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wolveswolves · 1 year

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Sweden’s biggest, controversial endangered wolf cull has started but campaigners fight on

February 2023 - Hunters have already shot dead 54 wolves in Sweden’s largest ever cull, while scientists warn that wolf numbers are not large enough to sustain a healthy population

Hunters have shot dead 54 wolves in a month in Sweden’s largest and most controversial cull of the animals yet, prompting fury from conservationists and satisfaction among farmers who consider the predators a threat to their livelihoods.

The Stockholm government has authorised the shooting of 75 wolves in its 2023 cull, more than twice last year’s figure, despite warnings from scientists that wolf numbers are not large enough to sustain a healthy population.

“Wolves are a threat for those of us who live in rural areas,” said Kjell-Arne Ottosson, a Christian Democrat MP and vice-president of the parliament’s environment and agriculture committee. “We have to manage that. We have to take this seriously.”

Farmers say more than 340 sheep were killed in 2021 by a Swedish wolf population estimated at about 460. The predators, which in the 1960s were thought to be extinct in Sweden, are also resented by hunters, who say the dogs they use to track and drive deer and elk are regularly attacked.

“This cull is absolutely necessary to slow the growth of wolves. Sweden’s wolf population is the largest we have had in modern times,” Gunnar Glöersen, predator manager at the Swedish Hunters’ Association, told public broadcaster SVT.

However, the scale of this year’s planned cull – only 203 wolves have been shot in total in Sweden in the 12 years since authorised hunting resumed – has alarmed conservationists. “It’s tragic,” said Daniel Ekblom of the Nature Conservation Society. “It could have consequences for a long time to come.”

Scientists have said that to sustain a healthy population, the wolf population roaming Sweden and Finland should not fall below 500, and Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency has said at least 300 are necessary to avoid harmful inbreeding.

Led by centre- and far-right parties, however, Sweden’s parliament voted two years ago to cap the wolf population at 270, while the Swedish Hunters’ Association wants to go even further and lower the limit to 150 animals.

Wolf numbers fell steeply in Sweden after 1789, when a law was passed allowing commoners to hunt. That led to the decimation of the deer and elk populations, prompting wolves to prey more on livestock – and the state to pay a bounty for every wolf killed.

The population shrank to the brink of extinction and the predator was declared a protected species in the 1960s. Numbers began growing again 20 years later, however, when three wolves from the Russian-Finnish population migrated to central Sweden.

Conservation organizations in the country have attempted to overturn the wolf hunting mandate but have been unsuccessful.

Groups used the Bern Convention as their main argument. An international treaty agreed upon in 1979, the convention seeks to protect both wildlife and their habitats. Actions to do so are taken in the name of conservation.

“Wolves as top predators in the food chain are a prerequisite for biodiversity. Killing a quarter of the population through hunting has negative consequences for animals and nature,” Marie Stegard, president of Swedish anti-hunting group Jaktkritikerna told the Guardian.

“It’s disastrous for the entire ecosystem. The existence of wolves contributes to a richer animal and plant life. Human survival depends on healthy ecosystems.”

The European Commission has previously opened infringement proceedings against Sweden, warning that the annual cull falls foul of the EU’s habitats directive since “the wolf population has not reached a level that guarantees its conservation”.

“It’s astonishing that Sweden keeps on making these decisions,” said Marie Stegard Lind of the anti-hunting group Jaktkritikerna. “The commission has been very clear about its opinion that these hunts are, in fact, illegal,” Lind told AFP.

This year’s cull began in early January and ends on 15 February, although several regional authorities have already called it off having reached their quota. Experts have said the government’s planned national total of 75 wolves may not be reached.

Under pressure from farmers and hunters, the government authorised limited annual culls again in 2010. Since then, the wolf “has become a symbol of the conflict between the city and rural areas”, Johanna Sandahl of the Nature Conservation Society told AFP.

Sources: [x], [x]

#wolf #wolves #wildlife #animals #wildlife conservation #sweden #news #article #hunt #cull #trigger warning #population control

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etherealspacejelly · 6 months

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Wanna help save the planet??? Here's how!

hey you! yeah, you! do you hate climate change??? wanna do something about it?? let me tell you about one simple thing you can do to help!

i study environmental science at university, and every day it seems like we are looking at Yet Another graph that shows how royally fucked we are, and that sucks!! there is not much the average person can do to prevent this, however, as the vast majority of our greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuel burning to generate electricity, something we the little people do not have much control over. and yeah, you can go to protests and email your MPs, but that doesnt really feel like its doing anything a lot of the time, so you are probably wondering what You Specifically can do Right Now to help prevent climate change even the tiniest amount. and the answer is probably not what you expect!

the second largest greenhouse-gas-producing industry is agriculture. this is due to ruminant animals (animals that eat and digest grass such as cows, goats, and sheep) producing vast quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas which can be 80x as potent as carbon dioxide.

meat production is also highly space inefficient, as animals require wide areas of pasture, but are also often fed crops too, so require Even More area to grow those crops. this means cattle farming is a huge contributor to deforestation, as farmers require more and more space.

so what can you do to help? the answer is simple: cut down on your red meat consumption! this doesnt necessarily mean go vegetarian, although that is Even Better, because any reduction in the consumption of red meat, especially beef, will reduce your carbon footprint massively! simply replace the red meat in your diet with fish, poultry, or plant-based protein sources, and you're already making a difference!

i myself chose to go vegetarian last year for this exact reason, and it hasnt been nearly as difficult as i thought. so if i can do it, you can too!! share this post, tell your friends, spread the word! we can help save the world, one veggie burger at a time :)

tl;dr : the red meat industry produces hella methane, switch to poultry, fish, or veggie protein instead!

#environment #environmental activism #activism #global warming #climate change #climate crisis

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beardedmrbean · 5 months

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The bill, put forward by ruling majority MP Nicole Le Peih and supported by President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government, was approved 78 votes to 12 overnight on Monday and will now proceed to the Senate.

"This law will put an end to abusive lawsuits against farmers who do nothing but their job: feed us. It is a common-sense proposal, country-side common-sense," Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said on social media platform X.

French governments have long courted farmers, an influential sector that Paris ignores at its peril.

