Garry Kilworth: British Novelist and Short Story Writer.

That is a must watch video. A true represtation of the Crimean War, one of the seemingly most pointless wars in the 1850s. Which doesn’t say all that much. One of the largest is probably more accurate.

Heed the Man's words, he has children

What an awesome man he is, clearly. Bishops who break their vows deserve to be honoured, of course.

In other news, go Burnley!

By Jason Etzel

In 1832 Senator William Learned Marcy spoke the phrase, “To the victor belong the spoils.” Although first spoken (or at least documented) this was not a new concept by any means for those who won a battle of any kind. With a victory you could design how it would be viewed to those alive [at the time] as well future generations who would read and learn what you left behind as history of this battle. This meant that selective editing could always be done by the victor, filtering words, omitting particular events or details, artistic renderings showing how they wanted the victory to be recorded.

And in 1832 this was still true, until technology changed how history would be written—by both those who triumphed and those who felt defeat—by the invention of the camera, it would now be seen unchanged. In the world we live in today, doctored images are common knowledge, we know now what is seen may or may not have been really there. For hundreds of years historical figures were seen only as their statues or oil painted portraits perceived them to be. Battles were drawn showing honor and courage without really showing tragedy, violence, or loss.

In 1839 when the camera was first shown to the public, everything became real and an instrument in the field of journalism. The first war images are credited to an anonymous American who took a number of daguerreotypes during the Mexican-American war in 1847, and for the first time the face of the soldier was seen. The first known war photographer was Carol Popp de Szathmari who took photos of various officers in 1853 and landscapes where battle took place in 1854 during the Crimean War. However it was in 1861 that a portrait photographer in New York City named Mathew Brady changed the world of photography and journalism as we know it.

Having mastered the new art of photography from his time studying under the skilled daguerreotypist Samuel Morse, Brady had a thriving portrait photography studio. His subjects included numerous historical figures including past and then present Presidents of the United States of America. When the first shots were fired of the American Civil War in 1861, and against the wishes of friends and family, Brady put the essentials of his studio into a wagon and made his way to the battlefield at Bull Run. At Bull Run Brady took images of the war-torn landscape of destroyed buildings and bridges as well as the dead littering the countryside.

At times he was so close he was nearly captured by the Confederate soldiers. This was not a commissioned painting, nor an article being written for a newspaper, to be released to the public. These were images being taken, processed, and printed from where it all happened and they spoke louder than any cannon fired during any war. Through the course of the Civil War, Mathew Brady and his team of photographers captured the bloodiest battles as well as the faces of the men who fought on both sides.

War was no longer a distant battlefield; it was piles of dead soldiers and a country tearing itself apart. Many feared on both sides that the images showing war would cause both an escalation to stop or continue the war. Photography became a weapon itself, as many photos were staged with bodies moved into positions to manipulate public perception of battles.

As the years passed so did the purposes of photography and war. It was used for reconnaissance, intimidation showing strength of arms and new weaponry, and even to confirm the deaths of famous figures such as Dale Titler’s photograph of the downed plane of the WWI German Ace Manfred von Richtofen more commonly known as “The Red Baron” to discourage the German people and lower moral.

The chaos and confusion of battle was illustrated to the world with Robert Capa’s images from the landing at Normandy for the D-Day invasion of Europe. Joe Rosenthal’s “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” and Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “V-J day in Times Square” have also become timeless images showing triumph and victory on distant shores as well as at home.

During the war in Vietnam, newspaper correspondent and columnist Joseph Galloway often fought alongside the troops he covered with his cameras, documenting the conflict around him.

Perhaps one of the most famous images of the century came from Eddie Adams with his portrait of an execution of a prisoner of war in 1968. It led to not only a Pulitzer Prize for Adams, but many claimed it changed the balance and political opinions of the war in Vietnam.

Nearly 150 years after Mathew Brady set out to capture the American Civil War, photojournalism still continues to advance, educate, and at times manipulate conflicts worldwide. Just as Andrew Jackson used paintings and monuments to tell stories of victory and triumph, leaders today use the press in all of it’s forms—particularly photography—to show the frozen moments in time that they want remembered.

Sometimes they can immortalize a great achievement and cement your place in history, however it can also backfire as President George W. Bush found out in 2003. By flooding the media with images of him on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with a banner reading: “Mission Accomplished” many would believe the war ended that day in the Fall of 2003, however the conflict remains and now the banner is a mere punch line for a joke, and a large part of his presidential legacy.

Today’s media is no longer limited to just words, images, and video but also can include computer graphic based animations and renderings. For most, the portrait of Barack Obama altered by Shepard Fairey is considered a sign of change, others saw it as a violation of a law on the copyright of AP photographs. All the same it became part of everyday culture and awareness around the world.

The photojournalists are the eyes and the ears for the world. On this Veteran’s Day, it is important to remember and be grateful for those people who have been the eyes and the ears for us all—and the sacrifices they made to do so.

♦ Jason Etzel is a working photographer who is well respected in the photographic industry today. For 15 years he has worked for companies such as Unique Photo, B&H, and Dyna-Lite, providing sales, education, and research development of photographic products. In addition, he is also a frequent contributor to photographic publications such as Photo Insider and other photographic blogs. Even though he is based out of New Jersey, Jason is frequently seen from coast to coast at photographic events discussing the history of photography, where it is today, and where he hopes it is going tomorrow. Look for future articles by contributor Jason Etzel on Picture-soup.com.

We have anniversaries, biennial events, diamond jubilees, centenaries, bi-centenaries and even millenarianism but rarely do celebrations arrive around every 7,000 years!  Between 2015 and 2029 a very special event takes place that has not occurred since 5122 BC.  The world in 5122 BC was a very different place.  The population of the world was about 25 million people in 3000 BC, and so perhaps 10 to 15 million people were alive in 5122 BC – about the size of present day Los Angeles.  Nevertheless great things were stirring in the world as this period marked the first widespread settling down of humans, farming and domestication of animals.

