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Chirox- The Ecologist- Mask of Summoning
Poison, Electricity, Stasis Field, Plant Control, Rahi Control, Insect Control
Chirox was tasked with creating Rahi and plants to inhabit the universe. He works to ensure the ecosystems are balanced and stable. Under Miserix, very little destabilizing could happen, leading to boring stable ecosystems. He created the Visorak for Ghorax, and follows behind them, using the ravaged lands are testing sites for his new creations. If The Plan is successful, he will have a whole galaxy to terraform.
Inspiration: Chirox, Mutran
In this video, it shows me chasing thunderstorms in the valley once again! What’s crazy was that I almost didn’t venture out since there was really nothing noteworthy on radar. But a thunderstorm so-happen to drift over my area in San Jose around noon with hail and thunder so that finally motivated me to head out lol. As a reward, heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning were all witnessed on this outing! The same storm system that had drenched us with widespread rain just the day prior was now ushering in a cold, unstable airmass (behind its main cold front), helping to destabilize the atmosphere to help fuel thunderstorm development, especially for the Central Valley. As for my storm chase, an area of t-storms had formed in the rural areas north of Los Banos around the 1 p.m. hour and then drifted down towards Chowchilla (where I witnessed the 1st encounter of the storm’s deluge of hail) and then continued (while intensifying still) southeast towards Madera/Fresno. Lots of hail and lightning was observed while traveling down the 99 towards Madera, while trying to get ahead of the storm. But due to traffic (likely due to the storm), I lost the chase to the storm and couldn’t get ahead of it anymore so I just exited on one of the exits to take in the lightning the storm was still putting out. Then I continued south a bit more and stopped around the northern areas of Madera to refuel at the Valero and had a quick snack (while also enjoying the winter wonderland of hail that the strong t-storm had left in its wake). As quickly as the storms came, skies turned bright and sunny again as I ate my snack and updated my socials lol. As it neared 4pm and after resting up, I went on the long journey back north towards home. I’ve never seen the air so clear… It has certainly been a while since I’ve chased in the valley. Just like old times! Until next time, happy storm chasing!
(Storm chase outing taken place Thursday afternoon, March 13, 2025)
"no to Iranian occupation in East Kurdistan"
Today, the middle east summit has begun in Warsaw. The Summit focuses on " Stability, peace, freedom and security in the middle east ". an important part of ensuring that Iran is " not a destabilizing influence ".
On the occasion of this summit, Kurds, Baloch, azéris and Arabs (minorities of Iran) have gathered together at a rally in Warsaw to protest against Iran's anti-Iranian policy and to express their demand for self-determination and freedom.
Kurds urge unity in the course against the Iranian regime
The East Kurdish parties, not invited to the middle east summit in Warsaw, say that the world must cooperate with the opposition forces in Iran if it wants to contain the destabilising activities of the Islamic Republic.
"the different international views and approaches to the Islamic Republic have helped the regime", says it in a statement by the political parties of the east kurdistan political parties on Monday.
The parties make it clear that the Iranian regime has survived years of wars, protests and sanctions, because it is 'at NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVEL'.
The Centre was founded by five Kurdish parties in Iran to better coordinate their activities. Members include the democratic party of Kurdistan (Kdp-I), the democratic party of Kurdistan Iran (Pdki) and komala.
They condemned the fact that they were not invited to the Warsaw conference on 13. And 14. February, but said they would welcome a single international voice against Tehran.
Alias: Anchor
Real Name: Calvin Shaw
Gender: Male
Alignment: Villain
Powers: Suit allows him to breathe underwater, and gives him enhanced strength.
Weapons: Wields an anchor type weapon, thanks to his enhanced strength.
Backstory: Calvin grew up in Sunrise City, with a loving family. However, his best friend at the time, Hobbes, died due to drowning. For years, Calvin would blame himself. This was no accident however. Years later, he would learn of Atlantis' existence. The Atlanteans had killed Hobbes, to have one of them take his place on the surface. Calvin was so frustrated, he did his best to research them. But since there's little to no resources on the surface in regards to these people, he'd eventually give up. He'd even go as far as to start his own family, with his girlfriend at the time, Calah. The Atlantean invasion of Sunrise City would take place several years later. Even though the heroes of the city managed to thwart the invasion, the damage was already done. His wife, and newborn child, were slaughtered. His tiger cat, that he had named after his best friend, was also found dead. His home, and workplace? Both destroyed. From this point on, Calvin's mind snapped. Calah was his anchor, keeping him stable. With her gone, his resentment towards Atlantis grew. He'd create a suit that could withstand the conditions of Atlantis. This led to him joining the Bottom Feeders, a gang under the leadership of Megala Don, with the purpose of destabilizing Atlantis. While he doesn't like working with the Atlantean gang, he sees them as a means to an end. To rid the surface world of the scum that ruined his life. Especially the Riptide organization, that fronted the assault on Sunrise City.
Week 9 Picasso the Foreigner (1441-1445) 3/23 – 3/28/2025
ID 1445
Man Ray American 1890 - 1976
Fair Weather , 1939
Oil on canvas
Man Ray described Fair Weather as the culmination of his Surrealist career. The mannequin figure may be a coded self-portrait and the painting contains quotations from a few of his earlier paintings. Fair Weather is also a nightmarish premonition of the Second World Wart; the bombarded stone wall and puddle of blood are two of its more direct symbols of violence. The artist left this painting behind when he departed Europe for his native United States in 1940, but he eventually reclaimed it and kept it for the rest of his life.
125th Anniversary Acquisition. Gift of Sidney and Caroline Kimmel, 2014-1-1
From the Placard: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
During the summer of 1936, Picasso's tangled personal situation grew even more complicated. He began a new romantic relationship with Dora Maar, whom he spotted in a café in Saint-Germain-des-Pres (in December 1935 or January 1936? Even now, the question remains unanswered) and to whom Éluard introduced him. Maar was a fellow artist, a well-known surrealist photographer who had worked with Man Ray, Max Ernst, Georges Bataille , and Brassaï. Pierre Daix mentioned a "perfect communion," recalling Picasso's fascination with her in that scene: Dora Maar at the café, an emancipated woman, intense provocative, disturbing, playing at stabbing a large knife between the fingers of her gloved hands. Picasso asked for the gloves and she gave them to him. …
I wasn't aware of those photographs from March 1936. Through Picasso's lens, I discovered a calm, intense young woman sitting in the evening shade, with regular features, pale eye, dressed in a comfortable cardigan, focused on reading a newspaper, and emanating a vibrant, almost charismatic presence. But I discovered another side to her in the portrait sessions that the two of them conducted together at Boisgeloup--Maar photographing Picasso, Picasso photographing Maar--and in a series of joint experiments that followed in Maar's darkroom on Rue d'Astorg, playing games with the photographer-model and subject-object relationships, taking turns in front of the lens and behind the lens, games that she had already played with Man Ray…Maar produced some incredible photographs in Portrait of Picasso, Winter 35-36, inverting his image, scrawling a halo of black ink on his face to steal one of his eyes and transform him into a Cyclops, playing with him the way he used to play with his models. Thus, Picasso became an object that she could distort at will with beautiful use of shading, contrasts, abstractions, chiaroscuros.
Unlike Breton and the others, there was no obsequiousness in her attitude to Picasso. It was moe like two equals jousting. As a subversive daughter of a respectable family, Maar was aware of her superiority and affirmed it with confidence, aplomb, audacity, and wit. A few years earlier, according to Daix, Brassaï had forgotten a blank photographic place at Boisgeloup, and Picasso, ever eager to experiment, had not been able to resist "the urge to attack this smooth, uniform surface, like the top of a frozen lake." Three years later, it was Dora Maar who was teaching him the technique. In the hands of this photographer who had now become his subject and guide, Picasso was, I believe, suddenly destabilized, his legendary fearlessness lost as he was subjugated and stimulated in turn by this political activist who challenged him, this photographer more expert in technique than he was, this respected surrealist (the D of whose first name was one of the initials of the seven women chosen by Breton for the name of the gallery GRADIVA). With Dora Maar in Three-Quarter Profile (spring 1936), Dora Maar and Antique Figure (August 1, 1936), Dora and the Minotaur (September 5, 1936), and Dora with Mantilla (September 20, 1936), by "subjecting her to her own rayogram technique, invented by Man Ray," Picasso gradually, haltingly attempted to imprison the photographer in his own universe.
Picasso The Foreigner An Artist in France, 1900 - 1973 Annie Cohen-Solal (Translated from the French by Sam Taylor) Farrar, Straus and Giroux New York 2021. Translation 2023.
Pages 347-349
It's been, for long now, a common daily activity where hundreds of Syria War refugees along with illegal & undocumented Asian and African migrants are smuggled (in unseaworthy rubber boats and perilous conditions in the Aegean sea) from the Asian coast of Turkey to the Greek islands, by conveniently operating and hugely profiting traffickers (selling out even fake, water-absorbent life-jackets, to migrants), under the nose, if not guidance and pressure, of the Turkish coast guard, and despite the EU-Turkey Migration treaty.
Migrants arriving to Greek islands are then transferred by ferryboats to Piraeus with the prospect to be dispersed to "temporary" camps all over the Greek mainland, but most likely to remain "trapped" for undisclosed time, if not for ever, as far as the key migrant "European corridor" remains closed-down at the borders in the north region of Macedonia(Greece) with FYROM* in order to protect the rest of EU states (uneager to accept but a tiny number of documented refugees) and also discourage future migrants from heading to Europe.....
Meanwhile in Greece, migration inflow steadily surpasses outflow, as far as the war in Syria continues and Turkey capitalizes not only on Syrian refugees but on all its Asian and African migrants reaching swiftly (with cheap TurkishAirlines fare & e-visa) Istanbul, Europe's backdoor, by smuggling them to Greece so assisting its expansionist policy through the ethnological, cultural and economic destabilization of the small communities in the islands and (given the huge influx and the border blockage), all over Greece, while generating also an instability potential of the status quo in the Aegean Sea that Turkey's "deep state" would like to change by dividing it in the middle (if not by taking over whatever Greek land) at a given opportunity, alike with the Invasion of Cyprus in 1974 ...
Consequently, Greece, already suffering a deep socio-economic & political crisis under its divisive, incompetent and obsessed neo-communist leadership, is turned into a de facto European "migrant buffer zone", and has to manage alone, just with EU "technical assistance", the unstoppable migration influx from Turkey and an additional, social crisis. It looks as if Greece is declining into a state of uncontrolled anarchy (UPDATE MAR31 less than 24hrs after OP) while EU is imploding and fragmenting from the backlash of its own misdeeds and consequent crises ....
Crises that emerged from the geopolitical games and the wars imposed and/or exploited by the .... Great European Powers ( UK, France, Germany), along with the USA, NATO, as well as the Sunni Islamists of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, last but not least, Turkey and its neo-ottoman styled leadership that promoted the war in Syria and cooperated undercover with ISIS, further escalating its own undeclared (civil) war against the Kurds, not just within Turkey, but also in Syria
Wars fancily dubbed as "against tyranny and terror", have in fact caused by far more misery, terror and havoc with the disintegration of Iraq, Libya and Syria, the eventual creation of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the other jihadist organizations that preach and exercise blind hatred, and terrorism against the West, while they impose their domain and Brutal Rule of Terror on a number of regions across Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
UPDATES
MAR.31 : Migrants Clash at Pireus Port
APR .. 1 : Violence at Chios Island Migrant Camp
APR . 4 : First Deportations to Turkey While Migrant Boats Continue Ariving to Greek Islands
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*FYROM, (originally Vardarska or Vardar Banovina), a landlocked country and non EU member state, is usually referred as "Macedonia" in the "narrative overlay" of media such as CNN, BBC etc that systematically defy the only officially recognized (by UN, EU, NATO, IOC, IAAF etc. etc) name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), for their very own reasons. if not for assisting the agenda of specific interests (of USA, NATO, UK, certain EU member states and, as usual, Turkey) in the allready quite broken apart and multi-divided, Balkans ...
FYROM also should not be confused, with the historical region of Macedonia in Greece as the later incorporates the whole area where Ancient Macedonian People firstly appeared and lived more than 2500 years ago, that is about 1000 years earlier than the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans....
Migrants arriving to Greek islands are then transferred by ferryboats to Piraeus with the prospect to be dispersed to "temporary" camps all over the Greek mainland, but most likely to remain "trapped" for undisclosed time, if not for ever, as far as the key migrant "European corridor" remains closed-down at the borders in the north region of Macedonia(Greece) with FYROM* in order to protect the rest of EU states (uneager to accept but a tiny number of documented refugees) and also discourage future migrants from heading to Europe.....
Meanwhile in Greece, migration inflow steadily surpasses outflow, as far as the war in Syria continues and Turkey capitalizes not only on Syrian refugees but on all its Asian and African migrants reaching swiftly (with cheap TurkishAirlines fare & e-visa) Istanbul, Europe's backdoor, by smuggling them to Greece so assisting its expansionist policy through the ethnological, cultural and economic destabilization of the small communities in the islands and (given the huge influx and the border blockage), all over Greece, while generating also an instability potential of the status quo in the Aegean Sea that Turkey's "deep state" would like to change by dividing it in the middle (if not by taking over whatever Greek land) at a given opportunity, alike with the Invasion of Cyprus in 1974 ...
Consequently, Greece, already suffering a deep socio-economic & political crisis under its divisive, incompetent and obsessed neo-communist leadership, is turned into a de facto European "migrant buffer zone", and has to manage alone, just with EU "technical assistance", the unstoppable migration influx from Turkey and an additional, social crisis. It looks as if Greece is declining into a state of uncontrolled anarchy (UPDATE MAR31 less than 24hrs after OP) while EU is imploding and fragmenting from the backlash of its own misdeeds and consequent crises ....
Crises that emerged from the geopolitical games and the wars imposed and/or exploited by the .... Great European Powers ( UK, France, Germany), along with the USA, NATO, as well as the Sunni Islamists of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, last but not least, Turkey and its neo-ottoman styled leadership that promoted the war in Syria and cooperated undercover with ISIS, further escalating its own undeclared (civil) war against the Kurds, not just within Turkey, but also in Syria
Wars fancily dubbed as "against tyranny and terror", have in fact caused by far more misery, terror and havoc with the disintegration of Iraq, Libya and Syria, the eventual creation of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the other jihadist organizations that preach and exercise blind hatred, and terrorism against the West, while they impose their domain and Brutal Rule of Terror on a number of regions across Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
UPDATES
MAR.31 : Migrants Clash at Pireus Port
APR .. 1 : Violence at Chios Island Migrant Camp
APR . 4 : First Deportations to Turkey While Migrant Boats Continue Ariving to Greek Islands
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*FYROM, (originally Vardarska or Vardar Banovina), a landlocked country and non EU member state, is usually referred as "Macedonia" in the "narrative overlay" of media such as CNN, BBC etc that systematically defy the only officially recognized (by UN, EU, NATO, IOC, IAAF etc. etc) name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), for their very own reasons. if not for assisting the agenda of specific interests (of USA, NATO, UK, certain EU member states and, as usual, Turkey) in the allready quite broken apart and multi-divided, Balkans ...
FYROM also should not be confused, with the historical region of Macedonia in Greece as the later incorporates the whole area where Ancient Macedonian People firstly appeared and lived about 2500 years ago, that is about 1000 years earlier than the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans....
"no to Iranian occupation in East Kurdistan"
Today, the middle east summit has begun in Warsaw. The Summit focuses on " Stability, peace, freedom and security in the middle east ". an important part of ensuring that Iran is " not a destabilizing influence ".
On the occasion of this summit, Kurds, Baloch, azéris and Arabs (minorities of Iran) have gathered together at a rally in Warsaw to protest against Iran's anti-Iranian policy and to express their demand for self-determination and freedom.
Kurds urge unity in the course against the Iranian regime
The East Kurdish parties, not invited to the middle east summit in Warsaw, say that the world must cooperate with the opposition forces in Iran if it wants to contain the destabilising activities of the Islamic Republic.
"the different international views and approaches to the Islamic Republic have helped the regime", says it in a statement by the political parties of the east kurdistan political parties on Monday.
The parties make it clear that the Iranian regime has survived years of wars, protests and sanctions, because it is 'at NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVEL'.
The Centre was founded by five Kurdish parties in Iran to better coordinate their activities. Members include the democratic party of Kurdistan (Kdp-I), the democratic party of Kurdistan Iran (Pdki) and komala.
They condemned the fact that they were not invited to the Warsaw conference on 13. And 14. February, but said they would welcome a single international voice against Tehran.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.
Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.
As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.
In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.
The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.
While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.
In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.
In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.
The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.
The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.
Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.
The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.
World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.
In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.
The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.
Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.
On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.
A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.
The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.
Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.
Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.
A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.
With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.
The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.
Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.
With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.
Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.
Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.
The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.
On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.
At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.
Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.
Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.
The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.
Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.
On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.
By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.
Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.
Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.
By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.
In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.
Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.
Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.
On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.
From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.
Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.
As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.
An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.
Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".
On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.
The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.
Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.
Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.
On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.
Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.
The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.
The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.
Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.
However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.
Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.
In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.
The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.
Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.
Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.
Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).
Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.
On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.
The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.
Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.
In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, takes off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for a 10-hour mission, flying in the vicinity of Kyushu, Japan, the East China Sea, and the Korean peninsula, Aug. 8, 2017. During the mission, two B-1Bs were joined by Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s as well as Republic of Korea Air Force KF-16 fighter jets, performing two sequential bilateral missions. These flights with Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) demonstrate solidarity between Japan, ROK and the U.S. to defend against provocative and destabilizing actions in the Pacific theater. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Richard P. Ebensberger) www.dvidshub.net
Heading into the storm... This was around Fremont, CA along I-680 northbound. This was during my storm chase outing. I was headed to the valley at this time. After all, the Central Valley is California's 'Midwest'! Even another chaser like myself was out chasing the storms in the valley... A low pressure area (from the same 2nd storm system to hit us this particular week) had helped destabilize the atmosphere this day, causing widespread t-storms to form. The state was experiencing unsettled weather since late last month. We need all the rain & snow we can get... (Pic taken Saturday early afternoon, March 3, 2018)
**Weather scenario/forecast:
A pair of storms had battered California this past week with rain, hail, thunder & lots of snow in the Sierras. The 1st weaker storm had brought interesting weather to NorCal as t-storms dumped lots of hail in isolated regions back on Monday (February 26). The unsettled pattern was helping with the state's returning drought conditions. With the jet stream having dipped southward, this was helping to steer storms into California at last. While the 1st storm system had brought some much-needed precip, February 2018 was one of the driest Februarys for the state (no longer the driest ever). The 2nd, stronger system had brought more rain & was the snow maker for the state during the latter half of the week. This same system's cold low pressure area had ushered t-storm activity up until Saturday. While the Sierra snowpack remains well-below normal for this time of year, this 2nd system at the beginning of March had brought significant snow, cutting into the snow deficits. It looked like the drought had taken a sizable hit... Is a 'Miracle March' in the making?
To advance or progress, it's a good idea to set a goal. Sometimes this goal seems distant and hard to grasp. This destabilizing situation can create a climate of uncertainty, even fear. Faced with this immense mountain, we may even give up. Why should we cross this mountain in a single step? Why not start by climbing the first hill in front of us? Then a second, a little higher still, and so on. The further we progress along this path, the closer we seem to get to our goal. At some point, it will seem so close and so small that all we have to do is grab it with our fingertips!
Pour avancer ou progresser, il est bon de se fixer un objectif. Parfois cet objectif semble lointain et difficile à percevoir. Cette situation déstabilisante peut créer un climat d'incertitude, voire de peur. Face à cette immense montagne, il arrive même que l'on abandonne. Pourquoi devrions-nous franchir cette montagne en une seule étape ? Pourquoi ne pas commencer par franchir la première colline qui se trouve devant nous ? Puis une seconde, un peu plus haute encore, et ainsi de suite. Plus nous progresserons sur ce chemin, plus notre objectif semblera se rapprocher. À un moment donné, il semblera tellement proche et petit qu'il suffira de l'attraper du bout des doigts !
The Tiger attack helicopter is an advanced all-weather capable multi-role platform developed by Eurocopter.
While production and operational capability were initially low, the end of NATO and destabilization in eastern Europe and the middle east forced the newly-formed forces of ZEUS to react quickly to the new situation.
With Germany being the only operator in the new alliance, fielding a 103 Tigers, the states quickly decided to adopt an upgraded version for ZEUS units.
Within a year, Eurocopter presented the new concept to go into production: Designated the EC670, the 2nd generation of Tigers became ZEUS primary close-air-support and attack aircraft.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - This was the view I enjoyed while making my morning coffee at East Rosebud Campground in Montana's Beartooth Mountains. It was obvious that this mountain (Mount Hole in the Wall) was very prone to avalanches. As temperatures warmed and the sun destabilized the snow I would see over 20 of them while hiking in the wilderness.
Les installations en forme d'oeuf sont des diffuseurs émettant des sons en rapport avec l'exposition.
C’est un lien à la guerre plus actuel qu’a choisi Ian Hamilton Finlay en reproduisant la bataille de Midway (1942). A mesure que l’on s’approprie la salle, le bruit des ruchers se révèle être celui des bombardiers et la forme bucolique prend un tournant meurtrier. Prégnante et déstabilisante, l’œuvre est à l’image d’un lieu de prestige apparent où l’art contemporain n’est pas seulement observé mais vécu intimement par celui qui y est confronté.
The egg-shaped installations are broadcasters emitting sounds related to the exhibition.
It is a link to the more contemporary war that Ian Hamilton Finlay chose by reproducing the Battle of Midway (1942). As the room is appropriated, the noise of the apiaries turns out to be that of the bombers and the bucolic form takes a deadly turn. Pretising and destabilizing, the work is like a place of apparent prestige where contemporary art is not only observed but lived intimately by those who are confronted with it.
Frisco Pier, Cape Hatteras, NC - Formally known as Cape Hatteras Fishing Pier, the "Frisco Pier" as it is commonly known, was extensively damaged by several storms including Hurricane Earl. Because the pier has become so destabilized, the National Park Service has decided to remove it in the coming months.
When the Multiverse was born, Earth Prime was the first to exist and the source code for all worlds. It serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration as the first world to reach the Age of Heroes and the final stand of the Justice League.
Cyborg
-Victor Stone was a star quarterback throughout his life. The best player in high school at Central City High, college at Gotham City University and the pros with the Gotham Rogues, his playing days were cut short when an ACL tear ended a promising career. That string of bad luck continued when Darkseid invaded and his body was torn to shreds by energy blasts. When modern medicine failed him, Victor’s father, Dr. Silas Stone, turned to alien technology in repairing his son. Two years later, when Brainiac invaded, the Cyborg joined forces with the Justice League as their seventh and newest member.
Aquaman
-The King of Atlantis, Arthur Curry was born to a human father and Queen Atlanna of Atlantis. But when his mother abdicated to live out her days on the surface, an eighteen year old Arthur was forced to rule an entire kingdom under the sea. Despite this, he was an integral part of the Justice League when Darkseid invaded and eventually grew to accept his identity as Aquaman.
Wonder Woman
-The only female founder of the Justice League, Diana of Themsycira is also the team’s strongest warrior. Since her birth, she has trained to be the ultimate weapon in defense of Earth and mankind. After the first waves of Darkseid’s invasion struck her homeland, Diana made her way to the mainland and fought alongside Batman and Superman. Once the battle was over and the day won, Diana stayed and fell in love, eventually proposing to her fianceé, Kate Kane, Batwoman.
Batman
-On March 31 of 2000, Bruce Wayne and his parents went to the movies to celebrate young Bruce’s 10th birthday. It was that tragic night when horror struck and the vigilante inside was awakened. In 2014, when Bruce was only 24 and the youngest member, led the Justice League to a victory over Darkseid. Despite his youthful appearance, Bruce is the stern commander with a heart of gold.
Superman
-When Kal-El was a child, Brainiac invaded and stole the city of Kandor from his homeworld of Krypton. This tragedy gave way to further destruction as it destabilized the volatile core and caused the destruction of the planet. Luckily, Kal’s father, Jor-El, sent him to Earth in hopes that he would be able to preserve the Kryptonian race. Upon his arrival, he was taken in by Martha and Jonathan Kent from Smallville, Kansas. This humble upbringing led him to become the most powerful man of all time. The man who stands up for truth, justice and the American way. Superman.
The Flash
-The life of the Justice League, Barry Allen was only sixteen when he was struck by lightning. That fateful night was seven years to the day after Barry’s mother, Nora, was killed by what appeared to be a man in a cloud of lightning. Now, Barry uses his speed and wisecracking ability to solve crimes and defend the people of Central City all while searching for the man who killed his mother.
Green Arrow
-Oliver Queen was dead. Yet after five years marooned on an island in the South Pacific off the coast of Hawaii, he came back to life as a new man. The billionaire playboy was gone and in his stead was a man with purpose and skill. A man with one goal. To avenge the death of his father by any means necessary. Despite having a questionable moral code and buying the office of mayorship in Star City, Green Arrow serves as a crucial member of the Justice League.
