#Prussian system

[enlitment]

Walks up to a couple: Soo, which one of you is the Prussian-born monarch with emotional baggage and which is the overly dramatic French philosopher they can't help but keep throwing their money at?

[noster-tempus]

I have Covid, for seemingly the first time.

I'm trying to compare it in severity to my normal colds and coming up blank. For one, I just haven't had many colds since the pandemic started. But also, all the colds I can specifically remember were when I was in school. Even though I might stay home from class, I still had to make some effort to keep up with homework, then face a stressful period of catch-up. Sheer adrenaline might make it seem like I had a near-normal amount of energy, but keeping up was even harder than usual.

Now, I've spent the last couple days mostly hanging out on the couch, but I'm able to do the very few things I actually *need* to do. This makes it feel like I simultaneously have more and less energy.

(Another complicating factor: for years, I was confused as to why I sometimes found it easier to concentrate on certain things when my nose was stuffy. My initial theory was that the sensation of a stuffy nose was constantly pulling me out of my daydreams, thereby making daydreaming less appealing and allowing me to focus on the task in front of me. Now, I'm pretty sure it's because Sudafed is a stimulant, and since combining Sudafed with ADHD meds is not advised, the effect is no longer present.)

[apas-95]

As it apparently needs to be restated - race, ethnicity, and nationality are not themselves the basic drivers of history. Political-economic class is.

The European practice of placing African people into chattel slavery was not carried out on the basis of any innate characteristics of 'blackness' or 'whiteness' - those categories did not exist before the slave trade, they were created in support of it. Europe at the time found it would be beneficial to have a class of slave workers for its colonial projects, and it had the military, political, and economic might to subjugate Africa and African people to that end. Had you asked a Prussian and a Scotsman prior to the institution of African slavery if they were both members of a common 'race', they would have found the idea ridiculous - and yet, transport those two ahead in time, and perhaps to settlements in the Americas, and suddenly they were both Whites. Whiteness (and its necessary counterpart, blackness), then, is not some intrinsic quality based on the tone of someone's skin, but a political and economic category constructed to differentiate between those people that could be oppressed and made chattel by the slave trade, and those that could not.

This is true for all these systems of oppression - though they may be divided on supposed lines of biology or locality, they are not inherently based on biological factors, those are functionally coincidental, and are constructed as justifications for a system necessitated by purely political and economic reasons. Nazi oppression of Jewish, and Roma, and Slavic [and etc.] people was not fundamentally based on any inherent quality of e.g. Judaism, but on the economic needs of German capital under the burden of postwar reconstruction and 'war reparations' paid to the victorious powers. It was not blind hatred, but the inevitable result of a society built in pursuit of profit - one whose ruling class held a cold, calculated need to expropriate wealth, weaken worker organisation, and seize and depopulate land to strengthen the composition of capital. It was still necessary for this system to split the population into one group of 'legitimate targets' for victimisation, and one of reassured, protected accomplices, though there were no obvious physical, 'biological' features to base these on - so they were constructed, both through propaganda that exaggerated physiology, and through the appending of obvious badges and marks onto those targeted. Again, these were sets of features, and categories, created to support a system of oppression and exploitation, not the reasons it came into being in the first place.

Again, these are fundamentally political and economic categories, and can only be properly understood as such. If not properly understood as being based, first and foremost, on material interests of classes, then any analysis of them is unstable. For example: appeals to the supposed ancestral claim of zionists to the land of Palestine, and thereby to indigineity, can only be refuted with an understanding that indigeneity is a political and economic characteristic, of relation towards the oppression of a settler state, and not some characteristic of where one's ancestors were born. None of this is to say that race, nationality, etc don't function as axes of oppression - but that they must be understood as manifestations of the existing political and economic material interests of classes that drive the development of history, if they are to be fought against.

[aliferous-ly]

Sometimes Tango sees gold. He's deep in the Warden's den, so surely everything is soaked in blue and green.

Prussian blue. DePrussian blue. Like depression. Eh? Good one, right?

Tango sighs. The gold only flits in the corner of his vision and he's tired, he's endlessly tired but he can't leave until he's done. It's already been so long. He's stuck making shitty jokes to haunted faces that would sooner blastificate his face off than laugh.

But the gold. It's like stardust on his tongue. Memories of hellfire. Gorgeous gilded blackstone, the stuff from his days as a blazeling. No, more like dandelions, like sunbeams through forest branches.

Tango sticks his tongue out in concentration, hopping between crackling soulfires. Navigating his own maze requires skill! Skill that he doesn't always have, admittedly.

Releasing a quiet sigh of relief, Tango approaches an unfinished pillar. He twirls his pickaxe and gets to work. Shulker boxes surround him in short order.

So focused on his work, he misses the gold. He misses the yellow, the soft, the scorching, but it draws near all the same, getting closer and closer-

"Ah! Ow, ow, ow, ow," a voice yelps.

Tango screams, fumbling with his pickaxe and building blocks. Both fall to the ground as Tango whirls, nobody's supposed to be here, especially not-

"Jimmy?"

Jimmy sadly stomps his wing out. Black marks mar the feathers, ugly soot staining the gold. "Hi, Tango."

"What are you... How are you here? What are you doing here? You're - you're on Hermitcraft!" Tango gapes.

"Oh, um, crossover event?" Jimmy tries.

"I didn't think there was one of those right now," Tango says. He roots around in his many pockets, making a small happy noise when he finds his comm. He boots it up and peers at the list of people online.

Strangely, Jimmy's the only non-hermit. Tango scrolls through a few lines of Jimmy-Skizz banter, then sees Grian's message of a simple, "join vc".

"Grian got you on?" Tango says, still mystified.

"No, it was more of a group - Tango, quit distracting me! I trudged through all this - this hullabaloo to see you!" Jimmy punctuates this with hands placed determinedly on hips, expression set to a hopeful scowl.

Tango can't make heads or tails of it. It might have to do with the several shots of espresso coursing through his system. Or the lack of sleep. Or the concentration-fatigue, or the way his eyes have been going crossed when he peers at redstone wiring. Any number of reasons, really.

"...why?" Tango finally asks.

This stumps Jimmy. He blinks a few times and furrows his eyebrows. "Why? What d'you mean why? You're my rancher, that's why!"

Well, that's true. Tango nods. Then he paused, frowns, and shakes his head. "Wait, you can't be down here! Spoilers, Jimmy, spoilers!"

Jimmy snaps his fingers. "I'm not a hermit! And I'm certainly going to watch the videos when hermits release them. I won't spill!"

"I guess..."

"But anyway, let's get out of here. It's so stuffy and - fiery," Jimmy says. He flutters his burnt wing helpfully.

Tango wilts. His desire to see Jimmy and guilt at causing him harm wars with his ever-present need to keep working. "I'm busy, Jim. Gotta keep working. It's already been so long, the hermits are getting antsy..."

Jimmy invades his space and as the cavern trickles to silence, he wraps his arms and wings around him.

Tango's always been weak for him. He exhales. Any scrap of energy still clinging to his worn-out body vanishes, and he rocks further into Jimmy's hold.

To his credit, Jimmy just makes a small noise and adjusts so he can support his weight.

"Come on, then," Jimmy says softly. He runs his fingers through his hair. "Let's go take a rest, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay," Tango breathes. He closes his eyes and sinks into Jimmy's warmth. It's rather terrible of his fellow hermits, he thinks absentmindedly. Using his rancher for such nefarious means.

But now the glimpses of gold haunt him no longer. His precious yellow fills Tango's vision, covering him in head to toe with deep contentment.

His rancher. His rancher. Tango smiles, and everything glitters.

[tanadrin]

"legitimacy" is a tool for building consensus: the government wants to do X; will people go along with it? with the exception of that one group of villages graeber and wengrow talk about, where the king is an autocrat but has to deliver all his orders in person, executives have to, on some level, get people to do what they say because they want to, or feel like they must.

(in that sense, even monarchical absolutism is a sham: the most tyrannical despot still has to build consensus among the people who run the system, including the people with weapons who can threaten others into going along even if they don't want to. but if you abuse the peasantry too much, well, you can still get a revolution when people decide they'd rather die than be stepped on.)

democracy is itself a consensus-building tool, in that it seeks to at least roughly approximate the will of the electorate, but it's also a consensus-building tool, in that even when it does not, it 1) gives other factions the hope they will get a chance to wield power or influence policy later, if they can win elections, so they should cooperate for now; 2) it takes input from (ideally) a much wider segment of society than most non-democratic systems, and so (hopefully) the policy results are not so at variance with what people want from the government that they resort to violence

to the extent a government or policy is broadly popular, even if implemented by an autocrat, maybe it can even enjoy a bit of democratic legitimacy--the trouble, of course, as robert anton wilson observed, is making sure you're actually reading the room (or the populace) when you're running a system that doesn't have mechanisms for honest and safe feedback.

it's funny to look at hybrid systems like prussian constitutionalism, where you had a monarch that really, really didn't want to give in to this populist democracy nonsense, but who eventually granted a constitution and permitted elections--because by the 19th century, the whole notion of what government was had changed: it was now something done for the people instead of to the people. there's an obvious democratic deficit in them, sure, but they can be stable if they get enough feedback and they take that into account. but then eventually you always seem to get a new king, who's not a pushover like his father, who really believes in absolutism, he'll show those filthy peasants that God chose him--and oops, there goes the palace up in flames!

[random-thot-generator]

Dirty Little Secret + Pt. 2

JOHNNY 'SOAP' MACTAVISH x FEM READER

-

Summary: You've made a clean break and gone back to your roots.

Warnings/Tags: No major warnings, slight angsty thoughts/feelings, reader is coping, very light allusions to sex but nothing explicit, no use of Y/N

(Notes: No smut this chapter. Main focus is setting up the rest of the story and introducing Aunt Rue. I love Aunt Rue.

Short and inner-angsty, but with self-comfort? Anyway, she's dealing with it. Think of this chapter as the bridge between what happened before and what's going to happen next. And Kilroy is a fictional seaside village that I made up.)

Word Count: 1.3

-

The sound of the ocean had always been soothing to you. Given the chance, you would start every day this way, listening to the waves and the squawk of sea birds, the crunch of gravel beneath your feet.

As you picked your way along the pebbled shore, a bit of sea glass caught your eye and you stopped, toeing away the other rocks and detritus around it. It was a mottled Prussian blue, about a centimeter in diameter, the edges smooth with no chips or cracks. You held it up to the sun, huffing out a soft laugh at the effect. Bringing it back to your chest, you wiped away the grit that still clung to it with your thumb as you studied it. It was the right shade and size. You pocketed it and continued on your way.

You had become accustomed to taking these walks along the shore since moving back to Kilroy, a small village near Brighton. After things went tits up in Hereford, you had done what any heartbroken lass would do, you ran home. Home for you was your Aunt Rue's crumbling old cottage in Kilroy. It was where you spent your teenage years before going off to uni, working part time in her bakery while dreaming of a glamorous life in London.

That had been your goal back then, to live in the big city as a successful, independent career woman. That naive young woman would have been mortified to know that she would one day return to Kilroy, but you weren't that idealistic girl anymore.

Hereford was a far cry from London, yet you had barely scraped by on your own while living there; London would have eaten you alive. At least here, you knew people, felt a sense of community and familiarity. It had been so lonely living on your own, feeling isolated and forgotten. Perhaps that was why you had clung so desperately to Johnny, glad to receive what little attention he offered you, though what you received were mere scraps, really.

You sighed and shook your head, cutting off the thought before it had time to take root. It had been over six months, and you were finally in a decent headspace again. Getting over Johnny truly was like kicking an addiction; one misstep and you would be spiraling again. You sometimes wondered if you would ever be able to completely get him out of your system.

Even now, he still had an effect on your life, making you wary of the men who tried to chat you up. You just assumed they were out to get a leg over, so you often came off as cold and reserved, and in some cases, right down defensive. The thought of letting another man into your bed, letting another man touch you, use you, made you a little nauseous, to be honest. At this point, you would equate your love life with a frozen tundra— cold, bleak and depressing.

Meanwhile, Aunt Rue was still picking up blokes at the pub and bringing them home to spend the night. That had taken some getting used to. Before, when you were still a teenager, she had kept her love life lowkey, but since your return, she had no such qualms about it. It was nothing, now, to come downstairs in the morning and find some strange bloke sipping tea in one of her kimono robes at the kitchen table. Except for that one in nothing but his boxers. That had been a bridge too far.

Still, living and working with Aunt Rue had changed your perspective about a lot of things. Men and relationships, for one, living your best life, for another. You had come to realize that Aunt Rue was the role model you should have been fashioning yourself after this whole time.

She lived her life by her own rules, unapologetically and without regret. She didn't need a man around to take care of her, but she still enjoyed their company and sought it out without shame or guilt. She had carved out her own little niche in the world and was comfortable living in her own skin. Those were the goals you were striving for, now.

You checked the time on your phone, then made your way back towards the stairs leading up to the boardwalk. It was almost time to open the bakery, and Rue would be in full baking mode by now, and in need of your help.

The walk through the village was a pleasant one, the chill winds of spring giving way to the warmer climes of the approaching summer. There were still signs of the May Day celebration lingering about, artificial flower wreaths and arrangements kept on display in the shops.

That had been a fun day, you and your aunt setting up a booth on the boardwalk with the other businesses and vendors, selling summer-inspired treats as you watched the light-hearted chaos of the holiday unfold. There had even been a news crew from Brighton in attendance recording the festivities for a local television station.

As you neared the bakery, you couldn't help but smile at the lavender and white striped awning with the name of the shop printed across it: 'Rue the Day Bakery'. Taking out your keys, you let yourself in, tossing a hand up in greeting to one of the neighboring shop owners who was setting up a folding chalkboard sign outside their store.

"That you, love?" Rue called from the back, alerted by the bell above the door.

"Yeah. Just in from my walk," you called back, removing your jacket. You walked to the back to leave your jacket and bag in the office, then entered the kitchen, the smell of fresh baked bread the most prevalent today. You could always tell what day it was just by the smell of the bakery. Rue had just turned from an open oven, a tray of hot loaf pans clasped between her mitted hands. The rounded brown tops of bread gave off a mouthwatering aroma.

"Well, you're lookin' bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this mornin'," she greeted you, setting the tray on one of the metal tables against the wall. "Come help me turn these out, before ya get started on the front."

You grabbed a pair of spare oven mitts and set to work beside her, tipping out the loaves and placing them on a large cooling rack. "These turned out lovely, Aunt Rue. Save us a loaf for dinner. I'll make those open-faced sandwiches you like."

"Ooh! Ya got yourself a deal, love." She went back to her workstation and began to scrape the stuck dough off the surface with a pastry cutter, prepping it for the next round of baking. "Mind makin' me a cuppa? Think I'll take a break before starting on the rolls."

"Sure. Be right back." You went to the front, getting the hot water urns filled and switched on, glancing out the shop window to see Red, the postman, making his way down the shops, delivering the post. He was a regular, so you knew he would be in soon for his large to-go cuppa and buttered rolls with jam.

You stooped below the counter to grab your aunt's favorite oolong tea, but the box was empty. "Crap," you mumbled. "Should be another box back here somewhere…"

The bell above the door jingled, no doubt Red, you figured. "Be with ya in a tick," you called out, still rummaging about for the elusive oolong.

"Take yer time," was the reply, but it most definitely was not Red. This voice was deeper, a bit raspy and distinctly Scottish.

You shot to your feet, eyes wide, heart already breaking into a gallop as you gaped at the man standing before you. "What are you doing here?" you blurted out, shocked.

Johnny tilted his head, blue eyes flashing. "Hello, bonnie."

-

part 1 part 3

[freetheshit-outofyou]

The Paris Gun

The Krupp arms-making dynasty was founded in Essen upon the fortune amassed by Arndt Krupp, who settled in that city in 1587. His son Anton expanded the family’s endeavors into making firearms during the Thirty Years’ War of 1618-1648, and the family progressively expanded its operations over the ensuing decades. In 1811, Friedrich Krupp (1787-1826) established a steel casting facility, and, although he successfully began casting steel in 1816, he expended considerable funds in the process. His son, Alfried (1812- 1887), continued his father’s work and eventually re-established the family fortune. By its nature steel was very difficult to cast, and internal faults were often impossible to detect through existing testing procedures. Defective cast steel pieces were also much more dangerous to crews than iron cannons, as the softer iron tended to split or burst with less energy than the harder steel, which more often ruptured with deadly violence. The Krupp firm’s success in casting steel was considered one of the major metallurgical achievements of its day.

Beginning in 1844, Alfried Krupp began experimenting in machining guns from solid cast steel blanks and in 1847 produced his first steel cannon. That same year he presented a steel gun to the King of Prussia, Frederick Wilhelm IV (1795-1861)-an act of entrepreneurial generosity that later won an order for 300 field guns. He went on to display a 6-pounder muzzleloading gun at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and began experiments in developing breechloading weapons. In 1856, Krupp introduced a 90mm field gun fitted with a transverse sliding breechblock that fit through a corresponding slot in the rear of the barrel.

Germany subsequently made the transition to rifled breechloaders during the 1860s, a move that gave it a distinct artillery advantage during the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. Shortly after the war it adopted 78.5mm guns for its horse artillery and 88mm pieces for field use. The logistical difficulties associated with supplying two sizes of ammunition in the field and recent advances in metallurgy and gun design then led to the Model 73/88 system, which used the 88mm caliber for both horse artillery and field use and the later Model 73/91 system, utilizing nickel steel barrels. The Model 73/91 was finally superseded by Germany’s answer to the French 75-the Model 96 or Feldkanone 96 neur Art.

The development of specialized antiaircraft artillery also intensified during the war. The first documented use of antiaircraft artillery occurred as early as the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. At Paris, the Prussian commander von Moltke ordered weapons from Krupp in order to shoot down balloons in which the French were trying to sail over the Prussian lines. Krupp eventually delivered a number of single-shot, caliber 1-inch rifles that were mounted on pedestals bolted to the beds of two-horse wagons; they theoretically could follow the balloons on the ground while maintaining a steady firing rate. The Krupp pieces were relatively ineffective, yet at least one French balloon was apparently downed by their fire.

The rapid proliferation of powered military aircraft at the turn of the century, however, spurred an equally dedicated effort to neutralize the threat of air attacks. During the 1909 Frankfurt International Exhibition, Krupp unveiled three antiaircraft guns in a bid to monopolize the emerging market. These included a caliber 65mm 9-pounder and a 75mm 12-pounder. Krupp claimed that the largest, a pedestal-mounted 105mm gun intended for shipboard use, achieved a maximum ceiling of 37,730 feet. The caliber 65mm gun had an 18,700-foot range, could elevate 75 degrees, and its carriage had unique hinged axles that allowed the wheels to be pivoted to a position perpendicular to their traveling position. With the trail spade acting as its axis, this arrangement enabled the crew to traverse the piece 360 degrees to track enemy aircraft. With a claimed maximum ceiling of 21,326 feet, the caliber 75mm gun was mounted on a truck bed, thus giving it a high degree of mobility. Not to be outdone, Erhardt, Krupp’s closest domestic competitor, also exhibited a 50mm quick-firing antiaircraft gun mounted in an armored car’s turret.

The period also witnessed considerable experimentation in antiaircraft shells and fuses. Krupp introduced a high-explosive shell for its 3-pounder equipped with a “smoke-trail” fuse, an early tracer round that both aided the crews in sighting and was an effective incendiary against the hydrogen-filled airships of the period.

During World War I the Germans continued to experiment in antiaircraft weaponry, beginning in 1914 with the 77mm Ballonen-AK. The Ballonen-AK was then, in turn, followed in 1915 by the 77mm Luftkanone, a basic 77mm field cannon barrel mounted on a rotating scaffolding. The more effective Krupp 88mm FlaK entered service in 1918 and eventually became the inspiration for the famous World War II German “Eighty-Eight.”

Popularly named after Alfred Krupp’s daughter, the 41.3-ton, 420mm “Big Bertha” had a horizontal sliding block and fired a 1,719-pound shell up to 10,253 yards. Big Bertha required five tractors to transport its components, and it had to be assembled on site. In conjunction with a number of Austrian Skoda 305mm howitzers, the L/14 was first used with devastating effect against Liege in August 1914; it saw other action on both the Western and Eastern fronts. Owing to its relatively short range and vulnerability to Allied fire, Big Bertha was obsolete by 1917. Another heavy piece, the 211mm Mörser was adopted in 1916. It weighed 14,727 pounds and fired a 250-pound shell up to 12,139 yards.

Designed by Krupp engineers and adopted in 1918, the Paris Gun used the basic 380mm Max railroad gun barrel fitted with a barrel liner and lengthened 20 feet. The 210mm Paris Gun weighed 1,653,470 pounds and mounted a 2,550-inch barrel with a horizontal sliding block. It fired a 264-pound shell up to 82 miles. Crewed by naval personnel, the Paris Gun was so powerful that it fired its shells into the stratosphere, where the thinner atmosphere exerted less resistance, allowing such long ranges. The stress on the bore, however, wore the barrel significantly, and each succeeding projectile had to have progressively larger driving bands and heavier powder charges to compensate for the increasing windage. Although hugely inefficient in the final analysis, the Paris Gun’s greatest value lay in its use as a propaganda tool rather than an artillery piece. Source

[horizon-verizon]

There’s a tendency among the fans to treat succession as a set of ironclad rules, at least, whatever version of succession they subcribe to. But the reality is that succession is largely a matter of will to power. Any claim can be justified with right of conquest/might makes right. Various characters might have claims that make it easier for them to persuade others to support their grab for power, but they all understand on some level that the rules aren't real. Words are wind, as they like to say. To quote Petyr Baelish, it’s treason “only if we lose.”

Right of conquest only works if you win. The problem with a claim based solely on this is obvious (hence why even Robert/Jon Arryn came up with a thin pretext of Robert’s Targaryen blood in addition to this): there’s no inherent normative reason anyone else shouldn’t do it or challenge your claim immediately by trying to kill/overthrew you. The Targaryens got away with this for a while because no one else could do it both due to dragons and other barriers, long enough for their system to be fixed. (In their case, they had an advantage since the entire concept of the united Seven Kingdoms was their creation).

For instance, Catherine the Great, an impoverished Prussian princess, had come to Russia in the first place to be empress consort and mother to the next heir. She had no legal claim to the throne. Aided by her lover Grigory Orlov and his powerful family, she staged a coup just six months after her husband, Peter III, took the throne. The bloodless shift in power was so easily accomplished that Frederick the Great of Prussia later observed, “[Peter] allowed himself to be dethroned like a child being sent to bed.” Catherine not only overthrew her husband but usurped the throne from her son, ruling for 34 years as empress in her own right even though legally, she could only be a regent until her son came of age. Yet you’d be hard pressed to find many people calling her a “usurper” because Catherine knew how to get and maintain power, and she kept the most powerful people in her empire in check. She surrounded her son with spies in order to prevent him from staging a coup and taking the throne that was rightfully his. She also manipulated influential men to keep them from allying with Paul (who didn’t inherited his mother’s political acumen).

This is in response to this recent ask about usurpation and "legitimacy".

And yes, even GRRM says that in both ASoIaF and real life medieval EU, these "laws" could be distorted or ignored by lords themselves when they had the means and will to do so in So Spake Martin:

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Prussian blue analogs unlock affordable, long-lasting lithium-ion batteries

Prussian blue (PB), a well-known pigment used to dye jeans, has been recognized as an emerging material for next-generation batteries. A team of researchers, led by Professor Hyun-Wook Lee in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST has made a significant breakthrough in the development of low-cost, high-performance lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) using PB, leading to significantly reduced battery prices. The study, published in Nano Letters, demonstrates a new electrolyte system that overcomes the limitations of PB's slow kinetics and valence state inactivation, enabling stable and efficient battery operation. In this study, the research team developed a novel polymeric cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) layer through a ring-opening reaction of ethylene carbonate triggered by OH– radicals from structural water. This innovative approach significantly improves the electrochemical kinetics in organic electrolytes, achieving a specific capacity of 125 mAh/g with a stable lifetime over 500 cycles.

Read more.

[axolotlofficial]

We cannot ever resolve the problem of abusive teachers, principals, or school staff without first acknowledging that the Prussian model school system is intentionally set up to enable their abuse. When another story breaks about a school installing metal cages over the bathroom doors or a child dying because his teachers were allowed to keep his inhaler locked up in the principal's office, it's not an isolated edge case. It's the system working as intended. It's the logical conclusion of any harsh "zero tolerance" policy or society that normalizes schools not only making students ask to go to the bathroom, but being allowed to say no. Complete replacement is the only solution. Stop gaslighting yourself into believing giving even more money to this totalitarian institution will somehow make it less evil.

[leftistfeminista]

After some deliberations, the Prussian authorities in the Rhineland revoked Jewish emancipation and imposed on the Jews in the newly annexed territories the status of Jews in Prussia proper. The major principle, following the precepts of what it meant to be a Christian state, implied that Jews could not be in a situation of authority over Christians: they could not serve as lawyers, judges, civil servants, teachers in schools or universities. In other words, the Rhenish Jews were de-emancipated, thrown back to where they—or their parents—had been a generation ago.

Among the tremendous consequences of the post-1815 Restoration, the change in the status of Rhenish Jews was obviously a minor and marginal footnote, and is hardly noted or mentioned by historians, but it gave rise to a totally new situation, affecting a few thousand Jews who within one generation were both granted emancipation and then drastically denied it, something that had never happened until that time to any Jewish group. The fact that most of those affected were, almost by definition, educated professional middle-class people, for whom emancipation had opened the road to being full-fledged citizens in an open society and were now thrown back into almost a medieval status, had far-reaching consequences.

In the years between 1815 and 1848 one can discern a deep feeling of alienation and consequent political radicalization among members of the Jewish intelligentsia in the Rhineland and the emergence among them—much more than among the more quietistic Jewish communities in Prussia proper—of radical politics; some did convert under that pressure, but this did not make them more supportive of the system imposed on them; others, while distancing themselves from orthodox Judaism, did try to maintain their Jewish identity in one way or another.

But it is among them that one finds the pioneers of radical democracy, revolutionary socialism, and a profound critique of bourgeois society and German nationalism. Many of them exiled themselves to Paris—which not only symbolized the legacy of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in general, but must have also meant to them the homeland that once granted to their families and ancestors equality and citizenship. No region of Germany produced so many revolutionary radicals as the Rhineland.

Among these was the revolutionary thinker and poet Heinrich Heine (born in Düsseldorf in 1799); the communist and later forerunner of Zionism Moses Hess (born in Bonn in 1812); the writer and satirist Ludwig Börne (born in Frankfurt in 1786; his father, the banker Jakob Baruch, had headed the Jewish delegation that pleaded futilely with the Congress of Vienna not to revoke the emancipation of the Rhineland Jews).

And of course, Karl Marx, son of the Trier lawyer Heinrich (Heschel) Marx.

[best-hohenzollern-ruler]

Bonus Round: Best General

Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1726–1802)

Prinz Heinrich prominently served as a general during the Seven Year's War. What contemporaries and historians alike have found so impressive about his leadership was that he made so few, if any, blunders in carrying out the war. This was a sentiment echoed by his brother, Frederick the Great, who absorbs much of the credit by osmosis. His victories and maneuvers allowed his brother to carry on a war that the prince would have preferred to be ended sooner than 1756. Outside of war, he is his own colorful character, in line with that generation of Hohenzollern men and women.

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819)

What hot blooded Prussian does not know the name Blücher? It is he we have to thank for the defeat of the villain Napoleon - not once, but twice! The first great defeat at Leipzig restored Prussia to her place of due prominence among the nations of Europe. At Waterloo, he and his troops arrived as Wellington's guardian angels to defeat the Corsican devil. The main army battered, the reserves shunted away, Blücher became an immortal hero to all who opposed shrimpy French tyranny.

Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

Clausewitz's greatest achievement is his book Vom Krieg (On War), a tome that rewrote the rules of conflict for a post Napoleonic age. Among many of the revolutionary ideas contained with in it, a few to highlight are the "fog of war", the concept of friction and the idea of a military genius.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800-1891)

As Chief of the Prussian General Staff, Moltke worked hand in hand with War Minister von Roon to deliver three swift victories for the Prussian state. It was his genius on display during Königgratz, during Sedan and Metz and Gravelotte. Without him, Prussia's ascendancy and Germany's unification would not have been possible.

Moltke understood that with the growing size of modern armies, generalship such as that underneath Napoleon or Blücher was unfeasible. Instead of a general leading his army as a whole, Motlke devised a corp system wherein smaller clusters of troops would move independently of each other — Theodor, get your hands off of me!

[koi-koi-fish]

0-8-4

March 15th, 2011.

Fury sits in his office staring at the monitor watching Captain America sitting in medical after his earlier escape attempt. He sighs. It's not every day a living legend comes back from the dead, beats dozens of your men, escapes a maximum security facility, and makes a scene in one of the most populous cities in the world. But the world finding out about Captain America's return is the least of his worries.

Just as Fury starts to get up, Agent Coulson enters the room holding a binder. "Ah, you're still in. Perfect." Agent Coulson says as he sets down the binder on Fury's desk. "Here's what we have so far on the 0-8-4 we fished up alongside the Captain."

Fury picks up the binder "Has she said anything since waking up?" he asks as he starts flipping through the pages. "Only her name, rank, serial number, and that she wants a lawyer," Agent Coulson says as he sits across from Fury.

The 0-8-4 identifies as 14 year old lieutenant colonel Tanya Von Degurachaff of the Polska-Prussian Union Empire. Her uniform resembles that of a Bavarian Chevaulegers cavalry uniform with rank insignia on the shoulders. Her ruby necklaces are likely rank and or noble regalia.

"She's too young for her rank. Since she's a noble perhaps she's an honorary officer. Purely ceremonial." Fury wonders outloud.

"I thought so too until her X-Rays came back." Agent Coulson says as he leans over and turns some pages on the binder.

"Her skeleton shows signs of several healed fractures. Some are estimated to be several years old. There were also metal fragments found in her body. Even if she was only a political appointment, she's tough enough to survive a battlefield and return for more," Agent Coulson says.

"Not to mention being frozen for over 60 years and surviving like Captain America," Fury thinks to himself.

Fury reads further. The alphabet on the documents and correspondence recovered from her person are closer to Scandinavian runes but essentially German grammatically. The most recent date found was correspondence dated February 5th, 1928, addressed to a Lieutenant Serebryakov wishing her a happy 21st birthday. The letter contained some chocolate. The medals on her person with the exception of the Iron Cross don't resemble any officially recognized medals of any nation past or present. Most of the medals are heavy with Norse mythological symbolism with the exception of the aforementioned Iron Cross and another with silver wings.

February 5th is the same day Captain America became frozen. "Just how likely is this to be a Hydra plot by the Red Skull?" Fury asks himself. Red Skull was overly obsessed with the occult, mythology, and the tesseract. It's possible that Tanya is one of his more fanatical followers that took after that motif. But that doesn't explain her DNA being different to regular humans.

Did Red Skull successfully create his own super soldier? That would explain her injuries. It's possible that there were others and that she was the only one to survive the process. But analysis shows no signs of a super soldier serum within her system like Captain America. Nothing about her adds up. Too much is unknown about her.

"Keep her under maximum surveillance for now. There is still too much we don't know about her." Fury says with a scowl.

"Understood boss," Agent Coulson says then leaves, closing the door behind him.

Fury leans back in his chair and rereads the binder. There's not enough information to go on and making assumptions gets people killed. Perhaps he should have the Captain interrogate her. He has the most experience with Hydra operatives of that time period.

Mulling that thought he sets down the binder and brings up the camera feed of Tanya's room only to be met with her looking directly at him sending a shiver down his spine.

[payattentiontothescreen]

Bridgerton Rewatch S1E3 - Art of the Swoon

Hey y'all. Sorry for the delay on this one, grad school is taking over my life. Here we go!

This episode starts with Daphne’s dream sequence and I’m gonna take a second to give some love to the camera department. Beyond the cinematography (which is amazing and shouldn’t be devalued), getting those shots must have been a pain in the ass. POV shots are not easy to get, especially when they’re close-ups on a person’s face. Those close-up POVs of Simon and Daphne dancing must have taken some EFFORT and I salute the cam ops for getting it so smoothly.

We have made it to my biggest problem with this season. George Crane was on the front lines fighting in Spain. How did it not occur to ANYONE that he might be dead? Like, they immediately jumped to “actually he hates you and wants nothing to do with your child.” I’m sorry WHAT??? He’s at war and that’s the ONLY conclusion you jump to???? It bugs me a lot, in case you couldn’t tell.

Portia wants Marina to dress in the family colors. What are those colors? There is very little consistency in the Featheringtons’ wardrobes, which says a lot about their lack of cohesion as a family. But there’s pinks, greens, yellows, all kinds of colors that almost never match.

I love the parlor scenes at the Bridgerton house. They all have such good chemistry as a family. That’s a major strength of this season that the second season doesn’t have as much.

I remember watching this the first time and thinking Prince Friedrich looked vaguely familiar but I didn’t know why. Imagine how shocked I was when I realized that I was watching Adrian Chase be a Regency-era Prussian prince. Freddie Stroma is so talented, my god.

Couples that mock together, stay together. You can see that with the way Daphne and Simon are making fun of Cressida and Friedrich.

Jumping ahead a bit to the stove scene. It is so funny that titled members of society have no practical skills. This is a theme of how the class system works, even to this day. Not having basic life skills is basically a status symbol when you have a certain amount of money. They are out of touch, obviously, but Anthony and Daphne being fictional characters in a historical setting makes it easier to laugh at.

Madame Delacroix is not dumb. She definitely knows that Marina is pregnant. I think her acting in this scene with the knowing glances and everything kind of bolsters the idea that she could be Lady Whistledown. I know she isn’t but if I didn’t, I could see how she would be the main suspect further down the line.

So I’m one of those weirdos who likes knowing why shitty people are that way. I really hope we learn more about Cressida and her background in the next season. Like, beyond just entitlement, how does someone turn into…that?

We’re at the gallery now. I think it’s nice when the Bridgertons get to participate in things as a unit. Most of the plot happens during events that are exclusive to people who are out in society, which leaves Eloise (in this season), Gregory, and Hyacinth out. It’s great to see them interact with the larger world because they add so much texture to it. That being said, Gregory and Hyacinth showed up to that gallery to cause problems on PURPOSE!

I love it when Marina is bitchy to shitty old men. They deserve it.

I know that Benedict has very little regard for society but I love watching him participate in it. This is a bigger thing in the scene with him, Lady Danbury, and Henry Granville. Benedict has so much charisma but it doesn’t align with society’s rules and expectations. I can’t wait to see him take center stage.

I had a note to talk about the blocking in the scene where Daphne and Simon are alone in the gallery together but I don’t remember what my thoughts were on that. If I think of it, I’ll add it somewhere but lmk if y’all have thoughts.

Benedict getting frustrated with drawing hands is hilarious to me. I’m not an artist, I can’t draw for shit. However, from what I’ve heard from my friends who are artists, hands are notoriously difficult to draw. So Benedict beating himself up over drawing hands is the most realistic thing in this episode and it kills me.

The fight between Daphne and Eloise reveals a lot about Eloise’s main flaw. During the fight, Daphne has this line, “You never see things from my perspective,” and that’s true. Eloise never sees things from other people’s perspectives. She’s constantly on some crusade that doesn’t take into account how other people around her might be affected. I’m really looking forward to her chilling out a bit.

Simon laughing at how little mothers tell their daughters has a bit of a sinister tinge once he and Daphne get married. He exploits that, to a certain extent.

Phoebe Dynevor (I learned how to spell, wow) is such a trooper for staying in character during that sex education lesson. If Regé-Jean Page was explaining masturbation that close to my face, I’d waste the whole shoot day just cracking up.

Another queer-coded sibling smoke break. Them talking about Lady Whistledown is interesting. Eloise says that LWD has to hide her identity because she’s a woman. While this is true, it’s not the reason. Benedict responds by saying that if people knew who she was, she’d be strung up for what she said, which is the real reason. And Eloise does prove this right. I don’t know what other people think, but I’m of the opinion that, no matter when she found out, Eloise would react the same way to Penelope being LWD. The rage and hurt compounds over the two seasons, but I think it would have been there regardless.

This show really emphasizes the importance of fem pleasure, but I have so many thoughts about it that it needs to be a separate post.

Simon breaking it off with Daphne is some of the most textbook fear-of-commitment dialogue in the world. I have heard basically the same monologue from so many people in my actual life, it drives me crazy.

The entire cast is insanely talented but one thing stands out. The absolute best acting in this show is Jonathan Bailey acting straight. If you didn’t know that he’s gay, you’d never be able to guess.

So we’ve made it to the forged letter scene. I have 2 things to say about this one. First of all, Ruby Barker absolutely slays. I’ve watched this show so many times and I will always feel her pain. It’s so powerful. The other thing, Lady Featherington has a bit of a projection problem. She has such a miserable marriage that she can’t fathom that George might truly love Marina. Also, again, jumping straight to dismissal instead of being killed in action. I can’t believe I’m defending men right now but, especially in this universe, jumping straight to abandonment seems like projecting more than an actual conclusion.

I’m gonna condense my last few notes into one bullet because they’re all about the ball at the end of the episode. Daphne comes into the ballroom with a face card that never declines, everybody’s staring at her, classic. The way I interpret Friedrich’s behavior in this scene boils down to he was never actually interested in Cressida. I don’t know, something about this whole thing just makes me feel like Cressida was a pretty convenience. The other thing is Simon. Obviously, Simon gets crazy jealous and dips, but there’s something about the shot of the dance floor as he leaves that I never noticed. Penelope watches Simon leave. Not only that, Penelope is the ONLY ONE who watches him leave while everyone else watches the dancing. If that’s not a hint that she’s LWD, I don’t know what is. 

Managed to get everything into one part this time. There might be a gap in posting again but I will do my best to get through the whole series before season 3 comes out.

Hope you're having a good day <3

[skybrushus]

Princess Luna inserted a reloaded magazine into the grip of the massive semi-automatic pistol. Cycling the action she raised the pistol and started to take aim, but then paused and lowered the weapon. Remembering the first magazine she'd fired from the behemoth pistol her horn flared and small force wall appeared in front of her face. Once again she raised the weapon and pressed trigger. 

   The pistol roared and rocked in her hand as it sent a 11.45mm projectile rocketing downrange. The alicorn was very happy she'd remembered to erect the force wall as she watched the spent brass casing bounce of it instead of her face. The first time she'd fired it several of the spent casings had struck her. 

    The giant pistol thundered 7 times and then went silent. Calm returned to firing range. Removing the now spent magazine and confirming the chamber was empty Luna set the still smoking pistol down on a bench and looked over at the pony who was creator of this monstrous mechanical creation. The stallion anxiously smiled as he addressed the princess. 

    "So your highness! What is your opinion? Would you consider the possibility of your security forces adopting it? Yes it is a rather large pistol, but with a shoulder stock attached the pistol can also operate as a small semi automatic carbine. So it is multi-purpose system, and 11.45mm cartridge is without equal at this time!"

     The Prussian Blue alicorn looked back at the pistol on the bench and then over to it's creator. She arched an eyebrow as she spoke. 

     "The problem I see sir. Is that I haven't test-fired a very large pistol today, but instead a very small field gun. The weapon is large to the point of encumbrance. It fires an excessively powerful cartridge for the job. It has more parts than my pocket watch. Even worse it has an alarming tendency of hurling spent cartridge casing into face of the operator with great gusto."

     At this moment Luna glanced down and noticed there was a spent cartridge casing lodged down in the cleavage of her breasts. Reestablishing eye contact with the stallion, the mare casually reached in with one hand and extracted the wayward piece of brass. She then flicked it away. 

    The stallion swallowed and looked the princess eyes. "So, um. That's a no."

    Note. The pistol in this drawing is a Gabbett-Fairfax Mars pistol. They were a series of early 20th century pistols. The Gabbett-Fairfax Mars, not to be mistaken with several other pistols from other period manufacturers that were also called Mars, never went into proper manufacturing. Instead the Mars were a series of unique, handmade, prototypes. Each one slightly different from its brethren with a wide range of features, calibers, sights and barrel lengths.  

     Ian McCollum at Forgotten Weapons has in the past has done a couple of video about it. Link. Link.