BC CULTURE
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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
On October 16 2020, a secondary school teacher named Samuel Paty was beheaded with a meat cleaver in the street of a small town 20 miles down the Seine from Paris. 1/x

Paty's murderer, a young Chechen refugee, had never met the teacher. The killer was incited to the crime by a multi-day campaign of defamation and disinformation on French social media. 2/x

For 5 years, Paty had taught his classes a unit on free speech and its limits in a democratic society. As part of the discussion, he showed his students some of the famous Charlie Hebdo cartoons - after inviting those who might be offended to leave and then rejoin the class. 3/x

One parent of one student - not the student herself - then set in motion a campaign of denunciation against Paty. And the result was a crime that shocked France and pulled tens of thousands to vigils and protests. 4/x

France has suffered terrible crimes in the name of religion before the Paty killing. We're only 5 years from the horrifying nightclub attacks that killed 130 in November 2015. But past attacks caught France by surprise. This murder announced itself in advance. 5/x
EDUCATION
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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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
In an early episode of "Mad Men," the young striver Peggy Olson faces a traumatic experience. The principal character, a man whose life is built upon falsehood and evasion, offers his life advice: "It never happened. It will amaze you how much it never happened." 1/x

With the Tanden nomination, we are watching congressional Republicans put Don Draper's advice into effect.

They supported a profoundly corrupt, cruel, vituperative, and generally immoral and unethical president at the head of an inept and unethical administration. They knew it!

But of course those senators never said so. They were scared and they were shamed. Maybe they stopped some bad things - or at least they tell themselves they did. But the experience had to have been profoundly humiliating for almost all of them. And these are not humble people.

So how do they cope? They follow Don Draper's advice. "It never happened."

The Tanden nomination is the opportunity to rev the pretense loud and fast.

The lady was occasionally indecorous! Even ... sometimes ... untoward. We can't have THAT in the US government!

Hypocritical is not really the word to describe this behavior. It's more a kind of post-traumatic coping mechanism, a denial of the radical abuse that they also suffered, along with US allies worldwide, people of integrity in govt service, and so many bereaved American families
ALL
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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Lu_lu\U0001f498
Lu_lu💘
@luciame16
Some thoughts on episode 53 of #Hercai

Love,that is not real,has no passion. Its fire turns into embers, it doesn’t not smell. The day, the night, the moon&year burn without sun, light, comfort&sleep.
Ömer Hayyam

#Reyyan #Miran #ReyMir #EbruŞahin #AkınAkınözü
#HercaiThoughts


1
PRAISE
The praise in this episode goes foremost to Ebru because she portrayed Reyyan so realistically like a woman who truly lost her unborn child. I was in awe and pain watching her along the episode, all her breakdowns and tears were so real.
#Hercai

2
Of course also Akın took his part and did his part masterfully, but he rightfully was the one who stood aside in this specific episode that needed to be about Reyyan’s pain and thus concentrated on Ebru.
#Hercai

3
And last but not least, if I say thank you to something that B gave us this year, then it’s to have Ali as our director. Also in this episode we saw the artistic eye behind every shot and I loved it.
#Hercai

4
OVERALL COMMENT
I don’t know who wrote ep. 52 but ep. 53 was going strong once more on symbols: roses, stones, fire and trees were incorporated and especially the ReyMir dialogues were written very well. I truly loved every ReyMir scene.
So let's get into it.
#Hercai
CULTURE
Joy Karmaker
Joy Karmaker
@JoyKarmaker75
The Fast and the Furious is a 2001 action film directed by Rob Cohen and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, and Paul Walker. The Fast and the Furious is first film in the The Fast and the Furious franchise, distributed by Universal Pictures.


The film was released June 22, 2001 and grossed $207.3 million. In 2003, The Fast and the Furious was followed by the sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious.

Brian O'Conner is an undercover Los Angeles copwho aspires to become a detective.


When he is tasked to stop hijackers led by Dominic Torettofrom stealing expensive electronics equipment off of trucks, Brian must choose between his obligation to the LAP and his friendship with Toretto after he becomes good friends with his family.

The film opens at a dockyard where a container is loaded onto the trailer of a semi-truck. The truck then departs the dockyard and one of the dock workers makes a phone call to an anonymous party on the other end, informing them on how to identify the truck.
CULTURE
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Sister Outrider
Sister Outrider
@ClaireShrugged
The best way to honour Toni Morrison is to continue her legacy by celebrating and supporting Black female writers. So here’s a thread of fantastic women whose work you should read.

.@yomiadegoke is one of the most interesting and exciting writers I know. Her commentary is always spot on, and has a way of getting you to think deeply about things we’re encouraged to take for granted. She co-authored Slay in Your Lane with the phenomenal @lizuvie.

.@salenagodden’s poetry nourishes the soul. She’s brilliant at recognising inequalities without ever being defeatist. There is so much joy in her words. And Salena’s autobiography is luminous from start to finish.

.@LawrencePatrice has written some of the most gripping YA fiction going in modern day Britain. Her characters are compelling and full of complications - their stories remind readers of how important compassion is.