FIG FORMULAS
Cyborg
-2018 Cyborg body and hair
-TLJ Finn head
-Silver chima fist
-Cap’s Wakandan shield
Aquaman
-Starlord hair
-2019 Aquaman head
-2018 DCEU Aquaman body
Wonder Woman
-GOTG2 Ayesha hair
-2014 Wonder Woman body
-2017 Wonder Woman JL legs and shield
Batman
-2012 Batman head
-2019 Batman torso and cowl
-2016 Batman legs BVS
Superman
-CMF Superman body
-DCEU Superman hair
-Generic Star Wars head
Flash
-2018 Wally West Flash with 2017 JL Flash helmet
Green Arrow
-Newt Scamander hair
-Brown quiver
-Damian Wayne head 2019
-Green Arrow 2015
-Dark green arms
Barkley Island has been facing both internal and external threats in recent years. In addition to the threat of invasion from its neighboring Saint George’s Island, the island’s impoverished area is also under the constant grips of criminal gang. The Samedi Gang is the most active on the island in smuggling drugs and weapons. The gang is also believed to be trained by the military of Saint George’s Island in an effort to destabilize the Government of Barkley Island. At the request of Barkley Island’s government to combat these threats, Victoria has sent foreign services officers, aid workers, police constables and military advisors to the island.
Two Foreign Service Officers Jordan Grant and Charlotte Oliver accompanied by a Barkley Island Government official Cooper Corey, were travelling to a remote village to asses the local needs. Their vehicle made a wrong turn, which led them to an area controlled by the Samedi Gang. Their vehicle was surrounded by Samedi gunmen and were kidnapped. Due to the lack of experience in hostage crisis, the government of Barkley Island requested further assistance from the Victorian Government.
To be continued...
City Methodist Church
Gary Indiana
5 Image HDR
Constructed at the cost of over 1 million dollars in 1926, the City Methodist Church is a massive nine story structure that sits in downtown Gary in a complete state of ruin and destabilization. Architecturally designed in a traditional English Gothic style, the church remained a place of worship until1975. Due to a major population shift in northeast Indiana in the late 60’s and early 70’s the churches congregation shrank and it was sold to Indiana University as a campus extension, but was never used. Over the following years the church was used for many purposes but eventually was abandoned. 1997 it was severely damaged in a massive fire which also included several nearby buildings. The fire was believed to be act of arson. It has been suggested that the building become a "ruins garden" like those found in Europe.
There’s a level of uneasiness when you first approach the building but it seemed like the most comfortable abandoned building in the area as far as chances of crime. It sits directly across the street from a college and daycare with lots of activity around. Access is easy, there are no doors on the structure and no boards on the windows, trees and bushes cover what used to be the lawn. Inside it’s amazing to walk among a place which was at one time such a thing of beauty. There’s an auditorium, 4 floors of rooms, a basket ball court where the roof has completely collapsed, and of course the cathedral, shown here. Every room there was debris, concrete, wood, cloths and other odds and ends. Sounds from the surrounding streets gave the impression that what is happening outside is right within the building. People taking, cars, emergency vehicles and construction made for an odd soundtrack. I will admit I was a bit uneasy while I was here. Being completely unfamiliar with the area, there was always that concern in the back of my head that some undesirables with a criminal intent would approach or would be found living among the ruins. Nonetheless, this place is incredible and I got several satisfactory images from here. Most of the posts from Gary will return in a b&w form sometime in the future.
Velken's Toa Tool changed under affection of VEXUS. This is Destabilization Sword Laser Blaster. With simple combat skills, it also can shoot green lasers, and it also corrupt biomechanicals with VEXUS and delete their original programm.
Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, fly a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, with two Republic of Korea air force F-15s in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula, June 20, 2017. These flights with the Republic of Korea (ROK) demonstrate solidarity between the ROK and U.S. to defend against provocative and destabilizing actions in the Pacific theater. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Kamaile Chan) www.dvidshub.net
City Methodist Church
Gary Indiana
5 Image HDR
I love the multitude of surreal scenes you can discover in the abandonment of Gary Indiana. Couches, tables, chairs scattered though out decaying rooms and cathedral chambers, old roofs waiting to fall, blocks of concrete and pieces of plaster lay where gravity finally gave way, weather you're a photographer or not, this place is truly incredible.
Constructed at the cost of over 1 million dollars in 1926, the City Methodist Church is a massive nine story structure that sits in downtown Gary in a complete state of ruin and destabilization. Architecturally designed in a traditional English Gothic style, the church remained a place of worship until1975. Due to a major population shift in northeast Indiana in the late 60’s and early 70’s the churches congregation shrank and it was sold to Indiana University as a campus extension, but was never used. Over the following years the church was used for many purposes but eventually was abandoned. 1997 it was severely damaged in a massive fire which also included several nearby buildings. The fire was believed to be act of arson. It has been suggested that the building become a "ruins garden" like those found in Europe.
Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, fly a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, with two Republic of Korea air force F-15s in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula, June 20, 2017. These flights with the Republic of Korea (ROK) demonstrate solidarity between the ROK and U.S. to defend against provocative and destabilizing actions in the Pacific theater. (Courtesy photo)
A left of field look at the extermination of aboriginal or indigenous woman. The genocide of their genetics, their culture, and its extended application to the extermination of the woman of the west, and their genocide. A look into the meta data of a Canadian genocide in progress, and its reflection on the USA, and the west. Looking at statistically applied genocide again, using an analysis of meta data, and gross numbers, with a good dose of just join the dots, thrown in for good measure.
Number for number, the extermination of woman is the most effective way to galvanise genocide, within a group or population. Either via VD (venereal disease), social engineering, or otherwise… The murder of female blood lines, via sterilization using germ warfare and social engineering, is and has been extraordinarily effective. The effectiveness relies on three major points, one, a woman getting VD that terminates her ability to have children, the second is that since an in-utero baby and or non-conceived foetus is classified as not human yet, there can be no charge of murder, and the third point is, that a woman who chooses a childless existence after indoctrination are seen to be exerting her own free will, in a process of self-determination.
How would I know, or have a right to comment? At one stage I was approached to work in the Biosecurity facility in Victoria, Australia, an offer I declined. Why head hunt me? I had been doing theorisation at university on the logic patterns for treatments and curing of HIV, as a 19-year-old, it must have resonated with someone, for them to send someone to the university to see me. So, no, I am not some uneducated crack pot conspiracy theorist, and I hate to shatter some people’s little world or bubble, but people work at this type of horrid work both in defence and offence all the time. The other reason I am commenting is, I went behind, what some would call enemy lines, into the Arts humanities and observed firsthand, racist, and sexist indoctrination, of people just outside of their childhood. No, it should not have been seen as enemy lines or so I thought, as I am a feminist. But the level of misandry for white males was quite profound, and ironically misogynist behaviour conducted by females was quite shocking. Additionally, I feel at liberty to write, as I have studied and written about genocide at university.
So let’s get into it. Why murder or sterilize aboriginal or indigenous woman? One of the things I looked at was that men can impregnate hundreds in a lifetime, but a woman’s uterus is only so capable, it is in fact highly limited. I observed through finger printing or meta data and extrapolation that some abhorrent groups males and or females, are doing maths on how many women do they need to kill of aboriginal decent, before they get rid of all those that can be considered aboriginal. Why would someone or a group do something so horrible? This scenario will greatly aid foreign interests in the taking of countries like Australia and the Americas, in the future.
We are going to have a little look at a field of study that for some is unfortunately very large, and for some is a horrifically very creative field of endeavour, so my considerations and observations will be limited in scope, to keep this writing manageable.
My considerations of indigenous genocide raised many questions such as. Does giving up your land coincide or correlate with a reduction in a woman’s chance of genocide or an increase? And if so in either case why? If a woman will give up her uterus to outsiders, does she suffer a lower rate of genocide, or is it more? The techno YouTube hit by The Halluci Nation “Burn your village to the ground” help make me ponder similar questions, here is a link to the YouTube video www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNi__fnadTM&list=WL&index=82 It can be argued between warriors and wise men about the process of colonisation, its effect, and the motives for that colonization other than, the at times, murderous acquisition of land. But when it comes to the act of murderous colonisation, its effectiveness is amplified to an accelerated final solution of sorts. When you exterminate a woman’s genetics with the eradication of their unborn babies or foetuses before they are even conceived, it leaves no legal recourse. Murdering woman, and sterilizing them are potent weapons, when performing the act of genocide. When woman are used as breeding vessels, for foreign genetics, or sterilized via VD (venereal disease), or sterilized with anti-feminist dogma masquerading as feminist mantras, the result is a loss of land and resources. Before I go further, I will go on the record, that I have no issues with mixed race relationships, as I have been in a few. I have always found them enlightening, and culturally enriching, and it is my sincere hope that those relationships were mutually beneficial.
The relatively recent insertion into humanity and the debate about the purity of races goes back to a period most of us but not all of us wish had not happened, the second world war. And unusually it was a conundrum for those that argued it, and what would be the future outcomes in the west, if it had of been achieved globally. It presented a legal consideration that I have identified, and its possible application for many indigenous, and their extended families. In one respect it is not a complex one and is unusually of benefit to all nations who have an indigenous culture and or peoples. Provided an indigenous cultures and peoples still exist, it can be argued that under international law the west has a failsafe or caveat for future attempts of colonization via foreign powers. ie. if someone comes to our countries with colonialist intent trying to divide the tribes as it where, and says we, as in those considered nonindigenous have no write to be here, and that we, whoever we are, or may be have stolen the land, we politely ask our indigenous relatives, some of which need to be overtly aboriginal, to tell them to go away. They then say these are my blood relatives and this is not your land to comment on. For the new world order colonist, it is a slap in the face, and they are left eating their own words. It is a polite conversation, one that should end the colonialist’s verbal pursuit in its tracks, and it can only go further, if that foreign power, turns to violence, or a forced acquisition of the land through murder and or subjugation. It is simple legally, but a big ask emotionally, and politically, for all the family’s involved. As members of our families have murdered, other members of our families, and stolen land from them. It is like a doom’s day sentence of language, to get out of hell, one that relies on forgiveness, but not forgetting our at times horrific past. This approach helps failsafe against future forced or coerced loss of land. It was a principle based on a piece of mathematics an Australian soldier did on the synchronisation of fireflies’ flashes, and was popularised by the movie six degrees of separation. I just applied it to our families in OZ and the US when it came to the connections between blood relatives that are aboriginal or indigenous, and the rest of us, instead of social connections as was depicted in the original piece of math.
Although the theft of land and unhonored treaties is without question a horrific tragedy, and for some it is a Rorschach ink blot and not a legal contract, it presents us as in those in the west of all descriptions and spiritualties a means of great opportunity to stifle New World Order colonialist colonization of our shared family land. Regardless of race, if no one tries to politically capitalise on the process of the recognition of our family as a nation, and go outside of genuine good will, it is an utterly profound, legal, and social statement. Essentially it aids countries in the west like Australia and the US. Nations essentially made up of family, a family that includes aboriginal natives and or the indigenous. Like it or not. This legal consideration led me to consider if I could see this benefit as an individual, maybe, think tanks full of psychopaths brighter than me, who are hell bent on the acquisition of our land could too. And thus, we, or at least me, can see a motive for modern day colonialist destabilization of the west, along race, and spirituality lines, one that ends in a process of genocide. This scenario has been publicly debated and raised in a myriad of fashions, on a myriad of platforms, so my interpretation is just and extension of that open discourse. The dark part to the consideration is as far as I can statistically observe, though meta data, is it has resulted in current day murder or genocide, of aboriginal people, and their mixed-race relatives, who are bridges between the different races or family groups of people.
The extermination of woman and that process’s ability to kill nations is unquestionable. The question is not are they trying to kill off huge sections of the West’s population, as that is both a measurable and an observable given, the question is, is it non-discriminatory population control, or is it just straight-out genocide of targeted groups in the west? Meta data leads me to believe it is a statistical driven or targeted genocide. But who started it, and who perpetrates it now. Was this a process of neo feminism or woman’s science, to exterminate the uteruses, ovaries, and fallopian tubes of childbearing persons, or as they were historically called woman? Had they, whoever they are, othered people, until a state sanctioned and funded enterprise was created? Producing a sociological statistically driven apparatus to perpetrate genocide. There is no more effective way to terminate a culture than kill off its woman or sterilize them on mass, especially when their numbers are low to begin with. Why sterilize and neuter the woman? Because I presume, they have found out that murdering children is not well looked upon! You don’t have to kill the babies and children if they are not conceived. Sexually transmitted disease, and progressive ideology, have done an amazing job at exterminating female blood lines in the west, a highly ironic event for some feminists to learn, but not for this one to observe. How did I come up with this hypothesis, I extrapolated from Margret Sanger’s work. Margret Sangers work would and has enable mass baby elimination. Later others would extend on her eugenics train of thought in the west, and it would become adult murder as people went down the slippery slope of euthanasia, to the outright murder of healthy adults, via public health care, or a state sponsored system. From her work, she would go onto produce a statistically targeting medical industrial complex apparatus, that would extinguish or kill millions of unborn or not yet conceived foetuses, or as they were historically called babies. Her work was aided with the use of group speak and group think. In what could only be described as a state funded and sanctioned genocidal murder machine. Her ability and desire to exterminate the existence of black foetuses, historically called babies by some, is legendary on the net, and a little look into her motives should leave the hairs on every black, or mixed-race woman, on the planet standing on end. With her revealing in a letter, that and to quote, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population..." in a Letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939, p. 2
How prophetic it was that at 4:48 in the YouTube techno hit, “Burn your village to the ground” by The Halluci Nation, a man says, and to quote, “…they have to kill us, they have to kill us, because they can’t break our spirit…” that man was John Trudell. Here is a link to that YouTube music video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNi__fnadTM (Please note, there are graphic depictions of genocide, or mass murder shown, and it can be argued that those images should be viewed by adults only, or at least by a mature audience under supervision, and with wise adult guidance). When I first heard him say this, I was genuinely shocked, but on consideration, and with a little look at what happened to the indigenous around the world… I believe he had full, and firsthand knowledge, of the situation at hand. Looking at what Margeret Sanger had planned for black Americans, I can only concur with Trudell. And after a few months of letting it sink in, I had concluded my contemplation on what he had said, and, although still being shocked or confronted by his words, what he said I concluded in his short sentence, was utterly, and profoundly, true.
I like to do extrapolations both mathematical, and all manner of types of correlation and causations within my capabilities, because they generate subsequent considerations of interest in me. To trigger a few people, I do my own research. When I come across things that interest me, and I become inquisitive about things I deem as important, I look further. I had a look at what Mr Trudell said and its application and or implications to other groups of Americans, Black and White. It seemed almost like a dogma being applied currently on many fronts for all Americans, regardless of race, due to their resilience and adaptability. It had been tried before openly, and in wide open public view on the indigenous Americans and the black Americans. Whoever they are, seems to have just kept on going, finding new methods, and new groups, to apply genocide to, for the process to continue. That process is measurable, and identifiable genocide.
Part of the webster definition of what is an American, is and to quote “...a native or inhabitant of North America or South America…”. For me at least the key word is native, and the question it raises in me, is when and who does this apply to, or where does it start and end? Is it all Americans? I have written about writing from a distance about America in isolation here in Australia, and how sometimes it is beneficial. I can write in hindsight, unincumbered by the pressure to respond instantly to events, and it is especially advantages when contemplating the differences and similarities between Australia and the US. I concur and extend on John Trudell, the American, and or, its native or American spirit cannot be exterminated, someone is going to have to kill the owners of it, if they want to overthrow America. So, they, whoever they are, are giving it a good shot. Mr Trudell nailed it. Whoever is perpetrating genocide in the west and killing off Americans or “…we the people… “is doing it, because their spirit cannot be quashed. It should be noted that they are not discriminating on race now, when it comes to who they kill, as they are now killing blacks, whites, and natives, in what appears to be a demographically selective process. Boy have they been busy and gotten to work.
Previously the killing of the west could not be accomplished externally, so lest all thank the American military industrial complex for that. It could only be destroyed from within, but that is not the case anymore. How do they exterminate the people of the Americas, North and South. Via their own hands and words. The elephant in the room is, who could now move Americans against Americans and who are they? It is not a question of if it is happening, it is a question of who is doing it, and how are they manipulating the people, as in “…we the people…”, to be complicit, in such a diabolical series of events. A series of events, that have ended, and end, in Americans murdering other Americans. And where on further observation in the west, westerners now murder each other, for their own perceived safety and good?
Is Germ warfare being used on our own people? It is a horrible question, but I am going to ask it anyway. And I am going to have a look at the water shed moment of the 60s sexual revolution. The 60s saw the spread of enough VD to kill millions of US and western children or babies before they were born regardless of race. Yes, I just approached the where does life begin paradigm, or the conundrum, and found genocide. Ironically it is not murder under the now common definitions of group think, and group speak. Genocide has been rebranded as sexual liberation and not statistical sterilization, ending, and or, enabling genocide. Doubly ironic, is it effected the intellectuals mostly, in the summer of love. Latter it would spread through their use of drugs and the indoctrination of their children into an orgy of mass fornication. The whole process was aided by drugs that promoted hyper sexualization of the liberal left. From there it was a domino effect to the greater number, but less educated, and more religious, lower socioeconomic groups, essentially encompassing “…we the people…” Raising the question, who needs smallpox infested blankets to murder the Americans regardless of their race, when you can get them to hump themselves into a disease riddled oblivion? Martin Niemöller is utterly quotable in this instance, and a read of his most prophetic statement or poem can be a source of inspiration and insight for many, in my belief. It leaves you asking the question who are they, or who were they? It was a question posed by this very wise man, and interestingly he never directly says who they are.
This is his poem.
First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Looking at the American indigenous. First, they came for the warriors regardless of colour creed or denomination, taking their guns. They then came for the religious or spiritual people and tried to exterminate those religious or spiritual people. They tried in vain to destroy their beliefs and teachings. Then they went after the woman and children. When that wasn’t aloud, they then got the woman and children to go after themselves, in an act of induced insanity. Like Martin Niemöller, I cannot identify the instigators, but I can see their effect. To insert some black humour, and in general I was never a fan of the show, this seen in the Simpsons, can be viewed www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFCgz959ARY. Just imagine, visualize, think, or insert different groups of Americans into the Simpsons family’s seats. Kind of like the Milgram experiment, on satirical steroids. Here is a wiki link to a description of the Milgram experiment en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_ It was an experiment where people were duped into believing they were doing good when they were not. The university system may not have looked at this paper in a long while or forgotten it. But I have not forgotten the principle once it was introduced to me. Ironically the universities may have felt immune or above the results of the experiment. But they have become the perpetrators, or vector, for the very thing they said they were there to stop, ie. harm.
We can list, or go through massacre, after massacre, of people during the colonization of the Americas, but I will not. Instead, I will take a closer look at a small number of murdered people. At university in a subject dedicated to the topic of genocide, I looked at and wept, at the mass murder of my family, by other members of my family. The part that made me weep was the consideration of mathematics and physics related to the event, and the consideration that every life is of immeasurable and unquantifiable value. The consideration was done via the extended theorisation and analysis of a small number. I wept off and on for days at what I saw, as I came to grips with what had happened to my family, but despite that I will take another look here too.
By looking at what appears to be a small number of women and children that were wounded, but then died of their injuries. These woman and children were seen as subhuman, but were not, they were very human. Just what happened to them was inhuman. Those people are the 47 woman and children that died of their wounds during the massacre at Wounded Knee. Consideration of these woman and children produces some shocking and chilling considerations in maths, as to how many people their families would have produced today. I will qualify my statement before going on, by saying when I use the words small number, that it is in no way a reflection of the cost, suffering, and misery their slaughter would have caused. And I hope to show that that, relatively small number when amplified over time produces a horrific number, that no human should feel emotionally immune or isolated from. When considering this number, I looked at Shindler. Shindler was a German industrialist, here is a link to the wiki page, for the movie that immortalised him in the west, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schindler%27s_List Shindler had saved about 1200 jews from the German gas chambers of world war two, and today their descendants are in the order of 7000. With exponential population growth this number, and all things not considered, this relatively small number, should become a larger number over time with more babies. That number will or should increase exponentially to a point. And the mathematics of the dead and their progeny when time is considered infinite becomes a very large number. It is a flawed, and highly simplistic isolated theoretical look, at the growth of a population of people. But the consideration of large numbers can help a person, get a grasp of the potential magnitude, of an event, or events. A small number of humans in this case can become a large number over time.
Despite these acts of genocide being a war crime, that is commemorated for all to see, people have recently in the west committed two things on mass. One, the error in thought that it would not happen again, let alone in the west. And two, the error in hubris that it could not happen to them, and or, that they would be the perpetrators of that genocide. But it has happened on both counts with modern techniques. How did it happen so fast? The west has now become tribal under university or higher education teaching, and or the dogma, spread by the influence, of the pseudo intellectual left. The group taught on mass not to other, now others everyone they can. They the left, left us all wide open for a blindside of colonial techniques to be used on us, and thus they let it spread to the greater community, or “…we the people…” What causes it was selective outrage on genocide and selective outrage on sex-based abuses. It was compounded by the ignorance of not being able to see, that foreign actors would profit or capitalize from that selective outrage. As it turned out by pitting citizen against citizen, apparently, “…we the people of the west where not people…” “…with unalienable rights...” we were not “…one nation…” of “…indivisible…” people, we were not people “…with liberty and justice for all…”.” We the people” of western nations turned out instead to be a rabble. But I can only hope it is at least hopefully, for a transient period.
Part of the old tried and true processes of colonialism is othering. Essentially 101 of colonialism. To enable othering, first you find the tribes that had a history of conflict between each other. The example of wounded knee comes back into play in the discussion of othering. As not to be left out are serval relevant sociological points on othering can be found in the above incident at Wounded Knee. One is that people can be conditioned to consider some groups of people to be of so little value that you can murder them on mass, the other is that these people can be conditioned to kill woman and children in cold blood, then take their photos so as to celebrate the incident, as if what they had did was something wonderful. The MO, or modus operandi, of othering a person or group to murder was and is to stoke that fire, or conflict, between groups or tribes, give them weapons to fight each other, but not enough power to be independent. The result is thus, get the tribes to murder each other, while you sit by and profit from that murder. Essentially the first rule of colonial conquest as taught in class 101 of colonialism at university. Furthermore, get them to divulge secrets about the other tribes, so that those secrets, could be capitalized on, when it came to their subjugation, or murder. This type of selective outrage or outright genocidal hypocrisy generated by othering was very observable in the me to movement when it comes to their hypocrisy in the treatment of indigenous woman and the treatment of Judaeo Christian children or woman. Later it spread or come from the UN or United Nations. They othered what could essentially be described as white men in an indiscriminate, blatant contradiction empowered by absolute contempt for due process, a fundamental of the law. Harvey Weinstein sexualized female adults with psychological manipulation and went to jail for it, but the left or the me to movement seem to be silent when it comes to sexualization of children, and the manipulation of those children into performing sex acts by the pseudo intellectual left, for their social profit. In an almost parallel of Weinstein, they the left substituted adult woman for children and they did it on mass. It appears some females and children are worth more than others, and we are not all created equal before the law, or to be precise, at least under the new leftist pseudo morality.
They the leftists then applied themselves against the nations that they should have been there to protect, the ones that had subsidised or funded their educations, or indoctrination. Colonialism continues in different forms, through divide and conquer, and the lies used to achieve it are aided by psychological manipulation. Mark Twain wrote and to quote "The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. ... How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!" according to my copilot.
Another case I found of great interest was the disappearance of, or the outright murder, or worse of 174 Canadian indigenous women, who have just vanished into thin air. It got some air play but didn’t seem to draw much worldwide scrutiny and even less critical thought from the international white left and right, especially when compared to other more recent but smaller white atheist tragedies, like the misgendering of children. All they the left seemed to do, was politized the horror story for media exploitation, while doing nothing, not to mention not report their potential proactive role in the process, that caused those women to be vanished into thin air. It did not end there as running parallel to these disappearances was the political move by the Canadian left to reintroduced and rebirth past atrocities from Canadian history. How did they do it? They did it with the aid of the modern-day arts humanity’s faculty. Somehow, despite all the waffling talk, and the best efforts of everyone, they managed to reconstruct the effects and processes of Canadian residential schools.
Like in Macbeth, the bloody hands cannot be washed clean, and it just seems to keep on cascading further out of control, and deeper into madness. We have an expression here in Australia and it is called a shit stain, in this case the abuse of woman and children is an utter shit stain on humanity that will and would not go away. Canada should not feel alone as here in the land of OZ, non-Christian atheists have used the public school system as indoctrination centres, or daytime social re-education camps for children. Just like the residential schools where the objective was to take the Indian out of the Indian, or to commit cultural genocide. The new school curriculum was designed here in Australia and the west to strip the Christians of the last vestiges of their religion or spirituality. It ended the same way as it did when the aboriginal protectorate board here in Australia took mixed race children from their parents and stripped them of any chance of their traditional teachings. People ended up hiding their children in bushes, so they were not taken away from their parents and or families. Or in the modern-day iteration of a repeat of history, they the persecuted would try to home school their children to protect and hide them from cultural and spiritual genocide.
