BC CULTURE
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Lizzie Collingham is one of my favorite social historians working today. I finished the latest of her books, Biscuit, on Christmas Day. #FrumReads4

 Collingham's "Biscuit" is the history of hard-baked bread from ancient times to the box of cookies in the grocery aisle. As always with her work, "Biscuit" uses the device of a foodstuff to open a wide eye upon the surrounding culture. 2/x #FrumReads4
Biscuits, in the British usage of that word, were among the very first industrial foodstuffs. They enabled the British empire - Royal Navy sailors lived upon them - and were in turn enabled by that empire to discover a global market. 3/x
Collingham self-presents in a self-effacing way. Her short biography notes that she writes "in a garden shed." She includes recipes for the foods she writes about. Do not be deceived. Collingham's theme over her career is a grand one: the interaction of cultures over time. 4/x
Collingham's "Curry," enraged Hindu chauvinists by demonstrating how Indians synthesized their cuisine from their interactions with others. The word "vindaloo" is an amalgam of the Portuguese for wine and garlo, vinho and alho. Tea-drinking was mimicked from the British. Etc. 5/x
All cultures are syncretic cultures, Collingham patiently teaches - and British culture of course most of all. Twice-baking bread to preserve it can be traced to the ancient Greeks. Medieval Muslim bakers added sugar and flavorings to make the first sweet biscuits. 6/x
The split between the UK terms biscuits scones (a soft bread made of biscuit flower) and the different US usage of cookie and biscuit reveals the influence of Dutch and German folkways in North America. 7/x
Cultures do not, however, interact always on equal terms. That's also a theme through Collingham's book, and most especially of her most ambitious: a food history of World War II. 8/x https://t.co/hPnhCQd6c3
The military historian Richard Overy wrote of Collingham's WW2 food book that it "tranforms our understanding of a subject that had previously seemed so well-worn and familiar. ... It will now be impossible to think of the war in the old way." This is no overstatement. 9/x
The second world war was started by dictators who believed that their countries - Germany, Japan, Italy - could best address their food scarcity by imposing deprivation on others. The question, "Who would eat, who would hunger, who would starve" was central to all combatants.
The Nazis and Imperial Japanese intentionally imposed starvation on conquered nations. Vietnam suffered more deaths by famine under Japanese rule than in 30 years of almost non-stop war after 1945. The Nazis planned to starve 30 million Soviets to meet their food goals. 11/x
The Allies too faced terrible choices. The Soviets allocated hunger among their own people. British subjects in Bengal starved despite food sufficiency elsewhere in India because scarce shipping was assigned to other imperial purposes. And the United States ... 12/x
The spirit of "America First" was not extinguished at Pearl Harbor. US leaders believed they must maintain high standards of living at home, even as Russians fainted in their factories and Bengalis died in their fields. 13/x
Collingham's title "Tastes of War" suggests an entertaining tour through recipes for Spam and eggs. Instead, it's among the most indispensable books you will ever read on 1939-45. And while her subsequent books have been less harrowing ... 14/x
... they have been no less illuminating, especially The Hungry Empire, Collingham's history of how 18th and 19th Britain built itself a global food supply chain - and a global export market for British processed foods. https://t.co/vxie2EYmX3 15/x
The story of the 21st century is that all of us, Americans too, live at the end of global supply chains of a complexity few of us can even begin to understand. Collingham's books teach how those chains were built - and how they have become literally matters of life and death. END

More from David Frum

David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
In February 1981, pro-Franco army officers attacked the Spanish Parliament hoping to halt Spain's evolution toward democracy and liberalism. 1/x

The coup was soon suppressed, in large part because of a miscalculation by the dying Franco regime. In 1975, the regime had restored the old Spanish monarchy, hoping to glamorize authoritarianism. Instead, King Juan Carlos opposed the coup - and most of the army obeyed. 2/x

Here's where the story gets interesting for our current purposes ...

The coup launched to thwart Spain's shift to democracy instead consolidated Spanish democracy. The next year, 1982, social democrats won the biggest landslide in Spanish electoral history. 3/x

The elected social democrats formed a government without a single minister connected to the old regime. State support of the Catholic church ended. Family law was modernized, minority language rights were protected. If Franco had opposed it - the new Spain wanted it. 4/x

The process was not instant. Not until 2019 would the state remove Franco's remains from the lavish tomb he built to himself. But the process was inexorable. The pro-Franco attempted coup guaranteed the total doom of Francoism in Spain. 5/x
WORLD
David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
You're hearing a lot of talk about "irregularities" in the election of 1876 that led to a "disputed" outcome. What is being referred to in this hazy terms?

Across the state of South Carolina, white conservatives had used terror and massacre to deter former slaves from voting in 1876. Here's the story of an attack upon the small town of Hamburg in July

Hundreds of black South Carolinians were killed by white conservative militias. Blacks fought back in many places, but they were out-gunned.