The country has a history of conflicts between former city dwellers buying country houses and then complaining about roosters crowing, dogs barking, the noise of agricultural machinery or the smell of manure. BFM TV reported that nearly 500 farmers are currently facing lawsuits from neighbours taking issue with noise, or smells, emanating from their farms. In 2019, in a case that caught international media attention, a court ruled that a rooster called Maurice could continue his dawn crowing despite complaints from neighbours in a village on a small island off France's Atlantic coast.

France already has legislation, introduced in 2021, to protect the "the French countryside's sensory heritage", but the new law aims to give more protection to existing farms from newly arrived residents in the area.

"Proud to support those who work in our fields. Now to the Senate," farming union FNSEA Deputy Chairman Luc Smessaert said on X.

Brittany region environmentalist Claire Desmares told local radio France Bleu that the proposed law is an "absurd and populist" measure proposed by the powerful agricultural lobby. _______________________

You moved next to a dairy, it's gonna smell and be noisy, don't like it move elsewhere.

One more reason country folks want to keep city people out of their areas right here.

#nunyas news

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eaglesnick · 9 months

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“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

We know Rishi Sunak would rather he and his cronies made even more money than they already have than save the planet. Even those within the Conservative party acknowledge this fact, and this was BEFORE Sunak decided to issue hundreds of new licenses for oil and gas extraction from the North Sea, or scrap clean air policies for our cities.

“Goldsmith says Sunak is apathetic about the environment. It’s Hard to disagree. Evidence suggests PM has done little to advance green issues and is allowing the UK to fall behind in climate fight.” (Guardian: 30/06/23)

Are people really going to vote for a man who has allowed our waterways and beaches to become polluted by raw sewage? This was a headline from the Mirror newspaper only yesterday:

“Sewage pours into conservation sites including Lake District for 300,000 hours.” (Mirror: 31/07/23)

Back in January the BBC reported this warning from MP’s to Rishi Sunak:

“England's rivers are contaminated by a "chemical cocktail" of sewage, agriculture and road pollution,,, Microplastics, slurry, car tyre particles, oils and wet wipes are all part of the problem, they said. No English river free of pollution, MPs warn.” (BBC News: 13/01/23)

Clearly, Sunak couldn’t care less as he is advocating more car use, more gas and oil exploration, and has given the privately owned water companies until 2050, to clean up our waterways and coast line.

Even if you are still sceptical about global warming and the lethal consequences this could have for our planet , everyone should care about our rivers and beaches. Two years ago, it was reported “Britain’s rivers are suffocating to death" and that “water pollution (was) causing death by a thousand cuts for rivers”.

In Whitby, there have been “unprecedented levels of crab, lobsters, coral and seabirds…dying on the northeast coast”. (Guardian 10/02/23, while in Kent, Whitstable’s world famous oyster beds are being threatened with extinction from repeated raw sewage discharges into the sea.

“Sewage spills threaten to “wipe out” Whitstable oyster farmers” (The Times: 11/04/23)

Sunak is not interested in you or me. He couldn’t care less about contaminated water, be it inland rivers and lakes or our beaches. He doesn’t care if the waters around our coast are contaminated and dangerous to health, be that human health of the health of marine animals. He doesn’t care for our coastal fisheries or the businesses than make their living from marine farming.

Sunak, a multi-millionaire with a bolthole in sunny California, doesn’t have to live with the consequences of his short-sighted and environmentally damaging actions. It wont be his children paddling in raw sewage. It wont be his children swimming in poisoned waters. It wont be his children who are forced to breathe in polluted air day after day because he has scrapped his own clean air policies. Mr Sunak is an unelected multi-millionaire whose only concern is to make more money for himself and his rich friends. If that means trashing the environment in the process, then so be it – he doesn’t have to live with the consequences. Unfortunately, you and I, and our children and grand children, do.

#uk politics #rishi sunak #pollution #environment #water #raw sewage #inaction #clean air #global warming #climate change

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briarrolfe · 4 months

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Okay, the last marriage equality article I'll share (probably). This one is from Sian Johnson at The Standard in Warrnambool on the 9th of December 2017 and, look, I'm just going to share the whole thing.

Dairy farmer says marriage equality passing ‘knocked him for six’

South-west dairy farmer Jason Smith started crying as he milked his cows on Thursday evening. With his headphones in, he listened live as marriage equality laws passed the federal parliament.

Mr Smith, whose story of being a gay fifth-generation dairy farmer resonated across the country earlier this year, said after advocating for equality for so long, the feeling was "brilliant".

Image from Rob Gundstone, The Senior

"I couldn't stop crying. I just got this feeling of being equal and being okay and having the rest of the country accept me," he said. When he woke up this morning, Mr Smith wondered if he had dreamt the whole thing.

He said he hoped the decision - the "final frontier" in rights for the LGBTI community - would be a boost for LGBTI people living in rural areas.

"It knocks you for six. It's just going to make life so much easier for rural LGBTI people to come out and be more accepted," Mr Smith said.

"There's still a lot of hate around, there's still a lot of negativity, but this will go a long way to turning things around and just normalising things."

Mr Smith said on Friday morning when he went to his local shop, the owner patted him on the back, nodded and gave a wink to show his support.

"I don't currently have a partner to rush off and get married, but I know now that when I find that special person, there's going to be no barriers," he said.

Mr Smith said he couldn't wait to see the first same-sex weddings in the south-west, and the gravity of the change would continue hitting home.

"It will be when each person gets their first invite to a same-sex marriage," he said.

"One day soon everyone will be comfortable in being themselves and that's what I want.

"The sooner you can realise who you are and just be yourself, the better."

The farmer praised Liberal MP Warren Entsch for his long-time role advocating for same-sex marriage, describing him as "the hero here". "It wasn't directly affecting him, but he knew it was for the greater good of our country," Mr Smith said.

For now, Mr Smith said it was time for healing, and for people to continue checking in on how their gay friends and family were doing. "The emotions it has brought up aren't going to go away straight away," he said.

"The loved ones of LGBTI people should check in on their mental health and how they're ticking along in the coming weeks and months.

"(Everyone should) concentrate on healing and enjoying this great leap forward."

#get your story straight #WAAAAAAAAAA ;0;#the hashtag process #research #I wonder if he is married yet... I hope he is

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fumblingmusings · 1 year

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You ready for the most niche thing ever but hey this is what we do here you just have to bear with me as I take 3,000 years to get to the point because learning more about the repeal of Britain's Corn Laws in the 19th Century the more it's just a microcosm of that oh so blessed North American Triangle of Britain and America making deals and Canada going hey wait a second dynamic. Poor Mattie playing second fiddle at... nearly every interaction involving these two.

So. Corn. The Corn Laws were passed after the Napoleonic Wars by Britain to keep prices high for domestic producers, of course making lovely profits for landowners, rather than the farmers who actually grew the stuff. It also prioritised colonial grains, so Canada got a boon with its wheat and flour. Nice example of Mercantilism right there.

The problem wassssssss by the 1840s you have the Irish Famine, food prices are too gosh dang high, no-one has disposable income because factory owners are cutting wages wherever they can, and it's so blatantly obvious that this system only profits the top 10% of British Society. There's no shortage of food, it just costs too fucking much. Ireland is starving and the government is sitting on their hands being useless.

A lot of pressure later, Free Trade is favoured over Mercantilism, and the Corn Laws are dropped. Britain can start importing wheat, barley and other cereals form the cheapest supplier: the US. This is not coincidental that the main MP pushing for their repeal - Richard Cobden - was a massive fan of the USA, doing a lot to try and get the two countries to be friendlier to each other. He subscribed to the 'the more economically entangled you are with another country the less likely you are to fight them' which... has its truths.

So... cheap bread good? So that's one thing.

EXCEPT Canada got completely screwed over since they had gotten priority for any externally grown grain for most of the 1840s - causing a bubble in their market. So when the Corn Laws got repealed and it was open season to the cheapest supplier much of Canada's businesses went bankrupt and following series of unfortunate events semi related to corn people burnt Montreal's Parliament and the capital moved to Toronto and it gave yet another push towards Confederation in the 1860s.

So that's a second thing.

It also kind of screwed over the domestic UK farming industry as the age old 'why buy domestic expensive if foreign cheap?' came into play and another wave of emigrants move to the US and the Dominions in the second half of the 19th century because being an agricultural labourer ain't what it used to be (like 100,000 of people with those jobs 'vanish' from the census within ten years, going to the city of abroad). The fact that, compared to 1830 where Britain imported just 2% of its grain, to the 1880s where it was 45%, (65% for wheat)... Uh-oh.

So that's a third thing.

ALTHOUGH, this did have another side affect of ensuring Britain could not get involved in the American Civil War like okay yes the South was very much banking on the need for cotton to push Britain to intercede but psych! The working class people of Lancashire are braver than any Confederate solider and refuse to work with cotton picked by enslaved peoples and would literally rather starve. Especially as, at that point 40% of the wheat people ate came from Northern US states. What's more important? Bread or cotton?

So... that's a fourth thing.

Anyway. Corn.

Sorry I had to make use of an out of date meme.

I'm just fascinated by how domestic actions can still massively impact other nations... Arthur doing the right thing for his people by lowering bread prices indirectly fucks over Matthew but also protects Alfred down the line. Like... urGH! You know?

#follow me for more stupid not entirely correct history ramblings with the hetalia lens slapped on #hetalia #op #historical hetalia #hws england #hws canada #hws america #headcanon

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hector-garcia · 3 months

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– BASIC INFORMATION.

Full name | Aliases: Hector Oscar García Liddell Gender | Sexual orientation: Cis man | Gay Date of birth | Age: 26th of June | 47 Place of birth: Newcastle upon Tyne Current residence: 10 Downing Street Occupation | Affiliation: Prime Minister of the UK | Labour Party Relationship status: Married to Viktor Liddell. Children: / Positive traits: + Charismatic, brilliant, level-headed, incisive, passionate Negative traits: - Calculating, revolted, idealistic, overly empathetic, intense

– PHYSICAL TRAITS.

Hair color: Salt and Pepper Eye color: Dark brown Height | Weight: 5 feet 9 inches (1.77 m) | 72 kg (160 lbs) Distinguishing features: Strong nose, smooth recognizable voice, Newcastle accent (fading) Faceclaim: Raul Esparza

– BIOGRAPHY.

Hector was born in the working class, to parents who had fled Fidel Castro's regime and made ends meet while they raised him far away from home. Every day, after school, he would do his homework at his mother's desk, who worked as a receptionist in a paper company. His father was a florist working on farmer's markets. They were hard workers, who had big plans for their only son and they saved every month to put him in a proper school. While attending high school, Hector came in second in a competition organized by the British Academy for Science, for his research project on reducing water usage in agriculture, he participated to debate competitions and though he was happy to make his club's victory a collective effort, his extensive knowledge of social, political, economical issues was key into getting 1st place, and it was no surprise that he ended up president of this club as well as 3 others.

He joined college and at the same time officially signed up with the Labour Party as a full member and activist. His parents were involved in politics themselves, and from the moment he was old enough to hold flags at rallies and demonstrations, his father would hoist him up on his shoulders. They both took part in a worker's union, though his mother was the one most devoted to helping both workers and those most vulnerable.

He first did a double licence in sociology and political sciences at LSE, studied in Barcelona for a year with the Erasmus program, and got involved in activism there too. Followed two more years during which he worked on his thesis. He focused on the positive impact immigration had on the country, and while his work was applauded by his peers, he reaped a lot of bile and hatred from the opposition. The dichotomous controversial work ended up in the media. While progressive ones applauded his fresh stance on the question and commented on the depth of his analysis. Qualitative research combined with grounded theory made a solid ground to build his political program on. It didn't matter if some called him a ludicrous dreamer or a clown. Ad hominem attacks only confirmed what he already knew: he needed to take things further, he needed to become a candidate to local elected office.

He ran for council in his borough, Barking and Dagenham, in north eastern London. He fought against gentrification in the area, which would be made all the more painful with the 2012 Olympic Games and the quick evolution of the city in the years that preceded the event. Hector spent most of his free time listening to people who dedicated a lot of their energy, time, or even money for the local community. Eventually, when the time came for him to campaign again, this time for MP, he chose to rely only on their donations, refusing any money that came from corporations and lobbies. The people would be who he represented, not the interest of private companies. It was unconventional. It was risky. He might even lost the election because he fought against Goliaths. Fundraising and media relations was usually handled by professionals who saw the world through a lens filled with statistics and polls.

He shouldn't have won those elections, he supposed. When he won, upspent with a margin of 15 to 1 by his opponents, Hector couldn't believe how much support he had managed to gather through his years as a devoted borough councilman.

Hector, who was now a MP for a little over 10 years, was feeling tight in his shoes, and with the help of his husband, threatened his old LSE pal, none other than the Prime Minister, to reveal the contents of the treaty to the public. He knew the time was right for him. He was quite popular among the party, and his husband's ties with the conservatives made him much easier to accept for the Tories.

His party did get this much right: he represented a breath of fresh air, and those always got people talking. What they didn't get right, however, was this idea that Hector was so much better than your typical politician. Not one bit. He wasn't above shoving people under the bus, or using god awful tactics to get ahead of others. He might have been a likeable personality, with the kind of voice that you could have listened to even if it read the phone book, he also knew when crossing the line was necessary. After all, in a city like London, you couldn't possibly hope to survive being a good guy.

#lfl.intro #hector garcia | biography

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levmada · 1 year

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ok this has been bothering me for ages and i wanna talk about it but no one i know irl wants to hear me rant about levi so here i am

so here's my question: can levi read???

like, there probably weren't any books around when he was little, right? do you think kuchel would have managed to get a pen and paper to teach him how to read/write or was she too focused on keeping them both alive? did kenny teach him? can KENNY read? how high are the illiteracy rates in AoT? could furlan or isabel have taught him? did erwin teach him or was levi too stubborn to admit it to him? maybe hange taught him? i mean, i bet all the commanding officers have to know how to read and write, but have we ever seen levi read anything??? i'm so curious to hear your headcanons (also sorry for the million questions lol)

i AM a doctorate holder of aot lore i am happy to answer.

tldr: yes levi can read.

the underground is like. the pinnacle of poverty. you would NOT have any scholars or ppl of even minimal education down there bc EVERYONE is simply trying to stay alive. like they don’t even have sunlight. reading and education doesn’t even appear on the average citizen’s list of priorities.

similarly, i doubt kuchel could even afford proper toys for levi to play with. not even a cradle for when he was a baby, unless the other women chipped in as an act of kindness maybe. more likely he had woodchips or beads from old jewelry… or maybe some of his babysitters or kuchel let him do their makeup and vice versa okay im getting off track

seeing how kenny got aboveground, and w his later role as captain of the secret MP squad, he probably learned how to read and write at some point. it can be deduced that kenny and kuchel also grew up underground, so they probably didn’t get schooling themselves either.

(i mean grandpa ackerman is KENNY’S grandfather. so for three generations at least, levi’s portion of the ackerman family has been underground after fleeing persecution. where mikasa’s side fled to the countryside. i’m getting off track again.)

kenny had gone aboveground by the time he found levi. maybe he did know by that point, but it would’ve been pointless to teach levi since that had nothing to do with survival. i think it’s more likely he taught levi the bare minimum of bookkeeping / math tho. the basics.

seeing how aot is set in a standard medieval setting, there is an obvious division of class from nobles to farmers and menial labor jobs, etc. becoming a soldier is encouraged as far as the garrison and MP are concerned even. so there’s no way literacy rates (as far as before they found the sea and technology drastically changed) are high at all. below average. i feel like it’s a privilege to know how to read or write, and if you live in Sina you’re much more likely to learn than if you lived in rural wall Maria for example.

isabel and furlan were born in the underground too. it seems like furlan would be good with numbers and record keeping (they ran a criminal enterprise after all), but i don’t think any of them had any literacy.

it’s canon now that erwin taught levi things (in a previous post i made i referenced the source) and specifically classroom stuff levi didn’t understand. so: reading and writing included. that said i don’t think levi trusted hange enough to admit it to them or ask for help at that point.

if you rank as at least a squad leader, reading and writing has to be mandatory. levi is the SECOND MOST IMPORTANT officer so he must know how (like i said, it’s canon erwin taught him). at least once levi was promoted to squad leader. anyway lmao we’ve seen levi read lots of stuff like the newspaper and wanted poster in s3p1 with the drawing of his face + opening the book in the basement in s3p2. in s4p2 in the forest, he read the report from the two messenger scouts. actually as early as the ilse langar(?spelling) ova, when they discovered her body, i think he took out the journal and opened it before hange so. yes definitely.

#aot headcanons #levi ackerman headcanons #levi headcanons #attack on titan hcs #levi hcs #levi ackerman hc #snk headcanons #aot analysis

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greatmuldini · 1 year

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The events of 6 December 1890 were neither preordained nor were they premeditated. Nothing that transpired on the day was inevitable or irreversible: participants chose to stay in character, and to act out their roles in what would eventually be described by biographers and historians as the Parnell Tragedy (Jules Abels, 1966).

Everyone at the time would have been aware of the historical significance of their actions, if not the long-term consequences - excluding of course, the one female member of the cast who could not possibly have known what she was doing. By dint of this congenital deficiency she would also quite naturally be blamed for causing "Ireland's misfortune." Simple and satisfying in terms of its mass market appeal, feminine impulsivity does little to explain the supposedly rational decisions taken by the men around her in the name of patriotism and political expediency - which far from producing an amenable solution served only to exacerbate the crisis. Whereas the exact circumstances and full cast of characters have faded over time the larger-than-life figure of Charles Stewart Parnell still towers over the events of 6 December 1890 as the one man who could have had it all - and lost it all.

Sixty-four years later, the Fall of Parnell inspired an episode of the BBC's "experimental" television series You Are There which set out to present the known historical facts, faithfully, but with an added dimension unique to the new medium: actors would impersonate the key personnel as in a conventional re-enactment. While going about their "business," however, they would be interviewed by modern television reporters. The curious anachronism underlined the artificiality of the concept; it meant the programme was deliberately drawing attention to itself which would have been an unwanted distraction, for You Are There it was the defining feature. Neither the programme nor its - fictitious - journalists were interested in the exploration of alternative histories or in-depth character studies: the point was to demonstrate the possibilities of "live" television, ironically, in a simulated setting. Fact and fiction are trading places as the reality of 1890 becomes the subject of a 1950s fantasy, and the medium of the future interrogates the evidence of the past. For the actors it would have been a challenge to navigate between imaginative portrayal of a fully formed human being and the faithful rendition of the intrinsically incomplete historical record.

The historical record states that Charles Stewart Parnell was born in 1846. The son of a Protestant Irish landowner and an American mother was not naturally predestined to champion the cause of destitute Catholic tenant farmers; indeed, nothing in his early life pointed to any such leanings. As an aristocratic country gentleman he had nothing to fear and everything to gain from the firm imperial rule exerted by the British Crown over the Island of Ireland.