The old Australian aboriginal protectorate board was responsible for the sexual farming out of some female children to some white Australians as domestic servants. And ironically the new age new world order atheists, would sexualize children and indoctrinate them on mass, in a process of state sanctioned and legally enforced grooming. A sexualization of children, that what would unfortunately leave the Australian numbers of raped indigenous girls used for sexual gratification in the homes that were meant to protect them to shame. Moving back to Canada, Despite or possibly outright because of it, it seems like residential schools were used as a smoke screen for the left, as they practiced and reintroduce the process of state sanctioned child obduction, and cultural genocide for selected white and black Canadians. Part of that process was to try to reengineer Canadian’s children on the biochemical level, manipulate their psychology and or disfigure them with scalpels. It was and is a process that leaves the promises of not repeating the residential school’s horrific results, to an utter shameless lie. The state turned into Jack the ripper, and Dr Frankenstein in the space of less than one generation, with social sciences that had taken generations to build and apply. While the public or “…we the people…” became the mob chasing all of the above, with torches into the night. It was all achieved, as the leaders of democratic countries, and a republic, did not obey the wills of their people, or the new age plebians, as some would have you believe they are. Fundamental human rights of children, and woman, to be protected from harm’s way, where “Gone with the Wind”, in a pollical battle for a populist win at the ballot box.
The left in its zealot like zeal to do good, or at least that is what they are saying they are consciously doing “…pathed a way to hell, with good intentions….” (to quote a Portuguese proverb) for millions of families. With what have been called good intentions, members of the government and the supposed higher educated or intellectual classes once again used the schools to do it. No Catholics required it seems this time. In fact, in total irony of the media propagated and promoted big government narrative, Catholics where and are being arrested for trying to stop the travesty. So, if it cannot be blamed on the Catholics this time, what or who is the common denominator? And what is the common objective for those adding and abetting the genocide. The common objective was as far as I can see is unaccountable murder, and the desire for unaccountable control. And to achieve that power grab it was aided and abetted via university or peer approved definitions of words. It enabled them to butcher little kids with blades, and sterilizing many with puberty blockers, under state encourage and enforced programs, created by the leftist state. They enforced it by legal orders. But what was the motive? Do they even know? How does this relate to a discussion on the genocide of woman? Well, if you can’t sterilize or murder the mother, you may as well sterilize her kids under state sanction and legal order, it appears?
Via university definitions of language, the atrocities didn’t end there. In a populist echo chamber the pseudointellectual left at universities worked out not just how to redefine a baby as an embryo up to full term, but they also worked out how to sell it with propaganda, in a fallacy of logic. This sale of a utopian existence for woman that encapsulated a childless, partnerless, future for millions, was like selling KFC shares to chickens in battery pens, (to verbally adapt one of the funniest Facebook memes I have ever seen). Whoever did it deserve a Nobel prize in advertising. Or at least a person of the year picture on the front of Time magazine. With VD being left untreated and or uncured in many cases, woman where both sterilized and neutered in a process that could be easily described as nothing other than genocide with no one to be held accountable, but the woman themselves. Some on the right blamed the women’s lax morals but they were wrong. It had been promoted and indoctrinated by the groups that withheld treatment or cure to those women. Although baby murder may be permitted on a word technicality, as far as I know genocide of blood lines and cultures are not. And to be noted the technicality that enabled the execution of both events via a few degrees of separation was the use of group think and group speak.
Canada produces a gold mine of inquiry, into the processes of state sanctioned genocide, and it is a very interesting case study when looking at the legislation for the euthanasia of the poor, or the people that had been selectively made poor by them, the leftist Canadian government. Who would question the ability of the left after that, to not offer euthanasia for women suffering depression for their childless, partnerless, existences. All the while they the pseudo intellectual left and their allies of diverse descriptions, perpetrated cultural genocide on Christianity and Christians. Where did or do they perpetrate it? The process occurs globally or all over the world, but it gets very little mainstream media air play. Not ironically, the leftists don’t block streets for months in unison with Christians, to protest mass murder, that is almost unmentionable outside of Christian chat pages. Chat pages now deemed as Christian nationalist hot beds of anti-democratic gatherings. Gatherings said to be against the state, by some in the pseudo leftist media, and weaponised law enforcement agencies.
I have a shirt that says “…if the government says you don’t need a gun, you need a gun!!!”. It had an American Indian man on it. I presume it was in reference to the slaughter of disarmed Aboriginal Americans murdered in cold blood by government forces, on their own land, once they had been disarmed. For me it is a very pro-American constitution or bill of rights statement. The shirt is a few sizes too big as I ordered an American size from here in Oz, so it looks like a skirt on me. I never wear it much if at all because of that. Despite that, I think it is very profound. Now it seems that if the government and pseudo left wing media, say, you should not have a media outlet, I would argue, to paraphrase my shirt, you need a media outlet. And you need them both for the same reason, your protection. Not so ironically both things are covered for in the American bill of rights. They were deemed so important that they the founding non birthing people, or as they were historically known the founding fathers, put them number one and two.
It appears that aboriginal Canadians and Christians now have something in common, and it is their attempted genocide. Attempted genocide of both of their blood lines and of their cultures. With someone or something instigating that process and sitting outside of the murderous anarchy. The left falls silent when it comes to the cultural and actual genetic genocide of Christians on a global scale. Why? Isn’t all life worth saving? Or is it that only the left, and the lefts supposed allies are worthy of life, and a self-determined existence, determined by the left. Apparently, all life is not worth saving, and we don’t all have “…unalienable rights…”
The numbers show the slow but sure death or stagnation of western populations, and a rapid genocide of its culture. But they are not alone, it had been perpetrated on the natives first, now it is applied to all north Americans, and to varying degrees most countries in the West. Where is the outcry from other feminists against the sterilization of millions of women and girls liberated of their sexual constraints? Where is the outcry for woman and girls of all races, denominations, and demographics in the west by the left? Why are these deaths of unborn children or babies not seen to be of the same value as colonized Americans or the murdered indigenous, by the left? Or hideously not ironic, in this inquiry, it can be asked, are they all considered on the same subhuman level by some? After having their woman murdered, their children stolen, sexualized, groomed, raped, and sterilized what will be the response of” …we the people...”???
They the left don’t seem to like, or use guns very much, as they I presume, know they are outnumbered on that front, well for the moment at least. Like any good army in that situation, they have chosen to out flank their opponents. Their opponents the constitutionalists, and their pesky second amendment, where outflanked by the left abusing the first amendment on mass. Not satisfied there, and enamoured by a blitzkrieg of success, they tried, or are trying it appears to reword, rewrite, or destroy the whole document, that has protected their families for several centuries. That document is the American constitution. The pseudo intellectual left has been involved at every point. They have think tanks, think tanks where they weaponize their own words, then ironically call others words violence. It is like a gorilla action, or pincer movement on the first amendment. Words that are used to attack it, the constitution, are part of language constructs, produced for the logic gating of people. They the left are involved in inciting violence with words, (as words are not violence per say), then said they were using them to create peace… They produced language constructs that logic gated people into doing things that are not in their favour. The right where duped or out flanked when they argued words where not violence, forgetting to add, that they can incite violence. They the intellectual left, logic gated millions of women into childlessness, and neutered them to boot, with the statistical outcomes via their use of language, at universities. Language recited verbatim by the reporters who did not report, and a mainstream media, that did not apply critical thought to what they were saying. Like cattle they were led to the slaughter for following the lefts new age new world order mantras.
It leaves the question as to who is prompting these people of the left to press the electric shocker until the person or peoples they are meant to be helping die? Or to be more literal and not use an analogy, based on the Milgram experiment, who prompts these people to commit genocide, on mass, for the perceived greater good? Who gets these people to commit Hara-kiri before the idol of the left. And why cannot they see what they are doing? Like good Zero pilots in a kamikaze act for the empire, the left sacrifice millions of woman’s breeding power, for a shadow emperor that is nowhere to be seen. There cannot be to many degrees of separation between the instigators and the perpetrators. So, who are they? Why is the death or nonexistence of so many babies, or children, caused by the neutering and or murder of their mothers, not up for constant public debate and scrutiny. Maybe because the left will not be critical of itself, as it can do no wrong. These considerations are not far right-wing propaganda, they are the very thing that the left use as mantras for their group speak and group think, but don’t do. Where is their commitment to a universal stance against genocide, that isn’t a selective biased application, or literally a front to commit the very act itself? Many white North Americans may have forgotten something, that something, is they are part of nations, and those nations help make up the people of the Americas.
How does the current or past genocide help any American? And as a feminist I must ask openly are American and the wests females under attack regardless of race? Are they weeding out the intellectuals first, with VD and old age childlessness, as their ovaries shrivel up? These are rhetorical questions. And it must be noted that I once said that the only people who can bring down an American president are the American people, and I latter extrapolated that the same could be said for its society. And to leave with yet another set of questions as always. Who, or what, stokes these tragedies to occur, and or, who is profiting from these current day colonialist like internal conflicts in the West?
Two U.S. Air Force Rockwell International (now part of Boeing) B-1B "Lancer's" assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, flew from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for a 10-hour mission, flying in the vicinity
of Kyushu, Japan, the East China Sea, and the Korean peninsula, Aug. 8, 2017. During the mission, the B-1s were joined by Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15s as well as Republic of Korea Air Force F-15s, performing two sequential bilateral missions. These flights with Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) demonstrate solidarity between Japan, ROK and the U.S. to defend against provocative and destabilizing actions in the Pacific theater.
"Sandbanks Provincial Park is a provincial park located on Lake Ontario in Prince Edward County near Picton, Ontario, Canada. The park is considered one of the best sandy beaches in Ontario and contains the largest bay-mouth barrier dune formation in the world. The 1,550.87-hectare (3,832.3-acre) park was established in 1970 and operates year round.
The dunes were formed by glaciers 12,500 years ago.[6] In the 1880s, due to a combination of timber cutting and poor farming practices, the soil inland from the sand dunes had become destabilized and the sand dunes were able to drift inland, increasing in size. In 1881, the West Point Road was buried under 30 metres (98 ft) of sand and the town of Athol, Ontario was forced to relocate after facing a similar event. In the 1920s, Sandbanks was the site of an intense reforestation project. The sand dunes extended over a further 34 hectares (85 acres). To recreate the Carolinian forest that had pre-existed there, the reforestation project used poplar to prevent the sand dunes from burying roads and orchards.[7]
Development of Sandbanks Provincial Park began in the 1960s. A development plan submitted in February 1964 placed a paved road through the sand dunes. After protests due to the damage that would cause to the dunes, the plan was abandoned and Parks Ontario pledged to protect the dunes.[8] The park was established in 1970."
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Hispaniola, a Caribbean island smack dab in the hurricane belt, is known as the hurricane shredder. That's because the island has five distinct mountain ranges, with Pico Duarte, at 10,128 ft (3,087 meters) above sea level, as the highest peak in the Antilles. These mountains literally reach into passing hurricanes and disrupt the system, not only slowing the system, but literally shearing and destabilizing the directional winds with their immovable presence.
The mountains of western North Carolina affect weather in much the same way... this tree from along the Craggy Pinnacle trail at Craggy Gardens gives evidence of that. I've watched from the top of Craggy Pinnacle as cold air from the west collides with warm air from the east... clouds form, swirl, and move off directly overhead of these high ridges. These mountains often divert harsh colder weather north into Virginia, which is partly why we enjoy overall temperate weather where I live in Durham, some 200 miles east of here. Often, when it snows in Durham (which isn't very often) it has already snowed further south in Atlanta, Georgia. Those frontal systems push under the Appalachian Chain, meet warm air from off the coast, and push back up into North Carolina. These kinds of frontal collisions produce wind, and in the case of where this photo was taken, that wind is quite incessant and often high speed... that, along with cold temperatures and low clouds, can create a pretty harsh environment.
Patience is a necessity for any nature photographer... here, even the most patient can become quite frustrated waiting out the combination of "just right" light and wind. This tree, however, exhibits the ultimate in patience. The trail follows the ridge for a good ways, but from about where this tree is, the ridge rises sharply with many exposed rocks dominating that rise. That's obviously of no matter to this tree as it wraps its roots around the rocks to firmly establish its place on the mountain... it persists against the harsh elements and won't be bullied by the wind as it protects the understory beneath it.
Craggy Gardens, near milepost 375 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, is so named because of the proliferation of beautiful Catawba rhododendron that grow there... but, as with many things, there are stories within stories that shouldn't be missed. Be sure to see the notes here.
The front runner's massive lead among the party faithful has me once again despairing that conservatives just don't get it (to recycle a criticism from a past election).
A wall...?!! It's going to take more than a wall. That's not even "thinking outside the box", and what it's really going to take is some thinking outside the perimeter wire. Like, say, some of that there "job creation" among those of my neighbors who give my part of town the nickname "Little Saigon", who probably won't be averse to a juicy government contract to import all those punji stakes, because it's going to require 1900-some-odd miles of those plus another 1900+ of concertina wire, with machine gun positions and four-deuce mortar pits every 50 meters or so with interlocking fields of fire, God knows how many Claymores and enough command-detonated 55-gallon drums of fougasse to force us back to those of odd/even plate number days at the pumps we all recall so fondly from the Seventies, with an unbroken chain of firebases a few miles to the rear to provide artillery support. And, if he's really serious about interdicting the Ho Chi Menendez Trail, we're going to need a 50-mile-deep free fire zone where if so much as a Mexican bean jumps, we ARC LIGHT every madref-----g grid square from Matamoros to Tiajuana.
But even all that is just TOO conservative, the sort of effort that's about 15/32nds short of a half-measure, precisely the kind of meaningless gesture that we've consistently seen out of congressional conservativettes under Crybaby Boehner and, from what I've seen so far, what we can continue to expect with the guy who's waffling between the Charles Atlas and Maynard G. Krebs look. Besides, it's a plan based on our weakness rather than playing on our strength. As Patton's romp through Europe in '44-45 proved, and was reconfirmed by the Gulf War and the initial phase of the Iraq War (and proven in the negative by Vietnam and Iraqistan since 2003), if there is one thing that the United States Army absolutely excels at, it's the division-level drive-by shooting.
Therefore, fuzzy-thinking Liberal that I've become, I propose a much more expansive Big Government Spending Program to SOLVE the problem. Namely, have everybody at Hood, Bliss, Riley and Carson mount up, head out the main gate and DRIVE SOUTH! I figure by the time 1st Cav and 1st Armored are holding at PHASE LINE AY CHIHUAHUA! six klicks south of Mexico City waiting for 1st and 4th ID to finish mopping up, security along el viejo Rio Grande will have become pretty much a non-issue.
On a serious note (and I do trust that everyone realizes that I had my tongue planted firmly in my cheek in writing the foregoing; well, except for the part about invading Mexico, of course--you can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the boy), what really worries me about the lunatic wing of the party's adoration of The Donald is that I don't trust him, and am just astounded that so many of them have been fooled into doing so.
To begin with, he IS a Republican, which means he talks a good fight but once he wins the election, taking the oath of office will be the only real accomplishment of his entire administration. If voting for those lying, double-dealing, two-faced, back-stabbing bastards for forty-plus years has taught me anything, it's that Richard Nixon was not only the first of them I ever voted for, he's still the best of them. And even he wimped out in the end. As the saying goes, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and Republicans only have one: roll over and play dead.
More importantly, I believe the most serious problem confronting the United States today is our shrinking middle class and their even-more-rapidly-shrinking real income. There is a reason "bourgeois" is the F-bomb equivalent in commie lexicon, and why so much commie agit-prop hammers at and attempts to discredit, destabilize, demoralize and destroy the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, the middle class, are the backbone of the civilized world, and no Christian democracy can survive without them. They are most certainly what The Greatest Generation, who won WW II and then came home to make America the world power and Middle Class Heaven on Earth it was in the twenty years after, were. They're dying out, the number of their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who have remained in their socioeconomic strata are becoming fewer and fewer every year, and those who remain find ourselves paying higher and higher prices to stay there, while working longer and longer hours at jobs that provide less and less real income to pay for the privilege. We have hit the point where we in the middle can no longer do a proper job of taking care of the poor, and certainly can't enjoy the dubious luxury of tolerating an increasingly self-indulgent wealthy class--especially an increasingly self-centered and unpatriotic CEO class. And I don't see The Donald as the man to do anything about it, unless it's everything in his power to make the situation even worse. As his supporters like to point out, he's a successful businessman. They are 100% right, of course, but they seem incapable of grasping the obvious, that that's precisely 100% the danger: he IS a successful businessman, and no successful businessman ever became a billionaire by giving a fat rat's ass about the working class, or failing to screw 'em over any way he could, every chance he got.
It's not that I don't understand his appeal to the party base. It's obviously symptomatic of our growing frustration with the unrelenting failure of the GOP to represent us in a meaningful way, to whine and bleat and blather incessantly about the problems but never, ever get them solved like we elected them to do, and in comparison to the others he does SEEM to be saying what needs to be said. I mean, after all those years hearing all that phony sincerity about "my respected colleague, my closest friend and esteemed opponent" being jabber-babbled on the debate stage, it IS kind of refreshing to hear The Donald make it plain that Carly Fiorina is so damned ugly he wouldn't do her with Jeb Bush's erectile dysfunction, nor would he piss up the rest of 'em's asses even if the sorry bastards' guts were on fire. But...if you listen between the lines, it's just the same old Crapola - Breakfast of Losers with a new picture on the box. Just like all the others, he's got his favorite Scripture passage, as if he wasn't a business man whose god is The Almighty Dollar and he worships no other (or as if you didn't have a better chance of finding a Christian child pornographer than a Christian politician), and, yes--rah-rah-rah it's a grand old flag!--him and his third or fourth or seventeenth or whichever mail order Bolshevik babushka he's on now love America with all their Red, White and Blue hearts. It's not a wall, it's a smokescreen, the same old hypocritical Bible Thumping and Flag Waving and Fear Mongering to keep us from seeing that we're getting the business as usual, and the only difference between him and the other betrayers is that he managed to finagle considerably more than thirty pieces of silver for his soul.
Presidents don't create jobs, businesses create jobs, and we only need to ask ourselves a few questions about The Donald's record as a "successful businessman"--and view the answers in light of the old business law, "The boss is always right", and its corollary, "Since the boss is incapable of error, if things are screwed up it must be because the boss wants them to be screwed up"--to know just how much we can expect out of a President Trump. So, how many steel workers have good jobs at the rolling mills of Trump Steel in Pittsburgh? How many engineers, stylists and assembly line workers are on the massive payroll at that massive Trump Motors plant in Detroit? How many pilots, mechanics, dispatchers, ticket agents and what have you are pocketing fat pay envelopes for keeping all those Boeing Triple-7s flying in Trump Airways International's scheduled service? How many engineers and machinists and sheet metal workers are making the big bucks at Trump Aerospace? How many train crews and track gangs and yard and backshop hands does the Trump Pacific R.R. have getting a good paychecks every week and looking forward to a comfortable pension--and how many crack passenger trains do they have in service? Once upon a time in America we had industries like that, industries that made us The Arsenal of Democracy and The Envy of the World, with millions of Americans having secure, and securely middle class, jobs in them, because American--that is, REAL American--Captains of Industry wanted things that way. We don't have them anymore, we have minimum wage plus tips service jobs instead, because The Donald and all his breed of Corporate Thugs found out they could maximize their personal profits by simply selling off--and selling out--their country. And now he wants us to reward his treason by giving him the most prestigious job in the world?
Because regulations prohibit the carrying of weapons in polling places, I may have to turn a one-off incident into a Family Tradition this time around. My great grandmother voted in every single election she could vote in from the time women got the vote until she died in the 1970s, except for one. In 1960, being a good Baptist she couldn't bring herself to vote for that papist Kennedy, but, being an Eleanor Roosevelt clone right down to the klunky toes of her sensible shoes, she sure as hell couldn't vote for "that snake in the grass Republican Nixon". I now have a much more sympathetic appreciation of her predicament. I sure as hell can't vote for that snake in the grass Republican Trump, and thanks to those aforementioned weapons laws, I can't hold a gun to my head and force myself to vote for Hillary.
On an artistic and historical note, those of you familiar with military history, and with the life of George S. Patton, Jr., in particular, may have looked at the helmet of our LUCKY (REEEEEEALLY) FORWARD heroine here and thought that, ever the stickler for uniform regulations, Patton wouldn't have tolerated a brigadier general (or a major general or a lieutenant general, for that matter) running around with the chin strap unhooked like that. But in this case he couldn't have said anything, because, if you'll look again, she's NOT a brigadier general. Altogether, she's wearing as many stars as Georgie had (although one of them IS a bit smaller, due to the limited room for maneuver in the area of operations, so to speak). Whatever his misgivings about her chin strap might have been, however, I'm pretty sure Old Blood'n'Guts would have looked favorably upon the kind of kick-ass pole dancing moves she could make in her spit-shined M1940 3-buckle cavalry boots!
It was perfectly simple op. Board the station, clear any resistance, set the engines to overload, and get the hell out of there. Expect light resistance, small arms and class 2 body armor. Textbook sabotage. Nothing we can't handle. I told the boys to stay frosty anyway, because those clowns in intel couldn't find their asses with both hands and an astrogation console.
I hate it when I'm right.
We cleared the airlock without any trouble, put down a couple of guards, and double timed it in the direction of the engineering deck. Sykes took point with Northup and Elridge close behind, and I brought up the rear looking for stragglers.
I don't know what Sykes was thinking. This is an intrasystem heavy lifter, so maybe he thought the hazard stripes were for cargo or equipment or something. Whatever the case, I was the only one out of four trained operatives to recognize the telltale signs of the security grid--a high-intensity molecular destabilizer. I was halfway through shouting a warning when it flared into life with a flash of crimson light from the emitters.
Northup and Elridge were lucky. At the sound of my voice their training kicked in, and they threw their center of gravity back. The grid flashed across their weapons--narrowly missing their hands--and began a chain reaction, both of them watching in horror as their weapons glowed cherry red and started evaporating.
Sykes was already passing the grid as it fired up, and it caught not only his SMG but his head and upper body as well. I suppose there are worse ways to go; he didn't even have time to scream as he began disintegrating from the top down, his forward momentum carrying the rest of his body into the grid.
This is from series of photos that I took in North Africa and the Middle East in 2008. I was lucky enough to travel through these areas a few years before the current destabilization. In my solo travels from Morocco to Pakistan I experienced nothing but warmth and generosity from the people I met. Without the help and support of countless strangers it would have been impossible to complete this long overland journey.
To say we live in tumultuous times is an understatement. But is it one we could have predicted? Prognostication has always interested humanity. Who wouldn’t like to know the future? We’re always looking for signs and pathways from the historical (Nostradamus) to the sketchy (astrologers and palm readers). We want to be prepared and know what to expect. Data is now the currency of prediction. The stock market and politicians rely on past performances and historical trends to predict market swings and elections. But as we’ve learned, polls often fail to tell us what’s coming. It’s not the data; it’s the interpretation that fails us.
I look at a person’s past behavior, whether a friend or a public figure, to predict what they will do or say—how they will act. People are generally consistent. But I see it only as a guide, and sometimes I’m wrong. But a general sense is good enough for me. It’s a way of protecting myself and my expectations.
In 2000, Radiohead released their album, Kid A. It was a massive reset for them. “Kid A was Radiohead’s first No. 1 album in the U.S. Its foreboding music and non sequitur lyrics were off-putting to critics and fans at first. But today, they evoke the feeling of everyday life, from ‘glitchy cell reception’ and ‘decontextualized social-media updates’ to ‘the modern reality of omnipresent technological interconnectivity at the expense of genuine human connection,’” says music critic Steven Hyden in his book, This Isn’t Happening.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Hyden says, “When you heard the album in 2000, it didn’t make sense—as rock music, as a Radiohead record, even as songs. But when I listen to it now, it feels like what it’s like to experience daily life. We live in this world where we’re being inundated with information.” The 21-year-old Kid A conveys the destabilization we feel now. “We can’t really take it all in. We absorb as much as we can, the best we can, and we assume we’re right in the conclusions we make.”
Saul Bass’ 1968 iconic short film, Why Man Creates, celebrates the creative spirit, one that can sustain us as we traverse those ups and downs. The film notes the cyclic nature of our lives and humanity throughout. But there is one scene that always stops me when I come to it, a digression in the storyline in which two snails are talking with each other. One says to the other: “Have you ever thought that radical ideas threaten institutions, then become institutions, and in turn reject radical ideas which threaten institutions?” For one sentence, this packs quite a punch. This is the recurring nature of our civilization and our lives. A novel idea threatens accepted institutions and meets with resistance. Eventually, that idea may supplant the traditional thought until another discovery comes along and jeopardizes the sanctity of that belief. And, once again, it is met with resistance. People’s lives are made better or destroyed along this fault line.