Until 5122 BC the world was the closest in temperament to the society still being shaped by mankind in today’s Aquarian age in the 21^st century.  5122 BC marks the end of the Gemini age.  The Gemini age and Aquarian age are both Air signs.  The Aquarian age that arrived in 1433 AD is the first age of the same Air element since the Gemini age (7351 – 5122 BC).  Obviously the world’s inhabitants in 5122 BC were not concerned about broadband, computers, the price of fossil fuel, pollution or over-crowding, but their heads were in an intellectually creative mode – something common with Air signs. 

While these ancients may not have been making technological discoveries of the modern world, they were making farming and agricultural discoveries that allowed them produce more food than they required – spurning on population growth and spreading their new agricultural technology far and wide.  The Gemini age also saw the first large villages or hamlets and the introduction of many discoveries around the world including the relatively simultaneous cultivation of newly domesticated crops in most continents of the world.  Pottery became widespread, primitive canoes were built, irrigation trenches first appeared and the white skinned race continued to evolve as they turned to milk and trekked further north where the sun shines weakly.

The world in the Gemini age was on the move.  Probably more discoveries and inventions occurred in the Gemini age than in the previous 50,000 years.  While life was much slower and far less intense in the Gemini age compared to the current Aquarian age – similar intellectual inventiveness was evident.

The relationship between the Gemini age and Aquarian age deepens when the full context of each age is taken into account.  In reality it was the Cancer-Gemini age and today we are in the Pisces-Aquarian age (see Is the Aquarian Age Like a Block of Granite?).  Cancer and Pisces are Water signs and Gemini and Aquarius are Air signs.  There are four elements associated with the 12 zodiacal signs – Water, Air, Fire and Water.  Each of these elements has specific characteristics.  Fire and Earth signs promote conservatism, patriotism and the status quo.  Water and Air signs promote change, evolution and instability.  The more Water and Air signs the more change and instability.  The more Fire and Earth signs the more conservatism.  When Reagan was president of the USA, and Thatcher prime minister of the UK the world was experiencing a mainly Earth and Fire micro-age influences and even here we can see the rise of conservatism on the small scale following the heady 60s when the progressive Water element was dominant.

The current Pisces-Aquarian age being Water and Air promotes evolution, change and instability.  Within the current Pisces-Aquarian age are 12 sub-ages.  Currently the world is in the Scorpio-Libra sub-age.  Scorpio is a Water sign and Libra is an Air sign – the same combination as Pisces and Aquarius.  This is the first time in the Pisces-Aquarian age that we are in a Water-Air sub-age.  This is the first time in over 7,000 years that both the ages and sub-ages are all in Water and Air territory.  The plot deepens.  Each sub-age also has 12 micro-ages.  In 2015 the world enters a little 15 years Cancer-Gemini micro-age with Cancer a Water sign and Gemini an air sign – the same combination of Air and Water again!

Therefore in 2015, for the first time in over 7,000 years the world will be passing through an age, sub-age and micro-age that all aligned with Water and Air – with no Fire or Earth in sight.  This occurrence will occur nine times in the Pisces-Aquarian age, with the first three occurring between 2015 and 2148.  This period will therefore see the extreme of change, evolution and instability.  Over the last 7,000 years the world descended into the opposite of what we are now facing.  In the Taurus-Aries age (2916 – 732 BC) the world experienced nine times when Earth and Fire elements ruled supreme without any Water and Air signs in sight.  The world was turning to the bedrock of conservatism, war and nationalism, during that time.

Early societies were mainly democratic orientated often involving elders in a tribe. The Taurus-Aries age coincided with the firm arrival of an entrenched aristocracy, pharaohs, kings and other forms of totalitarian governments who by and large were hell bent on waging war with each other.  The world is like a pendulum that swings from conservative totalitarianism to ‘democratic’ liberalism. After 7,000 long years the world is returning to progressiveness, liberal change but instability.  Those revolutionary and heady days of the 1960s and early 70s have nothing on what is coming – at best the 1960s and 70s is a preview of what is to come.

The conservative backlash (mainly in the USA and Islamic fundamentalists) following the1960s and 70s was due to a small digression back into the conservative Virgo and Leo micro-ages – Earth and Fire micro-ages respectively. The stepping stones to the first all Air and Water period commenced with little fanfare in 2000 with the arrival of the Leo-Cancer micro-age (Fire and Water), but changed gear in 2007 (one year before the election of the first black president of the USA) when the Water element in the Fire and Water  Leo-Cancer micro-age (2000 – 2015) became stronger.  The world will finally move into all Water and Air territory in 2015 for the first time in over 7,000 years.

What can be expected in the period 2015 to 2029 – the first of nine such periods in the Pisces-Aquarian age?  Unfortunately the extent of what we can expect is hard to determine because historical records going back 7,000 are insufficient to provide us with clear antecedents.  Alternatively we can examine some of the previous two hundred years or so and look for periods where they are closest to the ideal scenario of all periods elements being Air and Water.  In the Sagittarius-Scorpio sub-age (1791 – 1970) only Sagittarius was Fire, all other signs were Air and Water, so those micro-ages within the Sagittarius-Scorpio sub-age that were also exclusively Air and Water may provide us with a guide.  The particular periods include: the Cancer-Gemini micro-age (1851-66) and the Pisces-Aquarius micro-age (1910-25). 

Both these period witnessed many instabilities including in the Cancer-Gemini micro-age (1851-66) the American Civil War, The Crimean War and the Taiping Rebellion with an estimated death toll of between 20 and 30 million alone.  Wikipedia states that

“The 1860s were an extremely turbulent decade in the world, with numerous cultural, social, and political upheavals in Europe and America.”

In the Pisces-Aquarius micro-age (1910-25) saw the end of European millenarianism and conservative influences with the arrival of the 1^st World War.  This triggered the abdication of various conservative monarchies and the fall of the last world empires (German, Ottoman and Austria-Hungary).  The arrival of the communists in full force with the Russian Revolution in 1917 introduced radical new concepts of how societies could operate.  The USA attempted to outlaw alcohol with prohibition. The Irish commenced throwing off their British overlords leading to the Irish Rebellion.  Fascists took advantage of political instability.

The instability in these periods was extensive, but so was the progressiveness.  Probably the most important breakthrough in the Cancer-Gemini micro-age (1851-66) was Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species, putting forward the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859.  On a minor note Paris became the fashion capital of the world.  In the following period, the Pisces-Aquarius micro-age (1910-25) Einstein did to physics what Darwin did to biology, and produced his revolutionary theory of general relativity while Alfred Wegener suggests that the continents drift and collide with each other.  Culturally radio, movies and jazz became popular and Pablo Picasso became the leading 20^th century painter, first with Cubism than moving on to Surrealism.  The 1920s introduced the Roaring Twenties or Jazz Age.

As a guide to the Cancer-Gemini micro-age (2015 – 29) we can expect great instability, but also progress – one way or another.  Though doom and gloom pundits may predict a 3^rd World War I don’t think this is a possibility as astrologically the world is turning away from war.  There is a bigger problem facing humanity than war – climate change.  However even climate change can precipitate division.  One way or another the USA fractures in Gemini-Cancer micro-ages so some serious division, conflict or discord will occur in the USA.  Possibly this will occur due to a perception by conservative elements in the USA that they are losing control.  Mass dislocation of people and massive legal and illegal immigration is sure to be a factor in the world. 

Climate change requires great adaptation by societies if it is to be successfully tackled, and this period does to a certain extent promote such change – more so from the general population than leaders.   If the last two Water and Air micro-ages produced Darwin’s evolution and Einstein’s relativity – some very significant breakthrough may occur in 2015 – 2129, perhaps the understanding of dark matter and dark energy that supposedly constitutes around 90% of the universe? Other alternatives include breakthroughs in nano-technology, AIDS immunisation, a new and superior internet, longevity, DNA in medical technology, a cure for many cancers or even a replacement for fossil fuels.

It would be nice to say that in a Water-Air period that is soon to arrive in 2015 that positive elements will succeed at the expense of negative elements but this should not be expected. In the 1960s and early 70s though revolution was in the air for youth, many countries witnessed military coups and dictatorial governments.  Water-Air periods while producing advances both technological and societal, also produce instability which can be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous – particularly the military.  The desire by many people to be free will rise, and some existing totalitarian governments are sure to falter, but others will tend to extract revenge upon many of their citizens – such is the ugly nature of politics.  While public opinion and sentiment is sure to rise, leadership may be wanting in the years 2015-29.  Some key political leaders may actually suffer mental illness and behave like a modern day Nero or Caligula.  Hopefully they will not have their finger on the button!

The period 2015 – 29 is a celebration of over 7,000 years in the making – but what kind a celebration will it be?  Will it be more like a party or a wake?  It is bound to have elements of both, but at the bottom line and despite whatever conflicts and turmoil occur, some very interesting, evolutionary and progressive developments are sure to claim out attention, awe and wonder like we collectively have not experienced for over 7,000 years. 

 Copyright Terry MacKinnell 2009

On October 21:

1520 Ferdinand Magellan discoversed what is now known as the Strait of Magellan.

1772 English poet  Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born.

1805  The Battle of Trafalgar took place.A British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve.

The Battle of Trafalgar, as seen from the mizzen
starboard shrouds of the Victory
by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1806 to 1808)

1824 Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement.

1833 Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize was born.

1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1917 US musician Dizzy Gillespie was born.

1921 English composer Sir Malcolm Arnold was born.

1929 US author  Ursula K. Le Guin was born.

1931 English actress Vivian Pickles was born.

1940 English cricketer Geoff Boycott was born.

1940 English musician Manfred Mann was born.

1942 Judy Sheindlin, American judge (“Judge Judy“) was born.

1945 Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married  actress Evita (María Eva Duarte de Perón).

1952 Trevor Chappell, Australian cricketer, was born.

1953 British politician Peter Mandelson was born.

1956 US author and actress Carrie Fisher was born.

1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York opened to the public.

1964 Peter Snell won his second gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

1966 A coal tip fellon the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.

 1983 The metre was defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Sometimes, on a still, silent, out-of-season day in Crimea, the past feels close enough to touch, as close as the next range of mountains looks in these astonishingly clear late Autumn afternoons.

I’ve been staying in South-West Crimea, and yesterday I climbed up to Shuldan cave monastery, where brother Anatoly lives in a way that can scarcely differ from that of the monks here a hundred or five hundred years ago.

From the caves I looked out over the hills down towards Sevastopol, and the cliffs by Balaklava, and the sea glittering silver. It’s a view, give or take a few factory chimneys and roads, which I guess a soldier in the Crimean war a hundred and sixty years ago would perfectly recognise, were he lucky enough to get away from fighting and cholera and make it up here, to fresh air and peace and brother Anatoly offering words of wisdom like pearls not to be cast before swine.

Still day-dreaming about Crimean war soldiers escaping from the battlefield, I walked on towards Eski-Kermen cave city (of which mediaeval travellers recorded that no one knew who built it or even what it was called…) I was climbing down into a valley when someone called out to me “Halt! Who goes there?”

Round the next outcrop of rock I came across peaked white tents, stacks of straw bales, and what seemed to be a heap of dismantled cannons.

“Have you been sent from the Spanish camp?” inquired a soldier in white breeches and blue coat, with white cross belts and gold buttons. Behind me, the sound of a musket being fired.

“Um, no…” said I, feebly, thinking that history had taken a step a little too close…

The soldier’s uniform was fifty years out of date for the Crimean war, and the Napoleonic war re-enactors (as they turned out to be) were preparing for a geographically inaccurate battle between French and Spanish. They weren’t particularly pleased to have me, in my hiking boots and rucksack, intrude on their fantasy, although they were impeccably polite. “Where are you from, sudarynya? England? And you’re travelling quite alone? Prikol’no.”

I didn’t say that they were intruding on my fantasy of the Crimean war, and that surely finding a whole camp of people dressed up in Napoleonic uniform in a remote valley usually inhabited only by horses was a good deal more prikol’no (funny). Anyway there was something inexpressibly charming about being addressed as sudarynya, like a lady in a story by Lermontov or Pushkin, in such unlikely surroundings.

I left them to their dreams and walked on busy with my own, hearing the whispers of the soldiers and settlers, the monks and wine-makers; the Tatars, Karaims, Khazars, Goths, Greeks, Genoese, Russians, Ukrainians… all the people who jostle so closely in the history of Crimea.

