tingilinde

on chocolate

yes ..  I think I'll have some

bad as expected...

Recreations of the instruments in Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights sound terrible.   The fact they don't offer a video or audio file is outstanding or troubling depending on your point of view.

 

a poem winston liked

Winston Churchill recited this from memory to Parliament as Hitler gathered strength and war clouds were appearing,.   Perhaps it's relevant again,

Who is in charge of the clattering train?
The axles creak, and the couplings strain.
Ten minutes behind at the Junction. Yes!
And we’re twenty now to the bad—no less!
At every mile we a minute must gain!
Who is in charge of the clattering train?

Why, flesh and blood, as a matter of course!
You may talk of iron, and prate of force;
But, after all, and do what you can….
Man is in charge of the thundering train!
Man, in the shape of a modest chap
In fustian trousers and greasy cap;
A trifle stolid, and something gruff,
Yet, though unpolished, of sturdy stuff….

Only a Man, but away at his back,
In a dozen cars, on the steely track,
A hundred passengers place their trust
In this fellow of fustian, grease, and dust….

The hiss of steam-spurts athwart the dark.
Lull them to confident drowsiness. Hark!
What is that sound? ‘Tis the stertorous breath
Of a slumbering man—and it smacks of death!
Full sixteen hours of continuous toil
Midst the fume of sulphur, the reek of oil,
Have told their tale on the man’s tired brain,
And Death is in charge of the clattering train!

Those poppy-fingers his head incline
Lower, lower, in slumber’s trance;
The shadows fleet, and the gas-gleams dance
Faster, faster in mazy flight,
As the engine flashes across the night.
Mortal muscle and human nerve
Cheap to purchase, and stout to serve.
Strained too fiercely will faint and swerve.
Over-weighted, and underpaid,
This human tool of exploiting Trade,
Though tougher than leather, tenser than steel.
Fails at last, for his senses reel,
His nerves collapse, and, with sleep-sealed eyes,
Prone and helpless a log he lies!
A hundred hearts beat placidly on,
Unwitting they that their warder’s gone;
A hundred lips are babbling blithe,
Some seconds hence they in pain may writhe.
For the pace is hot, and the points are near,
And Sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear;
And signals flash through the night in vain.
Death is in charge of the clattering train!

 

witchcraft trials in early modern sweden

Not what you might think - rather a mechanism for managing personal grievances.

 

 

the efficiency of the nazi killing machine

chilling...  (via Scientific American)

 

 

 

a quote from the past

 

America should “build a wall of steel, a wall as high as Heaven" against the flow of immigrants.--Georgia Gov. Clifford Walker, at a 1924 convention of the Ku Klux Klan

a powerful force at a time of strain for the white working class.  The current Republican Party has become the latest incarnation of the Klan.

 

 

relics

What happens to language when a community is isolated.  

 

ireland in the 1890s

Mostly black and white photos converted to color by the photochrom process - postcards in the Smithsonian's collection.

 

 

a murder map of 14th century london

Ars points to an interactive murder map of medieval London

 

nazi parenting guidelines

Trying to make kids good little Nazis

snip

...

The Nazi regime urged German mothers to ignore their toddlers’ emotional needs—the better to raise hardened soldiers and followers. Attachment researchers say that the harmful effects of that teaching may be affecting later generations

...