I always recommend @JackieKayPoet - not just because she gave a blueprint for life as a Black Scottish lesbian, but because there is so much delight and generosity of spirit in her work. Every word counts. She’s also really funny. Proud that Jackie is our Poet Makar.
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𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚑𝚊𝚗 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
1/ Amazon is famous for its writing culture:

• "Mock press releases / FAQs" for new product pitches
• "6-page memos" instead of Powerpoint

Two former Amazon execs wrote a book called "Working Backwards" detailing the philosophy.

Here are some insights 🧵


2/ The "Working Backwards" playbook

Instead of creating a product then finding customers, Amazon asks "What does the customer need?" and works toward the product.

✅Customer need --> Create product
❌Create product --> Find customer

3/ Write a mock press release

To determine if the customer need makes biz sense, employees write a press release:

• What problem is the new product solving
• Why it's better than existing options

To persuade a customer, the document has to be jargon-free and tell a story.


4/ Press release forces big thinking

You don't write a press release for an incremental improvements.

Creating a product worthy of a press release means really solving a customer problem and going after markets with large TAMs.

5/ Include an FAQ in press release

Addressing every potential customer question can help identify hurdles to getting something to market...and also uncover opportunities.
CULTURE
Pulp Librarian
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One slightly warm day and I'm all...


If tomorrow's as slightly warm as today...


And if it's not...
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So when it first appeared in Normandy, the Sherman Firefly and it's meaty 17 pounder represented an ideal combo of reliable chassis, great gun and devastating firepower right?

Ummm...

Truth is a bit more complex. /1
#WW2 #SWW #History


Deliveries of Firefly to units only commenced in April 1944,
just a few weeks before Overlord & left minimal time for familiarisation.

Armoured Regiments mostly utilised Fireflies on a basis of 1 per troop of 4 tanks. /2


Finally each armoured regiment troop had access to integral, meaty, anti-tank firepower capable of dealing serious damage to any German AFV likely to be encountered. /3


The dual purpose 75mm gun was quite capable of laying down a reasonable HE shell or AP round for dealing with Panzer III or IV.

Firefly's 17 Pounder had.... problems with HE, but excelled at tank killing. So Tigers and Panthers would need to be wary. /4


Firefly's design history dated back to March 1943 when the General Staff published "Policy on Tanks" which effectively stated the majority of tanks should have a good HE weapon and...

[See image below] /5
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“Why are Tumblr and Facebook cracking down on sex so much? And why is Facebook in so over zealous about it? It’s all Apples fault!” Etc etc

I can explain all. It is largely the fault of a set of US laws called SESTA and FOSTA.
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Oleg Karpov pisze, że gdyby Siergiej Sirotkin zdobył w pierwszej części sezonu więcej punktów od Strolla, to jego kontrakt z automatu zostałby przedłużony na kolejny sezon. Tak się nie stało i Williams ma możliwość szukania innych opcji i to właśnie robi. #F1pl

Czego w artykule brakuje, to informacji, że SMP prawdopodobnie przekazało Williamsowi część środków na sfinansowanie sezonu 2019. W przypadku zakończenia współpracy ekipa z Grove będzie musiała zwrócić te środki. #F1pl

To tłumaczy wysokie kwoty jakich Williams ma oczekiwać za fotel od nowego kierowcy. Jest pewnie próg opłacalności i dopóki nie zostanie osiągnięty, to zmiana z finansowego punktu widzenia nie będzie się zwyczajnie opłacała. #F1pl

Tyle można znaleźć w oświadczeniach prasowych... 😂😂😂
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What does Gold- Backed mean?
The Chinese Elders have been accumulating gold for hundreds of years. They are gold-rich. Some of their gold was loaned to the Central Banking System so that it could fund the rebuilding of Europe after the many war-torn years from World Wars I and II

BTW they never returned it but used it to start their financial empire to enslave humanity. This is the Central Bank Banking System./2

Maybe this is why one of the conditions to use their gold for the QFS is the demise and full disclosure of the Central Bank banking system before the RV can take place./3

The Elders have caves of hidden gold and are now using it to gold-back the currencies in the QFS for every country in the world. It is important to understand that the QFS and the money it is about to release is all brand-new currency./4

It was designed by the Alliance to fund the new financial system that will reset all Currencies of the world to Gold-Backed currency./5
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THREAD PART 1.

On Sunday 21st June, 14 year old Noah Donohoe left his home to meet his friends at Cave Hill Belfast to study for school. #RememberMyNoah💙


He was on his black Apollo mountain bike, fully dressed, wearing a helmet and carrying a backpack containing his laptop and 2 books with his name on them. He also had his mobile phone with him.

On the 27th of June. Noah's naked body was sadly discovered 950m inside a storm drain, between access points. This storm drain was accessible through an area completely unfamiliar to him, behind houses at Northwood Road. https://t.co/bpz3Rmc0wq


"Noah's body was found by specially trained police officers between two drain access points within a section of the tunnel running under the Translink access road," said Mr McCrisken."

Noah's bike was also found near a house, behind a car, in the same area. It had been there for more than 24 hours before a member of public who lived in the street said she read reports of a missing child and checked the bike and phoned the police.
CRIME