#Indian pursuit recall

[ijustwant2ride]

Motorcycle Recall August 2023: Triumph, Indian, Moto Guzzi

Be aware that this motorcycle recall list is for the United States for the last 30 days, there is no way I could cover the entire world. But in the world of global manufacturing, if a motorcycle is being recalled in one country it is in all.

Be aware that this motorcycle recall list is for the United States for the last 30 days, there is no way I could cover the entire world. But in the world of global manufacturing, if a motorcycle is being recalled in one country there is a good chance it is under recall in others. Also, this should not be considered a definitive list, check for yourself if you have any questions. If you are US…

[mariacallous]

Late in 1774, Lord Robert Clive was found dead in his London townhouse. Rumors flew that conscience had finally compelled the rapacious conqueror to take his own life. Having just arrived in Pennsylvania from England, Thomas Paine recalled how the riches Clive wrested through “murder and rapine” and “famine and wretchedness” in India had enveloped him in the “sunshine of sovereign favor” at home, allowing him to enter into further “schemes of war … and intrigue” to amass an “unbounded fortune.” In the end, however, “guilt and melancholy” had proved “poisons of quick despatch.”

Clive was a reckless fortune-hunter in the British East India Company (EIC), the chartered monopoly company trading in the Indian Ocean region—heavily armed, to compel trade on its terms. When the British and French went to war globally in 1756, their rivalrous companies in India did, too, and Clive secured the EIC’s first major territory in Bengal in 1757. Long-held company towns at the subcontinent’s edges expanded into a company-owned state.

The company’s shareholders sat in the British Parliament and were politically powerful. Those who rose up in it acquired power as well. Plunder of gold and jewels and a rich annuity in land revenue enabled Clive to secure an Irish barony, a country estate in Shropshire, and a seat in Parliament, as well as seats for his friends. The term for such nouveaux riches, “nabob”—a corruption of the Hindustani word nawab, or prince—captured their political presumption.

This was the Britain that Americans rebelled against.

Since the launch of Trump 2.0, both supporters and critics have analogized its unapologetic embrace of financial and tech titans to America’s Gilded Age. Others see in the administration’s ambitions in Greenland and Panama a throwback to the 19th-century private contractors of colonialism. But the 19th century was itself a new twist on an older oligarchic model exemplified by Clive. Private contracting is in the DNA of the modern state structures that Americans adopted—forgetting that they had rebelled not just against monarchy but also an oligarchic Parliament. Revisiting that foundational struggle shifts our perspective on the threat oligarchy poses today and the tactics needed to contend with it.

Traditional monarchs were corporate bodies in their own right, expressing the body politic in their personal form. From the 16th century, the British monarchy also relied on another kind of corporation, the chartered monopoly company, to pursue interests abroad, including the EIC, Virginia Company, Massachusetts Bay Company, Royal African Company, and Hudson’s Bay Company. Members of such companies enormously influenced the government bureaucracy that began to emerge to address the questions of trade and war that their activities sparked. Finally, with the 1688-89 Glorious Revolution, Parliament, controlled by wealthy elites also involved in such enterprises, dramatically curbed kingly authority; sovereignty migrated from the king’s person to the nascent institutions of the modern state, a new form of continuous public power above the ruler and the ruled.

This state was an oligarchy. The aristocrats who controlled Parliament used it to usurp the common rights of ordinary people, passing thousands of laws privatizing land—an internal colonialism that displaced masses of people, many of whom took their memory of oligarchic injury to North America, where they in turn displaced Indigenous inhabitants. The state also depended on contractors and corporations such as the EIC for the military and financial organization that it still lacked. Corporations’ interests in Asia, Africa, and the Americas were entangled with and dependent on Britain’s diplomatic, military, and political pursuits. Apart from trade and conquest, such companies bought, sold, and leased sovereignty like a commodity, as, for instance, with the EIC’s creation and sale of the princely state of “Jammu and Kashmir” to its allies in its conquest of Punjab.

In short, corporations were the new state’s partners in governance. The British state was Parliament, an emerging fiscal-military bureaucracy, and the Crown, plus corporations (including the Royal Mint and the Bank of England) and private contractors and financiers. In this sense, it, too, had a corporate form. It’s impossible to say where the state ended and the private sphere began. Great landowners and merchant oligarchs sat in Parliament but also held wide, unsupervised local powers as lord lieutenants, sheriffs, justices of the peace. Such unpaid positions layered state authority on their holders’ local social status and private wealth. They secured compliance with the threat of legitimate force, even though they did not always see themselves primarily as agents of the state and their power did not derive solely from their office.

Most Americans know that when Parliament asked the colonists to help fund debt accrued in the massive Seven Years’ War, which lasted until 1763, they cried, “No taxation without representation!” But ordinary Britons were also incensed by the hot mess of private wealth and state power in this time, which saw the most consistently negative depictions of big business ever. Followers of the radical politician John Wilkes likened the alliance among elites across the state, land, commerce, finance, and industry to a gang of robbers plundering society. Popular reform movements involved petitions and pamphleteering but also marches and mass meetings incorporating song and religious feeling��crowd politics.

Airing of the EIC’s corruption and cruelties as it teetered on the verge of bankruptcy in 1772, threatening the nation’s finances, fueled censure of figures such as Clive. Sharply attacking the company, the philosopher Adam Smith theorized a society in which a private economic realm free from state intervention would drive world-historical progress. The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, called not for recognition of boundaries between the public and private spheres but the creation of such boundaries—the liberal political-economic principle that shapes many Americans’ expectations of the relationship between government and society today.

Paine wrote about Clive’s death against this backdrop of ire against oligarchy in Britain and the Colonies—months before he drafted Common Sense, the incendiary pamphlet released in 1776 as Americans revolted. Fury about the EIC’s abuses fueled anger at Parliament’s treatment of the Colonies. In 1778, Paine noted the poetic justice that Indian tea had kindled a war in America “to punish the destroyer.” The villain was not just King George III but the oligarchy that had already checked his power.

After the Revolutionary War, the British public persisted in attacking military contractors, for reaping profits despite the country’s humiliating defeat, and financiers, for defrauding the public by exploiting their relationships with government offices for personal gain. When contracting exploded during the long wars against France from 1793 to 1815, popular radicals such as William Cobbett condemned this system of “Old Corruption,” dubbing the nexus of power, patronage, and wealth “the THING.”

In the face of sustained outcry, new institutions did evolve to exert control over the state’s private partners. The EIC, for instance, was integrated into the bureaucratic structure of the state, and new state offices, the Colonial and Foreign offices, were formed to engage in activities previously entirely outsourced to corporations.

Americans, too, worked to create institutions that would limit the potential for despotism. To be sure, the “articles” incorporating their government echoed the company charters that governed the earliest Colonies and gave Americans their understanding of a constitution: a written charter from a sovereign ordaining and setting out the limits of a government. But now “the people,” rather than the monarch, were the sovereign. Both countries also pursued civil service reform in the 19th century, meaning fewer political appointees and buying of positions—the creation of the professionalized government bureaucracy that the Trump administration is attempting to undo.

The process of separating business from state activity took time and remained ever incomplete because these states were designed for the pursuit of territorial expansion and maintenance of power within that territory through a security establishment. Both governments thus continued to invest in military industry and depend on contractors and corporate control of media, and a revolving door kept elites in these fields intimate with government offices. While the robber barons of the Gilded Age shaped U.S. industrial policies and westward expansion, monopoly companies continued to undertake British colonial expansion, profiting from government support while relieving the government of responsibility. Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company is merely the most famous, or infamous, of the companies that dominated this era.

Rhodes’s machinations triggered a grueling war in South Africa in which Britain prevailed only by recourse to scorched-earth tactics and concentration camps. Covering the war for the Manchester Guardian, the economist J.A. Hobson perceived that reckless imperialism was driven by oligarchs who hijacked foreign policy to serve their ends—inspiring Vladimir Lenin’s later critique of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. Such theorists grasped that asserting sovereignty uniformly across a bounded space was innately colonial, requiring the backing of military or security contractors and financiers. Voting was no guarantee of a democratic check on their power and policies, given the way that private donations swayed elections and that press barons cozy with the government manipulated public opinion in favor of jingoistic causes.

After World War I, a wised-up British public with a mass franchise and more consciously assertive press railed passionately against the sway of arms contractors who led the country into unnecessary conflicts. Again, imperial conflicts continued, albeit at times more covertly, to evade public scrutiny.

