widely beloved by many readers, even though his origins are rustic.
...
I do not suppose you could be bothered to read so long and fantastic a work, especially if you do not care for stories about a mythical world, but if you could be bothered, I know that the work (which has been astonishingly successful) is in most public libraries. It is alas! very expensive to buy - £3/3/0. But if you or any of your family try it, and find it interesting enough, I can only say that I shall be happy and proud to send you a signed copy of all 3 volumes, as a tribute from the author to the distinguished family of Gamgee.
Yrs sincerely J.R.R. Tolkien
It turned out that Mr. Gamgee had not read the books, and so Tolkien sent him a signed set of volumes. I wonder how much they'd sell for at auction. 2. In 1965, Tolkien received a letter from a certain Zillah Sherring, who had bought a copy of The Fifth Book of Thucydides in a second hand bookstore in Salisbury (Wiltshire). In it, she found an inscription in a strange script that someone had written there. The book also had Tolkien's name, and so she wrote to him, sending a transcript of the characters and asking him if he knew what it said. He replied that that had in fact been his book during the first decade of the century, and that the writing was ancient Gothic. He had made some translation mistakes in the transcription, which he kindly corrected for her. I wonder how much that book would be worth at auction?
3. This is so bad that it's awesome. Leonard Nimoy sings the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins:
You've been warned.
4. Tolkien was famous as an author, but his day job was as a professor at Oxford. He was one of the world experts on the epic poem Beowulf, and W. H. Auden wrote him a letter later in life saying how thrilling his Beowulf recitation and lectures were.
Tolkien firmly believed that Beowulf had been written by a single person, but this was controversial at the time. Now a new study has backed the old Oxford Don up on that:
The epic poem Beowulf is the most famous surviving work of Old English literature. For decades, scholars have hotly debated both when the poem was composed and whether it was the work of a single anonymous author ("the Beowulf poet"). Lord of the Rings' scribe J.R.R. Tolkien was among those who famously championed the single-author stance. Now researchers at Harvard University have conducted a statistical analysis and concluded that there was very likely just one author, further bolstering Tolkien's case. They published their findings in a recent paper in Nature Human Behavior.
Statistical analysis of meter, punctuation, word choice, and letter combinations suggest a single author. Tolkien for the win!
“[I met him] quite by chance, really,” he recalled in the interview. “I met him with a group of other people in a pub in Oxford he used to go to, The Eagle and Child. I was very much in awe of him, as you can imagine, so I just said, ‘How do you do?’” Lee was the only LOTR cast member to actually meet
Tolkien, who passed away in 1973, before several of the film’s stars had been born. Lee read the books when they originally were printed in the ‘50s, and instantly became a devoted fan.
“I still think The Lord of the Rings is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime,” he said. “Like so many other people, I couldn’t wait for the second, and then the third book. Nothing like it had ever been written.”
7. While Tolkien is one of the most famous of Oxford's professors, he never got a doctorate until the university gave him an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1972.
Lastly, his impact on the world of nerds has been immense and long lasting, not to mention funny as heck.
It's an interesting article, but entirely focused on computers and graphic displays. Being pedantic as I am, I have to point out that Magenta is a real thing, and has been for almost two centuries. The early decades of the 19th Century saw the Industrial Revolution really take off in Europe, spreading from England to France and Germany, not to mention jumping the Pond to these shores. The Industrial Revolution ran on steam power, and steam ran on coal. Tons and tons of coal were burned, resulting in big heaps of coal ash.
Coal ash is pretty nasty stuff, and so people started poking around looking for what you could do with it (other than piling it up in huge nasty heaps). In 1834 the German scientist Friedlieb Runge isolated a substance from coal tar that was able to create beautiful colors. This substance was ultimately named Aniline and in 1860 a couple of British chemists created an artificial red-purple dye. They named it "Magenta" after the (then) recent battle between the French and the Austrians.
