“As the Kaminoans would reluctantly admit, genetics is not a perfect science –aberrations in a clone’s gestational environment and random mutations sometimes produced clones with different physical features, or that were simply wired differently than their batchers. Most of the time, these physical differences were slight enough that they could be ignored – eye color proved particularly prone to variation – or severe enough that the aberrant clone was reconditioned early in its development.”
The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 110 m (360 ft) long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the county of Oxfordshire, historically Berkshire)
The figure presumably dates to “the later prehistory”, i.e. the Iron Age (800 BC–AD 100) or the late Bronze Age (1000–700 BC). This view was generally held by scholars even before the 1990s, based on the similarity of the horse’s design to comparable figures in Celtic art, and it was confirmed following a 1990 excavation led by Simon Palmer and David Miles of the Oxford Archaeological Unit, following which deposits of fine silt removed from the horse’s ‘beak’ were scientifically dated to the late Bronze Age.
They also discovered the figure was actually cut into the hill up to a metre deep, not simply scratched into the chalk surface.
It has long been debated whether the chalk figure was intended to represent a horse or some other animal, such as a dog or a sabre toothed cat. However, it has been called a horse since the 11th century at least.
When regular cleaning is halted the figure quickly becomes obscured; it has always needed frequent work for the figure to remain visible. Periodic scouring continues, organized by the National Trust: on chalking day volunteers with hammers, buckets of chalk and kneepads kneel and smash the chalk to a paste, whitening the paths cut in the grass inch by inch.
During the Second World War the figure, easily recognizable from the air, was covered over with turf and hedge trimmings so that Luftwaffe pilots could not use it for navigation during bombing raids.
My favorite professor ever introduced me as an undergrad to the concept of “impossible history” – histories that can not exist, even though they happened. His example was the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian Revolution cannot exist within the logics of capitalism, imperialism, and white European dominance. Enslaved black people liberating themselves without the help of “friendly whites?” A tiny island in the Caribbean, with an army of the aforementioned former slaves, defeating multiple global superpowers? Impossible! So this cannot be allowed to have happened. Haiti must be economically victimized forever, moreso even than other former slave colonies in the Caribbean, just so that we can point to it and say “look, how sad,” so that no one gets to see Haiti’s very existence as the triumph it is. We teach extensively about the American and French revolutions, but only mention in passing the Haitian Revolution which occurred at the same time. Most college courses on Latin American history exclude Haiti even if they cover the rest of the Caribbean. The Haitian Revolution was impossible, a dangerous fantasy that just so happens to have actually happened. So it must be forgotten, the name of Haiti must be made synonymous with poverty, ignorance, and suffering, while never mentioning that those are all the products of 200 years of political and economic warfare and subterfuge against the island, beginning with the presidency of Thomas Jefferson!! Because we cannot have anyone thinking that even the most poor and downtrodden people. when united and organized around a common cause, can make history and change the world for the better
This is the thesis of Michel Trouillot’s book, ‘Silencing the Past’. I am sure that’s where this professor got this from.
Yep! Sorry, I just wrote this post as a ramble and didn’t expect it to spread much. The professor who relayed this to me is Alexander Aviña, a fantastic historian of Mexican radicalism who teaches at Arizona State now
One (of many) examples of how they were screwed over, from wikipedia
“Haiti’s legacy of debt began shortly after gaining independence from France in 1804. In 1825, France, with warships at the ready, demanded Haiti compensate France for its loss of slaves and its slave colony. In exchange for French recognition of Haiti as a sovereign republic, France demanded payment of 150 million francs. In addition to the payment, France required that Haiti discount its exported goods to them by 50%.[3] In 1838, France agreed to reduce the debt to 90 million francs to be paid over a period of 30 years to compensate former plantation owners who had lost their property.[4] The modern equivalent of $21 billion was paid from Haiti to France.[5]
There is an old belief in Serbian villages and small towns that certain pumpkins (and watermelons), when left outside during a full moon, will turn in to a vampire.
been seeing a lot of variations on this take recently – it’s one of the most common pro-immigrant sentiments and also one of the worst – the line that says we should welcome migrant workers because working class Australian/British/US etc citizens are too spoilt or lazy or consider themselves too good to do those jobs.
Like it comes from a (sort of) well meaning place, they’re often trying to say that migrants aren’t criminals or lazy or whatever… but aside from valuing people according to their productive ‘worth’, valourising menial, difficult work as some kind of moral virtue and attacking working class people for not being exploited enough, the most important thing missing from that take is the reasons why working class citizens don’t do these jobs.
But somehow it always gets framed in terms of working class people’s choices – what the migrant is “willing to do” and what the American won’t. Poor migrants can’t choose more attractive work, and the working class citizens can’t “choose” to work for less than minimum wage. It’s the bosses who make the choice, it’s about what they are “willing to do”. This is how they want it.
“wage theft” is a phrase that really needs to get used more often.
wrennette 