The public failed to dislodge oligarchic influence partly because it focused on tactics that liberalism prioritized at the expense of the more powerful tools it once wielded. From the 18th century, British reformers focused on franchise expansion as the key to changing Parliament’s composition and thus breaking the elite monopoly of state power. This emphasis on institutions of formal democracy was rooted in liberal ideals of political subjectivity: a highly individualized coherent self who formed his (and I mean “his,” up until after World War I) opinions rationally through careful reading of material produced by a presumptively free press. Institutionalized politics and secret balloting would deliver progress, liberal philosophers assured. This ideal meant moving away from the more fluid and collective sense of identity that drove the subversive street politics of the 17th and 18th centuries. Faith in print media facilitating debate among enlightened individuals undermined the emotive, melodramatic, and collective uses of more radically democratic forms of political expression, as did the state’s expanding capacity to police public spaces.

As World War II and the Cold War stoked doubts about liberal assumptions, the British New Left tried to revive collective forms of consciousness and action. In 1965, one of its leaders, the historian E.P. Thompson, identified the new “predatory complex” occupying the British state, with “its interpenetration of private industry and the State … [and] control over major media,” as a “new Thing.” A few years earlier, in his farewell address as U.S. president, Dwight D. Eisenhower had named the “military-industrial complex” entangling the interests of military contractors, the Defense Department, and politicians and distorting U.S. policy. The term was new, but the phenomenon was not.

Despite this warning, military contractors and financial elites continued to mold U.S. policy. If robber barons laid the foundation of Stanford University (the company town I write from), Pentagon contracts nurtured the rise of Silicon Valley through the present moment of tech billionaire-contractors lining up to kiss Donald Trump’s ring.

It’s no accident that tech billionaires style themselves as explorers on the frontiers of knowledge and space. Just as Clive molded himself on the conquistadors of narratives of the Age of Exploration, stories of the Clives and Rhodeses of empires past, long whitewashed by historians despite their ignominy in their own time, have made them models for men aspiring to enact the science fiction fantasies that were the Cold War update to adventure stories about colonial exploration of so-called dark continents.

Crony capitalism is a global imperial legacy. After 1947, corporations that had profited from military contracts under India’s colonial government cultivated a relationship with the new independent government, profoundly shaping its policies. Like the EIC, as the historian Mircea Raianu writes, the Tata Group acquired “attributes of sovereignty in the interstices of state power,” including company-owned towns established for mineral extraction and industrial production by displacing local inhabitants. Indeed, the group’s vision of systematic expansion across diverse industries—mills, land, mines, and more—was consciously imperial. Ordinary people and the government at times checked this influence—for instance, by resisting displacement and nationalizing airlines—to the extent that “corporate social responsibility” became a necessary public commitment for the Tatas. Today’s newer corporate billionaires, including Gautam Adani, wanted on charges of fraud and bribery in the United States, likewise rose through intimacy with the state. Their grip on the media, however, has all but banished acknowledgment that greedy tycoons loot the nation and exploit the common man. Today’s oligarchs unapologetically pursue and exhibit extravagant wealth, as masses of dispossessed Indians turn desperately to emigration to North America, like Britons in the 18th century.

The cult of MAGA deflects ordinary Americans’ frustration with a government that has long failed them toward such fellow victims of oligarchy, while Trump and his accomplices downsize the corporate U.S. government like maniacal management consultants to fully monopolize its capacities for their own ends.

Much distinguishes the current moment, not least that the stakes are planetary. But this is no freakishly unprecedented capture of a democracy by corporate power. The failure to recognize that the United States was born out of rebellion against oligarchy, not just monarchy, has long helped preserve oligarchic influence in the country. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders likens today’s oligarchs to the kings who ruled Americans by divine right before the 1770s, forgetting the oligarchic tyranny of Parliament.

Perhaps partly because Britons are more aware of their long struggle against oligarchy, as evident in Thompson’s invocation of Cobbett’s “Thing,” they have been more able to regulate campaign finance, albeit still not enough to prevent the rise of super-rich politicians such as Rishi Sunak (who married into India’s billionaire class), plutocratic control of the country’s biggest newspapers, and ideologically driven dismantling of the very state regulatory functions that could keep corruption in check.

Americans can mourn the loss of even the pretense of separation between government and big money. But the stark revelation of their entanglement is also an opportunity to rethink inherited concepts of normative governance and democracy.

The lesson of the past three centuries of recurring oligarchic influence on elections and governance is that democracy cannot be just about voting. Nor can we simply hope that the courts will challenge the avalanche of executive orders. Confronting oligarchy requires reclaiming the local forms of sovereignty sacrificed at its altar, which means collective action, forged through values of mutuality, outside electoral and legal institutions. It is worth considering whether British victims of 18th-century oligarchy might have more effectively defended the commons had they stayed rather than become settlers visiting their rage upon others abroad. Federal governments that are more substantively federal (i.e., not uniformly sovereign across their territory) yield less easily to oligarchic influence. The same applies to India.

To be sure, some of the Trump administration’s cheerleaders insist that dismantling the federal government is precisely about returning power to local communities and states. But the public goods at stake—food and air safety, public health—are necessarily federal. If the oligarchs call for privatizing the Postal Service and space exploration, the people should call for nationalizing X. Moreover, without reversion of federal taxes to local units, such rhetoric is merely cover-up for the administration’s actual effort to lay claim to local resources to serve its own ends. Local governments have already launched lawsuits against this imperial assertion.

Paine was too optimistic about Clive’s liberal subjectivity. Most probably, Clive did not die by his own hand but from overmedicating abdominal pain with opium. Conscience can’t stay the hand of unstable, violent, narcissistic personalities; it requires action, melodramatic action, from others. Some, however, are already pouring their melodramatic capacities into dark proclamations of a ruthless new order. Such despair in the world of print arises perhaps from the disappointed expectation of progress by the expected means. But nothing is settled, not least given the demonstrated ineptitude of the villains of the latest “Thing.” Optimistic action is a moral obligation in this situation; watch, don’t just read about, the example of the Indian farmers whose protests since 2020, drawing on memory of their struggle against British rule, have forestalled the billionaire-backed move to corporatize agriculture.

Right-wing American accelerationists dreaming of a world of high-tech enclaves governed as corporations dream an old dream. We have seen this EIC movie before. Oligarchy has always been an innate tendency of the modern state, one requiring stiffer resistance than Americans have yet offered. Democracy is, at its essence, the active challenging of “the Thing.” It’s time for Americans to be melodramatically democratic.

[cricnewz]

WPL 2025: DC W vs MI W Head to Head Records

The Women's Premier League (WPL) has quickly established itself as a premier platform for women's cricket, and the rivalry between the Delhi Capitals Women (DC W) and the Mumbai Indians Women (MI W) has become one of its most captivating narratives. As we gear up for the highly anticipated WPL 2025 season, dissecting their head-to-head records provides valuable insights into the dynamics of this fierce competition.

A Clash of Titans: The Emergence of a Classic Rivalry

The DC W vs MI W encounters have consistently delivered high-octane cricket, filled with drama, excitement, and nail-biting finishes. These matches are not just about winning; they’re about pride, strategy, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. The WPL schedule is always watched with great interest, especially when these two teams are concerned.

The rivalry has evolved into a classic, with both teams showcasing their strengths and exploiting each other's weaknesses. Understanding their head-to-head history is crucial for predicting their future clashes.

Analyzing the Numbers: A Deep Dive into the Stats

To truly grasp the essence of this rivalry, we need to delve into the numbers. How many times have these teams faced each other? Who holds the upper hand in terms of victories? What have been the key performances that have shaped their encounters?

By examining the data, we can identify trends and patterns that offer valuable insights into the teams' strategies and strengths. The cricket news outlets always love to discuss these statistics.

Also Read:- Gujarat Titans IPL 2025 Schedule

Key Encounters: Moments That Defined the Rivalry

Every rivalry has its defining moments, and the DC W vs MI W clashes have been no exception. From last-ball thrillers to dominant performances, these encounters have produced some unforgettable moments. High scoring chases, and amazing bowling spells have all been a part of the matches.

Recalling these key encounters helps us understand the evolution of the rivalry and the factors that have influenced the outcomes. These moments are often discussed when looking at women's cricket live score updates.

Home vs Away: The Impact of Venue

Does playing at home give either team an advantage? Analyzing the head-to-head records based on venue can reveal whether home conditions play a significant role in the outcomes. Understanding this aspect can help us anticipate how the teams might perform in future matches played at different venues.

Batting and Bowling Dominance: Identifying Key Performances

Which team has consistently outscored the other? Which bowling attack has been more effective? Examining the batting and bowling statistics from their head-to-head encounters can highlight the key performers and identify the areas where each team excels.

The women's cricket news always focuses on the dominant batting and bowling performances.

Strategic Battles: The Captains' Impact

The captains of DC W and MI W have played a crucial role in shaping the outcomes of their encounters. Their strategic decisions, including batting order, bowling changes, and field placements, have often been the deciding factors. Analyzing their tactical battles can provide insights into their leadership styles and their ability to handle pressure.