And yet it was Parnell, the English-educated man of pedigree, who emerged as the voice of the starving rural population. Having decided to enter politics for reasons that are still unclear, he found his calling as the Westminster MP for County Meath not in the defence of privilege but in the vocal support - initially for land reform and then increasingly for Irish nationalism ("Home Rule"). Over the next five years Parnell gained a reputation and a following as a fiery orator back in Ireland and a force to be reckoned with in the House of Commons, where is name became synonymous with the new parliamentary tactic of "obstructionism." If the English politicians could not be moved to act in Ireland's interest Parnell vowed to meddle in English affairs. And meddle - or obstruct - he did. After a century of inaction and neglect, the Irish Question seemed relevant again, if only because its proponents made it impossible for English laws to be passed. Parnell seemed to thrive on his tactical manoeuvring which he was prepared to carry to painful extremes, on multiple occasions – including arrest and imprisonment, at the risk of damaging his already fragile state of health.

By 1880 Parnell controlled both the radical grassroots movement in Ireland and the parliamentary representation of Irish interests in London. The position made him a frequent dinner guest in the homes of friends and allies, where on several occasions he also enjoyed the hospitality of Mrs Katharine O'Shea, the English wife of a fellow Irish MP, who was sympathetic not only to the cause but to the man who personified the struggle. Mrs O’Shea had a discreet arrangement with her husband, Captain William “Willie” O’Shea, the Member for County Clare and Galway: their marriage would exist on paper only for the benefit of Willie’s career; while he conducted his business in London she would reside at their official family residence and entertain important visitors. Parnell would often stay as a guest of the family - to recuperate after gruelling campaigns in Ireland, was the official explanation given.

For the next ten years the couple conducted an illicit affair that produced four children and saw the singled-minded saboteur of the political system lead a double life away from Parliament and in the company of Katharine O’Shea. The relationship was not as one might assume a tempestuous whirlwind romance but a curiously claustrophobic still-life of Victorian domesticity - an alternate, self-contained reality where Parnell and his "Queenie" could act out their fantasy of living simply as husband and wife. Their apparent longing for simplicity may also help to explain the ease with which they expected to lead two entirely separate and parallel lives, apparently unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge the inherent paradox and inevitable complication.

In the political arena Parnell was for most of the 1880s an extremely effective manipulator of moods and opinions, always weighing and adjusting the demands of Irish nationalists against the calls for the use of force from the British press, the public, and its politicians. Anyone looking for a core belief or deeply held conviction would have been disappointed by the vagueness of Parnell's own stated aims - which he used to great advantage because it allowed him to gain the confidence of the British side and the respect of his own following. As a small but significant minority, the Irish (or Home Rule) Party under Parnell's skilful machinations was able to make demands in return for the votes it lent to either one of the two dominant forces in 19th century British politics: the Tory (Conservative) Party or the slightly more reform-oriented Liberal Party.

Parnell’s elusiveness became his trademark: the less he said in public, the fewer appearances he made in Parliament, the taller he grew in stature. In 1887 he was accused of having endorsed the murders of two British politicians in Dublin. When the alleged endorsement turned out to be a forgery two years later, the popular reaction was one of relief and renewed admiration for the noble freedom fighter who had been so horribly maligned. By 1889, it seemed as if nothing could go wrong for Charles Stewart Parnell.

Home Rule seemed within reach when, in May of 1889, Katharine O'Shea learned of the death of a wealthy aunt whose fortune she was to inherit. The additional funds would have been a welcome boost to Katharine's finances had it not been for her husband's unexpected interference. Captain William “Willie” O’Shea chose this moment to strike, possibly to exact revenge, more likely to improve his own pecuniary situation. And thus, Captain O'Shea went ahead and contested the will, citing his wife’s infidelity, and his intention to divorce her. Surprised but hardly alarmed, the lovers welcomed what they thought would be an opportunity for them to make their relationship official, the sooner the better.

From the very beginning their affair had been an open secret in political circles, but the Captain’s announcement put the fact of their adultery in the public domain. With their case not due in court for at least another twelve months (i.e. late 1890), Katharine and Parnell were powerless to stop the scandal from spreading, and their silence on the matter allowed grievances to fester. No public statement was ever published, nor did the couple make any public gesture of remorse. They did launch a half-hearted and unsuccessful counterclaim not to deny the adultery but to accuse Captain O’Shea of adultery as well, presumably to shame the Captain into withdrawing his allegation.

For an entire year the unresolved state of their private affairs overshadowed Parnell’s political battle; it affected his health and continued to corrode confidence among his allies in parliament and at home but most significantly among the ranks of the Liberal Party led by Prime Minister William Gladstone. Ironically, and with tragic consequences for Katharine and Parnell, the earliest and most vociferous condemnations came not from the Catholic Church (both Parnell and Katharine were Protestants) but from the other “Nonconformist” denominations outside the established Church of England, which was traditionally a preserve of the Tory (Conservative) Party. An influential group among the Nonconformists were Methodists, whose large working and middle-class following had found in Gladstone’s Liberal Party their political home.

When the divorce eventually came through in November 1890 (decree nisi), Parnell was branded a “convicted adulterer” but also won the legal right to marry Katharine after completion of the obligatory six-month waiting period (decree absolute). The salacious - and uncontested – testimony offered in the course of the trial was, however, fresh on the minds of his party colleagues who were meeting to decide on his future as party leader a mere fortnight after the court’s decision. Gladstone had already warned Irish MPs of the danger to their alliance, the implication being that the Liberal Party would lose the support of its Nonconformist base if it continued to cooperate with a “convicted adulterer.” The message was clear: Irish MPs had no hope of winning Home Rule with Parnell as their leader. They needed the good will and legislative might of a strong Liberal government - and Liberal voters had strong ideas about marriage and adultery. Gladstone did, in effect, issue an ultimatum to Irish parliamentarians: lose your leader or lose Ireland.

Party activists in Ireland meanwhile re-elected Parnell as leader of the Home Rule Party before news of the ultimatum reached their shores, creating an awkward situation which allowed Parnell to claim he had the backing of the party rank and file, while Gladstone faced the beginnings of a split in his own party over the very issue of Irish Home Rule.

