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The root of this ivy tree lovingly embraces the old church wall , a gentle strangulation.

 

These are the fragments left by the passing of time.Nothing is forever

This is a creative commons image, which you may freely use by linking to this page. Please respect the photographer and his work.

 

Grape vines in my yard in Charlotte Court House, Charlotte County, Virginia.

 

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The Life and Death of Lennon Lacy: Strange, Still

By Michael W. Waters, Huffington Post

  

The animus for Time Magazine's "song of the 20th century" was a photograph of a Southern lynching. A Southern lynching would often draw an entire region of spectators together for a day of socializing. Small children were even present in the crowd, lifted high upon shoulder for an uninterrupted view of the day's fatal proceedings. It was a strange, albeit frequent Southern spectacle, one that claimed many Black lives.

 

Given the frequency of this horrid practice, and the abundance of lynching photographs in circulation, many that doubled as postcards, it is unclear why one particular photograph troubled, then inspired Abel Meeropol, a New York English teacher and poet. Yet, it did. Unable to free his mind of this troubling image over several days, Meeropol sought consolation through his pen. As ink dried upon its canvas, its residuum formed words that have haunted generations, words etched into our collective memory as lyric by the incomparable Billie Holiday:

 

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."

 

Now seventy-six years removed its initial recording, there is still cause to sing this sorrowful song.

 

On August 29, 2014, another Black body was added to the crowded annals of those swung by Southern breeze. In a cruel twist of irony, the body of seventeen year-old Lennon Lacy was not found swinging upon a Southern tree, but upon a Southern swing set - a fact only beginning the strangeness surrounding his death. Authorities in Bladenboro, North Carolina, abruptly ruled Lennon's death a suicide, declaring that he was depressed, and closed the case in five days.

 

Still, many questions remain.

 

Why did authorities fail to place bags over Lennon's hands to prevent contamination and preserve DNA from a possible struggle?

 

Why didn't authorities take any pictures at the scene of Lennon's death?

 

Why were the shoes found on Lennon's feet not the same shoes that he departed from home wearing?

 

Why were the shoes found on Lennon's feet a size and a half smaller than his foot size?

 

Why were those same shoes removed from the body bag between the time his corpse was placed in the body bag and the time the body arrived at the medical examiner's office?

 

Strange.

 

Very strange.

 

Strange, still, is an independent examiner's conclusion that declaring Lennon's death a suicide is virtually impossible given Lennon's height, weight, and the items found at the scene.

 

The circumstances surrounding Lennon's death, however, begin to lose some of its strangeness when the fact that he was in an interracial relationship with a white woman in an area still ripe with racial tension, and where the Ku Klux Klan has an active presence, is brought to the fore. History has taught us time and time again that when authorities move too quickly to close a case, a cover-up is afoot. With so many questions surrounding Lennon's death, the move to close his case remains startlingly strange, and it is cause for great concern. Thankfully, the FBI is now investigating the case.

 

Strange, still, is how justice for so many Black lives remains so fleeting.

 

Strange, still, is how swiftly certain tragedies that befall Black lives are swept under the rug.

 

Strange, still, is the spectacle of a Southern lynching upon a swing set, a symbol of youthful euphoria now rendered the site of a Black youth's strangulation. Of Meeropol and Holiday's "Strange Fruit," the late jazz writer Leonard Feather penned that it was "the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism." The very nature of a lynching is to render the victim forever mute -- asphyxiating in suspended space -- the violent snapping of the neck. While Lennon Lacy is forever muted, we who love justice must become for him as Meeropol and Holiday: an unmuted cry.

 

We must continue to pen Lennon's story.

 

We must continue to sing Lennon's song.

 

We must continue to seek answers to strange circumstances.

 

We must continue to seek justice for another Black life, a life, strangely, still, gone too soon.

 

This post is part of the "28 Black Lives That Matter" series produced by The Huffington Post for Black History Month. Each day in February, this series will shine a spotlight on one African-American individual who made headlines in 2014 -- mostly in circumstances we all wished had not taken place. This series will pay tribute to these individuals and address the underlying circumstances that led to their unfortunate outcomes. To follow the conversation on Twitter, view #28BlackLives -- and to see all the posts as part of our Black History Month coverage, read here.

 

Karl casually dispatches his victim - death by strangulation in Saturday Evening Post . Illustrator and date unknown.

 

There’s not a pier I visit that doesn’t have some level of dangerously discarded fishing monofilament, hooks, and other wildlife hazards. These photos were shot at the Coast Guard pier in Monterey, and these particular hooks and lines were cast in the “no fishing” area, behind a fence.

 

So many of the rocks on the breakwater have monofilament wrapped around the mussels, in the same areas where birds and sea lions haul out. This is a pier where there are many disposal receptacles for fishing monofilament. Fisher people cast in the same areas where cormorants nest, raise their young, and forage for food and nesting material.

 

The third photo in this series shows a California sea lion with an entanglement injury (flic.kr/p/2nmoUJ9) . This sea lion was one of the fortunate ones, rescued, with the strangulation element removed. Even after removal, the sea lion bears the significant scar from that injury.

 

Fishing gear entanglements are, by far, the most frequent wildlife injuries I see. Sometimes the animals can be rescued, but too often they can't, or they suffer away from view. For as much harm as stray fishing gear does, I wish fishing were prohibited in areas where the wildlife hazards are particularly acute … like areas where animals are known to haul out and nest.

RPPC depicting the execution by strangulation of the Italian Irridentist and Patriot Cesare Battisti at the Buonconsiglio castle’s moat on this day 104 years ago.

 

More about Cesare Battisti:

Cesare Battisti was born on 4 February 1875 and he was the son of a merchant from Trento, a city with a predominantly Italian-speaking population, which at the time was part of the Cisleithanian crown land of Tyrol in Austria-Hungary. Battisti attended the University of Florence, where he became a follower the Italian irredentism movement, aiming at the unification of his Trentino homeland with the Kingdom of Italy, though contrary to activists like Ettore Tolomei and Gabriele d'Annunzio he did not claim the predominantly German-speaking areas of South Tyrol up to the Brenner Pass.

In 1899, he married Ernesta Bittanti in a civil ceremony. The couple had three sons.

A journalist by profession and a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria, he was elected as a representative to the Tyrolean Landtag assembly at Innsbruck as well as to the Austrian Imperial Council (Reichsrat) at Vienna in 1911, where he vainly tried to obtain a status of autonomy for the Trentino region. Disgruntled by Austro-Hungarian attitudes to minorities in their empire, Battisti agreed to construct a military guide for the Italians to Austrian provinces that bordered Italy

When Austria-Hungary mobilised in August 1914, Battisti fled with his family to the Kingdom of Italy, where he held public meetings demanding Italy join the Triple Entente forces against Austria. With Italy's entry into World War I following the 1915 London Pact, though still an Austrian citizen, Battisti fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Alpini Corps at the Italian Front.

After the Battle of Asiago, he was captured by the Austrian forces on 10 July 1916 and on 12 July he faced a court-martial in his hometown Trento at the Castello del Buonconsiglio, charged with high treason. Though Battisti officially enjoyed parliamentary immunity, he was sentenced to death by strangulation. He requested a military execution by firing squad so as to not dishonor the Italian Army uniform, but the judge denied his request and instead procured for him some shabby civilian clothes. Dressed in these, he was executed (hanged and garrotted) the same day, together with Fabio Filzi, another Italian Irridentist and Patriot.

The brutality of the execution was increased by the fact that the executioner Josef Lang deliberately broke the thin rope while he was garotting Battisti and the senteced was actually hanged twice. In order to accelerate the death, Lang covered Battisti’s mouth and nostrils with his hands.

Right after Battisti’s death, a smiling execution squad posed with his body for some photographs, which encreased Austrian Authorities’ bad reputation.

Battisti is considered a national hero in Italy and several memorials were dedicated to him in Rome as well as in his hometown Trento and Bolzano.

HAHAHAHA yah when we first strtaed dyin ma hair.. bein stupid cuz she put the thing around my neck too tight

King Ludwig II and King Otto in their younger years. From Bavaria.

 

from wiki

Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm;[1] sometimes rendered as Louis II in English) (25 August 1845[2] – 13 June 1886) was King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes called the Swan King (English) and der Märchenkönig, the Fairy tale King (German). Additional titles were Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Franconia and in Swabia.[3]

Ludwig is sometimes also called "Mad King Ludwig", though the accuracy of that label has been disputed. His younger brother, Otto, was considered insane[by whom?][citation needed], thus the claim of hereditary madness was convenient. Because Ludwig was deposed on grounds of mental incapacity without any medical examination, questions about the medical "diagnosis" remain controversial. Adding to the controversy are the mysterious circumstances under which he died. King Ludwig and the doctor assigned to him in captivity at Castle Berg on Lake Starnberg were both found dead in the lake in waist-high water (Ludwig was well-known to be a strong swimmer), the doctor with unexplained injuries to the head and shoulders on the morning of June 13, 1886.[4] One of his most quoted sayings was "I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and to others."[5]

Ludwig is best known as an eccentric whose legacy is intertwined with the history of art and architecture. He commissioned the construction of two extravagant palaces and a castle, the most famous being Neuschwanstein, and was a devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner. King Ludwig is generally well-liked and even revered by many Bavarians today, many of whom note the irony of his supposed madness and the fact that his legacy of architecture and art and the tourist income they generate help to make Bavaria the richest state in Germany.

 

Born in Nymphenburg Palace (today located in suburban Munich), he was the eldest son of Maximilian II of Bavaria (then Crown Prince) and his wife Princess Marie of Prussia. His parents intended to name him Otto, but his grandfather, Ludwig I of Bavaria, insisted his grandson was to be named after him, since their common birthday, 25 August, is the feast day of Saint Louis, patron saint of Bavaria. A younger brother, born three years later, was named Otto.

Like many young heirs in an age when kings governed most of Europe, Ludwig was continually reminded of his royal status. King Maximilian wanted to instruct both of his sons in the burdens of royal duty from an early age.[6] Ludwig was both extremely indulged and severely controlled by his tutors and subjected to a strict regimen of study and exercise. There are some who point to these stresses of growing up in a royal family as the causes for much of his odd behavior as an adult. Ludwig was not close with either of his parents.[7] King Maximilian's advisers had suggested that on his daily walks he might like, at times, to be accompanied by his future successor. The King replied, "But what am I to say to him? After all, my son takes no interest in what other people tell him."[8] Later, Ludwig would refer to his mother as "my predecessor's consort".[8] He was far closer to his grandfather, the deposed and notorious King Ludwig I, who came from a family of eccentrics.

Ludwig's childhood years did have happy moments. He lived for much of the time at Castle Hohenschwangau, a fantasy castle his father had built near the Schwansee (Swan Lake) near Füssen. It was decorated in the gothic style with countless frescoes depicting heroic German sagas. The family also visited Lake Starnberg. As an adolescent, Ludwig became close friends with his aide de camp, Prince Paul of Bavaria's wealthy Thurn und Taxis family. The two young men rode together, read poetry aloud, and staged scenes from the Romantic operas of Richard Wagner. The friendship ended when Paul became engaged in 1866. During his youth Ludwig also initiated a lifelong friendship with his half-first cousin once removed, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, later Empress of Austria.[7] They loved nature and poetry; Elisabeth called Ludwig "Eagle" and he called her "Dove."

 

Crown Prince Ludwig had just turned 18 when his father died after a three-day illness, and he ascended the Bavarian throne.[8] Although he was not prepared for high office,[7] his youth and brooding good looks made him popular in Bavaria and elsewhere.[7] One of the first acts of his reign, a few weeks after his accession, was to summon composer Richard Wagner to his court in Munich.[7][9] Wagner had a notorious reputation as a revolutionary and a philanderer and was constantly on the run from creditors.[7] Ludwig had admired Wagner since first seeing his opera, Lohengrin, at the impressionable age of 15½, followed by Tannhäuser ten months later. Wagner's operas appealed to the king's fantasy-filled imagination. On 4 May 1864, the 51-year-old Wagner was given an unprecedented 1¾ hour audience with Ludwig in the Royal Palace in Munich; later the composer wrote of his first meeting with Ludwig, "Alas, he is so handsome and wise, soulful and lovely, that I fear that his life must melt away in this vulgar world like a fleeting dream of the gods."[7][9] The king was likely the saviour of Wagner's career. Without Ludwig, it is doubted that Wagner's later operas would have been composed, much less premiered at the prestigious Munich Royal Court Theatre, now the Bavarian State Opera House.

A year after meeting the King, Wagner presented his latest work, Tristan und Isolde, in Munich to great acclaim. But the composer’s perceived extravagant and scandalous behaviour in the capital was unsettling for the conservative people of Bavaria, and the King was forced to ask Wagner to leave the city six months later, in December 1865.

Ludwig’s interest in theatre was by no means confined to Wagner. In 1864, he laid the foundation stone of a new Court Theatre. This theatre is nowadays called the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz (Gärtnerplatz-Theater). In 1867, he appointed Karl von Perfall Director of the new theatre. Ludwig wished to introduce Munich theatre-goers to the best of European drama. Perfall, under Ludwig’s supervision, introduced the public to Shakespeare, Calderón, Mozart, Gluck, Ibsen, Weber and many others. He also raised the standard of interpretation of Schiller, Molière and Corneille.[10]

Between 1872 and 1885, the King had 209 private performances (Separatvorstellungen) given for himself alone or with a guest, in the two court theatres, comprising 44 operas (28 by Wagner, including eight of Parsifal), 11 ballets and 154 plays (the principal theme being Bourbon France) at a cost of 97,300 marks.[11] This was not due so much to misanthropy but, as the King complained to the theatre actor-manager Ernst Possart: "I can get no sense of illusion in the theatre so long as people keep staring at me, and follow my every expression through their opera-glasses. I want to look myself, not to be a spectacle for the masses."

 

The greatest stresses of Ludwig's early reign were pressure to produce an heir, and relations with militant Prussia. Both issues came to the forefront in 1867.

 

Ludwig became engaged to Duchess Sophie in Bavaria, his cousin and the youngest sister of his dear friend, Empress Elisabeth of Austria.[7] The engagement was publicized on 22 January 1867, but after repeatedly postponing the wedding date, Ludwig finally cancelled the engagement in October. A few days before the engagement had been announced, Sophie had received a letter from the King telling her what she already knew: "The main substance of our relationship has always been ... Richard Wagner's remarkable and deeply moving destiny."[12] After the engagement was broken off, Ludwig wrote to his former fiancee, "My beloved Elsa! Your cruel father has torn us apart. Eternally yours, Heinrich" (the names Elsa and Heinrich came from characters from Wagner operas)[12] Ludwig never married, but Sophie later married Ferdinand d'Orléans, duc d'Alençon (1844–1910).

Throughout his reign, Ludwig had a succession of close friendships with men, including his chief equerry and Master of the Horse, Richard Hornig (1843–1911), Hungarian theatre actor Josef Kainz, and courtier Alfons Weber (born c.1862). He began keeping a diary in which he recorded his private thoughts and his attempts to suppress his sexual desires and remain true to his Roman Catholic faith. Ludwig's original diaries from 1869 were lost during World War II, and all that remains today are copies of entries during the 1886 plot to depose him. These diary entries, along with private letters and other surviving personal documents, show Ludwig's lifelong struggle with his orientation.[13] (Homosexuality had not been punishable in Bavaria since 1813,[14] however became punishable again in 1871 due to the Unification of Germany under Prussian hegemony, see Paragraph 175, an event due to which for instance early German gay activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs had to leave Bavaria, living the remainder of his life in exile in Italy) Some earlier diaries have survived in the Geheimes Hausarchiv in Munich and extracts starting in 1858 were published by Evers in 1986.[15]

 

Relations with Prussia took centre stage starting in 1866. During the Seven Weeks' War, which began in July, Ludwig agreed (as did several other German principalities) to take the side of Austria against Prussia.[7] When the two sides negotiated the war’s settlement, the terms required that Ludwig accept a mutual defense treaty with Prussia.

This treaty placed Bavaria back on the firing line three years later, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Prussia and her allies prevailed in this conflict, and an emboldened Prussia now finished her campaign to unify all of the minor German kingdoms into one German Empire under the rule of his uncle Wilhelm I of Prussia, who would now be declared Emperor, or Kaiser.

At the request of Prussian Minister President Bismarck (and in exchange for certain financial concessions), Ludwig wrote a letter (the so-called Kaiserbrief) in December 1870 endorsing the creation of the German Empire. With the creation of the Empire, Bavaria lost its status as an independent kingdom and became another state in the empire. Ludwig attempted to protest these alterations by refusing to attend the ceremony where Wilhelm I was proclaimed the new empire's first emperor.[16] However the Bavarian delegation under Prime Minister Count Otto von Bray-Steinburg had secured a privileged status of the Kingdom of Bavaria within the German Empire (Reservatrechte). Within the Empire the Kingdom of Bavaria was even able to retain its own diplomatic body and its own army, which would fall under Prussian command only in times of war.

After the creation of the greater Germany, Ludwig increasingly withdrew from politics, and devoted himself to his personal creative projects, most famously his castles, where he personally approved every detail of the architecture, decoration and furnishing.

 

Ludwig was notably eccentric in ways that made serving as Bavaria’s head of state problematic. He disliked large public functions and avoided formal social events whenever possible, and preferred a life of seclusion that he pursued with various creative projects. He last inspected a military parade on 22 August 1875 and last gave a Court banquet on 10 February 1876.[17] His mother had foreseen difficulties for Ludwig when she recorded her concern for her extremely introverted and creative son who spent much time day-dreaming. These idiosyncrasies combined with the fact that Ludwig avoided Munich and participating in the government there at all costs, caused considerable tension with the king's government ministers, but did not cost him popularity among the citizens of Bavaria. The king enjoyed traveling in the Bavarian countryside and chatting with farmers and laborers he met along the way. He also delighted in rewarding those who were hospitable to him during his travels with lavish gifts. He is still remembered in Bavaria as Unser Kini, which means "our cherished king" in the Bavarian dialect.

Ludwig also used his personal fortune (supplemented annually from 1873 by 270,000 marks from the Welfenfonds[18]) to fund the construction of a series of elaborate castles. In 1867 he visited Viollet-le-Duc's work at Pierrefonds, and the Palace of Versailles in France, as well as the Wartburg near Eisenach in Thuringia, which largely influenced the style of their construction. In his letters, Ludwig marveled at how the French had magnificently built up and glorified their culture (e.g., architecture, art, and music) and how miserably lacking Bavaria was in comparison. It became his dream to accomplish the same for Bavaria. These projects provided employment for many hundreds of local labourers and artisans and brought a considerable flow of money to the relatively poor regions where his castles were built. Figures for the total costs between 1869 and 1886 for the building and equipping of each castle were published in 1968: Schloß Neuschwanstein 6,180,047 marks; Schloß Linderhof 8,460,937 marks (a large portion being expended on the Venus Grotto); Schloß Herrenchiemsee (from 1873) 16,579,674 marks[19] In order to give an equivalent for the era, the British Pound sterling, being the monetary hegemon of the time, had a fixed exchange rate (based on the gold standard) at £1 = 20.43 Goldmarks.

In 1868, Ludwig commissioned the first drawings for two of his buildings. The first was Schloss Neuschwanstein, or "New Swan on the Rock castle", a dramatic Romanesque fortress with soaring fairy-tale towers situated on an Alpine crag above Ludwig's childhood home, Castle Hohenschwangau (approximately, "High Swan Region"). Hohenschwangau was a medieval knights' castle which his parents had purchased. Ludwig reputedly had spied the location and conceived of building a castle there while still a boy. The second was Herrenchiemsee, a replica of the palace at Versailles, France, which was sited on the "Herren" Island in the middle of Lake Chiemsee, and was built as a monument to Ludwig's admiration for Louis XIV, the magnificent "Sun King." Only the central portion of the palace was built; all construction halted on the king's death. Herrenchiemsee comprises 8,366 square feet, a "copy in miniature" compared with Versailles' 551,112 ft². The following year, Ludwig finished the construction of the royal apartment in the Residenz Palace in Munich, to which he had added an opulent conservatory or winter garden on the palace roof. It was started in 1867 as quite a small structure, but after extensions in 1868 and 1871, the dimensions reached 69.5mx17.2mx9.5m high. It featured an ornamental lake complete with skiff, a painted panorama of the Himalayas as a backdrop, an Indian fisher-hut of bamboo, a Moorish kiosk, and an exotic tent. The roof was a technically advanced metal and glass construction. The winter garden was closed in June 1886, partly dismantled the following year and demolished in 1897.[20][21]

  

An 1890s photochrom print of Schloss Neuschwanstein.

In 1869, Ludwig oversaw the laying of the cornerstone for Schloss Neuschwanstein on a breathtaking mountaintop site. The walls of Neuschwanstein are decorated with frescoes depicting scenes from the legends used in Wagner's operas, including "Tannhäuser," "Tristan and Isolde," "Lohengrin," "Parsifal," and the somewhat less than mystic Meistersinger.[22]

After plans for a monumental festival theatre for Wagner's opera in Munich were thwarted by Court opposition, he supported the construction in 1872-76 of the Festspielhaus in the town of Bayreuth, and attended the dress rehearsal and third public performance of the complete Ring Cycle in 1876. In 1878, construction was completed on Ludwig’s Schloss Linderhof, an ornate palace in neo-French Rococo style, with handsome formal gardens. The grounds contained a Venus grotto lit by electricity, where Ludwig was rowed in a boat shaped like a shell. After seeing the Bayreuth performances Ludwig had built in the forest near Linderhof Hunding's Hut (Hundinghütte) (based on the stage set of the first act of Wagner's Die Walküre) complete with an artificial tree and a sword embedded in it. In Die Walküre, Siegfried's father Siegmund, pulls the sword from the tree. Hunding's Hut was destroyed in 1945 but a replica was constructed at Linderhof in 1990. In 1877 a small hermitage (Einsiedlei des Gurnemanz) as in the third act of Wagner's Parsifal was erected near Hunding's Hut, with a meadow of spring flowers, where the king would retire to read. (A replica made in 2000 can now be seen in the park at Linderhof.) Nearby a Moroccan House, purchased at the Paris World Fair in 1878, was erected alongside the mountain road. Sold in 1891 and taken to Oberammergau it was purchased by the government in 1980 and re-erected in the park at Linderhof after extensive restoration. Inside the palace, iconography reflected Ludwig's fascination with the absolutist government of Ancien Régime France. Ludwig saw himself as the "Moon King", a romantic shadow of the earlier "Sun King", Louis XIV of France. From Linderhof, Ludwig enjoyed moonlit sleigh rides in an elaborate eighteenth-century sleigh, complete with footmen in eighteenth century livery. Also in 1878, construction began on his Versailles-derived Herrenchiemsee.

In the 1880s, Ludwig’s plans proceeded undeterred. He planned construction of a new castle on Falkenstein ("Falcon Rock") near Pfronten in the Allgäu (a place he knew well: a diary entry for 16 October 1867 reads "Falkenstein wild, romantic"[23]) The first design was a sketch by Christian Jank in 1883 "very much like the Townhall of Liege" (Kreisel 1954, p. 82). Subsequent designs showed a modest villa with a square tower (Dollmann 1884) and a small Gothic castle (Schultze 1884, Hofmann 1886).[24] a Byzantine palace in the Graswangtal and a Chinese summer palace by the Plansee in Tyrol. By 1885, a road and water supply had been provided at Falkenstein but the old ruins remained untouched;[25] the other projects never got beyond initial plans.

 

Although the king had paid for his pet projects out of his own funds and not the state coffers,[26] that did not necessarily spare Bavaria from financial fallout. By 1885, the king was 14 million marks in debt, had borrowed heavily from his family, and rather than economizing, as his financial ministers advised him, he undertook new opulence and new designs without pause. He demanded that loans be sought from all of Europe's royalty, and remained aloof from matters of state. Feeling harassed and irritated by his ministers, he considered dismissing the entire cabinet and replacing them with fresh faces. The cabinet decided to act first.

Seeking a cause to depose Ludwig by constitutional means, the rebelling ministers decided on the rationale that he was mentally ill, and unable to rule. They asked Ludwig's uncle, Prince Luitpold, to step into the royal vacancy once Ludwig was deposed. Luitpold agreed, so long as the conspirators produced reliable proof that the king was in fact helplessly insane.

Between January and March 1886, the conspirators assembled the Ärztliches Gutachten or Medical Report, on Ludwig's fitness to rule. Most of the details in the report were compiled by Count von Holnstein, who was disillusioned with Ludwig and actively sought his downfall. Holnstein used his high rank and bribery to extract a long list of complaints, accounts, and gossip about Ludwig from among the king's servants. The litany of supposed bizarre behavior included his pathological shyness, his avoidance of state business, his complex and expensive flights of fancy, dining out of doors in cold weather and wearing heavy overcoats in summer, sloppy and childish table manners; dispatching servants on lengthy and expensive voyages to research architectural details in foreign lands; and abusive, violent threats to his servants.

While some of these accusations may have been accurate[citation needed], exactly which, and to what degree, may never be known. The conspirators approached the Imperial Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who doubted the report's veracity, calling it "rakings from the King's wastepaper-basket and cupboards."[27] Bismarck commented after reading the Report that "the Ministers wish to sacrifice the King, otherwise they have no chance of saving themselves," and suggested that the matter be brought before the Bavarian Diet and discussed in a session of Parliament, but did not stop the ministers from carrying out their plan.[28]

In early June, the report was finalized and signed by a panel of four psychiatrists: Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, chief of the Munich Asylum; Dr. Hubert von Grashey (who was Gudden's son-in-law); and their colleagues, a Dr. Hagen and a Dr. Hubrich. The report declared in its final sentences that the king suffered from paranoia, and concluded, "Suffering from such a disorder, freedom of action can no longer be allowed and Your Majesty is declared incapable of ruling, which incapacity will be not only for a year's duration, but for the length of Your Majesty's life." The men had never met the king except Gudden, once, twelve years earlier, nor examined him.

 

At 4 a.m. on 10 June 1886, a government commission including Holnstein and von Gudden arrived at Neuschwanstein to formally deliver the document of deposition to the king and place him in custody. Tipped off an hour or two earlier by a faithful servant, his coachman Fritz Osterholzer, Ludwig ordered the local police to protect him, and the commissioners were turned back at the castle gate at gun-point. In an especially famous sideshow, the commissioners were attacked by 47-year-old local Baroness Spera von Truchseß,[29] who flailed at the men with her umbrella and then rushed to the king’s apartments to identify the conspirators. Ludwig then had the commissioners arrested, but after holding them captive for several hours, had them released.

That same day, the Government publicly proclaimed Luitpold as Prince Regent. The king’s friends and allies urged him to flee, or to show himself in Munich and thus regain the support of the people. Ludwig hesitated, instead issuing a statement, allegedly drafted by his aide-de-camp Count Alfred Dürckheim, which was published by a Bamberg newspaper on 11 June:

The Prince Luitpold intends, against my will, to ascend to the Regency of my land, and my erstwhile ministry has, through false allegations regarding the state of my health, deceived my beloved people, and is preparing to commit acts of high treason. [...] I call upon every loyal Bavarian to rally around my loyal supporters to thwart the planned treason against the King and the fatherland.

The government succeeded in suppressing the statement by seizing most copies of the newspaper and handbills. Anton Sailer's pictorial biography of the King prints a photograph of this rare document. (The authenticity of the Royal Proclamation is doubted however, as it is dated 9 June, before the Commission arrived, it uses "I" instead of the royal "We" and there are orthographic errors.) As the king dithered, his support waned. Peasants who rallied to his cause were dispersed, and the police who guarded his castle were replaced by a police detachment of 36 men who sealed off all entrances to the castle.

Eventually the king decided he would try to escape, but it was too late. In the early hours of 12 June, a second commission arrived. The King was seized just after midnight and at 4 a.m. taken to a waiting carriage. He had asked Dr. Gudden, "How can you declare me insane? After all, you have never seen or examined me before." only to be told that "it was unnecessary; the documentary evidence [servants' tittle-tattle] is very copious and completely substantiated. It is overwhelming." [30] Ludwig was transported to Castle Berg on the shores of Lake Starnberg, south of Munich.

 

On 13 June 1886, around 6:00 pm, Ludwig asked Gudden to accompany him on a walk through the Schloß Berg parkland along the shore of Lake Starnberg. Gudden agreed; the walk may even have been his suggestion, and he told the aides not to accompany them. His words were ambiguous (Es darf kein Pfleger mitgehen, "There is no need for attendants to go with [us]") and whether they were meant to follow at a discreet distance is not clear. The two men were last seen at about 6:30 p.m.; they were due back at eight but never returned. After searches were made for more than three hours by the entire castle personnel in a gale with heavy rain, at 11:30 p.m. that night, the bodies of both the King and von Gudden were found, head and shoulders above the shallow water near the shore. The King's watch had stopped at 6:54. Gendarmes patrolling the park had heard and seen nothing.

Ludwig's death was officially ruled a suicide by drowning, but the official autopsy report indicated that no water was found in his lungs.[31][32] Ludwig was a very strong swimmer in his youth, the water was approximately waist-deep where his body was found, and he had expressed suicidal feelings during the crisis.[31][33] Gudden's body showed blows to the head and neck and signs of strangulation, leading to the suspicion that he was strangled by Ludwig.

 

Many hold that Ludwig was murdered by his enemies while attempting to escape from Berg. One account suggests that the king was shot.[31] The King's personal fisherman, Jakob Lidl (1864–1933), stated, "Three years after the king's death I was made to swear an oath that I would never say certain things — not to my wife, not on my deathbed, and not to any priest ... The state has undertaken to look after my family if anything should happen to me in either peace time or war." Lidl kept his oath, at least orally, but left behind notes which were found after his death. According to Lidl, he had hidden behind bushes with his boat, waiting to meet the king, in order to row him out into the lake, where loyalists were waiting to help him escape. "As the king stepped up to his boat and put one foot in it, a shot rang out from the bank, apparently killing him on the spot, for the king fell across the bow of the boat."[31][34] However, the autopsy report indicates no scars or wounds found on the body of the dead king; on the other hand, many years later Countess Josephine von Wrba-Kaunitz would show her afternoon tea guests a grey Loden coat with two bullet holes in the back, asserting it was the one Ludwig was wearing.[35] Another theory suggests that Ludwig died of natural causes (such as a heart attack or stroke) brought on by the extreme cold (12°C) of the lake during an escape attempt.[31]

Ludwig’s remains were dressed in the regalia of the Order of Saint Hubert, and lay in state in the royal chapel at the Munich Residence Palace. In his right hand he held a posy of white jasmine picked for him by his cousin the Empress Elisabeth of Austria.[36] After an elaborate funeral on 19 June 1886, Ludwig's remains were interred in the crypt of the Michaelskirche in Munich. His heart, however, does not lie with the rest of his body. Bavarian tradition called for the heart of the king to be placed in a silver urn and sent to the Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of the Mercy) in Altötting, where it was placed beside those of his father and grandfather.

Three years after his death, a small memorial chapel was built overlooking the site and a cross erected in the lake. A remembrance ceremony is held there each year on 13 June.

The King was succeeded by his brother Otto, but since Otto was genuinely incapacitated by mental illness, the king's uncle Luitpold remained regent.

 

Otto

Prince Otto was born on 27 April 1848, two months premature, in the Munich Residenz. His parents were King Maximilian II of Bavaria and Marie of Prussia. His uncle King Otto I of Greece served as his godfather.

Otto had an older brother, the Crown Prince Ludwig. The brothers spent most of their childhood with their teachers at Hohenschwangau Castle. Between 1853 and 1863, they spent their summer holidays at the Royal Villa in Berchtesgaden, which had been specially built for their father[1][2]

Prince Otto served in the Bavarian army from 1863. He was appointed sub-lieutenant on 27 April 1863 and admitted to the Cadet Corps on 1 March 1864. On 26 May 1864, he was promoted to full lieutenant.

On 10 March 1864, his father died and Ludwig succeeded as King of Bavaria. Between 18 June and 15 July 1864, the two brothers received state visits by the emperors of Austria and Russia. About a year later, Otto showed the first signs of a mental disorder. Otto was promoted to Captain on 27 April 1866 and entered active military service in the Royal Bavarian Infantry Guards. In 1868, he became a member of the Order of St. George, the house order of the House of Wittelsbach. He participated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and as colonel in the Franco-German War of 1870-1871. When Wilhelm I was proclaimed German Emperor on 18 January 1871 at the Palace of Versailles, Prince Otto and his uncle Luitpold represented Ludwig, who refused to participate.[3][4] Otto then criticized the celebration as ostentatious and heartless in a letter to his brother.

In general, Otto had a cordial relation with his brother, which showed when they undertook things together. For example, they visited the Wartburg together in 1867. In 1868, Otto received the Royal Order of Saint George for the Defense of the Immaculate Conception, the house order of the House of Wittelsbach. In 1869, he joined the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, on the initiative of Cardinal Karl-August von Reisach.[5]

Otto's mental condition began to deteriorate rapidly after the end of the Franco-German war. From 1871, he increasingly avoided encounters with strangers. He was placed under medical supervision and reports about his condition made it to the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. He was officially classified as mentally ill in January 1872. From 1873, he was held in isolation in the southern pavilion of Nymphenburg Palace. His attending physician was Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, who was considered a coryphée in the field of mental health care.[citation needed] Dr. von Gudden confirmed Otto's disease in a further report in 1873.

During Corpus Christi Mass 1875 in the Frauenkirche in Munich, there was a sensational incident, when Otto – who had not attended the church service – stormed into the church wearing hunting clothes and fell on his knees before the celebrant, Archbishop Gregor von Scherr, to ask forgiveness for his sins. The High Mass was interrupted and the prince did not resist when he was led away by two church ministers. Otto was then moved to Schleissheim Palace and guarded more carefully. His last public appearance was his presence at the side of his brother at the King's parade on 22 August 1875 at the Marsfeld in Munich. From 1 June 1876, he stayed for a few weeks in the castle at Ludwigsthal in the Bavarian Forest. In the spring of 1880, his condition worsened. From 1883 until his death, he was kept confined under medical supervision in Fürstenried Palace near Munich. This palace had been specially converted for his confinement. King Ludwig II occasionally visited him at night, and ordered no violence be used against Otto.On 10 June 1886, the Bavarian cabinet declared King Ludwig II unable to rule and apppointed his uncle Luitpold as Prince Regent. Ludwig died only three days later, under unexplained circumstances. This meant that Otto became King on 13 June 1886. He was however, unable to rule. The official explanation was that the King is melancholic. The proclamation of his inauguration was read to him at Fürstenried castle the next day, but he failed to understand it, and held his uncle Luitpold for the rightful King.

Luitpold kept his role as Prince Regent until he died in 1912 and was succeeded by his son Ludwig. The constitution of Bavaria was amended on 4 November 1913, to include a clause specifying that if a regency for reasons of incapacity lasted for ten years with no expectation that the King would ever be able to reign, the Regent could proclaim the end of the regency and assume the crown himself.

 

The following day, Otto was deposed by his first cousin, Prince Regent Ludwig, who then assumed the title King Ludwig III. The parliament assented on 6 November, and Ludwig III took the constitutional oath on 8 November. Otto was permitted to retain his title and honours until his death in 1916. During this time Bavaria had two kings.

Otto died unexpectedly on 11 October 1916, due to a volvulus. His remains were interred in the crypt of the Michaelskirche in Munich. Bavarian tradition called for the heart of the king to be placed in a silver urn and sent to the Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of the Miraculous Image) in Altötting, beside those of his brother, father and grandfather.

 

Both Otto and his brother Ludwig II were reported to be depressed or mentally ill. At the time, psychiatry was still in its infancy and this diagnosis was based on statements made by third parties from which the first psychiatrists formed vague clinical pictures.

On 15 October 1889, the Innsbrucker nachrichten reported this, citing an article in the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten as their source:

King Otto looks very strong, if a little corpulent. He wears a huge beard, which reaches his chest. His beard needs to be trimmed, but this is not possible, because the easily excited monarch vigorously resist such a procedure. The beard could perhaps be trimmed during his sleep, but no one has the courage to try this. His eyes are glazed over as he stares into the distance. Only when the old maid Marie, who would carry him on her arm when he was a young boy, get close to her, he will call her with his sonorous baritone, fairly lively, voice. He will command that some object, for example, a glass of beer, will be brought to him, and then immediately forgets it. The monarch is always dressed in black. He'll walk past other people, as if he would not recognize them. There are strict orders that he is not to be greeted and he may not be addressed when he is walking about. He often stands in a corner, gesturing with his hands and arms while vividly speaking to imaginary people. This alternates with a complete apathy, which may last for hours or days on end.

 

His Majesty smokes cigarettes with a passion, usually 30 to 36 per day. He uses a large number of matches, as he always lights a whole bundle of matches at once and, after use, throws away the still burning bundle with visible pleasure.

 

The daily routine of the patient is arranged in painful detail. His Majesty will sit at the head of the dinner table, with a larger space between himself and the aides, the doctor and the chamberlain. The King likes to eat drink. He mostly drinks beer and sometimes orders, in a sharp, commanding voice, some sparkling wine. King Otto wants to be ignored completely by the other people on the table, and he ignores them. If the King orders some food, a special hand signal from his doctor means that it must be brought to him immediately. The King is allowed to use his knife and fork normally. However, he will use his suit as a napkin.

 

The King lives in an elegantly furnished apartment on the ground floor, while his servants live on the first floor. His bedroom is equipped with every from of modern comfort. The King uses toilet articles regularly, but he rarely takes a bath in his magnificent bath cabin, his aides finding it difficult to persuade him to do so.

 

King Otto is extremely sensitive to closed doors. The doors are not provided with peepholes. All doors on the ground floor remain open during the day, including the doors to the garden. If the King finds a closed door, he falls into a rage and bangs his fists on it. Iron bars have been fitted to the windows looking out onto the street, after His Majesty had broken some of the windows.

 

His Majesty thoroughly dislikes driving. His resentment is attributed to the fact that when he is out on the street, curious passers by will stare at him, which he finds very painful. If the King has to leave his apartment, the coach must wait at the rear of the castle. One time, the King was staring dreamingly into the air and missed the footboard. He became angry, jumped back and shouted "I'm not going". Reports that the King was longing for his beloved Munich and has repeatedly expressed a desire to visit the capital, are definitely false. He has never expressed such a request.

 

The King sometimes looks into the available newspapers. Our informant was unable to be sure whether His Majesty is able to read and comprehend their contents.

 

The King's entourage are constantly trying to entertain him. Last spring, they put a small music box in his room. The monarch listened and was amazed at the gentle music. A glimmer of joy flitted across his face. One of the five nurses immediately reported this sentiment to the physician on duty. He reported to the chamberlain, who quickly purchased a larger music box for 5000 marks. However, the King did not like the larger instrument and after a while began to be disgusted by it. The instrument had to be removed.

 

His entourage has evidence that the patient recognizes the people surrounding him, and in a lucid moment, he has even greeted some of them. Little can be said about his future: he may be granted a long life, or his disturbed mind may cause a sudden loss of strength.

   

Notes: in the foreground an eighteen bullock team pulls a heavy dray laden with bags of wheat. The bullocky's whip is not visible but is there, a saddle horse is hitched to the back of the wagon. In the distance a second wagon follows with a similar load and team.

 

The places in the team have traditional names: at the front of the team are the leaders, a well-trained, trusted, steady and intelligent pair; next come the body bullocks or mickies which may contain a pair of replacement leaders in case anything happens to the leaders, as well as younger bullocks in training; the second last pair are the piners, calm animals who pin or steady the rear of the team; followed by the polers, strong animals who take the weight of the wagon pole and will be the first to be injured, including strangulation or a broken neck, if the wagon lurches on a steep incline.

 

Format: vintage print 26.5 cm x 17.5 cm, from a glass plate negative, note crack lower left corner.

 

Date Range: 1880s

 

Location: possibly somewhere on the flat landscapes of the western plains of NSW or Qld. Bullock teams were widespread throughout 19th and early 20th Century Australia. They travelled constantly, servicing the pastoral stations and settlements far from regional transport hubs and urban centres. Both bullock and horse wagons carried heavy loads of wool, wheat and supplies over long distances, to and from ports, rail heads and ferry wharves on the inland rivers.

 

Licensing: Attribution, share alike, creative commons

 

Repository: Blue Mountains Library library.bmcc.nsw.gov.au

 

Part of Local Studies Collection:

 

Provenance: donation

 

Links:

Bullock Team Facts - www.glenedenorganicfarm.com.au/bullock-team-information/b...

Mickies and Polers - bluemlocalstudies.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/hidden-history...

Bullocky - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullocky

In 2002, Jurgen Habermas and Ulrich Beck celebrated the great successes of the European Union: the re-unification of Germany, the expansion to the East, the successful introduction of the Euro. Old enmities had been left behind and former enemies collaborated in peaceful competition creating the most successful economic region in the world. Europe was becoming the model for the future of humanity.

 

The reality is different today. Europe is a dysfunctional entity that has betrayed its foundational values. Politicians, commentators and mainstream academics were aghast at the victories of Brexit and Trump. ‘Politics has gone mad’ said many. ‘The world is crumbling before our eyes’ intoned the French Ambassador to America.

 

Yet the rise of right wing populism and euroscepticism was not unpredictable. The economic, political and cultural trends leading to Brexit, Trump and the rise of the xenophobic and nationalist right-wing are similar and well-known. They did not seem to worry the European elites until recently.

 

My argument is that the current European crisis is the culmination of three overlapping historical cycles, three temporalities which, in a dialectical fashion, both created and are now leading Europe to its decline. The pioneering work of Etienne Balibar on the European Union and its teleologies is crucial in this approach.

 

The first, and longest, started in the fifteenth century with the Renaissance, the discovery and conquest of the New World and is still with us. It is the cycle of European capitalisation and provincialisation.

 

Over five centuries, Europe became the capital, the metropolis and capitalist centre of the world. The Europeans developed and then exported all over the world capitalism as the economic system and the (nation) state as its political organisation. But the cunning of history or reason (Kantian or Hegelian) worked its magic.

 

The colonials adopted the two principles and turned them against the master. The cycle is ending in our days as a process of European decay has set in. The violent economic development, the destruction of traditional communities and the artificial nature of the new states are giving rise to huge population movements.

 

The population movements are a symptom of the changing shift of power from the West to the East. The history of conquest and colonialism is now ending with the reversal of the centre-periphery division which have population flows as an integral part. They cannot be stopped by fences, walls or warships pushing back the dinghies bringing to us the new world dispensation.

 

The historical trajectory set up by the western conquests and reversed by the great anti-colonial struggles cannot be contained. We live the endgame of a five-century European domination and anyone who has experienced the post-imperial tristesse of Britain or France knows that while the reaction can be lethal, the outcome is inescapable.

 

The second cycle is the short twentieth century between 1918 and 1989, the century of the European civil war between Germany and the other European powers and, secondly, between capitalism and communism. The first finished with the pacification between Germany and the rest of Europe, the second with the defeat of communism and the end of the cold war.

 

The social state and the EU were direct consequences of these two conflicts, an attempt to transcend the ethnic and ideological wars that raged over the last century and ravaged the whole world. The social state was a marriage of convenience between capitalism and socialism, the market principle and social justice as distributive mechanisms.

 

It was a major victory for the working class movement, the trade unions and the left. But it was also a concession by capital to the dynamic working class movement in order to present a superior alternative to Soviet communism. It was capitalism with a human face.

 

Anyone who has experienced the post-imperial tristesse of Britain or France knows that while the reaction can be lethal, the outcome is inescapable

 

The marriage of convenience worked because politics intervened in the economy and mitigated market decisions in favour of working people. The all-conquering dialectic worked its magic again however.

 

The adoption of the market principle by the communist states contributed to their demise which, in turn, freed the West from its lukewarm commitment to the social state. What started as the great compromise of our times has finished with the end of both social systems. Soviet communism is dead and the social state is not feeling too well either.

 

Finally, the third cycle of the “end of history” started in 1989. It is an attempt to re-establish Western hegemony at a time of rapid decline. The liberalisation of capitalism, the destruction of the social state, the privatisation of public assets and the commons, the deregulation of the markets and the disrespect and marginalisation of democracy have freed markets from considerations of social justice. Markets have been freed from correction by social justice.

 

Economic performance, productivity, competitiveness and the repayment of debts are prioritised over social justice and the needs of people. We are treated and are turned into little entrepreneurs of ourselves and our families. We have to provide for our education, health, old age and care. Rights and entitlements created by the post-war social contract are now destroyed, state institutions and services privatised, governments become collection agencies of international capital against their own citizens.

 

The unravelling of the social state was facilitated by what became known as the post-democratic condition. Complex social problems require optimal scientific solutions that cannot be put into public deliberation or, even worse, the vote.

 

Politics must promote broad centre-left and centre-right alliances with technocratic and grand coalition governments. Understandably citizens conclude that elections make no difference and turn away from politics. This derogatory treatment of the plebeians and the business as usual mantra lies equally behind Brexit, Trump and Le Pen.

 

The passionate intensity of right wing nationalism offers a message the people respond to: the elites are selfish, corrupt, delinquent. Its promulgation that power must return to the people is the great lie of our times. (The two greatest shocks of 2016 came in the states that most fervently had adopted neoliberalism and the politics of the extreme centre.)

 

But the cunning of history struck again. The victory of the West in the cold war has undermined Europe’s major achievements: prosperity based on solidarity and the pacification of ethnic conflict. Austerity and recession, unemployment and precarious employment, the impoverishment of the middle class and the huge increase in inequality have undermined trust in mainstream politics.

 

Blair, Cameron, Renzi, Macron and the European Commission’s white paper follow the ‘business as usual’ mantra when the citizens have massively abandoned it. Their convergence into the extreme centre has undermined input legitimacy. On the output side, the wall built between economics and politics means that politics has largely given up redistributive aspirations. This is the ground a billionaire or Le Pen have usurped. They claim fraudulently to stand for the social state and the unemployed, stealing from social-democracy its assets and pride.

 

As Jurgen Habermas, the greatest promoter of law-based federalism has insisted, the monetary union has developed into a non-transparent, post-democratic case of ‘executive federalism’

 

The same disaster has befallen the second achievement. The suffering of countries under austerity and the resistance of Greeks is well known. So is the shocking response from mainstream journalists and politicians. The line between acceptable economic and political critique of the Southern states (revealingly nicknamed PIGS) and racial slurs is very thin.

 

The refugee crisis has made things worse: national interests and the election cycles determine foreign policy without regard for Union decisions, international law or humanitarian considerations. Europe is returning to the old nationalisms and ideological or historical spheres of influence. Had the cold war lasted longer, had the victory of capitalism been delayed, perhaps Europe could have moved towards political union, the ultimate defense against the Soviets. This did not happen.

 

All this leads to the conclusion that the new world order announced with fanfare in 1989 will be the shortest in history. It started unravelling in the financial crisis of 2008. Two waves of popular reaction followed. In 2011, the Arab spring, Spain Greece Occupy Wall Street, the world Occupy movement expressed in the anti-austerity and ‘we are the 99%’ slogans the rejection of neoliberal misery. The elites did not listen. In 2016 and 2017, in the absence of progressive alternatives the voters moved to the nationalist right-wing. The disease remains the same, the symptoms were left untreated; the people are choosing quack doctors.

 

President Juncker is fond of asking the Quo Vadis Europa question and repeated it when presenting the Commission White Paper. Perhaps he is making a joke at his own expense. It was St Peter who asked the risen Jesus "Quo vadis?", when he appeared to him as he was about to leave Rome to avoid martyrdom. Jesus replied, "Romam eo iterum crucifigi" ("I am going to Rome to be crucified again") and Peter returned.

 

On March 25, the leaders went to Rome to celebrate Europe. Another Roman reference comes to mind. While the city burned, legend has it that Emperor Nero played the fiddle and sang the lost epic Ιliou Persis (the Sacking of Troy). It is perhaps an ample parable of our state.

 

The failures of Europe

In the 1980s, integration and the ever-closer union became the raison d’etre of Brussels. The method adopted to this effect was the imposed or agreed convergence of states in key areas. The neo-functionalist orthodoxy of the time relied on spill-overs from already integrated fields.

 

These spill-overs were set off by putative causal connections treated as constraints in the further advance of already existing convergences. But as the integration started entering key areas of domestic social order, it was resisted and stalled. New steps became harder and were achieved only through the ECJ, which returned to its earlier model of ‘integration by stealth through Law’. Both methods sideline popular participation.

 

The constitution debacle made it clear that further moves towards integration would be resisted by the European citizens. In part, the answer was the EMU, which constitutively separated the integration process from democratic politics. As Jurgen Habermas, the greatest promoter of law-based federalism has insisted, the monetary union has developed into a non-transparent post-democratic case of ‘executive federalism’.

 

The EMU removed a large tranche of national problem solving capacities, such as exchange and interest rate flexibility, without replacing them with corresponding European mechanisms. What was initially presented as a technocratic exercise morphed by stealth into a fiscal union and started pushing the eighteen towards a federal political entity, without the politics or economics. Was not the 2008 financial crisis a catastrophic failure in economic governance?

 

The answer of the establishment is differentiated speeds, variable groups of states choosing their partners and priorities: Visegrad with a human face.

 

In Britain, the Queen, reversing the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, asked a senior economist at the LSE ‘how come that such a clever lot as you failed to predict and prevent the crisis’? Nobody has asked or answered the question at the European level. As a result, the story of the last eight years resembles a driverless train hurtling towards a coming derailment.

 

If convergence through politics has been marginalised; if the law cannot bear the burden without further loss of legitimacy; if economics has failed spectacularly; the final method is diktat, radical alteration of individual and collective behaviour at gunpoint. The bailout programmes and their conditionalities are a case of integration through diktat. The measures imposed on Greece and currently negotiated include the reduction of the minimum wage, the weakening of the unions, deregulation of employment protection and liberalisation of services.

 

Fiscal and current account deficits are seen solely as the result of lack of competitiveness. This is caused by above average increases in unit labour costs in the large domestic sector of Greek economy. What is the cure? Internal devaluation and reduction in labour costs in order to have the South become a pale imitation of the Northern export-based model.

 

But there can be no export-led recovery, as in Germany in the 2000s, because the measures supposed to help exports are depressing further the much larger domestic sector through fiscal strangulation and wage decreases. This is an experiment in social engineering and brutal biopolitical re-arrangement of whole populations worthy of Jeremy Bentham and nineteenth century England.

 

The monetary union has underperformed economically and is now failing politically. All governing parties in programme countries lost the following elections while Northern political parties use Southern woes for election advantage. Social justice has been abandoned at the European level and is contained in largely impotent domestic politics creating resentment and xenophobia. Citizen alienation is now threatening the whole European project.

 

The answer of the establishment is differentiated speeds, variable groups of states choosing their partners and priorities: Visegrad with a human face. For Greece, entry to the Euro was a mistake but exit would be a disaster and has been rightly ruled out. The desire for flexibility and selection of an emerging hard core Europe will be highly problematic for weaker members.

 

Perhaps, weaker Eurozone members should explore the possibility of a flexible if split euro as Joseph Stiglitz has suggested. Otherwise, Fortress Europe will keep out not just refugees and migrants out but the European South too.

 

The future

The Commission White Paper shows that the ideological straitjacket of ordoliberalism does not allow the theoretical imagination or the will necessary to move in a radically new direction. The white paper half-heartedly acknowledges the chasm between policies and people. For European orthodoxy, crises lead by stealth to greater integration and the hope is that the same will happen in the present travails.

 

Yet, the unprecedented rise of the nationalist right wing, to which European policies have generously contributed indicates that this is not a ‘normal’ crisis. We need a different politics in a different Europe, a serious and far-going critique of the Union while defending the ideal of Europe. The task is to rebuild Europe from the bottom up as a community of democratic nations and peoples, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all top-down construct.

 

A loose confederation of European homelands to replace the failed federal plan should be part of this debate

 

The battle for the soul of Europe will take place on three fronts. First, a reversal of austerity and recession-creating policies. Wide political alliances of social-democracy and the left are necessary for such policies. They could include fiscal policies for growth, a banking union in the Eurozone area, the guarantee of bank deposits and Eurobonds.

 

The second task for the left is the re-politicization of politics after the long post-democratic interval at the European and domestic levels. A European public sphere of debate and action must be created developing and coordinating the many recent campaigns of resistance, the solidarity and social economy initiatives that have saved the name of Europe in Lampedusa and Lesvos.

 

The radical restructuring of politics and a rebooting of the constitution involves the substantial upgrading of the democratically legitimate institutions. Parliaments, including the European, should become independent of the executive and exercise their role of controlling and holding the government to account more energetically. Local regional and national authorities should develop direct democracy institutions, such as local referenda, citizen assemblies and collective budgets.

 

Europe has failed to inspire its citizens in a way similar to other great ideas such as the nation, socialism or human rights. The daily experience of the vast majority of European peoples is one of political, cultural and emotional attachment to the local, regional or national level.

 

Many powers and competencies should therefore return from Brussels to national capitals, regions and local authorities as a precondition for survival. Perhaps the idea of a loose confederation of European homelands to replace the failed federal plan should be part of this debate.

 

It is perhaps the duty of the left with its institutional naivete and youthful audacity to think through these major changes. Such ideas and initiatives can only come from those challenging the tired European establishment.

 

www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/costas-douzinas/...

The accursed Spanish Bluebells are even more vigorous this year, .... they had plenty of rain.

The rose bush will always be smothered now, it'll probably grow OK as long as we make sure that there's enough water in the soil.

The Bluebells have a way of getting into the roots of other plants so as to be impossible to pull or dig out.

Strangulation fantasy

The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its black stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ungulates, such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat to support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years and then become independent, leaving their mother's home range to establish their own.

 

The tiger was first scientifically described in 1758. It once ranged widely from the Eastern Anatolia Region in the west to the Amur River basin in the east, and in the south from the foothills of the Himalayas to Bali in the Sunda Islands. Since the early 20th century, tiger populations have lost at least 93% of their historic range and have been extirpated from Western and Central Asia, the islands of Java and Bali, and in large areas of Southeast and South Asia and China. What remains of the range where tigers still roam free is fragmented, stretching in spots from Siberian temperate forests to subtropical and tropical forests on the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and a single Indonesian island, Sumatra.

 

The tiger is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. India hosts the largest tiger population. Major reasons for population decline are habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching. Tigers are also victims of human–wildlife conflict, due to encroachment in countries with a high human population density.

 

The tiger is among the most recognisable and popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It featured prominently in the ancient mythology and folklore of cultures throughout its historic range and continues to be depicted in modern films and literature, appearing on many flags, coats of arms and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and South Korea.

 

Etymology

The Middle English tigre and Old English tigras derive from Old French tigre, from Latin tigris. This was a borrowing of Classical Greek τίγρις 'tigris', a foreign borrowing of unknown origin meaning 'tiger' and the river Tigris. The generic name Panthera is derived from the Latin word panthera and the Ancient Greek word πάνθηρ pánthēr.

 

Taxonomy

In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae and gave it the scientific name Felis tigris. In 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris.

 

Subspecies

Following Linnaeus's first descriptions of the species, several tiger zoological specimens were described and proposed as subspecies. The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on the basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size, hence characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely P. t. tigris in mainland Asia, and P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands. Mainland tigers are described as being larger in size with generally lighter fur and fewer stripes, while island tigers are smaller due to insular dwarfism, with darker coats and more numerous stripes. The stripes of island tigers may break up into spotted patterns.

 

This two-subspecies proposal was reaffirmed in 2015 by a comprehensive analysis of morphological, ecological and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies using a combined approach. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies, namely P. t. tigris comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South Chinese, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations of continental Asia, and P. t. sondaica comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations of the Sunda Islands. The continental nominate subspecies P. t. tigris constitutes two clades: a northern clade composed of the Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and a southern clade composed of all other mainland populations. The authors noted that this two-subspecies reclassification will impact tiger conservation management. It would make captive breeding programs and future re-wilding of zoo-born tigers easier, as one tiger population could then be used to reinforce another. However, there is the risk that the loss of subspecies uniqueness could lead to less protection efforts for specific populations.

 

In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy in accordance with the two-subspecies proposal of the comprehensive 2015 study, and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris, and those in the Sunda Islands as P. t. sondaica. This two-subspecies view is still disputed by researchers, since the currently recognized six living subspecies can be distinguished genetically. Results of a 2018 whole-genome sequencing of 32 samples support six monophyletic tiger clades corresponding with the six living subspecies and indicate they descended from a common ancestor around 110,000 years ago.[14] Studies in 2021 and 2023 also affirmed the genetic distinctiveness and separation of these tigers.

 

The tiger's closest living relatives were previously thought to be the Panthera species lion, leopard and jaguar. Results of genetic analysis indicate that about 2.88 million years ago, the tiger and the snow leopard lineages diverged from the other Panthera species, and that both may be more closely related to each other than to the lion, leopard and jaguar.

 

The fossil species Panthera palaeosinensis of early Pleistocene northern China was described as a possible tiger ancestor when it was discovered in 1924, but modern cladistics place it as basal to modern Panthera.Panthera zdanskyi, which lived around the same time and place, was suggested to be a sister taxon of the modern tiger when it was examined in 2014. However, as of 2023, at least two recent studies considered P. zdanskyi likely to be a synonym of P. palaeosinensis, noting that its proposed differences from that species fell within the range of individual variation. The earliest appearance of the modern tiger species in the fossil record are jaw fragments from Lantion in China that are dated to the early Pleistocene. Middle to late Pleistocene tiger fossils were found throughout China, Sumatra and Java. Prehistoric subspecies include Panthera tigris trinilensis and P. t. soloensis of Java and Sumatra, and P. t. acutidens of China; late Pleistocene and early Holocene fossils of tigers were also found in Borneo and Palawan, Philippines.

 

Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that all living tigers had a common ancestor 108,000 to 72,000 years ago.[27] A 2022 paleogenomic study of a Pleistocene tiger basal to living tigers concluded that modern tiger populations spread across Asia no earlier than 94,000 years ago. There is evidence of interbreeding between the lineage of modern mainland tigers and these ancient tigers. The potential tiger range during the late Pleistocene and Holocene was predicted applying ecological niche modelling based on more than 500 tiger locality records combined with bioclimatic data. The resulting model shows a contiguous tiger range at the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating gene flow between tiger populations in mainland Asia. The tiger populations on the Sunda Islands and mainland Asia were possibly separated during interglacial periods.

 

The tiger's full genome sequence was published in 2013. It was found to have repeat compositions much as other cat genomes and "an appreciably conserved synteny".

 

Hybrids

Captive tigers were bred with lions to create hybrids called liger and tigon. The former born to a female tiger and male lion and the latter the result of a male tiger and female lion. They share physical and behavioural qualities of both parent species. Because the lion sire passes on a growth-promoting gene, but the corresponding growth-inhibiting gene from the female tiger is absent, ligers grow far larger than either parent species. By contrast, the male tiger does not pass on a growth-promoting gene and the lioness passes on a growth inhibiting gene, hence tigons are around the same size as either species. Breeding hybrids is now discouraged due to the emphasis on conservation.

 

Characteristics

The tiger has a typical felid morphology. It has a muscular body with strong forelimbs, a large head and a tail that is about half the length of the rest of its body. There are five digits on the front feet and four on the back, all of which have retractable claws which are compact and curved. The ears are rounded, while the eyes have a round pupil. The tiger's skull is large and robust, with a constricted front region, proportionally small, elliptical orbits, long nasal bones, and a lengthened cranium with a large sagittal crest. It is similar to a lion's skull; with the structure of the lower jaw and length of the nasals being the most reliable indicators for species identification. The tiger has fairly robust teeth and its somewhat curved canines are the longest in the cat family at 6.4–7.6 cm (2.5–3.0 in). It has an average bite force at the canine tips of 1234.3 Newton.

 

Size

The tiger is considered to be the largest living felid species. However, there is some debate over averages compared to the lion. Since tiger populations vary greatly in size, the "average" size for a tiger may be less than a lion, while the biggest tigers are bigger than their lion counterparts. The Siberian and Bengal tigers, along with the extinct Caspian are considered to be the largest of the species while the island tigers are the smallest. The Sumatran tiger is the smallest living tiger while the extinct Bali tiger was even smaller. It has been hypothesised that body size of different tiger populations may be correlated with climate and be explained by thermoregulation and Bergmann's rule. Male tigers are larger than females.

 

Tiger fur tends to be short, except in the northern-living Siberian tiger. It has a mane-like heavy growth of fur around the neck and jaws and long whiskers, especially in males. Its colouration is generally orange, but can vary from light yellow to dark red. White fur covers the ventral surface, along with parts of the face. It also has a prominent white spot on the back of their ears which are surrounded by black. The tiger is marked with distinctive black or dark brown stripes; the patterns of which are unique in each individual, The stripes are mostly vertical, but those on the limbs and forehead are horizonal. They are more concentrated towards the posterior and those on the trunk may or may not reach under the belly. The tips of stripes are generally sharp and some have gaps within them. Tail stripes are thick bands and a black tip marks the end.

 

Stripes are likely advantageous for camouflage in vegetation with vertical patterns of light and shade, such as trees and long grass. This is supported by a 1987 Fourier analysis study which concluded that the spatial frequencies of tiger stripes line up with their environment. The tiger is one of only a few striped cat species; it is not known why spotted patterns and rosettes are the more common camouflage pattern among felids. The orange colour may also aid in concealment as the tiger's prey are dichromats, and thus may perceive the cat as green and blended in with the vegetation. The white dots on the ear may play a role in communication.

 

Three colour variants – white, golden and nearly stripeless snow white are now virtually non-existent in the wild due to the reduction of wild tiger populations, but continue in captive populations. The white tiger has a white background colour with sepia-brown stripes. The golden tiger is pale golden with reddish-brown stripes. The snow white tiger is a morph with extremely faint stripes and a pale reddish-brown ringed tail. White and golden morphs are the result of an autosomal recessive trait with a white locus and a wideband locus respectively. The snow white variation is caused by polygenes with both the white and wideband loci. The breeding of white tigers is controversial, as they have no use for conservation. Only 0.001% of wild tigers have the genes for this colour morph, and the overrepresentation of white tigers in captivity is the result of inbreeding. Hence their continued breeding will risk both inbreeding depression and loss of genetic variability in captive tigers.

 

Pseudo-melanistic tigers with thick, merged stripes have been recorded in Simlipal National Park and three Indian zoos; population genetic analysis of Indian tiger samples revealed that this phenotype is caused by a mutation of a transmembrane aminopeptidase gene. Around 37% of the Simlipal tiger population has this feature, which has been linked to genetic isolation.

 

The tiger historically ranged from eastern Pakistan to Indochina, and from southeastern Siberia to Sumatra, Java and Bali. The Caspian tiger lived from eastern Turkey and the South Caucasus to northern Afghanistan and western China. The Tibetan Plateau and the Alborz acted as barriers to the species distribution. As of 2022, it inhabits less than 7% of its historical distribution, and has a scattered range that includes the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra, the Russian Far East and northeastern China.

 

The tiger mainly lives in forest habitats and is highly adaptable. Records in Central Asia indicate that it occurred foremost in Tugay riverine forests and inhabited hilly and lowland forests in the Caucasus. In the Amur-Ussuri region, it inhabits Korean pine and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, where riparian forests provide food and water, and serve as dispersal corridors for both tiger and ungulates. On the Indian subcontinent, it inhabits mainly tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist evergreen forests, tropical dry forests, alluvial plains and the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans. In the Eastern Himalayas, tigers were documented in temperate forest up to an elevation of 4,200 m (13,800 ft) in Bhutan and of 3,630 m (11,910 ft) in the Mishmi Hills. In Thailand, it lives in deciduous and evergreen forests. In Sumatra, tigers range from lowland peat swamp forests to rugged montane forests.

 

Camera trap data show that tigers in Chitwan National Park avoided locations frequented by people and were more active at night than by day. In Sundarbans National Park, six radio-collared tigers were most active in the early morning with a peak around dawn and moved an average distance of 4.6 km (2.9 mi) per day. A three-year long camera trap survey in Shuklaphanta National Park revealed that tigers were most active from dusk until midnight. In northeastern China, tigers were crepuscular and active at night with activity peaking at dawn and at dusk; they exhibited a high temporal overlap with ungulate species.

 

As with other felid species, tigers groom themselves, maintaining their coats by licking them and spreading oil from their sebaceous glands. It will take to water, particularly on hot days. It is a powerful swimmer and easily transverses across rivers as wide as 8 km (5.0 mi). Adults only occasionally climbs trees, but have been recorded climbing 10 m (33 ft) up a smooth pipal tree. In general, tigers are less capable tree climbers than many other cats due to their size, but cubs under 16 months old may routinely do so.

 

Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives. They establish and maintain home ranges, the size of which mainly depends on prey abundance, geographic area and sex of the individual. Males and females defend their home ranges from those of the same sex, and the home range of a male encompasses that of multiple females. Two females in the Sundarbans had home ranges of 10.6 and 14.1 km2 (4.1 and 5.4 sq mi). In Panna Tiger Reserve, the home ranges of five reintroduced females varied from 53–67 km2 (20–26 sq mi) in winter to 55–60 km2 (21–23 sq mi) in summer and to 46–94 km2 (18–36 sq mi) during monsoon; three males had 84–147 km2 (32–57 sq mi) large home ranges in winter, 82–98 km2 (32–38 sq mi) in summer and 81–118 km2 (31–46 sq mi) during monsoon seasons. In Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, seven resident females had home ranges of 44.1–122.3 km2 (17.0–47.2 sq mi) and four resident males of 174.8–417.5 km2 (67.5–161.2 sq mi). Four male problem tigers in Sumatra were translocated to national parks and needed 6–17 weeks to establish new home ranges of 37.5–188.1 km2 (14.5–72.6 sq mi). Ten solitary females in Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve had home ranges of 413.5 ± 77.6 km2 (159.7 ± 30.0 sq mi); when they had cubs of up to 4 months of age, their home ranges declined to 177.3 ± 53.5 km2 (68.5 ± 20.7 sq mi) and steadily grew to 403.3 ± 105.1 km2 (155.7 ± 40.6 sq mi) until the cubs were 13–18 months old.

 

The tiger is a long-ranging species, and individuals disperse over distances of up to 650 km (400 mi) to reach tiger populations in other areas. Young tigresses establish their first territories close to their mother's. Males, however, migrate further than their female counterparts and set out at a younger age to mark out their own area. Four radio-collared females in Chitwan dispersed between 0 and 43.2 km (0.0 and 26.8 mi), and 10 males between 9.5 and 65.7 km (5.9 and 40.8 mi). A young male may have to live as a transient in another male's territory until he is older and strong enough to challenge the resident male. Young males thus have an annual mortality rate of up to 35%. By contrast, young female tigers die at a rate of only around 5%. Tigers mark their territories by spraying urine on vegetation and rocks, clawing or scent rubbing trees, and marking trails with feces, anal gland secretions and ground scrapings.Scent markings also allow an individual to pick up information on another's identity. A tigress in oestrus will signal her availability by scent marking more frequently and increasing her vocalisations. Unclaimed territories, particularly those that belonged to a decreased individual, can be taken over in days or weeks.

 

Male tigers are generally less tolerant of other males within their territories than females are of other females. Territory disputes are usually solved by intimidation rather than outright violence. Once dominance has been established, a male may tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as they do not live in too close quarters. The most serious disputes tend to occur between two males competing for a female in oestrus. Though tigers mostly live alone, relationships between individuals can be complex. Tigers are particularly social at kills, and a male tiger will share a carcass with the females and cubs within this territory and unlike male lions, will allow them to feed on the kill before he is finished with it. Though the female and male act amicably, females are more tense towards each other at a kill.

 

Communication

During friendly encounters and bonding, tigers rub against each others' bodies. Facial expressions include the "defense threat", which involves a wrinkled face, bared teeth, pulled-back ears, and widened pupils. Both males and females show a flehmen response, a characteristic grimace, when sniffing urine markings. Males also use the flehman to detect the markings made by tigresses in oestrus. Tigers also use their tails to signal their mood. To show cordiality, the tail sticks up and sways slowly, while an apprehensive tiger lowers its tail or wags it side-to-side. When calm, the tail hangs low.

 

Tigers are normally silent but can produce numerous vocalisations. They roar to signal their presence to other individuals over long distances. This vocalisation is forced through an open mouth as it closes and can be heard 3 km (1.9 mi) away. A tiger may roar three or four times in a row, and others may respond in kind. Tigers also roar during mating, and a mother will roar to call her cubs to her. When tense, tigers will moan, a sound similar to a roar but softer and made when the mouth is at least partially closed. Moaning can be heard 400 m (1,300 ft) away.

 

Aggressive encounters involve growling, snarling and hissing. An explosive "coughing roar" or "coughing snarl" is emitted through an open mouth and exposed teeth. Chuffing—soft, low-frequency snorting similar to purring in smaller cats—is heard in more friendly situations. Mother tigers communicate with their cubs by grunting, while cubs call back with miaows. A "woof" sound is produced when the animal is startled. It has also been recording emitting a deer-like "pok" sound for unknown reasons, but most often at kills.

 

Hunting and diet

The tiger is a carnivore and an apex predator feeding mainly on ungulates, with a particular preference for sambar deer, Manchurian wapiti, barasingha and wild boar. Tigers kill large prey like gaur, but opportunistically kill much smaller prey like monkeys, peafowl and other ground-based birds, porcupines and fish. Tiger attacks on adult Asian elephants and Indian rhinoceros have also been reported. More often, tigers take the more vulnerable small calves. When in close proximity to humans, tigers sometimes prey on domestic livestock and dogs. Tigers occasionally consume vegetation, fruit and minerals for dietary fibre.

 

Tigers learn to hunt from their mothers, which is important but not necessary for their success. They usually hunt alone, but families hunt together when cubs are old enough. A tiger travels up to 19.3 km (12.0 mi) per day in search of prey, using vision and hearing to find a target. It also waits at a watering hole for prey to come by, particularly during hot summer days. It is an ambush predator and when approaching potential prey, the tiger crouches, with head lowered, and hides in foliage. The tiger switches between creeping forward and staying still. Tigers have been recorded dozing off while in still mode, and can stay in the same spot for as long as a day waiting for prey and launches an attack, when the prey is close enough. It can sprint 56 km/h (35 mph) and leap 10 m (33 ft).

 

Tiger Reserve

The tiger attacks from behind or at the sides and tries to knock the target off balance. It latches onto prey with its forelimbs, twisting and turning during the struggle. The tiger generally applies a bite to the throat until its target dies of strangulation. Holding onto the throat puts the cat out of reach of the horns, antlers, tusks and hooves. Tigers are adaptable killers and may use other methods, including ripping the throat or breaking the neck. Large prey may be disabled by a bite to the back of the hock, severing the tendon. Swipes from the large paws are capable of stunning or breaking to skull of a water buffalo. They kill small prey with a bite to the back of the neck or skull. Estimates of the success rate for hunting tigers ranges from a low 5% to a high of 50%.

 

The tiger typically drags its kill for 183–549 m (600–1,801 ft) to a hidden, usually vegetated spot before eating. The tiger has the strength to drag the carcass of a fully grown buffalo for some distance, a feat three men struggle with. It rests for a while before eating and can consume as much as 50 kg (110 lb) of meat in one session, but feeds on a carcass for several days, leaving very little for scavengers.

 

Enemies and competitors

Tigers may kill and even prey on other predators they coexist with. In much of their range, tigers share habitat with leopards and dholes. They typically dominate both of them, though large packs of dholes can drive away a tiger, or even kill it. Tigers appear to inhabit the deep parts of a forest while these smaller predators are pushed closer to the fringes. The three predators coexist by hunting different prey. In one study, tigers were found to have killed prey that weighed an average of 91.5 kg (202 lb), in contrast to 37.6 kg (83 lb) for the leopard and 43.4 kg (96 lb) for the dhole. Leopards can live successfully in tiger habitat when there is abundant food and vegetation cover, and there is no evidence of competitive exclusion common to the African savanna, where the leopard lives beside the lion. Nevertheless, leopards avoid areas were tigers roam and are less common where tigers are numerous.

 

Tigers tend to be wary of sloth bears, with their sharp claws, quickness and ability to stand on two legs. Tiger do sometimes prey on sloth bears by ambushing them when they are feeding at termite mounds. Siberian tigers may attack, kill and prey on Ussuri brown and Ussuri black bears. In turn, some studies show that brown bears frequently track down tigers to usurp their kills, with occasional fatal outcomes for the tiger.

 

Reproduction and life cycle

The tiger mates all year round, but most cubs are born between March and June, with another peak in September. A tigress is in oestrus for three to six days, inbetween three to nine week intervals. A resident male mates with all the females within his territory, who signal their receptiveness by roaring and marking. Younger, transient males are also attracted, leading to a fight in which the more dominant male drives the usurper off. During courtship, the male is cautious with the female as he waits for her to show signs she is ready to mate. She signals to him by positioning herself in lordosis with their tail to the side. Copulation is generally 20 to 25 seconds long, with the male biting the female by the scruff of her neck. After it is finished, the male quickly pulls away as the female may turn and slap him. Tiger pairs may stay together for up to four days and mate multiple times. Gestation ranges from 93 to 114 days, with an average of 103 to 105 days.

 

A tigress gives birth in a secluded location, be it in dense vegetation, in a cave or under a rocky shelter. Litters consist of as many seven cubs, but two or three are more typical. Newborn cubs weigh 785–1,610 g (27.7–56.8 oz), and are blind and altricial. The mother licks and cleans her cubs, suckles them and viscously defends them from any potential threat. She will only leave them alone to hunt, and even then does not travel far. When a mother suspects an area is no longer safe, she moves her cubs to a new spot, transporting them one by one by grabbing them by the scruff of the neck with her mouth. The mortality rate for tiger cubs can reach 50% during these early months, causes of death include predators like dholes, leopards and pythons. Young are able to see in a week, can leave the denning site in two months and around the same time they start eating meat.

 

After around two months, the cubs are able to follow their mother. They still hide in vegetation when she goes hunting, and she will guide them to the kill. Cubs bond though play fighting and practice stalking. A hierarchy develops in the litter, with the biggest cub, often a male, being the most dominant and the first to eat its fill at a kill. Around the age of six months, cubs are fully weaned and have more freedom to explore their environment. Between eight and ten months, they accompany their mother on hunts. A cub can make a kill as early as 11 months, and reach independence around 18 to 24 months of age, males becoming independent earlier than females. Radio-collared tigers in Chitwan started dispersing from their natal areas earliest at the age of 19 months. Young females are sexual mature at three to four years, whereas males are at four to five years. Tigers may live up to 26 years.

 

Tiger fathers play no role in raising the young, but he may encounter and interact with them. Resident males appear to visit the female-cub families within his territory. They have when observed swimming with females and their cubs and even sharing kills with them. One male was recorded looking after cubs whose mother had died. By defending his territory, the male is also protecting the females and cubs from harassment by other males. When a new male takes over a territory, cubs under a year old are at risk of being killed, as the male would want to sire his own young with the females. Older female cubs are tolerated but males may be treated as potential competitors.

 

Threats

Major threats to the tiger include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching for fur and body parts, which have simultaneously greatly reduced tiger populations in the wild. In India, only 11% of the historical tiger habitat remains due to habitat fragmentation. Demand for tiger parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine has also been cited as a major threat to tiger populations.

 

In China, tigers became the target of large-scale 'anti-pest' campaigns in the early 1950s, where suitable habitats were fragmented following deforestation and resettlement of people to rural areas, who hunted tigers and prey species. Though tiger hunting was prohibited in 1977, the population continued to decline and is considered extinct in southern China since 2001.

 

In Bangladesh, tiger body parts like skins, bones, teeth and hair are consumed locally by wealthy Bangladeshis and are illegally trafficked to 15 countries including India, China, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan and the United Kingdom via land borders, airports and seaports.

 

Conservation

Internationally, the tiger is protected under CITES Appendix I, banning trade of live tigers and their body parts.[1] In India, it has been protected since 1972 under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. In 1973, Project Tiger was founded to gain public support for tiger conservation, and 53 tiger reserves covering an area of 75,796 km2 (29,265 sq mi) have been established in the country until 2022. In Nepal, it has been protected since 1973 under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1973. In Bhutan, it has been protected since 1969; the first Tiger Action Plan implemented during 2006–2015 revolved around habitat conservation, human–wildlife conflict management, education and awareness; the second Action Plan aimed at increasing the country’s tiger population by 20% until 2023 compared to 2015. In Bangladesh, it has been protected since 1973 under the Wildlife (Preservation) Act and the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012. In 2009, the Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan was initiated to stabilize the country's tiger population, maintain habitat and a sufficient prey base, improve law enforcement and cooperation between governmental agencies responsible for tiger conservation. Myanmar’s national tiger conservation strategy developed in 2003 comprises management tasks such as restoration of degraded habitats, increasing the extent of protected areas and wildlife corridors, protecting tiger prey species, thwarting of tiger killing and illegal trade of its body parts, and promoting public awareness through wildlife education programs.

 

Global wild tiger population

CountryYearEstimate

India India20233682–3925

Russia Russia2020480–540

Indonesia Indonesia2016400–600

Bangladesh Bangladesh2014300–500

Nepal Nepal2022355

Thailand Thailand2023189

Bhutan Bhutan2023131

Malaysia Malaysia2022<150

China China201855

Myanmar Myanmar201822

Total5,764–6,467

 

In the 1990s, a new approach to tiger conservation was developed: Tiger Conservation Units (TCUs), which are blocks of habitat that have the potential to host tiger populations in 15 habitat types within five bioregions. Altogether 143 TCUs were identified and prioritized based on size and integrity of habitat, poaching pressure and population status. They range in size from 33 to 155,829 km2 (13 to 60,166 sq mi).

 

In 2016, an estimate of a global wild tiger population of approximately 3,890 individuals was presented during the Third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. The WWF subsequently declared that the world's count of wild tigers had risen for the first time in a century.

 

Some estimates suggest that there are fewer than 2,500 mature breeding individuals, with no subpopulation containing more than 250 mature breeding individuals. India is home to the world's largest population of wild tigers. A 2014 census estimated a population of 2,226, a 30% increase since 2011. On International Tiger Day 2019, the 'Tiger Estimation Report 2018' was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report estimates a population of 2967 tigers in India with 25% increase since 2014. Modi said "India is one of the safest habitats for tigers as it has achieved the target of doubling the tiger population from 1411 in 2011 to 2967 in 2019". As of 2022, India accounts for 75 percent of global tiger population. The Tiger Census of 2023 reports tiger population in India at 3167.

 

In the 1940s, the Siberian tiger was on the brink of extinction with only about 40 animals remaining in the wild in Russia. As a result, anti-poaching controls were put in place by the Soviet Union and a network of protected zones (zapovedniks) were instituted, leading to a rise in the population to several hundred. Poaching again became a problem in the 1990s, when the economy of Russia collapsed. The major obstacle in preserving the species is the enormous territory individual tigers require, up to 450 km (280 mi) needed by a single female and more for a single male. Current conservation efforts are led by local governments and NGO's in concert with international organisations, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Conservation Society. The competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters to tolerate the big cats. Tigers have less impact on ungulate populations than do wolves, and are effective in controlling the latter's numbers. In 2005, there were thought to be about 360 animals in Russia, though these exhibited little genetic diversity. However, in a decade later, the Siberian tiger census was estimated from 480 to 540 individuals.

 

Having earlier rejected the Western-led environmentalist movement, China changed its stance in the 1980s and became a party to the CITES treaty. By 1993 it had banned the trade in tiger parts, and this diminished the use of tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicine. The Tibetan people's trade in tiger skins has also been a threat to tigers. The pelts were used in clothing, tiger-skin chuba being worn as fashion. In 2006 the 14th Dalai Lama was persuaded to take up the issue. Since then there has been a change of attitude, with some Tibetans publicly burning their chubas.

 

In 1994, the Indonesian Sumatran Tiger Conservation Strategy addressed the potential crisis that tigers faced in Sumatra. The Sumatran Tiger Project (STP) was initiated in June 1995 in and around the Way Kambas National Park to ensure the long-term viability of wild Sumatran tigers and to accumulate data on tiger life-history characteristics vital for the management of wild populations. By August 1999, the teams of the STP had evaluated 52 sites of potential tiger habitat in Lampung Province, of which only 15 these were intact enough to contain tigers. In the framework of the STP a community-based conservation program was initiated to document the tiger-human dimension in the park to enable conservation authorities to resolve tiger-human conflicts based on a comprehensive database rather than anecdotes and opinions.

 

The Wildlife Conservation Society and Panthera Corporation formed the collaboration Tigers Forever, with field sites including the world's largest tiger reserve, the 21,756 km2 (8,400 sq mi) Hukaung Valley in Myanmar. Other reserves were in the Western Ghats in India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the Russian Far East covering in total about 260,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi).

 

Tigers have been studied in the wild using a variety of techniques. Tiger population have been estimated using plaster casts of their pugmarks, although this method was criticized as being inaccurate. More recent techniques include the use of camera traps and studies of DNA from tiger scat, while radio-collaring has been used to track tigers in the wild. Tiger spray has been found to be just as good, or better, as a source of DNA than scat.

 

Relationship with humans

A tiger hunt is painted on the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India and dated to 5,000–6,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, Emperor Samudragupta was depicted slaying tigers on coins. Tiger hunting became an established sport under the Mughal Empire in the 16th century. The cats were chased on horseback and killed with spears. Emperor Akbar participated in such activities and one of his hunts is the subject of a painting from the Akbarnama. Following Akbar, Emperor Jahangir will introduce musket to tiger hunts and eventually, elephant would be ridden. The British East India Company would pay for bounties on tigers as early as 1757 and tiger hunting would continue under British Raj. Tiger killings were particularly high in the 19th and early 20th centuries; as an estimated 80,000 cats were killed between 1875 and 1925. King George V on his visit to Colonial India in 1911 killed 39 tigers in a matter of 10 days.

 

Historically, tigers have been hunted at a large scale so their famous striped skins could be collected. The trade in tiger skins peaked in the 1960s, just before international conservation efforts took effect. By 1977, a tiger skin in an English market was considered to be worth US$4,250.

 

Body part use

Tiger parts are commonly used as amulets in South and Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, the fossils in Palawan were found besides stone tools. This, besides the evidence for cuts on the bones, and the use of fire, suggests that early humans had accumulated the bones. and the condition of the tiger subfossils, dated to approximately 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, differed from other fossils in the assemblage, dated to the Upper Paleolithic. The tiger subfossils showed longitudinal fracture of the cortical bone due to weathering, which suggests that they had post-mortem been exposed to light and air. Tiger canines were found in Ambangan sites dating to the 10th to 12th centuries in Butuan, Mindanao.

 

Many people in China and other parts of Asia have a belief that various tiger parts have medicinal properties, including as pain killers and aphrodisiacs. There is no scientific evidence to support these beliefs. The use of tiger parts in pharmaceutical drugs in China is already banned, and the government has made some offences in connection with tiger poaching punishable by death. Furthermore, all trade in tiger parts is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and a domestic trade ban has been in place in China since 1993.

 

However, the trading of tiger parts in Asia has become a major black market industry and governmental and conservation attempts to stop it have been ineffective to date. Almost all black marketers engaged in the trade are based in China and have either been shipped and sold within their own country or into Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. The Chinese subspecies was almost completely decimated by killing for commerce due to both the parts and skin trades in the 1950s through the 1970s. Contributing to the illegal trade, there are a number of tiger farms in the country specialising in breeding them for profit. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 captive-bred, semi-tame animals live in these farms today. However, many tigers for traditional medicine black market are wild ones shot or snared by poachers and may be caught anywhere in the tiger's remaining range (from Siberia to India to the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra). In the Asian black market, a tiger penis can be worth the equivalent of around $300 U.S. dollars. In the years of 1990 through 1992, 27 million products with tiger derivatives were found. In July 2014 at an international convention on endangered species in Geneva, Switzerland, a Chinese representative admitted for the first time his government was aware trading in tiger skins was occurring in China.

 

Attacks

Tigers are said to have directly killed more people than any other wild mammal. In most areas, the big cats typically avoid humans, but attacks are a risk wherever people coexist with them. Dangerous encounters are more likely to occur in edge habitats, between wild and agricultural areas.[196] Most attacks on humans are defensive, including protection of young. However, tiger do sometimes see people as potential prey. Tigers hunt people the same way they hunt other prey, by ambush and with a killing bite to the neck. A tiger inflicted wound also carries the risk of infection. Man-eating tigers tend to be old and disabled. Those they have been driven from their home ranges and territories are also at risk of turning to man-eating.

 

The Champawat Tiger was responsible for an estimated 434 human deaths in Nepal and India before she was shot by famed hunter Jim Corbett. Corbett recorded that the tigress suffered from broken teeth and thus unable to kill normal prey. Modern authors speculate that feeding on meagre human flesh forced the cat to kill more and more. Tiger attacks were particularly high in Singapore during the mid-19th century, when plantations expanded into the animal's habitat. The number of deaths ranged from 200 to 300 annually in the 1840s.

 

Tiger predation on humans is highest in the Sundarbans. An estimated 129 people were killed between 1969 and 1971. In the 10 years prior to that period, about 100 attacks per year in the Sundarbans. Victims of tigers attacks are local villagers who enter the tiger's domain to collect resources like wood and honey. Fishermen have been particularly common targets. Methods to counter tiger attacks have included face-masks (worn backwards), protective clothes, sticks and carefully stationed electric dummies. These tools have been credited with reducing tiger attacks to only 22 per year in the 1980s. Because of rapid habitat loss attributed to climate change, tiger attacks have increased in the Sundarbans in the 21 century.

 

In captivity

Tigers have been kept in captivity since ancient times. In ancient Rome, tigers were displayed in amphitheaters; they were slaughtered in hunts and used for public executions of criminals. Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan is reported to have kept tigers in the 13th century. Starting in the Middle Ages, tigers were being kept in European menageries. In 1830, two tigers and a lion were accidentally put in the same exhibit at the Tower of London. This lead to a fight between them and, after they were separated, the lion died of its wounds. Tigers and other exotic animals were mainly used for the entertainment of elites but from the 19th century onward, they were exhibited more to the public. Tigers were particularly big attractions, and their captive population soared.

 

Tigers have played prominent roles in circuses and other live performances. Ringling Bros included many tiger trainers in the 20th century including Mabel Stark, who became a big draw and had a long career. She was well known for being able to control the big cats despite being a small woman; using "manly" tools like whips and guns. Another trainer was Clyde Beatty, who used chairs, whips and guns to provoke tigers and other beasts into acting fierce and allowed him to appear courageous. He would perform with as many as 40 tigers and lions in one act. From the 1960s onward trainers like Gunther Gebel-Williams would use gentler methods to control their animals. Tiger trainer Sara Houckle was dubbed "the Tiger Whisperer", as she trained the cats to obey her by whispering to them. Siegfried & Roy became famous for performing with white tigers in Las Vegas. The act ended in 2003 when a tiger named Mantacore attacked Roy during a performance. The use of tigers and other animals in shows would eventually decline in many countries due to pressure from animal rights groups and greater desires from the public to see them in more natural settings. Several countries would restrict or ban such acts.

 

Tigers have become popular in the exotic pet trade, particularly in the United States. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimated that in the US, 5,000 tigers were kept in captivity in 2020, with only 6% of them being in zoos and other facilities approved by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The WWF argues that private collectors are ill-equipped to provide proper care for tigers, which compromises their welfare. They can also threaten public safety by allowing people to interact with them. The keeping of tigers and other big cats by private individuals was banned in the US in 2022 under the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Those who owned big cats at the time of the signing were expected to register with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service before 18 June 2023. The WWF also estimated in 2020 that 7,000–8,000 tigers were held in "tiger farm" facilities in China and Southeast Asia. These tigers are bred to be used for traditional medicine and appear to pose a threat to wild populations by rising demand for tiger parts.

 

Cultural significance

Tiger-shaped bronze from Zhou-era China, (c. 900 bc)

The tiger is among the most famous of charismatic megafauna. It has been labelled as "a rare combination of courage, ferocity and brilliant colour". In a 2004 online poll conducted by cable television channel Animal Planet, involving more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries, the tiger was voted the world's favourite animal with 21% of the vote, narrowly beating the dog. Likewise, a 2018 study found the tiger to be the most popular wild animal based on surveys, and appearances on websites of major zoos and posters of some animated movies.

 

While the lion represented royalty and power in Western culture, the tiger filled such a role in Asia. In ancient China, the tiger was seen as the "king of the forest" and symbolised the power of the emperor. In Chinese astrology, the tiger is the third out of 12 symbols in the zodiac and controls the period of the day between 3 am and 5 am. The Year of the Tiger is thought to bring "dramatic and extreme events". The White Tiger is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, representing the west along with the yin and the season of autumn. It is the counterpart to the Azure Dragon, which conversely symbolises the east, yang and springtime. The tiger is one of the animals displayed on the Pashupati seal of the Indus Valley civilisation. The big cat was depicted on seals and coins during the Chola Dynasty of southern India, as it was the official emblem.

 

Tigers have had religious significance, even being worshiped. In Buddhism, the tiger, monkey and deer are Three Senseless Creatures, the tiger symbolising anger. In Bhutan, the tiger is venerated as one of the four powerful animals called the "four dignities", and a tigress is believed to have carried Padmasambhava from Singye Dzong to the Paro Taktsang monastery in the late 8th century. In Korean mythology, tigers are messengers of the Mountain Gods. In Hinduism, the tiger is the vehicle for the goddess of feminine power and peace, Durga, whom the gods created to fight demons. Similarly, in the Greco-Roman world, the tiger was depicted being ridden by the god Dionysus. The Warli of western India worship the tiger-like god Waghoba. The Warli believe that shrines and sacrifices to the deity will lead to better coexistence with the local big cats, both tigers and leopards, and that Waghoba will protect them when they enter the forests. In both Chinese and Korean culture, tigers are seen as a protectors against evil spirits, and their image was used to decorate homes and tombs.

 

In the folklore of Malaysia and Indonesia, "tiger shamans" heal the sick by evoking the big cat. People turning into tigers and the inverse has also been widespread, in particular weretigers are people who could change into tigers and back again. The Mnong people of Indochina believed that tigers could transform into humans. Among some indigenous peoples of Siberia, it was believed that men could have sex with women after transforming into tigers.

 

The tiger's cultural reputation is generally that of a fierce and powerful animal. William Blake's 1794 poem "The Tyger" portrays the animal as the duality of beauty and ferocity. It is the sister poem to "The Lamb" in Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience and he ponders why God would create such different creatures. The tiger is featured in the medieval Chinese novel Water Margin, where the cat battles and is slain by the bandit Wu Song, while the tiger Shere Khan in Rudyard Kipling's 1894 The Jungle Book is the mortal enemy of the human protagonist Mowgli. The image of the friendly tame tiger has also existed in culture, notably Tigger, the Winnie-the-Pooh character and Tony the Tiger, the Kellogg's cereal mascot.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the leftist priest, was first elected to power by a huge majority in 1991. His platform was one of setting right the historical wrongs that had kept his country in chains even though it was the first nation of slaves to abolish slavery. He didn’t last long. Papa George Bush arranged for him to be overthrown. And when later, under US supervision, he was again elected in 2001 by an overwhelming majority, Baby George W arranged to have him deposed in 2004.

 

One of Aristide’s cardinal crimes was to formally raise the question of reparations, in 2003, I believe. ‘Reparations for what?’ you may ask. Haiti is the only country in world history-and here I can hark back to Neanderthal man-that won a war but was forced to compensate the vanquished. Following the successful American war of Independence (1775-83), and later the Jacobins-inspired French Revolution (1789-99), Haitian slaves led by Toussaint L’Ouverture waged a successful campaign to oust their French masters.

 

Between 1791 and 1803, Haiti’s slave-army defeated what was considered the finest war machine of the era, Napoleon Bonaparte’s. The ‘little general’ had conquered much of Europe and later set his sights on a chunk of southern US, where the French already had a foothold. But Toussaint, taking up the Jacobins cry of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, initiated a war that would apply these noble ideals to a country where slavery was most brutal.

 

Napoleon sent two separate, well-equipped forces to take on the rebel slaves. Both failed. By 1803, when Dessalines declared Haiti independent, Napoleon had lost more than 24,000 troops. What followed that first victory of an enslaved people was an injustice that doomed the victors to persistent poverty.

 

France demanded 90 million gold francs (more than US$20 billion in today’s currency). Newly-independent US paid Britain nothing. The victorious French paid the deposed monarchy not one franc. But poor Haiti was coerced into paying the victors the sum demanded. Aristide’s cardinal sin was to raise the issue of reparations-US$20 billion-in 2003. To seriously address Haiti’s dire poverty, Caribbean countries must join in the call for US$20 billion in reparations, from France and from the US.

 

www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog/?p=2284

 

Please watch this Documentary on the Economic strangulation of Haiti by powerful western nations. It will answer the question of those wo continue to ask why is Haiti so poor.

 

www.kushiteempire.com/view_video.php?viewkey=9c1d0e3b9ccc...

    

A purification ritual for a mithun killed by strangulation at the Puri (Adi) festival of Donggin held at Aalo in the Siang valley.

Momentum Grows for the

LET GAZA LIVE

National March on Washington

Saturday, January 10

Assemble at the White House (north side) at 1:00 PM

  

Let Gaza Live!

National March in DC to

Stop the U.S./Israeli War

Against the Palestinian People

Sat, Jan 10

1:00 pm

White House

Lafayette Park

(north side)

Hundreds of Palestinian people in Gaza have been killed and

thousands more wounded as a result of the massive bombing campaign

and ground invasion carried out by the Israeli government.

This must be recognized for what it is: not a war but a massacre of

the Palestinian people.

Because of the U.S.-backed Israeli blockade and strangulation of

the people of Gaza for the past 18 months, there is little or no medicine

to treat the wounded, electricity for hospitals, or food or clean

water for much of the population.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world. It receives

more than $15 million every day from the United States. The F-16

fighter jets and apache helicopters that have rained down more than

hundreds of tons of bombs and missiles on Gaza are made in the

United States by the Pentagon and provided to the Israeli government.

It is inconceivable that this military equipment and the Israeli

aggression in Gaza could have taken place without the explicit consent

of the U.S. government.

It is urgent that people in the United States take to the streets to

show solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and to demand

an immediate end to the murderous attacks carried out by the U.S.-

backed Israeli military against the people of Gaza.

The Jan. 10 protest will be located between the Bush White

House and the Hay Adams Hotel, where President-Elect Obama is

now residing, which is located on the north side of Lafayette Park.

Get Involved! Volunteers Needed!

Sponsoring organizations and endorsers: ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine

Alliance, American Muslim Task Force, National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awda - International Palestine Right to Return

Coalition, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), American Muslims for Palestine, American Muslim Alliance, U.S.

Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Ramsey Clark, Cynthia McKinney, Howard Zinn, Muslimah Writers' Alliance, The

National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, Voters for Peace, Code Pink, Action Center for

Justice, International Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and hundreds of others.

Flyer issued by A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)

(202) 544-3389 x14 - www.ANSWERcoalition.org - dc@answercoalition.org

Tens of thousands have marched nationally. Above: San Francisco, January 2

Own now 13 Witches: The Movie Unrated & Uncensored

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The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its black stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ungulates, such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat to support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years and then become independent, leaving their mother's home range to establish their own.

 

The tiger was first scientifically described in 1758. It once ranged widely from the Eastern Anatolia Region in the west to the Amur River basin in the east, and in the south from the foothills of the Himalayas to Bali in the Sunda Islands. Since the early 20th century, tiger populations have lost at least 93% of their historic range and have been extirpated from Western and Central Asia, the islands of Java and Bali, and in large areas of Southeast and South Asia and China. What remains of the range where tigers still roam free is fragmented, stretching in spots from Siberian temperate forests to subtropical and tropical forests on the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and a single Indonesian island, Sumatra.

 

The tiger is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. India hosts the largest tiger population. Major reasons for population decline are habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching. Tigers are also victims of human–wildlife conflict, due to encroachment in countries with a high human population density.

 

The tiger is among the most recognisable and popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It featured prominently in the ancient mythology and folklore of cultures throughout its historic range and continues to be depicted in modern films and literature, appearing on many flags, coats of arms and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and South Korea.

 

Etymology

The Middle English tigre and Old English tigras derive from Old French tigre, from Latin tigris. This was a borrowing of Classical Greek τίγρις 'tigris', a foreign borrowing of unknown origin meaning 'tiger' and the river Tigris. The generic name Panthera is derived from the Latin word panthera and the Ancient Greek word πάνθηρ pánthēr.

 

Taxonomy

In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae and gave it the scientific name Felis tigris. In 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris.

 

Subspecies

Following Linnaeus's first descriptions of the species, several tiger zoological specimens were described and proposed as subspecies. The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on the basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size, hence characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely P. t. tigris in mainland Asia, and P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands. Mainland tigers are described as being larger in size with generally lighter fur and fewer stripes, while island tigers are smaller due to insular dwarfism, with darker coats and more numerous stripes. The stripes of island tigers may break up into spotted patterns.

 

This two-subspecies proposal was reaffirmed in 2015 by a comprehensive analysis of morphological, ecological and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies using a combined approach. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies, namely P. t. tigris comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South Chinese, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations of continental Asia, and P. t. sondaica comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations of the Sunda Islands. The continental nominate subspecies P. t. tigris constitutes two clades: a northern clade composed of the Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and a southern clade composed of all other mainland populations. The authors noted that this two-subspecies reclassification will impact tiger conservation management. It would make captive breeding programs and future re-wilding of zoo-born tigers easier, as one tiger population could then be used to reinforce another. However, there is the risk that the loss of subspecies uniqueness could lead to less protection efforts for specific populations.

 

In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy in accordance with the two-subspecies proposal of the comprehensive 2015 study, and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris, and those in the Sunda Islands as P. t. sondaica. This two-subspecies view is still disputed by researchers, since the currently recognized six living subspecies can be distinguished genetically. Results of a 2018 whole-genome sequencing of 32 samples support six monophyletic tiger clades corresponding with the six living subspecies and indicate they descended from a common ancestor around 110,000 years ago.[14] Studies in 2021 and 2023 also affirmed the genetic distinctiveness and separation of these tigers.

 

The tiger's closest living relatives were previously thought to be the Panthera species lion, leopard and jaguar. Results of genetic analysis indicate that about 2.88 million years ago, the tiger and the snow leopard lineages diverged from the other Panthera species, and that both may be more closely related to each other than to the lion, leopard and jaguar.

 

The fossil species Panthera palaeosinensis of early Pleistocene northern China was described as a possible tiger ancestor when it was discovered in 1924, but modern cladistics place it as basal to modern Panthera.Panthera zdanskyi, which lived around the same time and place, was suggested to be a sister taxon of the modern tiger when it was examined in 2014. However, as of 2023, at least two recent studies considered P. zdanskyi likely to be a synonym of P. palaeosinensis, noting that its proposed differences from that species fell within the range of individual variation. The earliest appearance of the modern tiger species in the fossil record are jaw fragments from Lantion in China that are dated to the early Pleistocene. Middle to late Pleistocene tiger fossils were found throughout China, Sumatra and Java. Prehistoric subspecies include Panthera tigris trinilensis and P. t. soloensis of Java and Sumatra, and P. t. acutidens of China; late Pleistocene and early Holocene fossils of tigers were also found in Borneo and Palawan, Philippines.

 

Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that all living tigers had a common ancestor 108,000 to 72,000 years ago.[27] A 2022 paleogenomic study of a Pleistocene tiger basal to living tigers concluded that modern tiger populations spread across Asia no earlier than 94,000 years ago. There is evidence of interbreeding between the lineage of modern mainland tigers and these ancient tigers. The potential tiger range during the late Pleistocene and Holocene was predicted applying ecological niche modelling based on more than 500 tiger locality records combined with bioclimatic data. The resulting model shows a contiguous tiger range at the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating gene flow between tiger populations in mainland Asia. The tiger populations on the Sunda Islands and mainland Asia were possibly separated during interglacial periods.

 

The tiger's full genome sequence was published in 2013. It was found to have repeat compositions much as other cat genomes and "an appreciably conserved synteny".

 

Hybrids

Captive tigers were bred with lions to create hybrids called liger and tigon. The former born to a female tiger and male lion and the latter the result of a male tiger and female lion. They share physical and behavioural qualities of both parent species. Because the lion sire passes on a growth-promoting gene, but the corresponding growth-inhibiting gene from the female tiger is absent, ligers grow far larger than either parent species. By contrast, the male tiger does not pass on a growth-promoting gene and the lioness passes on a growth inhibiting gene, hence tigons are around the same size as either species. Breeding hybrids is now discouraged due to the emphasis on conservation.

 

Characteristics

The tiger has a typical felid morphology. It has a muscular body with strong forelimbs, a large head and a tail that is about half the length of the rest of its body. There are five digits on the front feet and four on the back, all of which have retractable claws which are compact and curved. The ears are rounded, while the eyes have a round pupil. The tiger's skull is large and robust, with a constricted front region, proportionally small, elliptical orbits, long nasal bones, and a lengthened cranium with a large sagittal crest. It is similar to a lion's skull; with the structure of the lower jaw and length of the nasals being the most reliable indicators for species identification. The tiger has fairly robust teeth and its somewhat curved canines are the longest in the cat family at 6.4–7.6 cm (2.5–3.0 in). It has an average bite force at the canine tips of 1234.3 Newton.

 

Size

The tiger is considered to be the largest living felid species. However, there is some debate over averages compared to the lion. Since tiger populations vary greatly in size, the "average" size for a tiger may be less than a lion, while the biggest tigers are bigger than their lion counterparts. The Siberian and Bengal tigers, along with the extinct Caspian are considered to be the largest of the species while the island tigers are the smallest. The Sumatran tiger is the smallest living tiger while the extinct Bali tiger was even smaller. It has been hypothesised that body size of different tiger populations may be correlated with climate and be explained by thermoregulation and Bergmann's rule. Male tigers are larger than females.

 

Tiger fur tends to be short, except in the northern-living Siberian tiger. It has a mane-like heavy growth of fur around the neck and jaws and long whiskers, especially in males. Its colouration is generally orange, but can vary from light yellow to dark red. White fur covers the ventral surface, along with parts of the face. It also has a prominent white spot on the back of their ears which are surrounded by black. The tiger is marked with distinctive black or dark brown stripes; the patterns of which are unique in each individual, The stripes are mostly vertical, but those on the limbs and forehead are horizonal. They are more concentrated towards the posterior and those on the trunk may or may not reach under the belly. The tips of stripes are generally sharp and some have gaps within them. Tail stripes are thick bands and a black tip marks the end.

 

Stripes are likely advantageous for camouflage in vegetation with vertical patterns of light and shade, such as trees and long grass. This is supported by a 1987 Fourier analysis study which concluded that the spatial frequencies of tiger stripes line up with their environment. The tiger is one of only a few striped cat species; it is not known why spotted patterns and rosettes are the more common camouflage pattern among felids. The orange colour may also aid in concealment as the tiger's prey are dichromats, and thus may perceive the cat as green and blended in with the vegetation. The white dots on the ear may play a role in communication.

 

Three colour variants – white, golden and nearly stripeless snow white are now virtually non-existent in the wild due to the reduction of wild tiger populations, but continue in captive populations. The white tiger has a white background colour with sepia-brown stripes. The golden tiger is pale golden with reddish-brown stripes. The snow white tiger is a morph with extremely faint stripes and a pale reddish-brown ringed tail. White and golden morphs are the result of an autosomal recessive trait with a white locus and a wideband locus respectively. The snow white variation is caused by polygenes with both the white and wideband loci. The breeding of white tigers is controversial, as they have no use for conservation. Only 0.001% of wild tigers have the genes for this colour morph, and the overrepresentation of white tigers in captivity is the result of inbreeding. Hence their continued breeding will risk both inbreeding depression and loss of genetic variability in captive tigers.

 

Pseudo-melanistic tigers with thick, merged stripes have been recorded in Simlipal National Park and three Indian zoos; population genetic analysis of Indian tiger samples revealed that this phenotype is caused by a mutation of a transmembrane aminopeptidase gene. Around 37% of the Simlipal tiger population has this feature, which has been linked to genetic isolation.

 

The tiger historically ranged from eastern Pakistan to Indochina, and from southeastern Siberia to Sumatra, Java and Bali. The Caspian tiger lived from eastern Turkey and the South Caucasus to northern Afghanistan and western China. The Tibetan Plateau and the Alborz acted as barriers to the species distribution. As of 2022, it inhabits less than 7% of its historical distribution, and has a scattered range that includes the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra, the Russian Far East and northeastern China.

 

The tiger mainly lives in forest habitats and is highly adaptable. Records in Central Asia indicate that it occurred foremost in Tugay riverine forests and inhabited hilly and lowland forests in the Caucasus. In the Amur-Ussuri region, it inhabits Korean pine and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, where riparian forests provide food and water, and serve as dispersal corridors for both tiger and ungulates. On the Indian subcontinent, it inhabits mainly tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist evergreen forests, tropical dry forests, alluvial plains and the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans. In the Eastern Himalayas, tigers were documented in temperate forest up to an elevation of 4,200 m (13,800 ft) in Bhutan and of 3,630 m (11,910 ft) in the Mishmi Hills. In Thailand, it lives in deciduous and evergreen forests. In Sumatra, tigers range from lowland peat swamp forests to rugged montane forests.

 

Camera trap data show that tigers in Chitwan National Park avoided locations frequented by people and were more active at night than by day. In Sundarbans National Park, six radio-collared tigers were most active in the early morning with a peak around dawn and moved an average distance of 4.6 km (2.9 mi) per day. A three-year long camera trap survey in Shuklaphanta National Park revealed that tigers were most active from dusk until midnight. In northeastern China, tigers were crepuscular and active at night with activity peaking at dawn and at dusk; they exhibited a high temporal overlap with ungulate species.

 

As with other felid species, tigers groom themselves, maintaining their coats by licking them and spreading oil from their sebaceous glands. It will take to water, particularly on hot days. It is a powerful swimmer and easily transverses across rivers as wide as 8 km (5.0 mi). Adults only occasionally climbs trees, but have been recorded climbing 10 m (33 ft) up a smooth pipal tree. In general, tigers are less capable tree climbers than many other cats due to their size, but cubs under 16 months old may routinely do so.

 

Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives. They establish and maintain home ranges, the size of which mainly depends on prey abundance, geographic area and sex of the individual. Males and females defend their home ranges from those of the same sex, and the home range of a male encompasses that of multiple females. Two females in the Sundarbans had home ranges of 10.6 and 14.1 km2 (4.1 and 5.4 sq mi). In Panna Tiger Reserve, the home ranges of five reintroduced females varied from 53–67 km2 (20–26 sq mi) in winter to 55–60 km2 (21–23 sq mi) in summer and to 46–94 km2 (18–36 sq mi) during monsoon; three males had 84–147 km2 (32–57 sq mi) large home ranges in winter, 82–98 km2 (32–38 sq mi) in summer and 81–118 km2 (31–46 sq mi) during monsoon seasons. In Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, seven resident females had home ranges of 44.1–122.3 km2 (17.0–47.2 sq mi) and four resident males of 174.8–417.5 km2 (67.5–161.2 sq mi). Four male problem tigers in Sumatra were translocated to national parks and needed 6–17 weeks to establish new home ranges of 37.5–188.1 km2 (14.5–72.6 sq mi). Ten solitary females in Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve had home ranges of 413.5 ± 77.6 km2 (159.7 ± 30.0 sq mi); when they had cubs of up to 4 months of age, their home ranges declined to 177.3 ± 53.5 km2 (68.5 ± 20.7 sq mi) and steadily grew to 403.3 ± 105.1 km2 (155.7 ± 40.6 sq mi) until the cubs were 13–18 months old.

 

The tiger is a long-ranging species, and individuals disperse over distances of up to 650 km (400 mi) to reach tiger populations in other areas. Young tigresses establish their first territories close to their mother's. Males, however, migrate further than their female counterparts and set out at a younger age to mark out their own area. Four radio-collared females in Chitwan dispersed between 0 and 43.2 km (0.0 and 26.8 mi), and 10 males between 9.5 and 65.7 km (5.9 and 40.8 mi). A young male may have to live as a transient in another male's territory until he is older and strong enough to challenge the resident male. Young males thus have an annual mortality rate of up to 35%. By contrast, young female tigers die at a rate of only around 5%. Tigers mark their territories by spraying urine on vegetation and rocks, clawing or scent rubbing trees, and marking trails with feces, anal gland secretions and ground scrapings.Scent markings also allow an individual to pick up information on another's identity. A tigress in oestrus will signal her availability by scent marking more frequently and increasing her vocalisations. Unclaimed territories, particularly those that belonged to a decreased individual, can be taken over in days or weeks.

 

Male tigers are generally less tolerant of other males within their territories than females are of other females. Territory disputes are usually solved by intimidation rather than outright violence. Once dominance has been established, a male may tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as they do not live in too close quarters. The most serious disputes tend to occur between two males competing for a female in oestrus. Though tigers mostly live alone, relationships between individuals can be complex. Tigers are particularly social at kills, and a male tiger will share a carcass with the females and cubs within this territory and unlike male lions, will allow them to feed on the kill before he is finished with it. Though the female and male act amicably, females are more tense towards each other at a kill.

 

Communication

During friendly encounters and bonding, tigers rub against each others' bodies. Facial expressions include the "defense threat", which involves a wrinkled face, bared teeth, pulled-back ears, and widened pupils. Both males and females show a flehmen response, a characteristic grimace, when sniffing urine markings. Males also use the flehman to detect the markings made by tigresses in oestrus. Tigers also use their tails to signal their mood. To show cordiality, the tail sticks up and sways slowly, while an apprehensive tiger lowers its tail or wags it side-to-side. When calm, the tail hangs low.

 

Tigers are normally silent but can produce numerous vocalisations. They roar to signal their presence to other individuals over long distances. This vocalisation is forced through an open mouth as it closes and can be heard 3 km (1.9 mi) away. A tiger may roar three or four times in a row, and others may respond in kind. Tigers also roar during mating, and a mother will roar to call her cubs to her. When tense, tigers will moan, a sound similar to a roar but softer and made when the mouth is at least partially closed. Moaning can be heard 400 m (1,300 ft) away.

 

Aggressive encounters involve growling, snarling and hissing. An explosive "coughing roar" or "coughing snarl" is emitted through an open mouth and exposed teeth. Chuffing—soft, low-frequency snorting similar to purring in smaller cats—is heard in more friendly situations. Mother tigers communicate with their cubs by grunting, while cubs call back with miaows. A "woof" sound is produced when the animal is startled. It has also been recording emitting a deer-like "pok" sound for unknown reasons, but most often at kills.

 

Hunting and diet

The tiger is a carnivore and an apex predator feeding mainly on ungulates, with a particular preference for sambar deer, Manchurian wapiti, barasingha and wild boar. Tigers kill large prey like gaur, but opportunistically kill much smaller prey like monkeys, peafowl and other ground-based birds, porcupines and fish. Tiger attacks on adult Asian elephants and Indian rhinoceros have also been reported. More often, tigers take the more vulnerable small calves. When in close proximity to humans, tigers sometimes prey on domestic livestock and dogs. Tigers occasionally consume vegetation, fruit and minerals for dietary fibre.

 

Tigers learn to hunt from their mothers, which is important but not necessary for their success. They usually hunt alone, but families hunt together when cubs are old enough. A tiger travels up to 19.3 km (12.0 mi) per day in search of prey, using vision and hearing to find a target. It also waits at a watering hole for prey to come by, particularly during hot summer days. It is an ambush predator and when approaching potential prey, the tiger crouches, with head lowered, and hides in foliage. The tiger switches between creeping forward and staying still. Tigers have been recorded dozing off while in still mode, and can stay in the same spot for as long as a day waiting for prey and launches an attack, when the prey is close enough. It can sprint 56 km/h (35 mph) and leap 10 m (33 ft).

 

Tiger Reserve

The tiger attacks from behind or at the sides and tries to knock the target off balance. It latches onto prey with its forelimbs, twisting and turning during the struggle. The tiger generally applies a bite to the throat until its target dies of strangulation. Holding onto the throat puts the cat out of reach of the horns, antlers, tusks and hooves. Tigers are adaptable killers and may use other methods, including ripping the throat or breaking the neck. Large prey may be disabled by a bite to the back of the hock, severing the tendon. Swipes from the large paws are capable of stunning or breaking to skull of a water buffalo. They kill small prey with a bite to the back of the neck or skull. Estimates of the success rate for hunting tigers ranges from a low 5% to a high of 50%.

 

The tiger typically drags its kill for 183–549 m (600–1,801 ft) to a hidden, usually vegetated spot before eating. The tiger has the strength to drag the carcass of a fully grown buffalo for some distance, a feat three men struggle with. It rests for a while before eating and can consume as much as 50 kg (110 lb) of meat in one session, but feeds on a carcass for several days, leaving very little for scavengers.

 

Enemies and competitors

Tigers may kill and even prey on other predators they coexist with. In much of their range, tigers share habitat with leopards and dholes. They typically dominate both of them, though large packs of dholes can drive away a tiger, or even kill it. Tigers appear to inhabit the deep parts of a forest while these smaller predators are pushed closer to the fringes. The three predators coexist by hunting different prey. In one study, tigers were found to have killed prey that weighed an average of 91.5 kg (202 lb), in contrast to 37.6 kg (83 lb) for the leopard and 43.4 kg (96 lb) for the dhole. Leopards can live successfully in tiger habitat when there is abundant food and vegetation cover, and there is no evidence of competitive exclusion common to the African savanna, where the leopard lives beside the lion. Nevertheless, leopards avoid areas were tigers roam and are less common where tigers are numerous.

 

Tigers tend to be wary of sloth bears, with their sharp claws, quickness and ability to stand on two legs. Tiger do sometimes prey on sloth bears by ambushing them when they are feeding at termite mounds. Siberian tigers may attack, kill and prey on Ussuri brown and Ussuri black bears. In turn, some studies show that brown bears frequently track down tigers to usurp their kills, with occasional fatal outcomes for the tiger.

 

Reproduction and life cycle

The tiger mates all year round, but most cubs are born between March and June, with another peak in September. A tigress is in oestrus for three to six days, inbetween three to nine week intervals. A resident male mates with all the females within his territory, who signal their receptiveness by roaring and marking. Younger, transient males are also attracted, leading to a fight in which the more dominant male drives the usurper off. During courtship, the male is cautious with the female as he waits for her to show signs she is ready to mate. She signals to him by positioning herself in lordosis with their tail to the side. Copulation is generally 20 to 25 seconds long, with the male biting the female by the scruff of her neck. After it is finished, the male quickly pulls away as the female may turn and slap him. Tiger pairs may stay together for up to four days and mate multiple times. Gestation ranges from 93 to 114 days, with an average of 103 to 105 days.

 

A tigress gives birth in a secluded location, be it in dense vegetation, in a cave or under a rocky shelter. Litters consist of as many seven cubs, but two or three are more typical. Newborn cubs weigh 785–1,610 g (27.7–56.8 oz), and are blind and altricial. The mother licks and cleans her cubs, suckles them and viscously defends them from any potential threat. She will only leave them alone to hunt, and even then does not travel far. When a mother suspects an area is no longer safe, she moves her cubs to a new spot, transporting them one by one by grabbing them by the scruff of the neck with her mouth. The mortality rate for tiger cubs can reach 50% during these early months, causes of death include predators like dholes, leopards and pythons. Young are able to see in a week, can leave the denning site in two months and around the same time they start eating meat.

 

After around two months, the cubs are able to follow their mother. They still hide in vegetation when she goes hunting, and she will guide them to the kill. Cubs bond though play fighting and practice stalking. A hierarchy develops in the litter, with the biggest cub, often a male, being the most dominant and the first to eat its fill at a kill. Around the age of six months, cubs are fully weaned and have more freedom to explore their environment. Between eight and ten months, they accompany their mother on hunts. A cub can make a kill as early as 11 months, and reach independence around 18 to 24 months of age, males becoming independent earlier than females. Radio-collared tigers in Chitwan started dispersing from their natal areas earliest at the age of 19 months. Young females are sexual mature at three to four years, whereas males are at four to five years. Tigers may live up to 26 years.

 

Tiger fathers play no role in raising the young, but he may encounter and interact with them. Resident males appear to visit the female-cub families within his territory. They have when observed swimming with females and their cubs and even sharing kills with them. One male was recorded looking after cubs whose mother had died. By defending his territory, the male is also protecting the females and cubs from harassment by other males. When a new male takes over a territory, cubs under a year old are at risk of being killed, as the male would want to sire his own young with the females. Older female cubs are tolerated but males may be treated as potential competitors.

 

Threats

Major threats to the tiger include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching for fur and body parts, which have simultaneously greatly reduced tiger populations in the wild. In India, only 11% of the historical tiger habitat remains due to habitat fragmentation. Demand for tiger parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine has also been cited as a major threat to tiger populations.

 

In China, tigers became the target of large-scale 'anti-pest' campaigns in the early 1950s, where suitable habitats were fragmented following deforestation and resettlement of people to rural areas, who hunted tigers and prey species. Though tiger hunting was prohibited in 1977, the population continued to decline and is considered extinct in southern China since 2001.

 

In Bangladesh, tiger body parts like skins, bones, teeth and hair are consumed locally by wealthy Bangladeshis and are illegally trafficked to 15 countries including India, China, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan and the United Kingdom via land borders, airports and seaports.

 

Conservation

Internationally, the tiger is protected under CITES Appendix I, banning trade of live tigers and their body parts.[1] In India, it has been protected since 1972 under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. In 1973, Project Tiger was founded to gain public support for tiger conservation, and 53 tiger reserves covering an area of 75,796 km2 (29,265 sq mi) have been established in the country until 2022. In Nepal, it has been protected since 1973 under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1973. In Bhutan, it has been protected since 1969; the first Tiger Action Plan implemented during 2006–2015 revolved around habitat conservation, human–wildlife conflict management, education and awareness; the second Action Plan aimed at increasing the country’s tiger population by 20% until 2023 compared to 2015. In Bangladesh, it has been protected since 1973 under the Wildlife (Preservation) Act and the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012. In 2009, the Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan was initiated to stabilize the country's tiger population, maintain habitat and a sufficient prey base, improve law enforcement and cooperation between governmental agencies responsible for tiger conservation. Myanmar’s national tiger conservation strategy developed in 2003 comprises management tasks such as restoration of degraded habitats, increasing the extent of protected areas and wildlife corridors, protecting tiger prey species, thwarting of tiger killing and illegal trade of its body parts, and promoting public awareness through wildlife education programs.

 

Global wild tiger population

CountryYearEstimate

India India20233682–3925

Russia Russia2020480–540

Indonesia Indonesia2016400–600

Bangladesh Bangladesh2014300–500

Nepal Nepal2022355

Thailand Thailand2023189

Bhutan Bhutan2023131

Malaysia Malaysia2022<150

China China201855

Myanmar Myanmar201822

Total5,764–6,467

 

In the 1990s, a new approach to tiger conservation was developed: Tiger Conservation Units (TCUs), which are blocks of habitat that have the potential to host tiger populations in 15 habitat types within five bioregions. Altogether 143 TCUs were identified and prioritized based on size and integrity of habitat, poaching pressure and population status. They range in size from 33 to 155,829 km2 (13 to 60,166 sq mi).

 

In 2016, an estimate of a global wild tiger population of approximately 3,890 individuals was presented during the Third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. The WWF subsequently declared that the world's count of wild tigers had risen for the first time in a century.

 

Some estimates suggest that there are fewer than 2,500 mature breeding individuals, with no subpopulation containing more than 250 mature breeding individuals. India is home to the world's largest population of wild tigers. A 2014 census estimated a population of 2,226, a 30% increase since 2011. On International Tiger Day 2019, the 'Tiger Estimation Report 2018' was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report estimates a population of 2967 tigers in India with 25% increase since 2014. Modi said "India is one of the safest habitats for tigers as it has achieved the target of doubling the tiger population from 1411 in 2011 to 2967 in 2019". As of 2022, India accounts for 75 percent of global tiger population. The Tiger Census of 2023 reports tiger population in India at 3167.

 

In the 1940s, the Siberian tiger was on the brink of extinction with only about 40 animals remaining in the wild in Russia. As a result, anti-poaching controls were put in place by the Soviet Union and a network of protected zones (zapovedniks) were instituted, leading to a rise in the population to several hundred. Poaching again became a problem in the 1990s, when the economy of Russia collapsed. The major obstacle in preserving the species is the enormous territory individual tigers require, up to 450 km (280 mi) needed by a single female and more for a single male. Current conservation efforts are led by local governments and NGO's in concert with international organisations, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Conservation Society. The competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters to tolerate the big cats. Tigers have less impact on ungulate populations than do wolves, and are effective in controlling the latter's numbers. In 2005, there were thought to be about 360 animals in Russia, though these exhibited little genetic diversity. However, in a decade later, the Siberian tiger census was estimated from 480 to 540 individuals.

 

Having earlier rejected the Western-led environmentalist movement, China changed its stance in the 1980s and became a party to the CITES treaty. By 1993 it had banned the trade in tiger parts, and this diminished the use of tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicine. The Tibetan people's trade in tiger skins has also been a threat to tigers. The pelts were used in clothing, tiger-skin chuba being worn as fashion. In 2006 the 14th Dalai Lama was persuaded to take up the issue. Since then there has been a change of attitude, with some Tibetans publicly burning their chubas.

 

In 1994, the Indonesian Sumatran Tiger Conservation Strategy addressed the potential crisis that tigers faced in Sumatra. The Sumatran Tiger Project (STP) was initiated in June 1995 in and around the Way Kambas National Park to ensure the long-term viability of wild Sumatran tigers and to accumulate data on tiger life-history characteristics vital for the management of wild populations. By August 1999, the teams of the STP had evaluated 52 sites of potential tiger habitat in Lampung Province, of which only 15 these were intact enough to contain tigers. In the framework of the STP a community-based conservation program was initiated to document the tiger-human dimension in the park to enable conservation authorities to resolve tiger-human conflicts based on a comprehensive database rather than anecdotes and opinions.

 

The Wildlife Conservation Society and Panthera Corporation formed the collaboration Tigers Forever, with field sites including the world's largest tiger reserve, the 21,756 km2 (8,400 sq mi) Hukaung Valley in Myanmar. Other reserves were in the Western Ghats in India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the Russian Far East covering in total about 260,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi).

 

Tigers have been studied in the wild using a variety of techniques. Tiger population have been estimated using plaster casts of their pugmarks, although this method was criticized as being inaccurate. More recent techniques include the use of camera traps and studies of DNA from tiger scat, while radio-collaring has been used to track tigers in the wild. Tiger spray has been found to be just as good, or better, as a source of DNA than scat.

 

Relationship with humans

A tiger hunt is painted on the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India and dated to 5,000–6,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, Emperor Samudragupta was depicted slaying tigers on coins. Tiger hunting became an established sport under the Mughal Empire in the 16th century. The cats were chased on horseback and killed with spears. Emperor Akbar participated in such activities and one of his hunts is the subject of a painting from the Akbarnama. Following Akbar, Emperor Jahangir will introduce musket to tiger hunts and eventually, elephant would be ridden. The British East India Company would pay for bounties on tigers as early as 1757 and tiger hunting would continue under British Raj. Tiger killings were particularly high in the 19th and early 20th centuries; as an estimated 80,000 cats were killed between 1875 and 1925. King George V on his visit to Colonial India in 1911 killed 39 tigers in a matter of 10 days.

 

Historically, tigers have been hunted at a large scale so their famous striped skins could be collected. The trade in tiger skins peaked in the 1960s, just before international conservation efforts took effect. By 1977, a tiger skin in an English market was considered to be worth US$4,250.

 

Body part use

Tiger parts are commonly used as amulets in South and Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, the fossils in Palawan were found besides stone tools. This, besides the evidence for cuts on the bones, and the use of fire, suggests that early humans had accumulated the bones. and the condition of the tiger subfossils, dated to approximately 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, differed from other fossils in the assemblage, dated to the Upper Paleolithic. The tiger subfossils showed longitudinal fracture of the cortical bone due to weathering, which suggests that they had post-mortem been exposed to light and air. Tiger canines were found in Ambangan sites dating to the 10th to 12th centuries in Butuan, Mindanao.

 

Many people in China and other parts of Asia have a belief that various tiger parts have medicinal properties, including as pain killers and aphrodisiacs. There is no scientific evidence to support these beliefs. The use of tiger parts in pharmaceutical drugs in China is already banned, and the government has made some offences in connection with tiger poaching punishable by death. Furthermore, all trade in tiger parts is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and a domestic trade ban has been in place in China since 1993.

 

However, the trading of tiger parts in Asia has become a major black market industry and governmental and conservation attempts to stop it have been ineffective to date. Almost all black marketers engaged in the trade are based in China and have either been shipped and sold within their own country or into Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. The Chinese subspecies was almost completely decimated by killing for commerce due to both the parts and skin trades in the 1950s through the 1970s. Contributing to the illegal trade, there are a number of tiger farms in the country specialising in breeding them for profit. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 captive-bred, semi-tame animals live in these farms today. However, many tigers for traditional medicine black market are wild ones shot or snared by poachers and may be caught anywhere in the tiger's remaining range (from Siberia to India to the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra). In the Asian black market, a tiger penis can be worth the equivalent of around $300 U.S. dollars. In the years of 1990 through 1992, 27 million products with tiger derivatives were found. In July 2014 at an international convention on endangered species in Geneva, Switzerland, a Chinese representative admitted for the first time his government was aware trading in tiger skins was occurring in China.

 

Attacks

Tigers are said to have directly killed more people than any other wild mammal. In most areas, the big cats typically avoid humans, but attacks are a risk wherever people coexist with them. Dangerous encounters are more likely to occur in edge habitats, between wild and agricultural areas.[196] Most attacks on humans are defensive, including protection of young. However, tiger do sometimes see people as potential prey. Tigers hunt people the same way they hunt other prey, by ambush and with a killing bite to the neck. A tiger inflicted wound also carries the risk of infection. Man-eating tigers tend to be old and disabled. Those they have been driven from their home ranges and territories are also at risk of turning to man-eating.

 

The Champawat Tiger was responsible for an estimated 434 human deaths in Nepal and India before she was shot by famed hunter Jim Corbett. Corbett recorded that the tigress suffered from broken teeth and thus unable to kill normal prey. Modern authors speculate that feeding on meagre human flesh forced the cat to kill more and more. Tiger attacks were particularly high in Singapore during the mid-19th century, when plantations expanded into the animal's habitat. The number of deaths ranged from 200 to 300 annually in the 1840s.

 

Tiger predation on humans is highest in the Sundarbans. An estimated 129 people were killed between 1969 and 1971. In the 10 years prior to that period, about 100 attacks per year in the Sundarbans. Victims of tigers attacks are local villagers who enter the tiger's domain to collect resources like wood and honey. Fishermen have been particularly common targets. Methods to counter tiger attacks have included face-masks (worn backwards), protective clothes, sticks and carefully stationed electric dummies. These tools have been credited with reducing tiger attacks to only 22 per year in the 1980s. Because of rapid habitat loss attributed to climate change, tiger attacks have increased in the Sundarbans in the 21 century.

 

In captivity

Tigers have been kept in captivity since ancient times. In ancient Rome, tigers were displayed in amphitheaters; they were slaughtered in hunts and used for public executions of criminals. Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan is reported to have kept tigers in the 13th century. Starting in the Middle Ages, tigers were being kept in European menageries. In 1830, two tigers and a lion were accidentally put in the same exhibit at the Tower of London. This lead to a fight between them and, after they were separated, the lion died of its wounds. Tigers and other exotic animals were mainly used for the entertainment of elites but from the 19th century onward, they were exhibited more to the public. Tigers were particularly big attractions, and their captive population soared.

 

Tigers have played prominent roles in circuses and other live performances. Ringling Bros included many tiger trainers in the 20th century including Mabel Stark, who became a big draw and had a long career. She was well known for being able to control the big cats despite being a small woman; using "manly" tools like whips and guns. Another trainer was Clyde Beatty, who used chairs, whips and guns to provoke tigers and other beasts into acting fierce and allowed him to appear courageous. He would perform with as many as 40 tigers and lions in one act. From the 1960s onward trainers like Gunther Gebel-Williams would use gentler methods to control their animals. Tiger trainer Sara Houckle was dubbed "the Tiger Whisperer", as she trained the cats to obey her by whispering to them. Siegfried & Roy became famous for performing with white tigers in Las Vegas. The act ended in 2003 when a tiger named Mantacore attacked Roy during a performance. The use of tigers and other animals in shows would eventually decline in many countries due to pressure from animal rights groups and greater desires from the public to see them in more natural settings. Several countries would restrict or ban such acts.

 

Tigers have become popular in the exotic pet trade, particularly in the United States. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimated that in the US, 5,000 tigers were kept in captivity in 2020, with only 6% of them being in zoos and other facilities approved by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The WWF argues that private collectors are ill-equipped to provide proper care for tigers, which compromises their welfare. They can also threaten public safety by allowing people to interact with them. The keeping of tigers and other big cats by private individuals was banned in the US in 2022 under the Big Cat Public Safety Act. Those who owned big cats at the time of the signing were expected to register with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service before 18 June 2023. The WWF also estimated in 2020 that 7,000–8,000 tigers were held in "tiger farm" facilities in China and Southeast Asia. These tigers are bred to be used for traditional medicine and appear to pose a threat to wild populations by rising demand for tiger parts.

 

Cultural significance

Tiger-shaped bronze from Zhou-era China, (c. 900 bc)

The tiger is among the most famous of charismatic megafauna. It has been labelled as "a rare combination of courage, ferocity and brilliant colour". In a 2004 online poll conducted by cable television channel Animal Planet, involving more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries, the tiger was voted the world's favourite animal with 21% of the vote, narrowly beating the dog. Likewise, a 2018 study found the tiger to be the most popular wild animal based on surveys, and appearances on websites of major zoos and posters of some animated movies.

 

While the lion represented royalty and power in Western culture, the tiger filled such a role in Asia. In ancient China, the tiger was seen as the "king of the forest" and symbolised the power of the emperor. In Chinese astrology, the tiger is the third out of 12 symbols in the zodiac and controls the period of the day between 3 am and 5 am. The Year of the Tiger is thought to bring "dramatic and extreme events". The White Tiger is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, representing the west along with the yin and the season of autumn. It is the counterpart to the Azure Dragon, which conversely symbolises the east, yang and springtime. The tiger is one of the animals displayed on the Pashupati seal of the Indus Valley civilisation. The big cat was depicted on seals and coins during the Chola Dynasty of southern India, as it was the official emblem.

 

Tigers have had religious significance, even being worshiped. In Buddhism, the tiger, monkey and deer are Three Senseless Creatures, the tiger symbolising anger. In Bhutan, the tiger is venerated as one of the four powerful animals called the "four dignities", and a tigress is believed to have carried Padmasambhava from Singye Dzong to the Paro Taktsang monastery in the late 8th century. In Korean mythology, tigers are messengers of the Mountain Gods. In Hinduism, the tiger is the vehicle for the goddess of feminine power and peace, Durga, whom the gods created to fight demons. Similarly, in the Greco-Roman world, the tiger was depicted being ridden by the god Dionysus. The Warli of western India worship the tiger-like god Waghoba. The Warli believe that shrines and sacrifices to the deity will lead to better coexistence with the local big cats, both tigers and leopards, and that Waghoba will protect them when they enter the forests. In both Chinese and Korean culture, tigers are seen as a protectors against evil spirits, and their image was used to decorate homes and tombs.

 

In the folklore of Malaysia and Indonesia, "tiger shamans" heal the sick by evoking the big cat. People turning into tigers and the inverse has also been widespread, in particular weretigers are people who could change into tigers and back again. The Mnong people of Indochina believed that tigers could transform into humans. Among some indigenous peoples of Siberia, it was believed that men could have sex with women after transforming into tigers.

 

The tiger's cultural reputation is generally that of a fierce and powerful animal. William Blake's 1794 poem "The Tyger" portrays the animal as the duality of beauty and ferocity. It is the sister poem to "The Lamb" in Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience and he ponders why God would create such different creatures. The tiger is featured in the medieval Chinese novel Water Margin, where the cat battles and is slain by the bandit Wu Song, while the tiger Shere Khan in Rudyard Kipling's 1894 The Jungle Book is the mortal enemy of the human protagonist Mowgli. The image of the friendly tame tiger has also existed in culture, notably Tigger, the Winnie-the-Pooh character and Tony the Tiger, the Kellogg's cereal mascot.

“How do you know, when you think blue — when you say blue — that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else?

 

You cannot get a grip on blue.

 

Blue is the sky, the sea, a god’s eye, a devil’s tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin’s cloak, a monkey’s ass. It’s a butterfly, a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day.

 

Blue is sly, slick, it slides into the room sideways, a slippery trickster.

 

This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there’s nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. ‘True blue’ is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color.”

― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

  

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ICE SWAMP

 

Creatures cold, cold, carnivorous,

oozing love…

 

Mush… Mush… Mushy, passionate ice.

 

Creatures cold within ice swamp depths hope

to achieve but never grieve.

They are alienated, isolated in the breath of life.

 

Strangulation, it all amounts to the same

thing, an annoying cold moisture.

 

Closer, wetter proportion, a point

of reference for the green globules

on the beach…

 

Creatures cold, cold, carnivorous,

oozing love…

 

- Chuck Swaim

 

see large!

I don't really know who took what photos, my memory is a bit hazy!

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Author:Brouardel, P[aul]

Title:La Pedaison, La Strangulation, La Suffocation, La Submersion

Place:Paris

Publisher:J.-B. Bailliere et Fils

Date:1897

Item # :198414

Description:

viii, 584 pp. 3 colored plates; other illustrations in text. (8vo) period calf backed mottled boards. First Edition.

Scarce volume on death by hanging, strangulation, suffocation, etc. by one of the leading forensic authorities of the day. Garrison-Morton 1753.

 

Image from the auction of the Medical & Science Library of Gerald I. Sugarman, MD by PBA Galleries: Auctioneers and Appraisers, to be held on 11/20/2008.

 

Of or related to the Morbid Anatomy blog.

 

Luxury doesn't often come this cheap. Be the latest fashion victim to wear this figure-hugging accessory that's sure to make you look more slender - especially around the neck.

 

We've squeezed the price as low as it can go, just £473.99 gets you this beauty.

 

Note: Do not tumble dry, may contain mice.

 

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Can friendship endure strangulation?

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Poor coconut tree... Well, here are a number of poems, mostly based on the general theme of impermanence, to hopefully console you. If they end up making you feel worse, at least I tried.

 

POETRY FIRE SALE

 

PAGO RAIN

 

The letter I sent you got some

Pago rain on it on my way to the

Mailbox. I remember you used

To love the rain; even when it

Soaked you, you’d say it was

Better than too long in the sun.

You may never see Pago again,

But when you hold the envelope

You’ll briefly be close one more

Time to what used to mean so

Much to you. Funny how things

We love often find a way back

To us, even if we barely notice.

 

OLD ROSES

 

Old roses, never delivered because

Of your about-face. I’ve tried just

Cutting you out of my mind and

Heart, like I’ve tried trashing these

Old roses, but that seems like an

Act of hate that would leave me

No better than when I started

And probably worse. It isn’t the

Symbol’s fault. These roses could

Go to no one else – they were

Chosen with you in mind. I keep

Them as a reminder of how it

Felt when I still thought you

Might enjoy them. Beauty needs

Its chance to bloom, and at least

These old roses hadtheirs.

 

MADMAN RANT

 

Let the madman rant, it

Doesn’t matter. He knows

Better than to use sticks

And stones, and if words

Help him get something

Off his chest, that’s not

Against the law just yet.

In his madness, he thinks

He finds some kind of

Answer – only problem

Is, it’s just for him. May

He find the one who his

Ranting makes perfect

Sense to – then maybe

He’ll finally shut up.

 

BAGPIPES

 

Why did the Scots drag their

Bagpipes into battle with them?

To psych out the enemy with

Melody? My tastes may be

Strange in many ways, but the

Bagpipes never sounded to me

Like impending doom. They

Sound like the eternal longing

For a home far away, for people

Long gone, for a love never

Answered. Were the Scots

Appealing to their enemy’s

Sentimental side? Hey, don’t

Knock it if you haven’t tried it.

 

MOMZU (1920-1992)

 

Mom, as much as I miss you,

I’m glad you weren’t around

To watch me never grow up

In some ways and grow old

Before my time in others.

Mom, the better part of me

Comes from you. As for the

Rest, well… Kids just take it

All in before they can truly

Discern.

 

USELESS ARTIST

 

Artists sometimes appear useless,

All talk and unrealistic dreaming,

No plan of action, thought for the

Future, no security, no visible

Means of survival, never mind

Success. Everything to excess,

Poster children for laziness, deaf

To any mention of responsibility,

Just plain sloppy, and all for no

Apparent reason other than ego.

Listen, artistic fulfillment better

Pay the bills, pal, or else you’ll

Follow your inspiration all the

Way into the gutter. Thanks for

The lecture, responds the artist,

Dusting off his besmirched self-

Worth. I take this risk knowing

Any inspiration can be dangerous,

But does anything feel worse than

To turn away from your own gift?

 

GUEST

 

Feast before the food gets cold.

The guest of honor can’t make it

On time again, maybe can’t make

It at all, but he’d want us to enjoy

All that we’ve prepared. Besides,

There’s nothing like eating for the

Right reason. If you sing, dance

And celebrate each other, even

If the guest of honor isn’t present

In the flesh, he’s here in spirit.

 

DEATH BY COMPLICATION

 

There’s a misguided notion that

Death by complication is somehow

More humane than death by lethal

Injection. I beg to differ on that

Point. Death by complication is

Just like strangulation by vines,

A sign of indifference and neglect.

When complications start growing

All over your life, it’s useful to know

How to cut through the nonsense –

Complications only grow because

We feed them. We need instead

To nurture what’s simple, basic

And true, saving our sunshine for

What’s most important to us.

 

THE LOVERS

 

The lovers are discovered in my

Driveway. Oh Christ! Can’t they

Take it someplace where it’s dark,

Like a schoolhouse after hours?

The boy puts on a show of defiance,

Like I’m the trespasser on my own

Property, or a threat to his precious

Guinnevere, but no, I just need to

Remind them they’re in someone’s

Yard, not the public park. He says

They’ll move on, I leave them be.

I reflect that the psychology of

Love has to do with leaving home,

Just as I too so long ago stole my

First kiss somewhere mom and

Dad weren't watching.

 

IMMIGRATION

 

Connection getting warmer,

Components of joy making

Themselves known. Feels

Like home, all anticipation.

Why the delay, immigration?

Check me, review me, clear

Me for entry into your country

That’s part of me too. Open

My baggage, see what I carry

Around. Does my package

Contain a bomb? Are you

Joking? Care to shake it? In

A manner of speaking, yes.

Let me in, immigration, you

Won’t regret it.

 

CAGED

 

Wounded lion, caged for all our

Safety, musn’t let it escape. It’s

Shown it’s got a mind of its own,

Especially when hungry. This lion,

He’s a cunning one, charms the

Naïve with fun and laughter before

Chewing on their heads. Caged

Lion, nursing his resentment at a

Fate he feels he doesn’t deserve.

We all eat, my diet’s just different.

Why can’t we just kill it? That sad

Look he gives us, like all I ever

Wanted was to be alive and free,

A feeling even a captor must in

Some way understand full well.

Take that one last dignity away

From me and you know you’re

Really taking if from yourself.

 

INTERMISSION

 

Intermission from the sadness

So you all can go to the snack

Bar for popcorn and soda.

Nothing sad for 15 minutes.

Isn’t it a nice day? Bright but

Just enough clouds to make it

Comfortable outside. Hey, I

Got some good news and I’m

Still buzzing from it. The long

Persistence when all seemed

Hopeless wasn’t in vain – faith

Pays off given time. It’s mostly

The truth in the news lately.

People complain as usual, but

At least they’ve got a sense of

Humor too. You can get off that

Bad path anytime you like - as

Nancy Reagan said, just say no.

The car’s got problems, but at

Least it’s moving. Life isn’t all

Sadness, no way… Ok, our 15

Minutes are up, please return

To your seats and we’ll resume

Our regular program of gloom.

 

LOVE’S ARMY

 

Those of us in love’s army, we’re

Blessed with needy weaponry.

Like knights on a crusade we

Invade bringing salvation, not

Just destruction. Burning with

Holy fire, we scour sacred ground

So sacred life can rise anew. We

Give you ground zero, now build

A glorious future, the one you

Envisioned when you petitioned

The heavens for change. Having

Tried peaceful means, you know

This is really what was needed.

Best to believe it’s all for the

Good, as you put out the flames

And mop up the blood. Should

You reward our heroism with

Haughty ideals of pacifism, what

An insult to us risking our lives

Just so you can continue to live

And love at your liberty, long as

You’re on the winning side.

 

POOR DUMB BUGGER

 

Poor dumb bugger, won’t get

To act like a loser on the corner

At night for awhile. Poor dumb

Bugger, mind fully focused on a

Hollywood sex icon, dreaming

Of fingers on skin. Man, it’s sweet

In the middle of the street till he

Wakes up in an ambulance cause

He hadn’t noticed the bus he was

Walking into. Lust-blinded bugger,

Deaf too, never heard the BAM

Like the Babe hit a home run as

He spun through time and space

And landed in a ditch, all the

While immersed in his crimson

Visions of Pamela Anderson’s

Unattainable Hollywood tongue.

Poor dumb bugger, flying on pain

Killers now, mumbling in the

Ambulance, man, if this is what

It’s like just thinking of Pamela

Anderson, I’m afraid real romance

Might be too intense for me.

 

CIGARETTE BUTT

 

I was in the smokers’ corner,

Looking at all the cigarette

Butts that won’t decompose,

Thinking, whoa, too bad love

Can’t be like that, this used

Dirty thing that just won’t

Come apart, even in a crisis,

Even in a hurricane, unlike

Your expertly laid plans,

Homes and marriages. Even

In a flood, the butt just floats

Out to sea. In the belly of a

Whale, it gets barfed out in

Some far distant land. Have

Commitment, will travel.

A few moments’ enjoyment

Produces such an enduring

Symbol. I look at the butt

And wonder what we let go

Up in smoke. Hey wait, isn’t

That your shade of lipstick?

 

VULTURE

 

Vulture is untroubled by a long

Wait, follows no schedule. He

Knows there are weak as sure

As there are strong, and the

Strong always feed first while

The weak eventually fall prey

To themselves. Could be ill

Fate, maybe pride instead of

Common sense – nothing new

Under the sun - but in the end

There’s just a mess he helps

Nature clean up. Cannibals

Might take it personally, but

Not the airborne refuse truck.

It’s just community service,

A civic duty to save you paying

A mortuary. Vulture circling,

Singing aloha oe.

 

TRAVELING

 

Kona to Oakland direct, culture

Shock like changing channels.

California, home to the dream

Industry, the locals take it so

Seriously. My first meal on the

Mainland might prove my last

Supper in Mel’s. You say you

Taught school in this section

Of Oakland for twenty years,

And you’re remembered but

Not very fondly. Unbelievably

Flawed education system for

Such an affluent state, and

You’re still that system’s public

Face. Too many cops yawning,

Sipping coffee, eating burgers

In Mel’s for your old pupils to

Shoot us when we enter, but

We’ll get shot, you’re certain,

As soon as we walk out – by

The cops. Or by that waitress,

Unless our tip lives up to her

Expectations – see how she

Labors to be nice – can’t be

Easy with a customer entirely

Convinced they’re in for a

Bullet any minute. In view of

All this, I think I’ll let you pay.

Not especially classy of me,

Can’t argue, but kindly chalk

It up to culture shock.

 

TIBURON

 

Clearly, everyone loves Robin, but

It’s Tiburon they all despise. Rich

Gated community by the sea in

Marin County. Home to walking

Stereotypes of excess wealth off

Mediocrity, America’s appalling

Collective tastes – what was Robin

Doing there anyway? Surely such

A dear person full of heart, soul

And love would have been just as

Discomforted by Tiburon as the

Rest of us (who can’t get in). So

Robin’s suicide must have been

His one last comic masterstroke –

Want to be on the map, Tiburon?

Ok, I’ll put you there, pal. You’re

The poster community for deeply

Seated celebrity dysfunction –

Beware collective America, even

The seemingly most solid among

Us can carry demons that slowly

Eat away at us from inside. Honor

Robin’s memory – make someone

Smile or laugh.

 

EYE FOR AN EYE

 

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,

Heart for a heart, life for a life.

You hurt me and you’ll regret it.

Eye for an eye in the streets

Of Missouri, where the attitude

Of the cops has finally caught

Up with them. Eye for an eye

Is a taste of your own medicine,

And I’ll bet you don’t like it

At all. Eye for an eye in Israel,

Both sides feeling grievously

Offended, violated, vengeful.

Eye for an eye is the playground

Of the devil. It was designed

To end conflict to a by restoring

Balance, but these days we don’t

Just take what we need (or think

We need), we take everything.

So keep your eye, I will not be

Satisfied with less than your

Head. You hurt me and you’ll

Regret it. There is a solution,

One clearly indicated by those

Deeply held beliefs you so

Loudly trumpet, but if you still

Don’t want it, insist it doesn’t

Apply, what’s the point of even

Giving you a choice?

 

MR. MAGIC

 

Who’s the new Mr. Magic?

The one who’ll solve all your

Problems, ease all your

Worries with his warm smile,

Reassuring words, gentle

Probing touch, etc? Then

He’ll pull the magic trick

Of disappearing after he’s

Gotten what he wants. You

Must find particular delight

In magic shows. Can you still

Count how many Mr. Magics

Have made you fall for their

Illusions?

 

PLAN

 

Trying to plan my life with the

Precision of a military campaign,

Like the Nazis looking at weak,

Tired old Europe and thinking,

Now is the time we consolidate.

Nice try, guys, thank God the

USA came to the rescue. Trying

To dictate that my heart follow

Rules, like math and science do,

Serve more as a review board

Than a living, breathing part of

Life in all its flaws, confusions,

Contradictions, losses and gains.

Looks good on paper, but pen

And ink can’t preserve what’s

Fleeting, what’s changing even

As you read this. What remains

Constant is as much a mystery

As what won’t stay – both quite

Impossible to control. We’re

All gamblers analyzing our bets,

Surfers looking at big waves,

Nomads risking a desert crossing,

Singers trying to find someone

We have a harmony with. Never

A guarantee, but always the

Freedom to do it our way.

 

TALES

 

The only tales worth telling end

Happily, otherwise our literary

Canon would be an endless

Chronicle of life’s thousands of

Defeats. By all accounts, the tale

Between you and me concluded

In quiet disaster, consisting of

Nothing either of us would care

To repeat. Seen differently, the

Tale could simply have reached

Its crossroads and could go

Either way – nowhere at all or

Towards unexpected resolving

Of the conflicts, the return of

Something good that was there

All along but first had to go

Through the fire. Good, after all,

Has more faces than the ones

We immediately recognize, and

What is heroism if not hard

Earned self-realization? I will

Never see myself as anyone’s

Hero, but I’d still like to survive

To see however and whoever

With my tale ends happily.

 

THROW ME IN THE CARGO HOLD

 

When I die, just throw me in the

Cargo hold on the flight to Samoa.

Put me in with the mail and the

Suitcases. If I make the plane too

Overweight, leave behind some

Standbys who are too heavy. They

Can come later but for now make

Me your highest priority. Hawaiian

Air, put me on k-fare, k as in kill

You if you can't get me home. I'll

Become a ghost, living in your

Restroom mirrors, scaring small

Children looking out the window,

Who'll see the very angry face of

A Samoan you couldn't find room

For, even in the cargo hold. Just

Get me back home to my village

And faalavelave and faifeau and

Faipule, to all my aiga crying as

Much as they eat, and on every

Samoa flight my soul will be right

Beside you, flying shotgun to

Protect you from bad spirits in

The air who can't fly to Heaven

Even on standby. I'll make all

Your passengers so happy and

Loving of Hawaiian Air, even

With your small seats and tiny

Joke meals. That's an eternity

Of service in return for you

Just finding enough room for

Me to come home in your cargo

Hold with the mail and suitcases.

 

CIRCULAR

 

I wish I could say something

Positive, but the most positive

Thing I can say is I wish I could

Say something positive. I wish

I could make a difference, but

The only thing I can think of

That might make a difference

Is to say I wish I could. Other

Than that, I don’t know what

To think or what to say. One

Day, when things have come

Full circle, you’ll understand.

 

HURT

 

Kind of useless to hurt if there’s

No possibility the hurt will turn

To joy. That’s like going into

Battle indifferent about winning.

This is not to imply you pick and

Choose how and when you hurt.

Usually it’s just there, indicating

The persistence of something

That seems impossible. Who’s

Making it impossible? We are.

Our reasons take precedence.

Maybe the hurt doesn’t want

Subjugation, revenge, or even

Joy as compensation earned.

It simply insists it deserves an

Answer, all the while knowing

It may never get one.

 

ELVIS TESTAMENT

 

What would Elvis do? He advised

Us, don’t be cruel. By implication

(Even if I’m stretching it), he meant

Watch out what you identify with,

be careful who you let in your life,

Have respect for all things and all

People, even the people who’ve

Made you feel disposable. Relax,

Hang loose, rock a little. Cool is

The rule, cold gets old fast, and

When you’re hot, you’re hot. And

Above all else, remember, unless

It’s necessary beyond the shadow

Of a doubt, don’t be cruel.

 

SONGBIRD

 

Songbird, do you know that

Song about reading the signs?

I read them carefully, perhaps

Too carefully, and I wish I could

Take them only as seriously as

A songbird would. But I move

Responsibly through road, sea

And sky, or try to, and I know

That one ignores the signs

At one’s own peril. The peril

Of openness is that someone

Can make you feel like nothing,

While the peril of closedness

Is going numb and not feeling

Much of anything anymore.

Your life must have its own

Complications, songbird, but

I like how you’re singing away

Again for no better reason than

Another morning.

 

THE HEALING SEA

 

Flow with the healing sea

Where life began, where life

Sustains. Her tides carry

Life, even to the land. We

Started from the sea, it’s

Always inside us. Dive into

The healing sea, let its

Waves wash away the ages

Make you new, alive again.

Protect the healing sea as

It holds the sky at bay,

Shields us from the sun.

Help the healing sea keep

A fragile planet in balance.

 

THE NEW DINOSAURS

 

Overdrawn on credit from the

Generous bank of nature, take

More than you can pay for and

There's going to be forclosure.

Hide trash under the carpet

Of the planet’s furthest corners -

No wonder you live in a dump

Grown foul and ever warmer.

Blow smoke in the sky’s face,

Run a sewer into the sea, choke

The land on fast food bones,

And cut down all the trees. It’s

Like we’re the new dinosaurs,

Just thinking of ourselves, and

Nature needs to stop us turning

Heaven into hell. We’ll hire a

Team of scientists to save us

All some shade, but here comes

The economist saying profits

Must be made. What good’s a

Corporation when your credit’s

Turned to crud, and what good’s

A Mercedes when it has to run

On blood? Nothing in the kitchen

Now, except the kitchen sink.

It’s like we’re the new dinosaurs,

We soon will be extinct.

 

DISRUPT

 

Seriously unserious, sincerely

Insincere – oh for something

Definite like granite, dauntless,

Definition in a world of ambiguity.

I’m breathing, that’s clear enough,

And in my dreams I have wings

But when I wake I have aches,

And not just in the body. How

Many of us just sleepwalk through

Our day, the better part of us

Unformed, unfinished, unspoken?

What a shame to break off

The engagement of our senses.

Would you mind if I disrupt

Your structured existence

Without even trying?

 

TRASH

 

Trash shows where you’re at.

Among the upsides, manifest

Both here and stateside, one

Downside of this Polynesian/

Caucasian conflation is trash.

Trash signifies affluence, as in

We’ve got money to spend on

Candy, chips, soda, and saimin -

All this shit, ironically, makes

You constipated. Even if these

Indicators of our first world

Tastes make our movements

Somewhat less freer than

Previously, we’re still at liberty

Under the stars and stripes to

Sully our streets with rubbish

Like thoughtless dogs just

Pooping wherever. I ask you,

What kind of progress is this?

 

RHAPSODY IN PUPPETRY

 

I wish you knew me better as a

Person than as an idea. It’s nice

To be thought about, but I’d

Rather be talked to. As an idea,

I’m little more than a reflection

Of your own hopes and fears,

More projection than human.

Impressions are one thing, but

Is it right or fair to think you

Understand someone based

Solely on how you’ve created

Them in your head? When it

Comes to ideas, we’re puppet

Masters of our thoughts. Still,

When you think you can just

Pull the right strings to make

Something happen, and instead

The puppet rebels like a bronco

Sending a cowboy flying, your

Ideas have just hit a proverbial

Fan. So no, I can’t be anyone’s

Puppet, powerless without

Considerate direction, but if

You’d just ease your grip on

What you think are my strings,

I’d wager I could be something

You’d like even better.

 

DEPOSITION TANGO

 

Postcard from the road

Saying lawyers are a load

Unto themselves, but if it

Takes a judge's gavel to

Bring this family back

Together, that's better

Than nothing. He said,

She said, deposition

Tango, not so much

A song as an excuse

For a solo.

 

BEFORE ME, BEHIND ME

 

I remember so much of my

Past, it jus seems so long ago,

And seeing it up close again

The impression is how little

Any of it's changed. I was

Right about it the first time -

I connect with it in a different

Way now. It was my launching

Pad to somewhere very, very

Different. But I never would

Have gotten there had I not

Started from here. I am the

Continuity between the two.

Not sure how to handle that -

It'll have to just handle itself.

 

SHOOT

 

Religion, thank God, is not

Mexican politics - simply a

Matter of who's got the

Weapons. If you need to

Establish an Islamic state,

I have no objection - it's

Shooting people I object

To. If you can't convince

Me with the hope your

Religion will bring to the

World, with its solutions

For mankind, you might

As well just save your

Breath and shoot me

Before I shoot you.

 

PARTNER

 

Partner with whom compromise

Is no cause for resentment by

Either of us. Partner who’s been

Around the block, but is still well

Aware of how life is meant to be

More than just going around the

Block endlessly. Partner who

Understands why partnership

Should not be just an end unto

Itself, but also knows the value

Of getting it right. Partner who

Wants to get it right. Partner

Who wants to be my partner,

End of discussion. That’s the

Only kind of partner I’d give up

My freedom for. These may be

My famous last words, but I’ve

Learned the hard way they’re

The right ones, at least for me.

 

TWO CLOWNS

 

Looking at our story like it’s

A drama I’m not even part of,

Like something on TV or in a

Book. You can see with better

Accuracy given distance from

Personal involvement, your

Personal need to identify or

Deny. Look dispassionately,

See the two clowns bungling

It over and over, incapable of

Anything but farce. In a sense,

They’re quite a brilliant pair,

Reliable for incredible laughs

If you’re not the one it’s

Happening to. Clowning, an

Exaggeration of our human

Condition – how can you not

Sympathize when they want

So badly to get something

Right that without fail they

Always get it wrong? Isn’t

That every one of us, every

Day, only without makeup?

 

MUD

 

Not very graceful, and no matter

What I do, it’ll look dirty, down

In the mud again. Mud is a mood,

Gets you stuck regardless of how

Hard you spin your wheels – mud

Goes flying, gets anyone too close

Soiled too, while you just get mired

Ever deeper. Mud, unholy marriage

Between water and earth, natural

Fluidity and practicality fused in

Hell’s Laboratory of Unhappiness

To be neither practical nor fluid.

Actually, mud can in fact be very

Practical for impeding a pursuer,

A fluid solution to being caught

Up with. If you’d rather not be

Understood, mud’s the answer.

Roll in it enough and it’s sure to

Obscure as much about yourself

That you’d prefer not to face as

You’d care to bury. You can never

Tell another’s true colors when

They’re all covered in mud. Even

If mud hasn’t compromised your

Sight for so long that now every

Single thing you see looks in

Some way or other soiled.

 

MOTH

 

Call me moth, a foolish

Human trying time and

And time again to touch

The light with nothing to

Shield me. That’s why

Sometimes I look like

Toast and feel like crumbs,

But for some reason or

Other, I’m still here talking

To you. Maybe I’m here

Just for you to compare -

So try these comparisons…

You’re my light and I want

To become one with you,

But the sacrifice of a moth

Brings the light no honor -

What honor is destructive

Desire? A moth’s one

Chance at fulfillment is

To discover his own light.

Only with a light of his own

Is there any possibility he

And his love can shine as

One. Sadly, your average

Moth just goes for the

Most obvious, and would

Not be here talking to you.

 

TWIST

 

Endless ways to twist the tale,

For even when it seems like

They’ve come to an abrupt

Conclusion, tales continue

To evolve, often in ways

You’d never have imagined.

In its simplest beginnings,

Our tale starts with someone

Doing the reaching out and

Someone doing the shutting

Out. And that was that, or so

It seemed, but like many tales

With something more to it

Still struggling to resolve, this

One just continues to twist.

 

ARCHAEOLOGY

 

Heart pieces, broken shards,

Long buried in shifting sands.

Unmistakable, unmistakably

Incomplete, only part of the

Picture. Hinting at a grander

Construction if you’re handy

Enough with the glue. If you

Take the time to understand

What goes where, matching

The heart pieces around the

Gaps that remain, patching

The cracks. They won’t hold

Water, but at least it’s a start.

As Etta James sings “At Last,”

Little heart pieces chime in,

”Archaeology has arrived

To save us.”

 

BEATLEMANIA

 

Mark once looked in the mirror

And saw John, the guy millions

Of girls screamed for. John proved you

Don’t need muscle or movie

Star looks to conquer with talent

And wit, attitude, a vision

Of a swingin’ new world where

Even guys with hair like girls

Could rule. Now Mark looks in the

Mirror and sees Holden Cufield,

Who intuits the truth about

Everything, and has opinions

About putting phonies in their

Place – imposters who peddle

Baloney, then could care less

About ruining the illusion,

Opening the door to dreams

And then shutting it again

Playing house husband instead of

Making millions of girls want to

Twist and shout with you? Let

Me take you down before I

Go there too. What will it take

To reunite the Beatles?

Three more bullets.

 

(Note: Read about John Lennon, Mark David Chapman, and "The Catcher In The Rye" on Wikipedia.)

 

T’S MADNESS

 

It’s madness from the typical

Viewpoint, like knocking on a

Door where you’ve already

Been told go away. It meets

Einstein’s criteria of madness,

Like hoping a situation that’s

Always gone badly will

Somehow still end happily.

It’s madness to endlessly

Revisit the scene of a loss

Like a dog beside the grave

Of its master. It’s madness

A jury might not accept as

An excuse, the solution

Being so obvious. It may be

Madness, but within that

Madness a promise, kept

When together, kept when

Apart. It’s madness from

The typical viewpoint, but

From another, the only way

To preserve one’s sanity.

 

IMPRESSIONS

 

Can you see how I might

Have gotten the impression

I don’t mean anything to

You? Can you see what this

Hesitation has always been

About? Am I supposed to

Just embrace everything

You’ve done as if it’s all ok

Or it never happened? In

Truth, I would once again

Put all my misgivings aside

And try to accept you as

You are if I knew this was

What you want. But can

You see how I might have

Gotten the impression

That what you want is

Something else entirely

That has nothing to do

With me?

 

I’D TRADE

 

With a real artist you know

There’s always something

More than just entertainment

Going on. I don’t claim to be

An artist – in fact I’m lucky if

I can even entertain you for

A few minutes. It’s no longer

About trying to impress. I just

Keep howling because when

A dog doesn’t know what else

To do, that’s its message to

The moon and stars. Feeling

Every bit as foolish as I must

Look, I just keep sending out

This SOS long after the ship

Has gone down because I

Simply can’t bring myself to

Send out for pizza. Thanks

To disaster befalling my dear

Good ship, I’ve found a voice

To make it sound probably

Far grander than it ever

Really was, but in truth I’d

Still trade this new voice for

My old ship anytime.

 

CRICKET

 

Cricket, land on my page and

Make yourself at home. I don’t

Need to squash you to assert

My superiority, and as long as

You don’t bite me, we can have

A little party. I say little because

All I’ve got’s a little ink for us

To play around with. Shall we

Make tattoos? Your skin looks

Too thin for me to sketch on,

And you’re too tiny to try your

Artistry on me, but we can

Always write a poem. Great!

I can blame this one on you.

 

ENERGY

 

Energy, your waywardness

Brings me sadness. It’s not

That you can’t control

Yourself, it’s that you’re

Too easily led. You jump

At every opportunity like

A trained seal or monkey.

Energy, you’ve gone so

Wrong for so long it’s

Making me curious what

It would be like if you went

Right for once in your life.

 

SIMPLICITY

 

We are simply humans, but

We want to be glorious like

We see in magazines and

Movies. We imagine that’s

Us up there on the screen.

Deep down we know it’s

All illusion, and that glory

Won’t’ keep you warm at

Night, but in our shallow

End we’ll take the glitz

Over the shits, and our

Innate simplicity can go

Simplify itself elsewhere.

 

CRICKET 2

 

You must have odd DNA

To be crawling around my

Page, and not be home

Asleep like other crickets.

Flying into my light,

Burning your feet.

Watching me write as if

I’m the most interesting

Thing in your cricket

World tonight. Weirdo,

I’m not sure you’ll get to

Reproduce, or if you’d

Even want to. Neither

You nor I need the

Crickets of tomorrow

Crawling on my page

Like you, unless they

Intend to memorize

My verses for future

Generations of crickets.

 

LOST DAY

 

I took a day to myself, gave

Responsibility a break, and

Slept through most of it.

Tried to do some things

Outside, but it rained, so I

Ended up doing not much

Of anything except a lot of

Thinking. Now it feels like

A lost day. I could have

Done something that

Needs to be done, said

Something that needs to

Be said, clarified what’s

Still unclear, maybe

Reassured someone in

Doubt, maybe fixed

Something broken. So

Many ways to make at

Least a small difference.

But occasionally we all

Need a day when we do

Nothing except sit still

And see what the day

Does for us.

 

SHIFTING

 

Rainfall is flushing out the

Gutters, ferrying garbage

From here to the sea. Let

The dolphins deal with it.

Let turtles savor its taste.

Water doesn’t solve our

Garbage problem, only

Shifts it. Shifting is a skill,

Substituting, re-arranging

To create the appearance

Everything’s clean, it’s all

Legit. Just cause nature

Does it for us sometimes

Doesn’t make it any less

Of a deception. Shifting

Problems aside won’t

Solve them –they will

Appear again, whether

It be elsewhere, or in a

Mask, or in your children,

Or in your confession, or

Right in your face saying

Honey, I’m home to roost.

 

THE POINT

 

There must be a point to

All of this, it’s just slow in

Revealing itself, and for

Our part we have to go

Through some changes,

Perhaps many changes

Before we can even

Catch a glimpse of the

Point, like Alice saw the

Rabbit when she least

Expected it. When all

Seems pointless, I tell

Myself Heaven does

Not make cruel jokes,

Therefore there must

Be a point to all of this.

 

EXILE

 

Unwelcome, barely tolerated,

Familiar intruder, overstayer

Of the heart. The truth must

Be faced, and if eyes were

A firing squad, I’d be pushing

Up daises. How did I earn my

Exile to these cold corners?

I might have made something

Loving sound hateful, made

Something extraordinary

Sound worthless, made a

Gift from God sound like an

Albatross. I say it was pain

Speaking, but given a voice,

Pain can so easily let out

Something nasty. The world

Is nasty enough already –

Anyone who makes it more

So deserves to be exiled.

 

PHOENIX

 

Myth of the Phoenix that rises

From its own ashes. It takes

Some presumptuousness for

Me to compare myself to an

Immortal bird, I know, so

Let’s say instead I’m simply

Inspired by it. Most males

Would take a football player,

Soldier, singer or president

As a role model, I know, so

Forgive for being a freak,

But I choose the Phoenix.

Its story speaks of loss and

Rising above it. I’ve done

My share of going down in

Flames, often as a result of

Believing some myth about

Love. It’s not love’s fault

Humans create myths

About it. Humans make up

Myths about all kinds of

Things, including each other.

I don’t mind you making up

Myths about me, as long as

They’re the kind that inspire

Someone in a good way, but

If you really want to help me

Rse up, try and see the truth

And understand it. First stop,

My dear, is the mirror.

 

FAIR

 

A lot of things in life are

Not quite fair. Fairness

Can be like water - it

Finds its own depth,

Finds its own form.

We suit the character

Of fairness to the

Situation, to ourselves.

Something unfair can

Continue for a long

Time, but have you

Ever seen an

Imbalanced plane

Achieve takeoff or

Land safely?

 

SHOP

 

Shop around, there’s always

A better deal elsewhere,

And the sensible approach

Is never fix anything, just

Replace it. Purchases exist

To serve and please, not to

Feel or think on their own,

And if they don’t work,

Plenty more where they

Came from. Shop around,

Even if all that’s on sale is

Crap with no warranty.

Oh, and since you’ll be

Shopping around the rest

Of your life, better be

Careful with your credit.

 

SONG AND DANCE

 

I’m really crap at dancing but

Maybe there’s a little song I

Can do to make someone

Feel good a few moments.

My preoccupations sometime

Prove useful and other times

Prove fatal. I try to make

Everything sound like the

Truth, which is sometimes

Needed and other times

Desperately avoided. Do I

Sound like I really know the

Truth? Do I look like I have

A third eye? But as long as

It sounds right, who’s any

Wiser? I just do my usual

Song and dance because

I’m too impatient to wait

Until Christmas for gifts

To be given and received.

 

BOSS

 

Ok, you be boss since

I’m just a fuckup who

Can’t get anything right

To save his life. Wait,

I take that back, I get

Lots of things right,

Just never with you.

So you be boss, you

Be in charge. I’m liberal

And progressive to a

Sufficient extent that

My ego won’t get all

Bent out of shape.

Hey, whatever works.

Don’t tell me you can’t

Handle being boss –

Haven’t you heard of

Equal opportunity?

 

SELF-PITY

 

Oh woe is me, poor confused

Me, poor neglected me, poor

Heartbroken me, poor offended

Me, poor disgusted me, poor

Horrified me, poor naïve me,

Poor weak me, poor discarded

Me, poor unsatisfying me, poor

Unchosen me, poor substandard

Me, poor stubborn me, poor

Indulgent me, poor morally-

Suspect me, poor controversial

Me, poor conceited me, poor

Remembered-unfondly me,

Poor unfairly judged me, poor

Dishonorably treated me,

Poor lousy-poetry me, poor

Medicare-beckoning me, poor

One-big-soft-spot me, poor

Can’t-keep-the-bitch-in-line

Me, poor passive-aggressive

Me – Jeez, it just goes on

And on until you finally

Have to admit it sure takes

A lot of gas to get nowhere.

 

ISIS

 

Baw baw black sheep,

That’s me. I never felt

Denied by the world,

I felt denied by those

Who want it all for

Themselves, those

Who feel they know

This world so well

They can tell who or

What doesn’t belong.

Are they emissaries

Of the one who made

Our world, or is their

So-called holiness

Really just an excuse

To claim more than

They’ve been given?

 

CLEAN UP DAY

 

I got a degree! I got a degree!

Now I’m picking up rubbish

For ASCC. PhDs and janitors

Are equal today, thanks ASG.

PhDs get a taste of ladder-

Bottom labor, just to instill

A better appreciation of such

Vital services, although you

Know they’re quite familiar

With dirtywork of a different

Sort already. But hey, it’s a

Democracy, so let’s get all

Democratic and clean the

Campus. And since we’re all

Switching professions like

Malas switch gender, what

I’d really like to see is the

Janitors run this college and

Our admins go clean toilets.

I have faith the janitors can

Do a better job setting policy,

And if WASC is shocked by

This and shouts ‘sanction’ or

Farts out some other knee-

Jerk reaction, hey, we don’t

Dictate their janitorial flow

Chart so would they kindly

Keep their nose out of ours.

 

VALENTINES DAY

 

On Valentines Day while the

Lovers get up to whatever

They please, I propose a toast

To the unloved and alone.

The lovers have it covered,

Forget them. It’s the ones

Who’ll spend the day without

Someone special that we

Should remember. In your

Prayers, ask the one whose

Love endures for always to

Smile on those who, for

Whatever reason, live as if

Love just isn’t an option.

There’s an underside to the

Romance of Valentines Day –

Alone with no hope in sight.

Drink a toast to them, even

If they can’t see or hear it,

Ask that somehow, some

Way, their stories can still

End happily. We haven’t

Any God-given right to find

Someone we naturally want

To take care of, who’ll take

Care of us in return, but if

You’re lucky enough to be

With someone such as this

On Valentines Day, is there

Any further proof of God’s

Grace you could ask for?

 

GOOD MORNING 2015

 

So much for my best laid

Plans to put the yard in

Order before I take off

For Hawaii. Raining with

No sign of it letting up.

I can take the rain but

I doubt the lawnmower

Is in a Gene Kelley mood.

The yard may have to wait,

May look like a jungle by

The time I get to it, may

Feel neglected and I

Can’t blame it. Yard, I’m

Sorry I don’t give you the

Attention you deserve.

If I had my way, I’d take

Care of you 24/7. So

Just celebrate, get

Drunk on the rain and

Later I’ll bring you some

Asprin along with my

Machete.

 

OSTRICH

 

Look away, look down, look

Within - and look and look and

Look within. I can really be

Kind of an ostrich. That which

Isn't acknowledged doesn't

Exist, at least for the moment.

But if it matters enough in the

First place for its head to be

In the sand, the ostrich isn't

Fooling anyone - something's

Up. Something's wrong. The

Outside world remains the

Same but his inner world is

Losing its gravity - nothing

Will stay in place. Ostrich

Thinks, at least I can anchor

My head, before I too fly off

The earth into the void, or

Heaven, or other planets, or

Wherever living beings go

When severed from the ties

They hold dear. Is this really

Happening, or does thinking

It so make it so? No way to tell

When you can't risk a look.

 

SHADOWS

 

It's always cause to smile when

Shadows of the mind vanish in

The sunlight. Far preferable to

Suspicions being confirmed.

When you're not sure what to

Assume, shadows of the mind

Take many shapes, some more

Benign than others. While I'm

Not cruel, sometimes it seems

Like something very cruel has

Taken root, made possible

Partially by uncertainty and

Partially by shadows posed in

Worst case scenarios. Shadows

Have minds of their own, and

Fear they haven't got enough

Substance, enough form, to

Survive in the sunlight. So they

Take the worst of what's real

And dress it in the scandalous

Colors of what isn't. Get to

Know the shadows and the

Sunlight - you'll live with both

Till that happy day when you

Have it made in the shade.

 

CIRCUS

 

The circus is some kind of

Haven for those who prefer

The freak show to the

Corporation. Did the circus

Say it was thinking of

Staying in your town for

Another season? Year of

The Horse, it might have

Happened. Year of the

Sheep, forget it, no way.

Selfishness has its own

Shadow, self-protection

From the wolves out there,

Stampeding elephants,

Tigers who won't take no

For an answer. Stay put

Too long and they begin

To question the novelty -

Move on or lose your

Mystery. One last smile

From your own dedicated

Fool, the clown famous

For taking the ridiculous

To another level. Will the

Circus ever return? Wiser

To assume never, that way

It can forever surprise.

 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

 

I will think this, I will think

That. I will feel this, I will

Feel that. I will regret this,

I won't regret that. At the

End of the day it's about

Doing the right thing. I try

To do the right thing when

I have a clue what the right

Thing is. It's not the worst

News, it's not the best

News. It's about what's

Still there, good or bad,

Right or wrong, at the

End of the day. Trying to

Do the right thing, and

Hoping I'm not mIstaken.

 

PLAYER

 

Player, I wish you’d give me

Something I can trust, but

You give me the opposite.

Player, they’re holding you

Up as some kind of symbol

Of what’s good and right –

What an irony. Player, if

Sincerity is really spoken for

By deed, then what do your

Own deeds say about you?

Simply that you consider

Some more worthy of your

Sincerity than others.

 

CALLING SOCIAL SERVICES

 

Does expressing sadness pave

The way for happiness? If we

All sing the blues, do we feel

Better knowing none of us is

Really alone, feeling solidarity

In suffering with all the other

Badly screwed up hearts to our

Community? Social services,

You must rescue me, it’s my tax

Dollars paying your salary. A

Noted authority has diagnosed

Me with possessive rejection

Syndrome, a decreasingly rare

Condition that renders grown

Men helpless as useless infants

Desperate for an emotional tit

To satiate a deficient sense of

Legitimacy. I say there’s nothing

I can do knowing full well the

Difference between what I can

Do and what I’m willing to do.

Don’t ask me to swallow my

Pride - my digestive allergies

Would process that more as

Explosion than nutrition.

 

POTHOLES

 

Our social rules are sometimes

More felt than clearly defined.

We could be completely moral,

Like something out of the Bible,

Or island blunt, as in, whatever

Works till something that works

Better comes along. Our salad

Combines improvisation with

Age old wisdom and select

Interpretation, mixed to taste.

We are many things from one

Moment to another. This may

Be natural harmony, or pure

Self-indulgence, or scheming

Animosity, or saintly self-

Denial depending on our

Mood and the surf conditions.

I’m not unpredictable, just

Ready for anything. You can

Usually predict I like feeling

I’m on the road to something

Right, but you know how

Potholes spring up overnight.

 

WITHOUT IT SOUNDING

 

How do you express that you

Can live with the flaws in life

Without it sound like you’re

Endorsing the flaws in life?

How do you say it’s ok to

Make mistakes without it

Sounding like you’re making

A mistake by saying that?

How do you say you could

Forgive without it sounding

Like you’re the one who

Needs to be forgiven? How

Dare you usurp the work of

You-Know-Who?

 

ANCIENT ROME

 

Ancient Rome wasn’t all

Buggery, slavery, gladiators

And senseless conquest.

No, Ancient Rome was also

The fountainhead of modern

Philosophy, ideas about the

Self and society that still

Resonate today. Ancient

Rome was brutal, but

Produced beautiful art

When it wasn't feeding

Christians to its lions.

Ancient Rome was raped

By Barbarians after falling

Prey to corruption and

Decadence, its leaders

Too drunk, its heroes too

Stymied by STDs to do

Anything. Nero played

Fiddle while half his city

Burned to the ground,

Why are all our human

Pinnacles followed by

Parties where we tear

Down what we worked

So hard to build?

 

POTHOLES IN ANCIENT ROME

 

Potholes in ancient Rome when

The tax collection got lax. Fried

Rice in ancient China. Baked

Bananas in old Samoa to fuel

Our choo-hoos. Subterfuge in

Medival Europre, always that

King vs. commoner thing, the

Final flowering of which was

The Mafia. Scrawlings on

Rocks and in caves from a

Millienia ago - the beginnings

Of art and literature. Random

As things seem, seen in the

Long run there's always a

Certain consistency. If you

Feel I lack consistency, take

A historical perspective.

 

DISAGREE

 

There you are, all over my past

But still we’re no closer than we

Were seven years ago. Seven

Years is a long time to not get

Along – our disagreements

Must run deep. What was it

Again that we disagee on? Is

It an honor thing? Feel you

Weren’t treated honorably in

Accordance with your own

Spotlessly honorable way of

Treating others? It’s up to you

If you want to cast me as one

Of the villians in your tale –

By now you’ve had enough

Experience with villains to

Know one when you see one.

 

CRIPPLED

 

So easy to be crippled emotionally

And not even know it. Can’t fathom

Anymore how certain connections

Are forged. Everyone’s a potential

Threat – the potential joy a painful

Carrot dangled on a string in front

Of an ass. Youth are so full of life

They’re entitled to indiscretions,

But once you mature you have no

Excuse for not acting your age. Or

Has convention simply become a

Crutch - holding up who – holding

Up what? If you find you’re feeling

Ageless and could care less what

Society thinks, is this not so much

Degeneration as regeneration?

 

WALLS

 

Everyone needs their walls

Nowadays – too many thieves.

Everyone is a potential thief,

And just to prove you’re not

A robber can take forever.

Thieves disguise themselves

As nice people, so not even

The nicest of persons can

Pass freely through the wall.

Walls are like stopping pirates

By draining the sea. What if

Your deamboat comes in and

Just finds a wall? You can’t

Just leave yourself wide open,

True, but if you build a wall

Make sure you haven’t just

Walled yourself into a trap

Of your own design.

 

HELD TO RANSOM

 

We are held to ransom by Hawaiian

Air – highway robbery with aloha.

Is it fuel prices that force your fares

Through the roof? All those lives

Lost and ruined when we invaded

Iraq, and gas prices go up. Islam

Could easily take over the world

Now just by starting an airline and

Offering better fares. Fighting for

Freedom and democracy makes

Convenient campaign rhetoric, but

If the real battle is for the economy

You just handed a victory to our

Enemy on a silver platter. If we’re

Tired of being gouged by airlines

Like Hawaiian, and Allah Airways

Says, how undemocratic, compare

Our prices please, it doesn’t take

Rocket science to work out where

Consumer loyalty is going to go.

 

PONY EXPRESS

 

What will the ponies do now

That we don’t need them to

Send messages to each other?

Maybe they can become

Counselors for people who

Are having trouble talking.

What will the express riders

Do now that computers have

Displaced them as carriers of

News and conveyors of more

Private communication? I can

See them in Congress, symbols

Of something dear to us that

Nevertheless was never gong

To last. As the pony express

Rides off into memory, those

Close to it can treasure a

Certain reverence that only

Comes with redundancy.

 

GROUNDHOG DAY

 

On Groundhog Day I’ll pop

My head above my hole and

Let it be known I’ll address

Any question posed with

Appropriate politeness. Yes,

I do. No, I don’t. Yes, I am.

No, I’m not. Yes, I like this.

No, I don’t like that. Yes, I

Would. No, I wouldn’t. Well,

Maybe I might were you to

Convince me you’re serious.

Of course you can. Are you

Kidding? This information

Isn’t public domain, but I

Think it’s a shame I can’t be

Open with you if you want

To be open with me. Or else

We can maintain a public

Face of indifference, even

While knowing our hearts

Still care enough to hurt in

Private. If sharing this way

Isn’t appropriate even on

Groundhog Day, then I

Guess we’ll just have to

Wait until Judgment Day.

 

ALIENS

 

I think I know how aliens

Must feel – desperate not

To be noticed – knowing

That even if you’re strong

You’re still outnumbered –

Trying to appear more

Normal than normal,

Boring, harmless,

Innocuous. The nail that

Sticks up will be pounded

Back down, especially an

Unfriendly reminder like

Me that creation doesn’t

Reflect their image alone.

Negotiating with these

Aliens makes fighting off

The Tongans and Fijians

Seem like mere child’s

Play by comparison.

 

FOUNDATION

 

Foundation, below the surface,

Not out in the open. Strong

Bottom can outlast a weak top.

Shall we judge this house by its

Ugly, messy, broken, dangerous

Outer appearance or by its rock-

Solid foundation? As faded as

It looks, the house refueses

To fall, refuses to move. Mocks

Your departure by staying right

Where you left it, just how you

Left it. Fires, storms, robbers,

Lawyers, squatters – nothing

Changes at the foundation.

The house simply accepts the

Ebb and flow of life. You could

Take a bulldozer and dynamite

To prove you refuse to be

Affixed to your past, but the

Foundation has the last laugh,

For when the outside world

Batters you so badly that you

Need a foundation to return to,

Where will you go?

 

IMITATION

 

Machines make things so

Easy for us, but does easy

Really mean better or

Happy? Machines give us

An advantage over the

Few remaining cavemen

Who don’t know how to

Use them, but would we

Know how to hunt our

Own food if we had to?

We hunt for information,

For connections our

Machines enable. We

Make machines as an

Imitation of us. I hope

They’re not making us

An imitation of them.

 

IMITATION 2

 

This is not the truth, this is

A reflection of the truth,

A meditation on the truth

As it appeared to me when

I was holding the pen. This

Is my calligraphy conveyed

Through a keyboard. This

Isn’t my voice, but you can

Imagine it’s my voice or

Donald Duck’s voice or

Whoever’s voice. These

Are my instructions to

Your soul, my wisdom

In sum total, a tiny yellow

Post-it note on eternity’s

Bulletin board. Very sorry

I missed you. I wanted to

Be with you, but this is as

Close as I could get.

 

SAMOA IS THE NEW TEXAS

 

Cash machines not working,

Koko Bean lunch counter

Exploding, no imports of

Eggs, local chickens not

Cooperating, inscrutable

Chinese rationing my

Marlbro Reds. Impending

Signs of our economy

Collapsing, with social

Anarchy soon to follow

When they run out of

Beer. And it’s all the fault

Of the Samoan prates in

Their paopaos, menacing

Container ships with rocks

And pelus. Winning back

Samoa from western

Influence. You’d really

Have to love Samoa to

Stay after McDonalds has

Gone down like the Alamo.

 

SILENCE AND LANGUAGE

 

I’d trying to bend the language

To my will, but it’s resisting.

Language has gone on strike,

Seeking more equitable terms

For the work I expect it to do.

Language, I may have been

Hard, but I hope I stopped

Short of cruel. I know I ask

You to do the most unusual

Things, and you always play

Along like a good sport. But

Now I can’t get you to flow.

Have the real or imagined

Conflicts and incompatible

Beliefs I’ve been trying to

Capture made you retreat

Into a silence harder than

Stone, as if to warn me, the

Words may sound clever, but

If I use them I’ll regret it?

Silence is a killer, and power

Over death is impressive, but

Silence needs language to fill

Its emptiness. Language, let

Me leave at least a trace for

Someone who’s trying to find

The trail – flow for me again.

 

SPIRIT

 

Spirit, you can’t see it but it’s

There. Spirit distills ideals, the

Purity of intent to inform but

Never command action. Spirit

Is an angel on your shoulder,

But never a deciding factor.

Spirit, closely embraced, can

Make you wonder if you’re

Believing an illusion. Where

Wishing meets knowing, in

A twilight where something

Inside us is trying to decide

To be or not to be, spirits

Whisper to us in dreams.

Which spirit do we listen to?

You can’t see it, but it’s there.

 

ORIGINS

 

Saw a science fiction movie

Once about a planet where

It never stops raining. Made

Me wonder why most of the

Time I feel like it’s raining

Inside. That feeling of nature

Itself running interference.

Rain makes us grateful for

Shelter, reminds us we’re

Not fish even though it feels

Like we’re living in water a

Lot of the time. Water can

Cleanse, refresh, let us start

Again clean. Water falls from

The sky or flows from within

The earth like a hidden truth

That refuses to stay hidden.

Water means well but needs

To know when to stop lest

It drown us. Rain inside could

Go on until it floods our inner

World, taking us back to our

Origins as fish, each a tiny

Consciousness dreaming

The land back into being.

 

PUZZLE

 

Do you have the missing

Piece to my puzzle? Until

It’s complete, the picture

Will always have a flaw.

Beauty and completeness

Bring together separate

Qualities, each important,

Irreplaceable. The parts

Can stand alone when

Something beautiful is

Broken into pieces, but

Their true nature, true

Value and true meaning

Are only revealed in the

Joining. How curious this

One missing piece tries to

Complete every other

Puzzle besides mine.

 

UNEASY STREET

 

Brothers and sisters who never

Got over how mother apportioned

Her love. Brothers and sisters

Caused each other problems that

Still never have been resolved.

Brothers and sisters all have their

Own stories of what they made

Out of their lives. Their problems

Are now their gifts to their children

To share with their husbands and

Wives.

 

GOOD DOGGIE

 

Review, constant review. No rest

From the watchful eye guiding you

To perfection. Saying it’s for your

Protection. For you are like a child

Who’ll put their hands on the stove

Or a kitten who’ll jump over the

Rail. How will you ever get through

All the danger that awaits you

Unless you wear a leash and wag

Your tail? Good doggie, good

Doggie, here’s a biscuit, now be

Happy you don’t have to search

Through the garbage to survive.

Relax - we’ve got your back and

Everything else.

 

VOLUNTEER

 

To feed all these hungry stomachs,

To feed all these hungry hearts, to

Feed all these hungry minds, to fill

All these empty souls, to resolve

All these simmering conflicts. Help

Wanted, looking for a few good

Men and women. Ask not what

Your world can do for you, but

What you can do for your world.

Warning: the world will eat you,

But at least it’s for a good cause.

 

FILTER

 

There’s about a million filters

Any feeling of mine has to go

Through before I’d even

Dream of expressing it. I’m

Like fish, easily overcooked

But really good raw once you

Acquire my taste. Raw like

Sushi, just as nature made

Me, no fancy recipe to

Compromise my flavor.

Why won’t you let me on

Your menu? Chefs all want

To smother me in sauce

Just cause they can, filter

Out all of my salty ocean

Substance, make my bones

Soft. Wouldn’t you rather

Have my natural nutrients,

Not some diluted deal?

Honestly, all these filters

Mostly make me falter.

The video who made sensation on you tube...

Watch It Now!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qxBeVp78jM

The fortress was once a Papal prison, hence the torture chamber. Note the spikes on the rack!

See here for a photo of the devilish torture chair in the same dungeon - the Inquisition sure knew how to entertain its guests!

 

The seat against the wall is a garotte, used to execute prisoners by strangulation. This is the 'improved' version where an iron spike was screwed into the back of the neck.

Physical obstruction of air flow

  

--Crushing or constriction of the chest or abdomen (compressive asphyxia)

--Smothering, where the external respiratory orifices are covered.

--Drowning caused by water or other liquids.

--Choking due to object in the airway.

--Strangling where the airway is constricted, especially in certain types of chokeholds called air chokes.

--Hanging or ligature strangulation may lead to asphyxia.

--Reduction of the airways due to anaphylaxis or asthma.

--Inhalation of vomit.

--Positional asphyxia.

--The practice of erotic asphyxiation, also called breath control play.

  

Wikipedia-land

Own now 13 Witches: The Movie Unrated & Uncensored

Visit us at 13-witches.com/

 

Get it now while it still available!

Thank you for your support!

This imposing warehouse is used for the storage of evidence from Chicago & Cook County crimes, including those of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

Among the grisly artifacts stored here are the door to Gacy's crawlspace where he buried nearly 30 young men and boys, personal items of his victims, a ligature Gacy used for strangulation, and samples of Gacy's blood.

 

Located at 2323 S. Rockwell St.

Albert Newton Lackey was a big man, probably a bully. Some say he was having an improper relationship with one of his daughters and was found out. Here is the basic story. The story of the ghost rider in Blanco County is for another time another place. The ghost rider has a red banada and carries a butcher knife. The following will explain that:

Lackey Murders & Lynching

from Blanco County History by Moursand, and others, including the account as given in the Blanco News and reprinted in Frontier Times magazine, Bandera, Tx. April 1936 by Mr. Lee Brown. What is printed here is from the account written by Mr. Lee Brown (all spelling and punctuation is as was written)

"The Lackey Tragedy in Blanco County"

August 24, 1885, witness the most dire tragedy of the history of Blanco county, when on the morning of that day Al Lackey maddened or demented slew six of his immediate family or relatives on the Perdenales River and Hickory Creek, in the north end of the county. Saddling his horse and taking his Winchester rifle he started out to exterminate, seemingly, the entire Lackey connection. Going up the valley, he shot his niece who was sitting near the front door of her little home, rocking and singing to her little baby. And when the body was found lying on the floor the baby was asleep against the body covered with its mother's blood. His brother ran in endeavoring to escape but tripped and fell, and as he begged for his life Lackey stuck the gun behind his ear and pulled the trigger. Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, and aged couple fell before the fire of his rifle, and then his own daughter and another relative were slain, and then to Lackey's chagrin he found he had no cartridges. He rode back to his own home where he tried to kill his wife and small baby with a knife, but she managed to escape from the house and ran to a nearby thicket where he chased her for some time, fianlly giving up the chase and she saw him slash his own throat. he seemed to back out after one deep gash had been cut; went to his horse and getting into the saddle headed in the direction of Johnson City. On the road he met a neighbor, Al Bundick, and asked him to ride to a spring with him. Bundick noticed that Lackey had a handkerchief to his throat but took it to be a red bandana. Lackey rode behind Bundick and shortly attacked him with his knife, and having the faster horse of the two he was able to cut his victim until he fell from his horse, and then lackey again rode toward Johnson City. Upon reaching town he told that Bundick had killed some of his family and had attacked him, but he had escaped after his throat had been cut by Bundick. A posse was formed, but before it left town a son of Lackey came in and told officers his father had committed the crimes and that he did not know how many were killed. Bundick was found and taken home where physicians attended him; he was badly cut but recovered after some weeks. Mrs. Lackey told officers of her escape and seeing her husband cut his own throat. Six were dead and on August 25 the bodies were laid to rest in a little cemetery on Hickory Creek, some two miles below the Sandy post office. Blanco was then the county seat and Lackey was brought to jail here after physicians had sewed the deep cut in his throat. On the afternoon of August 26, Charlie Cabaniss was coming in from the ranch on Miller Creek when just behond Brushy Top he was overtaken by a large party of men who told him he could wait with them, have an early supper and come on to town with them. They ate supper at a spring some few hundred yards below the present crossing of highway 66. Some time after dark they rode quietly into town, captured the officers before any demonstration was made, then silently and in order rode to the jail. A few citizens discovered something was wrong and found the mob at the jail. Phil P. Cage, knowing several of the leaders, advised them that a very sick woman was in a home near the jail and asked that no commotion be made; some of the party thought he was trying to stop the lynching party, but the leader knew Mr. Cage well and toldhis followers to keep quiet. he then led the way to the cell in which Lackey was confined, told him that they had come for him to pay the price for his crimes and opened the door to his cell. Lackey grabbed alargeiron bucket which was in the cell and would have brained the leader had the bucket not hit the top of the cell; he was overpowered and taken from the jail yard. It had been the intention of the party to get to Blanco in the afternoona nd make a public hanging on the square, to a live oak tree which still stands at the southwest corner of the old courthouse building, but now they granted Mr. Cage's request and the mob, supplemented by quite a number from this section, rode north out of town and so quiety that very few knew that a new crime was about to be perpetuated in their midst; the only kind of its nature to darken the history of Blanco county, A mile north of town they stopped. At the side of the road stood two large live oak trees. SOmeone suggest a a limb on the nearest tree but Lackey who held to stoic silence looked up and said, "That limb is too low and almost over the road". Another tree just a few feet away was selelcted; the wagin in which Lackey was seated drove under the limb and the noose, which had been tied in the real hangman's knot, was placed abouth is neck: someone had suggested shooting on account of the deep cut in Lackey's throat; however the rope was thrown over the limb and as the wagon was started up he was told to jump from the chair in which he had been placed in standing position; he failed to jump and was dragged from the wagon by the rope on the limb. His neck was not broken and strangulation ended the life of one whose only request was to be permitted to return to the scene of the crime to finish his intended work of killed seven others. As the body swung and turned in the night breeze the rope untwisted and stretched until the feet almost touched the ground; another rope was tied in the noose and the body raised quite a distance higher, after which the main body dispersed north, going back to their homes in and about the scene of the tragedy. Next morning, August 27, Esquire Lewellyn Robinson held an inquest at the place of the hanging. Prof. W. H. Bruce made a pen sketch of the scene. Lackey was a large man with iron gray hair and mustache, and looked a terrible and gruesome giant as he swung in the air, the rope having buried itself in the cut he had inflicted in his throat. The body was brought to town and contract made with John R. Robinson for the interment of the body which was buried in the southeast corner of the Robison (now Alvin Wegner) field, one halfmile northwest of town. The "Lackey tree" stands just north of Paradise Hollow, one mile north of Blanco, on highway 66, just west of a topped tree near the highway, the second fork of the oak pointing toward the road is where the rope ended the career of Al Lackey, in a lynching party, for the murder of six of his own family connection; at that time the road the was just west of the trees, between them and the old rock fence.

   

WH - Horror

 

Finally feeling more like myself again. Now I just have to catch up on all the housework the sick me ignored.

“How do you know, when you think blue — when you say blue — that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else?

 

You cannot get a grip on blue.

 

Blue is the sky, the sea, a god’s eye, a devil’s tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin’s cloak, a monkey’s ass. It’s a butterfly, a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day.

 

Blue is sly, slick, it slides into the room sideways, a slippery trickster.

 

This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there’s nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. ‘True blue’ is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color.”

― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

  

Photography by Cajsa Lilliehook

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The Daily Times, Wednesday, 30 July 2003

 

Who strangled Miss Jinnah?

 

This is the ‘Year of Fatima Jinnah’ In Pakistan. A former bodyguard of Miss Jinnah (1893-1967) announced to the world on January 11: “To pay homage to the younger sister of the founder of Pakistan as a crusader for democracy, we will remember her by celebrating 2003 as the Year of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah”. The bodyguard is one Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. He still looks the part. And he happens to be Pakistan’s prime minister.

 

Just when you started snoozing, listening to the same old speeches on Miss Jinnah, out came the shocking news last week that she may have been murdered. Madar-i-Millat (Mother of the Nation) murdered! “Former attorney general of Pakistan and ‘honorary’ secretary of the Quaid-i-Azam from 1941 to 1944, Mr Sharifuddin Pirzada, has revealed outside a conference-room in Islamabad that Miss Fatima Jinnah did not die a natural death in 1967 but was probably murdered by a servant of hers,” (Daily Times editorial, Out with the truth about Miss Jinnah, July 23, 2003).

 

Pakistani commentators seem ‘astounded’ by the ‘strange’ claims and ‘rumours’ spread by Pirzada (The News, editorial, July 23, 2003). Let us not forget that Pirzada is Prime Minister Jamali’s senior advisor, and that Jamali is the one who declared this as the Year of Fatima Jinnah. There may be some wisdom in letting the full story of Miss Jinnah’s death come out in the year dedicated to her memory. As the Daily Times editorial put it, “Let the truth about the death of Miss Jinnah be known after proper investigation of the claim made by Mr Pirzada and let us put the case to rest once and for all”.

 

The story about Miss Jinnah’s death is not a new one. Below is an extract from an earlier Cam Diary. “Jinnah’s sister had the habit of locking her bedroom door and leaving the keys under the door in the morning for the housemaid to enter and attend to her. On the tragic day there were no keys and the door remained shut. Nobody dared enter. As a very close friend of Jinnah and Fatima, MAH Ispahani was called to the house.

 

“MAH entered the room and found Fatima dead. It is reported that Fatima had been strangled! There were strangulation marks on her neck. This was apparently hushed up at the time by Ayub’s military regime. It will be remembered that Fatima was standing as presidential candidate against Ayub. Was she a sufficient threat to the military for her to be got rid of in such a brutal way? Shocking if true.”

 

Masud Akhtar Shaikh writes in his recent column in The News (Political murders: a bloodstained tradition?) that Pirzada’s story ‘does lend conviction to the hypothesis that Miss Jinnah was a victim of political murder and did not die a natural death’ and that the manner of the cover-up ‘shows a definite link between the high-ups in the Ayub Khan regime and the crime.’

 

Qutbuddin Aziz, a former diplomat has dismissed Pirzada’s claim. The News reported last week that “He (Aziz) said Fatima Jinnah died in the morning of July 9,1967 and he along with his mother reached Mohatta Palace around 9 am. He said there was a red mark on the neck of Fatima Jinnah but not a cut or signs of bleeding”.

 

On the Fatima-Ayub rivalry, Zamir Niazi says in his book Press in Chains, “During the crucial presidential election in 1964 when Miss Fatima Jinnah agreed to challenge Ayub Khan as a candidate of the Combined Opposition Parties, the APP coverage of the election campaign had a definite tilt in favour of the Field Marshal.”

 

Writing in the letters section of Dawn last week, Mahmudul Aziz of Karachi, said: “Madar-i-Millat stood up for democracy in the face of overwhelming odds. The nation remembers and adores her for that courage of conviction and the strength to stand up against a dictator at a time when most in the country feared Ayub Khan. Madar-i-Millat lost the presidential election through the manipulation of the establishment of the day...”

 

Of the many e-mails received on this topic last week, one was from Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi. He says: “It is high time that the nation attains a level of maturity whereby it can come to terms with certain realities and attempt to address certain unanswered questions relating to her (Miss Jinnah’s) life... The lady was ostracized, persecuted and marginalized to a point that people had even forgotten about her existence when she decided to take on Field Marshal Ayub Khan in the 1964 presidential elections. The manner in which the elections were conducted and their unfortunate aftermath are known to all”.

 

Dr Kazi ponders, “What is the real truth? Will the teeming millions of Pakistan ever be considered worthy enough of being taken into confidence about these pranks played by a few chosen ones? And those naïve people amongst us who think that our Press is free should reconsider their opinion. The real truth is simply not for consumption of the ordinary mortals in Pakistan”.

 

In his column “Second Opinion: Why don’t people write memoirs?” (Daily Times, May 30, 2003), Khaled Ahmed noted that “Fatima Jinnah was the first to write; we had to censor her autobiography because it ‘revealed’ too much too soon in our history”. Tanwir Ahmed, wrote in a letter to the editor printed in The News, “Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada has caused tremendous grief, shock and awe to the already depressed nation. Will the people of Pakistan ever know the true history of their own nation?”

 

It is unlikely that the people of Pakistan will come to terms with their true history without being subjected to ‘grief, shock and awe’. And who strangled Miss Jinnah? Even if not physically throttled, she was strangled by the ‘system’. Like millions of ordinary people every day.

 

— Sir Cam, Cambridge, England

    

Fashion Victims series

Death never looked so good.

 

Case #3 - The Pearl Strangulation

 

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

 

Inspired by Quentin Tarantino, David Lachapelle & Miles Aldridge.

Stills of 13 Witches with Queen Sabine Mondestin

www.13-witches.com

or

Watch the show on Youtube

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA8A26C9473C90D5B&feat...

This little feral cutie has stolen my heart!! She is the cutest little thing and has been through so much in such a short time. Back in September when she was just a wee one she got a plastic top (the kind that fast food restaurants put on ice cream sundaes) caught around her neck... I chased that kitten the better part of a day trying to catch her and get that thing off of her... to no avail! That evening the last I saw her she had gotten one of her front legs caught in the thing too trying to get it off of her. I didn't see her for two very loooong days... I just knew that she had died by strangulation... well when she showed back up two days later she was no worse for wear.. the thing was off her neck and she appeared fine.. then I noticed her tail was broken and just kind of hanging there... again I tried to catch her to no avail... well the injured part of her tail finally broke off so now she has a little stump for a tail. She will now let me gently pet her on her side and she will eat with me right there with her... I still can't pick her up or touch her head... but hey it's a start!!!

 

And just look at that sweet little face!!! I love her!!! This pic was taken through our screen door... the opossum was outside eating the food and she was looking at me like, "Do something.. she's eating all our food!" LOL

This imposing warehouse is used for the storage of evidence from Chicago & Cook County crimes, including those of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

Among the grisly artifacts stored here are the door to Gacy's crawlspace where he buried nearly 30 young men and boys, personal items of his victims, a ligature Gacy used for strangulation, and samples of Gacy's blood.

 

Located at 2323 S. Rockwell St.

Ancient Egyptians believed the sphinx could guard royalty.

 

This name may be derived from the fact that lions kill their prey by strangulation, biting the throat of prey and holding them down until they die.