The field of Industrial Chemicals (chemical fabrication in ton lots) really got going as the cotton industry looked around for colorful and cheap dyes, and Magenta was kind of the first really successful dye. A German company was founded to produce the raw ingredients for the dye trade, the Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (BASF, the Baden Aniline and Soda Factory) company. You might have heard of them, because they're still around and bigger than ever. We used BASF floppy disks, Back In The Day.
So Magenta was a real thing, and has been for 170 years. Your brain isn't just making it up.
The “experts” do not have expertise based on an analysis of the empirical evidence. They have their prejudices reinforced from inside their elite echo chambers.
The public has come to realize that and doesn’t want to listen to these idiots and assholes anymore.
Even when I was a Republican, I never understood people who measure freedom by how many of us walk around with guns. This is a cultural change, the spreading of the gun culture from a corner of the GOP to the entire conservative moment. /1
The spread of gun worship is conservative virtue-signaling. Never liked it when I was among my old tribe, and it’s gotten worse as “conservatives” try to figure out new markers for what makes them “patriots” now that they’ve had to sell out so much actual patriotism to Trump.
As I was reading all the righteous smackdown aimed his way, something was tickling my memory cells. Hadn't I posted about Nichols, Back In The Day? Why yes, I had:
I could go on, but by now you've noticed the Learned Expert's habit of setting up straw men. No, anger at the NSA's spying program isn't founded in a feeling that it's unconstitutional and damaging to America's economy and security, it's because we disrespect Mr. Schindler's advanced education. No, we do not question Expert Foreign Policy opinions on Russia because of spectacular failures of past Russian Policy Experts (c.f. the CIA's assessment that the USSR was the world's 3rd largest economy in 1988), it's because we don't appreciate his PhD. No, we don't question the research from the current Academic Establishment because it has produced oddball policy recommendations regarding Global Warming and Keynesian Economics - it's because we don't even understand what a PhD means.
Oooooh kaaaaaay.
My take is that Tom Nichols is a very smart guy who needs to get out more often. In particular, he needs to hear more people voicing (legitimate) complaints about the Elite's lack of transparency, accountability, and propensity to game the system in pursuit of tenure and grant funding.
So pay no attention to this guy. He's an elitist prick writing for other elitist pricks whose days are passing away. He's perpetually butt hurt that people are judging the value of his credentials and expertise by the results produced by people with the same credentials and expertise, and taking a hard pass on his advice.
We are come hard up on the end of the year. Modern New Years' Eve celebrations include the singing of Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish ballad. But that's not the only song that was included in the party. This one is older, perhaps almost two hundred years older. It sings of the sorrow of parting, of reminiscing of times now gone. The "parting glass" was the final toast offered to a departing guest, frequently served when the guest mounted his horse (i.e. a stirrup cup).
Burns referred to this song, so it was not only common but famous in his day - the music was incorrectly attributed to Joseph Haydn (!). But the song dropped into obscurity. It was Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers who re-introduced it into popular use; it became a signature number of theirs, and they would typically close concerts with it.
So this New Years' Eve when everyone dusts off the old Robert Burns, hoist a glass of cheer to the anonymous authors of this. We even now saddle up to ride into the New Year; a parting glass is not too much to ask from 2019.
Of all the money that e'er I had I spent it in good company And all the harm I've ever done Alas it was to none but me And all I've done for want of wit To mem'ry now I can't recall So fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass And drink a health whate’er befall, And gently rise and softly call Good night and joy be to you all
Of all the comrades that e'er I had They're sorry for my going away And all the sweethearts that e'er I had They'd wish me one more day to stay
But since it fell unto my lot That I should rise and you should not I gently rise and softly call Good night and joy be to you all
A man may drink and not be drunk A man may fight and not be slain A man may court a pretty girl And perhaps be welcomed back again But since it has so ought to be By a time to rise and a time to fall Come fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all Good night and joy be with you all
To all our readers, we wish you a happy and healthy New Year!
Do we really believe that central bankers will just lay down their monopolies?
Can we seriously expect a hundred trillion dollars of debt to be liquidated without any consequences?
Do we actually believe that politicians will walk away from their power and apologize for abusing us?
Do we really think that the corporations who own Congress will just give up the game that is enriching them?
Does anyone seriously believe that the NSA is going to say, “Gee, that Fourth Amendment really is kind of clear, and everything we do violates it… so, everyone here is fired and the last person out will please turn off the lights”?
It's a sobering post, in a let's party like it's 460 AD sort of way. It reminded me of this old post:
I could keep myself up all night and into tomorrow by listing different groups of royalty and the ways they scam the system.
…except "scam the system" is a misnomer. I am not listing defects in a perfectable system. I am describing the system.
It is corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. From Ted Kennedy who killed a woman and yet is toasted as a "lion of liberalism", to George Bush who did his share of party drugs (and my share, and your share, and your share…) while young yet let other youngsters rot in jail for the exact same excesses instead of waving his royal wand of pardoning, to thousand of well-paid NSA employees who put the Stasi to shame in their ruthless destruction of our rights, to the Silicon Valley CEOs who buy vacation houses with the money they make forging and selling chains to Fort Meade, to every single bastard at RSA who had a hand in taking the thirty pieces of silver, to the three star generals who routinely screw subordinates and get away with it (even as sergeants are given dishonorable discharges for the same thing), to the MIT cops and Massachusetts prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to suicide, to every drug court judge who sends 22 year olds to jail for pot…while high on Quaalude and vodka because she's got some fucking personal tragedy and no one understands her pain, to every cop who's anally raped a citizen under color of law, to every other cop who's intentionally triggered a "drug" dog because the guy looked guilty, to every politician who goes on moral crusades while barebacking prostitutes and money laundering the payments, to every teacher who retired at age 60 on 80% salary, to every cop who has 50 state concealed carry even while the serfs are disarmed, to every politician, judge, or editorial-writer who has ever used the phrase "first amendment zone" non-ironically: this is how the system is designed to work.
The system is not fixable because it is not broken. It is working, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to give the insiders their royal prerogatives, and to shove the regulations, the laws, and the debt up the asses of everyone else.
I'm come to welcome the idea of the coming breakup, and Governor Blackface's Virginia reindeer games. Donald Trump is a Romantic, in his attempt to drain the swamp. It's tilting at windmills, a noble effort doomed to defeat. The breakup that will follow won't reform the system, it will break the system into a million pieces. Only then can the Res Publica shed all the layers of corruption that have attached themselves to the state.
Of course, new layers will emerge to take their place, but a fragmentation of power will make control of the center less attractive. It's sad that likely millions will die during this breakup, as the current Powers That Be violently lurch towards the realization that they are Rome's last Emperor.
The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple, and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their obscurity.
- Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Will wonders never cease? Today's delightful New Years' composition comes from a modern classical composer whose music doesn't stink to high heaven. I think that's a first here for the Sunday Classical posts. Ernest Tomlinson was an English composer active from around 1950. He was an anachronism in that he wrote music with melody, in great contrast to the a-tonal, a-rythmical dreck that is the wasteland of modern classical music.
He may have singlehandedly saved much of this sort of music in 1984. The BBC decided to eliminate their archive of light classical music - it was ever so unfashionable, old chap - and he got the entire archive. 50,000 works are now in the Library Of Light Orchestral Music. Tomlinson was awarded the Member of the British Empire (MBE) in recognition of his service to music.
This piece is simply a delight. Everyone will recognize the primary theme - Auld Lang Syne, the traditional New Years' Eve song. But Tomlinson weaves in brief snippets of 152 other pieces. It was a completely unexpected pleasure to discover this, and a fitting high note to say goodbye to 2019.
Ernest Tomlinson passed on in 2015. His obituary is worth a read:
After falling out of favour in the middle of the last century, light music, once a major part of British cultural life, has enjoyed a modest renaissance in recent years. Nobody did more to encourage this revival of interest than Ernest Tomlinson, who has died aged 90. He was a prolific composer, praised by the singer and broadcaster Catherine Bott for his “exceptional technical skills allied to a rare gift for melody”. Equally, he fought to preserve the light music heritage by founding the Library of Light Orchestral Music and acting as consultant and performer for an important series of CD recordings.
