#endemic knowledge

[cognitivejustice]

South African researcher on the management of communal land

By

Wonga Masiza

Researcher, Agricultural Research Council

To understand the extent, causes and impact of communal land change, we analysed a series of historical satellite images from 1989 to 2019 and conducted interviews with locals. Instead of interviewing experts and leaders, the study measured the most common perceptions among community members.

As far as we know, this study is one of the first in South Africa to combine satellite data and local perceptions. This offered a more complete view of communal land change, and valuable insights on its impacts.

We suggested some ways in which this land could be managed better to provide ecosystem services and livelihoods.

Snippet

Satellite imagery from 1989 to 2019 revealed increases of the sweet thorn tree (Vachellia karroo) by 25% and the residential area (2.5%). It showed declines of grazing land (18%), cropland (9.6%) and dams (1.1%).

The land can be better managed through interventions by village committees, tribal authorities and extension services, and by following spatial planning and land use guidelines..

Most respondents (over 80%) noted the encroachment of the sweet thorn tree on grazing land and abandoned cropland. They said contributing factors were a decrease in fuelwood harvesting due to increased reliance on electricity, the abandonment of cropland (providing habitat for the sweet thorn) and seed dispersal caused by unrestricted movement of animals. Many saw the tree as beneficial because goats like to eat it and it makes good fuel. Others were concerned that this tree was invading productive agricultural land and causing a loss of biodiversity. They mentioned increased scarcity and disappearance of medicinal and culturally significant plants.

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - June 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $Kaybarr1735! And if you tip me and give me a way to contact you, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week!

1. Victory for Same-Sex Marriage in Thailand

“Thailand’s Senate voted 130-4 today to pass a same-sex marriage bill that the lower house had approved by an overwhelming majority in March. This makes Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia, and the second in Asia, to recognize same-sex relationships. […] The Thai Marriage Equality Act […] will come into force 120 days after publication in the Royal Gazette. It will stand as an example of LGBT rights progress across the Asia-Pacific region and the world.”

2. One of world’s rarest cats no longer endangered

“[The Iberian lynx’s] population grew from 62 mature individuals in 2001 to 648 in 2022. While young and mature lynx combined now have an estimated population of more than 2,000, the IUCN reports. The increase is largely thanks to conservation efforts that have focused on increasing the abundance of its main food source - the also endangered wild rabbit, known as European rabbit. Programmes to free hundreds of captive lynxes and restoring scrublands and forests have also played an important role in ensuring the lynx is no longer endangered.”

3. Planning parenthood for incarcerated men

“[M]any incarcerated young men missed [sex-ed] classroom lessons due to truancy or incarceration. Their lack of knowledge about sexual health puts them at a lifelong disadvantage. De La Cruz [a health educator] will guide [incarcerated youths] in lessons about anatomy and pregnancy, birth control and sexually transmitted infections. He also explores healthy relationships and the pitfalls of toxic masculinity. […] Workshops cover healthy relationships, gender and sexuality, and sex trafficking.”

4. Peru puts endemic fog oasis under protection

“Lomas are unique ecosystems relying on marine fog that host rare and endemic plants and animal species. […] The Peruvian government has formally granted conservation status to the 6,449-hectare (16,000-acre) desert oasis site[….] The site, the first of its kind to become protected after more than 15 years of scientific and advocacy efforts, will help scientists understand climatic and marine cycles in the area[, … and] will be protected for future research and exploration for at least three decades.”

5. Religious groups are protecting Pride events — upending the LGBTQ+ vs. faith narrative

“In some cases, de-escalation teams stand as a physical barrier between protesters and event attendees. In other instances, they try to talk with protesters. The goal is generally to keep everyone safe. Leigh was learning that sometimes this didn’t mean acting as security, but doing actual outreach. That might mean making time and space to listen to hate speech. It might mean offering food or water. […] After undergoing Zoom trainings this spring, the members of some 120 faith organizations will fan out across more than 50 Pride events in 16 states to de-escalate the actions of extremist anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.”

6. 25 years of research shows how to restore damaged rainforest

“For the first time, results from 25 years of work to rehabilitate fire-damaged and heavily logged rainforest are now being presented. The study fills a knowledge gap about the long-term effects of restoration and may become an important guide for future efforts to restore damaged ecosystems.”

7. Audubon and Grassroots Carbon Announce First-of-its-Kind Partnership to Reward Landowners for Improving Habitats for Birds while Building Healthy Soils

“Participating landowners can profit from additional soil carbon storage created through their regenerative land management practices. These practices restore grasslands, improve bird habits, build soil health and drive nature-based soil organic carbon drawdown through the healthy soils of farms and ranches. […] Additionally, regenerative land management practices improve habitats for birds. […] This partnership exemplifies how sustainable practices can drive positive environmental change while providing tangible economic benefits for landowners.”

8. Circular food systems found to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, require much less agricultural land

“Redesigning the European food system will reduce agricultural land by 44% while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 70%. This reduction is possible with the current consumption of animal protein. “Moreover, animals are recyclers in the system. They can recycle nutrients from human-inedible parts of the organic waste and by-products in the food system and convert them to valuable animal products," Simon says.”

9. Could Treating Injured Raptors Help Lift a Population? Researchers found the work of rehabbers can have long-lasting benefits

“[“Wildlife professionals”] tend to have a dismissive attitude toward addressing individual animal welfare,” [… but f]or most raptor species, they found, birds released after rehabilitation were about as likely to survive as wild birds. Those released birds can have even broader impacts on the population. Back in the wild, the birds mate and breed, raising hatchlings that grow up to mate and breed, too. When the researchers modeled the effects, they found most species would see at least some population-level benefits from returning raptors to the wild.”

10. Indigenous people in the Amazon are helping to build bridges & save primates

“Working together, the Reconecta Project and the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous people build bridges that connect the forest canopy over the BR-174 road[….] In the first 10 months of monitoring, eight different species were documented — not only monkeys such as the golden-handed tamarin and the common squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus), but also kinkajous (Potos flavus), mouse opossums (Marmosops sp.), and opossums (Didelphis sp.).”

Bonus: A rare maneless zebra was born in the UK

June 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[reasonsforhope]

Article

"2023 was a banner year for the Galapagos Islands: that wondrous archipelago so famous for its giant tortoises and other endemic species.

The long-serving conservation organization the Galapagos Conservancy, also endemic to the islands, recently published its annual report featuring standout figures like over 500 giant tortoises of 5 different species reintroduced to their natural habitat.

Additionally, a critically endangered species of albatross was identified to use giant tortoise feeding sites as take-off and landing areas. This key insight into co-dependency has given the Conservancy confidence that they can restore the populations of both animals to stable, flourishing numbers.

It underscores how far a donation to these endemic wildlife organizations really does go, and these two highlights of a successful year were only possible by the over $6 million in charitable contributions from supporters.

30 Chelonoidis chatamensis tortoises endemic to the smaller island of San Cristobal were repatriated to their natural habitat from the stock of a captive breeding program, while 97 native tortoises were returned to the second-largest island of Santa Cruz.

On the largest island of Isabella, 350 tortoises (214 C. guntheri and 136 C. vicina) were successfully reintroduced to their natural habitat after a survey found their numbers were not rising substantially on their own.

In March, the repatriation of 86 juvenile Chelonoidis hoodensis tortoises significantly contributed to enhancing the species’ distribution across their native habitat. They currently number 3,000 today on Española or Hood Island, a miraculous recovery from the 14 found there in the 1960s.

Also on Española, the endemic waved albatross was found to be taking off and landing on 50 additional parts of the island. These large birds, boasting an 8-foot wingspan, need ample space to get a running start before taking off, and this same principle applies when applying the brakes coming down from the sky.

In the survey, the biologists observed that concentrations of giant tortoises were linked with the usage of areas as runways for the albatross. Because the tortoises are the largest herbivores in the ecosystem, they perform the same acts as bison do in North America and Europe, and elephants in Africa—clear space.

With their herbivorous diet and large bulk, the tortoise’s feeding habits produce cleared areas ideal for albatross use.

“This discovery underscores the interconnectedness of the Galápagos ecosystem,” the authors of the report write. “This newly acquired knowledge allows us to strengthen the synergies between our conservation strategies.”

Of the $6.1 million received from donations and through other activities, the Conservancy was able to spend 77% of that on conservation programs, and that included some ambitious plans for this year—now already half done—which included drafting plans for restoration of the Pinta tortoise to the island of the same name, preparing tortoises for imminent reintroduction to the smaller Floreana island, and completely restoring the habitat for the Galapagos petrels on Santa Cruz.

Operating since 1985, the Galapagos Conservancy has a long track record of restoring these islands to their pre-Colombian glory. Let’s hope 2024 is as successful."

-via Good News Network, July 19, 2024

[amnhnyc]

Research alert! A new study shows how climate change affected the diversity of Congo River fish during glacial periods—crucial knowledge for understanding modern threats to fish in this species-rich region.

Over the last about 2.6 million years, polar ice caps have continuously expanded and retracted during glacial and interglacial cycles. This is thought to be a significant driver of biodiversity on land, but less is known about its effect on freshwater systems, especially in the Congo River. 

Using molecular tools, scientists focused on four species of fish endemic to the lower Congo River, known as lamprologine cichlids. Their findings, published in the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology, suggest speciation of Congo fish likely occurred when the river’s water level decreased, isolating populations of fish into smaller pockets of water, leading to the rise of new species over time. 

Learn more about how climate change impacts river fish.

Image: © Melanie Stiassny, Lamprologus lethops pictured

[mariacallous]

The great fault of the global left is not that it supports Hamas. For how could Western left-wing movements or left-inclining charities or academic bodies truly support Hamas if they were serious about their politics?

No one outside the most reactionary quarters of Islam shares Hamas’s aim of forcing the peoples of the world to accept “the sovereignty of Islam” or face “carnage, displacement and terror” if they refuse.  You cannot be a progressive and campaign for a state that executes gay men. An American left, which includes in its ranks the Queers for Palestine campaign group, cannot seriously endorse lethal homophobia in its own country.  They will turn a blind eye in Palestine, as we shall see, but not in New York or Chicago.

Finally, no left organisation proudly honours the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the fascist tradition that Hamas embraces with such sinister gusto, although in a sign of a decay that has been building on the left for more than a generation, many will promulgate left-wing conspiracy theories which are as insane as their fascist counterparts.

No, the problem with the global left is that it is not serious about politics. It “fellow travels” with radical Islam rather than supports it. The concept of “fellow travelling,” with its suggestions of tourism, dilettantism, and privilege, is well worth reviving. The phrase comes from the Bolsheviks. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 they looked with appreciation on Westerners who supported them without ever endorsing communism. Artists, writers, and academics who were disgusted with the West, often for good reason, I should add, were quite happy to justify Soviet communism and cover up its crimes without ever becoming communists themselves.

Leon Trotsky put it best when he said of fellow travellers that the question was always “how far would they go”? As long as they did not have live under the control of communists in the 1920s or the control of Islamists in the 2020s, the answer appears to be: a very long way indeed

W.H. Auden said, as he looked back with some contempt on his fellow travelling past, if Britain or the United States or any country he and his friends knew were taken over by a “successful communist revolution with the same phenomena of terror, purges, censorship etc., we would have screamed our heads off”. But as communism happened in backward Russia “a semi-barbarous country which had experienced neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment”, they could ignore its crimes in the interests of seeing the capitalist enemy defeated.

You see the same pattern of lies and indulgence in the case of Hamas. Journalists  have produced a multitude of examples of fellow travelling since 7 October but let one meeting of the Oakland City Council in the Bay area of San Francisco speak for them all.

A council member wanted the council to pass a motion that condemned the killings and hostage-taking by Hamas, who, in case we forget, prompted the war that has devastated Gaza, by massacring Israeli civilians. The motion got nowhere

According to one speaker Hamas did not massacre anyone, a modern variant of Holocaust denial that is becoming endemic. “There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings,” a woman said at the meeting. “Israel murdered their own people on October 7.”  Another woman said that calling Hamas a terrorist organization is “ridiculous, racist and plays into the genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media.” Hamas was the “armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance” , said a third who clearly had no knowledge of the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

“To condemn Hamas was very anti-Arab racist” cried a fourth. The meeting returned to modern Holocaust denial as a new speaker said the Israeli Defence Forces had murdered their own people and it was “bald propaganda” to suggest otherwise. A man intervened to shout that “to hear them complain about Hamas violence is like listening to a wifebeater complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back”.  

Anyone who contradicted him was a “white supremacist.”

Of course they were.

Now if theocrats were to establish an Islamist tyranny in the Bay area, I am sure every single speaker would scream their heads off, as Auden predicted. They can turn into fellow travellers as there is no more of a prospect of theocracy threatening them than there was of communism threatening readers of the left-wing press in the UK and US in the 1930s.

A serious left would have plenty to complain about. Consider the Israeli position after the breakdown of the ceasefire. The Israeli state is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a catastrophe of a prime minister, who left his people exposed to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. His war aims are contradictory: you cannot both wipe out Hamas and free the hostages.

Worst of all, the Israeli defence forces are to move to the southern Gaza strip where two million Palestinians are crammed. Just war doctrine holds that a military action must have a reasonable chance of success if the suffering is to be permitted. How, reasonably, can the Israeli army expect to find guerilla fighters hiding in a terrified population?  According to leaks in the Israeli media, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of state, was warning the Israeli government that, “You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there.” But he was ignored.  A radical movement worth having would surely be putting pressure on the Biden administration to force Israel to listen to its concerns.

The radical movement we have will not engage in practical politics because compromise is anathema to it. Any honest account of the war would have to admit that Israel has the right to defend itself against attack. It is just that the military position it finds itself in now may well make its war aims impossible and therefore immoral.

You can see why practical politics has no appeal. Where is the violent satisfaction in sober analysis,  the drama in compromise? Where is the Manichean distinction between the absolute good of the Palestinians and the pure evil of Israel?  

Meanwhile, ever since the Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967, you have been able to say that Jewish settler sites on the West Bank were placed there deliberately to make a peace settlement impossible, and ensure that Israel controlled all the territory from “the river to the sea” forever.

A serious left might try to revive a two-state solution by building an international consensus that the settlements must go. Once again, however, that is too tame an aim. For the fellow traveller watching Palestine from a safe distance, satisfaction comes only by embracing Hamas’s call for the destruction of Israel. Some progressives try to dress up the urge to destroy by pretending that Jews and Palestinians will go on to live together in some happy-clappy, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state. But most must know they are advocating a war to the death. What makes their position so disreputable is that, if they thought about it calmly, they would know it would be a war that only Israel could win. It is the Israelis who have the nuclear weapons, after all.

The worst of the global left is dilettantish. It advocates a maximalist position which has a minimal chance of success - just for the thrill of it. David Caute, a historian of fellow travelling with Stalin and communism said that the endorsement of communism by fellow travelling intellectuals in the West “deepened the despair” of Soviet intellectuals. “In their darkest hours they heard themselves condemned by their own kind”.

The 2020s are not the 1930s. I am sure that, if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, my sole concern would be the removal of Israeli forces that threatened me and my family. I would either not care about demonstrations in the West or I would receive some comfort from the knowledge that people all over the world were protesting on my behalf.

Nevertheless, a kind of betrayal is still at work. By inflaming and amplifying the worst elements in Palestine the global left is giving comfort to the worst elements in Israel, which are equally determined to make a compromise impossible.

The New Statesman made that point well when it ran a piece by Celeste Marcus.   She came from the Zionist far right, and was taught doctrines that dehumanised Palestinians. She grew up and grew away from the prejudices of her childhood and became a liberal. But after she moved into her new world, she “recognised immediately that progressive leftists feel about Israelis the way radical Zionists feel about Palestinians: these are not real people.”

The result is that for all its power on the streets and in academia the global left is almost an irrelevance.

“To influence Israel,” she writes, “one must be willing to recognise it. Since leftist leaders cannot bother to do this, they cannot be of real use to Palestinians. This is a betrayal of their own cause.”

The dilettantism of fellow travelling always ends in betrayal and denial for the reason Auden gave: terror is always more tolerable when it happens far, far away.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Y'all know I'm a sucker for endangered species reintroduction stories, right? Especially when it's not a charismatic megafauna being highlighted. So of course I was excited when this headline crossed my dash.

The magnificent ramshorn (what a great name!), also known as Planorbella magnifica, is a tiny snail endemic to ponds and other quiet waterways in North Carolina's lower Cape Fear River basin. In fact, they were only known from four sites in the region. Due to plummeting numbers in its limited habitat, some of the last of these snails were removed from the wild to create an intensive captive breeding program. (It really doesn't take much to keep a snail happy in captivity once you figure out what conditions it needs.) The last wild individual was observed twenty years ago, and it is considered to be extinct in the wild.

That is, until now. Two thousand of these little reddish snails were released into a safe pond in Brunswick County. Researchers are using this as a way to observe how well these captive-bred snails adapt to their historic habitat, including successful reproduction. If all goes well, we can hope to see more reintroductions of these native mollusks back into their original range.

We nature nerds are biased, because we think everything in nature is awesome (yes, I'm even an apologist for mosquitoes!) So of course we get excited when a bunch of rare little snails get a second chance, because we understand how crucial each species is to its ecosystem. It can be tougher sometimes to sell the importance of this to the general public, who may question why it would be such a big deal for one snail species to go extinct. That's why I think it's so important for us to keep sharing our knowledge and--perhaps even more importantly--our enthusiasm for all these amazing beings. Keep being cheerleaders for critters like these snails, and your enthusiasm may end up being contagious!

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #41 – Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy by Eri Hotta

Almost everything I know about World War 2, I learned against my will through a poorly spent adolescence and reading people argue about it online. Living in Canada, Japan’s role in it is even more obscure, with the wars in the Pacific and China getting a fraction of a fraction of the official commemoration and pop culture interest of events in Europe. So I went into this book with a knowledge of only the vague generalities of Japanese politics in the ‘30s and ‘40s – from that baseline, this was a tremendously interesting and educational book, if at times more than a bit dry.

The book is a very finely detailed narrative of the internal deliberations within the Japanese government and the diplomatic negotiations with the USA through late 1940 and 1941, which ultimately culminate in the decision to attack Pearl Harbour and invade European colonies across the Pacific. It charts the (deeply dysfunctional) decision-making systems of the Imperial Japanese government and how bureaucratic politics, factional intrigue and positioning, and an endemic unwillingness to be the one to back down and eat your words, made a war with the USA first possible, then plausible, then seemingly inevitable. Throughout this, the book wears its thesis on its sleeve – that the war in the Pacific only ever seemed inevitable, that until the very last hour there was widespread understanding that the war would be near-unwinnable across the imperial government and military, but a broken political culture, the career suicide of being the one to endorse accepting American demands,, and a simple lack of courage or will among the doves, prevented anything from ever coming of it.

So I did know that Imperial Japan’s government had, let’s say, fundamental structural issues when I opened the book, but I really wasn’t aware of just how confused and byzantine the upper echelons of it were. Like if Brazil was about the executive committee – the army and navy ministries had entirely separate planning infrastructures from the actual general staffs, and all of them were basically silo’d off from the actual economic and industrial planning bureaucracy (despite the fact that the head of the Cabinet Planning Board was a retired general). All of which is important, because the real decisions of war and peace were made in liaison meetings with the prime minister, foreign minister, and both ministry and general staff of each branch – meetings which were often as not just opportunities for grandstanding and fighting over the budget. The surprise is less that they talked themselves into an unwinnable war and more that they decided on anything at all.

The issue, as Hotta frames it, is that there really wasn’t a single place the buck stopped – officially speaking, the civilian government and both branches of the military served the pleasure of the Emperor – whose theoretically absolute authority was contained by both his temperament and both custom and a whole court bureaucracy dedicated to making sure the prestige of the throne didn’t get mired in and discredited by the muck of politics. The entire Meiji Constitution was built around the presence of a clique of ‘imperial advisers’ who could borrow the emperor’s authority without being so restrained – but as your Ito Hirobumis and Yamagata Aritomos died off, no one with the same energy, authority and vision ever seems to have replaced them.

So you had momentous policy decisions presented as suggestions to the emperor who could agree and thus turn them into inviolable commands, and understood by the emperor as settled policy who would provide an apolitical rubber-stamp on. Which, combined with institutional cultures that strongly encouraged being a good soldier and not undercutting or hurting the image of your faction, led to a lot of people quietly waiting for someone else to stand up and make a scene for them (or just staying silent and wishing them well when they actually did).

Now, this is all perhaps a bit too convenient for many of the people involved – doubtless anyone sitting down and writing their memoirs in 1946 would feel like exaggerating their qualms about the war as much as they could possibly get away with. I feel like Hotta probably takes those post-war memoirs and interviews too much at face value in terms of people’s unstated inner feeling – but on the other hand, the bureaucratic records and participants’ notes preserved from the pivotal meetings themselves do seem to show a great deal of hesitation and factional doubletalk. Most surprisingly to me was the fact that Tojo (who I had the very vague impression was the closest thing to a Japanese Hitler/Mussolini there was) was actually chosen to lead a peace cabinet and find some 11th hour way to avert the war. Which in retrospect was an obviously terrible decision, but it was one he at least initially tried to follow through on.

If the book has a singular villain, it’s actually no Tojo (who is portrayed as, roughly, replacement-rate bad) but Prince Konoe, the prime minister who actually presided over Japan’s invasion of China abroad and slide into a militarized police state at home, who led the empire to the very brink of war with the United States before getting cold feet and resigning at the last possible moment to avoid the responsibility of either starting the war or of infuriating the military and destroying his own credibility by backing down and acceding to America’s demands. He’s portrayed as, not causing, but exacerbating

every one of Japan’s structural political issues through a mixture of cowardice and excellent survival instincts – he carefully avoided fights he might lose, even when that meant letting his foreign minister continue to sabotage negotiations he supported while he arranged support to cleanly remove him (let alone really pushing back on the army). At the same time, the initiatives he did commit were all things inspired by his deep fascination with Nazi Germany – the dissolution of partisan political parties and creation of an (aspirationally, anyway) totalitarian Imperial Rule Assistance Association, the creation of a real militarized police state, the heavy-handed efforts to create a more pure and patriotic culture. He’s hardly to blame for all of that, of course, but given that he was a civilian politician initially elected to curb military influence, his governments sure as hell didn’t help anything (and it is I suppose just memorably ironic that he’s the guy on the spot for many of the most military-dictatorship-e aspects of Japanese government).

One of the most striking things about the book is actually not even part of the main narrative but just the background context of how badly off Japan was even before they attacked the United States. I knew the invasion of China hadn’t exactly been going great, but ‘widespread rationing in major cities, tearing up wrought iron fencing in the nicest districts of the capital to use in war industry’ goes so much further than I had any sense of. The second Sino-Japanese War was the quintessential imperial adventure and war of choice, and also just literally beyond the material abilities of the state of Japan to sustain in conjunction with normal civilian life. You see how the American embargo on scrap metal and petroleum was seen as nearly an act of war in its own right. You also wonder even more how anyone could possibly have convinced themselves that an army that was already struggling to keep its soldiers fed could possibly win an entirely new war with the greatest industrial power on earth. Explaining which is of course the whole point of the book (they didn’t, in large part, but convinced themselves the Americans wouldn’t have the stomach for it and agree to a favourable peace quickly, or that Germany would conquer the UK and USSR and impose mediation on Japan’s terms, or-).

When trying to understand the decision-making process, I’m honestly reminded of nothing so much as the obsession with ‘credibility’ you see among many American foreign policy hands in the modern day. The idea that once something had been committed to – the (largely only extant on paper) alliance with Nazi Germany, the creation of a collaborator government in China to ‘negotiate’ with, the occupation of southern Vietnam – then, even if you agreed it hadn’t worked out and had probably been a terrible decision to begin with, reversing course without some sort of face-saving agreement or concession on the other side would shatter any image of strength and invite everyone else the world over to grab at what you have. The same applies just as much to internal politics, where admitting that your branch couldn’t see a way to victory in the proposed war was seen as basically surrendering the viciously fought over budget, no matter the actual opinions of your experts – the book includes anecdotes about both fleet admirals and the senior field marshal China privately tearing their respective superiors in Tokyo a (polite) new one for the bellicosity they did not believe themselves capable of following through on, but of course none of these sentiments were ever shared with anyone who might use them against the army/navy.

The book is very much a narrative of the highest levels of government, idea of mass sentiment and popular opinion are only really incidentally addressed. Which does make it come as a shock every time it’s mentioned that a particular negotiation was carried out in secret because someone got spooked by an ultranationalist assassination attempt the day before. I entirely believe that no one wanted to say as much, but I can’t help but feel that people’s unwillingness to forthrightly oppose further war owed something to all the radical actors floating around in the junior ranks of the officer corps who more than willing to take ‘decisive, heroic action’ against anyone in government trying to stab the war effort in the back. Which is something that the ever-increasing number of war dead in China (with attendant patriotic unwillingness to let them die ‘for nothing) and the way everyone kept trying to rally the public to the war effort with ever-more militaristic public rhetoric assuredly only made worse.

That same rhetoric also played its part in destroying the possibility of negotiations with the United States. The story of those negotiations runs throughout the book, and is basically one misunderstanding and failure to communicate after another. It at times verges on comedy. Just complete failure to model the political situation and diplomatic logic of the other party, on both sides (combined with a great and increasing degree of wishful thinking that e.g. letting the military occupy southern French Indochina as a concession for their buy-in on further negotiations would be fine with the Americans. A belief held on exactly zero evidence whatsoever). The United States government was actually quite keen to avoid a war in the pacific if possible, as FDR did his best to get entangled in Europe and effectively start an undeclared naval war with Germany – but the negotiating stance hardened as Japan seemed more and more aggressive and unreliable, which coincided exactly with Japan’s government taking the possibility of war seriously enough to actually try to negotiate. It’s the same old story of offering concessions and understanding that might have been agreed to a few months beforehand, but were now totally unacceptable. In the end, everyone pinned their hopes on a face-to-face diplomatic summit with FDR in Juneau, where sweeping concessions could be agreed to and the government’s credibility staked on somewhere the hardliners could not physically interfere with. The Americans, meanwhile, wanted some solid framework for what the agreement would be before the summit occurred, and so it never did.

After the war, it was apparently the general sentiment that the whole nation was responsible for the war with the United States – which is to say that no individual person deserved any special or specific blame. Hotta’s stated aim with the book is to show how that’s bullshit, how war was entirely avoidable, and it was only do to these small cliques of specific, named individuals that it began. The hardliners like Osami Nagano, but just as much the cowards, careerists and factional partisans like Konoe, Tojo, and (keeper of the Privy Seal) Kido. Having read it I, at least, am convinced.

[ningauinerd]

Wonderful news from the Cyclops Mountains of West Papua today with the rediscovery of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi)!

(Image credit: Expedition Cyclops)

Previously known a single specimen collected in 1961, Attenborough's long-beaked echidna has long been one of the world's most elusive mammals. Recognised as a distinct species in 1998, an expedition to the Cyclops Mountains in 2007 failed to observe the echidna but found evidence of recent diggings and foraging activity which, alongside local knowledge, implied that the species still survived in those remote mountain forests.

Finally, just a few months ago, a new expedition into its remote mountain home by Expedition Cyclops caught the first ever footage of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna in the wild, which is also the first time it has been seen by scientists in over 60 years. In a remarkable stroke of luck, the echidna was captured on the last of over 80 camera traps on the final day of the trip!

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is the most distinctive of the three species of long-beaked echidna thanks to its smaller size, shorter, straighter beak and reddish-brown fur. Its habits are virtually unknown, but its differently shaped beak may suggest that it differs in diet and feeding habits from the other two long-beaked echidna species. It appears to be endemic to the highest elevations of the Cyclops Mountains, which are steep, extremely rainy and treacherous to explore, hence why it remained hidden for so long.

(Image credit: Expedition Cyclops)

There are only five species of monotreme alive today, the sole living custodians of a lineage stretching back some 200 million years, and this makes each species extraordinarily valuable. Unfortunately, all three species of long-beaked echidna are threatened with extinction, with Attenborough's long-beaked echidna being classed as critically endangered. Losing any species is a tragedy, but for a group as small and precious as monotremes, any extinction would be especially disastrous.

Alongside the rediscovery of the echidna, Expedition Cyclops also made the first record of Mayr's honeyeater (Ptiloprora mayri) in 16 years and discovered dozens of new species of insects, arachnids, shrimp and frogs. Their work documenting the hidden biodiversity of the Cyclops Mountains is ongoing, so if you'd like to follow and support the expedition make sure to visit their website! https://www.expeditioncyclops.org/

[thedansemacabres]

An Introduction To Wine for Dionysians

A photo from my wine class, the pink being my Chambourcin and Sangiovese rosés. 

[ID: An image of two wine glasses on a stainless steel table. The first glass, closer to the observer, is bright pink. The second glass, to the right of the pink one is a salmon colour and slightly blurry.] THIS POST IS SLIGHTLY BASIC, IN MY OPINION. It’s not exactly hard to research wine, especially now that the industry is beginning to have new winemakers such as myself. But this is my job and passion, so I thought it may be useful in the end. Especially for us Dionysians, most who never engage in the winemaking process—which is fine, but it does offer a more intimate knowledge of his realms. So as a winemaker myself, I want to share the wonders of winemaking with others. This post is meant to be a quick introduction to wine from a viticulturist and enologist. 

SOME TERMINOLOGY 

Entering the world of wine does require a basic understanding of some jargon. To make it easy, I have listed some common terms: 

Anthocyanins — the red-purple colour compound in red grapes

Bret — short for Bretannomyces, this is an endemic yeast to Europe and often a pest in wineries. This yeast creates leather, hide, barnyard, etc., flavours and aromas in wine. This is often desirable in small amounts in certain styles, but can quickly overpower a wine.

Fault — an issue with the wine, typically in flavour, aroma, colour, or taste. Faults are subjective and sometimes may be beneficial. A key part of wine sensory analysis is tasting faults. 

Macerate — a process in which colour and flavour is leached from the skins of the grape. This is most common in reds and is aided by ethanol. 

Noble Rot — a form of Botrytis Cinerea that is beneficial within the wine process to make sweet wines. 

Press — a winemaking device that extracts juices from grapes to make wine

Terroir  — the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced.

Vintage — the year the grapes were harvested and are typically fermented in the same year, however, this is not always the case.

ANCIENT, OLD WORLD, AND NEW WORLD 

The wine world has often been divided into “old world” and “new world”, but I have personally taken a liking to the classification of some wine regions as ancient world wine regions. These regions would be Georgia, Armenia, Assyrian lands, Greece, some parts of Italy, and more. Ancient winemaking is well, winemaking in regions that have continuously made wine with the same or similar techniques over thousands of years. An ancient wine that I always recommend to Dionysians is Retsina. 

Old world wine is essentially European wine. While this term has its issues, it is the one that the wine industry understands. Europe has been making wine for hundreds of years, thousands in some regions. Old world wine is known for the less fruity, more aged styles, along with producing table wine. These wines also tend to be oaked, in which the wood imparts flavours into the wine which is dependent on the type of wood used. Bret is also common in the old world, which is often a hit or miss with consumers. 

New world wine is wine made in wine regions that are relatively new, associated with more scientific approaches to wine. Another way to look at it is wine regions that are or were colonies of Europe, though a few new world wine regions do not have this history. New world wine is often associated with brightness, fruity flavours, higher alcohol levels, etc. 

Simply put:

Ancient — regions such as the Fertile Crescent, Palestine, Assyrian lands, Greece, parts of Italy, etc., 

Old — Europe, including wine regions more similar to the new world such as Slovakia

New — Generally colonised countries, the largest example being the United States. 

TYPES OF WINE 

Most people grasp the basics: white wine comes from white grapes and red wine comes from red grapes. However, of course, it gets more complicated from here. To list it simply:

White wine is wine made from white grapes that are removed from the skins. 

Red wine is made from red grapes left to macerate on the skins. 

Orange wine is made from white grapes left to macerate on the skins.

Rose is made from red wines removed from the skins.

Pink wines are wines made through blending white and red wine, considered of lesser craftsmanship than a rose by most winemakers 

Commercial wines are typically whites, reds, and rose/pink. Orange wines are seldom found outside of Slovenia and Georgia due to tradition. Overall, the wine world considers orange wine strange, however the market has been increasing in recent years. 

Wine is also a term applied to fruit wines (fruit other than grapes). Legally in most regions, wine can only be applied to fermented grapes—though of course, nobody listens to that. Essentially, I like to phrase wine as anything made from fermented fruits, roots, and tree-sugars. Cider is technically wine, but this is defined in the USA by tax brackets—below 8% ABV is a cider, over is an apple fermented product/wine. 

WINE STYLES

To put it simply: there are thousands of wine styles. I cannot summarise them here, however I will try to summarise some of the common styles I know of.. ‘Old world’ and ‘new world’ are also considered broad styles. 

Dessert Wines 

Dessert wine as a term is dependent on location, as in the USA it is any wine over 14% ABV. In the UK, it is often classified as a sweet wine drunk before a meal. It is also usd colloquially for sweet, high-alcohol wines that are drunk with dessert. A bit of a meaningless term, but it is used regardless. 

Sweet Wines

Sweet wines are wines that have residual sugar from fermentation. Most wines are finished dry, which is when the yeast consumes most to all available sugars and converts them into ethanol. This can be intentional or the result of a stuck or dead fermentation. Sweet wines are known for getting people drunk quickly and giving a particularly nasty headache. 

Table Wine 

Table wine is perfectly named, as these are common wines that are meant to appear at the dinner table and be paired with food. Italy is famous for creating popular table wines such as Chianti and Prosecco. The table wine market is however slowly dying. I personally liken table wines to Dionysus Hestios. 

Straw wine 

Straw wine is wine made from grapes that have been dried. This makes very sweet wines due to the lack of water. 

Rot wines 

Rot wines, also called Noble Rot wines, are a unique form of sweet wines created by noble rot. In viticulture, botrytis is a fungus that often ruins clusters by mummifying grape clusters. In the right conditions however, it instead only takes the water content in a grape berry over a series of days before perishing. Rot wines often occur near rivers, lakes, and other regions with mist and then scorching sun. This fascinating process creates natural sweet wines—many of which demand high price points, such as sauternes that are priced at over one thousand euros. Another form of rot wine I enjoy is Slovak tokaji. 

In my personal practice, these wines hold a special spot due to my focus on divine rot. Dionysus wise, I think these wines possess such a unique quality of him—they are dead yet not, and Dionysus may be found in the marshes where rot blooms. 

Sparkling Wine 

Often known as champagne, sparkling wine is wine that when opened/poured will fizz with carbon dioxide bubbles. This is usually due to secondary fermentation, in which yeast are inoculated to ferment trace amounts of sugar to create the carbonation that appears when you open the bottle. Sparkling wine can only be labelled champagne if it is from Champagne, France. With the climate crisis however, champagne may disappear and Southern England has been contending to become the next major sparkling wine region. 

There are lesser quality sparkling wines made by injecting carbonation into the metal wine vats. This is common with sparkling juices that are not fermented. 

Fortified Wines

When you think of Port, that is a fortified wine. These wines are mixed in with ethanol, typically spirits, to increase the alcohol content of the wines. This makes them less likely to spoil and creates a unique flavour profile. 

Some traditional fortified wines are Port, Sherry, 

Cooking Wines

These are wines that are not typically used for drinking, but rather feature as a culinary ingredient. This does not mean low quality however, as some cooking wines such madeira can fetch a very high price point. 

BARRELS

Barrels are enchanting. Even if I see them daily, there is a bit of romance to working with them. Wines are put in barrels for storage and for flavour. The most common wood used in wine are oaks, with French oak (Quercus robur) and American oak (Quercus alba) being the most common and stylistic. Barrels are a core aspect of traditionally ageing wine, as the barrel allows enough oxygen into the liquid to be beneficial. For those who do not know, oxygen degrades wine over time. This is why cheaper wines quickly turn bad, as they were not designed to age. 

The flavour-changing profile of wood-contact on wine works through phenols and other compounds interacting with the oak, creating vanilla flavours. For other woods, a similar process occurs, such as Pine creating a pinewood taste, chestnut increasing the perception of sweetness, etc. Research is being continued on alternative woods in winemaking. 

Barreling is not the only source of flavour profile in wine. Wines gain their flavour from three sources. This is simply:

Primary: flavours derived from the grape

Secondary: flavours derived from yeast. Yeast often create secondary flavour compounds, such as floral, herbal, spicy, etc notes. 

Tertiary: barrel and ageing flavour. 

When doing wine tastings, these are excellent factors to begin wine analysis. Deciphering these notes allows one to build a palette and understand more of the expanses of vinification. 

GRAPE CULTIVARS 

Grape cultivars, also called varietals, are what impart unique flavours into a wine at the primary level. Each cultivar gives its own unique flavour profile. The most commonly planted grapes are the noble varieties, which were prized by French nobility—these being grapes such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc. 

Grape cultivars can change their profile depending on where they are grown, called terroir. As an example, a French Cabernet Sauvignon is completely different from a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Terroir encompasses soil, weather patterns, climate, etc. Another example is that wines made in years of heavy wildfires often taste smoky and Australian wines taste burnt due to the extreme sun exposure. 

Profit and market trends have caused lesser known and cultural grapes in many places to become extinct or endangered. There are movements and efforts to preserve these cultural vines and many wine drinkers are interested in the unique experiences rare cultivars can provide. 

Cultivars also often have regional and cultural significance. The Bacchus grape has been found to grow excellently in southern England, Agiorgitiko is the most common Greek red grape, Sangiovese is the grape for Tuscan Chianti, etc. In the new world, Grape cultivars often take on new significance, such as Sauvignon Blanc in New Zealand. As obscure grapevines become more popular, regional and forgotten grape varieties have been reappearing. 

Hybrid vines, which are some of my favourite, are the result of viticultural science. These are vines bred to exhibit certain traits, whether as a ‘find out’ project or specially designed for certain wine regions. These are often called French-American hybrids, however hybrids are also being produced in Korea, Slovakia, and other countries. One of the most commonly planted hybrids is Chambourcin, called ‘king of the hybrid reds’, due to its striking fuschia red or barbie pink rose and desirable flavour profile. I have made a post over these hybrids before and they are readily searchable for anyone interested. 

There are thousands of cultivars and new cultivars are created each year. The world of wine is ever expansive when it comes to grapevines, just as Dionysus always brings something new. There is always something new to try, or a new spin on something familiar. Yet when we crave a taste of something familiar, traditional varieties and vintages are around to return to. Wine is both new and old, alive and dead, familiar and yet ever-changing. 

HOW TO BEGIN IN WINE 

Beginning in wine is as simple as buying wine. Advancing understanding then comes through sensory analysis, experimentation, trying new and different wines, historical research, and much more. I doubt most people will be like myself, who decided to get an associates degree in winemaking and make it my secondary career. Honestly, it’s much more fun as a hobby than a job. 

I recommend experiencing the differences between reds and whites, along with sampling table wines with and without food. Picking out grape varietals is also fun, but may be subtle. As an example, a sauvignon blanc is immediately recognisable for its bellpepper note, but I have developed the skill to taste the general region where sauvignon blanc was grown (it is my favourite white wine grape). 

I have touched upon sensory analysis and terminology with it, such as palette and body, but I will reserve that for another post. Trying wine and research is the best way to begin—and there is no such thing as beginner wine in my opinion. There are wines that are harsh, different, and likely undesirable to someone who is used to sweet juice and unchallenging sweet drinks, however I believe it limits a wine explorer when you limit yourself to “beginner wines”. Finding that brings you joy matters most, whether that is a classic sweet wine or mouth-punching red. And pour some out for Dionysus, the sweet lord of the eternal winepress. 

view this post on wordpress

References

Bird, D. (2011). Understanding Wine Technology, 3rd Edition: The Science of Wine Explained. Board and Bench Publishing. Puckette, M., & Hammack, J. (2018). Wine Folly: Magnum Edition: The Master Guide. Penguin UK.

Wilson, J. (2019). Godforsaken grapes: A slightly tipsy journey through the world of strange, obscure, and ... underappreciated wine. HARRY N ABRAMS.

Wine microbiology. (2007). In Springer eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-33349-6

[familyabolisher]

Okay, skipping the reasoning and examples to ask more concisely: Universities exist to fulfill certain functions, how do you see those functions fulfilled with the abolition of universities?

I get that not everyone who blogs certain hot takes like university abolition automatically wants to discuss these things in depth. I was going by your pinned post which mentions that you like getting asks.

so firstly, you may benefit from reading my longer post on university abolition here.

i think where you and i are butting heads here is on the question of the "certain functions" that the university as institution exists to fulfil. your ask assumes that the sole or primary function of the university is the production and distribution of "knowledge" such that a university degree is emblematic of such knowledge having been acquired; in practical terms, this means that eg. we presume that someone with a medical degree is qualified to become a doctor, for instance. as the post i linked outlines, this assumption elides the material function of the university as a mechanism of social inequality endemic to the conditions of capitalism. the university does not exist to impart this knowledge—it exists to ensure that only a certain contingent of society can acquire and develop it.

why do so many people presume that the term "abolition" simply means wholesale destruction rather than a fundamental reordering of the world? abolishing the university doesn't mean letting someone show up to a hospital and perform open-heart surgery their first day on the job with no prior training regarding what open-heart surgery entails; it means making these forms of training/knowledge accumulation and distribution available to everyone, and doing away with the profit motive + necessity of social stratification. it really is as simple as that.

[hannahbarberra162]

A Negative Outcome

Oops I accidentally a one shot that's been rolling around in my brain for a while. (Edit: but wait, there's more)

On Ao3

GN!reader, Marco (no smut).

Word count: 4.3k

Summary: You go to a pirate doctor’s office hours, hoping to get help for your ankle. You get a lot more than you asked for.

CW: All hurt no comfort. Discussions of blood.

Note: I know this isn’t really how viruses work. Get vaccinated.

You sat in the makeshift waiting room, finally finishing all the paperwork you’d been handed. Putting the pencil at the top of the clipboard, you rose and limped over to a nurse wearing a micromini pink dress and thigh high leopard print boots sitting behind a small desk, handing her the forms. They’d been way more extensive than any other doctor’s office you’d ever been to, but it was only a few more minutes of your time. 

“Thank you, the doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse said, scanning your paperwork. She flipped through the first few pages quickly, continuing to read as she took your forms with her through a doorway. You sat back down on the uncomfortable chair and took your book out of your bag, flipping it open to where you'd left off. You’d been to pop-up pirate clinics before, they were a little weird but a lot of people liked them. It was an easy way for pirate crews to make money - they’d stop on an island, the crew doctor would hold office hours for cheap, and they’d be on their way after a couple of days. It was especially beneficial to islands like yours that lacked medical resources and had to do with home remedies most of the time. It also helped pirate crews maintain good relationships with islands they wanted to come back to, instead of just looting. Some people were wary, saying it was foolish to trust pirates with anything. But you’d been to one before with Dr. Trafalgar and it had been completely fine, so you hoped for the best. You’d broken your ankle the previous year and thought it healed wrong. It was hard to walk on and hurt constantly, you were hoping the doctor could fix it, or at least confirm your suspicions.

You sat patiently, not caring about the wait time. There were a lot of people waiting, most with concerns more dire than your own. You had your novel and time on your hands, as long as the doctor saw you today you couldn’t complain. You’d heard a lot about this particular doctor, Marco The Phoenix. People raved about his medical skills and knowledge, maybe even more than Dr. Trafalgar. You thought he had an unfair advantage, since his Devil Fruit power gave him the ability to heal others. Though, truthfully, you didn’t care either way. As long as he helped you, or at least tried to, you’d be happy with the result. You sat back and waited for your name to be called. Soon, the nurse working the reception desk called your name, and you followed her through the doorway. You were surprised that you were being seen so quickly, given how non-emergent your situation was, but you weren’t going to complain.

The Whitebeard doctors weren’t operating out of a real medical office, they were borrowing a house and converted it to a clinic for a few days. You had been sitting in the living room and followed the nurse to a bedroom that now had medical equipment inside. You sat down on the disposable paper covering the bed, raising your foot alongside you. Keeping it elevated sometimes helped, but not always.

“Hi, I’m Bethany, I’ll be your nurse today.” She had a blood pressure cuff in her hand and you took off your long sleeve shirt. Bethany seemed pleasant enough as she took your blood pressure, recorded your height, and followed up on your medical history. You grew up on on an island very close to Reverse Mountain on the Grand Line. As a consequence, every virus that was endemic to different Blues came through your island. And unfortunately for you, as a kid you’d caught nearly all of them. You’d spent a lot of your childhood confined to your room, which was part of the reason you loved reading so much now, since you’d spent so many hours poring over books as you lay sick in bed. You confirmed to Bethany that yes, you'd had East and West Blue Nile virus, that you’d had Sea King flu, as well as North Blue Pox and South Blue Foot and Mouth. Fortunately, that meant you had immunity to all of these viruses as an adult and hadn’t been sick in a decade. Bethany finished up her questions and routine procedures, handing you a cloth gown. 

“Go ahead and change, the doctor will be with you shortly.” You took the gown but gave her a quizzical look.

“Are you sure? My problem is with my ankle, I don’t -” Bethany smiled and cut you off. 

“Marco is a thorough doctor. Change into the gown, please.” You shrugged and agreed. Maybe you’d get a physical and orthopedic appointment for the price of one. You changed quickly, not wanting Marco to catch you half dressed, and sat back down on the bed, fiddling with the hem of the gown. You didn’t have to wait long before there was a knock at the door. 

“Come in,” you replied. A man with a mop of blond hair at the top of his head and red glasses on his face poked his head through the door.

“Good morning yoi,” replied the physician. He was just as good looking as he was in his wanted posters, you thought to yourself. He had your papers in his hands and was flipping through them much like the nurse before. “Wow, quite the list of illnesses. How are you feeling now?” He sat on a chair that was too small for his tall stature, looking at you over his glasses.

“Pretty good. I don’t get sick anymore, since I’ve had basically every virus in the world,” you joked. “But I broke my ankle last year and I don’t think it set right. There wasn’t a doctor on the island at the time and the barkeep that did it -”

Marco looked at you askance, tutting at you. “You let a barkeep set your ankle yoi?” 

“Well, yeah. There wasn’t anyone else to do it and besides, he sets everyone’s bones. I think it turned out wrong. I can’t walk that much before it starts hurting.” Marco looked at you more closely than before and you couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he wasn’t thinking about your broken ankle. Marco set the clipboard down on the bedside table that was doubling as a medical stand and unwound his stethoscope from around his neck. You shifted backwards slightly, suddenly uncomfortable, though you couldn’t say why. You felt the urge to bolt and leave this room behind but you squashed it down. Marco had done nothing unprofessional so you forced yourself to relax. Maybe just being in the presence of a notorious pirate had you on edge, you rationalized to yourself. For his part, Marco didn’t react or mention anything and put the buds of the stethoscope in his ears and put the diaphragm of the stethoscope on your chest. 

“Deep breaths yoi,” he said to you soothingly. Your heart was racing but he didn’t remark on it. He hummed and made a note on your paperwork then moved the diaphragm to your back. The gown was partially open in the back by design, so you felt his bare hand graze your skin. You shivered, wishing you were still in your own clothes. Marco made a few more notes and wound the stethoscope back around his neck. 

“Heart and lungs are healthy,” he remarked, putting on medical gloves. Marco reached to open your gown at the back and you jumped back in surprise.

“No need to worry, just checking you for scoliosis, rashes, and palpating some organs.” You didn’t need those things, you knew you didn’t have scoliosis or a rash. But you let Marco run his fingers over your spine, check your skin, and feel your lower back and side.

“Kidneys, liver, and skin are all healthy.” Marco said after grabbing a phlebotomy kit. He opened it and arranged the vials and needles on his makeshift tray. 

“I’m glad to hear that but my ankle is what -” Marco stopped his movements, looking down at you from his superior height.

“Where do you work yoi?” Marco asked evenly, putting a vial down gently. You had a feeling this wasn’t just for casual conversation.

“Oh, um. The cobbler shop.” Marco nodded.

“I see. And when customers come to the cobbler, do they get to tell the cobbler how to fix shoes? Which tools are needed for every repair?” Your throat was dry as you answered.

“No.” Marco nodded again.

“That’s correct, they do not yoi. So just like I don’t come into your work and tell you how to fix shoes, you don’t know what’s needed in this medical appointment. Right?” He said the last word with a smile but it felt like he’d just gutted you with his words.

“Right,” you echoed back to him. He’d get to your ankle when he got to it, you guessed. Marco warmed back up after his comment and prepared you for a blood draw. 

“And you have A negative blood type, right? Pretty rare yoi. Only about 6% of people have it.” Marco tied off a tourniquet and was prodding his fingers at your veins, determining the best one to draw from. You’d always been told you had good veins, he would be able to stick you easily.

“Yeah, A negative. Is that a problem?” You didn’t know much about blood types. Sometimes you donated blood during blood drives but that was about the extent of your knowledge. 

“No, no. Not a problem yoi. A negative is the universal platelet donor type. The platelets from your type of blood will be accepted by every other type.” He was wiping down the inside of your forearm with rubbing alcohol. 

“That’s cool.” You’d never thought about it before, but that was good to know. Maybe you’d donate at the next drive, then. 

“Mm, very. Hold still.” Marco stuck you with the needle, getting into your vein on the first try. Or you assumed he did, you closed your eyes for his part and didn’t feel him redoing it. You felt the tourniquet loosen as Marco took your blood. Sitting there for a few minutes, you wondered what was taking so long. Cracking open an eye, you saw Marco had a large handful of tubes he was filling. You closed your eyes again.

“Squeamish? That’s OK, a lot of people are yoi.” Marco was filling yet another tube.

“Just a little. That’s a lot of samples,” you commented, hoping he wouldn’t snap at you again.

“Almost done, just a few more.” Marco hadn’t told you what they were for, but you figured he would when he was done. Finally wrapping up, you opened your eyes as Marco removed the needle and pressed down on the puncture site with a cotton ball. “Hold this here a moment,” he told you, indicating the cotton. You did as you were told, watching Marco deposit the vials into a container. He grabbed a bandage and removed your hand, securing the cotton ball. He called for Bethany, and gave her the vials when she appeared in the doorway.

“Full workup,” was all he said to her as she walked away. Nice, it was a full physical for you. At least you’d know your numbers. “All right yoi. Let’s check that ankle.” Finally, you thought to yourself. You showed Marco your ankle and where you thought it healed wrong.

“See, it doesn’t look right. And I don’t have my full range of motion.” You tried moving your right foot to the right, but it only went over so far. Marco picked up your foot, rolling it gently. As he manipulated and poked at your ankle, you realized your foot was smaller than his hand. He started twisting your foot slowly to the right.

“Tell me when it hurts yoi,” he murmured, continuing to move your foot.

“Ow! There, please stop.” Marco noted the angle of your foot in relation to your ankle. He sighed, picking your papers back up off the stand, making a few notes with the pencil he’d stuck behind his ear.

“I have some bad news. You’re right, your ankle didn’t set correctly when you broke it. It’s called malunion and if you don’t address it, it will only get worse. More than that, if you want it to be fixed, it’s going to have to be rebroken.” You paled. Breaking it once was painful enough, you didn’t want to break it again on purpose. 

“Oh, um, okay. I guess I can find someone to do it?” You bit your lip from stress as you started putting a plan together. You didn’t know anyone who could do that for you on this island, you’d have to leave the island, you didn’t have enough money right now for a trip…

“I can correct it for you but I don’t have the supplies here yoi. You’d have to come back to Moby Dick with me,” Marco said, frowning. “Normally I wouldn’t take civilians there, but this is a special case. The tools I need are there, I can take you now and we can resolve this quickly.”

“The Moby Dick? Like, Whitebeard’s ship? He’ll be there?” You hadn’t spent a lot of time with pirates, and especially not Emperors. Marco smiled at you like you were a small child.

“It’s his ship, of course he’s there yoi. If you want your ankle fixed, we need to go now.” You didn’t think it was a good idea to go unaccompanied onto a pirate ship, but you also didn’t want to live a life of pain when you walked. You hesitated, and Marco put his large hand over your knee, squeezing lightly. “If you’re worried about the pain of rebreaking, don’t be yoi. We can put you under for that part of the procedure.”

At that moment, Bethany poked her head through the doorway. “All set!” she said brightly. “No reaction, no rejection.” You were guessing she was talking about another patient’s case, since none of that meant anything to you. Marco smiled at you again, and the urge to run returned even stronger. This time, you seriously thought about leaving this weird medical office, going home, and forgetting any of this happened. Refusal was almost on the tip of your tongue when Marco gripped your knee even tighter, nearly to the point of pain. 

“Let’s go. Get changed.” Marco handed you your stack of clothes.

“B-but what about all the other patients?” Surely he wasn’t dropping all those other cases for an old broken ankle?

“We have another doctor from the crew here yoi. They’ll get care too. Such a nice thought, caring about others. That attitude will serve you well. I’ll be right outside the door, let me know when you’re dressed.” You gulped as Marco left the room. You looked around, half thinking you should jump out the window. But you took off the gown and put your clothes on, knocking to let Marco know you were changed. You hobbled for a few steps before Marco scooped you up in his arms. You blushed a little at the embarrassment of being carried but you were also happy to keep weight off your ankle.

“Don’t have a wheelchair here yoi. This will have to do for now,” Marco said, referring to himself. You laughed lightly. After carrying you out of the house, Marco set you on the ground. “My turn to change,” he said with a grin. You watched in amazement he turned into the Phoenix, resplendent in blue and gold. The Phoenix was haunting in its beauty, but you didn’t have time to admire it before it grabbed you with one large talon around your middle. 

“Wait, I don’t -” you didn’t get to finish your sentence before Marco took off in flight. You shrieked as you ascended to the skies, hearing the flapping of wings and watching the ground recede before your eyes. You clutched at the talon gripping you, hoping the flight to the ship was short. You felt his sharp talons pricking at your skin through your clothes, you hoped Marco knew his own strength. Flying was colder than you expected, the wind whipping at you from all directions and Marco’s leg providing you little protection. You were pretty sure Marco wasn’t planning on dropping you but you worried about it nonetheless. The largest ship you’d ever seen came into sight and you clutched tighter at the leg holding you.

Soon you were deposited, none too gently, onto the deck of the Moby Dick. It was immense and filled with dangerous looking pirates, some of whom stopped momentarily to glance at you while they loaded crates. You felt small and weak, like a sheep put into a den of wolves. You turned to see the infamous Whitebeard, sitting on a gigantic chair. He was flocked by nurses in the same garish uniform as the one on the island. Of course you’d heard of him and seen his posters. But right now he looked tired. He looked old. He was resting his eyes as his nurses attended to him. Marco’s hand landed heavily on your shoulder, startling you from your thoughts.

“Let’s check out that ankle hmm?” You’d nearly forgotten about the reason for your visit to the ship. Marco picked you up again, carrying you to the stairs quickly. The hairs on the back of your neck rose but you were a little stuck. Hopefully the healing would be quick and he’d take you back to your island. You were taken to the infirmary, to a private room. There was a lot of different medical equipment in the room, including a fancy looking machine with more tubing and empty bags hanging from it. Marco shut the door behind him and put you on the medical chair. It had padded arms with straps - you hoped you wouldn’t need anything like that.

“Before we begin, I’m going to give you two injections. For vitamin deficiencies, promoting healing, that sort of thing yoi.” Marco didn’t wait for your response, putting on some latex gloves. He took two different vials and two syringes, placing them on a metal tray near the bed. Filling one syringe, he looked at your nervous face and smiled in an approximation of warmth.

“This one is B12, you’re a little on the low side. It should help you feel better generally yoi.” You nodded, presenting your arm. You turned your face away as he gave you the injection. You didn’t know what B12 had to do with your ankle but it couldn’t hurt. Marco put the empty syringe on the tray and took the other, filling it from a vial containing a clear liquid. This time Marco didn’t say anything, just injected your other arm.

“What’s that one for?” you asked. You suddenly felt drowsy, maybe you were more tired than you thought. 

“You don’t want to be awake for the re-breaking, do you? I thought it might be easier this way,” Marco replied evenly. You felt an undercurrent of panic as your eyelids drooped closed. You didn’t think you'd fall asleep so quickly or that Marco would anesthetise you without warning. But you couldn’t fight the overwhelming urge to sleep that overtook you like a tidal wave. 

You woke up some time later, rolling your head around on stiff shoulders. It took a moment for you to register where you were any why. Your ankle felt great, better than it had in over a year. You looked down but didn’t see any cast, stitches or even bruising. You tried to swing your legs around and stand up but realized you were hooked up to the fancy machine from earlier, arm strapped to the padded armrest like you'd seen earlier. The machine looked like it was taking blood out of your arm. Looking closely at the bags hanging, one had a yellow liquid and the other red. You jumped as the door opened without warning. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon yoi,” Marco said, holding paperwork in his hand. You chuckled nervously.

“Yeah, I um..my ankle feels great! It doesn’t even feel like anything happened to it, just that it’s better.” Marco smiled condescendingly at you, sitting beside you on a rolling stool.

“That’s the power of the Phoenix. Your ankle is all healed like nothing ever happened.” You nodded.

“Thank you, I really appreciate it. I didn’t think I would have a positive outcome like this. But um, did I need a transfusion or something?” you asked, gesturing to the tubing coming out of your arm. 

“Not exactly yoi. How appreciative are you?” Marco asked, tilting his head. You felt like you were treading on thin ice, and tried to think of the right answer. You were on an Emperor’s ship, in a room alone with his First Division Commander, you needed to play whatever games he wanted in order to get out of here.

“Um, very? I don’t know how I can repay you.” That seemed to be the right answer as the corners of Marco’s lips quirked up.

“Interesting you say that. Would you like to know a secret?” You nodded hesitatingly and Marco continued. “There’s an incredibly well kept secret on this crew yoi. Whitebeard has cancer. He’s being treated with chemotherapy and it’s going well. But his platelet count is low, he needs frequent transfusions.” You were very uncomfortable, shifting on your chair. Surely this was one of the most guarded secrets on the seas, why was Marco telling you this? Your heart sunk, you had a very bad feeling about where this was going.

“We’ve been looking for a donor to keep Pops supplied with fresh platelets yoi. It’s harder than you think to find someone in good health with an A negative blood type, the type for universal platelet donation. But it’s the duty of the son to help the father, no matter the cost.” Marco looked at you expectantly. “Not only do you have the right blood type but you’ve built immunity to an incredible amount of viruses from all over the world. It’s like the seas themselves sent you to us. While you were under, I took the liberty of extracting some of your blood for platelets. You don’t mind, do you? After all, I did fix your ankle.” Marco said, patting your hand. You felt cold sweat gathering on the back of your neck.

“N-no, I don’t mind. Did you get enough?” You hoped this was the end of the platelet conversation and you’d be free to leave soon.

“Pops is about four times your size. So we got enough for one dose, but we’re going to need three more for today yoi. Each dose takes about 90 minutes to two hours to extract from the body. Luckily, Pops had a great reaction to the first round. Said he feels better than he has in months. We're hoping your blood boosts his immunity to viruses while he recovers from his medicine. Isn’t that wonderful?” Marco was staring at you without blinking. Small wisps of blue flames were gathering around his shoulders, giving him a threatening aura.

“Yeah, t-that’s wonderful. I’m glad I could help.” You weren’t, you wanted to rip the tubes out of your arms and jump out the small window.

“I’m glad you see it the same way yoi,” Marco said, now holding your wrist tightly in his hand. “I knew you’d be open to helping us the same way I helped you. You’ll need to stay hooked up to the apheresis machine for another 3 hours. I’ll heal you part way through and replenish your platelets. That way we can have as much as we need for Pops. I even brought you the book you were reading earlier.” Marco placed your novel on your lap as you felt the blood drain out of your face. You didn’t want to be used as a living blood bag, no matter how much reading you could get done.

“B-but after that I can go back home, right?” Marco smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. He moved his large hand so it settled on your throat. He put some weight on it but didn’t restrict your breathing. He didn’t need to, the threat was clear.

“Platelets go bad after about five days yoi. And Pops needs a new transfusion daily when he’s receiving his medicine. So, no. You’ll be staying here, with us. It's only about six hours of your day, can't you do that for an Emperor? Aren't you happy to be helping someone as strong as Whitebeard? Besides we’ve already left your island, we set sail about three hours ago. ” He squeezed the column of your throat lightly, baring his teeth. You couldn’t look away even as tears welled in your eyes.

“Life is such a delicate thing. The smallest things can upset the balance yoi. One could become quadriplegic with only a tiny injury to the spine. Or you could wither away for years, given the bare minimum of food and water to maintain health. And so little is needed to keep someone technically alive. All you need is some lower brain function, could be in a coma. Little more than a breathing bag of organs, but alive nonetheless. Don’t you find that interesting?” Marco’s eyes bored into your own, forcing you to listen as his hand still rested on your throat. He was demanding an answer, demanding you understand exactly what he was saying. 

“Yes,” you whispered. Marco removed his hand from your throat, cupping your cheek. He rubbed his thumb along your cheekbones, almost tenderly.

“But I don’t think any of that would happen to us, would it? We’re going to help each other for as long as it’s needed, isn’t that right?” Tears fell down your cheeks as you nodded, sealing your fate.

[fatehbaz]

“He was the messenger of a great spirit,” says René Montaño, a Comcaac linguist. [...] Montaño is addressing the entire community at a cultural festival in the Comcaac territory in what is today northwestern Mexico. He talks about how their ancestors learned that xnois (Zostera marina), a type of seagrass also known as eelgrass, could feed their people.

“Zostera marina is paramount for us,” Montaño says. “There are other parts of the world where it barely exists, but here, in this channel, there’s plenty. [...]”

Comcaac [...] fishers learned that it was a food that would give them the necessary strength to survive long ways at sea, and the different ways it could be prepared were passed down from generation to generation. In the past few decades, this knowledge has been largely neglected. Today, the Comcaac people are breathing new life into it.

Comcaac environmentalists Alberto Mellado and Erika Barnett [...] have been developing a study since 2020 [...]. The Infiernillo Channel, located between the Sonora coast and Tiburón Island -- the largest island in Mexico and a sacred site for the Comcaac people -- is a Ramsar site, meaning it’s a wetland of key global importance. It features seagrass meadows, mangrove estuaries, and small patches of coral reefs where various marine species feed. [...] The channel is also home to 81 species of invertebrates endemic to the Gulf of California, and various threatened species, like totoabas (Totoaba macdonaldi) and sea turtles. [...]

In early 2022, as part of this initiative, the team created an event that brought together chefs and biologists from Sonora, the U.S. and Spain who were interested in the culinary uses of xnois and in the conservation of seagrass. There, the Comcaac cooks shared their knowledge about the ancestral ways of preparing xnois: ground by hand to make flour for tortillas or tostadas, or as a drink made with warm water combined with honey [...]. Newer ways of preparing xnois were also on show, such as in energy bars, hotcakes, and bread in combination with wheat flour. [...]

Today, it’s Comcaac [...] like Laura Molina working to promote the benefits of xnois [...]. In a workshop [...], she flattens small dough balls into tortillas and toasts them over a fire. She says the first time she heard about this ancestral food was from her grandmother. Years later, she asked her mother to teach her how to prepare it. [...]

Erika Barnett says her great-grandparents were probably the last ones in the family to harvest eelgrass for the seeds. She says the fact that her father, now 76, can once again eat food prepared with xnois represents a great success. “The last time he’d eaten it, he was 7 years old,” she says. “Most young people have never tasted it, so this effort is really rescuing our culture.” [...] “The guys and my colleagues didn’t know how to prepare xnois, but I’m happy because we’re teaching them and the kids and adults who want to learn,” Molina says. “This is thanks to our ancestors. [...] [T]hey opened the path that led us here.”

---

Headline, images, captions, and text as published by: Astrid Arellano. “Indigenous Comcaac serve up an oceanic grain to preserve seagrass meadows.” Mongabay. Translated by Maria Angeles Salazar. 3 March 2023. [Photos by Asstrid Arellano. This story was reported by Mongabay’s Latam team and first published on their Latam site on 6 June 2022. Some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[transmutationisms]

Just saw a tweet claiming Necropolitics as an "annoying little article" that aimed at biopower wrongly (as in, misunderstood it) and consequentially attempted to debunk Foucault from his high status in academia at the time, making the concept even more difficult to parse. Would love to hear your take on it because I have Opinions that are very much in conflict with this premise, but anyway.

https://twitter.com/matthiasellis/status/1848801297820225583

mostly disagree with this person as well -- for one thing, foucault's own formulation of biopower / biopolitics was scattershot and incomplete (second perhaps only to heterotopias in this respect) and i have always read mbembe's work more as developing foucault's idea than diverging from it. i would also question the idea that foucault ever had uncritically positive reception or that this has meaningfully changed since the aughts -- certainly i don't think either thing is true in academic history, where foucault has always been controversial, has become less so in the past 2 decades, and is still consistently cited despite the open knowledge that he was a bad historian. but this person's bio says media studies, which is not an academic discipline i have ever paid close attention to, so maybe things are different in those circles.

in any case there are major problems with mbembe's article, namely the utter lack of class analysis that leads him to make extremely facile remarks on eg the 'terror' (not a term most historians of the period even take seriously anymore) and on the use of force in marxist theory-practice to compel the overthrow of a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (which also mbembe seems to think would be a singular historical moment signifying a total rupture in commodity production and little else.. hm!). similar problems dog his analysis of palestine: he frames the colonial occupation as a clash of two religious narratives, and discusses the actual process of occupation in terms of the infrastructure israel builds and maintains, but with little to say about the material impetus for doing so (i believe there are maybe two or three mentions of the phrase "resource extraction" in the essay, and these are not developed). these are not problems that result from a misreading or misunderstanding of foucault; they are endemic to foucault's own mode of analysis and have always been one of the major condemnations of his work (in addition to the aforementioned poor historical analysis and lack of basic archival / primary documentation; these are of course overlapping issues, though it is certainly possible to do detailed archival work while still engaging in a fundamentally idealist mode of analysis, and many academic historians do).

where mbembe is most useful imo is in his remarks on sites and practices of 'living death', which i think are totally consistent with, but an expansion of, foucault's remarks on biopolitics. i also think it can be useful to analyse things like the form of state power / force, the infrastructure of a colonial occupation, etc -- these things matter, it's not that i find them irrelevant concerns. but what foucault and his ilk, including mbembe, continuously get wrong is that they try to use the forms and appearances (of 'power', of governance, etc) as explanations of why things happen, even as moral condemnations of them happening -- without attending to the class character of such forms. the result is a metaphysics of Power, sans concern for who is wielding it and to what end, and little to no engagement with the historical specificity of each case -- thus, for example, the theoretical conflation of jacobin guillotinings, revolutionary proletarian suppression of the bourgeoisie, and israeli occupation of palestine. these are such abstracted writings not because mbembe misunderstands foucault but because he understands him quite well, i think.

[reasonsforhope]

In 2016, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government, scientists realized that the rainforests, mountains, and savannahs, out of which the FARC waged a 50-year guerrilla war, and which were counted among the most biodiverse and least-explored places on earth, were suddenly safe to explore.

In Colombia, a few biologists who longed to journey to the heart of these places also saw them as the perfect way to bring 14,000 former guerrillas back into society in a meaningful way that would benefit not only them, but the country’s stunning biodiversity.

Colombia is often referred to as the world’s most biodiverse country. Although this is a hard thing to designate since many species around the world of all kinds remain undiscovered, she does lay claim to the most bird species anywhere on earth – both endemic and migratory.

Who better to help protect Colombia’s wild spaces than those who know them best, thought Jaime Góngora, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Sydney but who is originally from Colombia.

Góngora now leads a group of researchers from the United Kingdom, Australia, and 10 different Colombian scientific institutions in a program to train ex‑guerrillas to study Colombia’s native plants and animals, which to date has uncovered nearly 100 previously-unknown species.

Peace with Nature

Peace with Nature is the result of these scientists working together with guerillas to help protect Colombia’s biodiversity and aid in the post-conflict situation for thousands of people, 84% of whom, according to Góngora, are interested in pursuing, of all things, river habitat restoration as their post-conflict career path.

Góngora and his colleagues are only too happy to help, and Peace with Nature began hosting citizen scientist workshops to help train eager folks how to find, identify, catalogue, and study wild plants, insects, birds, amphibians, and more.

The preparation work was long and hard – between 15 and 18 months according to Góngora...

“In some of the workshops, we have the presence of the police and military forces along with the ex-combatants,” explains Góngora. “I think what has surprised me most is the opportunity that biodiversity offers for reconciliation and healing after an armed conflict. These workshops have been spaces for a respectful dialogue about biodiversity and nature.”"

-via World at Large, 7/13/20

Note: Video is half in English, half in Spanish. Spanish subtitles for English parts only.

[biblioflyer]

Rogue v Cap: Outside vs Inside Power

Its rare for any incarnation of the X-Men to not have incredibly smart things to say about bigotry, authority, organizing, and power, but X-Men '97 is killing it.

However, I think people who are too quick to get behind Rogue or are offended on Captain America's behalf are missing out on just how sophisticated '97's understanding of power and authority is.

Lets get this out of the way: I take a "yes, and" stance on power and social organizing.

I think its incredibly difficult to holistically understand movements and declare this "helped" the cause and that "hurt" the cause. It all depends on how you calibrate your rubric for success and how you understand how influential a person, group, or action really was.

What I see in the X-Men in all incarnations are some of the most iconic and thorniest debates about inside or institutional power vs outside, autonomous organizing and power, about assimilation or separatism.

Reasonable people recognize these are highly contingent arguments without clear, unambiguous or ethically pure answers.

Which is a rich meal for an ethics nerd like myself and I am having the most amazing time watching and thinking about X-Men '97 and the issues it raises.

So lets get into this!

Spoilers for X-Men '97 episode 7 "Bright Eyes"

Rogue's encounter with Captain America on the hunt for Bolivar Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, is probably the most commented on and debated scene on my social media feeds (as of this writing.)

Those who take Rogue's side in the exchange of words and that epic Frisbee hurl make very familiar and painful arguments. The system Captain America represents and Captain America himself have consistently let mutants down. Where were the Avengers when Genosha burned?

Which is a damn good question considering there are multiple Avengers and Avengers adjacent characters who are confirmed as existing in Earth 92131 who could conceivably have been able to learn about the attack in near real time and react in real time. Thor is very likely to have been tipped off by the likes of Heimdal or other mystical means and can cross continental distances in moments. Doctor Strange likewise could portal over the moment he found out about it, along with anyone else he could rustle up.

SHIELD and essentially any other entity with orbital surveillance would likely have learned about the attack the moment their satellites overflew Genosha. Given the world's jitters over Genosha, I'm having a hard time believing Genosha wasn't being monitored around the clock. However, knowledge doesn't translate into the ability to respond faster than a Quinjet can reach the island.

Now there's an unsatisfying Watsonian explanation here in the form that this is a common trope: all of the world's heroes are somehow busy or ignorant when really big stuff is going down. The Doylist lens would remind us that this is endemic to superhero stories and kind of required for suspense, except when its time to do the big team up story.

So if we want to be generous to Earth's Mightiest Heroes, "they didn't know or were busy or couldn't reach Genosha in time" is an explanation we can fall back on. Thor and Doctor Strange do have to sleep sometime and its not as if they don't have other responsibilities that take them off world or off this plane of existence. Most of the other superheroes known to exist in Earth-92131 could have an out in that they may not have had the means to become aware of the attack in real time or the means to reach Genosha before it was already over.

However, that's awful nitpicky. Rogue can be being unfair about the lack of an immediate response to Genosha while still having a valid point to make on a broader scale. Homo Sapiens Sapiens civilization more broadly would almost certainly, from Rogue's point of view, been holding the idiot ball or maliciously ignorant to miss out on a new army of Sentinels under construction including a big freaking Sentinel kaiju.

Of course we'd later find out that some handwavey deus ex may have also ensured that the world's electronic eyes were shut without any elaborate conspiracy, but Rogue doesn't know this yet when she's unloading on Cap. For all she knows, this is yet another in a long list of times where the "good" Homo Sapiens Sapiens and their champions have been unwilling or conveniently unable to intervene in personal scale tragedies like lynchings by the Friends of Humanity or population scale atrocities like permitting Genosha's former regime to run forced labor camps.

Baked into the setting assumptions of X-Men is a significant amount of systemic abuse that gets overlooked by non-mutant superheroes or that said superheroes are not powerful enough or imaginative enough to dismantle. This ends up necessitating a never ending set of excuses for how Earth's Mightiest Heroes keep winding up on the wrong side of justice yet can still claim the mantle of hero.

I'm not going to repeat ad nauseam familiar arguments about the suspension of disbelief problems created by widespread anti-mutant bigotry being a part of the same setting as a vast roster of enhanced individuals and literal gods that the general public lionizes without much hesitation. The savvy reader already knows these forwards and backwards, so I'm only going to continue to address them to the extent they're relevant here and refrain from further meta-commentary about this aspect of X-Men '97's world building.

Now to be fair, Captain America actually does give us an answer of sorts as to at least what he's up to and why he's not more ambitious in his pursuit of justice. He does intend to act, but not, from his perspective, impulsively. Captain America needs to obtain clearance to act across international boundaries. Captain America is in many ways governed by a sclerotic and often unjust system.

But wait! Captain America is a supersoldier, you say. Who gets to tell him "No, you don't get to pursue justice according to your conscience?" Cap should just tell his handlers to get stuffed and go settle accounts.

Notice my repetition of Steve's nom de spandex? Captain America is not a friendly neighborhood star spangled vigilante. Its unclear exactly who he is working for in this universe, but its heavily implied to be if not the United States, then perhaps SHIELD, and either way there are geopolitical considerations to Captain America showing up without phoning ahead and asking nicely if he can wander around without a minder, punching and exploding people and things on his own discretion. A whole lot of countries are justifiably sensitive about this sort of thing.

The point is that Steve Rogers is accountable to some sort of regulatory authority that is clearly meant to ensure that Captain America's activities are understood clearly and that he doesn't meet with an unfriendly reception by governmental actors that Steve would rather not be shooting at him and that Steve would prefer not to have to punch his way through on his way to his mission.

This authority likely has an additional role of at least performing for the masses and other governments that Captain America is being held to strict rules of engagement and that the bad guys he is punching are definitely villains plotting acts of violence not ideological enemies of the status quo. Because again, wanton violence for motives that are not clearly explained or are suspected of being fraudulent is a touchy subject.

Now of course, Steve Rogers could always go off the reservation. Its happened plenty of times in other continuities/universes. After all, the US government can't repo the super soldier serum.

What they can take away though is a lot of what allows Steve to be more than just a really strong guy. You know who is also a really strong guy? Bruce Banner. Also Luke Cage.

What do Bruce and Luke not have when they aren't playing on a team with some sort of direct or indirect government approval?

Extensive intelligence networks to direct them to international problems that need punching.

Supersonic jets to get them to places where there are villains who need to get decked.

People with relevant authorities who can work the phones and obtain permissions for a superhuman to engage in activities that may require a large scale disaster response operation and sending out surveyors afterwards to redraw topographical maps.

Why obtain those permissions? Because nations have armies and sometimes their own superhero teams they will send out if they get wind of a rogue superhuman showing up and doing violence without phoning ahead and clarifying their motives.

Special forces and super teams are a real inconvenience when there's wrongs to be righted on the other side of them.

So that's the bargain.

As Captain America, Steve Rogers gets an invisible army of intelligence operatives, pilots, Quinjet mechanics, and diplomats that all work together to ensure that Steve can do the maximum good when his conscience and the interests of his benefactors are aligned.

When he goes off reservation, he's just a really strong guy. Like Bruce Banner or Luke Cage. Not just a really strong guy, but probably a person of interest because authorities tend not to like their monopoly on violence being undermined by tough guys who are only accountable to the vibes of their conscience but can wreck New York's skyline if they're having a particularly bad day.

Which brings us back to Rogue and the X-Men.

The X-Men represent outside power.

Its heavily implied through any number of dialogues between the X-Men and the US President and the UN, the X-Men have some sort of understanding with legal authorities. However, its also implied that while this understanding exists, its begrudging. The X-Men have a wider latitude to act autonomously than the Avengers because they're specialists at what they do: they're intimately acquainted with some of the most dangerous, "Omega" level mutants who can be surly and embittered towards Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

Yet that latitude is both a gift and a curse.

The gift is the X-Men are essentially free to follow their consciences. Because the legal authorities have given the X-Men nothing much more than a blind eye towards their activities, the only thing the authorities can take away from the X-Men is that blind eye. The X-Men are a largely self sufficient operation, so there's no obvious card to play that is analogous to revoking Steve Rogers' legal identity as Captain America. The X-Men supply their own Blackbirds, no matter how many of them they lose, and largely generate their own sources and intelligence.

The X-Men also own their own mistakes, which is a mixed blessing. When Rogue goes on a grief fueled rampage, she's not liable to start World War 3. While she's technically an American citizen, its understood that she acts as her own agent, with no direct connections to the US government that could be interpreted as Rogue acting out the will of the US government.

Rather than retaliate, any foreign governments alarmed by Rogue's behavior are not likely to blame the US directly and are likely to lodge a complaint through official channels in the hopes that the US government will coax the X-Men into doing something about her or that Uncle Sam will try to take matters into its own hands. In other words, its understood that Rogue is America's problem but not its fault, at least not intentionally. Which is good enough to keep nuclear missiles from waving at one another as they pass one another in Earth orbit.

And that's essentially the contours of what the X-Men's outside power looks like.

The X-Men have incredible resources at their disposal by virtue of Xavier's seed money, the genius of Hank McCoy and others, and the allies they've cultivated like the Shi'ar, but everything they've built up they've had to bootstrap. They're free to follow their consciences but they're also at risk of running off the cliff and getting disavowed if they chase their consciences too far, too fast, too hard for the liking of the world's nations.

The Avengers, especially Steve Rogers, subordinate their consciences to higher authorities to a greater degree, but the trade is that when they do act, they can act with the knowledge that they're not going to have to deal with blue on blue conflict from confused and scared locals and with largely infinite resources. There is almost assuredly a limited supply of Blackbirds. There is a limited supply of Blackbirds right? The number of Quinjets available to the Avengers is only limited by the budget afforded to them by SHIELD or Tony Stark.

Speaking of Tony Stark, depending on which universe and what time period we're talking about, he is not necessarily a backup plan for an Avengers team that finds its consciences misaligned with the interests of SHIELD. Not just because he might not feel like being their sugar daddy, but also because Tony Stark is ultimately a businessman. Ironman may be challenging for the world's authorities to reign in if he's in a bad mood, but Tony Stark has financial assets that can be frozen and capital assets that can be seized.

Let's not forget that when Steve Rogers decided he was done asking for permission to do what he felt was right in the MCU, he was only able to continue superheroing at the same level he had previously because a secretive nation with a friendly monarch was willing to provide him with a jet and supplies so long as they approved of his goals and methods.

Thus the X-Men enjoy greater freedom of conscience but its much more precarious than Captain America's compromised freedom.

This is not a value judgment, just an observation.

And if I made the case for Captain America playing by the rules a little too well, then its probably because Earth 92131 Steve Rogers doesn't seem to have been gaslit into being the hatchetman for corrupt ends.

Yet.

One could also imagine that SHIELD or USGOV have also failed to tip Cap off about mutant related this, that, or the other that Steve might have OPINIONS about and feel strongly that some Homo Sapiens Sapiens supremacists are need of punching in a time and place that is super inconvenient for the authorities.

Because sometimes injustice isn't about what authority does, its about what it doesn't do: malign neglect and so forth.

[bitchfitch]

I wonder where the "fat, hyper charismatic, well liked pirate" trope came from. Bc while they're not usually main characters, I with my Extremely limited pop culture knowledge can think of two in specific and a few more in vague terms.

Notably they are both from early 2000s fantasy flicks that involve flying boats tho so maybe they're endemic to an earlier entry in that genre.

there needs to beore of those. Both weird experimental fantasy flicks and fat pirates everyone loves.