As we’re in our eighth year of war in Afghanistan, and having occupied Iraq for almost as long, and as we are now waging a proxy war in Pakistan, using drones as our proxies, and special forces we’ll not mention, both because we don’t have permission from the Pakistani government for operations there – well, of course one thinks of the British, who spent some time in that neighborhood. You remember what T. E. Lawrence had to say about that business. This was not going to end well. That was from 1920, regarding what is now Iraq. And it did not end well.

History is funny that way. The Soviets didn’t do any better in Afghanistan, which is one of the reasons they’re no longer the Soviets, just the Russians now. Their experience there may have ended the Soviet Union, in spite of what you might like to believe about Ronald Reagan ripping off his shirt and single-handedly tearing down the Berlin Wall, his muscles rippling in the sunlight and a heroic grin on his face. That didn’t happen, but the Soviets’ long, fruitless war in Afghanistan did. Afghanistan and that region is the graveyard of empires, as they say.

But of course we’re not there for empire. We’re not like that. We just want to make sure the folks responsible for the events in New York and Washington of September 2001 don’t have a safe haven. We seem to have shrugged off the idea of getting Osama bin Laden, dead or alive as Bush liked to say, and will settle for nurturing functioning governments in the area, governments which, at a minimum, will not be controlled or even influenced by the Taliban. The Talban are the real problem, as they offer facilities and financing for al-Qaeda, the real bad guys. Get rid of them and all will be well, as long as whatever new governments we midwife aren’t too absurd and corrupt.

Of course al-Qaeda could, getting a sense of what we’re up to, just say screw this mucking about in the mountains of nowhere and set up shop in Indonesia or Somalia. And they seem to be doing that. But that’s another matter. Considering that might mess up our Casus Belli – the rationale for what we’re up to. So set that aside. Just know we’re not in that part of the world for empire, or now, even for revenge. It’s in our national interest to have stable, vaguely pro-western governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in Pakistan, along with making sure the Iranians don’t get the bomb. And all of these governments also should be fine with Israel just as it is, and just where it is. We don’t want empire. We want to not have to think about that part of the world at all. Americans fight wars so we don’t have to bother with nasty people, so we can get back to kicking back and making money.

Perhaps that’s too cynical a view, and it’s certainly not heroic. But what else have you been told about why we’re over there? The other reasons, to get that Osama fellow and his buddies, to get rid of Saddam’s vast stores of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, to spread Jeffersonian wholly secular democracy and unregulated corporate free-market capitalism, have all been more or less abandoned, by those who once insisted they were so important. What’s left?

Still our military fights on, magnificently, in some odd blend of hot warfare, against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and counterinsurgency, against those who don’t much like the government we’ve helped create in Iraq. We don’t seem to be fighting al-Qaeda, and perhaps never did. There were only three of four thousand of them in the first place, and then everyone with a grudge was calling themselves al-Qaeda in Wherever. It’s complicated.

Oddly, this also has the feel of the Crimean War – you know, October 1853 through February 1856, the Russian Empire on one side and the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The Ottoman Empire was falling apart and all the major European powers were jockeying for influence over the remains. Most of the battles took place on the Crimean Peninsula, thus the name. And it was an odd war, with Florence Nightingale and the first real battlefield medicine, and the first war to be documented in photographs, a decade before Matthew Brady here in the States.

That made it the first war where the general population started asking what the hell was going on, and why. This was not helped by the Charge of the Light Brigade. That didn’t go well, that utterly disastrous charge of British cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 – 673 cavalry charging a valley well covered by Russian forces, and that would be twenty battalions of infantry supported by over fifty artillery pieces. It was heroic, and it was stupid. As they say – “The reputation of the British cavalry was significantly enhanced as a result of the charge, though the same cannot be said for their commanders.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote that famous poem about that charge – “Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.” The valley between the Fedyukhin Heights and the Causeway Heights became something more, “The Valley of Death.” And the soldiers were the heroes, courageous beyond belief. Their commanders were fools. The poem was hyper-patriotic and subversive at the same time. And it wasn’t that good. But people got the point.

Okay, flash-forward to Sunday, October 4, 2009, and this:

Eight American soldiers and two Afghan troops have been killed in the deadliest attack on coalition troops for more than a year, officials say.

The battle happened in Nuristan province in the remote east of the country when military outposts were attacked, a NATO statement said.

The Taliban said it carried out the attack. Reports say local officials including a police chief were captured.

And here’s where it gets all Crimean:

About 300 militants attacked one outpost at the foot of a hill, before turning their fire on a US base on higher ground, attacking from two sides, a provincial police chief said.

One NATO spokesman called it a “complex attack in a difficult area.”

US jets carried out air strikes in response.

Our guys got overrun, and it was the current bad guys:

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the movement was behind the attack.

According to AP news agency, Mr Mujahid also said some 35 Afghan police officers had been taken into Taliban custody, and their fate would be decided by a council.

Provincial governor Jamaluddin Badar confirmed that some officials including a local police chief had been captured.

This was a disaster, and Martin Patience, of BBC News, reporting from Kabul, adds that Tennyson touch:

Prior to this deadly clash, US soldiers at the outposts that saw fierce fighting were due to be redeployed elsewhere in the country in the coming weeks.

According to officials, even after Saturday’s assault, that remains the case.

Part of the reason is that the US Gen Stanley McChrystal – who heads the mission in Afghanistan – wants to focus on providing security in key towns and villages across the country.

The hope is that the Afghan government supported by the West will then be able to deliver services to the people.

That means essentially “closing” a string of smaller bases. …

This was for nothing. And these are our kids. In a week this outpost would have been just a few empty buildings. The deaths were heroic – these guys died defending things to the end – but, in the greater scheme of things, what was being defended was expendable, and soon to be expended.

And as for what we’re defending, and McChrystal’s new focus, Peter Galbraith, the former overseer of Afghanistan’s elections for the UN, the guy who was fired by the UN because he wanted actions taken against the election fraud that occurred in the Afghan voting, had this to say in the Washington Post:

Afghanistan’s presidential election, held Aug. 20, should have been a milestone in the country’s transition from 30 years of war to stability and democracy. Instead, it was just the opposite. As many as 30 percent of Karzai’s votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates. In several provinces, including Kandahar, four to 10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast. The fraud has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners.

Andrew Sullivan comments:

The entire counter-insurgency option is premised on a credible government to fight counter-insurgency for. We just lost one. This matters – and makes the choice all the more excruciating, and a swifter exit much more reasonable.

And in the New York Times, David Kilcullen, the military strategist, puts it this way:

Counterinsurgency is only as good as the government it supports. NATO could do everything right – it isn’t – but will still fail unless Afghans trust their government. Without essential reform, merely making the government more efficient or extending its reach will just make things worse.

Only a legitimately elected Afghan president can enact reforms, so at the very least we need to see a genuine run-off election or an emergency national council, called a loya jirga, before winter. Once a legitimate president emerges, we need to see immediate action from him on a publicly announced reform program, developed in consultation with Afghan society and enforced by international monitors. …

If we see no genuine progress on such steps toward government responsibility, the United States should “Afghanize” – draw down troops and prepare to mitigate the inevitable humanitarian disaster that will come when the Kabul government falls to the Taliban – which, in the absence of reform, it eventually and deservedly will.

This is why that rather pedestrian Tennyson poem comes to mind. Our guys, for duty, honor and country, are willing to die. The rest of us look on and wonder why we’re asking this of them, here, in this place. They deserve better.

Spencer Ackerman digs a little deeper and sees how Kilcullen can propose an Afghan genuine run-off election or an emergency national council, but see that there is no real constituency for such things:

There needs to be a genuine Afghan appetite for a constitutional deviation out of this crisis, otherwise the result will perpetuate the illegitimacy that the election exposed. (I say “exposed” and not “created” because the act of stealing an election is merely a symptom – albeit a dire one – of a broader disease consuming the thief.) The international community cannot force this solution on Afghanistan, and Galbraith’s experience calls into question whether it would support such a solution even if an Afghan constituency for it materialized.

Yep, the UN fired Peter Galbraith, and Karzai stole the election. And our guys fight on and die.

Andrew Sullivan says it’s all a muddle:

Here are some of the factors we do not fully understand right now. Pakistan’s military is on the verge of a large offensive against the Taliban. We don’t know what the outcome of that will be. The election in Afghanistan is unresolved, with serious and credible allegations of fraud and the possibility of a run-off or any number of unforeseen developments. Again, we do not know the outcome of that.

Iraq, still home to almost 130,000 US troops, is far from stable and could descend into sectarian anarchy when the US leaves. There are some encouraging signs there – especially Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s inclusion of Sunni groups in his new coalition and an apparent resurgence of national unity as a theme in the current campaign. If Iraqis are finally ready to leave the past behind, if the bloody chaos of the worst years has shifted that national psyche, that would indeed be miraculous. Bloody civil wars can do that (it was true of the English civil war and the 30 years’ war): they can finally persuade a population that compromise really is better than the alternative. Once the general population believes that, and there is a halfway credible national government willing to support them, a pivot can occur. We may not be there in Iraq, but it would be insane, after the immense sacrifice and carnage of the past few years, to dismiss the possibility that disaster could be avoided.

Of course, anyone boldly predicting triumph in Iraq needs his head examined.

But other than that, things are fine.

Actually, given all that, Sullivan argues that we do nothing much:

In a moment of immense unpredictability and fluidity, it seems that muddling through for a while may be an unsatisfying but sensible option. …

In other words, meticulously prepare for either the McChrystal counterinsurgency surge or a more low-key counterterrorism campaign. But right now, hold on to see what emerges after the results of the imminent Pakistani military campaign in Waziristan and after we know more about the post-election position in Afghanistan.

And what about those who die for us? It’s time to reread Tennyson.

On October 4:

1537 The first complete English-language Bible (the Matthew Bible) was printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.

1824 Mexico adopted a new constitution and became a federal republic.

1830 The state of Belgium  was created after separation from The Netherlands.

1853 The  Crimean War began when the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia.

Detail of Franz Roubaud’s panoramic painting The Siege of Sevastopol (1904).

1876  Texas A&M University opened as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas becoming Texas’s first public institution of higher education.

1883 The Orient Express began its first run.

1883 – The first meeting of the Boys’ Brigade took place in Glasgow.

1895 The first U.S. Open Men’s Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association was played at the Newport Country Club on Rhode Island.

1910 Declaration of the Portuguese Republic. 

1923 US actor Charlton Heston was born.

1927 Gutzon Borglum began sculpting Mount Rushmore.

1937 English writer Jackie Collins was born.

1957 Morris Yock trademarked the jandal.

1957 Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched.

1991 The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty  was opened for signature.

 Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

HISTORICAL FICTION: THE STREET PHILOSOPHER – Matthew Plampin/Harper Collins (London) – 2009

This thoroughly engrossing historical novel ultimately turned out to disappoint. 

THE STREET PHILOSOPHER begins at the dawn of the Crimean War with the arrival of illustrator Robert Styles, dispatched from London’s Courier publication.  He is to round out a press trio comprised of the veteran correspondent,  Richard Cracknell and his associate, Thomas Kitson. Kitson is new to the post of war correspondent, having previously handled art criticism in London.  He was selected for his descriptive style.  He had great admiration for his senior’s aggressive style in obtaining information.  The Irishman Cracknell was a colorful character: rotund, fond of drink, women and good at obtaining information at the camp and on the battlefield.

Styles arrived at the preparing battlefield on a steamer, along with Mrs. Madeleine Boyce, the wife of Lt. Commander Boyce.  It was obvious that Styles was quite taken with the beautiful young Madeleine.  It was also obvious that Cracknell had taken an immediate dislike of Styles, wondering why his publication had picked this rather delicate artist to help cover the war.  We soon learn that Cracknell is having a passionate affair with Mrs. Boyce.  While Kitson was busy describing the gory details of the war and Styles depicted the gruesome scenes, Cracknell brazenly wrote pieces meant to discredit the pompous, egotistical and incompetent officers and demeaning the dreamy Styles.  As Cracknell’s pieces became more and more controversial, the Courier sold more copies.  He was becoming a celebrity.  The muckraking Cracknell was particularly anxious to discredit Boyce and Capt. Wray, both proving to be scoundrels.  It was most helpful that Cracknell was bedding Mrs. Boyce.  Not only did she detest her husband for his abuse, but was willing to share any information she could with her lover.  She’d only stayed in the Crimea because she was desperately in love with Cracknell and he fed that romance for his own purposes.

We are taken through horrendous battlefield injuries, poor decision making and the spread of cholera.  Kitson is increasingly alarmed about the mental state of Styles.  He is totally fixated on his gory  drawings and Madeleine Boyce.  He tries to convince Cracknell to send the troubled young man back to England.  Instead, Cracknell continues ignore him.  As the British and French armies progress in the direction of Sebastopol, the ever-vigilent Cracknell looks for ways to uncover the evil deeds of Wray and Boyce.  He notices that in the midst of battle, that Wray is given a note, summons Boyce and he leaves  in the opposite direction of the battlefield with two soldiers in tow.  Cracknell gathers Kitson and Styles and they follow him.  They arrive at  what is the country home of the Tsar.  It seems unoccupied.  They wind up in the kitchen and find they are not alone.  An obvious Russian accent is heard.  He is in the company of Boyce,  and the two soldiers who are standing guard.  Hiding, the journalistic trio listens carefully.  The Russian is unlocking a cabinet and heading to the basement.  He comes back with what appears to be a painting.  Kitson, the former art critic recognizes the painting as Raphael’s Pilate Washing His Hands,considered lost for centuries.  This is a priceless treasure!  Boyce kills the Russian and one of his soldiers.  He keeps the other one,  who is rather feeble-brained, as his personal assistant.  He leaves the scene with the treasure hidden in a cart.  He doesn’t realize there are further witness, the most prominent of which is just aching to exact monumental revenge.

Using Madeleine and other intelligence, Cracknell knows that Boyce will need an intermediary to get the art treasure back to England.  As predicted, Boyce summons rising industrialist Charles Norton to the Crimea.  He knows he can turn the greedy Norton into a war profiteer for his purpose of smuggling.  Norton is given lucrative contracts and tasked with carrying out the art.  He readily agrees.

As the battles drag on, the three employees of the magazine follow the campaign.  Styles is far gone.  He has beaten off a Russian soldier by shooting him.  Kitson again asks that Styles be sent home, to no avail.  At this point, Cracknell exposes Boyce and Wray in print.  This creates a scandal at home and with a letter to the editor anonymously written by Boyce, Cracknell is fired and Boyce is promoted.  The fires of revenge are burning in Cracknell. 

In a particularly difficult battle all three are cornered injured.  Cracknell wanders off with his injury but Kitson and Styles are dispatched to the makeshift army hospital.  Cracknell is now on a freelance campaign against his enemies.  He lingers in the Crimea as the war winds down but keeps away from the battlefield.  Kitson, thinking that Styles has been sent home, stays near a port city to heal his wounds.  He works as a nurse there and is happy in his new role.

When Kitson gets word that Styles is still in the Crimea, he knows the erratic young illustrator is in grave danger.  He is no longer afraid of killing or even dying.  Kitson goes back to the field in search of Styles on the front lines.  He finds him there.  What he doesn’t know is that Styles was in what was Cracknell’s former tent and viewed and illustrated what was clearly Cracknell and Madeleine having sex.  Styles died in the battle and Kitson’s dislike of Cracknell turned to hatred.  A soldier who hated Boyce circulated the drawings around the camp.  Cracknell got wind of this and seized the illustrations.  He enlisted the soldier who hated Boyce the most virulently and made sure that they got to Boyce.  Boyce more than suspected the affair, but when he saw the very detailed drawings, he went into a rage and killed his wife, blaming it on a Russian intruder.

Kitson returned to England, but knowing he was a witness to Boyce’s crimes, settled in Manchester.  He took a job on a minor publication, he kept a low profile as a gossip columnist.  Therein comes the title.  This position was called Street Philosopher in that era.  He prayed that he would just be left alone.

All characters came together in Manchester, including Norton.  The plot thickens as Kitson falls in love with Norton’s rebellious daughter.  Cracknell is driven by revenge and hires thugs to kill both Wray and Boyce and to undermine the wealthy and criminal Norton.

Plampin has a fine writing style interspersing the Crimea and Manchester and brings his experience as an art and culture expert of 19th Century England.  He engages the reader by making him or her weigh the motivations for truthtelling.  One has to evaluate whether the better man is Cracknell for getting the back story out or Kitson in his artistic verbiage but not engaging the powers that were as Cracknell did for his own purposes.

My major criticism of the book is that Plampin didn’t take a moment, prior to the story, to explain the factors leading to this war.  All we really learn is that there is an alliance between England and France to fight Russia.  We aren’t even told who won this war.  I was not happy to have to research this on my own.  Here’s what I was able to glean from a history professor who wishes to remain anonymous:

“The Crimean War grows out of the Great Power Game and the balance of powers established after the Napoleonic wars.  Within that game, as one power ‘grew’, the configuration became ‘unstable’–it’s kind of a plate tectonics theory of what foreign affairs are about.  The ‘growing’ power was Prussia.  And others were declining–most notably Austria/Hungary.  Then there was all kinds of debate over what made a country ’strong’–population?  economic development? getting colonies?  foreign trade?  And how did you assess your power and the power of others?  The site hints at some of the considerations–Russia wanted access to the Mediterranean and was viewed as a potential ‘threat’.  I think the whole game was dangerous, and eventually came crashing down in World War I.  I don’t know anything about why Britain and France decided on such a pre-emptive strike, what they hoped to gain from it, and I haven’t followed the literature–I’m sure there are people making careers out of exploring the diplomacy.  

 It could be that Plampin wanted to keep this as vague as possible so we would apply this appalling war to an overall observation of the futility of war.  I think this missing information is really necessary (and I’ve written to the publisher to convey my message to Mr. Plampin);  otherwise, this is just another compelling story which happens to be set in war and you can fill in the blanks.  Plampin DOES inform via an end note that there is no such painting as Pilate Washing His Hands.

It’s  sad that Plampin didn’t incorporate Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”, written in 1854:

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

 By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

SIR MARTIN MARION HILARY – The Inventor of Time

PART 2

Bringing you the further adventures of the visionary inventor of time Sir Martin Marion Hilary. Continuing on from yesterday, and the world in chaos with no way to measure or mark time - we find our esteemed hero pitched up in Greenwich, to make his way as a sailor. Fate however, was to deal Sir Martin, an altogether different set of  cards (he wasn’t going to become a sailor)…

Greenwich at the turn of ????, was a peaceful, small glade located in North West London. It was soon bought into question the wisdom of locating a Maritime College so far from the Thames though, and it was quickly and duly moved to the South East banks. They had initially intended to relocate to the Greenwich Peninsula, however the sight was being kept clear for an at the time unspecified venue to be built in celebration of a forthcoming global centenary, of which nobody seemed clear when was.

Rejected by the Maritime College for being too Scottish, Sir Martin was at his lowest ebb. He considered a return North, having experienced the bitter rejection and failure that marked so many that came to London with a head full of dreams.

Had that been the case,  it is often theorized that on the journey home he would have been accosted by bandits, who would have beaten him and robbed him of his meagre possessions. Left for dead in a ditch on a side road, he would have been found by a kindly Samaritan who would have taken him back to his homestead in the sleepy Cotswold town of Evesham. Temporary amnesia bought on by the struggle with the bandits would have seen him start a new life as the kindly stranger in town who would have been embraced as the lost son of a local resident -  the townfolk willing him to be a figure to reunite a community broken from loss of too many of it’s own in the Crimean War (unusual only in that the Crimean War was still some 150 years from having happened). Still eventually the goodwill he had generated would eventually be eroded by a mishap with the daughter of the town’s most affluent and influential figure and a herd of pigs. Hounded from the town he would have eventually died from malnutrition had he not been hit by a horse-drawn carriage.

Fortunately of course – this isn’t what happened at all. It is unclear how Sir Martin came upon his concept of time, what he had to gain from it personally. Nothing was written in the history books, there are no records. There is the theory that he couldn’t come up with a credible origin for his invention, that he didn’t now how to get from A to C, and so skipped B entirely! And fortunately that is where we pick up our tale tomorrow…. (to be continued)

by Alfred Tennyson.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

via The Charge of the Light Brigade (1880) by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) .

Read Chapter 16…
Murder Most Theatrical: Chapter 16 – Shipwrecked

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Title:Magnificent Folly
Author: DTS
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 4956
Characters: First Doctor, Steven Taylor, Dodo Chaplet
Setting / Era: Crimean War, Charge of the Light Brigade, Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, Lord Cardigan.

The First Doctor, Steven and Dodo consider the temptation to change history in the face of the imminent Charge of the Light Brigade. A classic 60s Who type dilemma. (There are one or two Americanisms, but in Steven and Dodo’s dialogue, not the Doctor’s or any of the historical characters.)

Read Chapter 15…
Murder Most Theatrical: Chapter 15 – The Charge of the Light Brigade

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Read Chapter 15
Murder Most Theatrical: Chapter 15 – The Charge of the Light Brigade

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The Street Philosopher by Matthew Plampin

Debut novelist Matthew Plampin brings us to number six in our series of interviews with the Waterstones’ ones to watch 2009. Matthew grew up in Essex and went to university in Birmingham, studying English and History of Art. He then went to complete his PHD at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Now lecturing in Nineteenth century art and architecture he also found time to complete his first novel The Street Philosopher.

Set in the violent back drop of the Crimean War The Street Philosopher tells the story Thomas Kitson a promising art critic who gives it all up to become a war reporter. Following in Kitson’s footsteps are his boss, a drink obsessed Irish reporter, and a sensitive young illustrator who was commissioned to follow the British Army into war. Jumping between scenes during the war and Manchester a year after the war which sees Thomas Kitson becomes the street philosopher reporting on the daily gossip. Struggling to come to terms with his war time past may scupper a budding relationship with the widowed daughter of a corrupt factory owner.

Critics celebrated Plampin’s excellent research skills brining the horrors of the Crimean war to life, drawing on his own experiences dealing with raw historical text has allowed Matthew Plampin to give the reader a realistic insight into the Crimean war whilst dealing with the ever-present issue of returning back to normality.

Matthew speaks to The Scribbler about his own influences, what inspires him and what it means to be included on the Waterstones ones to watch list 2009.

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The Scribbler: What is different about your writing that helps it stand out from other new writers at the moment?

Matthew Plampin: I don’t know if that’s really for me to say. I hope that it takes a vivid and cinematic approach to historical fiction.

TS: As a ‘New Voice of 2009′ you must be inspired by some very contemporary authors. Which writers do you enjoy reading and draw inspiration from?

MP: I’m a big fan of Peter Carey, particularly ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’, and will also read anything by Kate Grenville, Sarah Waters or Beryl Bainbridge. I really like modern graphic novels as well, especially those by Chris Ware or Daniel Clowes.

TS: Our readers will be very interested in how you approach a writing project. Where do you lift your ideas from?

MP: All sorts of places. I read a lot of history, but also take care to utilise primary sources – Victorian newspapers, diaries, guidebooks and so on – in an effort to create an authentic feel and get the details right. Visual imagery is also very important to me. One of the first things I do is get a good map of the places I’m writing about, as well as any paintings, engravings or photographs that I come to hand. I find Victorian photography completely engrossing. The Crimean War was one of the very first to photographed, and I regularly consulted the many ghostly images taken by Roger Fenton whilst writing ‘The Street Philosopher’. This has led me to a broader interest – I’m particularly fascinated right now by the photographs taken by Lady Clementina Hawarden in the late 1850s, some of which have an eerily contemporary feel to them. I’m also frequently inspired by TV and film. Recent favourites have included ‘Deadwood’, ‘The Wire’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’.

TS:  When you first began writing how easy was it to find and sign to publisher? Can you talk us through that

MP: Not very! I actually wrote an entire novel before ‘The Street Philosopher’ that sunk without trace, which was disheartening to say the least, but it meant that I was a little more thick-skinned later on. Basically, I circulated passages of the first proper draft as widely as I could and eventually, through a friend in publishing, it found its way to my agent – who happened to be looking for new authors at the time. We then worked on a new draft of the novel together and he managed to get me a deal with HarperCollins. It took a lot of perseverance and a fair bit of serendipity.

TS: What obstacles have you come across in your writing and how did you overcome them?

MP: The main challenges of ‘The Street Philosopher’ were making the novel’s two chronological strands equally engaging; balancing grand-scale historical events such as royal ceremonies and major battles with the characters’ personal trials, triumphs and tragedies; and explaining often quite complicated history in a way that was interesting and didn’t slow down the narrative. The only way to overcome them was through hard work and extensive redrafts.

TS: We often hear that artists have trouble dealing with their own pieces (i.e. musicians not able to listen to their albums etc.) How do you feel about your own work? Are you comfortable with it?

MP: Mostly. There is a slight nervousness there – bits that gave me trouble that still sometimes flag up in my mind even though the issues are long since resolved. But for every wince I can usually find a few passages that I’m pretty pleased with.

TS: Have you already started work on your next book? Is it difficult to leave one piece behind and start new one?

MP: I’m actually within a couple of months of finishing the first draft of my second novel – it should be out in early 2010. Leaving ‘The Street Philosopher’ behind was hard as I’d worked on it for over four years, but starting something completely new has been exhilarating. It’s a story of intricate conspiracies and bloody betrayal set around a gun factory in 1850s Pimlico, owned and overseen by the legendary American revolver-maker Colonel Samuel Colt, and I’m enjoying writing it a lot.

TS:  What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given and advice would you give to our budding readers today?

MP: Redraft repeatedly; everything can be improved. Consider advice carefully, but don’t allow it to overwhelm or redirect what you set out to do. And get something down – a very basic point but a vital one. I’ve learned that a flawed draft you can go back to is a lot better than nothing.

TS: In your opinion what is The Street Philosopher about?

MP: In my opinion (broadly speaking and in no particular order): trauma and injustice, then redemption and revenge; different, even conflicting conceptions of duty and friendship; the complex role of the war correspondent; the corruption wrought by power – in all its forms.

TS: What books inspired you to pick up the pen and start writing?

MP: ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ by Peter Carey; ‘The Stones of Venice’ by John Ruskin; ‘Moby-Dick’ by Herman Melville; ‘Bleak House’ by Charles Dickens; ‘Romola’ by George Eliot; ‘The Golden Legend’ by Jacobus de Voraigne; ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’ by Iain Pears; ‘Mason and Dixon’ by Thomas Pynchon. And too many others to list here.

TS: What is your learning background?, and do you feel it helped you in writing your novel?

MP: I did a PhD in Victorian cultural history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, which not only exposed me to a lot of the raw historical material that inspired the novel, but also accustomed me to solitude, the planning and researching of large writing projects, and long, long hours – all of which has proved essential.

TS: What does it mean to you to be named as one of the New Voices of 2009 by Waterstones?

MP: A great deal – it’s massively encouraging to be selected as one of twelve from such an enormous pool of entrants, and seeing the book on display in the window of the Piccadilly branch has definitely been one of the high points of the whole experience so far.

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Bellow is a video of the man himself talking to Waterstones about his book The Street Philosopher

Discussion:
So has anyone been reading The Street Philosopher? What’s your verdict? Leave your comments below

Ray’s Daily Affirmation:

“Even amid adversity, I endeavor to succeed to the maximum extent of my abilities.”
(Choose from 100s mp3 affirmations at The Affirmation Spot)

It’s strange how we are often intrigued by those things so opposite our personalities. If you’ve read this blog for very long or read much of my other writing, you probably know I am a harsh critic of war.

It is a barbaric means of settling differences for a species that longs to be deemed civilized. It distorts issues of right and wrong. It kills, maims, and otherwise ruins generations. It uses the exuberance and inexperience of young men and their desire for adventure against them. It fills their minds with visions of glory for the motherland, but not the costs associated with gaining it.

Worst of all, it is rarely even fought for the noble purposes used to justify and excuse it. More often it is fought for greedy profits and a thirst for power and glory. War is a toxic medicine that must be choked down with the sugar pills of patriotism, duty, and honor to convince the populace to ingest it. Bluntly, it almost never serves the interests of the people who actually fight and die in wars.

Yet, as a history major and history buff, war provides some of the most compelling stories in history. It pushes technologies forward, and forces us to challenge and confront our own inhumanity. In college, I read every about word ever written about General George S. Patton and many of the other generals of World War II. I’ve studied the strategies and personalities of nearly every Civil War battle. War, for all its evils, war intrigues.

From the time I was a small boy, one of my favorite poems has always been Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

The poem depicts a famous battle from the Crimean War (1853-1856) – Europe’s first true continental war. British commander Lord Cardigan led a disastrous charge of British Light cavalry against Russian defenses at the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854.

Tennyson immortalized the event with his famous poem. What I love about the poem – beyond its obvious references to war’s paradoxes of tragedy and heroics – is that it is a metaphor for life. Our life often seems to have metaphorical “cannon to the right, cannon to the left, cannon behind us”.

I hope you enjoy this and that you will draw strength from it for your own “battles”.

“The Charge of the Light Brigade”

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Stay inspired!

Ray

2009 Affirmation

“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”

The Royal Navy involvement in the  Crimean War. 

To most people the Crimean War, conjures up the Charge of the Light Brigade, and the bombardment of Sevastopol, the Battles of Alma, Inkerman, and Balaklava. 

To most Postal Historians, it is the Army Post Offices at Constantinople, Varna, Balaklava, Army HQ Crimea and at Scutari Hospital.  Probably more so, are the cancellations used; the “Crown and Stars” and the “Star and Cyphers”, this second type commonly called the “OXO” type.

What most people do not realise is that there was just as much action and involvement by the Royal Navy in other areas, far removed from the Crimean Peninsular. Locations which included the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Sea of Azoff and the Pacific Ocean. 

On St. George’s Day April 23, 1856, in honour of the conclusion of peace, and in recognition of the Navy, Queen Victoria, in the Victoria and Albert, reviewed at Spithead a large fleet of some 240 ships, most of which had recently served either in the Baltic or in the Black Sea.