He was an anachronism inn modern classical music, living an admirably traditional life. Married 57 years, this part of his obituary stood out:
He is survived by his children, Ann, Geoffrey, Hilary and Linda, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Jean died in 2006.
It's the end of the year, and at least at Castle Borepatch it's very quiet and peaceful. Calm. Looking at the state of the Republic, perhaps it's the calm before the storm.
Democrats seem to be in a big hurry in the Old Dominion state. Certainly the citizens of that state think so - almost 100 counties have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. Senior Democrat politicians are openly musing about calling out the National Guard to confiscate firearms. I guess we'll see just how serious they are.
Me, I think that the Re-Elect Trump 2020 campaign thanks them for their support. This seems to be the fastest way on earth to turn a purple state red, if it doesn't start the Electric Boogaloo first.
Meanwhile, impeachment has turned out to be a big Nothingburger farce. The Senate is waiting impatiently for the Articles of Impeachment, to see if they contain High Crimes and Misdemeanors. We know what the Senate is ...
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
But for now, everything is calm. Except for the polls, where Trump seems to be surging against each Democratic challenger. Given what the Democrats have done up until now (when they thought they could bump Trump off the perch) it will be interesting to see what they do around March or so when their front runner begins to emerge and everyone begins to realize that Trump is going to roll to a 35 state landslide. That will be a new situation for the Republic - an impeached President winning big in the next election.
We've been told for 3 years now that Trump is destroying the norms of our civilized political institutions, but strangely it's the Progressives who just can't seem to accept the results of elections. It's the Progressives that are forcing unpopular laws on large minority populations (Republicans are a minority in Virginia, for example, but they are 49% of the electorate). The population is seeing the imposition of unpopular ideas by Democrats who have a thin majority: impeachment, gun confiscation in Virginia, Bake That Cake, men in women's rest rooms, the corruption of the FBI.
But for the moment, it's delightfully calm, at least here at Castle Borepatch. The Queen Of The World and I are going for long walks with Wolfgang - after all, he has new frisbees to break in. It's nice. Peaceful.
From all of us to all of you, may the joy of the season surround you all. The Queen Of The World and I have just put on "It's A Wonderful Life" and are tuning out the 'net for the evening. You can get the Norad Santa app for your phone to track the Big Guy, but we like something older. Not earliest Christmas carol ever old, but still old. This is the earliest Christmas Carol from the New World (that we know of). I like this song because it reminds us of the reason for the Season.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Philippians 2:5-8
We all know the story, that's the problem. We know it so well that we don't think about the story, and what it means. It helps to put the story in a different setting to make us think on the meaning again.
Tomorrow is the feast of the Redeemer. Amidst the holiday cheer, gifts, and yes, feasting, think on the familiar meaning as explained in a different tongue, a tale made new again.
Huron
The original words of the carol in the Wyandot language (Huron).
Ehstehn yayau deh tsaun we yisus ahattonnia O na wateh wado:kwi nonnwa 'ndasqua entai ehnau sherskwa trivota nonnwa 'ndi yaun rashata Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.
Asheh kaunnta horraskwa deh ha tirri gwames Tishyaun ayau ha'ndeh ta aun hwa ashya a ha trreh aundata:kwa Tishyaun yayaun yaun n-dehta Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.
Dau yishyeh sta atyaun errdautau 'ndi Yisus avwa tateh dn-deh Tishyaun stanshi teya wennyau aha yaunna torrehntehn yataun katsyaun skehnn Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.
Eyeh kwata tehnaunnte aheh kwashyehn ayehn kiyeh kwanaun aukwayaun dehtsaun we 'ndeh adeh tarrya diskwann aunkwe yishyehr eya ke naun sta Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.
English
The 1926 English version by Jesse Edgar Middleton.
'Twas in the moon of winter-time When all the birds had fled, That mighty Gitchi Manitou Sent angel choirs instead; Before their light the stars grew dim, And wandering hunters heard the hymn: "Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, In excelsis gloria."
Within a lodge of broken bark The tender Babe was found, A ragged robe of rabbit skin Enwrapp'd His beauty round; But as the hunter braves drew nigh, The angel song rang loud and high... "Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, In excelsis gloria."
The earliest moon of wintertime Is not so round and fair As was the ring of glory On the helpless infant there. The chiefs from far before him knelt With gifts of fox and beaver pelt. Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, In excelsis gloria.
O children of the forest free, O sons of Manitou, The Holy Child of earth and heaven Is born today for you. Come kneel before the radiant Boy Who brings you beauty, peace and joy. "Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, In excelsis gloria."
Well, it's not quite but it's a quiet day and so lots of calls to kids. But this is the funniest thing I've heard so far today:
Instapot? That's not some marajuana thing, is it?
Heh. For those who haven't run across it, it's not at all a marajuana thing. Good if you have munchies, I'd think. I so need to make my pot roast in ours ...
I've posted each year about the "Christmas Truce" on the Western Front in 1914. This year is no exception, but I want to preface things by describing just how the opening weeks of The War To End Wars is nothing like what we think. In many ways it was worse for the men on the ground, which only makes the spontaneous outbreak of peace even more amazing. The bitterness that the soldiers of both sides must have felt would have burned bright, and yet the feelings of the season overcame all that.
When we think of that war, we think of trenches, barbed wire, and machine guns. That's quite a good description of the western front, but not until 2 or 3 months into the conflict. Initially instead of a slog over No Man's Land, it was a war of movement, with massive armies covering hundreds of miles. August and September 1914 saw men pushed to their limits because they had to march 15 miles and then fight the enemy, and then wake up and do it all over again. And again. And again.
The losses were unbelievable. The first six weeks saw the following killed, wounded, and missing: 300,000 (France), 300,000 (Germany), 300,000 (Austria-Hungary), 250,000 (Russia), 200,000 (Serbia), 15,000 (Britain). That last seems out of place with the rivers of blood from the other combatants, but Britain's army in 1914 was not a mass of draftees - rather, it was a small force of professional veterans. 15,000 was a quarter of the entire force.
October followed up these million and a half with the Kindermord, the "slaughter of the children". The generals were horrified at the losses, not so much because of the incredible human loss but because their forces were so rapidly depleted. Trainees were rushed from basic training straight to the front. At the First Battle of Ypres 60,000 of these kids were mowed down as they marched, singing, into the rifles of the Cold Stream Guards.
The German artist Käthe Kollwitz made a sculpture in remembrance of her son, Peter, killed in the Kindermord. He, like most of his comrades, was 18. You can see it if you go to the Vladslo German cemetery in Diksmuid, Belgum. The grief and bitterness is captured in stone.
Only then did it settle down to trenches, barbed wire, and No Man's Land. So if anyone was justified in holding a grudge, it was everyone in a trench on the Western Front in December 1914. And yet, this happened instead.
105 years ago today, 100,000 soldiers in the trenches of the Western Front stopped shooting each other, at least for a little while. Instead, moved by the spirit of the season, they met in No Man's Land to exchange greetings and brandy, and to play soccer.
The Generals were less than amused, and cracked down in following years. Captain Sir Iain Colquhoun was Court-marshalled for his participation. After they convicted him someone recalled that he was related to the British Prime Minister, and so they swept it all under the carpet.
Historians now occupy the field of battle because all the eye witnesses are now long dead. All that we have are stories from those who remember those witnesses. But we know that December 1914 saw something unique in trench warfare: Christmas showed that the human heart still beat on the front lines. This song from 1984 was back when some of those men still lived, and John McCutcheon tells of how some of them came to his concert because they heard the song on the radio:
All our lives, our family our friends told us we were crazy. Couldn't possibly have happened to us. Then we heard your song on the radio and said "See? See? We were there."
My name is Francis Tolliver. I come from Liverpool. Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school. To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here, I fought for King and country I love dear.
It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung. The frozen field of France were still, no Christmas song was sung. Our families back in England were toasting us that day, their brave and glorious lads so far away.
I was lyin' with my mess-mates on the cold and rocky ground when across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound. Says I "Now listen up me boys", each soldier strained to hear as one young German voice sang out so clear.
"He's singin' bloddy well you know", my partner says to me. Soon one by one each German voice joined in in harmony. The cannons rested silent. The gas cloud rolled no more as Christmas brought us respite from the war.
As soon as they were finished a reverent pause was spent. 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen' struck up some lads from Kent. The next they sang was 'Stille Nacht". "Tis 'Silent Night'" says I and in two toungues one song filled up that sky.
"There's someone commin' towards us" the front-line sentry cried. All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side. His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright as he bravely strode, unarmed, into the night.
Then one by one on either side walked into no-mans-land with neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand. We shared some secret brandy and wished each other well and in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.
We traded chocolates, cigarettes and photographs from home these sons and fathers far away from families of their own. Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin this curious and unlikely band of men.
Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more. With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war. But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night "whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung. The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung. For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war had been crumbled and were gone for ever more.
My name is Francis Tolliver. In Liverpool I dwell. Each Christmas come since World War One I've learned it's lessons well. That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame and on each end of the rifle we're the same.
This Christmas Eve, remember those caught up in the killing fields of Flanders, and the Ardennes, and Khe Sanh. And remember those who still stand post far from home and family tonight.
But look at the temperatures reported in newspapers across the country during the month of January in 1896 when people were going mad with axes, dropping dead in coaches and railway stations and birds were falling lifeless from the trees? Emergency trains were ferrying people from the country to the mountains. Panic stricken people fled the outback on special trains and the death toll was in the hundreds.
You might call all those old newspaper stories an Inconvenient Truth. The number of places reporting record temperatures was amazing:
Here are the links to the hot days that were recorded but don’t exist
History down the memory hole: Links go to the newspaper article of the day Geraldton W.A. Wednesday, 1 Jan 1896 - 114° F “at Geraldton observatory“. Geraldton W.A. Thursday, 2 Jan - 115° F “A child succumbs to the heat. ” at “ Northampton, where the thermometer ranged even higher than at Geraldton.” Geraldton W.A. Friday, 3 Jan - 125° F most papers, 115° F in some (possibly a date error as it matches the previous day). Perth W.A. 3 Jan - 112° F ” Five deaths have been reported in the city on account of the great heat.” Mullewa W.A. 3 Jan - 121° F “The town has been enveloped in clouds of dust.”and “crowds of people have bad to sleep out of doors. Water is very scarce.” Carnarvon W.A. 3 Jan - 121° F Brick House station “It is farther reported that the mercury has been up as high as 125 in the shade there.” Pinjarrah W.A. 3 Jan - 114° F followed by a minimum of 97° F. Southern Cross W.A. Week ending 5 Jan - ”averaged 115deg.” “It has often been as high as 122deg.” Mr Mkay died in his office chair of heat apoplexy. Cue W.A. Sunday, 5 Jan - ”Three weeks of uninterrupted excesive heat“ ”each day exceeded 105“ ”on two occasions reaching 118.“ Wilcannia N.S.W. Monday, 6 Jan - 117° F “Wyalong follows close with 114°. Then come Nowra and Corowa with 112.” Isisford Qld. 6 Jan - 112° F ” The Government Astronomer states that the high temperature has been caused by a heat wave which has come across the continent from Port Darwin,“. Bourke N.S.W. 6 Jan - ”The fact is that out of 93 weather telegrams sent in, 64 gave temperatures ranging from 100° at Cooma, Tabulam, Tenterfield, and a few other places, up to 118° in the shade recorded at Brewarrina and at Bourke. There were 22 stations which reported temperatures ranging from 110° to 118° inclusive.“ Canowindra N.S.W. 6 Jan - 114° F “Reaching the highest point on record“. Farina S.A. 6 Jan - 113.5° F “the place occupied by the thermometer being a shadebox such as is used at the Adelaide Observatory.“ Ungarie N.S.W 6 Jan - 125° F “rural districts do not always recognise the nice distinctions between true shade and other shade.” Farina S.A. Thursday, 9 Jan - 112.3° F Quirindi N.S.W. Monday, 13 Jan - 120° F. Out of 54 temperatures shown on that list only one does not meet the 95° F (35° C) heatwave threshold. Bulli N.S.W. 13 Jan - 115° F “This has been, the hottest day known“. Kiama N.S.W. 13 Jan - 117° F ” A Scorcher Everywhere. Death and Distress.“ Parramatta N.S.W. 13 Jan – 111 ° F “Fruit Broiled on the Trees.” “Birds and Animals Drop Dead.” Camden N.S.W. Tuesday, 14 Jan - 123°F ”Great Heat Wave ” “LIST OF CASUALTIES.” Araluen N.S.W. Friday, 17 Jan - 110° F “It was thought that the heat had passed, but it was back again to-day“ Brewarrina N.S.W 17 Jan - 122° F “125 deaths attributable to heat apoplexy” (Sydney). West Wyalong N.S.W 17 Jan - 114° F “The thermometer at the post office“. Nannine W.A. Saturday, Jan 18 - ”After about three weeks of most oppressive heat, with the thermometer frequently registering 120deg. in the shade, the weather has broken.” Farina S.A. Tuesday, Jan 21 - 112.3° F “Old residents say this is the hottest summer they have ever experienced.” Broken Hill N.S.W. Wednesday, Jan 22 – 113½° F ”Two horses dropped dead in the street from the effects of the heat.“ Farina S.A. 22 Jan - 113° F “The temperature of our police cell was 148° several times.” Charleville or Cunnamulla QLD. 22 Jan – 120.5 ° F (116 °F official ) “The average daily temperature from the 1st instant exceeded 114 degrees.” 25 days!! Olary S.A. Thursday, 23 Jan - 116° F “and dust flying in clouds during the afternoon.” Adelaide S.A. 23 Jan - 111° F “Herbert Crown, an ostler at the Langham Hotel, fell down in King William-street this afternoon with sunstroke.” Swan Hill Vic 23 Jan - 116° F “To-day, it is again exceedingly oppressive”. Farina S.A. 23 Jan - 114.3° F “Five deaths have occurred in the town and one outside“. Mildura Vic 23 Jan - 120° F “PHENOMENAL HEAT IN VICTORIA.“ Broken Hill 23 Jan - 115° F “Dr Enill took the temperature of the body an hour and a hall after death, and found that it was 109¾ .” Halbury S.A. 23 Jan – 118° F “Many children are unwell, and it will go hard with them unless a change soon, comes.”. Rapanyup Vic 23 Jan - 113° F “To-day it is again exceedingly oppressive“. Natimuk Vic 23 Jan - 115° F ”Telegrams from the country districts show that the heat was general throughout the colony.”(Victoria). Bega N.S.W. 23 Jan - 113° F “The minimum heat during last night was 73 . To-day the heat was terrific In the true shade the reading was 113 at 2pm“. Geelong Vic 23 Jan - 110° F ” Largely due to a burning north-west wind.“ Hergott Springs S.A. 23 Jan “On three different days it showed 118° and three times 116°, the average for the last month having been 113°F. “ Grenfell and Ivanhoe N.S.W. 23 Jan - 122 ° F “At Ivanhoe the heat was so intense that the mail horses fell dead on the road.” Charleville / Cunnamulla QLD. Friday, 24 Jan – 126/5° F “The official readings at the Post Office are lower; but the instruments used are placed in a thickly-planted garden which has been heavily irrigated during the last week,” So at which town was this garden and non stevenson screen recording? The clue is in the name “Grosvenor” here. Cunnamulla QLD 24 Jan – ” The official record showed a reading on Tuesday of 111 degs. in the shade, on Wednesday 116 degs., and to-day 117 degs. On Wednesday at midnight, the high temperature of 99 degs. was recorded.” Isisford QLD 24 Jan – “The thermometer on Monday rose to 114 degs., on Tuesday to 112 degs., on “Wednesday 115 degs., and to-day 118 degs. The country is very bare and the water is giving out fast.” Wilcannia N.S.W 24 Jan - 123° F “not a breath of wind was stirring during the night”. Hillston N.S.W. 24 Jan- 115° F “Anything under 110 is now beginning to be looked upon as contemptibly cool.” Wilcannia N.S.W. Saturday, 25 Jan – 120° F “The thermometer fell 50deg. at Wilcannia, but a death from sunstroke occurred there yesterday.”