Parnell promptly refused to stand down, declaring instead that he considered the matter of Mrs O’Shea’s divorce closed and that, far from being a friend of Ireland, Gladstone had betrayed their cause. Whether or not the accusation was based in fact [substance] hardly mattered in the greater scheme of things. It was Parnell's word against that of the Prime Minister, and a decision had to be made: should the Irish Home Rule Party defy Gladstone and keep Parnell as their charismatic leader, or should the convicted adulterer be deposed in return for English concessions?

On 6 December 1890, after seemingly endless negotiations, Irish parliamentarians convened another marathon session to break the deadlock without destroying the party, its leader, or their country. Obstacles proved insurmountable as Parnell himself chaired the meeting and overruled any motion calling for a vote. Members present at the meeting noted his increasingly autocratic behaviour with concern and were alarmed by the apparent disintegration of his mental and physical identity. What they were witnessing may have been, on one level, the self-evisceration of a disgraced politician, but the concrete struggle of the individual to control his own destiny, and the narrative about it, had gained additional layers of meaning that transcend literal explanations for Parnell's fate.

The extent to which he did control the mythology of his downfall as well as his subsequent (and posthumous) apotheosis is a fascinating subject for debate: was he drawing attention to the opposing forces behind his identity or trying to deflect attention away from his failure to reconcile the two when he claimed that Gladstone and the Liberals were the true enemies of the rightful Irish claim to self-determination? No longer was the crisis a moral dilemma but a question of national pride. The private transgression becomes an affair of state - no longer is it a moral dilemma but a question of national pride: if it was up to the English to dictate who is to be their leader, then Gladstone truly was the master of the Irish Party.

Parnell's rhetorical masterstroke elevated his imminent ouster as party leader to an affront of international proportions by blurring the very boundaries he had otherwise hoped to maintain between the private man and his public persona. It also drew an instant reaction from the assembled party colleagues. "Who is to be the mistress of the party?” put paid to Parnell's noble-minded aspirations and reminded those present once again of the sordid scandal and the root cause of their troubles. Unable to vote the party leader out of office, 44 of his fellow members stood up and left the room, 26 remained with Parnell. It is this moment You Are There chose to dramatize, for the sheer symbolism of the scene: the leader without majority, his party crippled for decades to come. The Liberal Prime Minister ruling unencumbered.

Parnell's story, the story of Ireland's struggle, could have ended here. Or it could have ended differently. If each of the protagonists had chosen a different course of action. Parnell, for his part, chose to fulfil what he must have thought of as his destiny: within hours of the party meeting that left him - it must be remembered - still nominally undefeated, he embarked on a tour of Ireland to speak at rallies and unite the crowds behind the candidates he chose to stand in by-elections. Any hopes of regaining the momentum lost in London were slim at best; the winter weather and Parnell's failing health reduced the schedule and, compounded by his ever more radical oratory, crowds became more difficult to control, and enthusiasm for the struggle was waning. But just as the chances of a concrete, real-life settlement were growing increasingly remote, the idea of the struggle captured the imagination of contemporary and subsequent generations, and Parnell became its idealized figurehead - not without considerable work from Parnell himself, who cultivated an air of steely nerves, superhuman strength, and emotional detachment in public while being fiercely protective of his privacy. The polar opposites that defined his existence, through their very incompatibility, presented an impossible conundrum: unable to reconcile the two, incapable of compromise, the Parnell machine was at a crisis point.

Campaigning in Ireland continued throughout the summer but none of the chosen candidates were victorious. Parnell and Katharine finally became a married couple on 25 June 1891, but their life together as husband and wife only lasted a little over three months and ended with Parnell’s death on 6 October 1891. They were both 45 years old at the time.

In poetic terms, Parnell had committed the ultimate sin of the tragic hero: to think of himself as indispensable. In the eyes of his supporters, and presumably his own, Parnell had become the personification of an idea, an idea that without him was thought to be non-viable. Parnell and Irish Home Rule were interchangeable; the means and the end had merged into one. Much like the fatal flaw carried by every tragic hero in the history of human endeavour, Parnell's hubris made him both unique and universal, gave him superhuman powers and made him vulnerable - not in a simple case of crime and punishment but in the pursuit of a noble mission that is ultimately larger than the man who has internalized it as his own.

To paraphrase Hilary Mantel, we tend to fictionalize those who can no longer speak for themselves; in Parnell's case there is perhaps a greater need than with many of his peers to interpret where we cannot explain, and to speculate were we cannot know.

Indeed, so strong was the sense even among contemporaries of a catastrophic derailment of their hopes and dreams, and so great the loss of confidence in the political process, it gave rise to an entire subgenre of historical fantasies indulging in mostly wishful thinking: what if Parnell's campaign had been successful and he had lived to see an independent Ireland? What if there had never been a scandal? What if we could turn the clock back far enough to prevent all bad things from happening? This being a male-centric scenario we easily move on to imagining the hero going about his business without "distractions," and what might have been if Parnell and Katharine O'Shea had never met. The further the fantasy travels back in time, however, the more it will be about erasure of the past rather than an extension of existing timelines. As a work of fiction, it may well be a legitimate subject for philosophical or even psychological enquiry that can provide a temporary reprieve from the struggle. It can never be the solution. [Part 2 of 2]

#Patrick McGoohan #Helen Shingler #were 26 and 35 years old respectively #when they portrayed Charles Stewart Parnell and Katharine O'Shea live on BBC TV #impossible casting by today's standards but in 1954 #leading men were expected to cover a much wider age range #fortunately the BBC secured for the part #of the enigmatic giant of Irish nationalism #an actor whose heritage and disposition were an uncanny match #having played much older men on stage before as was indeed the practice in #repertory theatre and the tradition carried over into early television #interestingly the young talent that the new medium attracted in its experimental phase #later launched a televisual experiment of his very own in the pursuit of something #as elusive maybe as the source of Parnell's political ambition #whether it is life imitating art or patterns emerging in hindsight #we will interpret and fictionalize #compare and analyse to satisfy our own obsessions #because that is what this is really #who in their right mind would see shades of Parnell in Col Rumford #or the myth behind the man #for fleetstreetpauline always

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whitepolaris · 2 months

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Alien Invasion! The Great UFO Wave of 1973

On the last night of August 1973, the world's most spectacular UFO episode started in rural southwest Georgia. Around midnight, four government employees driving near Dawson spotted an oval-shaped light in the heavens. Soon Gary Ellington, a city policeman, observed two UFOs in the shape of a football-only car size-which reportedly approached and withdrew. Alerted by a state trooper, Albany Herald reporter Suzanne Shingler saw give aerial objects playing "games in the sky, flashing like neon signs gone mad."

"Women tourists were coming off I-75 screaming the world was coming to an end," reported Cordele policeman Vernon Pridgen. One motorist was driving along "When all of a sudden the inside of the car lit up, bright as daylight."

On the second night of the UFO invasion, Cordele police called their Macon counterparts to warn of approaching UFOs. A number of Macon cops saw the craft, including one diamond-shaped object with a tail surrounded by six red and grin lights. A fire vehicle tore off after one UFO, but the thing sped away. In southwest Georgia, Camilla newsman Chester A. Tatum photographed an object with a "ribbed-type design" that trailed a luminous exhaust.

Thousands of people, including hundreds of police officers, sighted a wide variety of objects that displayed every imaginable maneuver in the skies. On September 5, Kenneth Parker was near Valdosta when he saw a giant UFO "glowing and looking like a big ball of flaming gas." Minutes later, a second, identical craft arrived; then they disappeared one by one. The next day, a Daugherty County farmer nearly passed out when a shiny, round craft the size of a motor home zipped past him.

The UFOs next favored the Pine Mountain area. The hundreds of people who staked out observation spots at the state patrol post in Manchester were rarely disappointed. Troopers, policemen, and an Atlanta television station had sightings. State patrolman Larry Taylor and Talbot County detective Charles Pope saw a UFO and doused their lights for a better view. At that moment, Pope reported that it reversed direction and wafted away like a balloon, only much faster.

On September 6, policemen and city officials saw a large reddish green light fly across Tybee Island, outside Savannah, and plunge into the Atlantic Ocean. Witnesses believed it was intelligently controlled. On September 8, two military policemen, Randy Shade and Bart J. Burns, were patrolling nearby Hunter Army Airfield when they spied a fast-moving, low-flying craft, which came "in at treetop level and made a dive," their report read. The MPs instinctively ducked-and drove their patrol car into a ditch. They worked feverishly to extricate the vehicle while the object hovered 200 yards away. multicolored lights "flashing brilliantly." It kept peace as they returned to headquarters.

There were a number of bizarre elements associated with the situation in Savannah. On September 9, four individuals called to report a UFO landing in historic Laurel Grove Cemetery. Out of the craft bounded "ten big, black hairy dogs" to frolic among the graves. Raymond Williamson, Emanuel County farmer, saw UFOs that night, but they had "been landing in the pasture near my house for six years." The craft, "the size of a camper shell attached to the back of a pickup truck," evinced particular interest in his cows.

The phenomenon kicked it up a notch on September 10 near Griffin. At four in the afternoon that day, retired millworker Ress Clanton was outside when he observed a gold-colored object the size of a baseball descending at a controlled rate of speed. It struck the ground and disappeared in a cloud of white smoke, leaving a burned area on the ground the size of a basketball, but no crater. The heat was high enough to burn skin at three feet and to turn the blade of a pocketknife stuck into the ground red-hot.

Dr. O. E. Anderson, a soil scientist with the University of Georgia, arrived three hours later and found the soil still registering 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Anderson excavated the crater and took control samples from the area. No evidence of petrochemicals or flares was found, but there was 2,000 times more copper at the impact site than in the control samples, and 200 times the chromium. Clanton knew what it was: "A piece of brimstone from heaven come down here to show people how He can burn the earth with it."

Twenty miles away and four days later in Brook, tenant farmer Roy Lawhorn was awakened at two a.m. by "a sound like locusts and a bright light outside the house. I grabbed my rifle, because it looked like it was coming toward the house," Lawhorn said. "I shot at it three or four times, and it just disappeared into the ground." The UFO, "big as your head," descended slowly, "like an umbrella." Lawhorn drew the opposite conclusion from Clanton, saying, "I thought the devil had come to get me."

Dr. Anderson found a charred spot that matched the dimensions of the one in Orchard Hill, but nothing unusual; was detected in the soil.

Near Rome on October 15, two Rome News-Tribune employees saw a blue object flying "in a jerky motion" through the sky. Other locals saw an oval craft with clustered, twinkling red lights and a "big bright white object."

On October 17, Clarke County deputies Charles Fowler and Ray Hanson and a security guard "saw an object rise from the ground," Fowler said. It was twelve feet in diameter and sported multicolored rotating lights.

The same night in Warner Robins, Laurence Smith, Peggy Stepp, and her daughter were followed by two huge cigar-shaped craft.

"I was petrified," Stepp said. "And then they started getting close." Soon, she recalled, "My God, there was one right behind us. My daughter screamed hysterically, and the thing stopped right above us and put this bright light on the car."

They managed to scare and reported the incident to the Houston County Sheriff's Department, which dispatched Corporal Bobby Fisher to investigate. Fisher soon found the object, "Big as a building," and gave chase "when it zoomed over me. It stopped there right over me, and I got out of the car," he said. "I took my flashlight and pointed it at the thing. It was only about one hundred feet above me. I couldn't see anything for the bright light. I think I got some type of reflection off of it when I pointed my flashlight at it. That's how close it was. I thought that thing was going to land right there in the field."

After a month and a half of near-constant sightings, the UFO wave entered a more frightening phase. The other-earthly beings-if that's what they were-began to close their shyness and emerge from their crafts. On October 18, Paul Brown, a preacher and car dealer, was headed home near Danielsville on U.S. 29 listening to the World Series when suddenly his radio stopped working. "Everything lit up," he said. "I could see the road, and the fields lighted up all around me. My first impression was that it was a small airplane trying to land."

The plane first paced his car, then quickly landed in front of Brown, forcing him to stop.

"I realized if I don't stop, I'm going to hit it. So I came to a screeching halt."

The craft was six feet high and fifteen feet in diameter. At that point, a bright light was cast upon him, the round beam blinding him.

"I don't know why I did it," Brown said, "but I opened the car door and managed, frightened as I was, to get one foot on the ground. Two subjects came out. Where they came from, I Don't know. I couldn't see a flap, a drop door, or anything. When I finally got my vision clear, I could see a clearance underneath, so it was not belly-landed; it had some kind of landing gear. And they came out, and they had on the most beautiful outfits I've ever seen-silver, blousy, come down to where your wrists are; then they had what happened to be white gloves. Very tight around the neck, like something a priest would wear. Down to the fleet, like a jumpsuit. It looked like if you pulled a gun and shot it, it would glance off, yet it moved. They could move, yet it looked like it was heavy, because of the way they walked, very slow. I estimated them to be four to five feet tall.

"They just started walking down the road toward me, very slow. I could see a face, you know, place where eyes would be, ears. The faces were reddish. Hair was almost like cotton; no discoloration, which leads more to believe maybe it was a mask of some kind. I never got close enough to really say-closest I ever got was one hundred and fifty, two hundred feet away, which is not too far away when you're there by yourself."

Brown, who carried a pistol for protection, decided that it was time to employ that resource. When he produced the weapon, they proceeded to turn around and walk very slow back behind the shadow to the bright light. All of a sudden they disappear behind the light, and I tried to see where they go, in a hatch or what, but I couldn't."

The aliens boarded, the lights were extinguished, and the craft "took off at an angle and made a sound I would described as like a million fans," or "like golf balls coming by my ear." The experience "almost stood my hair on end."

Brown immediately the incident, and by daylight, deputies found Brown's skid marks and noted that roadside grass was "fan swept."

That night near the coast, an Effingham County woman saw two small silver-clad beings standing beside U.S. 17. Perhaps it was the same ship and aliens making another call.

On the following day at three thirty, a motorist was driving on I-75, near Ashburn, when her car suddenly and completely shut down. Stopped on the roadside, a "strange feeling" led her to look right, where she saw a "four-foot-tall metal man who appeared to be wearing a metallic pewter outfit capped with a bubble or dome made of the same material-there were two openings for the eyes. The slits were rectangular." The creature circled her car and disappeared six minutes later. A state trooper told the woman that several drivers had told him the same story, and three hours later, her engine remained too hot to touch.

Another incident involved a University of Georgia student with the unlucky name of Mars Walker. Early on October 20, he was studying in his Athens apartment when "a high-pitched, sirenlike sound" attracted his attention, followed by a "glow like watch-dial" outside. He opened the door to find a round aerial object, with a diameter varying from ten to seventeen feet, slowly descending fifty yards away. The sound increased, and a being began to coalesce inside the object, resulting in "a humanlike being standing erect" that resembled "a sea-green opaque" hologram. The head was surrounded by tentacles, and the hands had fewer than five fingers. "The odd thing to me is how little attention it paid me, no interest in communicating with me or threatening me or any other activity, besides observing." The creature and the UFO departed a half-hour after arriving.

Georgia's period of intense UFO invasions concluded in Colquitt County, when on October 24, 1973, a driver found his path on GA 133 blocked. The object was seven feet high and shaped like the top of a silo. Lights surrounding the craft activated, and it flew low over the man. Half an hour later, a similar UFO that hugged Sylvester Road buzzed a carload of people. After that, sightings tailed off. But the alien creatures were not finished with the Peachtree State, not quite yet.

#weird georgia #type read #extreme long ass read

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tortoisesshells · 5 months

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for the fic-specific asks: i know customs and duties is an austen pastiche, but push it one step further! what's it look like in the austenverse?

I've tried translating it before, but it's been a weird experience: for all that Nellie's named from Elinor D. (& her younger half-sister, Mary, for Marianne D. - and I suppose there's a case to be made that Nellie's surviving daughter Polly, fond of pirates and jumping out of trees, shares some DNA with Margaret from the 95 S&S?) - there's a lot about Nellie that doesn't map perfectly onto Regency England, or at least Austen's two inches of ivory.

this ... got long. I'll save everyone by putting this under the cut.

In part, it's because Nellie's not genteel: she's the oldest daughter of a man who allegedly earned his living, the widow of a man who earned his living (and then some, and debts, and. well. it's complicated.), and the sister of a man who's not averse to some piracy from time to time. She's doing reasonably well, socially, in Boston in the 1730s, because Boston's rules in the 1730s are different.

But, I think, maybe: what's important about Nellie is that (1) she's terrified of poverty, and not being able to raise her surviving children in circumstances better than she had & (2) she's very aware of difference, and the precariousness of her current, relatively elevated station. So I think, sanding-off the specific stamps and edges of the base universe, Nellie's still a young widow with children, she's just - hmm. Well, she's not controlling much of an estate. Much more like the Hayters or the Musgroves than the Elliots or the Bennets, I suppose. She married up - maybe she's a downwardly-mobile farmer's daughter, or the same, but a country lawyer - she's since moved away from the country in which she was raised, and doesn't count much on her blood-family for support of any kind.

Let's just ... assume Jimothy's still a naval officer. It feels tremendously unfair for Nellie to get stripped of a lot of her specific backstory, but it's too weird to imagine him as, say, a prosperous landowner. Too many of his problems come from spending 5/6s of his life in the RN.

The real question is: what's the conflict? I assume, since we are living in Austen's two inches of ivory, there's a lot less smuggling, out and out lying, near-drowning and actual drowning/murder, piracy, and weird digressions on Protestant sects. So much of Customs hinges on Nellie and Norrington being on opposite sides of the smuggling problem, and the strain that puts on them individually and as people who genuinely like each other but sometimes fall short of understanding; there's not really a neat parallel that I can think of that fits within Austen's worlds and plots. I think, maybe, you could file down the plot to "Norrington threatens Nellie's ability to maintain her family" - maybe he's got some distant claim to the land? Or he's made his fortune in prize money during the Napoleonic Wars, and is looking to purchase an estate - meanwhile, Nellie's financially shaky, and cannot eliminate the possibility of selling Samuel's land and house, she would desperately like to avoid that possibility.

(that seems a little more like a Hardy plot to me.)

Let's just ... assume for the sake of argument, perhaps, that Widow Treat & family live in the same neighborhood as Norrington's older sister, Frances, whose husband is an MP. An estate close to the one member of his family he likes is appealing; the circumstances are sad, of course, but he's been at war for 22 years at least - he's a little inured to death. Nellie's will to rent it out, at least, after the harvest - besides, she spent the first 18 years of her life in a state of anxiety and embarrassment, why should the back end of her life be any different? She and the children go to stay with her late husband's Aunt and Uncle in Bath, which is, of course, where the Austenian comedy starts...

#[I have much more to say.]#polkaknox talks #customs and duties aus #customs and duties

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