ZZ, Um, Well,

Kudos to whoever did this one. I found it in the comments section of the Powerline Blog.

The original video:

Black Powder Blues

A repeat from a while ago. The “fog of battle” was a real thing, back in the days of black powder.

Making black powder doesn’t require too many ingredients. But the history of gunpowder, and of making powder that could be used in artillery, is rather complex and fascinating. I had to do a fair amount of research into the subject for the Colplatschki books, in part because I had no idea exactly when the shift from match-lock to flint-lock took place, and when cannons first became important. As usually happens to me, it just grew from there. Because you can’t have firearms without chemical propellant. Torsion weapons, yes, but not guns. And it turns out that black powder has a fascinating history and was the cause of a lot of headaches for would-be gunners. It was also part of why firearms and crossbows and other “out-of-date” weapons existed side-by-side for so long.

Sulfur is easy to find. Charcoal is very easy to make. Saltpeter is . . . more difficult.

Late January ’24 State of the Author

Snnnniiiiif. Ah-CHOOOOO!!!! Snnnifff.

Oh well. Better a mild head-cold (again) and allergies than the [lowers voice, glances around] Stomach Crud.

The draft of the next-plus-one Familiar Generations book is done and is resting.

I’ll start compiling the edits for Harrier and Murder later this coming week, for a mid-February release.

The third Elect book has been tidied, and I’ll be asking for readers in a few weeks. I hope for a late March release on that one.

Once I get the draft of the Wyrd West story done, I’ll probably do one for Goblin Market, then start on the next Merchant book. I have a few scenes for that one already, I just need to dig in.

I’ve had a Shikari idea rolling around, but I also have a chunk of a Scottish (post-Roman ish) fantasy, and the one based on the Indo-European-speakers’ arrival in South Asia. I have no idea when I’ll get to those. Familiar Generations 7 is also roughed out, ish. Very ish.

I might be at LibertyCon this year. It depends on if/when I hear back from some connections about a possible history tour. I’m not really optimistic about it, but we’ll see. (It reminds me of when Mom and DadRed were supposed to go with a British tour group to Kashmir to go bird watching and wildlife viewing. They ended up going to Northern Italy instead. You can probably guess why.)

Chaperoning season has begun at Day Job, so there are a few of those to keep me busy as well.

Topophilia vs. Fog

The Panhandle has been subject to a week of very dense fog. As in “pilot cars on the interstate need seeing eye dogs” dense fog, visibilities of 100 feet of less. Going to work in the mornings ranges from mildly interesting to “Um, is there still a city here, and why do I hear Rod Serling on the radio?”

For mariners and others, fog has a negative connotation. It hides dangerous rocks and shoals, confuses sounds, and hampers celestial navigation. On land, anything can hide in the fog, as the Romans rediscovered at the Teutoberg Forest. Humans in general do not feel comfortable in surroundings with limited visibility. We can grow used to them, but reductions in line-of-sight often cause feelings of discomfort.

The reason goes very far back in human history. A lot of work has been done by cultural and physical geographers looking into “what do humans want” in terms of the ideal physical setting. What they find over and over, in almost all cultures, is a savannah. Slightly rolling land with scattered clusters or individual trees, grass between the trees, and running water but not too much water. Long lines of sight, in other words, and a blend of resources. Sky condition wasn’t specified, but “not foggy” would probably be one of the preferred states. Fog hides predators, and a savannah provides fewer lurking and ambush spots.*

In fiction, film, and other media, fog is eerie, creepy, menacing, even dangerous. A castle in the fog is probably not a great place to go exploring, especially at night. Forests in the fog hide enemies, monsters, or just rough terrain and holes that you can’t find until you get there. Fog on the road means, oh, phantom hitch-hikers, no warning before hitting a slower car, and so on. The fog itself might be dangerous, depending on what chemicals are in it, or (fantasy novel) it becomes sentient and does strange things to people. Sci-fi version is it conceals something that changes humans into, oh, cacti, or aliens doing strange things.

So there I was, driving in very, very dense** fog, and my imagination kicked into gear. Two cowboys riding fence in a dense fog, and one says … “Where’d the canyon go?” Because something isn’t there.***

*Leopards and other “drop down on prey” species the exception, of course.

**It was dense enough that some roofers shingled the end of the barn and another three feet of fog. (H/t Roger Welsch and his Nebraska folklore collections.)