The Evolution of Team Dynamics: Changes Over Time

Teams evolve over time, with changes in personnel and playing styles. Analyzing the head-to-head records over multiple seasons can reveal how the teams have adapted and evolved. This longitudinal perspective provides a comprehensive understanding of the rivalry's dynamics.

Fan Perspectives: The Passion of the Rivalry

The DC W vs MI W rivalry is not just about the players; it's also about the fans. The passion and enthusiasm of the fans add an extra layer of excitement to these encounters. Understanding the fan perspectives can help us appreciate the emotional investment in this rivalry.

Looking Ahead: What Does the Future Hold?

As we look ahead to WPL 2025, the head-to-head records provide a foundation for predicting future clashes. However, cricket is an unpredictable sport, and anything can happen on any given day. The rivalry is sure to continue to evolve, with new chapters being written in each encounter.

The cricket world cup qualification of these women is greatly enhanced by the experience they gain in these high pressure matches.

Conclusion: A Rivalry That Defines the WPL

The DC W vs MI W head-to-head records provide a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of this captivating rivalry. By analyzing the numbers, identifying key encounters, and understanding the strategic battles, we can appreciate the depth and intensity of this competition. As we gear up for WPL 2025, this rivalry is sure to continue to deliver thrilling cricket, and the head-to-head records will remain a crucial aspect of the narrative.

Also Read:- IPL KKR vs RCB Dream11 Prediction

[itsicn]

WPL 2025: DC W vs MI W Head to Head Records

The Women's Premier League (WPL) has quickly established itself as a premier platform for women's cricket, and the rivalry between the Delhi Capitals Women (DC W) and the Mumbai Indians Women (MI W) has become one of its most captivating narratives. As we gear up for the highly anticipated WPL 2025 season, dissecting their head-to-head records provides valuable insights into the dynamics of this fierce competition.

A Clash of Titans: The Emergence of a Classic Rivalry

The DC W vs MI W encounters have consistently delivered high-octane cricket, filled with drama, excitement, and nail-biting finishes. These matches are not just about winning; they’re about pride, strategy, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. The WPL schedule is always watched with great interest, especially when these two teams are concerned.

The rivalry has evolved into a classic, with both teams showcasing their strengths and exploiting each other's weaknesses. Understanding their head-to-head history is crucial for predicting their future clashes.

Analyzing the Numbers: A Deep Dive into the Stats

To truly grasp the essence of this rivalry, we need to delve into the numbers. How many times have these teams faced each other? Who holds the upper hand in terms of victories? What have been the key performances that have shaped their encounters?

By examining the data, we can identify trends and patterns that offer valuable insights into the teams' strategies and strengths. The cricket news outlets always love to discuss these statistics.

Also Read:- Gujarat Titans IPL 2025 Schedule

Key Encounters: Moments That Defined the Rivalry

Every rivalry has its defining moments, and the DC W vs MI W clashes have been no exception. From last-ball thrillers to dominant performances, these encounters have produced some unforgettable moments. High scoring chases, and amazing bowling spells have all been a part of the matches.

Recalling these key encounters helps us understand the evolution of the rivalry and the factors that have influenced the outcomes. These moments are often discussed when looking at women's cricket live score updates.

Home vs Away: The Impact of Venue

Does playing at home give either team an advantage? Analyzing the head-to-head records based on venue can reveal whether home conditions play a significant role in the outcomes. Understanding this aspect can help us anticipate how the teams might perform in future matches played at different venues.

Batting and Bowling Dominance: Identifying Key Performances

Which team has consistently outscored the other? Which bowling attack has been more effective? Examining the batting and bowling statistics from their head-to-head encounters can highlight the key performers and identify the areas where each team excels.

The women's cricket news always focuses on the dominant batting and bowling performances.

Strategic Battles: The Captains' Impact

The captains of DC W and MI W have played a crucial role in shaping the outcomes of their encounters. Their strategic decisions, including batting order, bowling changes, and field placements, have often been the deciding factors. Analyzing their tactical battles can provide insights into their leadership styles and their ability to handle pressure.

The Evolution of Team Dynamics: Changes Over Time

Teams evolve over time, with changes in personnel and playing styles. Analyzing the head-to-head records over multiple seasons can reveal how the teams have adapted and evolved. This longitudinal perspective provides a comprehensive understanding of the rivalry's dynamics.

Fan Perspectives: The Passion of the Rivalry

The DC W vs MI W rivalry is not just about the players; it's also about the fans. The passion and enthusiasm of the fans add an extra layer of excitement to these encounters. Understanding the fan perspectives can help us appreciate the emotional investment in this rivalry.

Looking Ahead: What Does the Future Hold?

As we look ahead to WPL 2025, the head-to-head records provide a foundation for predicting future clashes. However, cricket is an unpredictable sport, and anything can happen on any given day. The rivalry is sure to continue to evolve, with new chapters being written in each encounter.

The cricket world cup qualification of these women is greatly enhanced by the experience they gain in these high pressure matches.

Conclusion: A Rivalry That Defines the WPL

The DC W vs MI W head-to-head records provide a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of this captivating rivalry. By analyzing the numbers, identifying key encounters, and understanding the strategic battles, we can appreciate the depth and intensity of this competition. As we gear up for WPL 2025, this rivalry is sure to continue to deliver thrilling cricket, and the head-to-head records will remain a crucial aspect of the narrative.

Also Read:- IPL KKR vs RCB Dream11 Prediction

[whitepolaris]

The Thing from Tahlequah

Reading newspaper archives form the early 1900s seems like it might be the driest of all hobbies, but we should all by grateful for those unsung library moles who endure the tedium and frustration of loading a microfiche machine, for it is they who uncover the most marvelous of articles.

A prime example is an item once buried deep in an issue of the Oklahoman published in November 1920. Boldly featuring the word monster in its title, the article recalled an incident said to have occurred near the eastern Oklahoma town of Tahlequah in 1842. The "thing," described as reptilian, reportedly lived in a cave of unknown depth, which opened onto a bluff overlooking the Illinois River. For reasons unexplained or inexplicable, the creature left its home and started making its way across the prairie north of town, an action that unnerved the locals enough to call in well-respected elder and noted warrior Archibald Campbell.

Through the snow and ice, a messenger faced to retrieve Campbell, who took up his knife and his gun, and gathered a group of brave trackers to hunt down the beast. When the posse reached the prairie north of town, they discovered a broad track that had been cut clearly through the snow. The track, the men said, appeared "as if some animal the size of a bear had been dragged along." It remains unclear if the description was meant to convey the size of the creature itself or if perhaps the beast had been so powerful as to actually take down such large game, though either conclusion would have been reason enough to hunt it down.

Unfortunately, the creature had a considerable head start on the men. When the party reached the Grand River several miles west they got a glimpse of the monster. Climbing the snow-covered grade on the opposite bank, the creature turned and raised its head, which shocked the entire posse when they saw that the face resembled that of an alligator.

Regrettably, the late hour forced the party to camp for the night before continuing its pursuit. Moreover, by the next morning many had decided to drop out and return home. Campbell, however, backed by a few indomitable hunters, forged on. Given the path left in the snow, not to mention the horrible stench it was said to produce, the posse found no difficulty in tracking the creature. By late afternoon, they spotted him once again. Before they could get close enough to take aim, however, the men were stopped by a group of Osage Indians.

The Osage, who were familiar with the creature, had caught sight of it was well and intercepted, the hunting party to warn them not to continue. Insisting that the creature's thick scales were impenetrable by their bullets, they said continuing the chase would be futile. Besides, they said, it was not a creature to be trifled with.

The article conveyed few details of the ensuing conversation, but "so urgent were the appeals" that the Osage convinced Campbell and his bloodthirsty group to turn back.

Local history has since recorded no other sightings of the creature, though it has been suggested that the beast may have turned south and sought refuge in Mexico. It's also possible that the creature may have traveled as far as South America, which may have, in fact, been its original home. Interestingly, ancient artifacts uncovered from the Chiriquian natives who once lived in Panama are rife with images of a deity whose body was that of a human and whose head was that of an alligator.

[sportsgr8]

Thirteen Years Ago, My Childhood Dream Turned Into Reality , Sachin Reminisces India s 2011 ODI World Cup Glory

ICC Cricket World Cup: Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar recalled the 2011 ODI World Cup victory on the 13th anniversary of the monumental triumph. April 2 holds immense significance for Indian cricket, as the Men in Blue clinched their second ODI World Cup title, ending a 28-year wait since their first-ever victory in 1983. On this day in 2011, India won the showpiece event in front of the home crowd at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, courtesy of two brilliant knocks by Gautam Gambhir and then-skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. "Thirteen years ago, my childhood dream turned into reality. Forever grateful for the memories, the team, and the incredible support of over a billion people," Sachin wrote on his social media while sharing a photo from the 2011 World Cup trophy moment. Dhoni alongside Gambhir orchestrated India's pursuit of the 274/6 target set by Sri Lanka. The latter's dismissal for 97 left India within reach of victory, with Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh guiding the team home. Dhoni's iconic six sealed India's triumph with 10 balls to spare. Sachin, who had been a part of the Indian team at ODI World Cups since 1992, Sachin had to wait till 2011 to lay his hands on the coveted silverware after missing out on five previous occasions. "2-4-2011 Day to remember... Worldcup winners #Grateful," said former India spin master Harbhajan Singh said, celebrating India's 2011 World Cup success. BCCI secretary Jay Shah also shared a post on X on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of India's 2011 World Cup triumph, "#OnThisDay in 2011, our Men in Blue made history by clinching the ICC Cricket World Cup for the 2nd time! "Led by the legendary @msdhoni, with gritty innings from @GautamGambhir, quality batting by @sachin_rt, heroic all-round displays by @YUVSTRONG12 and the entire squad played exceptional cricket throughout the tournament! "Every moment at the electrifying Wankhede Stadium echoed with the spirit of Indian Cricket on this night, 13 years ago," he wrote. "#OnThisDay in 2011, Team India put an end to a 28-year World Cup drought by defeating Sri Lanka in the final and becoming the ICC World Cup champions for the second time!" Asian Cricket Council shared on X. Read the full article

[reportafrique]

President tinubu Closes $7 billion India Investment  deal 

The Nigeria Federal Government has successfully inked a monumental $7 billion investment deal with India, marking a significant milestone in the country's pursuit of foreign investments. The announcement was made by Mr. Gangadharan Balasubramanian, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, during the 75th Republic Day celebrations on Friday night. This substantial investment is part of India's commitment, made during the G20 Summit last year, where the South Asian country pledged a total investment of $14 billion. President Tinubu, who participated in the G20 September 2023 Summit hosted by India, witnessed the fulfillment of this commitment with the signing of the $7 billion deal. Gangadharan Balasubramanian During the Republic Day celebration event, the Indian High Commissioner highlighted the robust and historical relations between India and Nigeria. Notably, he mentioned that over 150 Indian companies are currently operating in Nigeria, contributing a combined investment of $27 billion, predominantly in the manufacturing sector. Emphasizing the strength of economic and trade relations, Balasubramanian outlined the significant role these Indian companies play in Nigeria's economy, employing the largest number of people after the Federal Government. Speaking further on the diplomatic ties, the Indian High Commissioner disclosed that Nigeria was invited as a Guest Country during India's presidency of the G20. He recalled the memorable visit of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the G20 Summit in September 2023, solidifying the bonds between the two nations. Out of the promised $14 billion investment during this visit, $7 billion has already been signed, reinforcing the commitment of both countries to deepen their economic partnership. To reinforce the commitment to strengthening ties, India's External Affairs Minister, Dr. S. Jaishankar, recently visited Nigeria for a Joint Commission meeting. This visit included interactions with the Nigerian leadership, business community, and the Indian Diaspora, further solidifying the bilateral relationship. Balasubramanian expressed India's unwavering support for Nigeria's development journey and conveyed the Indian government's dedication to fostering stronger ties. Providing additional insights, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, shared that the trade volume between India and Nigeria reached approximately $20 billion over the last two years. This substantial trade volume comprises $14.95 billion in the formal sector and an additional $5 billion in the informal sector. The evolving economic and diplomatic collaboration between India and Nigeria reflects a shared commitment to mutual development and prosperity. As both nations continue to deepen their ties, the $7 billion investment agreement stands as a testament to the growing partnership and the positive impact on economic growth in both countries. Read the full article

[werindialive]

PM Modi pens a tributary article for Karpori Thakur who will be awarded Bharat Ratna

The former Chief Minister of Bihar, Karpori Thakur, will be awarded the highest civilian award in India Bharat Ratna. The announcement was made on Monday, a day before his birth anniversary.

PM Modi acknowledged the announcement made by the Centre and said, "I am delighted that the Government of India has decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on the beacon of social justice, the great Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Ji, and that too at a time when we are marking his birth centenary," he posted on X.

PM Modi also wrote a tributary article on the veteran political leader to mark his birth anniversary.

Today is the birth centenary of Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Ji, whose relentless pursuit of social justice created a positive impact in the lives of crores of people. I never had the opportunity to meet Karpoori Ji but, I heard a lot about him from Kailashpati Mishra Ji, who worked closely with him. He belonged to one of the most backward sections of society, the Nai Samaj. Overcoming numerous obstacles, he achieved a lot and worked for societal betterment.

Jan Nayak Kapoor Thakur Ji's life revolved around the twin pillars of simplicity and social justice. Till his last breath, his simple lifestyle and humble nature resonated deeply with the common people. There are numerous anecdotes that highlight his simplicity. Those who worked with him recall how he preferred to spend his own money for any personal matter including his daughter's wedding. During his tenure as Chief Minister of Bihar, a decision was taken to build a colony for political leaders but he himself did not take any land or money for the same. When he passed away in 1988, several leaders went to his village to pay tributes. When they saw the condition of his house, they were moved to tears- how can someone so towering have a house so simple!

Another anecdote of his simplicity dates back to 1977 when he just took over as CM of Bihar. The Janata Government was in power in Delhi and Patna. That time, Janata leaders had gathered in Patna to mark Loknayak JP's birthday. Among the galaxy of top leaders walked in Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur Ji, with a torn Kurta. In his own style, Chandrashekhar Ji asked people to donate some money so that Karpoori Ji could purchase a new Kurta. But, Karpoori Ji was Karpoori Ji- he accepted the money but donated it to the CM Relief Fund.

Social justice was most dear to Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Ji. His political journey was marked by monumental efforts to create a society where resources were distributed fairly, and everyone, regardless of their social standing, had access to opportunities. He wanted to address the systemic inequalities that plagued Indian society.

Such was his commitment to his ideals that despite living in an era where the Congress Party was omnipresent, he took a distinctly anti-Congress line because he was convinced very early on that the Congress had deviated from its founding principles.

His electoral career began in the early 1950s and since then, he became a force to reckon with in the legislative chambers, powerfully voicing the struggles of the working class, labourers, small farmers and youngsters. Education was a subject very close to his heart. Throughout his political career he worked to improve education facilities for the poor. He was a proponent of education in local languages so that people from small towns and villages can climb the ladder and attain success. As CM, he took many measures for the welfare of senior citizens as well.

PM Modi concluded the article by thanking Lt. Shri Karpori Thakur for his contribution. “As a person belonging to the backward classes myself, I have much to thank Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Ji for. Unfortunately, we lost Karpoori Ji at a relatively young age of 64. We lost him when we needed him the most. Yet, he lives on in the heart and minds of crores of people due to his work. He was a true Jan Nayak!”

For more political news India in Hindi, subscribe to our newsletter.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update

hello lovers, it's once again time to blather at you about my bookish pursuits. last month was a weird and paltry hodgepodge; this month I feel I can safely say I've gotten my proverbial groove back. I suspect next month will be very largely shaped by book recommendations I picked up from various workshops this weekend at a MBLGTACC, but I suppose we'll have to wait until the end of November to see.

in the meantime, what have I been reading?

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da'Shaun L. Harrison, 2021) - a small book that hits like lightning. Harrison draws heavily on Sabrina Strings' excellent Fearing the Black Body and expands in even more radical directions, examining the ways in which anti-fatness and anti-Blackness collude to demonize Black masculine folks in particular. the way Harrison talks about the concept of health is particularly shattering, as they underline the ways in which modern American concepts of health have been shaped by ideas that exclude Black bodies inherently. I actually thought of Harrison a lot this weekend while I was listening to Imani Barbarin speaking, because she made a similar point in connection to queerness, talking about how enslaved people running away from plantations was considered a manifestation of mental unwellness in much the same way that queer expressions of gender and sexuality have been. I love digging up these seemingly ubiquitous ideas and finding new angles at which to poke at and complicate them, and Harrison is phenomenal at facilitating that.

Jade War (Fonda Lee, 2019) - and now for something completely different: the second installment of Fonda Lee's door-stopping Green Bone Saga. holy FUCK these books rule; I'm never NOT having a blast reading them. Jade War builds on the conflicts established in Jade City and expand them to a more international level, jetting the surviving members of the Kaul family off to new countries to grapple with the cultural impact of their magical, ability-enhancing jade across the world. there were a couple of moments in this book that had me genuinely gasping out loud, mainly because Lee's ability to balance the tension of day to day politics and business with sudden eruptions of brutality and danger is absolutely unmatched. I'm really excited to see the Kaul family starting to raise the next generation, and I can't wait to see how the family's fate keeps unfolding in Jade Legacy.

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter (Scaachi Koul, 2017) - I've been a fan of Koul's journalism for years - she's mean and she's funny and she's always right - but I have Tajja Isen to thank for getting me to finally read her essay collection. you may recall Isen's own collection, Some of My Best Friends, from last month's roundup; in the chapter critiquing the demands placed on essay writers of color, she highlights Koul as one of the best writers working. and I have to agree; when she gets personal Koul writes with a kind of hysterical melancholy about nearly everything - about her immigrant parents, particularly her prickly father; about her older white boyfriend; about the ways in which her body marked her as different growing up in a white Canadian neighborhood. Koul's chapter reflecting on her cousin's exhausting traditional Indian wedding was painful and sweet and will, I think, do something to anyone who regards their family's traditions with an equal mix of huge love and a deep desire to depart. I hope Koul's got another essay collection in her, because I would love to crawl in her brain and live in her thoughts on the pandemic for a bit.

The Sandman: Dream Country (Neil Gaiman et al, 1991) - okay, so, we've gotten to the bit where (in my extremely humble opinion) the Sandman actually starts getting really good. the stories collected in Dream Country particularly rule because they're not really about Morpheus at all; he (or, sometimes, his sister Death) are just Around, a small part in other people's stories unfolding around them. I often say that I think a lot of the best Batman stories barely have any Batman, and that also applies here; it's an especially pleasant breather before Season of Mists starts really getting the Plot rolling. the Sandman is, of course, a story about stories, capable of holding almost any kind of story you can imagine, so it's fun to watch Gaiman kick back and get weird for a bit.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Becky Chambers, 2022) - having been feeling a bit depressed of late I decided to make a conscious effort to lighten up my reading a bit, and our queer sci-fi solarpunk queen Becky Chambers had my back as always. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is the second installation in the Monk and Robot series of novellas, and follows our titular monk and robot as they descend from the wilderness where they met and begin introducing the robot, Mosscap, into a human society that has gone generations without seeing any robots. what ensues is a gentle story about travel, belonging, and what it means to be a person who's part of the world, what we contribute and what we owe to one another. I read this book in a day and cradled it like a mug of hot chocolate the whole time, feeling warm and cozy long after the last page.

The Sandman: Season of Mists (Neil Gaiman et al, 1992) - friends, this is one of my favorite plots in the entire series: our boy Morpheus gets clowned into going to Hell to free his ex girlfriend, only to find that Lucifer is calling it a day and shutting Hell down - and leaving Morpheus with the key. what ensues is the world's worst dinner party as figures from all across creation and mythology descend on Morpheus' house to try to threaten or tempt him into giving them the key, all while he's already in the middle of a depressive episode and really doesn't want to be doing any of this. absolutely delicious, 10/10 from me. I'm happy every time Morpheus is having a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

How to Read Now (Elaine Castillo, 2022) - the thing about this book is that it rules and makes me want to read everything Elaine Castillo has ever written, because she's insightful and mean and funny and furiously, deeply principled in how she writes. her book feels like an excellent companion to Some of My Best Friends (I really owe Tajja Isen this month) in how it really probes into the expectations placed on marginalized writers to be Marginalized above all else in their writing, the way publishers and readers alike focus on marginalized writers as tools of education and social betterment rather than just, you know, artists creating art. she has some CHOICE words about the severe limitations of analyzing writing purely through the lens of Good Representation (spoilers: it sucks) that made me cheer out loud. in a very weird and unpleasant cultural moment of anti-intellectualism and a buckwild aversion to literacy you need to read How to Read Now literally right now.

Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour (Tee Franklin and Max Sarin, 2022) - the thing about this six issue series is that it's, like, impossible to read it without the vile online harassment Tee Franklin faced for writing the series weighing heavily in my mind. she caught the usual bullshit you'd expect from exactly the kind of people you'd expect who were angry that a queer disabled Black woman was writing queer characters with a diverse supporting cast, which is annoying but typical, but then there was the brigade of picrew pride flag icons flinging wild accusations of lesbophobia at Franklin for everything from pointing out that the Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy she's writing aren't lesbians (that's pretty obvious if you've ever even casually watched the show this series spins off from) to making Ivy "emotionally abusive" (see: writing conflict that's more than addressed and resolved by the series' end). that harassment campaign is also, I suspect, strongly motivated by Franklin's status as a disabled queer Black woman, wrapped up in social justice terminology to make it palatable to the picrew icons, and it casts a long shadow across this series. which is like... fine, by the way. it's just fine. it makes some nice callbacks to the show (which I really like, despite my usual no tv policies) without ever quite managing to hit quite the same tone; it's a little too saccharine in ham-fisted in some places for me, and later issues are reliant on thought bubbles in a way that I find grating for no particular reason. but on the flipside it establishes that Harley and Ivy are immediately starting their relationship by fucking on, like, every available surface, which I love for them! I actually think it's great and cool when queer artists get to make stuff that's kind of mid for huge corporations; god knows straight white men have been getting away with it for decades. so what if the plot could have used some tighter editing? that's true of literally every comic series I've ever read. I'll be reading Franklin's Harley Quinn follow-up, Legion of Bats, just as soon as I can get my hands on it, partially out of spite, and I personally hope DC keeps her on the payroll for a million years.

Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield, 2022) - oh, what a novel! short and sharp and aching, romantic in the most painful way imaginable. alternating chapters are narrated by Miri, whose wife has just returned from a submarine voyage gone wrong acting nothing like herself, and Leah, the aforementioned wife. Miri narrates the present, in which she is exhausted and exasperated by the unknowable woman who's come back seemingly in Leah's place, while Leah's chapters explain what went wrong on the submarine with the chill of steadily increasing dread. it's about love and devotion and also the fucked up things that happen in the darkest part of the ocean; what's not to love?

[maxwell-grant]

Excuse Me what is pulp and why is it importan?

Good question! And probably one I should have answered sooner. Time to put on the historian hat for this one.

"Pulp" is a term used mainly to describe forms of storytelling that sprang out or were dominant in 20th century cheap all-fiction American magazines from the 1900s to the 1950s. The pulp magazine began in 1896, when Frank Munsey's Argosy magazine, in order to cut costs, dropped the non-fiction articles and photographs and switched from glossy paper to the much less expensive wood pulp paper, hence the name. The pulp magazines would mainly take off as a distinct market and format in 1904, when Street & Smith learned that Popular Magazine, despite being marketed towards boys, was being consumed by men of all ages, so they increased page count and started putting popular authors on the issues.

It was specifically the 1905 reprint of H.Rider Haggard's Ayesha that not only put Street & Smith on the map as rivals to Argosy, but also inspired other companies to start publishing in the pulp format. Pulps encompassed literally everything that the authors felt like publishing. Westerns, romance, horror, sci-fi, railroad stories, war stories, war aviation stories. Zeppelins had a short-lived subgenre. Celebrities got their own magazines, it was really any genre or format they could pull off, anything they could get away with.

Nowadays, although they came quite late in it's history, the American pulps are most famous for it's "hero pulps", characters like The Shadow and Doc Savage that are viewed as a formative influence on comic book superheroes. The pulp magazines in America lasted until the 1950s, when cumulative factors such as paper shortages, diminishing audience returns and the closing of it's biggest publishers led to it dying off, although in the decades since there's always been publishers calling their magazines pulp. That's the American pulp history.

But pulps are a phenomenon that spans the entire world and has a much bigger history to it, because pulps have become synonymous with cheap fiction magazines and those have a much bigger history. In America, before the pulps, you had the dime novels, the direct predecessors of the pulps, as well as the novelettes. England had it's penny dreadfuls and story papers, and continued publishing pulp-format magazines past the American 1950s, and that's how we got Elric of Melniboné. France and Russia arguably got to it first with it's 1800s coulporters, chapbooks and particularly the feuilletons which lasted all the way to the 20th century and created characters such as Arsene Lupin, Fantomas and The Phantom of the Opera. The Germans published pulp under the name hefteromane. Japan also published pulp magazines both original as well as imported, and the current "light-novel" phenomenon started off as an equivalent of pulp magazines (it's even on the Wikipedia page). China has wuxia, Brazil has cordel, Italy has gialli. There were Indian, Persian, Ethiopian, Canadian, Australian pulps and much more. Look anywhere in the world and you'll find examples of "pulp" happening again and again, under different circumstances and time periods.

Even if we stick to American fiction, it's impossible to state that all pulp heroes must come from the 1900s-1950s pulp magazines, because that forces us to exclude some of the most popular pulp heroes like Indiana Jones, Green Hornet, Rocketeer and The Phantom. Pulp may have once been a term meant to refer to pulp magazines exclusively, but it's morphed and lost structure and it's become the closest thing we have to a general umbrella term that allows us to try and consolidate these under a shared history. It's a lot, as you can see, and it's why several pulp historians that broaden their scope outside of 1930s American fiction have adopted Roland Barthes's definition of pulp as "A Metaphor With No Brakes In It", which is still the closest thing to a true working definition we have.

Why is it important? You tell me. I don't like to stake claims about stuff being "important", everyone's got their own priorities in life. Surely a lot of people would scoff at the idea of old populist fiction published in what was functionally equivalent to toilet paper having any sort of "importance". On the other hand, some people definitely want to talk big about the pulps as a cultural bedrock of fiction, something that's baked into the lifeblood of all fiction as we currently know it. Which it is, mind you, but I don't like to talk about pulp fiction's value being derived mainly from merely the things it inspired.

There is definitely a historical importance to be had in cataloguing them. According to the US's foremost pulp researcher Jess Nevins, 38% of all American pulps no longer exist, and 14% of all American pulps survive in less than five copies. Many libraries have very scant, if any, records on them, many collectors are hard to locate and are uncooperative when it comes to sharing information and letting outsiders view their collections. A lot of them are bound up in legal complications that prevents them from taking off in the public domain, and a lot of them ARE public domain but are completely inacessible as research material. And that's the American pulps, foreign pulps have fared far worse in posterity, with records inaccessible to people unfamiliar with the language or locations, many existing merely in mentions on decades-old records, and hundreds if not thousands of them being completely gone beyond recovery or recall.

Gone, dead, wasted, destroyed. They can't be found in barbershops or warehouse or bookstores, not even in antique stores. Hundreds, thousands of characters, stories and creators, gone. Time and posterity have crushed them to dust, forgotten and ignored by their successors. Unfettered by pretenses of respectability that repressed their glossier counterparts, in packages meant to be destroyed after reading, proudly announcing itself as trash. Things that should have never even lasted as long as they did have died many times now. It's heroes peripherical shapeshifters, nearly all of whom seem dead, quite dead, as dead as fictional characters can possibly be.

But they do not die forever. Many of them have, maybe most of them have, but many of them linger on.

"The strange red flickering of 1930’s fiction seems distant now.  You hold in your hand the product of a time too remote to recall, and feel a slow stir of wonder.  The smell of pulp pages, an illustration, an advertisement, these fragile things mark the slow hammering of time and display what it has done.  About you are today’s machines, today’s shadows.

Outside the window, leaves hang against the sky, as did leaves during the 1930’s.  The sound of voices are no different then than now.  You hold the magazine and feel something quite delicate slipping past. These solid forms surrounding you are all insubstantial. Time’s hammer will also pass across them, leaving little enough behind." - Spider, by Robert Sampson

Many of the things people call dead are just things that have been sleeping for a while or haven't had the chance to be born. Pulp fiction is dead on the page, inert, unless your imagination breathes live to it, and every now and then, one way or another, these characters dig themselves out of dustbins. Maybe it's a brief revival, maybe it's a successful reboot. Maybe they find publishers, or maybe the public domain allows them to find new life. Maybe new creators do interesting things with them, and maybe, just maybe, they live again because some won't shut up about them online. Some curious impulse led you to me, did it not? 

We all have our Frankensteins to obsess over, and these are some of mine. As someone who's lived a life perpetually restless over pursuit of knowledge, pulp has lured me like a moth to flame, because I literally never run out of things to discover within it, I never run out of possibilities. As the years pass and the public domain starts being more and more open to the public, more and more narrative real state is brought forth for writers and artists and creators to play around.

Pulp is the dark matter of fiction, the uncatalogued depths of the ocean, the darkest recesses of space. It's the box of your grandfather's belongings, the treasure you find in an attic, a body part sticking out from an old playground. It's the things that don't work, don't succeed, the things that don't fit, that are out of place. That shouldn't live and succeed, and did so anyway. The things that slither in the cracks, the shadows behind the curtain.

Aren't you interested in peering on what's behind the curtain?

The exquisite workmanship of the head, of a pre-pyramidal age, and the hieroglyphics, symbols of a language that was forgotten when Rome was young–these, Kane sensed, were additions as modern to the antiquity of the staff itself as would be English words carved on the stone monoliths of Stonehenge.

As for the cat-head–looking at it sometimes Kane had a peculiar feeling of alteration; a faint sensing that once the pommel of the staff was carved with a different design. The dust-ancient Egyptian who had carved the head of Bast had merely altered the original figure, and what that figure had been, Kane had never tried to guess.

A close scrutiny of the staff always aroused a disquieting and almost dizzy suggestion of abysses of eons, unprovocative to further speculation. - The Footfalls Within, by Robert E Howard, quoted by Stuart Hopen’s The Mythic American Culture

[ijustwant2ride]

Motorcycle Recall February 2024: LiveWire, Honda, Triumph, Dainese Helmets, CFMOTO, Suzuki, Indian

Be aware that this motorcycle recall list is for the United States for the last 30 days, or so, there is no way I could cover the entire world. But in the world of global manufacturing...

Be aware that this motorcycle recall list is for the United States for the last 30 days, or so, there is no way I could cover the entire world. But in the world of global manufacturing, if a motorcycle is being recalled in one country there is a good chance it is under recall in others. So, safety first. Also, (DISCLAIMER) this should not be considered a definitive list, check for yourself if…

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

SO's US Book Tour : Arkansas

True Grit

By Charles Portis

I have never read a Western.  I haven’t ever wanted to read a Western.  But when flipping through the list of books for Arkansas - I tripped over True Grit and thought, why not, I’m branching out.  After struggling to get through The Monkey Wrench Gang, I worried that I was going to find it difficult to get through.  Turns out that was not the case! I was pleasantly surprised at the ease in which I got through this one.  It is a good story.  It’s not my favorite, nor will I probably ever pick up another Western, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I’d might.  

This might be the simplest book I’ve read so far, which is fine.  A book doesn’t need to be overly complicated to be enjoyable, and I think it works in the book’s favor to be a straightforward adventure-slash-revenge story.  

Written in the late 1960s but set in the 1870s, the narrative is that of an older Mattie Ross recalling about how when she was 14-years-old her father was murdered by a hired hand - Tom Chaney - and how she set about bringing him to justice by hiring a US Marshall by the name of Rooster Cogburn.  And that’s really it - the book, like the narrator, is pretty focused on that plot.  

Honestly, when I first started reading, I was a little skeptical of a grown man writing from the perspective of a fourteen year old girl.  And, admittedly, Mattie Ross doesn’t really sound like a girl her age - 19th century or otherwise.  But I think it actually works in the novel’s favor.  I really appreciated Mattie’s focused drive and her shrewd observations.  She isn’t one to mess around.  She isn’t one to get caught up in overly emotional sentimentality.  Her world is harsh - but she still tells it like it is.  Sometimes, it is to comic effect - having deadpan reflection of rather obscene human nature is pretty funny at times.  But the ‘true grit’ the novel’s title refers to is really Mattie - and her unwavering pursuit to bring justice to her father’s murderer.  

It’s funny - all through the novel, Mattie tells everyone she meets that her one goal is to take down Tom Chaney for the murder of her father.  It becomes a mantra, and becomes strikingly similar to Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, who repeats his revenge mantra to anyone he meets.  In fact, the characters are similar in design when you bring them down to a base level.  

Anyway -- while I doubt it’s that realistic that a fourteen year old during the 1870s would get away with as much as Mattie does, I like her as a character -- much more than I thought I’d might. 

The other major character is Rooster Cogburn, a washed out, gritty old US Marshal - who has a lot of baggage carried around from his colorful past.  Part of the charm of the novel comes from the unlikely pairing between Cogburn and Mattie, which never really dissolves into a found father/daughter trope, which again, is a nice change of pace.  Cogburn, begrudgingly, ends up respecting Mattie in the end, and they bond in the way people on adventure do, but it always is billed as a temporary alliance -- one that Mattie appreciates from the lens of an adult, but never grows beyond the mission they set out to accomplish.  

The first half of the book details Mattie searching out Cogburn.  I never really thought of Arkansas as being a part of the old west, but the backdrop works really well -- Arkansas being on the edge of the frontier.  It kind of reminded me (due to my limited engagement with the time period and location) of those frontier towns you start in at the beginning of the old computer game Oregon Trail - where you get your goods and stuff before setting out across the west to get to the Pacific coast.  The second half of the book details going out into ‘Indian Territory’ - the unclaimed wilderness on the Arkansas/Oklahoma border - where, really, there are no laws and anything can happen.  

They’re joined by a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, who is out to get Chaney for killing a Texas senator.  Of course, LaBoeuf and Cogborn don’t get along - and LaBoeuf isn’t really thrilled that Mattie is tagging along to bring Chaney down.  But he becomes instrumental in tracking down the gang of thieves Chaney is hanging out with.  

Tom Chaney, himself, isn’t really in the novel that much - and to be honest, he’s kind of flatly dumb and villianous.  There are much livelier characters even within the gang of ‘bad guys’ that Chaney is hanging around, that the confrontation seems, well, a little anticlimactic if I’m being honest.  But the purpose of the novel is less about the destination and more about the journey into the wilderness, and the resolve of Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf at bringing the outlaw in.  

One of the aspects of the novel that I did find fascinating is the detail of the worldbuilding.  The novel makes reference to the American Civil War, and to the politics of the 1870s.  There are references to how life is different in Arkansas, to Texas, to the East Coast.  I don’t know much about Charles Portis - but I have to believe he’s fairly knowledgeable about the time period he’s writing about.  Not only is he able to drop these references to the time authentically, the novel itself feels like it was written back in the 19th century.  In some ways - it reminds me of all those classic stories we had to read in school that documented and showcased life during a specific era.  

I believe this is one of those novels that is considered a modern classic - and I can see why.  I liked it well enough for what it was (though I doubt I’ll ever feel like going back to this world) and can understand its popularity - especially to those who enjoy stories set during this time period.  While it may not be for everyone, it very clearly is a Western, I’d definitely recommend it - and am glad I picked it up. 

[squidproquoclarice]

Yeehawgust Day 30: Spaghetti Western

Foreword to “Red Dead Redemption” 

“None of this is the way you remember it, I expect,” I said to my Aunt Sadie about fifteen years back as we watched Buck Jones on the television defeating the Hundred Hands Gang.  

She smiled at me and said, “Nothing ever is, Jack.  Even when it was happening, everyone saw it differently.  The truth’s got a thousand different facets.  It all depends on the storyteller.  You and Bea know that better than any of us.”

It still amazes me how Buck Jones turned into a real phenomenon.  You can still see his square jaw and resolute eyes, grit tempered by that winning smile, on kids’ lunchboxes, on novels, and on television.

America has always loved Elijah “Buck” Jones, right from that first episode broadcast in to fill space left by programs shuttered suddenly by the Depression, where a desperate outlaw finds his breaking point and is betrayed by his gang for it, and comes out of it seeking a new way of life rather than vengeance.  People took to the bandit-turned-hero maybe even more so than the likes of the Lone Ranger and Marshal Dillon.  Those men are easy to admire, but they almost inspire super-human awe more than love.  Buck Jones was always flawed, and I wrote him that way.  Given the hard times we’ve seen, maybe the idea that there can be grace, that someone fallen can still come out on the side of the angels, appeals to our idea of being truly self-made.  The notion that goodness isn’t inherent, that it’s a path chosen and sometimes earned, helps us believe that we can find our best selves.  No matter what stumbles we’ve made, we need to hope that redemption is possible.

I knew plenty of men and women like that, neither angels nor demons, but those who chose the way of the righteous in the end.  They gave the inspiration for Buck Jones’ many adventures.  They gave their blessing to tell their tales someday, and their children and grandchildren all agreed that it’s a story that should be told.  Some of those tales are my own, including one about a boy, an Italian gangster, and a spaghetti dinner that’s become a well-known part of Buck Jones lore.   

It’s a more complicated story and a harder world than the one of Buck Jones, Hattie Faber, Paulina Morning Star, Robert McQuarry, and so many others.  But this world we live in now is a far more complicated one, full of questions about what “right” truly is, whether we treat everyone fairly, whether the law is always just and right.  So it’s a world perhaps more ready to hear this kind of story where the lines aren’t so clearly drawn. 

It’s been ten years since my Uncle Arthur passed, and he was the last of them.  Fitting as from what I knew of him, he always needed to wait and be sure others were all right before he could let himself rest.  I’ve spent that time since then compiling all of those stories into this book.

There were so many towns over the years that none of them clearly recalled the name of the town where the doctor tended to my birth.  My mother thought it was named Diamondback Junction, but she wasn’t quite sure.  Though I’m not certain that it matters.  If they taught me anything it’s that origins and even history aren’t destiny.  I am who I am no matter the name of that town.      

It’s a story told so far only in the long-yellowed newspaper articles of the 1880s and 1890s mostly listing notorious acts and desperate pursuit by the law.  It’s a story of outlaws, orphans, immigrants, titans of industry, gangsters, bronco busters, tough women, Indians, soldiers, miners, gunslingers, tuberculosis and cholera, gunfights and preachers, railroads and stagecoaches, big cities and boomtowns and wilderness and desert.  All of it a portrait of a long-gone American West where they grew up and lived, and whose dying days I was born into somewhere in Utah in 1895.   

But it’s more than the events of the previous century.  Aunt Sadie was right that the truth depends on the storyteller.  So this is the truth of the Van Der Linde Gang as it was told to me by the survivors who chose to walk away from that life in the end.  

There’s plenty of that to make for a hell of a read.  But like how Buck Jones’ years striving to be a man worthy of his second chance at life became the part of his tale that grabbed people’s hearts, I contend that the people those former outlaws became after those days makes for the far more remarkable story.  Because this is a tale of redemption as much as anything, and Buck and the rest of them owe much to it.  This is the story of my family, and my wife Bea’s family.  It gives me great pride to finally tell it, and it gives Bea great pride to provide all of the illustrations for it.

John “Jack” Roberts, Jr.

Seattle, Washington

November 1968

[chiseler]

Blood on the Moon

“The beauty of that man. He’s so still. He’s moving. And yet he’s not moving.” –Lee Marvin on Robert Mitchum

All cloudy skies and discouraging words, the range in Robert Wise’s Blood on the Moon (1949) is a place where no one can feel safely at home. The film opens on a dismal panorama of rain pounding a formless landscape, blotting out the horizon. Robert Mitchum comes riding alone, head down, rain dripping off his hat, stopping to gaze dejectedly over a dark valley.

If any one actor embodies the very notion of the “noir western,” it is Mitchum. Before he distilled the noir ethos with his world-weary pessimism and cool insolence, Mitchum started his career as a heavy in the amiable, low-budget Hopalong Cassidy series, earning “$100 a week and all the horse manure I could carry home,” he later recalled. After seven films with Cassidy—parts he described as “a lot of beard, very little dialogue”—Mitchum signed a contract with RKO, and the studio tried him out as a clean-cut cowboy hero in two Zane Gray westerns, Nevada (1944)and West of the Pecos (1945). He was wasted on these cardboard good guys and boy’s-adventure stories, which had no use for his undercurrents of melancholy, disaffection and skepticism. The first film to fully express his persona as the eternal outsider was Raoul Walsh’s seminal noir western, Pursued (1947), which cast him as a displaced foundling followed through life by the black cloud of his mysterious past.

As befitting a man who arrived in California aboard a freight train, and who never stopped identifying himself as a hobo, Mitchum was the movies’ quintessential drifter. He played all kinds of itinerants: exiles escaping criminal pasts, globe-trotting marines, roaming preachers, nomadic sheepherders, travelers on the rodeo circuit. He had hit the road at 15, driven not by an unhappy home or dire poverty but simply by the restless urge to wander, to taste the sweet anguish of loneliness far from hearth and home. In his memoir, Them Ornery Mitchum Boys, John Mitchum wrote that he initially saw his older brother Bob’s penchant for “running off” as a weakness of character, but came to admire the way he “simply released himself from emotional bondage.” Mitchum himself said that he had “been in a constant motion of escape my entire life.”

In Blood on the Moon he plays Jim Garry, a man with nothing: no home, no family, no job. In the opening scene his few possessions are destroyed by stampeding cattle as he sits miserably drying his wet, mud-caked boots by a small fire. This is the truth of the cowboy life. (When co-star Walter Brennan saw Mitchum in his elegantly rugged costume, he declared, “That is the goddamndest realest cowboy I’ve ever seen!”) Down on his luck after watching his own herd die of fever, Garry has been summoned by an old trail-herding partner to be cut in on a big deal. He doesn’t know that he’s being hired for his gun, or that the friend who sent for him is scheming to steal another man’s herd through a back-handed deal with a crooked government agent for the local Indian reservation. Walking into this charged situation as a stranger, he’s immediately greeted with hostile suspicion by both sides in a range war, and he counters evasively, refusing to take sides or reveal his true nature. Keeping to himself a lifetime of bad breaks and worse choices, Jim Garry gives the film a sad, uncertain, jaded heart. Mitchum never once smiles; the closest he comes is when Jim says that a murderous brawl with his erstwhile friend was “a pleasure.”

That friend is Tate Riling (Robert Preston), a shameless, smirking con man who lies to local farmers to get them on his side and seduces his enemy’s daughter into betraying her own father. Garry gets the picture but goes along without enthusiasm; he doesn’t like being a mercenary, and is acutely aware of the contempt he now inspires in decent people, but accepts it quietly. He is what Mitchum called himself in real life, “a patient cynic.” Watching on the sidelines, he’s riveting in his immobility. When he moves, it’s with weighted, lazy power. In one scene he confronts a gunfighter and walks toward him across the wide Main Street. All he has to do is walk, with his inimitable panther tread, and the other guy knows he’s outclassed and slinks away.

