#killers of kilimanjaro

[thecreativemillennial]

The infamous Tsavo Man Eaters on display in the Field Museum Of Natural History, in Chicago, Illinois. During March - December 1898, these ferocious male lions attacked and killed 135 people in Kenya, many of whom were construction workers, who were helping to build a railway from Kenya to Uganda. They were eventually hunted down and killed by an Irish British Army veteran called Lieutenant colonel John Henry Patterson, who later on went on to write a book about them called The Man Eaters Of Tsavo, which inspired movies such as Bwana Devil, Killers Of Kilimanjaro and The Ghost And The Darkness

[silver-screen-divas]

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her performance in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo (1953), and for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964). She was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

During the 1950s, Gardner established herself as a leading lady and one of the era's top stars with films like Show Boat, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (both 1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956) and On the Beach (1959). She continued her film career for three more decades, appearing in the films 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). And in 1985, she had the major recurring role of Ruth Galveston on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing. She continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in 1990, at the age of 67.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gardner No. 25 on its greatest female screen legends list.

[ititledit]

"Five years ago, after graduating from the University of Lincoln, Grace set out on a year-long solo backpacking adventure across the world.

After a six-week tour of Peru, she arrived in New Zealand. Less than a fortnight later, on the eve of her 22nd birthday, she was strangled to death by a man she met on a dating app.

...

During a three-week trial, the family had to sit through her killer's attempts to pass the murder off as "rough sex" gone wrong and his claims that Grace asked to be strangled.

"I felt like Grace was on trial and she couldn't defend herself. As a parent, I didn't want to listen to that. It was horrendous.

"You can't ask for your own death. It is ludicrous this can be used as a defence."

Gillian has since campaigned against the rough sex defence, with the charity We Can't Consent To This, and has helped to change the law in England and Wales.

...

Christmas is a very difficult time for Gillian, so last year she decided to spend it climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, which was "incredibly emotional".

...

Her efforts raised £33,000 for the White Ribbon charity, which aims to end male violence against women. Gillian received a thank you card from the charity, saying the money had been used to fund education programmes in 65 schools in the Hull area.

"I just want to raise awareness and get that message out there about violence against women so that no other family has to live this life I live," Gillian says.

Four years ago, with her niece Hannah, Gillian started the charity initiative Love Grace. They collect donated handbags and fill them with toiletries for domestic abuse victims.

So far, they have filled 15,600 bags for women in the UK and across the world and they received an award from the prime minister.

Grace loved handbags, Gillian says, and each bag has a tag on it with her handwriting.

"It's a simple idea but it has really taken off," Gillian says. "We were just doing it for our grief so that Grace would never just be a number.

...

"I should never have buried my child and certainly she should never have died the way she did. People keep saying I'm really strong but I don't think so, I'm just a mum."

"I will never get over it but I just know I've got to make the world a better place. I want to change things so that no other family has to go through what we go through. That has got to be a good thing."

------------------------

This holiday period please give generously to women in need.

Love Grace -

White ribbon -

[gatutor]

Cartel película "Los asesinos del Kilimanjaro" (Killers of Kilimanjaro) 1959, de Richard Thorpe.

[lifes-commotion]

Happy heavenly Birthday Ava Lavinia Gardner (24 December 1922 – 25 January 1990)! She starred in films like The Barefoot Contessa, Show Boat, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Killers, Bhowani Junction, The Night of the Iguana, Mogambo, and Knights of the Round Table. Ava was married to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra.

[cinema-tv-etc]

Ava Gardner(1922-1990)

Ava Lavinia Gardner (24th December 1922 - 25th January 1990) was an American actress and singer. 

She was signed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953), and also received BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for other films. 

Gardner appeared in several high-profile films from the 1940s to 1970s, including The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959), 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). 

Gardner continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in London in 1990 at the age of 67.

[african-travel-n-tours]

Amboseli Adventure: 3 Days of Wildlife & Majestic Views

Get ready for a killer 3-day safari adventure in Kenya! This trip whisks you away to Amboseli National Park, famous for its epic wildlife and the legendary Mount Kilimanjaro – Africa's tallest peak.

Day 1: Mombasa to Amboseli - Spotting Animals & Stunning Views

We'll pick you up in Mombasa and hit the road in a comfy safari vehicle. Keep your eyes peeled out the window – you might see some cool animals on the way to Amboseli National Park.

The closer you get, the more incredible it becomes. Just wait till you see Mount Kilimanjaro – a giant, snow-capped mountain that will blow your mind! This is your official "welcome to awesomeness" moment.

In the afternoon, you'll arrive at your awesome camp or lodge right inside the park. After checking in and chilling for a bit, you'll be treated to a yummy dinner made with fresh, local ingredients. Spend the evening relaxing and stargazing under the African sky.

Day 2: Exploring Amboseli National Park

Day two is all about checking out the amazing animals in Amboseli! Fuel up with a big breakfast before heading out on your first game drive. With majestic Kilimanjaro always in the background, you might spot elephants, lions, zebras, giraffes, and tons of other cool creatures roaming the plains.

In the afternoon, head back to your lodge for lunch and some chill time. As the day winds down, hop on another game drive, this time searching for nocturnal animals that come out after sunset. Dinner is back at the lodge, followed by a cozy night's sleep.

Day 3: Farewell Amboseli, Hello Nairobi!

After breakfast, enjoy a relaxing morning game drive in Amboseli. See if you can spot any wildlife you missed earlier. With a camera full of epic photos and a heart full of amazing memories, we'll leave Amboseli and head back to Nairobi, where the adventure ends.

[littleharpethcrossfit]

Tuesday, 14 May, 2024

There was a big chance of rain during the workout. On the radar it looked like a huge storm was sitting right on top of us but the storm didn't open up until just as we were finishing. And boy did it open up! The rain drops hitting the tin roof sounded like large hail, but it was only fist-sized rain drops. Most everyone hung out in the Barn as it was too severe a storm to make a dash for the cars, except Herb, who habitually leaves his windows down. A few of the girls found the squeegee and were keeping a tidal wave from entering the Barn.

Warmup

3 Rounds

10 Scap Pushups

10 Scap Pullups

15 Back Raises

Strength

Back Squats..........10/5/5/5

65 to 75% Of 1 Rep Max

Ed=255 Chase=225 Robert=210 Herb=195 Coach/Tom=165 Joe=115 Shannon/Kayla/Allyson=85 Linda/Elisa/Sue/Tim/Alicia/Chad=did something or was late

WOD

"Arm Killer"

Equipment

Dumb Bell (50/35/20)

Ab-Mat

ERGs

Run 400/Row-Ski 500/Bike 1000m

10 Pullups..........(DH)

20 Dips..........(Rings)

30 DB Snatch..........(50/35/20)

40 Pushups..........(HR)

50 Situps..........(GHD)

100 Alternating DB Curls..........(50/35/20)

Run 400/Row-Ski 500/Bike 1000m

Allyson=11:14 Kayla=12:48 Sue=14:06 Ed=17:09 Joe=17:48 Shannon=18:00 Tim=20:30 Robert=21:01 Coach=21:20 Tom=21:23 Linda=22:01 Herb=22:22 Chase**=23:16 Elisa/Chad/Alicia=did it

Notes:

Allyson was the new girl today. Kayla brought her. Kayla has much better luck bringing girls to the Barn than bringing boys. Allyson worked like she has seen a Dumb Bell before. She admitted to being a mountain climber, but not with ropes, pitons, or ice axes. Apparently there are mountains with gradual slopes that allow simply hiking upward. Like a volcano. Like Kilimanjaro. 19,340 feet gradually up. She was awarded a T-shirt and says she we will return Thursday.

Daughter Esther got a new-ish 4-Runner 2 weeks ago and totaled it today. She and Son were shaken up but didn't have to ride to the ER.

Memorial Day is 2 weeks from Yesterday. That will be Monday, May 27. We (LHCF Members) will be doing the traditional "MURPH" WOD at 0930 with a pot-luck brunch to follow. There will be a grill operating upon which the management will be grilling burgers and dogs, etc. Miss Linda provides all the fixings including paper plates, utensils, and all the ointments needed. Members are asked to bring some sort of brunch or lunch dish. Usually a smoked brisket or 2 arrives from somewhere. Many drinks of all types will be provided, including summer wines and beers. All family members are invited. Spread the word. Additional details will follow.

Read about "MURPH" if you don't know.

Note: Last year someone's sweet dog enjoyed a lot of discarded tasty brisket fat which naturally loosened the pup's bowels which relieved themselves on the newly installed carpet at home.

Thursday at 4 PM. Wine and snacks to follow.

[beni75]

Photos and texts: @ladzinski

1-. @mikelibecki and @lilliana_libecki looking up at the fading light on iconic mt. Kilimanjaro

2-. A striped jackal shaking off pestering files durning her morning hunt for food

3-. A White Neck Raven talkin about his day at 19.000 feet on Kilimanjaro

4-. A young male leopard warily climbing down a tree, sniffing and scouting as he moves through the busch

5-. Adorable little killer

6-. An adorable little roadblock. A juvenile bull elk cheking me out while crossing the road at sunrise at the Naional Bison Range

7-. An open and windy road in eastern Montana leading into the welcomig rain on the plains

8-. Cape of good hope, Southafrica

9-. Colorado

10-. Cormorants filling the sky at sunset in Camp Bay South Africa

11-. Great Horned Owl stare down

12-. Honey bee and russian Sage

13-. Just another one of those adorable moments. South Africa

14-. Lazy afternoon on the Serengeti. Tanzania

15-. Leopard on the hunt, incredible watching these amazing cats in the veld and is always and exciting sighting

16-. Life at the top of the food chain in the Serengeti es pretty good. A pride of female lions and cubs seen here dozing carefree in an Acacia tree during the heat of the day

17-. Morning mist filling the vineyards f the Hex Valley at sunrise in the western cape of South Africa

18-. Morning stroll, a white neck raven on an early morning patrol. Kilimanjaro

19-. On top of the world. Elephants moving across the aptly named Oliphants River in Kruger National Park. South Africa

20-. Perfect endings here in South Africa

21-. Puppy

22-. Serengeti National Park

23-. South Africa

24-. Springtime in the Rocky Mountains generally comes a little later, but is always special time

25-. @austinmeetsworld ripping at cayucos

26-. 3 horse riders move across the beautiful landscape at the foot of Montana

27-. A Blackbacked Jackal checking me out on his morning hunt in Kruger National Park

28-. A Gemsbok adorably wary eyed at sunrise in the timbavati veld, in South Africa

29-. A Long Crested Eagle keepin it punk rock in Tanzania

30-. A male Mallar Duck out for a morning cruise at a local pond near my house

[writer59january13]

Richard Mcgeehan Poem

Poetic license I employ to match inventive wisdom and witticism regarding (brother in law of mine husband of eldest sister of same) interspersing, initiating, incorporating fabrication whenever possible, and only the subject himself can discern fact from fiction

and get a chuckle. Re: noun polymath and longtime resident of Woodbury, New Jersey story of his life constitutes real cinéma vérité depicting veteran jack of all trades, and adept Morris dancer to boot, whereby ankles donned with bells while whistles fell from the house of usher crowded house Aesop Poe's

his rubbery shapely legs bending vaguely resembling an oxbow amazingly gracefully they meander, when sharing an anecdote then listener amply electrified attired courtesy with rapt attention donning brooks brothers complimentary wardrobe courtesy Durand thrift store, and/or popular Goodwill

(though prices noticeably steeper at the latter), where he donates and buys tools, tchotchkes, gizmos, gadgets, clothes, and books tests intricacy, viability of instruments, lounges, couches and countenances against being Lazy Boy, nevertheless irresistibly shifting into supineness around cozy davenports,

and to ease sofa ring takes doze on comfortable recliner, while engrossed reading suddenly striking sitting inquisitive posture (pedic) as revolutionary humanoid lifelike mannequin free advertising to expose how Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer

(a large language model-based chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022, which enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style,

level of detail, and language - oh... and for your information Monty the Python wrote these words)

suddenly artificial intelligence frozen

out and rendered obsolete Homo sapiens thinking prowess as well as relevance of human species grows undermined, overshadowed, enslaved,

et cetera, where twenty first sentient beings of civilization reduced to beasts of burden scattered to all four winds analgous to rolling stones simians scraping the earth

using fingers as hoes

eventually survival of the fittest evolution did impose steely phalanges (the bones that make up the toes of the hand and the fingers of the foot - ha) on common joe's biden their time scaling Kilimanjaro's three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira

keenly synchronized trained scientific seismographs linkedin with their sensory perceptions

helped maintain honed vigilance

former killer foo fighting goo goo dolls

rendered physiques tight as longbows

(actually stunt doubles weathering bubbling lava mudflows) amazing special effects witnessed each spectacular rivaling, towering inferno

metamorphosing into jolly green

(rather orange) giant blob with green thumb clowning around with FAKE bulbous nose, indiscriminately spewing forth liquid bedrock that quickly overthrows

entire bygone webbed wide world swallowing prized archaeologically ancient Egyptian and classic Roman civilizations,

where Nero played a mean fiddle liquidating treasured chests of pharaohs

heaving, melting, repurposing sphinx in accordance with pyramid scheme Ponzi scam would long since crumble and degenerate like house of cards attesting to fraudulent dirty deeds done dirt cheap composition and never hold a match against pure clean fracturing conchoidal quartzose,

one divine comedy troupe rose

above the global liquefaction

affected climate change, whereat the sheltering sky offered no escape nor protection

against preternatural edge of night

as dark shadows encapsulated outer limits of the twilight zone quickly extinguishing existence of Homo sapiens planet earth reconstituted and seeds of life and white lily omnipotent creator did transpose.

Act chilly and bass sic hilly

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

completing number seventy five

orbitz, and after ye dip and dive for another quarter century

(of course still attending

Cherry Hill Unitarian Church) ye will be fêted oldest member

and maybe the oldest one alive.

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

460 of 2022

The Letter K (True or False)

Created by joybucket

You've never been to Kazakhstan. 🇰🇿 You've never been to South Korea. 🇰🇷 You've never been to North Korea. 🇰🇵 You don't think you've ever heard anything good about Kazakhstan or North Korea. 🇰🇿 🇰🇵 You're Korean. You like Korean food. 🍲 You've had a friend named Kori. You went to school with a Kierstin. Your name starts with a K. You've flown a kite. 🪁 You have kids. You don't have kids. You want to have kids. You don't want to have kids. You've looked through a kaleidoscope. You've had a magical first kiss. 💋 You've kissed someone just to try it out. You're a klutz. 🤣 You like to eat Kit-Kats. 🍫 You've been friends with a Katie (any spelling). You've dated a Kyle. You've owned a Ken doll. You like the name Kendall for a girl. You've played the kazoo. You've been to Kalamazoo, Michigan. You've been to Kentucky. You've been to Kenya. 🇰🇪 You like the Japanese name Kaori (pronounced Kay-or-ee). You think you'd like to go to Kenya. 🇰🇪 You've dated a Kevin. You've had a classmate named Kelsey. You've met a Kezia. You like the name Kaya. You owned the American Girl doll Kirsten. You owned the American Girl doll Kaya. You enjoyed played kickball in school. 🔴 You hated played kickball in school. It seemed like you were always getting hit in the face with a kickball in school. You've shopped at Kmart. 💃 (we don’t have it in Europe) There was a Kmart in your town, but it closed. 🛒 There is currently a Kmart in your town. You've shopped at Kmart in the past year. You've shopped at a Kmart's close-out sale. You like Klondike bars. You've met someone named Koa. You believe in karma. You think the idea of karma is so offensive, because life isn't fair. You grew up watching Kenan and Kel. 👥 ....and you thought it was hilarious. 🤣 You like Kelanie Gloeckler. 🎶 You've wanted to kill someone. 🔫 You've wanted to kill yourself. 😵🔫 You've never climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. 🌋 You went to school with a Keely. You've had a friend named Kelly. You listen to Kelly Clarkson. 🎶 You enjoy kayaking. 🛶 You've kayaked on a lake. 🛶 You've kayaked down a river. 🛶 You've worn a kimono. 👘 You think kimonos are beautiful, and you would love to wear one. 👘 You've worn a kilt. You've owned a cat that had kittens. 🐈 You've met someone named Kit. You've met someone named Kat. You've swam in a kiddy pool. You've tried kumquat. ....and you thought it was disgusting. You've never been to Kuwait. 🇰🇼 You've had knee surgery. You have a bad knee. You kneel by your bed when you pray. 🙏 You pray, but you don't always kneel. 🙏 You've recently worn a skirt. You like Katy Perry. 🎶 You like the name Kennedy. You've worked with a Kaylee. You don't keep up with the Kardashians. You've worked with a Kim. You've watched Kim Possible. 👩‍🦰 You like koala bears. 🐨 You like the koala cookies with strawberry cream inside. You've met someone with the last name Kozemzak. You've had a keychain stolen from you. You own a set of keys. 🔑 You're good at keeping secrets. 🤐 You've used a knife today. 🔪 You've been to a kegger. 🍾 You like to put ketchup on your hot dogs. 🌭 You don't like ketchup. 🔴 You've had a sweet fluffy cat named Killer. 🐈 You've been to Waikiki. You like Keebler cookies. You've dated a Kurt. You've been friends with a Kimmy. You went to school with a Kimber. You've met a Kenna. You went school with a Kay. You've sold Mary Kay. 💄 You know someone who sells Mary Kay. You've been to a Mary Kay party. You've owned a cosmetic product from Mary Kay. You've driven a Kia. 🚗 You've shopped at Ikea. You enjoyed this survey.

[gatutor]

Anne Aubrey-Robert Taylor "Los asesinos del Kilimanjaro" (Killers of Kilimanjaro) 1959, de Richard Thorpe.

[decomarc]

Death or the nunnery: in her most memorable roles Ava Gardner seemed predestined for one or the other. Her powerful appeal takes its resonance from Western civilization's unstated obsession with death, and the implicit understanding that certain people -- the beautiful, the passionate, the headstrong, or the too truthful -- are chosen to be sacrificed for the rest of us. In this lies much of Garbo's appeal as well, but what gives Gardner's personality its own distinction is the wonderful gusto with which she lives life while it lasts, leaving it without regret when her time is up. In all her finest films, she possesses this sense of destiny: Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1952), Pandora And The Flying Dutchman (1951), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Killers (1946), Showboat (1951), and Knights Of The Round Table (1953). Ava Gardner, the actress, often spoke of her dissatisfaction with her roles; the star could have had no such complaints, since the camera singled her out and made the rest superfluous. At the peak of the excitement surrounding her in the early fifties, somebody, searching to pinpoint her appeal, dubbed her "The World's Most Beautiful Animal", and watching Gardner stride free and panther-like with sure and flawless gestures, was one of the movies' great attractions. Her beauty, like that of Rita Hayworth, was never an end in itself but only a means of reflecting the woman within. For such a dynamic, mythic screen personality, Gardner's career was surprisingly spotty. Like so many of the great stars, she made most of her films before her image had come into focus. There were too few afterwards: she grew older during her long absences, returning in roles that disappointed by their lack of opportunity for her. And yet the effect was still there even when she was no longer the beauty that she was. One example suffices: her cameo role in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), John Huston fades the film out on a close-up of Gardner reading a letter from an admirer she has never met, and fills the screen with her face until it blends into the light. The moment, through its use of her, tells us everything about reality and dreams , and the need for legends if life is to be renewed and death lose her sting.

Ava Gardner in The bribe 1949

[fatehbaz]

So even though the Tsavo Man-Eater story has clearly been mythologized and thoroughly corrupted by and for European and United States audiences, I think that I understand why you could still half-sincerely consider the infamous lion attacks as a sort of supernatural vengeance against British imperialism and the global expansion of industrial-scale resource extraction and finance capital.

Maybe, if only the victims had not been local African laborers and subjugated South Asian workers.

However, supernatural implications aside, all of this mass death in Africa -- death from both the Tsavo lion attacks and the mass death from famine following the 1890s rinderpest plague -- can still be attributed to European and US imperialism.

There is clear cause-and-effect, you can clearly see how death was caused by European industry, even if the agents enacting the killing happen to manifest as a Tsavo lion or a tsetse fly or a microscopic rinderpest virus.

The Tsavo Man-Eater story is such an interesting and eerily appropriate encapsulation of how European and US imperialism incite death, it’s almost too on-the-nose.

Radios, electric lighting, motor vehicles, convenient refrigerated food. And soon, in the near future, airplanes and motion pictures. In the 1890s, as the Gilded Age and Edwardian era brought wealth and “progress” to Europe and the United States, at a time when London and New York City and Berlin were experiencing a sort of golden age of prosperity, mass death swept across the rest of the planet.

And it wasn’t a coincidence.

---

The story was made famous across the planet after publication of the book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo (1907), authored by John Henry Patterson, the “hero” who killed the two voracious lion villains. Patterson was a British Army soldier, an adventurer, and a big-game hunter. His book later inspired multiple major Hollywood productions, including Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959) and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). For those unfamiliar, British colonialist/imperialist military officers and engineers were constructing a railway bridge over the Tsavo River of Kenya as part of the major Kenya-Uganda Railway system to connect East African coastal ports with the interior of the continent to consolidate British imperial power at the height of the Scramble for Africa. Several thousand construction workers lived near the site in camps, and the British imported many workers from colonial territory in India and South Asia. The Uganda Railway contracted Patterson to oversee the construction of the bridge. Patterson was also the one who oversaw the response to the many lion attacks. (After service as an officer in the First World War, Patterson would become known, in Bi/bi Netan/yahu’s words, as “the godfather of the I/sraeli army.”)

Between March 1898 and December 1898, at least 28 workers were attacked and killed by lions. Probably two especially-cunning male lions, without manes. In his reports and book, Patterson himself claimed that at least 135 men were killed by these lions in 1898. (The 28-death estimate was reached by isotopic analysis of presumed human signatures in the preserved remains of the lions, but this estimate would be an approximation of how many humans were fully consumed and doesn’t account for humans that might otherwise have been killed but not entirely consumed.) We don’t know how many people were killed during this period, because many “missing” workers may have absconded, left the site. Records are also unreliable probably because British officers didn’t care too much for the well-being of African and South Asian workers. In December 1898, Patterson finally shot and killed the two maneless lions now on display at the esteemed Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

The British Empire moves in to consolidate power, to conquer Africa, and even in these initial stages of building railways and roadways, the empire sacrifices the lives of African and South Asian laborers.

---

Why would the lions specialize in hunting humans?

Another way to phrase the question: How can human injustice and institutionalized violence contribute to death from “natural” causes?

In Tsavo, specifically, it’s been proposed that the centuries of slave-trading in the Indian Ocean contributed to the lions’ preference for hunting humans. The local area around the Tsavo bridge/crossing was traversed by slave-trading caravans en route eastward to Zanzibar. For years, bodies of those enslaved people who didn’t survive the caravan were probably left behind in the Tsavo landscape, allowing -- in this proposal -- the lions to get used to the taste of humans. Hard to determine for sure.

But there’s more violence at work.

Italian colonialists brought imported cattle to East Africa in 1887 to feed their forces in war against Somalia.

It is thought that these cattle were the source of the rinderpest epidemic/epizootic plague which devastated Africa throughout the 1890s.

Rinderpest doesn’t just affect domesticated cattle and its attendant “modernized” agricultural industries. The 1890s rinderpest plague also devastated native ungulates, including gazelles, antelope, and wildebeest.

So millions of domesticated cattle died, leading to mass starvation across the African continent. And millions of native African ungulates died, leading to ecological upheaval.

In the 1890s, it is estimated that one-third of Ethiopian people and two-thirds of the Maasai people died due to this rinderpest-plague-induced famine.

Then, alongside this famine, global drought emerged in response to an El Nino event in 1897 (unfortunately quickly followed by more El Nino events in 1899 and 1902). The drought pummeled sub-Saharan Africa.

Because the rinderpest plague killed herds of native ungulates simultaneously as the famine killed humans, former grazing grounds in grasslands were colonized by thornbush. And thornbush is perfect habitat for tsetse flies.

These tsetse flies then spread sleeping sickness to humans, leading to more plague, misery, mass death.

The thornbush expansion also functions as part of a feedback loop: Ungulate herds diminsh, so thornbush expands, and the “new” thornbush habitat is undesirable for ungulate grazing, so the herds don’t return.

The mass death of cattle and native ungulates in the mid and late 1890s has also been proposed by some to be part of the reason why Tsavo’s lions resorted to apparently specialize in hunting and killing humans in the absences of ungulates to feed upon.

---

In the 1890s, the famines and plagues in sub-Saharan Africa coincided with the Third Plague Pandemic devastating Asia; catastrophic food shortages in Indonesia, the Philippines, and mainland Southeast Asia; smallpox epidemics in Brazil; cholera epidemics in China. Millions of people, from Korea across Asia and Africa to the ranches and mines of Latin America, died from famine alone.

Meanwhile, aristocrats played in parlors of London and New York, gazing from balconies upon new factories, new electric lights, new motor vehicles, new radios, new copper wiring, new technologies, and a new century.

Fin de siecle, indeed. How’d they pay for it? How did civilization purchase this prosperity?

Blame it on the lions, a tsetse fly, a rinderpest virus, “natural” El Nino events, whatever. Misery at this scale doesn’t just happen.

[bitter69uk]

“Death or the nunnery: in her most memorable roles Ava Gardner seemed predestined for one or the other. Her powerful appeal takes its resonance from western civilization’s unstated obsession with death, and the implicit understanding that certain people – the beautiful, the passionate, the headstrong or the true truthful – are chosen to be sacrificed for the rest of us. In this lies much of Garbo’s appeal as well, but what gave Gardner’s personality its own distinction is the wonderful gusto with which she lives life while it lasts, leaving it without regret when the time is up. In all her finest films she possesses this sense of destiny: Snows of Kilimanjaro, Pandora and The Flying Dutchman, The Barefoot Contessa, The Killers and Knights of the Round Table.” 

/ From Hollywood Colour Portraits by John Kobal (1981) / 

Born on this day 99 years ago: smoky-eyed screen goddess extraordinaire once dubbed “the world’s most beautiful animal” - Ava Gardner (24 December 1922 – 25 January 1990). Pictured: portrait of Ava Gardner by John Engstead, 1951.