The killings were not spontaneous outbursts. They were part of planned campaign of anti-black voter

Some of the elements of the conservative plan to suppress black votes in South Carolina in 1876 sound queasily familiar in our own time, adjusting for the antique language and technology.


But back of it all was terror and violence, more violence than could be contained by the limited federal forces in the area - who were anyway constrained by the white conservative Democratic House majority elected in 1874.
POLITICS , HISTORY
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David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
Yoga employs more Americans than coal. But compare and contrast 1/2


and 2/2


I think many of us carry in our minds an image of the US economy that looks like this


when the reality is this


and this
INTERNET
David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
Trump tweets about his health remind me of a story my late father-in-law Peter Worthington told about covering the Six Day War in 1967 ... 1/x

Pete was in Cairo on the day the war started. He was awoken early by air raid sirens. He turned on Radio Cairo to listen for news. Time passed until an announcer delivered a bulletin. "The Zionists attacked at dawn. We shot down six of their planes and suffered no losses." 2/x

Pete shaved and prepared to go visit the air ministry for himself. The announcer returned to the air. "Update: we shot down TWELVE Zionist planes and suffered no losses ourselves."

He understood the Egyptians had suffered a bad defeat. 3/x

He finished dressing, knotted his tie, and the announcer was back.

"Update again. We shot down FIFTY Zionist planes and suffered no losses ourselves."

That's when he realized that the entire Egyptian air force had been wiped out.

4/x

(NB I may have the figures wrong in the anecdote, I'm telling the story from memory, but you get the idea.)

5/x
TRUMP
David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
I got overnight via email a query from @briansflood at Fox News, the principal part of which I reproduce below. I answered by email too. I'll append that reply in the next threaded tweet:


My reply:


Hunter Biden's dubious business activities have been reported for years. Here for example is @TheAtlantic in September 2019, year *before* @nypost https://t.co/qZBTpyuysM


That emails attributed to Hunter Biden were circulating was also known well before the NYPost story in October. Here's TIME magazine https://t.co/JvpEKdG0U4


What @NYPost added to the work earlier done by others was a new *origin* story for the materials that circulated in Ukraine in 2019. When other media organizations attempted to corroborate that story, hijinx ensued. https://t.co/ZJGZWq7etU @thedailybeast account
BIDEN

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@Impregnable007
#Thread - 1/21

A story of a brave woman who let her "breast" cut to protect the life of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose!

Neera Arya was born on March 5 1902 in Khekra Nagar, Uttar Pradesh in a distinguished & eminent businessman Seth Chhajumal's family. Since her childhood,


2/21
She was a true nationalist & always had a vision of becoming a part of the freedom fighter movement. She was also reportedly accused as an undercover by the British Govt.

That was the time when her father's business was flourishing in Calcutta, though his business was..

3/21
spread across the country but Calcutta was the center of his business and that was one of the reasons why her education was done in Calcutta. During that period of time, she had learned quite a few languages along with Bengali, Hindi, English.

4/21
Her father got her married to a CID Inspector "Shrikant Jairanjan Das" in British India but they were two different individuals, Neera Arya was a true nationalist but her husband was a true British servant. She was highly motivated & she had an urge of getting us freedom..

5/21
so she ended up joining the Jhansi Regiment in Azad Hind Fauz after the marriage. It was the regiment that the British always accused them of spying on British Govt.

It was the time when Neera's husband Jairanjan Das was given the responsibility to spy on Netaji Subhash..
CULTURE
Tactical Phase Lomez
Tactical Phase Lomez
@L0m3z
The emerging picture of John Sullivan aka Jayden X, the Cap riot agitator, and the documentarian Jade Sacker who filmed the whole thing really is the perfect microcosm of how Globalist American Empire stages its narrative.

Here’s the summary overview:

First Sullivan: agent provocateur who is no more antifa/BLM than he is Proud Boy, with suspicious family ties to the security state (allegedly), who helps instigate and document the Jan 6 events leading to IC officials immediately demanding the removal of the incumbent regime...

The guy’s social media profile is all over the map. From Civil Liberties gun guy to Antifa activist. And who planned the Utah BLM event that ended in the bizarre car shooting. His feed since Jan has all led to the Cap Hill events, including the first of the Parlor call outs.


Okay so maybe the guy is just a confused burn-it-all-down nihilist. Possible, but then we might do a big think about how an unhinged political schizo gets hooked up with a filmmaker with a long-history of doing activist/journalism on behalf of Woke Imperialism...

If John Sullivan aka Jaydenx is the “Fake,” Jade Sacker, his accomplice, is the “Gay.” Here’s a few snapshots from her portfolio (https://t.co/YEO1CCsQn8)

The plight of Rohingya Muslims. The Kurds in Northern Syria. Trans Women in Cambodia. etc. Boiler plate globohomo
CULTURE
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Mystery Grove Publishing Co.
Mystery Grove Publishi...
@MysteryGrove
By popular demand, here is the official Mystery Grove Film Recommendations list. Watch all of these in order if you want to truly understand the world we live in today.
CULTURE
Pulp Librarian
Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian
Now many readers have asked me over the years "how do I (with my great hair) go about fleeing a gothic house?"

That's a very good question, because it's not as easy as it seems...


There are of course many gothic domiciles that women with great hair can flee from:
- a house
- a mansion
- a castle
- a chateau


More adventurous gothic heroines can also choose to flee:
- a manor
- a keep
- a graveyard
- some dark foggy towers


As gothic houses come in all shapes and sizes you may come across the following things which require fleeing:
- Strangers (call a taxi)
- Tombs (walk to the nearest exit)
- Hell (fleeing recommended)
- Darkest Death (head start required)


There are some items that are a clear giveaway that you are in, or near, a gothic house that requires fleeing. Look around you and see if you can spot:
- sarcophagi
- crucibles (unless in a chemistry lab)
- anemones
- any form of ides
CULTURE
lin\u2077 \U0001f43e
lin⁷ 🐾
@kooluvmini
jm watching as jk, part of the mafia, storms his house and jk being totally confused as to why the man looks so unbothered by it, standing at the top of the stairs with an unfazed expression.
+


and when jm approaches jk with a walk resembling the grace of an elegant snake, jk feels immediately bewitched by him, watching him come closer with his breath stuck in his throat, unable to move, the weapon in his hand slowly sliding out of his grip when jm pushes him down

by his shoulders to make him sit down on the couch behind him.
"w-who are you," jk can't help but stutter out with wide eyes.
to his bewilderment, the man doesn't move to sit next to him on the couch. feeling the pressure of the mysterious man's hands on his shoulder,

jk gasps as he straddles him instead, the man raising one hand to graze a finger over jk's sensitve neck, making jk shiver in surprise. jk wonders if the soft touch was only an illusion, because the seductive expression falls from the man's face from one second to the other,

and suddenly he's grasping jk's chin between two fingers to harshly tip his head up toward his, pushing their faces dangerously close. jk doesn't dare move a single muscle when he locks eyes with the most beautiful man he's ever seen, even forgetting to breathe. the man fixes him
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Remembering Colonel Anil Kaul, VrC (Retd) on his 3rd Death Anniversary.

“It was October 12, 1987, exactly 5:55 pm as I was… coming out of the cupola of my T-72 tank on a steamy evening in an unknown place called Kokkuvil in the Jaffna district of Northern Sri Lanka.+


I froze in that confined space at what I saw. An LTTE militant stood at 60 meters aiming his rocket-propelled gun at my tank.

In a flash he fired. Probably having lost his nerve he aimed too low. The projectile hit the left mudguard of the tank, but for some inexplicable reason+


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He suddenly saw me and the look on his face told me that something was very very wrong with me. In that+

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I asked my gunner to pull out a first field dressing (FFD) which is standard equipment in a first aid box carried in each+
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Rhino Barges

One of the dullest, coolest, more bizarre and fascinating pieces of kit used in Normandy.

Which NO ONE REALLY CARES ABOUT.

BUT I DO AND YOU SHOULD TOO.
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Planning for Overlord and Neptune had a serious snag, how to get troops from LSTs onto the beach as simply ramming them onto the beaches and dropping the ramp was known to damage the exceptionally vulnerable LSTs and felt to be unsustainable in the mid to long term. /2


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Graceful lines of pure industrial pedigree.

Modular.

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1/ Some initial thoughts on personal moats:

Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durable—it should also compound over time.

Characteristics of a personal moat below:


2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.

As Andrew Chen noted:


3/ You don’t want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized

Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than


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After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.

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In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.
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A thread on how absurd the UK is on transgender issues and how the UK got so transphobic

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As a result Parliament created a list of recommendations including legal recognition for non binary people, gender recognition act reform, allowing 16 year olds to change their legal gender and reform of NHS gender identity services.

The government under Theresa May ignored everything that was recommended except for Gender recognition act reform. This act came into law in 2003 and gave trans men and women (but not non-binary people) the ability to legally change their gender on their birth certificates.

The process at that time to change your birth certificate under the GRA was to make an application to a panel of cisgender people who would decide if you were sufficiently trans based on your payslips, photo ID and bank statements. You would not get the option to speak to them.

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A small write up on how the OPTION PRICES BEHAVES AT SUPPORT & RESISTANCE


https://t.co/EIbXwcHpHf


https://t.co/zDamXyOhh6
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