***It has something to do with fog, and hospitality, and a one-eyed wandering stranger …

Book Review: Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning

Biggar, Nigel. Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning. (New York: William Collins, 2023) Kindle edition

Short version: A well-written, data-packed assessment of British colonialism from 1800-1950, generally neutral to cautiously positive.

Long Version: During the anti-imperial (“Down with Rhodes! Churchill abetted genocide and famine!”) push on English several English university campi, theologian and philosopher Nigel Bigger arranged to hold a symposium on British colonialism in order to encourage informed debate. He was unprepared for the shouts that even discussing colonialism was morally wrong: the colonialists were wrong, even evil at times, and no further discussion was needed. As a result, he did a lot of research (35 page bibliography, hundred plus pages of notes) and produced a readable book that lays out arguments, data from the places and times as best we can ascertain, and reaches a measured conclusion about British colonialism.

I read about the book on a web-site, and it sounded useful, so I ordered a copy. It can be dry at times, because Biggar includes lots and lots of data, and bureaucratic documents are not always gripping reads. It also feels a bit repetitive, again because of the tone of the sources as well as parallel examples (Africa, Canada, India on similar events, in one case). That is also a great strength, because all the examples are laid out for the reader, making it an excellent reference if you need material on, oh, industrial development vs. destruction of native industries (textiles in India being a clear example) or other things.

Each chapter takes on one or two of the complaints raised about British imperial behavior. The author lays out the current accusation or complaint, then lays out the data, and draws his conclusion. He also lets critics speak in their own words, full quotations, so readers can get a sense of the arguments. I’ve heard of some of the modern writers, but others are more specialized in fields such as Subaltern History or Anglo-First Nations Relations, and will be new to readers. I found this very useful, because while I have heard or read of the critiques of British colonialism, I have not read the original author’s work (again with a few exceptions). The primary source data work well when paired in this fashion, and in some cases, the critic’s data do not support the argument (that the colonial government deliberately starved or at least grieveously neglected Native Americans in Canada when the bison population collapsed. As best the records show, 48 Native Americans died of starvation due to lack of aid.)

Overall, the impression the reader gets is that 1) British colonial administrators and planners did not set out to destroy cultures (aside from slavery and eventually sati) or crush native populations, 2) the initial economic damage was real but was occasionally magnified by local cultural customs [and fit the same pattern as happened in England decades to centuries earlier], 3) the technology lag played a role in that damage, 4) budget constraints should get the blame for a number of problems, not deliberate policy, 5) the British often tried to leave the locals alone in terms of culture, leadership, and faith UNLESS it involved slavery or sati. Biggar sometimes sounds defensive of British efforts, but given how strongly and for how long the critics have held sway, his tone is understandable. Yes, there were problems, yes things went wrong, yes they could have been more right … but then wasn’t now. Within the constraints of time, policy choices, and resources, British colonialism probably did less harm than good. Certainly a number of natives looked back at the colonial period with a sense of regret that the new governments had not kept some parts of British rule, such as the law being blind to caste, class, and tribe, or the protections set in place for minority members.

European colonial administrators and policy makers were not saints, and oft times, the best of intentions collided with the local cultural reality to lead to problems. What came after the departure of the colonial power was often less than ideal, at least for some peoples. The legacy of British colonial policies was not the pure evil that some activists claim. In short, humans administered and governed other humans, with all the complications, successes, and failures that entails.

I’d recommend the book to history teachers, people interested in the colonialism debate as applies to Britain, readers looking for more about imperial policy in comparative cases (African colonies vs. Australia and Canada vs South Asia), and people curious about the cultural fights over Cecil Rhodes, Winston Churchill, and the British legacy as a whole. It benefits from careful reading, but is not a slog or a dry read.

FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this book for my own use and received no remuneration or consideration from the author or the publisher in exchange for this review.

The Gully: A Meditation on Memory

It probably had a map name, one given by officials as they laid out the town and confirmed property rights and titles. We all called it “The Gully.” There was only one, everyone knew where it was, so who needed any further detail? It ran behind the houses in the neighborhood, eventually fading out somewhere in a yard that we didn’t venture into. We had enough space to roam in “our” gully, thank you. The other side? A golf course, with a fence that never stayed mended in winter. We didn’t trespass in summer, but once the snows fell, a tiny part of the golf course became ours. It was the logic of kids – no one said no, no one mended the fence, no parent told us to stay out, so it was ours by right of usufruct.

The place I remember was a hundred feet deep, occasionally chest-high in nettles, often damp in spots, and open for transit. We wandered up and down over several miles, or so my memory says, shaded and humid. It was great for having foreign adventures, playing Star Wars, explorer, Battlestar, or pretending to be Indians. Passage in winter could be more difficult because of waist-deep-on-us snow, so it mostly served to connect us to The Sledding Hill. (Like in Highlander, there could be only one.) It wasn’t paradise, because no version of paradise included mosquitoes, giant nettles, or snakes and bugs. That we all agreed on, Catholics, Protestants, Jewish, or “whatever.” But it was ours. Very few teens trespassed, and no adults messed with our gully.

The reality was far more prosaic. It had been part of stream network, but development interrupted some of the drainage pattern, leaving this section high and relatively dry. Parents were OK with us using the gully because we weren’t on the streets, which had little traffic but also no sidewalks. They could track our progress fairly easily, and it was hard for us to get into real trouble or danger. (This was back in the days when random and assorted scuffs, bruises, nettle stings, and eating a little dirt were part of life, not grounds for someone to call Child Protective.) We squabbled, fell in and out of friendships, and so on. As it turns out, the gully and adjacent land was also supposed to be a public park and bridle-path, as it had been so designated in the early 1900s. The sledding hill was not on public land, but I suspect the Powers That Were opted to turn a blind eye so long as we only appeared in winter and didn’t get into serious trouble.

I have memories with a golden haze about them, with the stings and fights and scrapes and frozen nose burnished off. I also look back as an adult and mildly boggle at how fortunate we all were, both to have the opportunity to play and roam as grade school kids, and that we never got seriously hurt. It was a different world, and many of us had been encouraged to learn sort of suburban bush-craft. We all knew not to eat berries from the snow in winter, and that just because birds ate it didn’t mean we could. Mulberries were fair game, any we could reach easily, likewise honeysuckle. Other stuff? Nope. We’d all been taught not to stick our hands into holes, and if we saw a raccoon, to run.

I’d like to idealize the gully and that part of my childhood, but I can’t exactly. What’s interesting is that places I always remember with fondness and the soft haze of happiness. People not so much. I wonder if my introvertedness was already starting to become apparent, even before I moved to Texas and discovered that fitting in didn’t come automatically. Looking back, I can see that a different wiring “quirk” had begun to manifest then as well. I have no desire to go back to visit the gully as it now is. I like my memory better, thanks. The neighborhood is now part of a big city, with big city problems, and more rules about who can be where and when. I no longer fit there. But I will always enjoy going the gully in my memory, where I can run around, and hide from adults, and sled down The Hill to my heart’s content.

Finding Lost Landscapes

What did it look like back then? I know what Omaha, Nebraska looked like in the late 1970s, or at least part of it. I think. I have maps of Vienna and Budapest from 1900 and 1850, so those are available. Starting in the 1700s, surveyors mapped swaths of Western and Central Europe and North America (mostly. Not the San Juan Mountains until the 1920s) and left sketches and written descriptions, some more helpful than others. Before then? Archaeology, some historical documents if they survive, sometimes paintings.

Before then? Archaeology and palynology and geology. Taking sediment cores of riverbeds and river banks can help determine wet and dry periods, and identify phases when the river laid down material from upstream or cut through newer layers to older. If you are fortunate, you can ease along the edge of the current stream and see things like that. Otherwise it is cores and analysis. Some ponds serve the same purpose, as well as providing pollen. The combination of sand/grit/pebbles/mud and pollen can identify broad changed in the pond’s depth and in the plants around it*. Archaeology plus geology reveals if a town was abandoned because a river flooded it once too often, or if the river moved and left the city high and dry (or low and dry). That was one of the clues for confirming the existence of a now-lost river in what is the Punjab. A line of the remains of villages and settlements where a river should be but isn’t. One of those rare “huge, earth-changing moments” combined with more gradual geology and weather pattern shifts to redirect water east instead of south.

Before that? Well, it’s geology all the way down. One of the things with volcanic outbursts and glaciers is that they can generate “reverse topography,” where the rough places become plains and the valleys are uplifted, to misquote Isaiah. Glaciers are very good at filling in valleys with debris and carving down hills, erasing minor lumps. They might divert around other hills, as happened in what is South Dakota in the US, leaving two otherwise undistinguished uplands as islands in the ice and glacial debris. Volcanic lava, mud, and pyroclastic flows seek low points, filling in stream valleys and lowlands. As erosion, regional uplift, and other things happen over thousands and thousands of years. the harder volcanic material remains as the surrounding rocks erode away, leaving “stream beds” tens to hundreds of feet above the surrounding landscape.

The trick is learning to see and read the now bass-akward topography. Or sort out rock layers that have flipped themselves, or been stacked at an angle because of a blister of rock that bubbled up when stuff happened hundreds or even thousands of miles away (Harz Mountains, Black Hills). The Earth has a bad habit of burying the best, easiest-to-read geology, or hiding it under dirt and plants and trees. It’s a bit like learning how to “see” a stream, to observe the pools and riffles, read the bed material and find knickpoints that were changed by changes in the land around the stream.

*Windblown pollen can travel a long, long way, something pollen experts take into account when presenting their findings.

Cinder Cone Sunrise

My room in Flagstaff faced east, looking at the flanks of a dormant volcano and then toward other cinder cones. Sunrise in northern Arizona in late July is … early*. Especially when the window doesn’t have blinds. So I got up, yawned, and opened the window to get some cool air.

The storms of the day before had left clean skies and high clouds behind. The morning began dark blue, then crimson red washed the sky, leaving the volcanoes black and rough, shaggy shadow lumps interspersed with solitary pines closer to the house. The slopes carried a thin pelt of cedar and pine interspersed with sage. To the north, out of sight, the San Francisco peaks lurked, heavy and waiting, biding their time. A chorus of “qworks” and “caws” heralded the morning ravens and crows. As I watched, the sky changed, crimson fading to rose, shifting to peach that darkened to orange before blue and white claimed the victory. The pines turned black before fading to green.

The morning smelled of pine and rain-washed stone. I wandered out of the house, studying the neighborhood and looking for good walking routes. I found one where the subdivision flowed into a city park, one that led to the mountains. The trail wound upwards among wildflowers and pines, eventually reaching the crest of the little ridge. Once the ridge had been a stream valley, until lava filled it, and the rest of the land eroded away. Reverse topography it’s called, the fossils of long-ago landscapes.

By 0630 traffic sounds began to rival crow and other bird calls. I had returned to the house by then, chased indoors by the sun. The air remained cool, although the forecast warned of another day in the upper-80s. For Flagstaff, that’s warm. For someone from the Texas Panhandle? Not bad at all, especially if there’s a breeze.

*But not as early as Scotland in June.

A Week of Odd Birds

Or at least of seeing unusual birds, or unusual numbers of birds.

On Tuesday afternoon, as I left work, I stopped at the traffic light just before you get to the “edge of civilization.” I happened to notice a large bird overhead, heading roughly 250 degrees (west-southwest). It had a very pale head and a dark, perhaps black, body. I stared, blinked, glanced down, then up again. White head, black body and wings, white tail.

Creative Commons fair use: Original website source removed from internet.

Bald eagles are not unheard of around here. A few migrate through and stop in the canyons on their way to wherever. I have not seen one locally before, so it was very exciting. The light changed, and I went on my way, eyes back on the road. I suspect the hard storm and cold knocked it off course, and it was departing for warmer climes.

On Thursday, hundreds of geese flew over as I left Day Job, skein after skein, V after V. Everyone else in the parking area stopped and stared at the procession as the birds headed east. They are the first non-local geese I’ve seen in two months. We had scads of migrating waterfowl near Day Job this fall, since the playas have water in them. Great grey herons, something smaller and pure white that wasn’t an egret (it floated on the water rather than wading. Domestic geese in with the Canadian versions?), scads of different ducks. But we have not had the masses of geese overhead like in the past.

Caturday: All Cats are Fluids Edition

Not a gas, although both fluids and gasses will take the shape of their container. Fluids have discernible mass. So does Jace.

Cat expands to fill container.

“Your whites need to be whiter. So I whiten them!”

“Dignity? I don’t need no steenkin’ dignity!”

Ah, cats.