Category Archives: History

History, Poetry, Security

The Least You Can Feel

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John Stewart has a fine news report on the latest mood swings of the American President, coupled with a flashy new public service announcement theme for Bush called “The Least You Can Feel”. The announcement that started the report was:

Nobody likes to see innocent people die.

Incidentally, I was doing some research on the Library of Congress site and happened to take a look in their online store. I was a bit surprised to find that they sell a fancy “Bombers Tie“:

Handsome red and black tie features famous fighter planes of World War II: the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-25 Mitchell, and, of course, the workhorse of the European Campaign, the 4-engine B-17 bomber. Pure silk, hand-finished.

Of all the things the Library of Congress could offer the public to remember the price of past conflicts or to commemorate the service of soldiers, does it have to be a blood-red necktie with silhouettes of bombers? Could this have something to do with a new “hey, innocent people die” sense of fashion on the hill?

Seems like a hint of a “war is hell, get over it” mentality. Speaking of which, when you check out the official “Today in History” page it appears that the LOC is dominated by a list of war and battle stories, along with the impact of war on civilians. Take August 23 for example, which has an entire page dedicated to Farragut’s battle in the Civil War. Compare this rather pointed view with the Wikipedia offering, or the BBC, or the New York Times, all providing a rich list of social and economic events for the same day. And if you really want to see stark contrast from the American style of “which military event happened today” public record, take a look at the Canadian version:

1941 England – William Lyon Mackenzie King 1874-1950 booed by restless Canadian troops in England when he makes a speech; most have been in England for a year without seeing action.

Quite different, eh? On this day troops were upset because they saw a lack of action, or “crew from Saint John defeat Renfrew crew from England in a rowing race”; things in history to feel good, or less bad, about.

Maybe my sample size is too small. I think I’ll go back to reading their archive of poetry now and wonder how to get a good sample from soldiers and civilians, or someone who can really feel and relate the horrors of conflict. Until then, here’s yet another “life goes on” vision of war from their 180 collection for high school students…

Food, History, Security

The rebirth of cider

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America was famous for its wide selection of fine cider until it was criminalized. Cider? Yes, today it might seem odd, but before companies like Budweiser (not the real Czech one, the American imitation brand) rose to dominance of the alchohol industry, many people had a do-it-yourself attitude to the spirits. The SFGate reported in 2003:

American settlers in the Northwest Territories and Ohio River Valley welcomed the eccentric Appleseed, whose real name was John Chapman, because his sour apples yielded cider.

“Just about the only reason to plant an orchard of the sort of seedling apples John Chapman had for sale would have been its intoxicating harvest of drink, available to anyone with a press and a barrel,” writes Michael Pollan in “The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.” “Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier.”

[…]

Until Prohibition, apples were more likely to be made into cider than eaten. Pollan reasons that the infamous Carry Nation wielded her ax not just to bust down saloon doors but to chop down apple trees as well. After Prohibition, beer, wine and liquor supplanted cider.

Now US has been so cider-free that most Americans do not even realize that it can or should be alcoholic. Each fall, gallons of apple juice are set out in ironic moonshine-looking jugs for children and parents alike to revel in the bounty of fall and a mislabel of cider. I suppose baloney slices are real meat to many people too, but I digress.

Alas, some folks have conjured up the ghost of harvests past and are starting to advocate for small-batch brews of real cider.

The term “hard cider” is only used in America. Elsewhere it’s just called cider, and nonalcoholic apple juice is called, well, apple juice. The confusing nomenclature originates in part from Prohibition, when apple juice replaced the alcoholic stuff but was still called cider. Once Prohibition was repealed, fermented cider took a back seat to other alcoholic beverages yet the Prohibition term for apple juice stuck, leading alcoholic cider makers to call their products hard or fermented cider.

Cider is made a lot like wine but the process is quicker. Apples are pressed for their juice, which is then inoculated with yeast. The juice ferments in stainless steel tanks for about two weeks and then it’s ready for bottles or kegs. Unlike wine, apple cold storage allows for a steady supply of fruit so cider can be made year-round.

Why do I bring this up? A couple reasons:

First, I have fond memories of drinking locally-made cider varieties down in South West England once upon a time (not tyne, as that’s up north country). I’ll never forget the dark wood benches of the dimly-lit country pub where I was cornered and told not to drink more than a pint of the best stuff: “You take a layer of hay, a row of apples, a layer of hay, a row of apples, and then throw in an old leg of lamb. Let her sit until just ripe and then turn the screw, lad. If you’re lucky you might get rat or two for flavor! See those chunks in your glass? That’s good Scrumpy!”

I’m getting hungry for a ploughman’s just thinking about it.

Second, I just noticed that the BBC has reported on recent growth in cider brewing, including some smaller names:

Making 454,000 litres of cider a year, Sheppy’s Cider is a mere drop in the ocean of the UK’s total 500 million litre annual cider sales. Yet its range of ciders is in big demand, with Sheppy’s Cider now being sold nationally at Waitrose supermarkets, and in the south west at Sainsbury’s and Asda, in addition to mail and internet order and from its own farm shop.

Not surprising that the method of quality comes down to a very simple test:

The cider-making is led by David Sheppy, who does all the blending simply using his taste buds.

Very occasionally he will add some sugar just to aid a secondary fermentation, or some water if the cider is particularly strong one year.

Ah, like a fine bourbon or scotch but right from the neighborhood orchard.

Now where did I put those apple seeds…?

History, Poetry, Security

Third Degree

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This poem by Langston Hughes (1902-1967) struggles to have a voice and ends up feeling detached, looking in from an outsider’s perspective.

Two sides of a brutal interrogation fight for the reader’s attention, as if he wanted to avoid being a victim to his own poem. Faced with both views at the same time we end up without either, and can only wonder if he intended the reader to be a fly on the wall:

Hit me! Jab me!
Make me say I did it.
Blood on my sport shirt
And my tan suede shoes.

Faces like jack-o’-lanterns
In gray slouch hats.

Slug me! Beat me!
Scream jumps out
Like blowtorch.
Three kicks between the legs
That kill the kids
I’d make tomorrow.

Bar and floor skyrocket
And burst like Roman candles.

When you throw
Cold water on me,
I’ll sign the
Paper . . .

History, Poetry, Security

The massacre of the Cathars

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The Wikipedia has a fair amount of information on the Cathars that seems fairly well written. I noted in particular a description of habits and beliefs that upset the Catholic organization:

The slaying of life was abhorrent to the Cathars, just as was the senseless copulation that produced enslavement in matter. Consequently, abstention from all animal food except fish was enjoined of the Perfecti. (The Perfecti apparently avoided eating anything considered to be a by-product of sexual reproduction, including cheese, eggs, milk and butter.) War and capital punishment were also absolutely condemned, an abnormality in the medieval age.

Such teachings, both theological and practical, brought upon the Cathars firm condemnation from the religious authorities whose social order they threatened.

It is amazing to take a careful look at life under Count of Toulouse Raymond VI as he was the ruler in an area with a fairly civilized and yet secular and prospering community. Other sites paint a compelling portrait:

Chivalry and poetry, art and literature, and business and commerce thrived, the land was at peace, the people prospered; Jew, Cathar, Waldensian, and Catholic lived and worked side by side in an area free of religious persecution and dominated by religious tolerance. People were judged on their own merits, not by the religious beliefs to which they subscribed. Secular offices were distributed on the basis of merit, not religion, and powerful offices in the state were open to Jew, Cathar, Waldensian, and Catholic alike.

This was the time and place of the Troubadour poets, influenced by the Sufi poets to the south as well as the Kabbalists. They sang and spoke of the idealized female and unattainable love, and recognized women as spiritually equal; perhaps even as divine. In fact, women even could become a Perfecti!

Things went south (pun not intended) from increasing pressure from the Pope who became outraged at the Cathars prosperity. He demanded they submit to the Catholic establishment’s authority and he sent representatives to negotiate their surrender. Sadly, one of the representatives was murdered while visiting Raymond. This led to excommunication of Raymond and eventually a Papal decree that the land and wealth of the region was fair game to Catholics who wanted to take it by force for themselves. From the Wikipedia again:

The crusader army came under the command, both spiritual and military, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was taken on 22 July 1209. Arnaud, the Cistercian abbot-commander is said to have been asked how to tell Cathar from Catholic. His reply, recorded by a fellow Cistercian, was “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eis.” — “Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His ownâ€?. The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the occupants slaughtered. 7,000 people died there including women and children. Elsewhere in the town many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice. The town was razed. Arnaud, the abbot-commander, wrote to his master, the Pope: “Today your Holiness, twenty thousand citizens were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex.â€? The population of Béziers was then probably no more than 15,000 but with local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls, the number claimed, 20,000, is possible.

Raymond had anticipated the invasion to a degree and apparently tried to negotiate, but his efforts failed to stop the crusaders from taking Béziers. The town apparently had only a few hundred Cathars, but the decision to stand together meant the whole population was massacred. This crusade continued for more than twenty years. Raymond tried also to comply with the demands of the Pope and crusaders over time to achieve their forgiveness, such as turning-over his seven best strongholds and his mercenaries or removing all Jews from positions of power, but the Catholic authority simply tortured him with his own desire and acquiesence. Eventually, against some resistance, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were sent by the Pope to “convert” or kill the people of Languedoc, and the poetic and peaceful Cathars were completely destroyed.