Plus 125°F at Middle camp station Netely (Perhaps 160 kilometres south-east of Broken Hill). 129°F at Gundabooka Station near Bourke. (or try here). 125°F at Nelyambo station (Near Nyngan?). 121°F at Namagee N.S.W. “There is no appearance of a change“. 125°F at White Cliffs. 124°F at New Angeldool, Jan 27. 124°F at Mossgiel (Where is that?). There are even more extreme examples listed in the original 1896 post, like Berlino 130F, which ““hangs on a stone house with a thickly thatched verandah facing West” … “never reached by the sun“. Instead, these seemed like the more reliable estimates.
Funny how the media is simply ignoring what's starting out as a brutal winter. It's not just here in North America, either; Europe is being smothered under record showfall. We're only a day into winter, so there's lots of opportunity for more.
I'm taking a break from Christmas music today, but that's actually part of the story. On this day in 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven gave what is without doubt the most astonishing concert of the nineteenth century. Beethoven had been giving a lot of charity concerts at Vienna's Theater an der Wein, but ever short of cash had convinced the theater's owner to let him do a concert there for his own benefit.
While this might seem an odd time of the year for a concert in what was essentially an unheated hall, the laws of the Austrian empire prohibited performance of Opera during Advent - the opera mad Austrians needed something to scratch their classical music itch, so to say.
Beethoven had to scramble to put together an orchestra - there were many, many charity concerts at that time of year. He assembled a mixed group of professionals and amateur performers, and for the last time took the stage to perform on the piano (his increasing deafness would not allow this in the future).
This concert was the world premier of his Symphony No. 5, his Symphony No. 6, his Fourth Piano Concerto, and his Choral Fantasy. Here is the entire concert for your enjoyment, in the order it was performed.
Hat tip to The Queen Of The World who pointed out this anniversary. She's not just pretty as a picture, she knows stuff too.
Santa's brother Fred is sick of the regular Christmas music and kicks it up with some Elvis. I do a lot of Christmas music and something different is sometimes a welcome change.
Well I wrote to Santa just today I told him I don't plan to stay Cause you've been bad yes you've been treatin' me wrong So listen to me here's Christmas cheers because you won't be with me here I won't decorate your Christmas tree this year You can stay out there to toast and cheer with all of your friends Don't hang on me a bein' here when you come back again Your bags are burnt out and your fancy don't shine I just won't be a waitin' this time I won't decorate your Christmas tree this year
Well I won't be here this Christmas Day I wouldn't give a present anyway But have a good time and be concerned about me I'm going back to my mom and dad they love me more than you ever had I won't decorate your Christmas tree this year You can stay out there... No I won't decorate your Christmas tree this year
On the plus side, it wasn't a Destroyer running into the world's largest container ship. On the down side, one of the ships was docked, so I'm guessing that at least one Carnival Captain is polishing up resume.doc.
Dang, we were just there three weeks ago. How come all the fun happens when I'm gone?
This is the oldest Christmas Carol that we know of, written by Bishop Ambrose of Milan sometime before 400 A.D. The title translates as Come, Redeemer of the nations. If you don't like the typical Christmas carols, give this a try. It's as peaceful as a silent winter night.