Jim is drawn to the feisty, outspoken daughter of the man Riling is trying to swindle (Barbara Bel Geddes—she and Mitchum meet cute by emptying their rifles at each other), but he’s motivated even more by growing disgust at Riling. “I’ve seen dogs wouldn’t claim you for a son,” he declares, setting off a savage brawl in which Mitchum and Preston hurl punches, chairs and bottles at each either as they wrestle, lurch and crash around an empty barroom in near-total darkness. The darkness and slashing gleams of light come courtesy of DP Nicholas Musuraca, who pioneered noir cinematography in Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) and diversified it in Out of the Past. Here he brings his mastery of shadows to the range, flooding much of the movie in an enveloping gloom that obscures actions and identities. For contrast, there is a gorgeous sequence of pursuit through a snowbound pass, with paths slicing through white drifts and across glittering plains. There is a shootout in a dense pine forest at night, with figures moving almost invisibly through the faintly glimmering boughs.

With its dirty deals, government corruption, romantic betrayal, mean thugs, gloomy bars, and its broke, lonely hero pondering whether or not to throw away his honor, Blood on the Moon’s story could be translated to any grimy, gang-ridden city. The film grows more conventional as it goes along, but the genre staples are well-handled, and there are powerful scenes like the one where Garry goes to tell Walter Brennan’s character that his son has been killed, and must endure the old man’s stricken, dry-eyed accusation. Mitchum’s reserve, detachment and neutrality are so attractive that it’s easy to ignore how they can turn into a wholesale abdication of moral responsibility. Under noir’s probing skepticism, the western hero’s stoic reticence becomes unhealthy passivity, his righteous determination becomes obsessive vindictiveness. The west’s promises of unbounded freedom and opportunity dwindle and close,  the way once open grazing lands become bitter battle-grounds. Almost unseen in the film, yet key to its central crime, are the Indians confined to their reservation, while white men fight amongst themselves over the money to be made by feeding captive mouths. This land’s economy is dirtier than the muck of its cow-trampled pastures.

by Imogen Sara Smith

[automobilenewsofficial]

FULL HISTORY OF AUDI MOTORS:

The Name Audi Signifies that it's one the Highly Oldest Company in the World.The Start Up place is located in Zwickau, Germany.

Audi is a German Car producing Company established by August Horch. The roots of this amazing auto-faction date back to November 14, 1899, the day when its organizer, August Horch, set up his absolute first vehicle organization, named as A. Horch and Cie.

Motorwagen Werke, in the area of Cologne where he constructed his absolute first vehicle in 1901. Following a distinction of assessment with the organization's administrative board, Horch needed to move out of his mayden undertaking and proceed onward to set up another vehicle manufacturing plant by the name of Horch Automobil-Werke GmbH in 1909.

Yet, a similar destiny followed Horch in this new pursuit also, and soon he got himself, once more, disavowing an organization that he had set up himself. Not one to be debilitate so effectively, August Horch, in 1909 itself set up a second 'Horch' vehicle industrial facility in Zwickau, which he later renamed as 'Audi' because of some brand name encroachment issues with his previous business partners.

From the get-go in the year from that point onward, the world had the chance to observe the dispatch of the primary Audi vehicle, the Type B, after which the automaker never needed to think back.In spite of the fact that August Horch made his first vehicle in 1901, he began Audi Company in 1909. 'Audi' is the interpretation of his German name "Horch" which intends to "tune in!" into the Latin "Audi".

Audi is popular for it Aluminum body vehicles today. However, this remarkable practice of light weight Aluminum vehicle body development was spearheaded by Audi, path back in 1913.

In 1932, Audi converged with Horch, DKW and Wanderer, to shape Auto Union AG. The four rings of the Audi identification represent the brands Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer. Before World War II, Auto Union AG utilized the four interlinked rings, just on Auto Union dashing vehicles around there. Part organizations utilized their own names and images.Car Union GmbH was set up in Ingolstadt on September third, 1949 after a progression of changes as WWII reached a conclusion.

1958, because of pressing factor from Friedrich Flick, at that point the organization's biggest single investor, Daimler-Benz took a 87% holding in the Auto Union organization, and this was expanded to a 100% holding in 1959. Be that as it may, little two-stroke vehicles were not the focal point of Daimler-Benz's inclinations, and keeping in mind that the mid 1960s saw significant interest in new Mercedes models and in a cutting edge production line for Auto Union's, the organization's maturing model reach right now didn't profit by the period of prosperity of the mid 1960s similarly as contender makers like Volkswagen and Opel.

The choice to discard the Auto Union business depended on its absence of productivity. Amusingly, when they sold the business, it additionally incorporated a huge new manufacturing plant and close to creation prepared present day four-cycle motor, which would empower the Auto Union business, under another proprietor, to leave on a time of beneficial development, presently delivering not Auto Unions or DKWs, but rather utilizing the "Audi" name, revived in 1965 following a 25-year hole.

In 1969,Volkswagenwerk AG designed the consolidation of Auto Union GmbH and the Neckarsulm-based NSU Motorenwerke AG. The new organization presently got known as Audi NSU Auto Union AG and had its enlisted office in Neckarsulm. The new Audi NSU Auto Union AG with head office in Neckarsulm appeared.

The organization name, which was curiously long and hard to recall, turned into a matter of discussion toward the start of the 1980s; this was because of the way that NSU stopped to be utilized as an item name after the NSU RO 80 left creation in 1977. The Board of Management chose to rename the organization AUDI AG, which produced results from 1 January 1985. From that point on both the organization and its items have borne a similar short and brief name. Considering the difference in name, the administrative center moved from Neckarsulm to Ingolstadt.

The 1994 Geneva Motor saw the Audi A8 with its extravagant all-aluminum body. Then the A4 was a thundering achievement, especially in the US,Audi A2, an advanced overly smaller than expected, performed generally inadequately because of its excessive cost, however it was a colossal innovative achievement. With an aluminum outline, a super-effective TDI three-chamber motor and an air stream tried streamlined body, it recaptured Audi's previous tradition of being specialized trailblazers.

In India, Audi has launched their first vehicle in 2004. In any case, it wasn't until March, 2007 that an undeniable Indian wing of the German auto-goliath, Audi India, was set up in the country as a division of the Volkswagen Group Sales India Pvt. Ltd, With its base camp situated in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

It was in the year 2009 when the last makeover was given to the Audi logo, at the 100th birthday celebration commemoration of the organization.

READ MORE:

[reportafrique]

President tinubu Closes $7 billion India Investment  deal 

The Nigeria Federal Government has successfully inked a monumental $7 billion investment deal with India, marking a significant milestone in the country's pursuit of foreign investments. The announcement was made by Mr. Gangadharan Balasubramanian, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, during the 75th Republic Day celebrations on Friday night. This substantial investment is part of India's commitment, made during the G20 Summit last year, where the South Asian country pledged a total investment of $14 billion. President Tinubu, who participated in the G20 September 2023 Summit hosted by India, witnessed the fulfillment of this commitment with the signing of the $7 billion deal. Gangadharan Balasubramanian During the Republic Day celebration event, the Indian High Commissioner highlighted the robust and historical relations between India and Nigeria. Notably, he mentioned that over 150 Indian companies are currently operating in Nigeria, contributing a combined investment of $27 billion, predominantly in the manufacturing sector. Emphasizing the strength of economic and trade relations, Balasubramanian outlined the significant role these Indian companies play in Nigeria's economy, employing the largest number of people after the Federal Government. Speaking further on the diplomatic ties, the Indian High Commissioner disclosed that Nigeria was invited as a Guest Country during India's presidency of the G20. He recalled the memorable visit of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the G20 Summit in September 2023, solidifying the bonds between the two nations. Out of the promised $14 billion investment during this visit, $7 billion has already been signed, reinforcing the commitment of both countries to deepen their economic partnership. To reinforce the commitment to strengthening ties, India's External Affairs Minister, Dr. S. Jaishankar, recently visited Nigeria for a Joint Commission meeting. This visit included interactions with the Nigerian leadership, business community, and the Indian Diaspora, further solidifying the bilateral relationship. Balasubramanian expressed India's unwavering support for Nigeria's development journey and conveyed the Indian government's dedication to fostering stronger ties. Providing additional insights, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, shared that the trade volume between India and Nigeria reached approximately $20 billion over the last two years. This substantial trade volume comprises $14.95 billion in the formal sector and an additional $5 billion in the informal sector. The evolving economic and diplomatic collaboration between India and Nigeria reflects a shared commitment to mutual development and prosperity. As both nations continue to deepen their ties, the $7 billion investment agreement stands as a testament to the growing partnership and the positive impact on economic growth in both countries. Read the full article