11/27 is the anniversary of the Washita Massacre
~~ Visitor Center mural depicting the Washita Massacre by Kent Kanouse
Mr. Kanouse's description of the above photograph continues as follows:
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led an early morning surprise attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle on November 27, 1868. The chief was among the dead, along with numerous women and children. Photo of April 24, 2014 (by klk).
That is good as far as it goes except that it omits a few things, starting with the fact that all the men in the camp were killed along with Black Kettle, his wife, and numerous women and children. Custer had set the stage for such a massacre by dividing his force into four parts the night before and positioning them such that the Cheyenne encampment would be subject to simultaneous surprise attack from four different directions, permitting no chance of resistance or escape
This was, of course, officially called The Battle of the Washita. Though some contemporaneous observers described it as a massacre, it was declared to be no such thing because Custer's troops and allies didn't kill everybody in the village but also took some "hostages". I consider it to be routine settler linguistics independent of the death toll. I was surprised to find that Wikipedia more or less agreed with me:
"Indian massacre" is a phrase whose use and definition has evolved and expanded over time. The phrase was initially used by European colonists to describe attacks by indigenous Americans which resulted in mass colonial casualties. While similar attacks by colonists on Indian villages were called "raids" or "battles", successful Indian attacks on white settlements or military posts were routinely termed "massacres".
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres_in_North_America ] Emphasis Added
I put "hostages" in quotes above because that does not fully describe the behavior of Custer, his officers and others of his troops towards them. Custer openly advocated the taking of such hostages to prevent counter attacks by survivors of such "raids" or other bands encamped nearby. He did not, however, publicly advocate the enslavement and/or forced concubinage to which such "hostages" were subjected because there were significant numbers of the populace which would find such behaviors objectionable.
It is allegedly National Electric Guitar Day, but there never was a National electric guitar, National made resonator guitars. The first electric was made by 3 of National's associates, Rickenbacker, Beauchamp and Barth, who formed the Rickerbacker Guitar Company.
It turns out that it is also Needles and Pins Day, so, fine:
So much for that
On this day in history:
1095 – Pope Urban II declared the First Crusade
1703 – The Eddystone Lighthouse was destroyed in a storm
1809 – The Berners Street hoax was perpetrated
1868 – The Washita Massacre of Cheyenne living on reservation land by troops under Custer ***
1895 – Alfred Nobel signed his will creating the Nobel Prize
1896 – Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss was first performed.
1901 – The U.S. Army War College was established
1945 – CARE was founded
1965 – The Pentagon told LBJ it needed 280,000 more troops
1968 – Penny Ann Early played for the Kentucky Colonels in an ABA game against the L.A. Stars
1971 – The Soviet space program's Mars 2's descent module crashed onto Mars
1978 – George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated by Dan White
2015 – An aattack inside a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, killed three and injured six.
*** One of numerous atrocities that are part of history's greatest genocide (but never referred to as such.) The whole continent was stolen, and the theft, murder, kidnapping of children, and oppression continues yet today.
Some people who were born on this day:
cultivate in young minds an equal love of the good, the beautiful and the absurd; most people's lives are too lead-colored to lose the smallest twinkle of light from a flash of nonsense.
~~ Fanny Kemble
1701 – Anders Celsius, astronomer, physicist, and mathematician
1809 – Fanny Kemble, actress, author, playwright and poet
1857 – Charles Scott Sherrington, physiologist, bacteriologist, and pathologist
1871 – Giovanni Giorgi, physicist and engineer, proposed Giorgi system
1894 – Konosuke Matsushita, businessman, founded Panasonic
1897 – Vito Genovese, businessman
1907 – L. Sprague de Camp, historian and author
1921 – Dora Dougherty Strother, pilot, WASP
1925 – John Maddox, chemist, physicist, and journalist
1934 – Al Jackson, Jr., drummer, songwriter, MG, and producer
1934 – Gilbert Strang, mathematician and academic
1935 – Les Blank, director and producer
1941 – Eddie Rabbitt, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1942 – Jimi Hendrix, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1945 – Randy Brecker, trumpeter and flugelhornest
1953 – Boris Grebenshchikov, singer, songwriter and guitarist
1953 – Lyle Mays, keyboardist and composer
1959 – Charlie Burchill, guitarist and songwriter
1959 – Viktoria Mullova, violinist
1962 – Charlie Benante, drummer and songwriter
1962 – Mike Bordin, drummer
1969 – El Chombo, singer and songwriter
1979 – Hilary Hahn, violinist
1980 – Jackie Greene, singer, songwriter and guitarist
Some people who died on this day:
Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.
~~ Horace
8 BCE – Horace, soldier and poet
1570 – Jacopo Sansovino, sculptor and architect
1754 – Abraham de Moivre, mathematician and theorist
1811 – Andrew Meikle, engineer, designed the threshing machine
1852 – Ada Lovelace, mathematician and computer scientist
1875 – Richard Christopher Carrington, astronomer and educator
1881 – Theobald Boehm, flute player, composer, instrument designer
1901 – Clement Studebaker, co-founder of Studebaker car company
1908 – Jean Albert Gaudry, geologist and paleontologist
1930 – Simon Kahquados, Potawatomi political activist
1934 – Baby Face Nelson, businessman
1953 – Eugene O'Neill, playwright
1973 – Frank Christian, trumpet player
1981 – Lotte Lenya, singer and actress
1998 – Barbara Acklin, singer and songwriter
2005 – Joe Jones, singer and songwriter
2006 – Don Butterfield, tuba player
2009 – Al Alberts, singer and songwriter
2012 – Mickey Baker, guitarist
Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
Meh, roll your own
Washita Massacre
User Winter Rabbit posted a column devoted to the Washita Massacre over at the Daily Kos on 11/26/2017. The link is: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/26/1718704/-Washita-Massacre-of...
Today's Tunes
The Eddystone Lighthouse
War College
More troops for Vietnam
Al Jackson Jr.
Eddie Rabbit
Jimi Hendrix
Randy Brecker
Lyle Mays
Viktoria Mullova
Hilary Hahn
Jackie Greene
Theobald Boehm
Clement Studebaker
Frank Christian
Lotte Lenya
Barbara Acklin
Joe Jones
Don Butterfield
Mickey Baker
Bonus:
picture is "Visitor Center mural depicting the Washita Massacre", photo by
Kent Kanouse (CC BY-NC 2.0) - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode
Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?
Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com
Open Thread, Washita Massacre, Army War College, Penny Ann Early, Fanny Kemble, Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Eddie Rabbit, Jimi Hendrix, Lotte Lenya, Mickey Baker, LBJ, Clement Studebaker, Joe Jones
Comments
That Custard dude was a death machine
fighting for the "settlers" by killing the indigents
at the bequest of the empire.
The Buffy tune is appropriate.
Thanks EL. Enjoy your cooking!
Good morning QMS, thanks for reading and for dropping in.
The Buffy tune sadly seems universally appropriate.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Who's the savage?
Custer or the Cheyenne? My money is on Custer.
Thanks for all the music and OT!
How about a conversation about peace? (30 min)
Sachs UN speech (14 min)
Jeffrey Sachs Testimony at the UN Security Council Meeting - November 20, 2023
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lookout. Custer was indeed the savage,
Somebody (Twain?) once favorably compared the Cheyenne to the French, iirc. It is good that we can at least have conversations about peace, if we cannot ever seem to have the thing itself.
Thanks for reading and dropping in
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning!
Sad but true topic, once that needs way more discussion and proper perspective than it has ever gotten.
I remember going to a museum at the site of Custer's Last Stand.
As I stood at the bottom of a small valley, completely rimmed with a hill, imagining all the sitting duck soldiers getting picked off handily by the Natives standing on the rim, I kept telling my Mom, who was my travel pal,
"Custer was a fucking idiot." She agreed, felt sorry for all the horses that were killed in the battle.
The Lark Ascending is a song I play when I hear of a friend passing away. It speaks to their spirit soaring better than any words I could string together.
have a great day, El, and thanks for the OT, my friend.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good morning otc. It is sadly emblematic of this country
that The Battle of the Greasy Grass is best known by the name of the jackass who lost it. Military institutions and scholars have long taught that one should never divide ones forces in the face of the enemy. Custer was taught this. Sometimes a true military genius will spot the perfect opportunity to violate this rule and by doing so win a resounding victory and great acclaim. Hannibal, Frederick the Great, Admiral Nelson and Admiral Hood come to mind. Custer was no military genius. He was a terrorist, bully, rapist, war criminal and all around shithead, but nothing more.
Thanks for reading and dropping in
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Monday Monday
la da da, la da da,
Hi all, Hey EL! Hope it's all good occidentally.
And the trigger word today is Skylark.
Skylark, skylarking. Flight footage is clearly slo-mo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssEZWMsQg_8
For a little brown job it sure got famous for that song. The introduced population on Vancouver Is. and maybe was the San Juan Isls. too, is just about died out. So should be considered an unsuccessful introduction, like their Crested Mynahs. A very very few wild asiatic vagrant Skylark have reached the west coast in CA, like so many Siberian origin vagrants.
The first one returned several winters to I think it was at Hall's Ranch, on Pt. Reyes. I saw it in 80 and 81, have pics of it. It was the first Lower 48 wild naturally occurring vagrant of the species. The intro birds in Vancouver were a different subspecies, maybe the Chinese ones.
America's best skylarker is the Sprague's Pipit (which will soon loose its name no doubt). I would put it up against the Skylark. It climbs up 300' belting out the cacophony of notes and then plummets to earth in a dive and crescendo of song. It is one of the most spectacular bird song flight displays there is.
Many birds do level flight, flightsong. A few I see regularly here are Yellow-breasted Chat, Indigo Bunting, Orchard Oriole, Louisiana Waterthrush, Lesser Goldfinch. Of course Vermilion Flycatcher has to also be one fo the top 5 flight displays too, which we get a few months a year of.
live like a Skylark
have good ones all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Good morning Dysto. Good to see you and thanks for all
the info, as usual. I do have an (ahem) minor quibble:
Percy Bysse Shelley -
To a Skylark
and much more ..., before Vaughn Williams was born
Thanks for reading and dropping in
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
FWIW - I generally prefer "Tico Tico", great song n/t
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
second that skipper
she makes the strings sing!
It has lyrics too
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I thing that these two tweets are related.
Lets see how it eventually plays out.
“Someone must pay these reparations. If not Russia, then who?”
the sugar daddies that financed this fiasco
are on the hook for creating this mess
US/UK/NATO and all the other arms companies
WEF, Blackrock and World Bank also come to mind.
“Dagny Taggart”?!
Who adopts the name of the girlboss character in Ayn Rand’s epic libertarian
screednovel Atlas Shrugged?Good catch!
I think that there is a bit of sarcasm involved with choice of that particular name as her comments do not coincide with Ayn Rand's philosophy.
Russia delivers 25,000 tons of free wheat to Somalia
The East African country will become the first recipient of Moscow’s food aid initiative.
But the 'west' can supply 25 tons of bombs on a pay-as you-go basis!
Another feather in the quill for the east.
https://www.rt.com/africa/588064-russia-somalia-free-grains/
Heh, difrunt strokes fer difrunt folks, as they say.
Wheat is valuable, you know, and the market would miss it.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Everything turning to s#!t
The software rat race keeps getting rattier. If you have an older version of anything, good luck with getting any kind of technical assistance with any problems you may have with it. They'll just tell you to upgrade to the latest version, whether you can or not, whether you can afford it or not.
Looks like I'm going to have to give up on my favorite graphics editing program, because the greedy bastards who bought up the company are running it into the ground. When it was just a small outfit, it was very good and the staff was helpful. They got bought up by a bigger company, and the problems started to proliferate. Then the whole shootin' match got bought up by an even bigger company, and it all went straight to hell. If you can't afford to buy a new version every year, they don't want to give you the time of day - and each new version is buggier than the last. Micro$oft in miniature.
I'm already using open source freeware whenever possible, and there is said to be a very good open source freeware graphics editor called GIMP, which I've been considering trying out for some time now. I guess the time is ripe.
I have about a year before I have to commit to learning Linux.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
GIMP
Hi ToM
I use GIMP. Though am fairly software challenged and so just barely use it. For photo editing basics. It is serviceable. It is not as good as say the old Photoshop LE disk they gave you with any 29.95 flatbed scanner in the 'old' days, but can handle some of the basics. Like cropping, exposure adjustments, etc. For the price worth a try to see if it does what you need.
be well!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
I have essentially no experience with graphics or
photo-editing software, don't know the lingo at all, etc. I have, nonetheless, been able to use GIMP once in a while to do simple stuff without even trying to learn it. If yu know your way around that universe, I'm sure you could pick it up quite quickly withut any great effort.
Linux: Years ago, long before Linux, I used to use various *nix distributions and clones, so I have some shred of residual knowledge. After decades of being forced to use winshit, and long after forgetting everything I knew about *nix, I retired and converted to ubuntu. It comes with a GUI and set of tools such that you can pretty much run it without ever having to open the terminal and get down into the nuts and bolts, and often, if you do for a specific task, you will find that there are character for character instructions for what to type where and when. You should have no difficulty switching over, and, should you be hesitant, you can install it in dual boot mode with your existing system to fall back on if need be while you get acclimated to it.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thanks for the encouragement
After my last go-round with Technical "Support" (har de har har har), I did some research online and found out that the company (Corel) has been going to the bow-wows for the last several years. Paintshop Pro has been a neglected stepchild compared to the company's cash cow, CorelDraw, and boy howdy have those users been abused! Things like stealth declarations that LEGALLY PURCHASED old versions are now "illegal", and high-pressure tactics to upgrade upgrade upgrade - when there turns out to be an easy (and highly secret, meaning Corel won't tell you squat about it) workaround.
Such is the way of things. Small company (Jasc) premieres a highly successful and very useful graphics program; company gets bought out by a larger company (Corel), which is only interested in Making Moar Money; larger company gets bought out by a hedge fund which is only interested in squeezing the company and the users dry, and sic transit gloria.