Capitalism is a perfect example of this type of adjustment. For over a century, it has referred to an economic system in which privately or corporately owned companies produce products and services sustained by the accumulation and reinvestment of profits. During the duality of the Cold War, it was the bulwark against communism. Now, many, including politicians like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and CEOs such as Ray Dalio, Co-Chief Investment Officer & Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, are reimagining capitalism. Income inequality is at one of its highest points in our history. Each wants to restructure the system to reduce the profits going to mostly CEOs and stockholders (today American CEOs make 351 times more than workers; in 1965, it was only 15 to one) while including companies’ workers in the profits. This is a hard sell on Wall Street. And, along with other initiatives that aim to redistribute our country’s wealth, conservatives call this socialism. Fervent opposition greets the new idea that challenges the old paradigm.
Boomers like myself have lived history. We’ve experienced many of society’s cycles. Sometimes we’ve been taken to a precipice like the Cuban Missile Crisis or a shared sorrow like the assassination of John F. Kennedy or 9/11. And, because of that experience, we assume that as shocking as such events can be, we will bounce back. That’s the way it was. But is that the way it is now?
When I was young, the pace of these phases was slower than it is today. There were sharp jags every so often, but our culture’s main direction, while often chaotic, wasn’t inundated with the amount of conflicting information we receive today. The speed of change has accelerated so much that many try to put their feet on the brake pedal. I often hear my fellow Boomers wax poetic about the 1960s and 1970s (which were anything but optimistic). Time has a way of leveling those good and bad times. Our children, who’ve only experienced our current pace, are not immune to its effects. Depression and suicide amongst teens and young adults are at an all-time high.
Opposing messages bombard us hourly. Not only is this broadcasted to us, we actively engage each other with these contradictory ideas via social media. Boom, boom, boom. It’s debilitating. Today’s contradiction: should we get COVID booster shots? The FDA’s decision to greenlight it for people over 65 is far from a firm YES! The CDC is still monitoring the situation, and there is still a question of whether the science supports it. And, if so, when will we know? We’re looking for an answer now when we may not have one yet. Politicians and federal and state governments haven’t adjusted to this new norm any better.
The pandemic presents us with an ongoing dilemma. Forget the anti-vaxxers and vaccine-hesitants for a second. Even if you believe in science and the efficacy of vaccines, this is unfamiliar territory. Science isn’t “facts.” It represents a process by which we learn facts. And these facts can change. So, scientists may not know the answers or may differ in their opinions. And, as new information becomes available, they may even change their minds. Many accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci of flip-flopping when all he’s doing is altering his opinion based on updated findings. When scientific inquiry meets public expectations, anger ensues. For people expecting answers, this makes them anxious and suspicious. After a year and a half, many are tired and stressed with nothing definitive to go on. In the spring, we thought we might see the end of the pandemic. Euphoria broke out with talk of a new “Roaring 20s.” Then, along came the delta variant. Once again, we’re trapped in this sped-up loop of additional problems and updated solutions supplanting old ones over and over.
This acceleration of change and influx of ideas has led to greater polarization. The Constitution tells us we’re a nation of individuals with personal rights. But look what’s happening when we plant our feet firmly in our belief systems and cling to our biases. We aren’t agile enough to live with so many unknowns, so many buckle down. Our system of governance is not changing to meet this new reality and engender confidence. Our inability to address the pressing issues that divide us (affordable health care, reasonable gun control, addressing mental health, teaching critical thinking, just to name a few) led to the authoritarian presidency of Donald Trump. The Republican Party’s platform, based entirely on opposition, has kept us in the same place even after Trump has left office. Radiohead predicted this dystopian world. And here it is.
Can we acknowledge the truth of our lives right now? Unlike the game “Truth or Dare,” this is both a truth and a dare. The truth is, we are in the vortex where one idea challenges another multiple times a day. We’re overwhelmed and insecure. And that insecurity has consequences that exacerbate solutions. It’s not the data; it’s how we interpret it that’s important.
I’m also daring us to accept and use this reality to alter our lives. Not only must we survive this chaos, but we can also change our country’s trajectory by our own actions. If we don’t, we might lose it all.
Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).
See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.
Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.
A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Inner Asia. The structure consists of a flexible angled assembly or latticework of wood or bamboo for walls, a door frame, ribs (poles, rafters), and a wheel (crown, compression ring) possibly steam-bent as a roof. The roof structure is sometimes self-supporting, but large yurts may have interior posts supporting the crown. The top of the wall of self-supporting yurts is prevented from spreading by means of a tension band which opposes the force of the roof ribs. Yurts take between 30 minutes and 3 hours to set up or take down, and are generally used by between five and 15 people. Nomadic farming with yurts as housing has been the primary life style in Central Asia, particularly Mongolia, for thousands of years.
Modern yurts may be permanently built on a wooden or concrete platform; they may use modern materials such as metal framing, plastics, plexiglass dome, or radiant insulation.
Etymology and translations
Old Turkic yurt "tent, dwelling, abode, range" may have been derived from the Old Turkic word ur - verb with the suffix +Ut. In modern Turkish and Uzbek, the word "yurt" is used as the synonym of "homeland" or a "dormitory", while in modern Azerbaijani, "yurd" mainly signifies "homeland" or "motherland". In Russian, the structure is called "yurta" (юрта), whence the word came into English.
Translations
alaçıq/alaçık/alasıq – in use in Azerbaijani, Turkish and Bashkir languages.
гэр (transliterated: ger, [ˈɡɛr]) – in Mongolian simply means "cover, shell and home".
тирмә (transliterated: tirmä) is the Bashkir term for yurt.
киіз үй (transliterated: kiız üi, [kɪjɪz ʏj]) – the Kazakh word, and means "felt house".
боз үй (transliterated: boz üy, [bɔz yj]) – the Kyrgyz term meaning "grey house", because of the color of the felt.
ak öý ([ɑq œj], "white house") and gara öý ([ʁɑˈɾɑ œj], "black house") – in the Turkmen language, which term is used depends on its luxury and elegance.
qara u'y (IPA: [qɑrɑ́ ʉj]) and otaw ([uʊtɑ́w]) – in Karakalpak the first term means "black house", while the second means "a newborn family" and is used only to name a young family's yurt.
In Hungarian yurt is called "jurta". Besides the more scientific modern-era word "jurta", Hungarians in everyday life still use "sátor" for all tent-like dwellings, which could be the original word Hungarians used for yurts in historic times.
In Bulgarian yurt is called "юрта" (yurta).
"Kherga"/"Jirga" – Afghans call them.
"Khema" (خیمه /ख़ेमा) in Hindustani is the word for a yurt or a tent-like dwelling in India and Pakistan, from the Arabic: خَيْمَة
In Persian yurt is called چادر (châdor)
In Tajik the names are "yurt", "khona-i siyoh", "khayma" (юрт, хонаи сиёҳ, хайма).
өг (ög, Tuvan pronunciation: [œɣ]) is the Tuvan word for yurt.
кереге (kerege, /keɾeɣe/) is the Southern Altai word for a yurt made from felt.
A Yaranga is a tent-like traditional mobile home of some nomadic Northern indigenous peoples of Russia, such as Chukchi and Siberian Yupik.
History
Yurts have been a distinctive feature of life in Central Asia for at least two and a half thousand years. The first written description of a yurt used as a dwelling was recorded by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. He described yurt-like tents as the dwelling place of the Scythians, a horse riding-nomadic nation who lived in the northern Black Sea and Central Asian region from around 600 BC to AD 300.
Yurts beyond Central Asia
As popularity grew, it extended beyond Central Asia. In the 13th century, during the height of the Mongol Empire, yurts were introduced to parts of Europe and the Middle East. Marco Polo's writings even mentioned the use of yurts in the court of Kublai Khan. In more recent history, yurts have gained attention in the West for their unique aesthetics and practicality.
Construction
Traditional yurts consist of an expanding wooden circular frame carrying a felt cover. The felt is made from the wool of the flocks of sheep that accompany the pastoralists. The timber to make the external structure is not to be found on the treeless steppes, and must be obtained by trade in the valleys below.
The frame consists of one or more expanding lattice wall-sections, a door frame, bent roof poles, and a crown. The Mongolian ger has one or more columns to support the crown and straight roof poles. The (self-supporting) wood frame is covered with pieces of felt. Depending on availability, felt is additionally covered with canvas and/or sun covers. The frame is held together with one or more ropes or ribbons. The structure is kept under compression by the weight of the covers, sometimes supplemented by a heavy weight hung from the center of the roof. They vary in size and relative weight. They provide a large amount of insulation and protection from the outside cold of winters, and they are easily changed to keep the yurts cool for summertime.
A yurt is designed to be dismantled and the parts are carried compactly on camels or yaks to be rebuilt on another site. Complete construction takes around 2 hours
Insulation and decoration, symbolism
The traditional insulation and decoration within a yurt primarily consists of pattern-based woollen felted rugs. These patterns are generally not according to taste, but are derived from sacred ornaments with certain symbolism. Symbols representing strength are, for instance, the temdeg or khas (swastika), the four powerful beasts (lion, tiger, garuda – a kind of avian, and dragon), as well as stylized representations of the four elements (fire, water, earth, and air), considered to be the fundamental, unchanging elements of the cosmos. Such patterns are commonly used in the home with the belief that they will bring strength and offer protection.
Repeating geometric patterns are also widely used, like the continuous hammer or walking pattern (alkhan khee). Commonly used as a border decoration, it represents unending strength and constant movement. Another common pattern is the ulzii, a symbol of long life and happiness. The khamar ugalz (nose pattern) and ever ugalz (horn pattern) are derived from the shape of the animal's nose and horns, and are the oldest traditional patterns. All patterns can be found among not only the yurts themselves, but also on embroidery, furniture, books, clothing, doors, and other objects.
In Kyrgyz felted rug manufacturing the most common patterns are the Ala kiyiz and Shyrdak. Ornaments are visualising good wishes or blessings of the makers to a daughter who gets married, to children, or grandchildren.
The shangyrak or wooden crown of the yurt (Mongolian: тооно, [tɔːn]; Kazakh: шаңырақ, romanized: Shañıraq [ɕɑɴəɾɑ́q]; Kyrgyz: түндүк [tyndýk]; Turkmen: tüýnük) is itself emblematic in many Central Asian cultures. In old Kazakh communities, the yurt itself would often be repaired and rebuilt, but the shangyrak would remain intact, passed from father to son upon the father's death. A family's length of heritage could be measured by the accumulation of stains on the shangyrak from decades of smoke passing through it. A stylized version of the crown is in the center of the coat of arms of Kazakhstan, and forms the main image on the flag of Kyrgyzstan.
Today a yurt is seen as a national symbol among many Central Asian groups, and as such, yurts may be used as cafés (especially those specializing in traditional food), museums (especially those relating to national culture), and souvenir shops. In celebration of the city of Mary's year as Cultural Capital of the Turkic World, the government of Turkmenistan constructed a yurt-shaped structure, called Ak Öýi (White Building) and described as "The World's Largest Yurt", of concrete, granite, aluminum, and glass. Established on November 27, 2015, the structure is 35 meters high and 70 meters in diameter. According to the Turkmenistan state news agency, "A white yurt is a symbol of an age-old, distinctive historical-cultural legacy, a sign of preservation of our roots and origins." This three-story structure includes a café, offices, and VIP apartments ,as well as a large auditorium with 3,000 seats.
Buddhism in Mongolia
The design of the Mongolian ger developed from its ancient simple forms to actively integrate with Buddhist culture. The crown—toono adopted the shape of Dharmachakra. The earlier style of toono, nowadays more readily found in Central Asian yurts, is called in Mongolia "sarkhinag toono," while the toono representing Buddhist dharmachakra is called "khorlo" (Tibetan འཀོར་ལོ།) toono. Also the shapes, colors, and ornaments of the wooden elements—toono, pillars, and poles of the Mongolian yurt—are in accord with the artistic style found in Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia. Such yurts are called "uyangiin ger", literally meaning "home of lyrics" or "home of melodies".
Westernization
Enthusiasts in other countries have adapted the visual idea of the yurt, a round, semi-permanent tent. Although those structures may be copied to some extent from the originals found in Central Asia, they often have some different features in their design to adapt them to different climate and uses.
In Canada and the United States, yurts are often made using hi-tech materials. They can be highly engineered and built for extreme weather conditions. In addition, erecting one can take days and it may not be intended to be frequently moved. Such North American yurts are better thought of as yurt derivations, as they are no longer round felt homes that are easy to mount, dismount, and transport. North American yurts and yurt derivations were pioneered by William Coperthwaite in the 1960s, after he was inspired to build them by a National Geographic article about Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas's visit to Mongolia.
In 1978, American company Pacific Yurts became the first to manufacture yurts using architectural fabrics and structural engineering, paving the way for yurts to become popular attractions at ski resorts and campgrounds. Yurts are also popular in Northern Canada. In 1993, Oregon became the first state to incorporate yurts into its Parks Department as year-round camping facilities. Since then, at least 17 other US States have introduced yurt camping into their own parks departments.
In Europe, a closer approximation to the Mongolian and Central Asian yurt is in production in several countries. These tents use local hardwood, and often are made for a wetter climate with steeper roof profiles and waterproof canvas. In essence they are yurts, but some lack the felt cover and ornate features across the exterior that is present in traditional yurt. There are UK-made yurts that feature a metal frame in use in at least two glamping sites in Somerset and Dorset.
The palloza is a traditional building found in the Serra dos Ancares in Galicia (NW Spain). Pallozas have stone walls and a conical roof made of stalks of rye.
Different groups and individuals use yurts for a variety of purposes, from full-time housing to school rooms. In some provincial parks in Canada, and state parks in several US states, permanent yurts are available for camping.
Since the late 1920s the German youth and Scouting movements have adapted a variant of the yurt and the Sami Lavvu (Kohte), calling them Schwarzzelt (black tent), a term mainly used for tents from North Africa.
Ergaki Nature Park (Russian: Природный парк Ергаки, also referred to as Irgaki) is located in located in the Ergaki mountain range in southern Siberia, Russia. The park was established in 2005 and it is referred to as the "Russian Yosemite".
Background
On April 4, 2005, Ergaki Nature Park was established as a protected area of Siberia. The purpose of the nature park designation was to protect and preserve the area and resources while also developing tourism. The Western Sayan Mountains are in the park and they were thought to be an area which would attract recreational tourism. The park covers an area of over 217,000 ha (540,000 acres).
History
The park is in the in Krasnoyarsk Krai and it is a popular tourist area. It is known for its recreational uses and there is a hiking trail which is 35 km (22 mi) long. The trail was started in 2005 and it takes tourists through the park passing glacial lakes, mountains, canyons and rivers with waterfall features. It is recommended that hikers allow themselves three to five days to complete the trail. The trail ends at Lake Raduzhnoe, which is below a natural feature and attraction known as the Hanging Stone. One quarter of the park is off limits to visitors so that the areas are not disturbed. Threats to the park include tourism, poaching, and logging. The park is monitored by the Natural Park Protection Service.
Features
The park also has a rock ridge known as 'Sleeping Sayan". The ridge appears to be a silhouette of a man lying on his back. Authorities say that the park was visited by 120 thousand tourists per year. Many of the peaks have been given names, like Mirror, Bird, Star, Dragon's Tooth and Cone.
The highest point found in the park is found in the Aradansky mountain range: it is 2,466 m (8,091 ft). The second highest is found in the middle of the Ergaki mountains (Zvezdny peak) 2,265 m (7,431 ft). Also within the park is a natural feature called the Hanging Stone. It is large stone which seems to teeter on the cliff face perched high above Lake Raduzhnoyeke.
Flora
There park has hundreds of different mosses, liverworts, lichens and fungi. The park is estimated to have 1,500 different species of vascular plants. There are more than fifty species of the Asteraceae flowering plants. There are Ergakov mushrooms which have not been the subject of studies.
Siberia is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its various predecessor states since the centuries-long conquest of Siberia, which began with the fall of the Khanate of Sibir in the late 16th century and concluded with the annexation of Chukotka in 1778. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), but home to roughly a quarter of Russia's population. Novosibirsk and Omsk are the largest cities in the area.
Because Siberia is a geographic and historic concept and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia spans the entire expanse of land from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, with the Ural River usually forming the southernmost portion of its western boundary, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean. It is further defined as stretching from the territories within the Arctic Circle in the north to the northern borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China in the south, although the hills of north-central Kazakhstan are also commonly included. The Russian government divides the region into three federal districts (groupings of Russian federal subjects), of which only the central one is officially referred to as "Siberian"; the other two are the Ural and Far Eastern federal districts, named for the Ural and Russian Far East regions that correspond respectively to the western and eastern thirds of Siberia in the broader sense.
Siberia is known for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F). Although it is geographically in Asia, Russian sovereignty and colonization since the 16th century have rendered the region culturally and ethnically European. Over 85% of its population are of European descent, chiefly Russian (comprising the Siberian sub-ethnic group), and Eastern Slavic cultural influences predominate throughout the region.[7] Nevertheless, there exist sizable ethnic minorities of Asian lineage, including various Turkic communities—many of which, such as the Yakuts, Tuvans, Altai, and Khakas, are Indigenous—along with the Mongolic Buryats, ethnic Koreans, and smaller groups of Samoyedic and Tungusic peoples (several of whom are classified as Indigenous small-numbered peoples by the Russian government), among many others.
The early history of Siberia was greatly influenced by the sophisticated nomadic civilizations of the Scythians (Pazyryk) on the west of the Ural Mountains and Xiongnu (Noin-Ula) on the east of the Urals, both flourishing before the common era. The steppes of Siberia were occupied by a succession of nomadic peoples, including the Khitan people,[citation needed] various Turkic peoples, and the Mongol Empire. In the Late Middle Ages, Tibetan Buddhism spread into the areas south of Lake Baikal.
During the Russian Empire, Siberia was chiefly developed as an agricultural province. The government also used it as a place of exile, sending Avvakum, Dostoevsky, and the Decemberists, among others, to work camps in the region. During the 19th century, the Trans-Siberian Railway was constructed, supporting industrialization. This was also aided by discovery and exploitation of vast reserves of Siberian mineral resources.
Prehistory and antiquity
According to the field of genetic genealogy, people first resided in Siberia by 45,000 BCE and spread out east and west to populate Europe and the Americas, including the prehistoric Jomon people of Japan, who are the ancestors of the modern Ainu.
According to Vasily Radlov, among the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of Central Siberia were the Yeniseians, who spoke a language different from the later Uralic and Turkic people. The Kets are considered the last remainder of this early migration. Migrants are estimated to have crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America more than 20,000 years ago.
The shores of all Siberian lakes, which filled the depressions during the Lacustrine period, abound in remains dating from the Neolithic age. Countless kurgans (tumuli), furnaces, and other archaeological artifacts bear witness to a dense population. Some of the earliest artifacts found in Central Asia derive from Siberia.
The Yeniseians were followed by the Uralic Samoyeds, who came from the northern Ural region. Some descendant cultures, such as the Selkup, remain in the Sayan region. Iron was unknown to them, but they excelled in bronze, silver, and gold work. Their bronze ornaments and implements, often polished, evince considerable artistic taste. They developed and managed irrigation to support their agriculture in wide areas of the fertile tracts.
Indo-Iranian influences in southwestern Siberia can be dated to the 2300–1000 BCE Andronovo culture. Between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE, the Indo-Iranian Scythians flourished in the Altai region (Pazyryk culture). They were a major influence on all later steppe empires.
As early as the first millennium BCE, trade was underway over the Silk Road. Silk goods were imported and traded in Siberia.
The establishment of the Xiongnu empire in the 3rd century BCE started a series of population movements. Many people were probably driven to the northern borders of the great Central Siberian Plateau. Turkic people such as the Yenisei Kirghiz had already been present in the Sayan region. Various Turkic tribes such as the Khaka and Uyghur migrated northwestwards from their former seats and subdued the Ugric people.
These new invaders likewise left numerous traces of their stay, and two different periods may be easily distinguished from their remains. They were acquainted with iron, and learned from their subjects the art of bronze casting, which they used for decorative purposes only. They refined the artistry of this work. Their pottery is more artistic and of a higher quality than that of the Bronze Age. Their ornaments are included among the collections at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Middle Ages
The Mongols had long maintained relations with the people of the Siberian forest (taiga). They called them oin irged ("people of the forest"). Many of them, such as the Barga and Uriankhai, were little different from the Mongols. While the tribes around Lake Baikal were Mongol-speaking, those to the west spoke Turkic, Samoyedic, or Yeniseian languages.
By 1206, Genghis Khan had united all Mongol and Turkic tribes on the Mongolian Plateau and southern Siberia. In 1207 his eldest son Jochi subjugated the Siberian forest people, the Uriankhai, the Oirats, Barga, Khakas, Buryats, Tuvans, Khori-Tumed, and Kyrgyz. He then organized the Siberians into three tumens. Genghis Khan gave the Telengit and Tolos along the Irtysh River to an old companion, Qorchi. While the Barga, Tumed, Buriats, Khori, Keshmiti, and Bashkirs were organized in separate thousands, the Telengit, Tolos, Oirats and Yenisei Kirghiz were numbered as tumens. Genghis created a settlement of ethnic Han craftsmen and farmers at Kem-kemchik after the first phase of the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty. The Great Khans favored gyrfalcons, furs, women and Kyrgyz horses for tribute.
Western Siberia came under the Golden Horde.[9] The descendants of Orda Khan, the eldest son of Jochi, directly ruled the area. In the swamps of western Siberia, dog sled Yam stations were set up to facilitate collection of tribute.
In 1270, Kublai Khan sent an ethnic Han official, with a new batch of settlers, to serve as the judge of the Kyrgyz and Tuvan basin areas (益蘭州 and 謙州). Ögedei's grandson Kaidu occupied portions of Central Siberia from 1275 on. The Yuan dynasty army under Kublai's Kipchak general Tutugh reoccupied the Kyrgyz lands in 1293. From then on the Yuan dynasty controlled large portions of Central and Eastern Siberia.
The Yenisei area had a community of weavers of ethnic Han origin. Samarkand and Outer Mongolia both had artisans of Han origin.
Novgorod and Muscovy
As early as the 11th century the Novgorodians had occasionally penetrated into Siberia.[4] In the 14th century the Novgorodians explored the Kara Sea and the West Siberian river Ob (1364). After the fall of the Novgorod Republic its communications between Northern Russia and Siberia were inherited by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. On May 9, 1483, the Moscow troops of Princes Feodor Kurbski-Cherny and Ivan Saltyk-Travin moved to West Siberia. The troops moved on the rivers Tavda, Tura, Irtysh, up to the River Ob. In 1499 Muscovites and Novgorodians skied to West Siberia, up to the river Ob, and conquered some local tribes.
Khanate of Sibir
With the breakup of the Golden Horde late in the 15th century, the Khanate of Sibir was founded with its center at Tyumen. The non-Borjigin Taybughid dynasty vied for rule with the descendants of Shiban, a son of Jochi.
In the beginning of the 16th century Tatar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the loosely associated tribes inhabiting the lowlands to the east of the Ural Mountains. Agriculturists, tanners, merchants, and mullahs (Muslim clerics) were brought from Turkestan, and small principalities sprang up on the Irtysh and the Ob. These were united by Khan Yadegar Mokhammad of Kazan. Conflicts with the Russians, who were then colonising the Urals, brought him into collision with Muscovy. Khan Yadegar's envoys came to Moscow in 1555 and consented to a yearly tribute of a thousand sables.
Yermak and the Cossacks
In the mid-16th century, the Tsardom of Russia conquered the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, thus annexing the entire Volga Region and making the way to the Ural Mountains open. The colonisation of the new easternmost lands of Russia and further onslaught eastward was led by the rich merchants Stroganovs. Tsar Ivan IV granted large estates near the Urals as well as tax privileges to Anikey Stroganov, who organized large scale migration to these lands. Stroganovs developed farming, hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining on the Urals and established trade with Siberian tribes.
In the 1570s, the entrepreneur Semyon Stroganov and other sons of Anikey Stroganov enlisted many cossacks for protection of the Ural settlements against attacks by the Tatars of the Siberian Khanate, led by Khan Kuchum. Stroganov suggested to their chief Yermak, hired in 1577, to conquer the Khanate of Sibir, promising to help him with supplies of food and arms.
In 1581, Yermak began his voyage into the depths of Siberia with a band of 1,636 men, following the Tagil and Tura Rivers. The following year they were on the Tobol, and 500 men successfully laid siege to Qashliq, the residence of Khan Kuchum, near what is now Tobolsk. After a few victories over the khan's army, Yermak's people defeated the main forces of Kuchum on Irtysh River after a 3-day battle of Chuvash Cape in 1582. The remains of the khan's army retreated to the steppes, abandoning his domains to Yermak, who, according to tradition, by presenting Siberia to tsar Ivan IV achieved his own restoration to favour.
Kuchum was still strong and suddenly attacked Yermak in 1585 in the dead of night, killing most of his people. Yermak was wounded and tried to swim across the Wagay River (Irtysh's tributary), but drowned under the weight of his own chain mail. Yermak's Cossacks had to withdraw from Siberia completely, but every year new bands of hunters and adventurers, supported by Moscow, poured into the country. Thanks to Yermak's having explored all the main river routes in West Siberia, Russians successfully reclaimed all of Yermak's conquests just several years later.
Russian exploration and settlement
Siberian river routes were of primary importance in the process of Russian exploration and conquest of Siberia.
In the early 17th century, the eastward movement of Russian people was slowed by the internal problems in the country during the Time of Troubles. However, very soon the exploration and colonization of the huge territories of Siberia was resumed, led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. While Cossacks came from the Southern Urals, another wave of Russian people came by the Arctic Ocean. These were Pomors from the Russian North, who had already been making fur trade with Mangazeya in the north of the Western Siberia for quite a long time. In 1607 the settlement of Turukhansk was founded on the northern Yenisey River, near the mouth of the Lower Tunguska, and in 1619 Yeniseysky ostrog was founded on the mid-Yenisey at the mouth of the Upper Tunguska.
In 1620, a group of fur hunters led by the semi-legendary Demid Pyanda started out from Turukhansk on what would become a very protracted journey. According to folk tales related a century after the fact, in the three and a half years from 1620 to 1624 Pyanda allegedly traversed the total of 4,950 miles (7,970 km) of hitherto unknown large Siberian rivers. He explored some 1,430 miles (2,300 km) of the Lower Tunguska (Nizhnyaya Tunguska in Russian) and, having reached the upper part of the Tunguska, he came upon the great Siberian river Lena and explored some 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of its length. By doing this, he may have become the first Russian to reach Yakutia and meet Yakuts. He returned up the Lena until it became too rocky and shallow, and by land reached Angara. In this way, Pyanda may have become the first Russian to meet Buryats. He built new boats and explored some 870 miles (1,400 km) of the Angara, finally reaching Yeniseysk and discovering that the Angara (a Buryat name) and Upper Tunguska (Verkhnyaya Tunguska, as initially known by the Russian people) were one and the same river.
In 1627, Pyotr Beketov was appointed Yenisey voevoda in Siberia. He successfully carried out the voyage to collect taxes from Zabaykalye Buryats, becoming the first Russian to enter Buryatia. There he founded the first Russian settlement, Rybinsky ostrog. Beketov was sent to the Lena River in 1631, where in 1632 he founded Yakutsk and sent his Cossacks to explore the Aldan and further down the Lena, to found new fortresses, and to collect taxes.
Yakutsk soon turned into a major base for further Russian expeditions eastward, southward and northward. Maksim Perfilyev, who earlier had been one of the founders of Yeniseysk, founded Bratsky ostrog in 1631, and in 1638 he became the first Russian to enter Transbaikalia. In 1639 a group led by Ivan Moskvitin became the first Russian to reach the Pacific Ocean and to discover the Sea of Okhotsk, having built a winter camp on its shore at the Ulya River mouth. The Cossacks learned from the locals about the proximity of the Amur River. In 1640 they apparently sailed south, explored the south-eastern shores of the Okhotsk Sea, maybe even reaching the mouth of the Amur River and discovering the Shantar Islands on their return voyage. Based on Moskvitin's account, Kurbat Ivanov draw the first Russian map of the Far East in 1642. He led a group of Cossacks himself in 1643 to the south of the Baikal Mountains and discovered Lake Baikal, visiting its Olkhon Island. Subsequently, Ivanov made the first chart and description of Baikal.
In 1643, Vasily Poyarkov crossed the Stanovoy Range and reached the upper Zeya River in the country of the Daurs, who were paying tribute to Manchu Chinese. After wintering, in 1644 Poyarkov pushed down the Zeya and became the first Russian to reach the Amur River. He sailed down the Amur and finally discovered the mouth of that great river from land. Since his Cossacks provoked the enmity of the locals behind, Poyarkov chose a different way back. They built boats and in 1645 sailed along the Sea of Okhotsk coast to the Ulya River and spent the next winter in the huts that had been built by Ivan Moskvitin six years earlier. In 1646 they returned to Yakutsk.
In 1644, Mikhail Stadukhin discovered the Kolyma River and founded Srednekolymsk. A merchant named Fedot Alekseyev Popov organized a further expedition eastward, and Dezhnyov became a captain of one of the kochi. In 1648 they sailed from Srednekolymsk down to the Arctic and after some time they rounded Cape Dezhnyov, thus becoming the first explorers to pass through Bering Strait and to discover Chukotka and the Bering Sea. All their kochi and most of their men (including Popov) were lost in storms and clashes with the natives. A small group led by Dezhnyov reached the mouth of the Anadyr River and sailed up it in 1649, having built new boats out of the wreckage. They founded Anadyrsk and were stranded there, until Stadukhin found them, coming from Kolyma by land. Later Stadukhin set off to the south in 1651 and discovered Penzhin Bay on the northern side of the Okhotsk Sea. He also may have explored the western shores of Kamchatka as early as the 1650s.
In 1649–50, Yerofey Khabarov became the second Russian to explore the Amur River. Through the Olyokma, Tungur and Shilka Rivers he reached the Amur (Dauria), returned to Yakutsk and then went back to the Amur with a larger force in 1650–53. This time he was met with armed resistance. He built winter quarters at Albazin, then sailed down the Amur and found Achansk, which preceded the present-day Khabarovsk, defeating or evading large armies of Daurian Manchu Chinese and Koreans on his way. He charted the Amur in his Draft of the Amur river.
In 1659–65, Kurbat Ivanov was the next head of Anadyrsky ostrog after Semyon Dezhnyov. In 1660, he sailed from Anadyr Bay to Cape Dezhnyov. Atop his earlier pioneering charts, he is credited with creation of the early map of Chukotka and Bering Strait, which was the first to show on paper (very schematically) the yet undiscovered Wrangel Island, both Diomede Islands and Alaska.
So, by the mid-17th century, the Russian people had established the borders of their country close to the modern ones, and explored almost the whole of Siberia, except eastern Kamchatka and some regions north of the Arctic Circle. The conquest of Kamchatka would be completed later, in the early 18th century by Vladimir Atlasov, while the discovery of the Arctic coastline and Alaska would be nearly completed by the Great Northern Expedition in 1733–1743. The expedition allowed cartographers to create a map of most of the northern coastline of Russia, thanks to the results brought by a series of voyages led by Fyodor Minin, Dmitry Ovtsyn, Vasili Pronchishchev, Semyon Chelyuskin, Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev. At the same time, some of the members of the newly founded Russian Academy of Sciences traveled extensively through Siberia, forming the so-called Academic Squad of the Expedition. They were Johann Georg Gmelin, Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt and others, who became the first scientific explorers of Siberia.
Russian people and Siberian natives
The main treasure to attract Cossacks to Siberia was the fur of sables, foxes, and ermines. Explorers brought back many furs from their expeditions. Local people, submitting to the Russian Empire, received defense from the southern nomads. In exchange they were obliged to pay yasak (tribute) in the form of furs. There was a set of yasachnaya roads, used to transport yasak to Moscow.
A number of peoples showed open resistance to Russian people. Others submitted and even requested to be subordinated, though sometimes they later refused to pay yasak, or not admitted to the Russian authority.
There is evidence of collaboration and assimilation of Russian people with the local peoples in Siberia. Though the more Russian people advanced to the East, the less developed the local people were, and the more resistance they offered. In 1607–1610, the Tungus fought strenuously for their independence, but were subdued around 1623. The Buryats also offered some opposition, but were swiftly pacified. The most resistance was offered by the Koryak (on the Kamchatka Peninsula) and Chukchi (on the Chukchi Peninsula), the latter still being at the Stone Age level of development. Resistance by local people may have been the result of forced unfair terms, that recorders would have benefitted from omitting.
The Manchu resistance, however, obliged the Russian Cossacks to quit Albazin, and by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) Russia abandoned her advance into the basin of the river, instead concentrating on the colonisation of the vast expanses of Siberia and trading with China via the Siberian trakt. In 1852, a Russian military expedition under Nikolay Muravyov explored the Amur, and by 1857 a chain of Russian Cossacks and peasants were settled along the whole course of the river. The accomplished fact was recognised by China in 1860 by the Treaty of Aigun.
The scientific exploration of Siberia, commenced in the period of 1720 to 1742 by Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, Johann Georg Gmelin, and Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère, was followed up by Gerhard Friedrich Müller, Johann Eberhard Fischer, and Johann Gottlieb Georgi. Peter Simon Pallas, with several Russian students, laid the first foundation of a thorough exploration of the topography, fauna, flora, and inhabitants of the country. The journeys of Christopher Hansteen and Georg Adolf Erman were the most important step in the exploration of the territory. Alexander von Humboldt, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, and Gustav Rose also paid short visits to Siberia, which gave a new impulse to the accumulation of scientific knowledge; while Carl Ritter elaborated in his Asien (1832–1859) the foundations of a sound knowledge of the structure of Siberia. Aleksandr Fyodorovich Middendorf's journey (1843–1845) to north-eastern Siberia — contemporaneous with Matthias Castrén's journeys for the special study of the Ural-Altaic languages — directed attention to the far north and awakened interest in the Amur, the basin of which soon became the scene of the expeditions of Akhte and Schwarz (1852), and later on of the Siberian expedition, advanced knowledge of East Siberia.
The Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society was founded at the same time in Irkutsk, and afterwards became a permanent centre for the exploration of Siberia; while the opening of the Amur and Sakhalin attracted Richard Maack, Schmidt, Glehn, Gustav Radde, and Leopold von Schrenck, who created works on the flora, fauna, and inhabitants of Siberia.
Russian settlement
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Russian people that migrated into Siberia were hunters, and those who had escaped from Central Russia: fugitive peasants in search for life free of serfdom, fugitive convicts, and Old Believers. The new settlements of Russian people and the existing local peoples required defence from nomads, for which forts were founded. This way forts of Tomsk and Berdsk were founded.
In the beginning of the 18th century, the threat of the nomads' attacks weakened; thus the region became more and more populated; normal civic life was established in the cities.
In the 18th century in Siberia, a new administrative guberniya was formed with Irkutsk, then in the 19th century the territory was several times re-divided with creation of new guberniyas: Tomsk (with center in Tomsk) and Yenisei (Yeniseysk, later Krasnoyarsk).
In 1730, the first large industrial project — the metallurgical production found by Demidov family — gave birth to the city of Barnaul. Later, the enterprise organized social institutions like library, club, theatre. Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, who stayed in Barnaul in 1856–1857, wrote: "The richness of mining engineers of Barnaul expressed not merely in their households and clothes, but more in their educational level, knowledge of science and literature. Barnaul was undoubtedly the most cultured place in Siberia, and I've called it Siberian Athenes, leaving Sparta for Omsk".
The same events took place in other cities; public libraries, museums of local lore, colleges, theatres were being built, although the first university in Siberia was opened as late as 1880 in Tomsk.
Siberian peasants more than those in European Russia relied on their own force and abilities. They had to fight against the harder climate without outside help. Absence of serfdom and landlords also contributed to their independent character. Unlike peasants in European Russia, Siberians had no problems with land availability; the low population density gave them the ability to intensively cultivate a plot for several years in a row, then to leave it fallow for a long time and cultivate other plots. Siberian peasants had an abundance of food, while Central Russian peasantry had to moderate their families' appetites. Leonid Blummer noted that the culture of alcohol consumption differed significantly; Siberian peasants drank frequently but moderately: "For a Siberian vodka isn't a wonder, unlike for a Russian peasant, which, having reached it after all this time, is ready to drink a sea." The houses, according to travellers' notes, were unlike the typical Russian izbas: the houses were big, often two-floored, the ceilings were high, the walls were covered with boards and painted with oil-paint.
Russian Empire
The Siberia Governorate was established in 1708 as part of the administrative reforms of Peter I. In 1719, the governorate was divided into three provinces, Vyatka, Solikamsk and Tobolsk. In 1762, it was renamed to Tsardom of Siberia (Сибирское царство). In 1782, under the impression of Pugachev's Rebellion, the Siberian kingdom was divided into three separate viceregencies (наместничество), centered at Tobolsk, Irkutsk and Kolyvan. These viceregencies were downgraded to the status of governorate in 1796 (Tobolsk Governorate, Irkutsk Governorate, Vyatka Governorate). Tomsk Governorate was split off Tobolsk governorate in 1804. Yakutsk Oblast was split off Irkutsk Governorate in 1805. In 1822, the subdivision of Siberia was reformed again. It was divided into two governorates general, West Siberia and East Siberia. West Siberia comprised the Tobolsk and Tomsk governorates, and East Siberia comprised Irkutsk Governorate, and the newly formed Yeniseysk Governorate.
Decembrists and other exiles
Siberia was deemed a good place to exile for political reasons, as it was far from any foreign country. A St. Petersburg citizen would not wish to escape in the vast Siberian countryside as the peasants and criminals did. Even the larger cities such as Irkutsk, Omsk, and Krasnoyarsk, lacked that intensive social life and luxurious high life of the capital.
About eighty people involved in the Decembrist revolt were sentenced to obligatory work in Siberia and perpetual settlement here. Eleven wives followed them and settled near the labour camps. In their memoirs, they noted benevolence and prosperity of rural Siberians and severe treatment by the soldiers and officers.
"Travelling through Siberia, I was wondered and fascinated at every step by the cordiality and hospitality I met everywhere. I was fascinated by the richness and the abundance, with which the people live until today (1861), but that time there was even more expanse in everything. The hospitality was especially developed in Siberia. Everywhere we were received like being in friendly countries, everywhere we were fed well, and when I asked how much I owed them, they didn't want to take anything, saying "Put a candle to the God"."
"...Siberia is an extremely rich country, the land is unusually fruitful, and little work is needed to get a plentiful harvest."
Polina Annenkova, Notes of a Decembrist's Wife
A number of Decembrists died of diseases, some suffered psychological shock and even went out of their mind.
After completing the term of obligatory work, they were sentenced to settle in specific small towns and villages. There, some started doing business, which was well permitted. Only several years later, in the 1840s, they were allowed to move to big cities or to settle anywhere in Siberia. Only in 1856, 31 years after the revolt, Alexander II pardoned and restituted the Decembrists in honour of his coronation.
Living in the cities of Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk, the Decembrists contributed extensively to the social life and culture. In Irkutsk, their houses are now museums. In many places, memorial plaques with their names have been installed.
Yet, there were exceptions: Vladimir Raevskiy was arrested for participation in Decembrists' circles in 1822, and in 1828 was exiled to Olonki village near Irkutsk. There he married and had nine children, traded with bread, and founded a school for children and adults to teach arithmetics and grammar. Being pardoned by Alexander II, he visited his native town, but returned to Olonki.
Despite the wishes of the central authorities, the exiled revolutioners unlikely felt outcast in Siberia. Quite the contrary, Siberians having lived all the time on their own, "didn't feel tenderness" to the authorities. In many cases, the exiled were cordially received and got paid positions.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was exiled to katorga near Omsk and to military service in Semipalatinsk. In the service he also had to make trips for Barnaul and Kuznetsk, where he married.
Anton Chekhov was not exiled, but in 1890 made a trip on his own to Sakhalin through Siberia and visited a katorga there. In his trip, he visited Tomsk, speaking disapprovingly about it, then Krasnoyarsk, which he called "the most beautiful Siberian city". He noted that despite being more a place of criminal rather than political exile, the moral atmosphere was much better: he did not face any case of theft. Blummer suggested to prepare a gun, but his attendant replied: What for?! We are not in Italy, you know. Chekhov observed that besides of the evident prosperity, there was an urgent demand for cultural development.
Many Poles were also exiled to Siberia (see Sybirak). In 1866 they incited rebellion in Siberia.
Trans-Siberian Railway
The development of Siberia was hampered by poor transportation links within the region as well as between Siberia and the rest of the country. Aside from the Sibirsky trakt, good roads suitable for wheeled transport were few and far apart. For about five months of the year, rivers were the main means of transportation; during the cold half of the year, cargo and passengers travelled by horse-drawn sleds over the winter roads, many of which were the same rivers, now ice-covered.
The first steamboat on the Ob, Nikita Myasnikov's Osnova, was launched in 1844; but the early starts were difficult, and it was not until 1857 that steamboat shipping started developing in the Ob system in the serious way. Steamboats started operating on the Yenisei in 1863, on the Lena and Amur in the 1870s.
While the comparably flat Western Siberia was at least fairly well served by the gigantic Ob–Irtysh–Tobol–Chulym river system, the mighty rivers of Eastern Siberia – Yenisei, Upper Angara (Angara below Bratsk was not easily navigable because of the rapids), Lena — were mostly navigable only in the north–south direction. An attempt to somewhat remedy the situation by building the Ob–Yenisei Canal were not particularly successful. Only a railroad could be a real solution to the region's transportation problems.
The first projects of railroads in Siberia emerged since the creation of the Moscow–St. Petersburg railroad. One of the first was Irkutsk–Chita project, intended to connect the former to the Amur river and, consequently, to the Pacific Ocean.
Prior to 1880 the central government seldom responded to such projects, due to weakness of Siberian enterprises, fear of Siberian territories' integration with the Pacific region rather than with Russia, and thus falling under the influence of the United States and Great Britain. The heavy and clumsy bureaucracy and the fear of financial risks also contributed to the inaction: the financial system always underestimated the effects of the railway, assuming that it would take only the existing traffic.
Mainly the fear of losing Siberia convinced Alexander II in 1880 to make a decision to build the railway. Construction started in 1891.
Trans-Siberian Railroad gave a great boost to Siberian agriculture, allowing for increased exports to Central Russia and European countries. It pushed not only the territories closest to the railway, but also those connected with meridional rivers, such as the Ob (Altai) and the Yenisei (Minusinsk and Abakan regions).
Siberian agriculture exported a lot of cheap grain to the West. The agriculture in Central Russia was still under pressure of serfdom, formally abandoned in 1861. Another profitable industry is the fur trade, which contributed greatly to the national revenue on top of covering administrative costs in Siberia.
Thus, to defend it and to prevent possible social destabilization, in 1896 (when the eastern and western parts of the Trans-Siberian did not close up yet), the government introduced Chelyabinsk tariff break (Челябинский тарифный перелом)—a tariff barrier for grain in Chelyabinsk, and a similar barrier in Manchuria. This measure changed the form of cereal product export: mills emerged in Altai, Novosibirsk, and Tomsk; many farms switched to butter production. From 1896 to 1913 Siberia on average exported 30.6 million poods (~500,000 tonnes) of cereal products (grain, flour) annually.
Stolypin's resettlement programme
One early significant settlement campaign was carried out under Nicholas II by Prime Minister Stolypin in 1906–1911.
The rural areas of Central Russia were overcrowded, while the East was still lightly populated despite having fertile lands. On May 10, 1906, by the decree of the Tsar, agriculturalists were granted the right to transfer, without any restrictions, to the Asian territories of Russia, and to obtain cheap or free land. A large advertising campaign was conducted: six million copies of brochures and banners entitled What the resettlement gives to peasants, and How the peasants in Siberia live were printed and distributed in rural areas. Special propaganda trains were sent throughout the countryside, and transport trains were provided for the migrants. The State gave loans to the settlers for farm construction.
Not all the settlers decided to stay; 17.8% migrated back. All in all, more than three million people officially resettled to Siberia, and 750,000 came as foot-messengers. From 1897 to 1914 Siberian population increased 73%, and the area of land under cultivation doubled.
Tunguska event
The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, at around 7:14 a.m.[34] (0:14 UT, 7:02 a.m. local solar time[35]) on June 30, 1908 (June 17 in the Julian calendar, in use locally at the time).
The cause of the explosion is controversial, and still much disputed to this day. Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by a meteor air burst: the atmospheric explosion of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3.1–6.2 miles) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.
Although the Tunguska event is believed to be the largest impact event on land in Earth's recent history, impacts of similar size in remote ocean areas would have gone unnoticed before the advent of global satellite monitoring in the 1960s and 1970s. Because the event occurred in a remote area, there was little damage to human life or property, and it was in fact some years until it was properly investigated.
The first recorded expedition arrived at the scene more than a decade after the event. In 1921, the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik, visiting the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin as part of a survey for the Soviet Academy of Sciences, deduced from local accounts that the explosion had been caused by a giant meteorite impact. He persuaded the Soviet government to fund an expedition to the Tunguska region, based on the prospect of meteoric iron that could be salvaged to aid Soviet industry.
Kulik's party reached the site in 1927. To their surprise, no crater was to be found. There was instead a region of scorched trees about 50 kilometres (31 mi) across. A few near ground zero were still strangely standing upright, their branches and bark stripped off. Those farther away had been knocked down in a direction away from the center.
Russian Civil War
By the time of the revolution Siberia was an agricultural region of Russia, with weak entrepreneur and industrial classes. The intelligentsia had vague political ideas. Only 13% of the region's population lived in the cities and possessed some political knowledge. The lack of strong social differences and scarcity of urban population and intellectuals led to the uniting of formally different political parties under ideas of regionalism.
The anti-Bolshevik forces failed to offer a united resistance. While Kolchak fought against the Bolsheviks intending to eliminate them in the capital of the Empire, the local Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks tried to sign a peace treaty with the Bolsheviks, on terms of independence. Foreign allies, though being able to make a decisive effort, preferred to stay neutral, although Kolchak himself rejected the offer of help from Japan.
After a series of defeats in Central Russia, Kolchak's forces retreated to Siberia. Amid resistance of Socialist-Revolutionaries and waning support from the allies, the Whites had to evacuate from Omsk to Irkutsk, and finally Kolchak resigned under pressure of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who soon submitted to the Bolsheviks.
Soviet era
1920s and 1930s
By the 1920s the agriculture in Siberia was in decline. With the large number of immigrants, land was used very intensively, which led to exhaustion of the land and frequent bad harvests. Agriculture wasn't destroyed by the civil war, but the disorganization of the exports destroyed the food industry and reduced the peasants' incomes. Furthermore, prodrazvyorstka and then the natural food tax contributed to growing discontent. In 1920–1924 there was a number of anti-communistic riots in rural areas, with up to 40,000 people involved. Both old Whites (Cossacks) and old "Reds" partisans, who earlier fought against Kolchak, the marginals, who were the major force of the Communists, took part in the riots. According to a survey of 1927 in Irkutsk Oblast, the peasants openly said they would participate in anti-Soviet rebellion and hoped for foreign help.[45] In 1929, one such anti-Soviet rebellion took place in Buryatia, the rebellion was put down will the deaths of 35,000 Buryats. It should also be noticed that the KVZhD builders and workers were declared enemies of the people by a special order of the Soviet authorities.
The youth, that had socialized in the age of war, was highly militarized, and the Soviet government pushed the further military propaganda by Komsomol. There are many documented evidences of "red banditism", especially in the countryside, such as desecration of churches and Christian graves, and even murders of priests and believers. Also in many cases a Komsomol activist or an authority representative, speaking with a person opposed to the Soviets, got angry and killed him/her and anybody else. The Party faintly counteracted this.
In the 1930s, the Party started the collectivization, which automatically put the "kulak" label on the well-off families living in Siberia for a long time. Naturally, raskulachivanie applied to everyone who protested. From the Central Russia many families were exiled to low-populated, forest or swampy areas of Siberia, but those who lived here, had either to escape anywhere, or to be exiled in the Northern regions (such as Evenk and Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrugs and the northern parts of Tomsk Oblast). Collectivization destroyed the traditional and most effective stratum of the peasants in Siberia and the natural ways of development, and its consequences are still persisting.
In the cities, during the New Economic Policy and later, the new authorities, driven by the romantic socialistic ideas made attempts to build new socialistic cities, according to the fashionable constructivism movement, but after all have left only numbers of square houses. For example, the Novosibirsk theatre was initially designed in pure constructivistic style. It was an ambitious project of exiled architects. In the mid-1930s with introduction of new classicism, it was significantly redesigned.
After the Trans-Siberian was built, Omsk soon became the largest Siberian city, but in 1930s Soviets favoured Novosibirsk. In the 1930s the first heavy industrialization took place in the Kuznetsk Basin (coal mining and ferrous metallurgy) and at Norilsk (nickel and rare-earth metals). The Northern Sea Route saw industrial application. At the same time, with growing number of prisoners, Gulag established a large network of labour camps in Siberia.
World War II
In 1941, many enterprises and people were evacuated into Siberian cities by the railroads. In urgent need of ammunition and military equipment, they started working almost immediately after their materials and equipment were unloaded.
Most of the evacuated enterprises remained at their new sites after the war. They increased industrial production in Siberia to a great extent, and became constitutive for many cities, like Rubtsovsk. The easternmost city to receive them was Ulan-Ude, since Chita was considered dangerously close to China and Japan.
On August 28, 1941, the Supreme Soviet stated an order "About the Resettlement of the Germans of Volga region", by which many of them were deported into different rural areas of Kazakhstan and Siberia.
By the end of war, thousands of captive soldiers and officers of German and Japanese armies were sentenced to several years of work in labour camps in all the regions of Siberia. These camps were directed by a different administration than Gulag. Although Soviet camps hadn't the purpose to lead prisoners to death, the death rate was significant, especially in winters. The range of works differed from vegetable farming to construction of the Baikal Amur Mainline.
Industrial expansion
In the second half of the 20th century, the exploration of mineral and hydroenergetic resources continued. Many of these projects were planned, but were delayed due to wars and the ever-changing opinions of Soviet politicians.
The most famous project is the Baikal Amur Mainline. It was planned simultaneously with Trans-Siberian, but the construction began just before World War II, was put on hold during the war and restarted after. After Joseph Stalin's death, it was again suspended for years to be continued under Leonid Brezhnev.
A cascade of hydroelectric powerplants was built in the 1960s–1970s on the Angara River, a project similar to Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States. The powerplants allowed creation and support of large production facilities, such as the aluminium plant in Bratsk, Ust-Ilimsk, rare-earth mining in Angara basin, and those associated with the timber industry. The price of electricity in Angara basin is the lowest in Russia. But the Angara cascade is not fully finished yet: the Boguchany power plant waits to be finished, and a series of enterprises are planned to be set up.
The downside of this development is ecological damage due to low standards of production and excessive sizes of dams (the bigger projects were favoured by industrial authorities and received more funding), the increased humidity sharpened the already hard climate. Another powerplant project on Katun River in Altai mountains in the 1980s, which was widely protested publicly, was cancelled.
There are a number of military-oriented centers like the NPO Vektor and closed cities like Seversk. By the end of the 1980s a large portion of the industrial production of Omsk and Novosibirsk (up to 40%) was composed of military and aviation output. The collapse of state-funded military orders began an economic crisis.
The Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences unites a lot of research institutes in the biggest cities, the biggest being the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Akademgorodok (a scientific town) near Novosibirsk. Other scientific towns or just districts composed by research institutes, also named "Akademgorodok", are in the cities of Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. These sites are the centers of the newly developed IT industry, especially in that of Novosibirsk, nicknamed "Silicon Taiga", and in Tomsk.
A number of Siberian-based companies extended their businesses of various consumer products to meta-regional and an All-Russian level. Various Siberian artists and industries, have created communities that are not centralized in Moscow anymore, like the Idea (annual low-budged ads festival), Golden Capital (annual prize in architecture).
Recent history
Until completion of the Chita–Khabarovsk highway, the Transbaikalia was a dead end for automobile transport. While this recently constructed through road will at first benefit mostly the transit travel to and from the Pacific provinces, it will also boost settlement and industrial expansion in the sparsely populated regions of Zabaykalsky Krai and Amur Oblast.
Expansion of transportation networks will continue to define the directions of Siberian regional development. The next project to be carried out is the completion of the railroad branch to Yakutsk. Another large project, proposed already in the 19th century as a northern option for the Transsiberian railroad, is the Northern-Siberian Railroad between Nizhnevartovsk, Belyi Yar, Lesosibirsk and Ust-Ilimsk. The Russian Railroads instead suggest an ambitious project of a railway to Magadan, Chukchi Peninsula and then the supposed Bering Strait Tunnel to Alaska.
While the Russians continue to migrate from the Siberian and Far Eastern Federal Districts to Western Russia, the Siberian cities attract labour (legal or illegal) from the Central Asian republics and from China. While the natives are aware of the situation, in Western Russia myths about thousands and millions of Chinese living in the Transbaikalia and the Far East are widespread.
Pooping Gold
Description: Previously known as Nephila clavipes, Trichonephila clavipes is a spider in the class Arachnida, order Araneae, suborder Opisthothelae, infraorder Araneomorphae, superfamily Araneoidea and family Nephilidae.
T. clavipes's abdomen is dark with many irregularly-patterned white punctuations giving it a clear look. Females may have from 24 to 76mm (requires confirmation) in length, while males measure around 8mm, less than, or less commonly, 25mm (requires confirmation). Body larger than width with a legspan of around 152mm. Eye disposition at 4 to 4. Median posterior eyes possess a tapetum. Body is cylindrical.
The legs are banded and alternating between darker parts and orangeish-red, with tufts of hair (gaiters) on the tibial segments 1, 2 and 4, and curving down at the tip. Males are typically dark brown, slender spiders. Females make at least two large eggsacs with 25 to 30mm in diameter consisting of several hundred eggs. The eggsacs are surrounded by curly yellow silk. During their reproductive season, males will search for females and get on their web. Males challenge each other for the position closest to the female, the largest becoming her mate. Smaller males go to the edges of the web. Mates gain the almost exclusive advantage in mating as well as feeding on prey caught by the female's web. The males around the edges may try to mate with the female but rarely accomplish this. Occasionally, the female will feed on the males.
They are aerial orb-weavers which web displays a yellow / golden coloring which gives them their vernacular name. Webs can reach over 900mm in diameter (or length?) at eye vision level or above forests and mangroves. Webs have been seen measuring 4 meters in diameter (or length?). The orbicular web woven between branches of trees is carefully sculpted in strong strings of golden silk which are intertwined and reinforced at the center in a zigzag shape (stabilimenta), in a height where insects generally fall prey. The webs are also symmetric with an asymmetrical orb near the top where the the spider dwells. The orbicular web is so strongly woven that even small birds may fall prey, which is not uncommon to happen. In fact, the silk is so sticky that they are known for their incredible resistence, being compared to steel cables in a proportional sense. Prey includes Diptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Odonata and, as previously mentioned, occasionally small birds. The web is a semipermanent structure, which means they are not destroyed and created periodically like other members of Araneae. They usually repair damaged web structures.
Like most spiders, they are venomous but their venom is weak and is not a threat to humans, unless they are allergic to the venom. Otherwise, they are harmless and will only bite if held or pinched. The bite leaves simple swelling, redness and localized pain. The bite is, theoretically, less dangerous than a bee sting. They are widely distributed in Australia, Asia, Africa, Argentina, Madagascar, South America é North America to the South of the USA. They can be seen all over Brazil but their habitat is the Atlantic Forest, forest edges and dense woodlands.
T. clavipes are often found on banana trees. They live under hot weathers; this made them develop structures to prevent them from overheating. Such structures include the silvery carapace that reflects sunlight, while the long and cylindrical body reduces the area of the exposed body by being pointed directly at the Sun. They can also force evaporative cooling by dropping a fluid with the chelicerae; this is generally done when temperatures are higher than 35°C (Krakauer, 1972). Webs are woven regardless of Sun position, with the aim of capturing as much prey as possible. Their orientation movements can be complex (Robinson and Robinson, 1974). They are not aggressive and will rarely leave their webs. They will change colors as they mature. In the picture we can see an adult female and an adult male behind.
The silk in the center of the web possess oily drops which contain vesicles that trap proteic and peptidic solutions inside, as well as many composts of low molecular mass. The drops contain toxins, saturated fatty acids and even alkaloids. It is speculated that these saturated fatty acids help to destabilize the cuticles of the insect and allow the diffusion of the toxins to the interior of the body. This study proves that their webs are not purely for mechanically ensnaring prey, but a very complex structure with an active role on the capture of prey. Seemingly, repellent alkaloids to some predators are seen in a few webs, as well as insect toxins in others. The silk glands, especially the aggregated gland, can synthesize and deposit over the silk important toxins which are common to a few animal toxins, putting them on a higher step in the food chain compared to some spiders.
repositorio.unesp.br/bitstream/handle/11449/150381/esteve...
According to the following study, they can adapt well to abandoned webs that belong to other spiders:
"The experiments showed that both resident spiders and introduced spiders remained in the webs in which they were placed. Resident females demonstrated that, when they were bigger, they showed an advantage in the dispute against the invasive (introduced) species, though it was not noticed any significant advantage when the "invasive" (introduced) individuals had the same size or were bigger. The resident invested more in the maintenance of the web than the "invasive" (introduced), performing more agonistic behaviors and returning more times to the web after combats. It did not occur intolerance among individuals on the support wires, thus indicating that the formation of aggregations might be related to the tolerance of individuals to accept the presence of conspecifics from nearby areas." - repositorio.ufjf.br/jspui/bitstream/ufjf/5567/1/biancapoc...
Other sources:
www.ninha.bio.br/biologia/nephila.html
faunaefloradorn.blogspot.com/2010/07/aranha-de-teianephil...
www.achetudoeregiao.com.br/animais/nephila_clavipes.htm
professora-mel.blogspot.com/2013/01/foto-da-aranha-que-es...
entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/golden_silk_spider.htm
pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephila_clavipes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephila_clavipes
eol.org/pages/1193392/overview
PROJECT NOAH (Português): www.projectnoah.org/spottings/1003890997
Canal du midi près de Carcassonne
The Canal du Midi (Occitan: Canal de las Doas Mars, meaning canal of the two seas) is a 240 km (150 mi) long canal in Southern France (French: le Midi). The canal connects the Garonne River to the Étang de Thau on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Étang de Thau. The Canal du Midi was built by Pierre-Paul Riquet.
It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.[1]
The Canal du Midi was built to serve as a shortcut between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, avoiding the long sea voyage around hostile Spain, Barbary pirates, and a trip that in the 17th century took a full month to complete. Its strategic value was obvious and it had been discussed for centuries, in particular when King Francis I brought Leonardo da Vinci to France in 1516 and commissioned a survey of a route from the Garonne at Toulouse to the Aude at Carcassonne. The major problem was how to supply the summit sections with enough water.[2][3][4]
In 1662, Pierre-Paul Riquet, a rich tax-farmer in the Languedoc region, who knew the region intimately, believed he could solve the problem, but he first had to persuade Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV, which he did through his friendship with the Archbishop of Toulouse. A Royal Commission was appointed and in 1665 recommended the project which was finally ordered by Louis XIV in 1666 with the possible expenditure of 3,360,000 livres. The specifications for the work were drawn up by the head of this commission and France's leading military engineer in that period, the Chevalier de Clerville, who remained a loyal ally of Riquet and partisan of the Canal du Midi until his death.[2][3][4] To help in the design, Riquet is said to have constructed a miniature canal in the grounds of his house, Bonrepos, complete with locks, weirs, feeder channels and even a tunnel.[2]
At the age of 63, Riquet started his great enterprise, sending his personal engineer, François Andreossy, and a local water expert, Pierre Roux, to the Montagne Noire to work on the water supply. Some of Clerville's men with experience in military engineering came, too, to build a huge dam, the Bassin de St. Ferréol, on the Laudot river. The Laudot is a tributary of the River Tarn in the Montagne Noire some 20 km (12 mi) from the summit of the proposed canal at Seuil de Naurouze. This massive dam, 700 metres (2,300 ft) long, 30 metres (98 ft) above the riverbed and 120 metres (390 ft) thick at its base was the largest work of civil engineering in Europe and only the second major dam to be built in Europe, after one in Alicante in Spain. It was connected to the Canal du Midi by a contoured channel over 25 km long, 3.7 m (12 ft) wide with a base width of 1.5 m (4.9 ft). It was eventually equipped with 14 locks in order to bring building materials for the canal down from the mountains and to create a new port for the mountain town of Revel. This supply system successfully fed the canal with water where it crossed the continental divide, replacing water that drained toward the two seas. The system was a masterpiece of both hydraulic and structural engineering, and served as an early ratification of Riquet's vision. It was also a major part of a massive enterprise. At its peak 12,000 labourers worked on the project, including over a thousand women, many of whom came specifically to work on the water system.[2][3][4]
The women labourers were surprisingly important to the canal's engineering. Many came from former Roman bath colonies in the Pyrenees, where elements of classical hydraulics had been maintained as a living tradition. They were hired at first to haul dirt to the dam at St. Ferréol, but their supervisors, who were struggling to design the channels from the dam to the canal, recognized their expertise. Engineering in this period was mainly focused on fortress construction, and hydraulics was concerned mostly with mining and problems of drainage. Building a navigational canal across the continent was well beyond the formal knowledge of the military engineers expected to supervise it, but the peasant women who were carriers of classical hydraulic methods added to the repertoire of available techniques. They not only perfected the water supply system for the canal but also threaded the waterway through the mountains near Béziers, using few locks, and built the eight-lock staircase at Fonserannes.[3]
The canal was built on a grand scale, with oval shaped locks 30.5 m (100 ft) long, 6 m (20 ft) wide at the gates and 11 m (36 ft) wide in the middle. This design was intended to resist the collapse of the walls that happened early in the project. The oval locks used the strength of the arch against the inward pressure of the surrounding soil that had destabilized the early locks with straight walls.[2] Such arches had been used by the Romans for retaining walls in Gaul, so this technique was not new, but its application to locks was revolutionary and was imitated in early American canals.[3][4]
Many of the structures were designed with neoclassical elements to further and to echo the king's ambitions to make France a New Rome. The Canal du Midi as a grand piece of infrastructural engineering in itself was promoted as worthy of Rome and the political dreams behind it were clarified with plaques in Latin, and walls built with Roman features.[3]
The Canal du Midi was opened officially as the Canal Royal de Languedoc on May 15, 1681.[2] It was also referred to as the Canal des Deux Mers (Canal of Two Seas). It eventually cost over 15 million livres, of which nearly two million came from Riquet himself, leaving him with huge debts, and he died in 1680, just months before the Canal was opened. His sons inherited the canal, but the family's investments were not recovered and debts not fully paid until over 100 years later. The canal was well managed and run as a paternalistic enterprise until the revolution.
source wikipédia
Always impressed walking by this home adjacent Old Mill Elementary, that was likely built in the 1900 to 1929 period.
Reminds me of browned butter cake with vanilla frosting.
A lovely mix of trees surround the porch for what must make for excellent early AM birdwatching.
In the gable, you have textured stucco cladding w/ faux half-timber in the Tudor Revival style. The midsection (which just kisses twin-set east facing windows) is undoubtedly redwood shingle, below that, shiplap of unknown origin.
The roof is pitched somewhat dramatically at maybe 105 degrees. For a four-year old looking up, I'm sure the throwback cosmonaut energy is in full effect. These aspirational angles contrast with a wide, open, first floor. Outside the lemon trees are in bloom and with fruit, che carino!
The actual corporeality of a home, living past and present, a compendium of all its former selves––is largely inscrutable from the exterior. However, certain details emerge in the routine passing and one begins to even have a compassion for the home's specific point of view.
The hierarchy of its inhabitants one can only guess, and surely that evolves through the years, but one does hope that whoever lives in such a place destabilizes the narrative to some degree and doesn't live solely to acquiesce to bourgeois conventions.
Finally, the low slung craftsman style fence elevates the whole. If you were to ride by it spinning at a 21 mph clip, you would pass through its signature fragrance: flapjacks in the oven, rose geranium, Giant sequoia.
VIDEO: (Coming soon!)
••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••
MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!!!!
GARNET…
…VS…
…FIRESTORM!!!
BEGIN!
Firestorm:
We could think about what gimmicks convolute our history:
Mixups with Russians, nature-forces and Yoruba witchery,
And we could think of crises wrought on our identity…
Yes, surely…
…But today, let's only think of flaming enemies with fury!
Hey, here comes a question most alarming; not to be dismissed,
And one whose comprehension won't take an atomic physicist:
Why let a contest measure merger-might to choose from we and you
When the answer is plainer than combining two plus freaking two?!
Don't get too cocky, Ronald; let's see this done as it ought to be:
Transmute lit lyrics from raw beats, and lecture blockheads properly!
It's gonna be a far cry from your Brightest Day; I'm going dark,
With aims to end this in a Flash just like my debut story arc!
Complete transparency, now; tip: skip on a kicked-in butt tonight.
Called on and dared to speak out? Quit, not even picking up the mic!
You see your worth as apt for some Gem-world princess, or even goddess,
Yet I wouldn't appraise your value at one-half Nicki Minaj's!
It's a lock, and un-jail-breakable, at that: you're getting blasted;
Your cut's unfit for this face-off, falling flat in every facet.
Why, it's evident: our foe lacks proper grasp of her position,
Just as suits the fruit of reckless, raw romance at first collision!
Molecules are being rewritten, spelling death for sucker golems;
Souring your Sugar sweetness!
That reminds me of a poem… how's it go?
A Ruby's red, and a Sapphire's colored blue;
When they're together, all the better to set fire onto you!
Garnet:
It seems your touted tangibility-tweaking tricks are getting screwy:
Though plainly made with fazing aims, your statements phase directly through me!
Fisticuffs raised to the max, I'll put it heavy-handedly:
This space-borne stone immortal's here to Vandalize you Savagely!
Don't think the balanced bond behind a harmonizing master humbled
By the body-bunking counterpart of Simon and Garfunkel;
You're the one Nuclear waste it's best to keep left in the ashcan:
That brute in Supes' ill-fated Quest for Peace was less a hack, man!
Your own saw Lanterns, Squads, the Reds and A-bombs quell your mission;
That's as jacked up as your black successor's break on television!
You'd do well to fission: squishies risk affliction, sticking to that kind of nexus;
It's as if you're mixing in black clouds in morning-time for breakfast.
Hawking off your power-set as something there's no reproducing?
Your old flame Lorraine objects, and check that shared New 52 scene!
Take me on? You're tripping; I could go all Summer Day,
Mad-laughing as you're curse-slapped, your collapse one stone's throw-down away!
Firestorm:
I'd hardly call that verse a gem, but do see you're impassioned;
Now, brace for an opposite, unequal nuclear reaction!
I'd advise you set about disarming; keep at trying to battle,
And you'll only fall apart, so turn around, three-eyes: skedaddle!
Put a bubble on your gushing pride, and hear just what I'm made of:
Nobel Prize-commemorated brains and brawn prime for the playoffs…
Oh, and right: the atoms' might, infused not in a tiny me,
But through a union whose inducement gets them splitting violently!
The irony…
These elements comprising me like father, son and holy ghost,
Your cotton candy composition couldn't come remotely close;
These bogglers are built to leave your flipping mind
As broken as that gay love metaphor between two different kinds!
Pursuing this is straight-up suicidal; heed some good advice:
Lest you be undone swiftly as a Slipknot, fleeing would be wise!
Hmm… knots, you say?
Tying yours sure garnered fandom's queerness-touting cheers.
What an accomplishment; it merely took damn-near six thousand years!
Our souls, conjoining, form an epic entelechy, knowing which,
Forgo all hopefulness of cloning this, as shown amiss with Soviets,
You cloying, kitschy clod! As for the riffs you spit haphazardly,
Those bare-bones bars have less meat than the prick who nicked your anthem, G!
Ours? Fine-tuned to the quantum level; spliced into arrangements
Set to shake your union to the brink of thrice-induced estrangement,
And don't count on pulling back together, damaged faith restored,
'Cause just the two of us are stronger than your whole volcanic Megazord!
Garnet:
Yeah, I'd imagine you'd know all about that, Orange Ranger,
But your floating mentor-head ought to have warned you to the danger;
What if I told you you'll be blindsided, both blacking-out in quick turn,
When I yank you from the Matrix like my name was Laurence Fishburne?
Known to wreck hard-headed haters, your hot one'll prove no different,
As part-timing casuals get taught the sum of true commitment!
Wanna see a giant of a power couple? I'm your girl; espouse its meaning:
Steady-rocking since mankind, they say, was still fresh out of Eden!
Plus, your Time Squad of a secret team can bite me;
Your whole future's at an end, and naught will tweak it, even slightly!
I mean, blimey: screw false pretense for some cackling magician bull;
That mind-entrapping weeks-long bender? Flatly unforgivable!
I'm dropping bombs; the biggest Ron, his mommy or his pops have seen,
For overkill to match the namesake of a poor man's Constantine:
Destabilizing deconstruction, it'll make them draw a blank.
I'd call your deal a nature-crime; rechristen Raymond: "Ronnie Frank"!
Firestorm:
You say your bodyguard-love schtick will never come to dissolution,
Like a pair of mutant, midget technicolor Whitney Houstons!
Think we'll have a problem here?
Now, that's bananas! We'll be home by daylight,
NASA asked that she's seen, fee-free, to her own, one-way flight!
Girl, your jointly self-absorbed felicity's an utter joke;
Make threats of dropping bombs, and watch your dignity go up in smoke!
You're unprepared for prime time, Gemmy! How can you expect to win this
When your origin got upstaged by a Robot Chicken Christmas?
From N.Y.C. streets to Justice Leagues, we've made ourselves a name;
You've kept ones shared with countless drones, all bred and trained to be the same!
I live up to and past the heights of my Star-Spangled heritage;
You aren't worth your own weight at the ideal price per carat, bitch:
You're meritless! You call those palette-swapped foam Hulk props on you gauntlets?
Come at me with them, and catch a flaming knuckle through the faceplate!
Your lame cheeto P.S.A. coach couldn't top this all-new hotness,
So if you can't stand the heat, beam back on up into your safe space.
See all notions that it's nearly so severely hard to beat her
Shattered like the trust invested in her dear, departed leader!
You perceive self-value more-than-constituting both your parts' sum,
But the math says otherwise; check any jewelry broker's charts, hon!
Half of you served in a royal court as its official seer;
You've gone some kind of third-eye-blind, though, if this isn't crystal-clear:
You don't look awesome, and it's time you went to bed!
Now close the deal!
I'll let your godson know that what you did today was choke, for real!
Garnet:
Oh, you'll find no exhaustion here; I'm far from prone to break a sweat:
When I wipe the floor with phony-hot shits, it's liable to wind up painted red!
It's viable to say I've wholly got this: child's play, though only for Garnet;
Joining in on it? You're gonna get rolled and left cold, all your folks going: "Oh no, they are dead."
Try on a total toxin-taste: raw space-rock rhymes, created ground-up,
Like your Ogaden oasis, the fate of which I wouldn't take it you're too proud of.
A tenth-level belter, I rep rebel melders:
Test against my mettle? Best inject some Nth; augment your cells, or get to shelter!
It's a song of ice and fire; when you're packing just the latter,
Your whole rhythm-ride's implosion-bound, and plasma's gonna splatter.
As for your nuclear family values? I'm beyond such rigid norms,
With Multiplex strengths, all rolled up inside one monolithic form!
Ever-flowering, love letter-showered, empowering, towering gay-romantic titan,
Shade thrown my way's, with a hand-flick, reflected, and BAM: it's the source who sees dishonor.
Dominant during debates, dissent-drainingly as any achromatic tyrant,
Try shouting this down, and watch me unshakenly pluck out your core; ensure you'll be a goner!
………
(*SOLO ROUND!*)
………
Martin Stein:
How's Stein's schooling session's starting something Sapph's supposed to handle?
Kindergarten rooms have brought her whole proud pairing to a standstill!
Singlehandedly one-upping that accursed menagerie,
Observe: in verse, a worse-disturbing blasphemy!
Your present-perspicacity has faltered from foresight-fixation; your taste in soulmates shows, for starters:
Even Jason never sunk to such low standards with his partners!
When this atomic architect takes to the floor,
The only overhyped-up ship that's headed for a wreck is yours!
Sapphire:
I see a glorified Jiminy Cricket with a nonexistent sex life.
He will find less clemency afforded here than with his ex-wife!
You've not met a Crystal cold to you as this; you'd better hide:
No psycho on any of infinite Earths could hope to sway me to your side.
Your Doomsday Clock is ticking; precognition needn't spell what's gonna happen,
When the baddest blue boss bombshells 'bout you break since Doc Manhattan's!
This alleged Legend won't see tomorrow: it's apparent you'll be slaughtered;
Deploring the oracle was a mistake just as aberrant as your daughter!
Martin Stein:
Hey, h- …Oh, why should I fall back onto dumb distraction-tunes,
When you're as prone to cause your own strikeout, all while we shoot the moon?
Cut with the C.R.A.P.; let this theory of mine be self-fulfilled: you'll cease to diss me,
Lest I cut your lifeline like your Greek ancestors three from Disney!
Sapphire:
If that Titanic travesty of trite trash-talk's all you've got,
Then it's no inner-fascist speaking when I say you should be shot!
Though I'd have warned you, that would be to squander breath for me; I know this:
You'd be heedless even with a quarter-century of notice!
Ruby:
Hit the streets, relapsed to homelessness: you'll want to keep anonymous;
A fuming-to-the-brim stone's bent on bringing your Apokalips!
The CW can have Ms. Kane informed on termination:
There was no room for her once this Ruby rose to the occasion!
Ronnie Raymond:
It was plain why you would be a cowboy: shit got polarizing.
Now, take one more comic page to heart: ride into the horizon;
No horsebacking, though! Try force-propelled ascension through the sky;
Yo, when you get to space's vacuum, tell your brethren I said "Hi",
And like the Happy of those five red dwarves reneged on standing with you,
Just back down from whence you've stepped up. Better yet, abandon ship, too!
Gangster-rapping worthily of some Dakotaversal bang-baby,
Watch this meta-S.T.A.R. extinguish your eternal flame, baby!
Ruby:
Funny you'd mention horizons: the events that I discern
Are painting you abyss-inbound, and past the point of no return!
Your jerkhole gripes and talking smack? I wouldn't fly to such judgments, were I to be you;
Full-circled like a Tokamak, your lapped back attacks will bite you something entirely new!
Ronnie Raymond:
A tempered temper lends to endless energy attained to blow through;
Rage has got you burning out, and that's my okay to K.O. you,
So let's leave the hero business to myself and the professor,
Making sure they'll see the written notice of your surrend
er!
Ruby:
Have you turned your own brains to jelly?! You're intoxicated; face it:
Flying off the rails, you'll plummet to rock bottom, getting wasted!
I'm out to bring hurt beyond mere heartbreak, and thus, your wounds yet need more salting,
Like your record's blackest mark, which Rusch won't soon let be forgotten!
Sapphire: That was rotten, alright; biting to look back upon as Sodom's burning.
White light this night, too, will end your torment, though with no returning!
Ruby: Or, in more straightforward wording: DIE. You must be nuts,
'Cause if the wedding stage didn't clue you in…
R+S: Today belongs to us!
Martin Stein:
I'll gladly rain on your reunion, jerks; it's time to face the truth:
You're plainly out of it as any circus sideshow saber-tooth!
Ronnie Raymond: If the professor is the passenger beside my pilot, punks,
That puts you as the ones blindfolded, bound and gagged inside our trunk!
Firestorm: You've walked Earth since prehistory?
Well, let's address the elephant…
A flung-back Furby's apt to outpace your epochal relevance!
You'll soon return to purpose-lacking, playing parent off the table,
Once our 'verses clash, and Steven takes an arrow in the navel!
Ruby:
Dude; leukemia is one thing, but those bars of your creation?
Sapphire: Cancerous beyond the help of your most cosmic incarnation!
R+S: Striking with a shadow's subtle grace, yet shining steel's lethality,
You may think it's Injustice, but we're winning by fatality! (Frosty!)
(*♪, ♪-♪-♪, ♪-♪*)
Garnet: You're getting throttled,
Harder than you dropped the ball with Brainiac's whole ship of bottles!
Take a moment to think, now, of just how very wrong you were, disputing me:
A clear-cut polymerized paragon; let no-con-fusion be.
?????????:
The trigger word's been stated! Now, my trap is activated;
Thus, the trump card's played in my fair maiden's name, so sayeth I!
The coming game's experience? You bums should take to fearing it,
Because it's time to D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DIE!
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon:
I'm the overkill O.G. of owning old O.C.G. scenes; don't test me:
M.C. B.E.U.D. on the track? Best bet that it's your Death-T!
I inflict direct attacks; take life points down to zero, no doubt,
For this joke of a Gem-Knight and Elemental HERO dropout!
I drop right on in, without a brutal cost; sans Cyber-Stein:
Bring triple threats, converging onto Ruby, Ron, Sapphire and Stein!
You're all exhausted; left defenseless as a goblin-force one-shotter:
Losing hands dealt to you all played-out, and now I strike like Yata
Garasu, to lock you pussy Fusionists in strangleholds!
You'd never bend my will in shining armor forged of rarest gold.
In terms of targets fixed upon you, you'll have no chance to Scapegoat it:
One fell burst-stream's zapping your whole sheepish quartet of components!
Weighing you against me, the Millennium Scales will tip so hard,
You'll catapult, with robo-turtles wishing they could flick as far.
You're standing on the edge; ensuing shock is sure to wreck your balance,
Come the baddest dragon's dark discharge from his Zorc Necrophallus!
Need I spell it out? Your destiny is FINAL; undisputed!
As for changing fate, moreover, that's my job, with gods tributed!
Crushing you, why would I spring some virus? That ain't worth my time,
When all your values at their highest couldn't match a third of mine!
The legend that began it all: oft-mimicked, never replicated.
My pot runneth over; it's not necessary to explain it!
You'll beg for some shadow penalty, such twistedness you'll face;
For those who come in behind Blue-Eyes, a Limp Bizkit's what they taste!
Firestorm:
Self-special-summoning into our double-duel? Screw that whole deal;
If I had wanted a royale, I'd just be playing Battlefield!
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon: Don't drag this out with dialogue, delaying; I haven't got all day,
And when this card is heartless to you, how can you so much as pray?
Garnet: Well, I'd say you've let your defenses down, and I ain't talking misprints:
Your effect on me's, put simply as your text box, nonexistent!
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon:
It's the rapper-kingdom finals, whelp; that isn't gonna fly:
Those one-star-studded gauntlets plainly tell that you're unqualified!
I've got you insects flipping out, but doing so won't serve to bite me,
For your lot's too basic!
Lusterless!
Dull!
…Let alone worthy to ride me,
While I shine on ever brightly, even scaled down for the big screen;
Steal the thunder of Gate-Guards: my lyrics' layout's labyrinthine!
This collective looks combustion-bound, face flared up; in a frenzy,
But I've felled far more infernal red-eyed monsters full of envy.
Cards here stacked against you steeper still than Reshef of Destruction,
White light's sealing your demise, so though you guessed correct on one thing,
Know my arsenal's evolved to make for new alternatives;
With chaos rituals to maximize the pain, I'll burn you, bitch!
Watch me send this three-eyed sucker straight to the grave; negate a compensating deck search:
End malformed mashups' miseries, like the doggy saying "Edward"!
Garnet:
Oh, you can banish that shit; try, instead, Fullmetal Jacket,
'Cause I have to ask it: what is your mammoth malfunction, maggot?!
Firestorm: I have had it with these Muto-fighting dragons, coalesced as one,
But for us coming back from this hijacking, hopes look next to none…
Our best's yet unexhausted…
Garnet: The sole option left to take here…
Firestorm: …Should we all agree we want it.
Garnet: …Would be nuclear in nature.
Firestorm: Are you thinking what I am?
Garnet: I don't think that's how fusion works.
Firestorm: Well, screw the rules; we have fan fiction logic!
Garnet: Let's just do this, jerk…
………
Garnetstorm:
Know your last-minute winning plays; details: I take no pleasure in this
As I bust loose from our tightest spot and get direct to business,
No less vocal for it, mind you, while I counter-steal the show,
And finish what your master started, with one down, and three to go!
These blows will knock you sideways, keeping up the damage all the same,
With meteoric impacts fit to fuel your blackest rival's flames!
I'm breaking your sustaining chains; those of my components' restraint, too:
But four pieces here need come together to obliterate you!
Brightly-blazing stone conglomerate, far from some shadow puppet:
Mega-mixture; this vanilla triple-dipper can go shove it!
If you're triple-A, call me the alphabet's whole backmost leg;
No Toonish trickery required, I'll deflect attacks all day!
My fighting spirit's too intense to stay; my presence here is fleeting,
But the Last Turn is upon us, and you're set for searing beating!
Wanna end this with a draw? I'll go Berserker, then: get violent,
And remake Destroy All Monsters; stomp out this tri-headed tyrant.
WHO WON?
WHO'S NEXT?
I DECIDE!
MOLE…
…MAN'S…
HA!
…EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!!!!!
This is from series of photos that I took in North Africa and the Middle East in 2008. I was lucky enough to travel through these areas a few years before the current destabilization. In my solo travels from Morocco to Pakistan I experienced nothing but warmth and generosity from the people I met. Without the help and support of countless strangers it would have been impossible to complete this long overland journey.
City Methodist Church
Gary Indiana
5 Image HDR
This is one of my favorite shots from the Church as it shows a more dramatic state of decay that some areas of the building is in. I also like all the doors that are standing open so close together. Taken on the 3nd floor, the double doors to the left exit into a basketball court where over half the ceiling has collapsed. To the lower right of the image there is a sheet of ice.
Constructed at the cost of over 1 million dollars in 1926, the City Methodist Church is a massive nine story structure that sits in downtown Gary in a complete state of ruin and destabilization. Architecturally designed in a traditional English Gothic style, the church remained a place of worship until1975. Due to a major population shift in northeast Indiana in the late 60’s and early 70’s the churches congregation shrank and it was sold to Indiana University as a campus extension, but was never used. Over the following years the church was used for many purposes but eventually was abandoned. 1997 it was severely damaged in a massive fire which also included several nearby buildings. The fire was believed to be act of arson. It has been suggested that the building become a "ruins garden" like those found in Europe.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.
Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.
As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.
In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.
The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.
While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.
In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.
In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.
The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.
The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.
Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.
The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.
World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.
In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.
The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.
Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.
On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.
A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.
The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.
Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.
Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.
A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.
With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.
The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.
Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.
With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.
Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.
Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.
The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.
On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.
At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.
Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.
Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.
The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.
Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.
On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.
By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.
Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.
Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.
By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.
In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.
Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.
Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.
On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.
From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.
Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.
As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.
An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.
Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".
On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.
The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.
Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.
Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.
On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.
Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.
The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.
The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.
Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.
However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.
Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.
In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.
The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.
Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.
Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.
Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).
Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.
On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.
The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.
Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.
In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.
Rowhouse, 1828. During the Prohibition, the building housed a famous speakeasy, the Pirate’s Den. The establishment undoubtedly was patronized by New York’s dapper Mayor Jimmy Walker. After the Pirate’s Den closed, Mayor Walker set up his mistress, Betty Compton – a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl – to live in the house. The Howdy Doody puppet was created in its basement by Frank Paris, who lived there at the time.
NOTE: Sadly, foundation work on 14 Gay St. destabilized it to the extent the city ordered the next-door building demolished at the end of 2022. In the meantime, 12 Gay St. has received an extensive renovation.
Still cleaning out my desk and just found another photo I'd been meaning to scan.
I took this picture in Jamaica in the late seventies. Right before we flew back to the US, I opened my old 35 mm SLR Minolta without remembering to rewind the film and ruined the roll--whicn had my best pictures from Jamaica on it, naturally. This photo, which I found later on another roll, was shot from the balcony of our room, overlooking the beach at Ocho Rios.
We stupidly visited Jamaica during a time of civil unrest (Michael Manley was PM and was at odds with the US after establishing relations with Cuba in the early 70s; the US attempted to destabilize Jamaica under Manley's tenure) and there were riots in Kingston--several American tourists had been murdered that summer. It took us several hours in a van to reach the resort after we landed at the airport, and the driver harangued us for the entire three hours about how the US should help Jamaica economically to help prevent the formation of a closer alliance between the island and Castro; I suppose he didn't realize how little control most American citizens have over the actions of our government. Like many people, he seemed to believe that our government actually was "by the people."
The houses we passed on the way to the resort were smaller than one room in a modest American home. I'll never forget passing through the silent streets of a large town and the unfriendly and hopeless eyes of the people lining the roadside. Crowds actually filled the sidewalks to capacity, and they just stood there, watching. I suppose they had no work. I don't really know what they were waiting for, but only those despairing eyes moved as we drove by.
Because of the violence (foreigners were fleeing Kingston in fear for their lives), our travels in the country were greatly circumscribed and guards with automatic weapons were positioned around the resort day and night. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), I was too young and dumb to be afraid.
I remember Jamaica as an extraordinarily beautiful place (made even more beautiful because Myer's rum and Red Stripe beer was available at very low prices or often free at the resort and the food was excellent), which was crippled with poverty and crime. As I said, I was young at the time and not quite as disturbed by destitution and unfairness as I am now; I don't think I'd ever want to go there again--I see enough inequity in the States.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this old photograph for the sunshine that glitters on the surface even though the country itself lay under an ominous cloud of want, trouble, and despair.
A U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II assigned to the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, launches for a sortie at RAF Lakenheath, England, April 19, 2017. The fifth generation, multi-role fighter aircraft deployed here to maximize training opportunities, affirm enduring commitments to NATO allies, and deter any actions that destabilize regional security. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Malcolm Mayfield)
Character Creation
The Sandman (William Baker, a.k.a. Flint Marko) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A shapeshifter endowed through an accident with the ability to turn himself into sand, he started out as a recurring adversary to the superhero Spider-Man, but has redeemed himself over time, eventually becoming an antihero.
The Sandman has also been an enemy of the Fantastic Four and is a founding member of the supervillain teams the Sinister Six and the Frightful Four.
The character has been adapted into various other media incarnations of Spider-Man, including films, television series, and video games. In live-action, he was portrayed by Thomas Haden Church in Spider-Man 3 (2007) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).
An illusionary creature based on the Sandman appeared in the MCU film Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019). In 2009, the Sandman was ranked as IGN's 72nd Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.
The Sandman first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #4 (Sept. 1963), created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko as an adversary of Spider-Man.[3][4][5] The character returned in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 and The Amazing Spider-Man #18-19, and was soon depicted in other comics, such as The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four.
The Sandman served as the villain of the first issue of the Spider-Man spin-off series Marvel Team-Up (March 1972), which gave him a more morally ambiguous depiction.
Writer Roy Thomas later commented, "I've been pleased to see Sandman's gradual redemption, whose seeds perhaps I helped plant in that story. He just seemed to me like a character who might have that in him ..."
Subsequent stories stuck with the character's original depiction, but a decade later the more sympathetic portrayal of the Sandman returned, starting with Marvel Two-in-One #86 (April 1982), in which the Sandman is given co-star billing with his nemesis the Thing. The Sandman was later an ally of Spider-Man, as well as a reserve member of the Avengers and a member of Silver Sable's "Wild Pack" team of mercenaries.
Besides being most notable as a Spider-Man supervillain, he has also been depicted as a Fantastic Four antagonist in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comic books (mostly due to being introduced as a founding member of the original Frightful Four) along with being on the heroic side (being an Avengers reserve member) until being introduced as a tragic supervillain in the Spider-Man comics once again.
Fictional character biography
William Baker was born in Queens, New York. At three years old his father abandoned him and his mother, a cleaning lady. In these early years she took her son to Coney Island beach. He lost himself happily in sand sculptures, a craft he would use in secondary school under the encouragement of his teacher (and first crush), Miss Flint.
In preparatory school, a boy named Vic and his two pals bullied William until he learned to fight using opponents' motions against themselves, a technique he performed as if he "slipped through their fingers like sand." Vic and his buddies posed no match to William, who wore them down and who they even befriended throughout high school. At this time, William, a football player on his school's team, used football to channel his anger to apply it to what he sensed as a nascent change in himself. While playing football he adopted the moniker "Flint", the last name of his affection, Miss Flint.
Vic incurred a large debt to a mob. In desperation, he begged Flint to fix a football game he bet on to pay off his debt. Flint did, but found himself kicked off the team after the coach discovered his involvement in this corruption. The coach vituperated the young, tenderfoot trickster by saying that he will accomplish nothing of importance in his life. Flint roughed up his ex-coach, resulting in his expulsion from school and segue into a life of crime.
His illegal activity increased in depth and scope, turning him into a violent, bitter man. Eventually he ended up in prison on Ryker's Island where he met his father, Floyd Baker. He was friendly to his father but did not tell him who he was. He told Floyd his nickname, Flint, and a false surname, Marko, inspired by his former coach’s taunts about not "making a mark" on the world. He would use the alias Flint Marko from that point on (He changed his name also to prevent his mother from discovering he's a criminal). His father's presence ameliorated him. After Floyd is released from prison, Marko escaped.
Immediately, William fled to a nuclear testing site on a beach near Savannah, Georgia where he came into contact with sand that had been irradiated by an experimental reactor. His body and the radioactive sand bonded and changed Marko's molecular structure into sand. Impressed, he named himself the Sandman after his new powers.
Marko clashed with Peter Parker/Spider-Man for the first time at Midtown High School. He escaped Spider-Man in his first battle, but later Spider-Man found the Sandman hiding in his school. He sucked Marko into a vacuum cleaner and handed it over to the police. The Sandman escaped by getting through his jail cell window after turning himself to sand, but was recaptured by the Human Torch after the Torch lured the Sandman to a building by disguising himself as Spider-Man, then activating the sprinkler systems. After a while he resurfaced as a member of the Sinister Six, led by Doctor Octopus. He battled Spider-Man inside an airtight metal box, but the Sandman was defeated due to Spider-Man having stronger lungs than him. Alongside the Enforcers, he captured the Human Torch but later succumbed to Spider-Man and the Human Torch. After Spider-Man defeated Flint numerous times, Flint diverted his attention to other super heroes. He teams with the Wizard, Paste Pot Pete and Medusa to form the Frightful Four to combat the Fantastic Four, which attacked during Reed and Sue's engagement party. The Fantastic Four with the help of a few other super heroes pounded this fledgling group. In another battle he lost against the Four, he donned a diamond-patterned green costume with a purple cap and was joined by Blastaar. Later he and the Hulk dueled for the first time. Mandarin joined him in his next conflict against the Hulk.
In time Sandman discovered—starting with his hands—that his body can transform into glass and that he can reverse that effect. He contracted cancer and overtook a medical research center. He battled Wonder Man but was cured of cancer by radiation. Afterward, he allied himself with Hydro-Man to battle their mutual enemy, Spider-Man. An accident merged the two villains into a muddle-headed mud monster whose rampage was cut short when Spider-Man and the police dehydrated the monstrosity. Months later, the supervillains managed to separate their masses and went their separate ways.
Depression sank into Baker in an episode where he had second thoughts about evil. The Thing of the Fantastic Four saw Baker's angst and urged him to straighten himself out and use his ability to do good. He began boarding with the Cassadas and teamed with Spider-Man against the Enforcers. Sandman then made sporadic appearances in Spider-Man comics assisting his former enemy. The first such appearance had him coming to the rescue of Spider-Man and Silver Sable, who were outnumbered and surrounded by the Sinister Syndicate. Silver Sable was impressed by Sandman's performance and recruited him as a freelance operative. Doctor Octopus coerced him into rejoining the Sinister Six, but he turned against the clan, so Doctor Octopus (the leader) turned him into glass for his treason. Spider-Man, however, saved the Sandman. Sandman also appeared as part of The Outlaws, a group of reformed Spider-Man enemies, such as Prowler, Rocket Racer, Puma and Will o' the Wisp, that would occasionally aid Spider-Man.
Later he received a presidential pardon and briefly joined the Avengers as a reserve member. Later, he became a full-time mercenary in the employ of Silver Sable, as a member of her Wild Pack, serving alongside heroes such as Paladin and Battlestar. Sandman was one of the few heroes temporarily overwhelmed by his evil doubles during the Infinity War. This double almost kills them all.
In The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2 #4, Marko turned against Spider-Man and his sometimes ally Thing and declared his allegiance to evil and his former employer, the villainous Wizard. This change proved egregiously incompatible to what many Sandman fans had thought Sandman had become: a hero. This outcry caused Marvel to rush out a story, inPeter Parker: Spider-Man vol. 2 #12, which retconned The Amazing Spider-Man #4 in which the Wizard kidnapped Sandman and used his mind control machine, the Id Machine, to control the sandy monstrosity.
The machine worked too well and Sandman went about re-forming the Sinister Six to destroy both Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, only to be double-crossed by Venom, whom Sandman recruited as the sixth member of the team. During Venom's brawl against Sandman, the vicious black symbiote's mouth ripped a chunk of sand from Sandman. That missing sand destabilized Sandman, causing him to lose his ability to maintain his human form. Before falling into the sewer (as a nod to fans who rejected Marvel's attempt to re-villainize the character), Sandman admitted that part of the reason for his fall from grace was the trouble he had coping with life on the good guys' side, and asked Spider-Man to tell his mother he's sorry he didn't fulfull his promise to her, to be a force for good. Sandman washed away and slid down a sewer, from which he mixes into Jones Beach, New York and is thought dead.
Sandman's body and mind became scattered throughout the beach. This separation lasted too long for him, causing his mind to split into good and its opposite, evil, which when dominant created sand vortexes to ensnare beach combers. Spider-Man arrived to confront Sandman, using Sandman's mental instability to free his captives and causing him to explode.
His sand wafted throughout New York and touched down into piles forming beings that personify him: the good, the bad, the gentle and the innocent. Spider-Man located these sandmen in an attempt to convince them to unify. Sandman's evil persona merged with his innocent and gentle personas, but Sandman's good one rebuffed the evil one. Because Sandman's mind can only handle his separated personalities for a limited time, he lost his ability to retain himself, crumbling and blowing away, leaving Spider-Man to ponder the nature of his scuddled foe.
Sandman was later one of the villains recruited to recover the Identity Disc, but during its recovery he was seemingly killed in a mutiny. At the series' end Sandman was found alive and working with Vulture to manipulate the other villains.
Sandman returned in Spider-Man: The Gauntlet storyline, which redefined the character and his powers/mental state. While investigating a series of murders and a missing girl named Keemia, whose mother was one of the victims, Spider-Man traced the murders and the abduction to the Sandman, the girl's father, who was hiding on Governor's Island with Keemia. Sandman's powers had evolved to where he could create duplicates of himself who had their own personalities and, to Marko's shock, claim they committed the murders.
Spider-Man snuck away and used a fan to obliterate the sandmen. Originally Spider-Man believed Keemia would be handed to her grandmother, but instead she was sent to a foster home by Child Protective Services. Carlie Cooper, one of Spider-Man's friends, was under police suspicion for tampering with evidence from the murders committed by Sandman's duplicates. She was exonerated, but Sandman was still at large.
During the Origin of the Species storyline, Sandman was among the supervillains invited by Doctor Octopus to join his villains' team where he became involved in a plot to receive a reward and secure some specific items for himself. Sandman went after Spider-Man for Menace's infant baby, but ended up colliding with Electro. Spider-Man went on a rampage against the villains after the infant was stolen from him by the Chameleon. Sandman hid with Shocker and the Enforcers in the dock. However, Spider-Man collapsed the floor of a building, which falls into the water. Sandman attempted to rise to attack, but Spider-Man shot him using Shocker's vibrational air blasts.
In Big Time, he was part of the new Sinister Six, along with Mysterio, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, Chameleon, and Electro. He rose up against Doctor Octopus' plan to detonate New York, saying that his daughter Keemia is still there. He was later angered when, during a confrontation between the Sinister Six and the Intelligencia, Doctor Octopus teleported the Wizard into the upper atmosphere with the Intelligencia's equipment. Sandman was talking with his former Frightful Four teammate and old friend at the time, prompting Sandman to violently attack the Mad Thinker when he was going after Electro because he claimed that he did not want to lose any more friends.
When Doctor Octopus put his plan into action, Sandman was satisfied with the job because of the planned two billion dollar "compensation fee", which, he reasoned, would help him gain custody of his daughter. Although he was sent to guard a facility in the Sahara Desert (giving him complete control of the largest body of sand in the world), he was defeated by Spider-Man, Black Widow and Silver Sable when Spider-Man identified and isolated the one grain of sand that contained his conscious mind. Spider-Man and Silver Sable then violently interrogated Sandman to reveal all of Doctor Octopus' secrets.
Character Evolution
Although he pulled many schemes to earn cash, Spider-Man stopped him every time. He grew to hate Spidey and want cash. Joining the Sinister Six, he became a frequent enemy of Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Daredevil. At one point early in his career he joined the Frightful Four alongside Trapster, Wizard and Medusa in their battles with the Fantastic Four. In a fight with Hydro-Man, he was mixed with him into a mud monster. This gave him a new sense of worth and outlook on life and changed him to the side of good. He was even recruited to be a reserve member of the Avengers, but has had trouble fitting in with them. Later, he was recruited and joined Silver Sable's Wild Pack. While in the Wild Pack he would become romantically involved with Silver Sable and would lead an offshoot team of Sable's Wild Pack called the Intruders.
Major Story Arcs
Nothing Can Stop... the Sandman!
Still in pursuit of the authorities, Sandman continued his crime spree within New York City. Making daring robberies and successfully robbing banks thanks to his newly acquired abilities, Sandman would capture the attention of the city’s newest costumed hero, Spiderman. Unaware of Sandman’s powers and abilities, Spiderman was bested by the boastful Sandman as the two fought on the rooftops. Almost exposing Spiderman’s identity when tearing his mask after the hero fell from the rooftops, Sandman continued on with his mindless crime spree.
Eventually Sandman would encounter Spiderman again when the villain broke into Peter Parker’s school while fleeing from the police. Bullying Principal Davis into giving him a high school degree while holding several classmates hostage, Spiderman would attack Sandman in another fight. Managing to avoid Sandman’s display of powers, Spiderman would defeat the villain with an industrial vacuum cleaner. Trapped in an container and in sand form, Sandman was finally captured and imprisoned by the authorities.
Revenge of The Sandman
Sandman would later escape custody and encounter Fantastic Fours Human Torch. Much like Sandman’s fight against Spiderman (who was secretly watching the incident), Sandman would also prove himself to be a difficult enemy for the Torch as well. Managing to defeat Sandman with a water sprinkler, Sandman was recaptured once more only to successfully escape again. Still wanting vengeance against Spiderman, Sandman would accept Doctor Octopus’s offer to join other vengeful Spiderman villains in an attempt to take out Spiderman once and for all as the Sinister Six.
As Spiderman fought each villain individually, Sandman would be one of the last villains to be defeated by the web-slinger before successfully taking down the entire Sinister Six. Managing to elude the authorities, Sandman would encounter Spiderman once more when he managed to chase the hero into hiding. After this event, Sandman would form an alliance with the Enforcers and make his attempt to gain revenge against the Human Torch. Successfully capturing him by surprise, Sandman and the Enforcers would find themselves against the confident Spiderman. With Torch being released and the Enforcers defeated, the exhausted Sandman found himself easily taken down and pinned by two patrol officers, facing the most humiliating defeat in the hands of both enemies.
The Frightful Four
After Sandman freed himself from custody with the assistance of another costumed criminal known as Paste Pot Pete, both would share strong similarities on their goals and enemies to where they decided to form an alliance. It would be of luck that they would discover another villain, the Wizard who was incapacitated in the sky after his recent fight with the Human Torch. Rescuing him, Wizard offered his services in a partnership and all three men formed an alliance to gain their vengeance against the Human Torch. Realizing that the Human Torch was now more involved with his team, Wizard would recruit the amnesiac Inhuman known as Medusa to act as their female member. With a group of four members that wore matching colors of purple and pink, Wizard acted as leader of the group and dubbed themselves as the Frightful Four.
With the Frightful Four, Sandman almost successfully defeated the Fantastic Four twice. First time when they interrupted Reed Richards and Susan Storms engagement party and entrapping them. Next by almost blowing up the Fantastic Four while they were trapped on a secluded island. Their next attempt would prove to their greatest when Wizard managed to have the Thing turn against his own teammates. However this caught the Fantastic Fours attention as Sandman was defeated and captured alongside with his team, besides Medusa who managed to escape. Sandman’s stint with the Frightful Four did manage to gain some confidence and benefits with Wizards aid of technology support.
As Paste Pot Pete changed his name to Trapster, Sandman would wear a costume designed by Wizard to help increase Sandman’s powers and manipulation. Because of this, Sandman felt confident enough to take on the Fantastic Four alone. Managing to stand his ground against the team of heroes, Sandman accidentally activated Richards Negative Zone portal which caused the alien Blastaar to enter the scene. With both Sandman and Blastaar sharing the same goals of defeating the Fantastic Four, both villains would form an alliance that proved unsuccessful as Sandman fell into a river and dispersed.
Managing to reform himself, Sandman desperately tried to obtain a space warp machine to retrieve Blastaar from the Negative Zone. This plan found Sandman battling a new and much more powerful enemy known as the Hulk. Later forced into allying with the Mandarin, Sandman fought the Hulk once more and was ultimately defeated when the green monster threw Sandman into a high-pressure vat that caused him to turn into glass. Found and cured by the Wizard, Sandman would rejoin the Frightful Four on their attempt to kidnap Franklin Richards who was currently being cared for by the sorceress Agatha Harkness.
This plan ultimately backfired against the team when Agatha quickly defeated the entire team and caused Sandman to slowly revert back into glass. Desperately trying to find a cure, Sandman would break into a clinic and force a blood specialist to complete a transfusion with the only person in the hospital who had the same blood type as the Sandman’s, which was Betty Ross. After the transfusion, Sandman was restored to normal while Betty Ross was temporarily turned into glass. This caused another encounter with Hulk, who defeated Sandman by throwing him into a body of water.
Finally reforming himself together again, Sandman decided to step away from his criminal rampage and visit his mother on Christmas Eve. However, trouble would still follow Sandman as both Spiderman and Human Torch came across Sandman and attempted to capture the villain. While trying to fight off both heroes, Sandman was captured and released by Spiderman after realizing Sandman’s true intentions on visiting his mother.
Sandman still continued his connections with the Frightful Four as the team found themselves struggling to replace Medusa, who was actually the most valuable member of the team. Even though his stay within the Frightful Four proved no better, Sandman would also continue on making several attempts on pursuing a solo criminal career. Hired by Crime-Master and Kingpin, he would later find himself recaptured by Spiderman and placed within a special designed containment bubble designed by Reed Richards.
Sandman managed to free himself with the assistance of Baron Brimstone as both villains found themselves battling both Spiderman and Machine Man. After both men were defeated by the heroes, Sandman would later find himself allying with another villain with somewhat similar powers, who was known as Hydro Man. This alliance eventually found itself short-lived and ending with both villains fighting each other until they accidentally merged into monstrous being known as Mud-Thing. After Spiderman successfully halted Mud-Things path of destruction, both Hydro Man and Sandman were still merged until finally being separated after a long period of dormancy.
The Heroic Pursuit
After being fully reformed, the recent event managed to not only cause Sandman to be traumatized, but unsure of his goals as being a criminal. Sandman would have an ironic encounter with one of his enemies in a local bar. Rather than fighting against the Thing, Sandman befriended the hero as he helped influence Sandman into reforming from being a criminal. This not only had Sandman gain a new friend and trusting friend, but also steered his future goals on redeeming himself for his past crimes. Starting with his first enemy, Sandman helped Spiderman on defeating his old allies the Enforcers. Even though Sandman was trying to make good attentions with the public and their heroes, Sandman was still a wanted man and was forced into changing his name to Sylvester Mann.
Sandman's heroic pursuit would turn for the better when he not only helped Spiderman against the Sinister Syndicate, but also the notorious mercenary Silver Sable. Impressed with Sandman, Silver Sable would hire Sandman to help and assist her against future threats. Alongside with Silver Sable and other heroes, Sandman defended European nations against Dr Octopus and the Sinister Syndicate, captured the communist criminal Albert Malik A.K.A The Red Skull, and disrupted an illegal arms deal between Madame Menace and Dr Octopus. As Sandman continued his career as an employee with Silver Sable, luck would turn for the worst when Dr Octopus forced Sandman into joining his newest incarnation of the Sinister Six. Doing so, Sandman played along with Dr Octopus’s unknown goals until he grew fed up with his stay in the Sinister Six that ended with Dr Octopus turning Sandman into glass. Later returning to normal, Sandman continued his heroic career and continued assisting Spiderman.
Return to Villainy
The Wizard would later capture and alter the mind of the Sandman to revive his evil persona. Back to his evil ways he would rejoin the Sinister Six. While a member of the Sinister Six , he and Venom clashed over who would be allowed kill to Spider-Man, and was severely injured. Being bitten by the murderous villain caused Sandman to slow lose control over his molecular structure. In his worsening condition, he blamed and attacked Spider-Man, but before completely degrading into pure sand, he asked Spidey tell his mother that he tried to be good. Luckily for both, Sandman's grains merged into a beach and he eventually returned.
Sandman was one of the villains recruited to recover the Identity Disc, but after questioning their would-be leader, is apparently killed by a compound that makes him fall apart. It is revealed that he and Vulture manipulated the other villains for the quest, and that Sandman informed the actual leader who they thought they were working for.
During the period of time in which Spider-Man's identity was public, Sandman went to him asking for his help. His biological father, an offender named Floyd Baker, was accused and falsely convicted of murdering a man that looked suspiciously like Uncle Ben; Sandman had tried and failed once before to rescue him, and saw the unmasked vigilante as his only option. Peter did not believe him at first, but after some honest words and looking at the evidence, he agreed to save his father. With the help of an emo kid who had witnessed the murderer, the two learned that the real murderer was Chameleon 2211, who had taken Uncle Ben's form after murdering Spider-Man 2211. Battling him at Midtown High, Spider-Man use the future Spider-man's helmet to switch Chameleon with Sandman's father right as he was in the electric chair, saving his life and giving them time to know each other as they made a break for it.
Sandman later developed the power to make sand clones of himself each slightly different. One of the clones got into a relationship with a young woman Alma but a rogue clone ended up killing her. Now deranged he takes her daughter Keemia believing she is his daughter and she also believes he is her father. Spider-Man attempts to rescue Keemia and tells Marko the truth. He is able to defeat Sandman but Keemia is sadly put into foster care. Upon defeat Sandman vowed that he would get revenge and always be his enemy from now on.
Ends of the Earth
He was later seen alongside the resurfaced Sinister Six as one of the six members. He aids Doctor Octopus and his fellow villains in taking over the world, defeating the Avengers, and working with the end goal of getting his daughter out of a foster home. When he is placed in charge of the Sahara Desert, Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Silver Sable confront him. Spidey uses advanced tech to pinpoint his Soul Grain - the one grain his body that controls himself - to defeat him.
Superior Six
Sandman, along with other villains who had classically been members of the Sinister Six, were defeated, abducted, and mind-controlled by Spider-Man (whose body is possessed by Doctor Octopus) as part of his Superior Six. The newly-dubbed "heroes" stop an attack by the Wrecking Crew, all the while it being clear that Spider-Man is forcibly making them save lives with mind-control technology. After a battle with Lightmaster and his Masters of Evil, the technology wears off, and the vengeful villains decide to have their revenge. Spider-Man narrowly defeats them, but Sandman spitefully reveals that the hope Spider-Man used to inspire in him is now dead.
When all of the world's heroes and villains are inverted into acting the opposite way they normally do, Sandman is inspired by his past as a hero to rescue an unjustly imprisoned small-time crook. He breaks into his jail and does so, but is dismayed when the news still reports him as a villain.
Sandman later appears inside the new super villain prison outside of New York called the Power House. When the Thing is placed there under false charges of murdering the Puppet Master, he becomes one of his few friends on the inside and protects him discreetly a couple times. He reveals that he is helping the hero because someone is sending care packages to his daughter (obviously the Thing),and he's grateful for it. In return for this help, Ben let him in on his plan to escape the Power House. They narrowly get out with the help of the Fantastic Four's allies. Sandman returns the favor by acting as part of the Wizard's new Frightful Four to fight the Quiet Man's army.
Human No More
Sandman's ability to hold his sandy form together begins to wane, so he visits two criminal doctors, The Wizard and the Mad Thinker, They do no small part to help. He also started getting odd visions about what looked to be another life and his past. After collapsing in broad daylight, Sandman was found by Spider-Man. Although dismayed to be unable to help his former enemy, Spidey gave him one last relief by taking him to the beach his mother brought him to as a kid. He then turned to grains and was blown into the wind, apparently gone.
However, it was later revealed that because of a rift between dimensions, a parallel and more powerful version of Sandman had actually taken over his body, intent on continuing his lifespan. Together with Spider-Man, Sandman took control of his new completely-sand body and sent the parallel version of himself packing to his own dead world. The two then bid goodbye, Sandman hopeful and scared about his much tougher and grainier form.
Sinister War
Having returned to the beach to continue to collect himself, Sandman was tracked down by Doctor Octopus, under the influence of Kindred, to put the Sinister Six back together. Flint followed his new team to the premiere of Mysterio's movie to recruit him but found Mysterio being attacked by the Savage Six, angry about their portrayal of themselves in his movie.
They are able to get away with Mysterio in their ranks. With his illusion tech, they get close to Spider-Man during a brawl in a graveyard with the other supervillain teams. Eventually, Doc Ock uses a piece of Black Ant's helmet to knock everyone, including Flint, out through the ear centipedes Kindred was using to control them.
Sinister Adaptoid
After going their separate ways, The Living Brain kidnapped Sandman and five other foes of Spider-Man's. He was using them to program a new Super Adaptoid to hunt down and defeat Spider-Man so that the Living Brain could fulfill its original purpose, answer the question "Who is Spider-Man?"
In a fight with this Sinister Adaptoid in the Living Brain's lab, Spider-Man uncovered his villains in shackles. Against his better judgment, he decided to release them so that they would aid him in defeating both the Super Adaptoid and the Living Brain. When they found the Living Brain's control center, the Sinister Six wanted to kill it.
Believing it to be alive, Spider-Man defended the Living Brain's life. Seeing Spider-Man put his life on the line for an enemy whose life Spider-Man considered equally valuable satisfied the "Who is Spider-Man?" question. Thus, the Living Brain trapped the Sinister Six and agreed to Spider-Man's demands that it be temporarily taken offline and given to proper authorities.
Ravencroft
Flint would eventually turn himself into Ravencroft, trying to reclaim his life as William Baker. Being made up of many particles makes it difficult for his mind not to splinter, so they outfitted Sandman with a sonic disruptor, which would activate anytime the Flint identity tried to use his powers. Eventually he runs into Peter Parker, visiting another patient. Peter checks on his well-being, pretending to be a friend of Spider-Man, who cares about William's rehabilitation. William tries to get a message to Spidey through Peter that he was recently invited back to the Sinister Six, who were teaming up yet again to take on Spider-Man.
Eventually, Sinister Six member, Electro, would volunteer to break Sandman out of Ravencroft, but Spider-Man was there to stop him. Unfortunately, Sandman's sonic distruptor was disabled long enough for the sand particle with the Flint Marko identity to escape Ravencroft in a flower pot carried by one of the inmates on their last day. This allowed him to finally reunite with the Sinister Six, while the William Baker Sandman eventually became unstable and fell apart.
Spider-Goblin
Doctor Octopus reunited the Sinister Six so that they may have their vengeance on the Living Brain. Unfortunately, Osborn, who had been using the Brain for his own science, was on to them. Now being overwhelmed by the Goblin identity yet again, Osborn used Hobgoblin's Winkler Device to alter Spider-Man's brain into having his own goblin identity. He then released this Spider-Goblin on the Sinister Six. With Osborn's ingenuity, Spider-Goblin was able to overpower Electro and throw him into Sandman. Electro's lightning turned Flint into a glass prison.
Powers
As an accidental victim from the affects of radiation, Sandman’s body is now entirely made of sand. With the radiation blast causing his organic body to be fused with the elemental sand, his astral form only holds his own entire body structure together. Unlike Dr Strange who can control his astral form at will and leave his physical form, Sandman’s astral form is forever bonded with any sand he comes in contact with and cannot be separated, despite how far his sand body is separated or scattered. A unique feature that Sandman has is that he displays the ability to become organic and display human physiology at will. Displaying human features such as eating, breathing, bleeding, fatigue, and capable of feeling pain (depending on his current form or mental stress).
Sandman also has control over every sand particle that composes his body, because of this Sandman can travel more quickly followed by a trail of sand. Usually he’s traveling like this with both feet, as a sand mound, or a thin long trail. Aside from traveling, Sandman could also project his body into growing taller or by exerting his body outwards at high speeds, in other words he could throw his own body against unexpected opponents.
Once Sandman’s body is scattered or dispersed despite the distance, he could quickly reform himself back together again. Because of himself being made of sand materials, Sandman possesses a high increase in strength that could increase more as his body intakes more sand or sand materials. It’s unclear of the highest amount of strength the Sandman can possess or how big his body can grow, what is known is that at his highest strength level Sandman can stand his ground against individuals with massive strength such as the Hulk and the Thing. If Sandman does manage to lose a certain amount of sand within his body, he could easily restore the lost amount with any other found sand materials.
Having creative skills in sculpting and molding prior to his accident, Sandman is capable of transforming his body into any solid object he desires. Such as transforming his hands into weapons like mallets, clubs, maces, transforming his entire body into complex machinery, objects, and even impersonating people and animals as well. However each form Sandman chooses to change into doesn’t cause Sandman to gain the abilities or memory of that chosen form, and also the form is entirely made of sand as well. For example, if he were to transform his hand into a gun, he wouldn’t be able to shoot any live rounds. Or if he were to change into Spiderman, he wouldn’t display any of his powers or abilities. Recently Sandman’s level of creativity and display of powers have caused him to take more advanced forms such as becoming a fully furnished castle.
Most of the time Sandman is seen wearing the same basic clothing that consisted of a striped green long sleeve shirt and dark brown khaki trousers, the same clothing he worn in the radiation blast that granted his abilities. Transformed alongside with him, the clothing has also bonded and shared the same results of Sandman’s abilities. Even though Sandman has been seen wearing other clothing or costumes, most/ or all of his clothing is made up from his own mutated physiology. Much like the symbiotes ability to alter different styles of clothing, Sandman can also do the same but mostly restricted to the colors brown or green, the same type of colors from the clothing his body bonded with. Even though Sandman was once seen bearing the colors of purple and pink when he first Recently Sandman has displayed a new and unique form of abilities with his powers by multiplying himself into an army. Almost resembling the original Sandman, each form consists of Sandman’s emotions. Each form is equally powerful as the original and does carry the same basic abilities as the original.
Limitations
Even though Sandman displays unique and powerful set of powers and abilities, there also follows limitations. First is the fact that Sandman’s body retains the same reactions that material-like sand has with other elements, such as water and fire. Much like bodies of sand itself, Sandman could easily absorb water into his body causing him to lose control of his physique at a certain amount. Sandman’s body also reacts towards fire at the degrees of 3,400 Fahrenheit; this would cause Sandman’s entire body into glass, which immobilizes him until he’s restored to normal. Even though he’s still capable of retaining his conscious if shattered into glass pieces, Sandman is still trapped within his own body.
Possibly the most weirdest and awkward weakness Sandman has is with the villain known as Hydro Man, who also views Sandman the same way. Both men whose bodies each consist of a different elemental controlled by their conscious were to accidentally bond by fighting would most likely form into a single monstrous like being consisted of mud. With both men sharing no conscious or control, the after effects of being separated would cause both Sandman and Hydro Man a lengthy and traumatizing reaction.
Possibly kept secret and rarely seen is that Sandman does retain human form and does retain full functions and weaknesses. During his career as the Sandman, he has successfully contracted physiology sicknesses and even cancer. Even though he’s capable of reverting his body into sand at will, Sandman still carries any type of contracted sickness, cancer, or obtained diseases.
The greatest flaw in Sandman’s powers is the amount of mental stress his powers can cause. It’s a fact that Sandman can easily survive if his head is separated from his from his body and that he would still retain full conscious, but it also reacts towards his mental state. Over the years of mastering his abilities, the amount of creativity, and time he’s spent as a being made of entirely sand has taken a great amount stress on his mental health. Even though Sandman was an honored member of the Avengers and lived a career as a respectful hero, his mind was kept at a balanced state to where it was easy for the Wizard to change back to it’s original criminal mindset. After managing to separate himself into multiple beings, Sandman wouldn’t realize that he also separated parts of his conscious that each being developed on their own. This caused Sandman to perform actions without his full knowledge and capable of causing a conflict with himself in a mental confrontation.
⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽
_____________________________
A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
Secret Identity: William Baker
Publisher: Marvel
First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #4 (September 1963)
Created by: Stan Lee (writer)
Steve Ditko (artist)
Sandman last seen in BP 2022 Day 73!
A legendary being feared throughout the universe, the Voporak is as powerful as it is mysterious. Its origins are unknown, suspected to either be a forgotten precursor Rahi, or a Steltian drastically changed by destabilized Protodermis. It does not speak, but is quite intelligent and deadly. It is known to wander the universe, ignoring most other beings, but utterly destroying any who dare to threaten it. Most troublingly, it seems to have an affinity for the Dark Hunters, who seem to have found some way to convince the beast to do them favors on occasion.
The Voporak is as feared as it is due to its time-based powers, not possessed by any other known being. Able to speed up or slow down time around itself, it can take out opponents before they even realize it is there. Most devastating are its claws, which, if they strike a foe, cause the target to rapidly age hundreds of years in mere seconds, causing armor to rust, mechanisms to fail, and organics to rot. This is all not even mentioning its extreme size and strength, and its ability to rapidly age any projectiles hurled at it, causing them to fizzle out harmlessly.
Most suspect that the Voporak is somehow linked to the mythical Mask of Time, a mask that does not yet exist, but will someday.
Sleeping With Sirens, 10/13/10 Destabilize North American Tour at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, PA.
Conversion of my Muunilinst build for the SW Factions game on Eurobricks.
Read on to immerse yourself in the adventures of the newly-courageous Professor Floon!
I, Professor Podd Floon of the Chandrilian Academy of Research, have recently dedicated myself to a life of travel around the galaxy, during which I intend to record my thoughts and findings for posterity. Imagine, me! Professor Floon! Meeting all sorts of dangerous customers and wild beasts! It makes me intensely nervous, but I am tempered also by mad excitement. It is very strange, but very good, to no longer be behind a desk.
I strike out alone to the Obtrexta Sector of the Muunilinst system, to its namesake planet. I travel on a CFS Cruiser making the Braxant Run. The conditions aboard are surprisingly comfortable. My fellow passengers are by-and-large polite, self-concerned people, with whom I share infrequent, but welcome, conversation. Much to my relief, no one makes a play for my wallet.
Muunilinst was a vicious battlefield during the Clone Wars, but has long been peaceful in the years since, making it an ideal first stop. Its climate is temperate, and there are no extreme weather conditions. The surface is pockmarked by lakes and hot springs, heated by magma beneath the planet’s crust. Perhaps the Banking Clan, the planets’ historical rulers, could make a profit by creating several spas. A spa planet! The idea itself is relaxing. Oh, to soak my pallid skin! I suspect the sensation would remind me of the hive of my birth.
After the Clone Wars, the Empire made Muunilinst one of its financial capitals. They could not, of course, destroy the Banking Clan as they did the other Separatist Corporate Interests. Doing so might destabilize the galactic economy. Instead, they took it for their own. They are extremely greedy!
I leave the capital city of Harnaidan (bustling!) with its towering green pillars for the relative peace of the flowing plains that surround it, the sight of desperate battles in years past. The tranquil breeze fills my ears, blowing the grass around me like a sea. It shares a hue with my own complexion.
In a section of ruins I discovered a horrifying sight: a skeleton! Likely human, and judging from the blast marks that peppered it, a possible victim of the Jedi Purge. Poor soul. I imagine he was very lovely, outside of his Jedi loyalties. Let no one say that Professor Floon is not reasonable and compassionate! Though I sometimes fail, it is always a standard I aim to attain.
Lest the skeleton elicit a movement within my gut, and I hurl on the flagstones, I ask a passing Jawa merchant for directions. I am nervous around this creature, if only because of the Jawa propensity for mischief, but this creature is helpful and keeps to itself. How strange to see a Jawa on its lonesome! I am keenly aware that I too am alone. Perhaps I should find some manner of protection for future travels to more dangerous locales.
It seems I am to travel into the mountains next. I intend to study the rich mining industry on this planet (many precious metals dot the planet’s surface!), and how it has changed from the time of the Republic to now. I suspect I shall learn many fascinating insights of geological, financial, and political nature.
Until next time, dear reader!
-Professor Floon
Camp Cloud Resists: 8099 Shellmont Street and Underhill Avenue, Unceded Coast Salish Territories (Burnaby Mountain, British Columbia), Saturday, July 22, 2018.
Text of Press Release below:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 20, 2018
Camp Cloud, Burnaby, unceded Coast Salish Territories
Camp Cloud will NOT be Evicted
We are unceded Coast Salish people and people from all four directions exercising our rights, guided by Coast Salish responsibilities. In response to the 72-hour eviction notice from the City of Burnaby issued on July 18, we call for mutual respect for Coast Salish law and constitutional law.
Both Coast Salish laws and Canada’s constitutional laws recognize our right to peaceful public protest. The structures at Camp Cloud function to support our water protection efforts, and they can be modified to address the concerns raised by Lambert Chu, the City of Burnaby’s Manager. However, 72 hours is an unreasonable demand. Camp Cloud needs a longer timeline in order to address the concerns. Our first responsibility is to ensure clean water, and no bitumen poisoning, for all people. We request a meeting with Lambert Chu to address the City’s wish list.
The sacred fire at Camp Cloud is as old as our nations. Since before contact, we’ve had sacred fires lit. This one has been reignited after 150 years of genocide. As sworn in Kwitsel Tatel’s March 14, 2018, affidavit, extinguishing or moving the sacred fire would be a violation of not only Coast Salish people’s right to express our opposition to the pipeline expansion, but also to our deeply held, sacred religious beliefs. She states, “The sacred fire must not be extinguished nor moved without the consent of the Coast Salish and Aboriginal elders at Camp Cloud.” The fire is lovingly watched over 24-7.
This eviction notice was wrongfully issued without adequate consideration of the BC Supreme Court or talking to Camp Cloud in good faith. It is an uncivil act of colonialism against Indigenous cultural resurgence. For Camp Cloud, the Coast Salish level of governance takes priority, followed by federal, provincial, and municipal levels. If the City of Burnaby really opposes the TransMountain pipeline, why are they attempting to end one of the most visible and popular forms of opposition to the pipeline?
We conduct our water protection work at this location because of strong community support, and we are grateful for the many people sustaining us through donations and encouragement. Camp Cloud member Elauna Boutwell says, “we are doing the right thing, raising awareness about the collectively deadly impacts of the pipeline.” This crucial work is carried on by many Indigenous groups all along the pipeline route, who have also been suffering similar eviction problems that show how the governance process in Canada is broken.
Like the over 200 arrestees who’ve conducted principled civil disobedience, we reject the Trudeau government’s decision to bail out a leaky pipeline. This issue is important for all people; everyone needs healthy land, water and air. According to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 2, everyone has the freedom of conscience and religion, of thought, belief, opinion, expression, press, peaceful assembly and association. Everyone has the right to protest. Furthermore, Section 35 enshrines our Aboriginal rights. According to the BC Supreme Court ruling by Judge Affleck on March 15, 2018, Camp Cloud and the Watch House are outside of the injunction zone. It is shameful that this eviction notice effectively attempts to extend the injunction zone in an unfair manner.
The eviction notice has a list of demands including removing our sacred ceremonial fire and all the dwellings that we need in order to continue our sacred work. If we want fewer forest fires in the future due to global warming and fossil fueled climate destabilization, we need to protect this sacred fire and all that it represents. Camp Cloud needs the safety of our buildings around us. In various formations, camp members have been doing this work since 2014, at Westridge before, and now here.
We invite all people with a love for water to stand with us to keep BC beautiful. We the Original people are the first order of government on unceded lands. That is why we are here. We have survived efforts at genocide like the Indian reserves and residential schools. We continue to fulfill our responsibilities to the land and water. All forces that can protect beautiful BC are requested to stand with us, including the City of Burnaby, in a good way, rather than trying to evict us, for water is life. We all depend on water. We all care about health and the well-being of our communities and our relations.
We will hold a press conference at Camp Cloud on 8099 Shellmont Street in Burnaby at 10 am on Saturday, July 21, 2018.
For more information, call Elauna Boutwell at 780.200.3054, or email camp.cloud.community@gmail.com.
Video recording of press conference available at: