I was 'put on hold' on the phone today. What passes for modern music played, or rather assaulted my ears, whilst I waited. Thankfully it was just a few moments but the damage to my sensibilities was done. Our civilisation's decline is screetched at us by teenybopper 'Divas' who have never taken a singing lesson in their lives and rely almost entirely on strutting their pudendas across the stage as they warble. My ears needed healing. Thank goodness my eyes were spared.
The singing voice is a marvel. Can be. My phone call was to my pharmacist and later in the day after picking up my meds (I am an old and knackered Knight, remember) I sought some healing salves for my aural sense .... I sought visual too. Older era music can lift my soul and heart, and coupled with modern technology (which does not improve the aforesaid teen divas' efforts) can provide a gentleman's pleasure. So, a short post, of just three short songs with beauty, sensuality and delight. Let me start with Elīna Garanča recording Dopo l'oscuro nembo (from Adelson e Salvini) - by Bellini. Dressed for work, not 'Performance'. To me, she is the epitome of the Opera Diva.
You could put her in a muddy field in the rain, wearing just a work-worn smock, and the Angels would gather to listen to her sing. The orchestra fits, but for some pieces the voice itself is all you need. Several, harmoniously, can render an orchestra redundant. So... Miserere mei, Deus - by Allegri - sung by the Tenebrae Choir.
OK, one more. A 'proper' performance. Renée Fleming performing Casta Diva (by Bellini, again) in the Palaces of the Czars in Saint Petersburg in 2009.
This is an astonishing rendition of this aria. Such a wonderful interpretation of this difficult piece of music. Everything that is required is in place: the support is solid, the resonance full, the registers blended, the dynamics carefully controlled, the timbre is beautiful and finely textured, the central coloratura section is sung in one breath; the line remains seamless, and the text is gently inflected with colour and real sentiment. People have to remember that here, in 2009, Fleming was 50, and so of course not a match for the singing of her absolute prime (nor perhaps for the up-and coming Elina). Neither Caballe nor Sutherland maintained their voices in this immaculate condition at this age. OK, your taste may not be mine but we can all do with extending into areas (and arias) where we have not previously ventured, and leave modern trash .... er... tracks, behind us. My ears are back in working order again. Enjoy. And have a drink. Pax
I am a man with a Beard: nevertheless my neck needs shaving from time to time for which my Sword does extra duty. I shall not let a lady's blade do a job of a man's blade. I advise all chaps to think and act similarly.
Put an appropriate hat and coat on and I could carry off the look of a ship's Master. But that was not my calling. Lady's blade? Babbette, Lynnette, Jillette, Gillette. Girls' names. Gillette made its fortune after a salesman, seeking 'Salesman of the Year' and having captured his territory market of blokes, persuaded ladies too, to shave their armpits, and so vastly increased his sales. But he did it by suggesting that 'other' women were 'ashamed' of body hair, (Boo, hiss), so they should be also. He won his title and the company dominated. The company was too smart by half back then: now they are just stupid. The recent advert will be persuasive too. It has already persuaded men to throw their Gillette razors away and try others. And do you blame them? It grievously insulted men. Gillette has 'form' in the blame and shame business. It turned to a fetid feminist to develop their advert: one with a track record of demeaning and dismissing men. Now she will dispossess the company of a substantial proportion of its customers.
Well done 'saleswoman of the year'.
Just why any sane person or company would insult its male customers is not hard to figure. Our society has turned against itself and those that provide for it and protect it. A decade ago, Gillette held 70 percent of the global market share for razors, and now it holds 54 percent. Those sales didn’t disappear; they went to those newer, savvier companies that don’t have 100 years of history making women feel bad about body hair. Now it is suggesting men should feel ashamed about being men. (Hiss, Boo..t) The Marketing Dept. has simply jumped on the anti-male bandwagon, thoughlessly and stupidly. Self-emasculation seems to be part and parcel of the civilisational suicide we see around us.
It does well to remind ourselves of the Good that men do and the Good Men all around us. Not perfect men; not all heroic; not all budding Saints. But good blokes in the main. It is necessary to show it, not grossly over-emphasis the small proportion of bad men as that awful advert tried. It is especially important that the ladies who have heart, soul and Good nature give acknowledgement of Good men too. As did the Lady of the Tavern yesterday.
Good women, see the good in masculine men.
I am by far no expert in masculinity. I just know that I know it when I see it. I see an attack on men all around me and that concerns me greatly.
But I want to take some time to shine a light on a few of the good masculine men I have come across lately.
I would like to celebrate men like these.
I want to highlight that what masculine men offer the world is vital. It is essential to our very survival, as a nation.
I can’t speak for all women, but I, for one, can see value in authentic masculinity.
The man in this photo came from a country that was not free. He came to the United States as a small child and became an Army Green Beret.
He sacrificed, he bled, he fought with his strength for the good of others, and he protects those he loves.
We need more like him in this country and elsewhere. I see good in this man.
“Ranger School Class 7-94 (Back when there was still a Desert Phase) 19 yrs old. Graduation day with my little sister @anessaarnold After losing close to 30 lbs... When there is no more fat and your body eats away at muscle.. When you have to wear winter BDUs because all the other ripstop BDUs have torn away... You start to realize that mindset is the strength that will carry you on.
The little boy, who did as boys do: became a Man.
This understanding later allowed me to finish college (With Academic Honors) while taking on some of the hardest assignments in the military. No matter who you are or what you decide to do... Never stop... Never quit... And never let others decide your fate. #RLTW #ronintactics #life #godandcountry 🇺🇸 #journeyofathousandmiles” (https://www.instagram.com/p/BsdRjWcDZTq/)
Stephen Labossiere
A man who goes into the wild, looks the part after a short while. Warriors don't use Gillette.
A Man and his Beard
Men are born to be heroes, they are born to be warriors. Each in their own way with the gifts God has given them. And we need men like this.
Stephen Willeford is no stranger to adversity. He is a Texas man, a good man, and ran into a church when a madman decided to kill 26 innocent people and injure over 20 more over a year ago in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Another Man with a Beard.
He rushed into a church while getting shot at himself to help save and protect the innocent who came to worship that day.
He is a good man.
This is what masculinity looks like and it is a good thing.
We, as a society. Should cherish good men like this.
I say this and highlight these men to show that you are needed, you are valued and you are wanted by those of us that still have our sanity. There are many more. You know who you are. And may God bless strong masculine men. May you continue to be all that God has called and designed you to be.
“The rifle has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.” Jeff Cooper.
I have little doubt that the feminist woman who made the advert does not approve of rifles, churches or bothering to look out of her window to see good men. She is 'fixed' in her lefty feminism.
Some people just WILL not see beyond what they want to see.
The interview below has a fixed-minded woman who liked the advert and just would not see what men (and decent women) saw in it. The man being interviewed was quite clear and direct however. Let us not dwell on the interviewer chap who appears to stumble over his words - trying to be 'careful'?
You be careful too. Don't do as Jillette has done and cut your own throat. Have a drink instead. Raise a class to my favourite Lady. Pax
Water is necessary for life, and for living, even for landlubbers like me. But I am not the sort that is inclined to live upon it. My good mate James Higham (of Nourishing Obscurity fame) has that desire, as did my good and very long-time mate Denis, with whom I went through Grammar School before he went to sea (Merchant Navy) and I to the Air. But I do delight in waking to the sun shining on 50 square kilometres of water outside of and below my cave. The only constancy in it is the change it undergoes by the day, hour and minute. Stunning. I only occasionally go out on it.
Denis spent much of his early to mid adult life travelling the seas. A man going his own way (MGTOW). We met up occasionally in foreign ports as I too travelled the world. He now lives in the same hemisphere as I but across the Tasman sea in Kiwiland. There, quite some years ago, when doing some 'local' moonlighting in NZ waters, he rescued many from a sinking Russian passenger liner. Good man, Denis. Adventurous. Few people take the leap to go to sea with their family, though. That is a huge adventure, and today I heard of such a family. I hope they sail into my gorgeous harbour some day and drop into the Tavern. The Gifford family left their home in Washington in 2008 to sail around the world. They have not stopped for long since. They did stop for a while in the summer of 2016 in Noank, Connecticut to tell their story and to show how they all live on a 47-foot sailboat.
They have it all together, take the risks, do the work and are raising independant, frugal youngsters. Good luck to them. What they did not do though was build their boat. That is what James is doing, and has been doing for a while now. He will get there, no doubt. It is not going to be a similar sort of boat though. Seagoing? Yes. And canal-going too. He has considered so much about hull and sail design, that N.O. readers have been following along for a while. Building a boat is art, craft, engineering, mathematical and hard graft. But great Beauty is made that way. For a brief idea of what and how, we can see here:
James wants not only to sail across the world, but live aboard and see the canal system of England. In the same craft. Most canal-boats though are of a common design and now't like what he is building. And in reality, he is almost as much of a landlubber as most of us. (Almost).
Still, here is a chap I was told of too, with some useful perspectives. David Johns, a former TV journalist from the UK who quit his job, sold his house, and bought a narrowboat to cruise the canal network. His plan was to try being a live aboard for a year. He’s been living aboard for 9 months so far and he’s still happy with his decision and loves being part of the friendly, helpful narrowboat community. Watch this video to take a tour of David's narrowboat, learn how he earns an income as a freelance journalist, where he “parks” his boat, and about the joys & challenges of life afloat. David has been documenting his journey living on a boat with a regular vlog on his YouTube channel: Cruising the Cut
With his experience as a TV journalist, the videos are extremely well filmed and edited, and they're a real pleasure to watch. We were excited when he sent us his interview footage because we learned so much about this alternative lifestyle that he’s trying out. It is like living in a tiny house (like my cave) on the water and of being able to explore from the comfort of your own home. The extremely RICH folk do things a little 'bigger' I have never been envious of the rich, as some might be. They often 'commission' artifacts of great beauty which, frankly, I would not trust to a socialist Committee. Much if not most of our material, historical heritage was commissioned by the very rich, for their own pleasure. Often, for the pleasure and uplift of the many, such as Cathedrals. Most, eventually, get passed to or taken over by the many, anyway. Here is a sailing Palace.
Not much change out of a large fortune for that one ! Maybe one day it will take kids or old folk, say, to sea, for jollies. I am pretty sure the designers and naval architects, the builders and craftsmen had a great time contributing, and would shout a pint or two were they to drop into the Tavern. Cheers to them, and Denis, James, David and the Gifford Family. Safe seas be before you all. Dominus Vobiscum.
Strange bedfellows attended the Tavern today: some usually found outside the hedge. And even more strangely I had actually invited a few in ! And it was all to do with food, so my chef was there too amongst the customers, white hat poking up in the throng. He was dishing up steaks.
A couple of RSPCA folk had come by with some 'complaint' (not about our restaurant, I hasten to add, nor about how my steed is quartered) and I sent one out to find a PETA person or two from amongst the usual howling mobs that we usually keep out, with the intent of giving them a drink or two. Both small groups, usually at each other's throats, were united for once in the 'complaint'.
Oz is beset by strange and unwholesome customs introduced by folk who, frankly, have no place being here in Oz at all. I speak of Muslims. They have got our politicians by the short and curlies, imposing 'Halal' on every damned thing in sight and charging us for the anti-privilege. Even Chocolate !! ( I will not permit as much as a Cadbury Dairly Milk bar in the bar). Mulsims kill, nastily, and not just other people.
They are cruel to animals. Officially.
The PETA people, moronic mostly, joined the RSPCA, nice folk mostly, in objecting to Halal methods.
Now, it has to be said, very slightly unpaletable as it may be to some, but we human beings are meat-eaters. And animals have to be eaten when dead. We learned early on that animals kick up a fuss when eaten alive. They scatter the plates and table settings all over the place. So we have to kill them first. And cook them. But most of us actually like animals. I do. I like pretty well all animals, and I am especially fond - even fascinated - by some. But some we eat. I like a nice beef steak. I like bacon. I will even settle for chicken. I prefer dogs to run along side me though. We don't eat dogs. Civilised 'we' that is. Or cats. I stop well short of frogs and snails too. There are very strange folk in the world. But if we have to kill an animal, we need to do it with some respect for Life. Especially the animal's life that is given up for our dinner. Steven Johnson was holding forth about it.
'They are in pain':
Australian animal rights groups demand an end to Muslim halal slaughter where livestock have their throats slit while they are conscious after Belgium brings in ban
RSPCA and PETA have demanded an end to halal and kosher slaughter practices
Livestock are conscious when throats are slit under Muslim and Jewish custom
The Flanders region in northern Belgium has outlawed traditional abattoir killing
Australia has agreed that meat export to Indonesia will be killed the halal way
Australia's peak animal rights groups have demanded an end to halal and kosher slaughter practices where livestock have their throats slit while they are conscious.
The RSPCA and PETA want animals to be stunned first before they are killed, after the Flanders region in northern Belgium outlawed traditional Muslim and Jewish abattoir customs.
Complicating the issue is how Australia in March 2017 backed new Indonesia laws which will require, from October 2019, all meat exported to the Muslim-majority nation to be slaughtered the halal way.
Australia's peak animal rights groups have demanded an end to halal and kosher slaughter practices where livestock have their throats slit while they are conscious
Despite Indonesia sourcing 80 per cent of its beef from Australia, the RSPCA says religious exemptions allowing animals to be conscious when they are killed .....
needed to end.
'A small number of abattoirs in Australia have an exemption to slaughter animals without prior stunning, authorised by state food authorities,' it said.
'This means that animals are fully conscious and experience pain and distress at the time of slaughter.
'The RSPCA believes all animals should be stunned prior to slaughter.'
The RSPCA and PETA want animals to be stunned first before they are killed, after the Flanders region in northern Belgium outlawed traditional Muslim and Jewish abattoir customs
PETA, also known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said most animals were fully conscious when their throats were cut under halal and kosher slaughter conditions.
What is halal slaughter?
Halal is an Arabic term for permissible.
For the meat to be lawful in the Muslim faith, the meat or poultry must be slaughtered as part of a ritual known as Zibah or Zabihah.
The blood must be drained from the carcass, which means the throat of the animal is slit.
An animal must not be dead before the ritual and a Muslim is required to perform the slaughter.
'They are absolutely and understandably terrified when chains are shackled to their legs and they are hoisted into the air upside down'.
'For cattle and sheep who are killed without pre-stunning, unconsciousness can take several agonisingly painful seconds to come after their throats are cut.'
In March 2017, then trade minister Steven Ciobo visited Indonesia for three days.
Mr Ciobo used the occasion to announce Australia would back upcoming Indonesia laws, coming into force in October 2019, which will require beef cattle and sheep to have their throats cut to be widely marketed in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.
Follow the money. And weep. There is no reasonable excuse for shipping live animals thousands of miles by sea when they could be exported, processed, humanely. Let them eat cake.
To qualify as halal, or permissible in Islam, live animals must have their throats cut as part of the slaughter and die from blood loss.
In most cases, animals are stunned before they are slaughtered however, state government laws in Australia grant religious exemptions, which mean the livestock can still be conscious when it is killed.
The Flanders region in northern Belgium has effectively banned traditional halal and kosher slaughter practices since January 1, when the law first proposed in 2017 came into force.
The French-speaking Wallonia region in southern Belgium will officially ban those practices in September.
When legislation was first proposed in May 2017, it was slammed as 'the greatest assault on Jewish religious rights since Nazi occupation' by the European Jewish Congress.
Indeed, the Jewish practice is virtually identical to the Muslim practice. And neither will eat bacon. I have no problem with them not eating pork, but I do have a problem with the way both kill animals for consumption. It is inhumane. I served the PETA people and the RSPCA folk some fine ale. Then I sent the PETA loonies back outside the hedge. "Ahh, but.... what about hunting and fishing", cried someone. "Honourable enterprises", said I. That was sure to set a cat amongst the pidgeons. It did. I busied m'self serving pints. Drink up. Pax
Love thine Enemies. That's a tough call sometimes. I have made mention before of the hordes of detractors that congregate outside the Tavern's hedges. A rude, motley, often hilarious mob they are, even as they hurl epithets and more (Gordon Bennetts) than are healthy. The SJWs, the feminists, the marxist zombies, the socialists, the brain dead and.... the young: they are a colourful lot in need. I take a variety of drinks out to them on hot days (hot drinks on cold days too). Does my occasional kindness make a difference? Time might tell.
The rude, nasty girls especially often attract this old chap's attention ! Don't get me wrong here. Hahaha. Once they were charming little girls, the apple of a daddy's eye: and something went awry when they hit puberty. They got stuck in immaturity coupled with their growing sense of sexual power and hubris, and of course, breasts. These pretty, bodily, defining accessories became weapons when taken in hand ('scuse the pun) by feminists. I was very pleasantly surprised when Steven Ertelt dropped by to tell of the Wonderous Ways my Supplier has of making some 'Good' out of the bad. What lesson can be learned from what he had to say?
We may hate the actions of 'pro-choice' people, for example, spouting their 'My Body, My Choice' mantras, and may especially find the screetches and actions of groups like Femen to be terrible, but we must not hate the people. God has work to do with them, by them and for them. Our task is to Love them and pray for His Grace that changes their ways. Cold and hot drinks are a small way of us expressing that Love. You have heard of Femen? From Wiki..... FEMEN Фемен Femen Logo.svg Founded10 April 2008; 10 years ago TypeProtest and activist group FocusWomen's liberation Location Paris, France (main headquarters) Key people Anna Hutsol, Oksana Shachko, Alexandra Shevchenko, Inna Shevchenko (that is Inna, pictured at the top), Yana Zhdanova.... and in South America, Sara Fernanda Giromin, also known as Sara Winter Websitefemen.org
Femen (Ukrainian: Фемен), stylized as FEMEN, is a Ukrainian radical feminist activist group intended to protect women's rights. The organization became internationally known for organizing controversial topless protests against sex tourism, religious institutions, sexism, homophobia, and other social, national, and international topics. Founded in Ukraine, the group is now based in Paris. The organization describes itself as "fighting patriarchy in its three manifestations – sexual exploitation of women, dictatorship and religion" and has stated that its goal is "sextremism serving to protect women's rights". Femen activists have been regularly detained by police in response to their protests.
Initially, Femen gained attention by demonstrating in skimpy or erotic clothing. For example, on 21 September 2008 in front of a Turkish embassy, a dozen Femen members were dressed as nurses with smudged makeup and high pink heels; however, at the 24 August 2009 demonstration on Ukrainian independence day, Oksana Shachko went topless. The main driveresse of the group, Inna Shevchenko,a quite pretty girl, has made her position clear in an interview. It is really a collections of 'half-truths' mixed with immature understandings and lots of wild, unfocussed blame, but hey, don't let my opinion stop you forming your own. She was someone's little girl once.
Since this approach obtained such great publicity, it rapidly became FEMEN's signature approach. While most of the protests have been confined to bare breasts, in October 2010 Shachko exposed her buttocks outside a locked toilet in a demonstration to protest the lack of public toilets in Kiev, and four of the group members staged a similar protest in Kiev in February 2011.
Femen protest in Kiev during the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election against the election of Victor Yanukovych. The signs read "The War Begins Today" and "Stop Raping the Country." Since May 2011, a host of international news outlets have started to report about the organization's actions; this has sharply heightened FEMEN's international profile. From late 2011, the Ukrainian Femen activists started to hold more international protests. In December 2011, three Femen activists stated that the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus had abducted and terrorized them after they staged topless protests in Minsk. On 8 April 2013, five Femen members "topless ambushed" Russian President Vladimir Putin (accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel) at the Hanover trade fair.
After Inna Shevchenko chopped down a wooden cross overlooking Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev on 17 August 2012, she stated that she had received several death threats and that her front door had been kicked in. Fearing arrest, she sought asylum in France and moved to Paris. There, in September 2012, she established a training facility for activists for Femen in France. End Wiki. Hey, apart from cutting down crosses, protesting against the Church, protesting for a woman's 'right' to murder babies, and bailing up a few politicians, what is there to dislike about these ladies? They are spunkey, loud and damnably funny at times and often quite nice to look at. Ok, gawp at, by some. So, Steve told us of one leading breast, Sara Fernanda Giromin, who has found a better purpose for herself and her mammaries.
Founder of Feminist Group That Goes Topless to Protest Abortion Becomes Pro-Life, Apologizes
Chances are you’ve heard of the pro-abortion feminists who protest topless for abortion at The Vatican or infiltrate Catholic Churches to push their radical abortion agenda. In Spain, once time, as the Spanish government pushes a pro-life proposal to roll back some of Europe’s most pro-abortion laws, extreme feminists from Femen showed their anger by hurling objects at Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela as he attempted to enter a local Catholic Church before Mass.
In October, the the violent mob of Femen abortion activists attempted to desecrate an Argentine cathedral and threw stones and bottles at Catholics praying the rosary in front of the church on Sunday.
Now, shockingly, the founder of the Brazilian chapter of Femen has become pro-life and is apologizing for her actions. Here’s a report from Red Alert Politics:
Sara Fernanda Giromin, also known as Sara Winter, was not merely feminist. She was the founder of Femen Brazil in 2012 and later of Bastardxs. Both groups gained nation and worldwide attention for their angry bare-chested protests.
Winter is reportedly upset with how the feminist movement “uses women as objects” and “covers up pedophilia in its ranks.” While Sara’s own religious beliefs are not clear, she did apologize to Christians and referred to feminism as “a religious sect.”
I saw the feminist movement cover up for PEDOPHILES. I saw the feminist movement PERSECUTE WOMEN … I am a witness to the fact that today in the feminist movement women are not of any importance but serve as fuel for the fires of hatred that the feminist sect cannot allow to die.
Fortunately, Winter is now pro-life.
There are still reasons to celebrate, other than Sara having a complete change of heart three years later. She has not only denounced and exposed feminism, but is pro-life.
Sara aborted her first child, but gave birth to her second, a son. It was he who helped her change her attitude on abortion. In October she repented and asked for forgiveness. She also implored “women who are desperate to abort” to “think carefully about it.” Sara was “very sorry I did it” and spoke of how “I don’t want the same for you.”
A report in The Blaze has more on Winter, whose real name is Sara Fernanda Giromin, recanting her pro-abortion views.
“I have repented of having had an abortion and today I ask for forgiveness,” Giromin wrote, claiming that after the birth of her baby, “life has taken on a new meaning.”
“Please, women who are desperate to abort, think carefully about it. I was very sorry I did it. I don’t want the same for you,” she added.
In a YouTube video published earlier this month, Giromin, who founded Femen Now at age 19, apologized to Christians for her past transgressions.
What she is saying, in brief, is ......On 04/10/14, I and another activist from the Coleção Bastardas organized a feminist protest in front of the Candelária Church in Rio de Janeiro. The purpose of the act was to protest against the homophobic statements of the presidential candidate of the republic Levy Fidelix. Sadly, letting me get carried away by extremism, I ended up offending thousands of religious and non-religious people. Now I come here with all the humility of the world to ask for forgiveness.
(ps: Dark circles are indicative of who has small baby.)
Winter is proof that, like so many other pro-life advocates who have come from the ranks of the abortion industry over the years, even the hardest heart can be softened.
I suspect someone took her a kindly drink one time when she was protesting. But more likely, IMHO, the men who were saying the Rosary outside the Cathedral were praying for her. Have a cool drink. Love the little ones. They will grow big and some bent out of shape by destructive winds. Pray for them. Pax
Goodbye 2018. Many will say 'good riddance', while others will have had a brilliant old time of it. I can't say that the Tavern's year was other than 'mixed. Certainly the latter half saw the old Tavern Keeper struck down a couple of times and on his knees in the Crypt, asking "Why meeee? " Hahaha. But in the main I am still standing: and the Tavern's walls and tables and bars, while listening to its customers as they imbibe, has heard some pretty awful things from around the world that put mine in perspective, and some splendid events too. All in all, one can say that 'things have been worse'.
We had a customer tell us of the really Worse time to be alive, but first let us take a quick look at what passed for Big Events and Matters of Interest in 2019.
Notice that jubilation at the 'Climate' bizzo? What crock. Here we are in possibly (probably) the most benign climatic period in history and what do we have? Money-grubbers trying to spread doom and gloom and rob your wallet. Jamie Seidel gave us the nuts and bolts of the doom and gloom that really struck our planet: when man's incompetence and greed were overtaken by a far more powerful Nature.
536 AD. Worst year ever
Throughout history, our ancestors have had more pressing concerns.
Finding wild weather a problem? How about 18-straight months of fog?
Supermarket prices getting too high? How about watching all your crops wither and die?
Constantly catching some new bug? How about contending with the Black Plague?
Sick of government leadership spills? How about the collapse of civilisation itself?
Harvard University medieval historian Michael McCormick has set out to find out just how bad things were, and what caused it all.
He’s come up with some answers.
“It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” Professor McCormick says.
It was the darkest moment of the Dark Ages.
Now we know why. And when things started to get better again.
Times weren’t great. The Western Roman Empire had collapsed 60 years earlier, when Emperor Romulus was defeated by the Germanic war lord Odoacer.
Without the central rule of law, Rome’s old provinces throughout Europe became increasingly isolated. Infrastructure such as aqueducts, public baths and roads were failing. The highways were thick with brigands. Local strongmen surged forward to fill the power vacuum.
But things were about to get much, much worse.
Professor McCormick has told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that 536 may not have been the exact worse year — but it was the year things fell apart.
The next decade would be a living hell.
The results of his study were published in the journal Antiquity.
It was as if the gods had abandoned Europe, China — and much of the land in-between.
A mysterious fog rolled over Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
It did not lift.
For 18 months it sat there — plunging the lands into
darkness.
“And it came about during this year that a most dread portent took place,” wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.”
It was just the start. The following decade would be the coldest recorded for at least 2300 years.
But, in 536, snow would fall in summer.
Crops withered and died.
People starved — en masse.
What caused it all has long been unknown.
But a 1990s analysis of the growth of tree rings during the era proved the historic records: the summers around 540AD were certainly very cold, severely stunting their growth.
Rome’s Western Empire may have collapsed. But the Eastern Empire still stood.
Emperor Justinian the Great seemed firmly ensconced. He was in the 10th year of his — until then — prosperous reign.
Then, the skies grew dark.
“And it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed,” Procopius described.
Elements of the thriving network of international trade established over the past 600 years lingered. Nations and provinces still relied upon each other for vital resources.
After 536, this would not last. But it would contribute to making things worse.
Bubonic plague began its relentless march.
Among people and animals already reeling from starvation, the Black Death would extract a terrible toll. And the disease-carrying parasites would spread far and wide carried by ships, wagons, and travellers.
In 541, the Roman port of Pelusium in Egypt became the first major population centre to be brought to its knees by plague. The following Plague of Justinian killed up to one half of the entire population of the Eastern Roman Empire — bringing on its collapse.
Europe, the Middle East and much of Asia fell into economic and societal collapse that would last just over a century.
It was what would commonly become known as the Dark Ages.
Entire peoples would uproot and swarm across Europe, seeking new lands to plant their crops.
It was the era that spawned legends such as that of King Arthur — with lingering memories of a lost golden age, and a yearning for a hero to bring back the good times.
How things got so bad, so fast, has long puzzled historians.
Was the Roman Empire simply too corrupt to survive?
Were the ‘barbarians’ stampeding and ravaging their way across Europe?
And what was the cause of that choking cloud of fog?
Professor McCormick and his team say they now have an answer.
Careful analysis and dating of ice cores exposed evidence of an event that sparked the global catastrophe.
Volcanic ash.
Vaporised glass. Sulphur. Bismuth. All were blasted high into the sky, creating a thin film reflecting sunlight back into space.
Glaciologist Paul Mayewski of the University of Maine says the ash appears to have come from a volcano in North America, or perhaps Iceland.
It blew — big time — in early 536. It spewed ash across the entire Northern Hemisphere.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
The volcano erupted twice more — in 540 and 547. The consequent ash clouds served only to revitalise the climate changing impact of the first.
But the ice core reveals more.
Each tree-ring-like layer of ice acts like nature’s logbook of what was happening at the time.
Among those layers associated with 640AD was found a sudden spike in particulate lead.
And historians knew where that came from.
Industry had revived.
Economies had fired up.
The wheels of trade had begun to roll again.
And greasing it all was the flow of freshly-minted silver coin — the processing of which produces the lead pollution.
Professor McKormick’s team found microscopic particles of volcanic glass in a Swiss glacier dating from 536. Ice cores and tree-rings from Greenland and a peat-bog cores from welsewhere in Europe also contained similar particles.
Indications are they came from a volcano in Iceland, but the samples are too small to be certain. The researchers say they want to examine cores from lakes in Europe and Iceland to identify more fallout from this catastrophic event.
Once identified, there may be clues as to why this particular eruption proved so devastating.
Wherever the volcano, the jet-stream winds propelled the plume across Europe and Asia. Beneath it, the chilled-fog formed.
The ice also tells the tale of the end of this dark age.
Archaeologist Christopher Loveluck of the University of Nottingham says in Antiquity that the ability to precisely date sample cores was a major breakthrough for historians.
Ice cores are proving to be a fantastic resource for inferring what has happening at any given point in history. Each snowfall lands on top of another, building up layer-by-layer ice sheets that capture snapshots of what was in the air for each given season.
“We’ve entered a new era with this ability to integrate ultra — high-resolution environmental records with similarly high resolution historical records,” Loveluck says. “It’s a real game changer.”
The cores reveal the smelting of lead ore to extract silver produced a surge in pollution in 640, and again in 660.
Economies were thriving once again. Gold was becoming scarce for coins. So silver found itself suddenly in great demand.
“This unambiguously shows that, alongside any residual pool of Roman bullion and imported metal, new mining facilitated the production of the last post-Roman gold coins — debased with increasing amounts of silver — and the new silver coinages that replaced them,” the researchers wrote.
Loveluck added: “It shows the rise of the merchant class for the first time,”
It was a golden age set to last 700 years.
Then the ice cores tell another tale.
Once again, lead vanished from the air.
Between 1349 and 1353, the Black Death once again swept through Europe.
Once again economies collapsed. Crops failed.
But it wouldn’t prove as bad as 536.
Grim times past. So many deaths !! We all needed a drink, sitting out on the patio looking out over the waters where we watched the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race finishers sailing past.. We are in 'comfortable' times. The sun is warm. The waters blue. What could possibly be wrong. Hmmmm. Our civilisation is falling apart, that's what. And we can't blame a volcano. But we do blame 4WD cars !! They have no effect whatsoever on our planet but the modern hubris has it - from the hundreds who fly in to meetings in expensive places - that we are more powerful than Nature and can be blamed. Well, YOU can be blamed. We are becoming mad, immature, stupid,..... call it what you will. We are definitely becoming anti-life, as bad as any massive eruption. Half the Eastern Roman Empire was a modest number of people and I dare say less than the number of the most vulnerable people that we, deliberately, kill, Every Year.
Abortion was the number one cause of death worldwide in 2018,
with more than 41 million children killed before birth, Worldometers reports.
As of December 31, 2018, there have been some 41.9 million abortions performed in the course of the year, Worldometers revealed. By contrast, 8.2 million people died from cancer in 2018, 5 million from smoking, and 1.7 million died of HIV/AIDS.
Worldometers — voted one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA) — keeps a running tally through the year of major world statistics, including population, births, deaths, automobiles produced, books published, and CO2 emissions.
It also records the total number of abortions in the world, based on the latest statistics on abortions published by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Globally, just under a quarter of all pregnancies (23 percent) were ended by abortion in 2018, and for every 33 live births, ten infants were aborted.
There were more deaths from abortion in 2018 than all deaths from cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol, and traffic accidents combined.
The staggering number of deaths from abortion, in fact, has led certain observers to call abortion “the social justice cause of our time,” since judging from the sheer magnitude of the problem other human rights issues pale in comparison.
Hey, but take cheer and fill your cups. Hope. Pray. Be courageous. Stand with those who help mothers rather than kill their babies. May 2019 be the year YOU grasp the nettle, bite the bullet, take up your sword. And find good fortune coming your way. Pax