I shall certainly give GIMP a try, as it is well regarded in the Simming community (and I'm periodically up to my ears in The Sims 2).
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Don't know if and of the linux distros can run the sims,
though many include an emulator or other package to run some windows pograms inside of the operating system. I just checked and it looks like Ubuntu and probably most linus will run sim4, so probably earlier ones too/
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Linux doesn't run earlier Sims games directly, but
there are instructions available for running them through an emulator. So it's technically doable.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I suspect that the ability to "run sim4" also involves
some sort of work-around or emulator, probably WINE.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I forgot to mention that those who cut their teeth on DOS,
especially the more potent versions like DRDOS and 4DOS, will find using the terminal eerily familiar, but with more options, such that the manual or help pages take getting used to. Example: Dir = ls, however there are beaucoups options available, partial man page follows:
NAME
ls - list directory contents
SYNOPSIS
ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is speci‐
fied.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options
too.
-a, --all
do not ignore entries starting with .
-A, --almost-all
do not list implied . and ..
--author
with -l, print the author of each file
-b, --escape
print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters
--block-size=SIZE
with -l, scale sizes by SIZE when printing them; e.g.,
'--block-size=M'; see SIZE format below
-B, --ignore-backups
do not list implied entries ending with ~
-c with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last modification of
file status information); with -l: show ctime and sort by name;
otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first
-C list entries by columns
--color[=WHEN]
colorize the output; WHEN can be 'always' (default if omitted),
'auto', or 'never'; more info below
-d, --directory
list directories themselves, not their contents
-D, --dired
generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode
-f do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color
-F, --classify
append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries
--file-type
likewise, except do not append '*'
--format=WORD
across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l, single-column -1,
verbose -l, vertical -C
--full-time
like -l --time-style=full-iso
-g like -l, but do not list owner
--group-directories-first
group directories before files;
can be augmented with a --sort option, but any use of
--sort=none (-U) disables grouping
-G, --no-group
in a long listing, don't print group names
-h, --human-readable
with -l and -s, print sizes like 1K 234M 2G etc.
--si likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024
-H, --dereference-command-line
follow symbolic links listed on the command line
--dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir
follow each command line symbolic link
that points to a directory
--hide=PATTERN
do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN (overridden
by -a or -A)
--hyperlink[=WHEN]
hyperlink file names; WHEN can be 'always' (default if omitted),
'auto', or 'never'
--indicator-style=WORD
append indicator with style WORD to entry names: none (default),
slash (-p), file-type (--file-type), classify (-F)
-i, --inode
print the index number of each file
-I, --ignore=PATTERN
do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN
-k, --kibibytes
default to 1024-byte blocks for disk usage; used only with -s
and per directory totals
-l use a long listing format
-L, --dereference
when showing file information for a symbolic link, show informa‐
tion for the file the link references rather than for the link
itself
-m fill width with a comma separated list of entries
-n, --numeric-uid-gid
like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs
-N, --literal
print entry names without quoting
-o like -l, but do not list group information
-p, --indicator-style=slash
append / indicator to directories
-q, --hide-control-chars
print ? instead of nongraphic characters
--show-control-chars
show nongraphic characters as-is (the default, unless program is
'ls' and output is a terminal)
-Q, --quote-name
enclose entry names in double quotes
--quoting-style=WORD
use quoting style WORD for entry names: literal, locale, shell,
shell-always, shell-escape, shell-escape-always, c, escape
(overrides QUOTING_STYLE environment variable)
-r, --reverse
reverse order while sorting
-R, --recursive
list subdirectories recursively
-s, --size
print the allocated size of each file, in blocks
-S sort by file size, largest first
--sort=WORD
sort by WORD instead of name: none (-U), size (-S), time (-t),
version (-v), extension (-X)
--time=WORD
change the default of using modification times; access time
(-u): atime, access, use; change time (-c): ctime, status; birth
time: birth, creation;
with -l, WORD determines which time to show; with --sort=time,
sort by WORD (newest first)
--time-style=TIME_STYLE
time/date format with -l; see TIME_STYLE below
-t sort by time, newest first; see --time
-T, --tabsize=COLS
assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8
-u with -lt: sort by, and show, access time; with -l: show access
time and sort by name; otherwise: sort by access time, newest
first
-U do not sort; list entries in directory order
-v natural sort of (version) numbers within text
-w, --width=COLS
set output width to COLS. 0 means no limit
-x list entries by lines instead of by columns
-X sort alphabetically by entry extension
-Z, --context
print any security context of each file
-1 list one file per line. Avoid '\n' with -q or -b
--help display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I vaguely remember CBM DOS
from way back when my "state of the art" machine was a Commodore 64. Wonder if that will help....
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
It should in that you are familiar with having/using a
command line, and with the GUI and some of the included tools there's probably no rush or pressure to learn all the commands and such.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --