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December 31, 1899 A Moment in Time
Captain Phillips was too much of an imp, to miss out on the navigational freak of a lifetime. Course was adjusted and speed fine-tuned, bringing the Warrimoo to just the right place and time.
"Warrimoo." The word seems to come from the Aboriginal Ladjiladji people along the border land of New South Wales and Victoria in South Australia, and translating as 'Eagle', or 'Place of Eagles'.
The SS Warrimoo was a passenger steamer, launched in 1892 to serve the Trans-Tasman route between Australia and New Zealand. Later assigned to a Canada-to-Australia passenger route, she would be taken into service as a troop ship with the advent of the Great War, in 1914.
The first Maori detachment destined for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign of 1915 departed Wellington aboard the SS Warrimoo that February, its motto 'Te Hokowhitu a Tū' (the seventy twice-told warriors of the war god).
A list of WW1 troop ship departures from New Zealand shows 113 such passages, on which the Warrimoo appears, three times.
The troop ship met its end on May 17, 1918 on a convoy from Tunisia to Marseille. Warrimoo collided with the escorting French warship Catapulte, dislodging the destroyer's depth charges and blowing out the bottom plates of both vessels. SS Warrimoo and Catapulte went down together with loss of life, yet this is not why the troop ship is remembered.
Nineteen years earlier, the "War to End all Wars" was part of some unknown and unknowable future. A century begun with the Napoleonic Wars and President Thomas Jefferson's Corps of Discovery, (better known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition), was drawing to a close on the tranquil, moonlit waters of the world's largest and deepest Ocean.
A simplified illustration of the relation between date line, date and time of day. Each color represents a different date. H/T, Wikipedia
On this day in 1899, SS Warrimoo plied the waters of the central Pacific, in transit from Vancouver to Brisbane.
It was warm and clear with the approach of midnight, the Warrimoo's position LAT 00 31′ N and LON 179 30′ W. Captain John Phillips quietly puffed on a cigar as 1st Mate Payton, broke into his reverie. "Know what this means? We're only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line".
Captain Phillips called his navigators to check the position, and then check it again. It was true.
At precisely midnight on December 31, 1899, the steamer passed through that imaginary point where the international dateline, meets the equator.
The bow of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere, where it was the middle of summer. The stern was still in the Northern Hemisphere, where it was the middle of winter. The date on the starboard side of the ship was January 1, 1900. On the port side, it was still December 31, 1899.
For that one moment in time, the SS Warrimoo was in two different days, two different months, two different years, two different seasons, and two different centuries. All at the same time.
All the best from the Long family to yours, for a healthy and prosperous New Year. May this be the first of many more.
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 31, 2018 December 31, 2018 Categories Maritime, Odds & Ends, Popular Culture, Today in HistoryTags Equator, International Dateline, Passenger Steamer, SS Warrimoo, Today in History, Troop ShipLeave a comment on December 31, 1899 A Moment in Time
December 30, 1951 Chief Dog Sinbad, USCG
Sinbad's breed was best described as "liberty-rum-chow-hound, with a bit of Bulldog, Doberman, Pinscher, and what-not. Mostly what-not"- Martin Sheridan Life Magazine, December 1943.
In times of peace, the United States Coast Guard is charged with protecting the security of the nation's borders, maritime law enforcement and rescue operations. One of seven uniformed military service branches, Coast Guard operations may be expanded in time of conflict, or by order of the Commander-in-Chief.
During WW2, the Coast Guard operated hundreds of vessels from patrol frigates to troop ships, performing convoy escort, anti-submarine and replenishment operations. Many of the landing craft used in amphibious operations were operated by Coast Guardsmen. There may be no group in the employ of the United States government, better qualified to navigate the shoals, surf and strong currents encountered by small boats, in shallow water.
Semper Paratus. Always Ready.
In the winter of 1937, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC George W. Campell steamed out of New York harbor, patrolling the east coast with a mission of life-saving and national defense. The night before, Chief Boatswain's Mate A. A. "Blackie" Roth (the name is also given as "Rother") had given his girlfriend, a puppy. She couldn't keep him, the landlord wouldn't allow it. No other crewman could take the small dog. It was either leave him astray and hope for the best, or smuggle the puppy on board.
The Captain addressed the assembled crew on the first day of the cruise. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall, when one of them, barked back.
They called him "Sinbad", and gave him a uniform, a service record and a rank. Dog, 1st class.
Sinbad quickly learned ship's routine, and often "racked" with other sailors. He could always be found near the galley knowing that's where the food comes from, and he loved himself a cup of black coffee.
Sinbad's favorite toys were the large metal washers which he'd hide, until someone came to play with him. They even built him a hammock, much more comfy to sleep in, in those long Atlantic swells.
Sinbad was possessed of the best qualities of the sailor and of his own kind, and of the worst. In 1940, he nearly set off an international incident.
With the dark clouds of WW2 already over Europe, Denmark was overrun and occupied, by Nazis. Greenland was once a Danish territory, and the allies hoped to keep the place out of German hands. Campbell was sent to secure diplomatic ties with the Danes and the Greenlanders, who lived there.
Greenland is thinly populated, a place where locals mainly fish and raise sheep, for a living. On shore for a week, Sinbad was quick to discover the pastures and the great fun of chasing sheep. The sheep themselves were not amused and some died of exhaustion. Others became too nervous to go out and eat. The owners weren't amused either, and one demanded that Sinbad be shot.
The captain thought that too severe a punishment and Sinbad was banished, never to set foot on Greenland, again. There was no end of amusement among the crew of the Campbell, that Sinbad had been brought before a Captain's mast. It would not be his last.
Sinbad was awarded the American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle-Eastern Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal and Navy Occupation Service Medal, which he wore, attached to his collar.
When war came, the cutter was transferred to the Navy, and the patrols became longer.
"Sinbad's statue in Campbell's mess hall watching over the ship. Captain James Hirschfield believed the WWII Campbell would survive after being disabled in combat so long as Sinbad stayed aboard".
In the winter of 1943, Campbell was assigned to convoy protection, defending the vital north Atlantic supply route from roving "wolf packs" of German submarines. Sinbad never did get used to the sound of gunfire or depth charges, and would hide below decks, his paws over his ears. On February 22, the German submarine U-606 unleashed a barrage of torpedoes, against an allied convoy.
A day-long game of cat & mouse ensued in which the sub would pop up for another attack, only to be swarmed and driven into yet another crash dive. A periscope was spotted at 7:26 pm and Campbell charged in with a string of depth charges, colliding with the sub at the end of the run. U-606 was destroyed and Campbell badly damaged, disabled and without power, due to flooding.
All but "essential personnel" were evacuated. Captain James Hirschfield felt that Sinbad was good luck. No harm could befall the cutter while he was on board, and so he remained, essential personnel, taken under tow for repairs by the Polish destroyer, Burza. Sinbad had remained on deck with "his boys", throughout the action.
Sinbad was promoted in 1943 to the rank of K9C, "Chief Dog" – equivalent to Chief Petty Officer – the second of only two dogs to be classified as non-commissioned officers. Since that time, 'regulations' have transformed all subsequent animals into "property" rather than personnel.
Fun fact: The first was Sergeant Stubby, the Staffordshire Terrier who was smuggled "over there" during the Great War, and once caught a German spy by the arse while he was prowling about allied trenches.
Campbell served the duration of WW2, with Sinbad on board, the entire time. In 1948, he was ready to retire. Sinbad had been at sea for eleven years. He was finally ready for shore detail.
After eleven years at sea, Sinbad was "retired" to enjoy the comfortable life of a mascot, at the Barnegat shore station.,
The assembled media and photographers were too much that day, and Sinbad bolted across the gang plank, and down the dock. To be AWOL from a United States Coast Guard cutter is a serious offense, and Sinbad was busted in rank, back to Dog, 1st class. He was probably just as happy to be back with the enlisted guys.
Sinbad was transferred to the Barnegat Light Small Boat Station in New Jersey, where he served as station mascot for the duration of his military career.
Sinbad is welcomed aboard by the crew of the Barnegat light station
Chief Dog Sinbad served all of his fourteen years with the United States Coast Guard. He passed away on this day in 1951 at the Barnegat light station and is buried there, at the base of the flagpole. A sailor always, Sinbad could drink with the best of them, and always enjoyed that cuppa black coffee. Irrespective of his latest rank, he was many years, a media celebrity. Life magazine may have said it best: "An Old Sea Dog Has Favorite Bars and Plenty of Girls in Every Port."
Throughout her 46 years of service, USCGC Campbell was referred to as "The Queen of the Seas". She was sunk as a training target in November 1984, a single harpoon missile leaving her nearly intact, as she went out of sight. The final radio message, broadcast as she disappeared beneath the waves: The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.
Today, the USCGC Campbell (WMEC-909) patrols the east coast out of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, the sixth Coast Guard Cutter to bear the name.
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 30, 2018 December 30, 2018 Categories Animal Stories, Dogs, Maritime, Today in History, WWII12 Comments on December 30, 1951 Chief Dog Sinbad, USCG
December 29, 1778 The Siege of Savannah
For the Americans and their allies, the frontal assault of October 9 was one of the bloodiest engagements, of the Revolution. It could have been worse. As battered American and French soldiers fell back, 500 free men of color known as the Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue stepped up, to cover their retreat.
Many of these Haitian soldiers went on to win their own war of independence, and credited their military experience, to Savannah.
As 1778 drew to a close, British military planners could look back on five years of trying to suppress rebellion in the American colonies, with little to show for it. In March of that year, the British defeat at Saratoga had brought France into the war, on the side of the Rebels.
Two years of open warfare had centered mostly on the north. Now, a "southern strategy" was devised to conquer rebellious colonies in the south, while isolating those to the north. Key to the Southern Strategy was Georgia and the colonial capital at Savannah, the southernmost commercial port of the thirteen Colonies.
General sir Henry Clinton dispatched a force of some 3,100 from New York under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, along with an unknown quantity of artillery. Campbell arrived outside Tybee Island on December 23.
Georgia was defended by two separate forces at this time, units of the Continental Army under the command of General Robert Howe, and state militia under the command of Governor John Houstoun. The two men had a history of squabbling for control and most of their troops, had yet to be tried.
Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, British commander at the capture of Savannah in December 1778
The 850 under General Howe never really had a chance, against the battle hardened Regulars, Hessian auxiliaries and Loyalist militia, coming ashore on December 29. Defeat turned to rout when Howe's forces threw down their weapons and ran. Campbell reported that "It was scarcely possible to come up with them, their retreat was rapid beyond conception.
Patriot forces suffered 83 killed, 11 wounded and 453 captured. Campbell suffered 7 killed and 17 wounded.
Howe was court-marshaled for the disaster, while Campbell bragged about being "the first British officer to [rend] a star and stripe from the flag of Congress"
Brigadier General Augustine Prevost arrived from St. Augustine Florida two weeks later, with a mixed force of Regulars and Creek and Cherokee allies. Campbell and a force of 1,000 would take the provisional capital at Augusta that February but soon retreated to Savannah, citing insufficient support among Loyalist and Native American populations.
American hopes soon fell back on their new-found alliance with France. During the following summer, French Admiral Count Charles-Hector Theodat d'Estaing captured St. Vincent and Grenada in the British West Indies, clearing the way to the Georgia coast. The powerful 47-ship French fleet arrived with 4,000 troops on September 1, surprising and capturing several British ships outside the mouth of the Savannah River.
D'Estaing sent an ultimatum to British Commander Augustine Prevost on September 16, 1779. He was to surrender the city "To the arms of his Majesty the King of France", or he would be personally answerable for what was about to happen. It could not have pleased General Benjamin Lincoln or his Patriot allies when d'Estaing added "I have not been able to refuse the army of the United States uniting itself with that of the King. The junction will probably be effected this day. If I have not an answer therefore immediately, you must confer with General Lincoln and me".
"Bullet Head Prevost", so called because of a circular scar on his temple, stalled for 24 hours, using the time in furiously building up his defenses and calling up 800 reinforcements from South Carolina.
Lincoln joined d'Estaing on September 23 with an army of 3,000 militia and Continental soldiers, laying siege to Savannah and the 2,500 British and Loyalist troops in occupation.
On October 1, a British relief column under one Captain French was coming to the city's aid, camped on the banks of the Ogeechee River. Georgia Continental Colonel John White had two officers, a sergeant and three privates with him, when he tricked French into surrendering. These guys ran through the woods lighting so many fires that the British thought the entire continental Army was bivouacked around them. Captain French was unavailable for comment but, it must be a special feeling, knowing that you just surrendered 111 guys to six, without firing a shot.
View of the siege works against the town at the Siege of Savannah September and October 1779 in the American Revolutionary War: contemporary picture by a French officer
Lack of horses and artillery carriages delayed the allies' moving their cannon ashore, so French warships bombarded the city from the sea. At one point shortly after Midnight on October 3, with rum rations flowing far too freely, fire from French gunners became more dangerous to themselves than to the city itself.
Franklin Square Monument remembers the contributions of the Haitian militia, in the Siege of Savannah
The siege of Savannah inflicted untold misery among the population, but Patriot forces and their French allies, never did break the city's defenses. The siege broke a short time later, amidst recriminations on both sides. D'Estaing returned to France, where he lost his head to the guillotine in 1794.
Savannah would remain in British hands until the end of the war, finally evacuated on July 11, 1782. A coquina marker in a small Savannah park; that soft, seashell limestone common throughout the Caribbean basin to Florida and beyond, bears a small brass plaque, darkened with the patina of age.
COMMEMORATIVE OF THE BRITISH EVACUATION OF SAVANNAH 1782
PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF SAVANNAH
LACHLAN McINTOSH CHAPTER
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Attack of 2nd South Carolina Continentals on the Spring Hill Redoubt at the Siege of Savannah on 9th October 1779 in the American Revolutionary War: picture by A.I. Keller
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 29, 2018 December 29, 2018 Categories American History, American Revolution, British History, Colonial Era, French History, Today in History, Wars and Military ConflictsTags American Revolution, Siege of Savannah, Today in HistoryLeave a comment on December 29, 1778 The Siege of Savannah
December 28, 1981 Food Fight
In Spanish speaking countries, newspapers and television stations do gag stories on December 28. A few years ago, headlines read that Kate Middleton was leaving Prince William for Mexican soccer star Chicharito.
In 1983, Boston University history professor Joseph Boskin explained the custom of 'April Fools Day' goes back to the Roman Emperor Constantine. A group of jesters and fools informed the Emperor, that they could do his job, better. Amused, Constantine appointed a jester named Kugel, 'King for a Day'.
Professor Boskin went on to explain. "In a way," he said, "it was a very serious day. In those times fools were really wise men. It was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor." The Associated Press picked up the story, and newspapers ran it, across the country.
It took AP a couple weeks to realize, the professor had made the whole thing up. April fools.
In one translation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, "March 32" in the year 1392 is the day the vain cock Chauntecleer was tricked by a fox. The fox appealed to the rooster's vanity by insisting he would love to hear Chauntecleer crow, just as his amazing father did. Standing on tiptoe with neck outstretched and eyes closed. The rooster obliged, with unfortunate, if not unpredictable results.
In most of the west, March 32 is that minor holiday on which we love to play pranks. In Scotland, April Fools' Day is called Hunt-the-Gowk Day. Although the term has fallen into disuse, a "gowk" is a cuckoo or a foolish person. The prank consists of asking someone to deliver a sealed message requesting some sort of help. The message reads "Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile". On reading the message, the recipient will explain that to help, he'll first need to contact another person, sending the victim to another person with the same message.
On April 1, 1698, citizens were invited to the Tower of London to witness the "Washing of the Lions" in the tower moat. Quite a few were sucked in. The April 2 edition of Dawks' News-Letter reported that "Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed." The "annual ceremony of washing the lions," lasted throughout the 18th & 19th centuries, always held on April 1st.
There is no "White Gate", at the tower of London
In 1957, (you can guess the date), the BBC reported the delightful news that mild winter weather had virtually eradicated the dread spaghetti weevil of Switzerland, and that Swiss farmers were now happily anticipating a bumper crop of spaghetti. Footage showed smiling Swiss peasants, pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Apparently, an embarrassingly large number of viewers were fooled. Many called BBC offices, asking how to grow their own spaghetti tree. "Place a piece of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce", callers were told, "and hope for the best."
In Mexico as well as Spain and most Latin countries, pranksters practice their craft not on April 1 but on December 28. The custom goes back to the biblical story of King Herod, who is said to have killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem, to rid himself of the future 'King of the Jews. The "Massacre of the Innocents" is a sad story but the 'joke' was on Herod. Mary and Joseph had taken the baby Jesus away, to Egypt.
So it is that el Día de los Santos Inocentes (Day of the Holy Innocents) is observed in Spanish speaking countries, on December 28. In a sort of gallows humor, the butt of the joke is the "¡Inocente!" or "Innocent one".
Newspapers and television stations run gag stories on December 28. A few years ago, headlines read that Kate Middleton was leaving Prince William for Mexican soccer star Chicharito.
For two-hundred years now, the citizens of Ibi, Alicante on the Spanish Mediterranean coast have celebrated December 28, with a giant food fight. The practice was suspended for a time following the Spanish Civil War but revived, in 1981. Now, it's a big tourist attraction, and the event makes a ton of money, for charity.
Who needs to run with bulls when you have la fiesta de Los Enharinados. "The Fiesta of the Flour-Covered Ones."
Participants are covered with flour at the fiesta of Los Enharinados in Ibi, Spain. Fotógrafo Ibi/Creative Commons ASA 4.0 International.
Feature image, top of page: Food fight participants are at the fiesta of Los Enharinados in Ibi, Spain.
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 28, 2018 December 28, 2018 Categories Odds & Ends, Popular Culture, Today in HistoryTags April Fool, Día de los Santos Inocentes, Food Fight, Pranked, Today in HistoryLeave a comment on December 28, 1981 Food Fight
December 27, 1913 The Devil's Dictionary
"In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office".
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce first appeared in Horse Cave Creek, Ohio, the 10th of 13 children born to Marcus Aurelius and Laura Sherwood Bierce, all with names beginning with the letter "A".
Marcus and Laura never had much money, but were both inveterate readers who instilled a lifelong love of books in their young son, Ambrose. At 15, Bierce left home to become a "printer's devil", fetching type and mixing ink, following in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and his own contemporary, Mark Twain.
Bierce enlisted with the 9th Indiana Regiment at the outbreak of the Civil War, where he developed map making skills. Bierce would frequently find himself in the hottest part of the front lines, while he drew out and mapped some complicated terrain feature. He would later say of the experience that "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography".
For Ambrose Bierce, the Civil War ended at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, when a severe head wound took him out of the war, for good. He later headed west, making the first usable maps of the Black Hills, before winding up in San Francisco.
Long hours spent in a boring job at the San Francisco mint gave my favorite "curmudgeon" plenty of time to read up on the classics, and brush up on his writing skills. He soon found himself in the newspaper business, one of the top columnists in San Francisco.
Today, any writer who wants to be the least bit controversial had better keep his lawyer's number on speed dial. In Bierce's day, he'd better carry a gun. Ambrose Bierce didn't shy away from politics, he jumped right in, often employing a mock dictionary definition to lampoon his targets. One example and my personal favorite: "Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage".
Bierce worked for the Hearst Newspaper San Francisco Examiner in 1896, when he was sent to Washington to cover a railroad bill at that time, working its way through Congress.
The Union and Pacific Railroad received $130 million taxpayer dollars (about $3 billion in today's money) laundered through the Federal Government and lent to the railroad on extremely favorable terms. One of the Union & Pacific's builders, Collis P. Huntington, had persuaded a malleable congressman to forgive the loan altogether, if only they could keep the measure quiet.
Bierce lampooned crony capitalist and politician alike. The offending bill was anything but quiet when an infuriated Huntington confronted Bierce on the Capital steps. When asked his "price", Bierce answered "My price is $130 million dollars. If, when you are ready to pay, I happen to be out of town, you may hand it over to my friend, the Treasurer of the United States". The bill went on to defeat.
We can only wonder how things would be today, if such a man were to replace the partisan lapdogs passing themselves off as a national press corps.
Bierce's biting satire would often get Hearst and his newspaper in trouble. Nothing was off limits. Politics was a favorite target: "CONSERVATIVE, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others", or "POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive".
Bierce's mocking definitions became so numerous that they were compiled and published in 1906 as "The Cynic's Word Book". It is still in print today as the "Devil's Dictionary".
The topics are seemingly endless. On Motherhood: "SWEATER, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly". On the Arts: "PAINTING, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic". Or "MARRIAGE, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two". And then there's education, "ACADEME, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught".
Bierce left San Francisco in October 1913 at the age of 71, to revisit his old Civil War battlefields. He then headed south into Mexico, which was at that time a whirlpool of revolution. He joined Pancho Villa's army as an observer in Ciudad Juárez, arriving in Chihuahua some time that December. Bierce' last letter was written to a close friend, Blanche Partington, on December 26, 1913. He closed the note by saying, "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination."
And then, he vanished.
If you visit Sierra Mojada, in Coahuila, Mexico, they'll tell you that Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was executed by firing squad in the town cemetery. It's as good an ending to this story as any, as one hundred and five years ago today is as good a day as any on which to end it. The fact is that in that 105 years, there's never been a trace of what became of him, and probably never will be.
My favorite curmudgeon would have had a good laugh, on reading the monument erected in Meigs County Ohio, in his honor.
So many words to commemorate a life, when the Master's own words would have done so well: "MONUMENT, n: A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated."
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 27, 2018 December 27, 2018 Categories Literature, Odds & Ends, Today in HistoryTags Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, My Favorite Curmudgeon9 Comments on December 27, 1913 The Devil's Dictionary
December 26, 1776 Hell Ships of the Revolution
British and American forces and their allies fought no less than seventy-one major engagements from the April 19, 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord, to the 1783 Battle of Arkansas Post. The prison ships of the British killed more Americans than every single one of them, combined.
Since the first Geneva Convention of 1864, nations have attempted to codify a system of international law, concerning acceptable limits on the conduct of war. These laws address a range of considerations including declarations of war, acceptance of surrender and proper treatment of prisoners.
Such discussions are nothing new, the earliest examples dating to the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, and to the old testament (Torah) Book of Deuteronomy. The first Caliph, Abu Bakr, laid down ten rules of warfare for his Muslim army, in the 7th century.
In the New World British colony in North America, one of twenty-seven grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence was that King George III "has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions".
The American Revolution was on its last legs in December 1776. The year had started out well for the Patriot cause but turned into a string of disasters, beginning in August. Food, ammunition and equipment were in short supply by December. Men were deserting as the string of defeats brought morale to a new low. Most of those who remained, ended enlistments at the end of the year.
General George Washington and a force of 5,000 performed the famous crossing of the Delaware River in the howling blizzard of Christmas day, 1776. The assault on the Hessian garrison at Trenton, was do or die. The cause of Independence needed decisive victory, or it was over. The pass word on that frigid night was "Victory". There was only one acceptable response: "Or Death".
The tactical surprise was complete in the early morning hours of December 26. Hessian losses were 22 killed, 92 wounded and 918 captured. Only 400 escaped. The Americans suffered two who had frozen to death in the march on Trenton, and five wounded. It was the colonist's first major victory of the Revolution.
What to do with all those prisoners was a new problem for Washington, who ordered his troops to treat them with humanity. "Let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands."
Washington's position on the treatment of prisoners was clear and consistent. On September 14 of the previous year, the General wrote to Colonel Benedict Arnold then in camp in Cambridge Massachusetts: "Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]…I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require."
No such consideration was given American prisoners of his Majesty's government. King George III personally declared American revolutionaries to be traitors in 1775, denying them prisoner of war status. Land based detention facilities in British-occupied cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Charleston quickly filled up when the hulks of spent vessels were brought into service as prison ships, little more than waterlogged coffins.
Prison Ship HMS Jersey
Conditions on board these prison ships, were gruesome. The stifling hold of HMS Jersey alone held no fewer than 1,000 men in Wallabout Bay, modern-day site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Authorities were loath to execute detainees for "treason" for fear of inciting sympathy. Prisoners were left instead to wallow in their own filth, starved and tormented by most every disease and parasite, known to modern medicine. The Connecticut Gazette recounted the experience of one Robert Sheffield in July 1778, one of precious few to escape:
The heat was so intense that [the 300-plus prisoners] were all naked, which also served the well to get rid of vermin, but the sick were eaten up alive. Their sickly countenances, and ghastly looks were truly horrible; some swearing and blaspheming; others crying, praying, and wringing their hands; and stalking about like ghosts; others delirious, raving and storming, all panting for breath; some dead, and corrupting. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning, by reason of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days. One person alone was admitted on deck at a time, after sunset, which occasioned much filth to run into the hold, and mingle with the bilge water …
Bodies of the dead were tossed overboard, ten or fifteen every day from Jersey, alone. Thousands of dead fouled the brackish waters of Wallabout Bay, from which water was drawn to boil "soup" for survivors, more like a toxic sludge, sometimes augmented with moldy bread or rancid meat.
Even after Cornwallis' surrender in 1781, prisoners languished in the holds of Jersey and other Hell ships until the Treaty of Paris formally ended the war, in 1783.
A host of place names enter the popular imagination, when we think of the American Revolution. Bunker Hill. Trenton. Saratoga. Yorktown. British and American forces and their allies fought no fewer than seventy-one major engagements from the April 19, 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord, to the 1783 Battle of Arkansas Post. The prison ships of the British killed more Americans than every one of them, combined.
Thousands of remains washed up on the shores of Brooklyn. Bones were still being found in 1801, during construction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial Fort Greene Park Brooklyn
Locals collected as many as they could for burial in a local tomb. The bones were eventually moved to a crypt in Fort Greene Park, a half-mile south of Wallabout Bay. Today, a 149-foot martyrs memorial topped with an eight-ton bronze brazier marks the location of their Fort Greene crypt.
In eight years, an estimated eleven to twelve thousand men perished of the filth, abuse, neglect and disease of these Hell Ships. Untold thousands more passed through their stinking holds, and lived to tell the tale.
That such men ever lived, may be counted among the blessings of Liberty.
Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Martin "Marty" Maher is quoted in Smithsonian.com: "These were ordinary citizens, fighting for a country that had barely been born. Every man was offered freedom if he would swear to stop fighting. But there's no record that anyone took up the offer. No prisoner renounced the revolution to gain his freedom. Not one."
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 26, 2018 December 26, 2018 Categories American History, American Revolution, Colonial Era, POW stories, Today in History, Wars and Military Conflicts4 Comments on December 26, 1776 Hell Ships of the Revolution
December 25, 1914 A Truce to end all Wars
Nearly 100,000 Allied and German troops were involved in the unofficial ceasefire of Christmas 1914, lasting in some sectors until New Year's Day.
"Sitzkrieg". "Phony War". Those were the terms used to describe the September '39 to May 1940 period, when neither side of what was to become the second world war, was yet prepared to launch a major ground war against the other.
The start of the "Great War" twenty-five years earlier, was different. Had you been alive in August 1914, you would have witnessed what might be described as the simultaneous detonation of a continent. France alone suffered 140,000 casualties over the four day "Battle of the Frontiers", where the River Sambre met the Meuse. 27,000 Frenchmen died in a single day, August 22, in the forests of the Ardennes and Charleroi. The British Expeditionary Force escaped annihilation on August 22-23, only by the intervention of mythic angels, at a place called Mons.
First Battle of the Marne, September 1914 H/T Britannica
In the East, a Russian army under General Alexander Samsonov was encircled and so thoroughly shattered at Tannenberg, that German machine gunners were driven to insanity at the damage inflicted by their own guns, on the milling and helpless masses of Russian soldiers. Only 10,000 of the original 150,000 escaped death, destruction or capture. Samsonov himself walked into the woods, and shot himself.
Russian soldiers, WW1, H/T BBC
The "Race to the Sea" of mid-September to late October was more a series of leapfrog movements and running combat, in which the adversaries tried to outflank one another. It would be some of the last major movement of the Great War, ending in the apocalypse of Ypres, in which 75,000 from all sides lost their lives. All along a 450-mile front, millions of soldiers dug into the ground to shelter themselves from what Private Ernst Jünger later called a "Storm of Steel".
On the Western Front, it rained for much of November and December that first year. The no man's land between British and German trenches was a wasteland of mud and barbed wire. Christmas Eve, 1914 dawned cold and clear. The frozen ground allowed men to move about for the first time in weeks. That evening, English soldiers heard singing. The low sound of a Christmas carol, drifting across no man's land…Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht…Silent Night.
The Tommies saw lanterns and small fir trees. Messages were shouted along the trenches. In some places, British soldiers and even a few French joined in the Germans' songs. Alles schläft; einsam wacht, Nur das traute hochheilige Paar. Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar…
Christmas day truce of 1914 published 1915 London illustrated news
The following day was Christmas, 1914. A few German soldiers emerged from their trenches at the first light of dawn, approaching the Allies across no man's land and calling out "Merry Christmas" in the native tongue of their adversaries. Allied soldiers first thought it was a trick, but these Germans were unarmed, standing out in the open where they could be shot on a whim. Tommies soon climbed out of their own trenches, shaking hands with the Germans and exchanging gifts of cigarettes, food and souvenirs. In at least one sector, enemy soldiers played a friendly game of soccer.
Captain Bruce Bairnsfather later wrote: "I wouldn't have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything. … I spotted a German officer, some sort of lieutenant I should think, and being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I had taken a fancy to some of his buttons. … I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few deft snips, removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then gave him two of mine in exchange. … The last I saw was one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck."
Captain Sir Edward Hulse Bart reported a sing-song which "ended up with 'Auld lang syne' which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Wurttenbergers, etc, joined in. It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked!"
A few tried to replicate the event the following year, but there were explicit orders preventing it. Captain Llewelyn Wyn Griffith recorded that after a night of exchanging carols, dawn on Christmas Day 1915 saw a "rush of men from both sides … [and] a feverish exchange of souvenirs" before the men were quickly called back by their officers.
Ypres, Christmas Truce, Hat tip http://www.Bitaboutbritain.com. Thanks, Mike.
One German unit tried to leave their trenches under a flag of truce on Easter Sunday 1915, but were warned off by the British opposite them.
German soldier Richard Schirrmann wrote in December 1915, "When the Christmas bells sounded in the villages of the Vosges behind the lines …. something fantastically unmilitary occurred. German and French troops spontaneously made peace and ceased hostilities; they visited each other through disused trench tunnels, and exchanged wine, cognac and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits and ham. This suited them so well that they remained good friends even after Christmas was over".
Some will tell you, the bitterness engendered by continuous fighting made such fraternization all but impossible. Yet, there are those who believe that soldiers never stopped fraternizing with their opponents, at least during the Christmas season. Heavy artillery, machine gun, and sniper fire were all intensified in anticipation of Christmas truces, minimizing such events in a way that kept them out of the history books.
Pvt. Ronald MacKinnon, H/T National Post
Even so, evidence exists of a small Christmas truce in 1916, though little is known of it. 23-year-old Private Ronald MacKinnon of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, wrote home about German and Canadian soldiers reaching across battle lines near Arras, sharing Christmas greetings and trading gifts. "I had quite a good Christmas considering I was in the front line", he wrote. "Christmas Eve was pretty stiff, sentry-go up to the hips in mud of course. … We had a truce on Christmas Day and our German friends were quite friendly. They came over to see us and we traded bully beef for cigars". The letter ends with Private MacKinnon noting that "Christmas was 'tray bon', which means very good."
Private Ronald MacKinnon of Toronto Ontario, Regimental number 157629, was killed barely three months later on April 9, 1917, during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
The Man He Killed
by Thomas Hardy
Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because–
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like–just as I–
Was out of work–had sold his traps–
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half a crown.
Christmas truce memorial, National Arboretum, Staffordshire, England
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 25, 2018 December 25, 2018 Categories British History, German History, Humanitarian, Today in History, WWITags Christmas Truce, Silent Night, Stille Nacht, Today in History, Western Front4 Comments on December 25, 1914 A Truce to end all Wars
December 24, 1822 A Right Jolly old Elf
Santa Claus may be the most powerful cultural idea, ever conceived. This year, Christmas sales are expected to exceed one Trillion dollars. Not bad for a 2,000-year old saint, best remembered for gift giving with no expectation of anything in return.
The historical life of St. Nicholas is shrouded in legend. Born in modern-day Turkey on March 15, AD270, Nicholas was the only child of rich parents who died in a plague, leaving the boy a wealthy orphan.
1689 fresco depicts St. Nicholas, giving to a school
Nicholas was raised in the Christian faith and became an early bishop in the Greek church. One of many stories concerning the bishop's generosity involves a destitute father, unable to raise a dowry sufficient to marry off his three daughters. On two consecutive nights, Nicholas crept up to the man's window, and dropped a small sack of gold coins. On the third night, the man stayed up to learn the identity of his secret benefactor, only to be asked to keep the name, secret.
St. Nicholas saving the Three Maidens, Decani monastery, Kosovo
Saint Nicholas passed on December 6 in the year 343. He's entombed in a marble cathedral dedicated to his name, in Myra.
The "Sinterklass" of the Netherlands, rides a white horse
Nicholas is remembered as the patron saint of whole nations and cities such as Amsterdam and Moscow, revered among the early Christian saints and remembered for a legendary habit of secret gift-giving.
Some ideas take hold in the popular imagination, while others fade into obscurity. The "Three Daughters" episode made it into nearly every artistic medium available at that time, from frescoes to carvings and windows, even theatrical performances.
The Patron Saint not only of sailors, but of ships and their cargoes, the seas were the internet of the day, and the story of St. Nick spread from the Balkans to Holland, from England to Crete.
The Feast of St. Nicholas took hold around the 6th of December. Children and other marginal groups such as old women and slaves could receive gifts, but only by demanding them. The secret giving of gifts appeared sometime around the year 1200.
On the continent, legends of St. Nicholas combined with Pagan traditions and developed in quirky directions, including an evil doppelgänger who accompanies St. Nick on his rounds. As early as the 11th century, the Krampus may be expected to snatch bad little tykes away from parts of Germany, Austria and the Alpine villages of northern Italy, never to be seen again.
In eastern Europe, the witch Frau Perchta "The Disemboweller" was said to place pieces of silver in the shoes of children and servants who'd been good over the year, and replace the organs of the bad ones, with garbage. Yikes.
In French-speaking regions, Père Fouettard (Father Whipper) accompanies Père Noël on gift-giving rounds, dispensing beatings and/or lumps of coal to naughty boys & girls. In some German speaking regions, the malevolent Schmutzli accompanies Samichlaus, with a twig broom to spank wicked children.
Never mind Santa Claus. The Schmutzli is watching.
Samichlaus and the Schmutzli
The "Little Ice Age" of the 13th century, led to a proliferation of chimneys. Windows and doors were the things of thieves and vagabonds, while the chimney led directly to the warm heart of the home. St. Nick made his first gift-giving appearance via the chimney in a three daughters fresco, painted sometime in 1392, in Serbia.
The Ghost of Christmas present as illustrated by John Leech, in Charles Dickens' classic, a Christmas Carol
St. Nicholas was beginning to be seen as part of the family outside of the Church, which is probably why he survived what came next. Saints reigned in the Christian world until the 16th century, when the Protestant reformation rejected such "idolatry" as a corruption of Christianity.
Whatever you called him: Sinterklaos, Saint-Nikloi or Zinniklos, St. Nick went away entirely in England and Scotland during the time of Henry VIII, giving way to the spirit of Christmas cheer in the person of one Father Christmas. England would no longer keep the feast of the Saint on December 6. The celebration moved to December 25, to coincide with Christmas.
Protestants adopted as gift bringer the Baby Jesus or Christkindl, later morphing into Kris Kringle.
Puritan arrivals to New England rejected Christmas and everything with it, as "un-Christian". In 1644, Massachusetts levied a fine of five shillings, on anyone observing the holiday.
Santa Claus 1863, by Thomas Nast
Sinterklaas survived the iconoclasm of the Reformation in places like Holland, transferring to the 17th century settlement of New Amsterdam: what we now know as the new world port city of New York.
Sinterklass blended with Father Christmas, to create a distinctly American Santeclaus, which began to take hold in the 19th century.
The Christmas "celebrations" of the period, looked more like Mardi Gras than what we know today. Drunk and rowdy gangs wandered the streets of New York, Philadelphia and the cities of the northeast, something between a noisy mob and a marching band. Men fired guns into the air and banged or blew on anything that would make noise. Mobs would beat up the unfortunate, and break into the homes of the "upper classes", demanding food and liquor.
New York philanthropist John Pintard, the man responsible for the holidays celebrating the fourth of July and George Washington's birthday, popularized an image first set forth by Washington Irving, in his satirical story A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, depicting St. Nicholas bringing gifts to good little boys and girls, and switches with which to tan the hides of bad kids.
The unknown genius who published and illustrated A Children's Friend in 1821, first depicted "Santa Claus" not as a Catholic bishop, but as a non-sectarian adult in a fur lined robe, complete with a sleigh inexplicably powered by a single reindeer, coming in through the chimney not on December 6, but on Christmas eve.
An anonymous poem believed to have been written on December 24, 1822 and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, began with the words: "T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house"…
"A Visit From St. Nicholas", better known by its first line, gave us the first description of the modern Santa Claus and a tool for domesticating the occasion, agreeable to law enforcement for calming the rowdy streets, to manufacturers and retailers for selling goods, to the church to make way for a family friendly day of worship and to parents, to control unruly children.
Goody Santa Claus 1889
The "Right Jolly old Elf" took his modern form thanks to the pen of illustrator and editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast, creator of the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant and scourge of the Tammany Hall political machine which had swindled New York city, out of millions.
The idea of a Mrs. Claus seems to come from a poem by Katharine Lee Bates of the Cape Cod Curmudgeon's own town of Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Today, the author is best known for her 1895 poem "Pikes Peak", later set to music and widely known as "America the Beautiful".
Tonight, NASA may be expected to track Santa and his sleigh drawn by eight reindeer, though none are any longer, all that tiny. Santa Claus will appear around the planet. Regional variations include Santa's arriving on a surfboard in Hawaii. In Australia, he's pulled by six white kangaroos. In Cajun country, Papa Noël arrives in a pirogue, drawn by eight alligators.
Fun fact: Today, the port city of Bari on the Adriatic coast of Italy is remembered for the WW2-era mustard gas accident, which spawned the discovery of modern chemotherapy drugs. A thousand years earlier, city fathers feared growing Muslim influence over the tomb of Saint Nicholas, and went to retrieve his remains. Find him, they did. Saint Nicholas' large bones were removed and brought back as holy relics to Bari, where they remain, to this day. Smaller fragments were removed during the 1st Crusade and brought back to Venice, or enshrined in basilica from Moscow to Normandy. According to one local antiquarian, the "Tomb of Saint Nicholas" in Ireland, is probably that of a local priest.
Feature image, top of page: Hat tip GP Cox. I don't know where you got it, but I Love this image. Merry Christmas and all the best for a healthy and prosperous New Year to you and yours, from Mr. & Mrs. Cape Cod Curmudgeon.
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 24, 2018 December 24, 2018 Categories Odds & Ends, Popular Culture, Religion, Today in History, World HistoryTags Christmas Eve, Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, Today in History, Tradition7 Comments on December 24, 1822 A Right Jolly old Elf
December 23, 1884 Lake Bacon
The meadows and the bayous of our southern lands shall swarm with herds of hippopotami
Only hours from now, families will gather from across the nation, for the Christmas table. There will be moist and savory stuffing, and green bean casserole. Creamy mashed potatoes and orange cranberry sauce. And there, the centerpiece of the feast. Slow-roasted and steaming in its tray, golden brown and delicious, the roast hippopotamus.
Wait…What?
On this day in 1884, the World Cotton Centennial and World's Fair was beginning its second week, in New Orleans. Among the many wonders on display was the never-before seen, Eichornia crassipes, a gift of the Japanese delegation. The Water Hyacinth.
Visitors marveled at this beautiful aquatic herb, its yellow spots accentuating the petals of beautiful delicate purple and blue flowers, floating across tranquil ponds on thick, dark green leaves.
The seeds of Eichornia crassipes are spread by wind, flood, birds and humans, and remain viable for 30 years. Beautiful as it is to look at, the Water Hyacinth is an "alpha plant", an aquatic equivalent to the Japanese invasive perennial Kudzu, the "vine that ate the south". Impenetrable floating mats choke out native habitats and species, while thick roots impede the passage of vessels, large and small. The stuff is toxic if ingested by humans and most animals, and costs a fortune to remove.
This plant native from the Amazon basin quickly broke the bounds of the 1884 World's Fair, spreading across the bayous and waterways of Louisiana, and beyond.
During the first decade of the 20th century, an exploding American population could barely keep up with its own need for food, especially, meat. The problem reached crisis proportions in 1910, with over grazing and a severe cattle shortage. Americans were seriously discussing the idea, of eating dogs.
Enter Louisiana member of the House of Representatives, New Iberia's own Robert Foligny Broussard, with a solution to both problems. "Lake Bacon".
The attorney from Louisiana's 3rd Congressional district proposed the "American Hippo" bill, H.R. 23621, in 1910, with enthusiastic support from Theodore Roosevelt and the New York Times. One Agricultural official estimated that such a free-range hippo herd would produce up to a million tons of meat, per year.
Lippincott's monthly magazine, waxed rhapsodic: "This animal, homely as a steamroller, is the embodiment of salvation. Peace, plenty and contentment lie before us, and a new life with new experiences, new opportunities, new vigour, new romance, folded in that golden future, when the meadows and the bayous of our southern lands shall swarm with herds of hippopotami".
With a name deriving from the Greek term "River Horse", the common hippopotamus is the third largest land animal living today. Despite a physical resemblance to hogs and other even-toed ungulates, Hippopotamidae's closest living relatives are cetaceans such as whales, dolphins and porpoises.
All well and good. The problem is, these things are dangerous.
The adult bull hippopotamus is extremely aggressive, unpredictable and highly territorial. And heaven help anyone caught between a cow, and her young. Hippos can gallop at short sprints of 19 mph, only a little slower than Jamaican Sprinter Usain Bolt, "the fastest man who ever lived".
To search the "10 most dangerous animals in Africa" is to learn that hippos are #1, responsible for more human fatalities than any other large animal, in Africa.
Be that at it as it may, the animal is a voracious herbivore, spending daylight hours at the bottom of rivers & lakes, happily munching on vegetation.
What could be better than taking care of two problems at once. Otherwise unproductive swamps and bayous from Florida to Louisiana would become home to great hordes of free-range hippos. The meat crisis would be solved. America would become a nation of hippo ranchers.
As Broussard's bill wended its way through Congress, the measure picked up steam with the enthusiastic support of two men, mortal enemies who'd spent ten years in the African bush, trying to kill each other. No, really.
Frederick Russell Burnham had argued for the introduction of African wildlife into the American food stream, some four years earlier. A freelance scout and American adventurer, Burnham was known for his service to the British South Africa company, and to the British army in colonial Africa. The "King of Scouts', commanding officers described Burnham as "half jackrabbit and half wolf". A "man totally without fear." One writer described Burnham's life as "an endless chain of impossible achievements", another "a man whose senses and abilities approached that of a wild predator". He was the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character and for the Boy Scouts. Frederick Burnham was the "most complete human being who ever lived ".
Frederick Russell Burnham (left), Fritz Joubert Duquesne (right)
Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne was a Boer of French Huguenot ancestry, descended from Dutch settlers to South Africa. A smooth talking guerrilla fighter, the self-styled "Black Panther" once described himself as every bit the wild African animal, as any creature of the veld. An incandescent tower of hate for all things British, Duquesne was a liar, a chameleon, a man of 1,000 aliases who once spent seven months feigning paralysis, so he could fool his jailers long enough to cut through his prison bars.
Duquesne was destined to be a German spy and saboteur, through two world wars. Frederick Burnham described his mortal adversary, thus: "He was one of the craftiest men I ever met. He had something of a genius of the Apache for avoiding a combat except in his own terms; yet he would be the last man I should choose to meet in a dark room for a finish fight armed only with knives".
During the 2nd Boer war, the pair had sworn to kill each other. In 1910, these two men became partners in a mission to bring hippos, to America's dinner table.
Biologically, there is little reason to believe that Hippo ranching couldn't have worked along the Gulf coast. Colombian officials estimate that, within a few years, the hippo descendants of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar's exotic animal menagerie will number 100 or more individuals.
Broussard's measure went down to defeat by a single vote, but never entirely went away. Always the political calculator, Representative and later-Senator Broussard died with the bill on his legislative agenda, waiting for the right moment to reintroduce the thing.
Over time, the solution to the meat question became a matter of doubling down on what we're already doing, as factory farms and confinement operations took the place of free ranges, and massive use of antibiotics replaced the idea of balanced biological systems.
We may or may not have "traded up". Today, we contend with ever more antibiotic-resistant strains of "Superbug". Louisiana spends $2 million per year on herbicidal control of the water hyacinth. The effluent of factory farms from Montana to Pennsylvania works its way into the nation's rivers and streams, washing out to the Mississippi Delta to a biological dead zone, the size of New Jersey.
Gulf of Mexico dead zone, image credit NOAA
That golden future of Lippincott's hippo herds roam only in the meadows and bayous of the imagination. Who knows, it may be for the best. I don't know if any of us could've seen each other across the table, anyway. Not when the roast hippopotamus, got there.
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 23, 2018 December 22, 2018 Categories American History, Animal Stories, Food, Odds & Ends, Today in HistoryTags Hippopotamus Ranch, Today in History, Water Hyacinth7 Comments on December 23, 1884 Lake Bacon
December 22, 1944 The Forgotten Angel of Bastogne
The forgotten angel of Bastogne was eighty-six when the knock came on the door of that Belgian nursing home. It took months for the Scottish historian to coax the story out of her.
The Battle of the Bulge is a familiar tale: The massive German offensive bursting out of the frozen Ardennes forest on December 16, 1944. The desperate drive to capture the Belgian port of Antwerp, vital to German re-supply efforts.
The terrain was considered unsuitable for such an attack. The tactical surprise was complete, British and American forces separated and driven back, their positions forming an inward "bulge" on wartime battle maps.
The story of the "Battered Bastards" is likewise, well known. 22,800 Americans, outnumbered five to one in some places and surrounded, in the do-or-die fight to hold the indispensable crossroads, of Bastogne. The German demand to surrender, of December 22. The response from American General Anthony McAuliffe, the one word response, "Nuts", the American slang, confusing to the German delegation.
The siege of Bastogne would last another four days, the German encirclement at last broken by elements of George S. Patton's 3rd Army. By the end of January, the last great effort of German arms was spent and driven back behind original lines.
Historian Stephen Ambrose wrote "Band of Brothers" nearly fifty years later, a non-fiction account later broadcast as an HBO mini-series, of the same name. The story refers to a black nurse named Anna. There is a brief appearance and then she is gone. No one knew who Anna was, or even if she was real.
Sixty-one years after Bastogne, military historian Martin King was conducting research for a book, Voices of the Bulge. The knock on the door came in October 2007, in a geriatric home outside of Brussels.
In the months following the Great War, Henri Chiwy (pronounced "SHE-wee") was a veterinarian, working in the Belgian colony of the Congo Free State. The name of the Congolese woman who bore his child is unrecorded, the name of their baby girl, Augusta Marie.
Augusta Chiwy came back to Belgium when she was nine, one of the luckier of thousands born to European fathers, and African mothers. Back to the doctor's home in Bastogne, a small town of 9,000 where Augusta was loved and cared for by her father and his sister, whom the girl knew as "aunt Caroline".
Augusta was educated and raised a Catholic. She always wanted to teach but, due to the rancid racial attitudes of that time and place, it would not do to have a black woman teaching white children. She became a nurse instead, on the advice of her father and his brother, a well-known Bastogne physician.
Nursing school was about 100 miles north. Augusta became a qualified nurse in 1943 and returned home the following year for Christmas. She arrived on December 16, the day Adolf Hitler launched his surprise offensive.
Bastogne was soon surrounded, part of one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles, of WW2. Poorly equipped American GIs were outnumbered five to one. These guys didn't even have winter uniforms.
US Army Doctor Jack Prior was desperate, the abandoned building serving as military aid station, home to some 100 wounded GIs. Thirty of those were seriously wounded. With virtually no medical equipment or medicine and the only other medical officer an Ohio dentist, Dr. Prior badly needed nursing help.
Augusta Chiwy did not hesitate to volunteer, knowing full well that she would be executed, if caught.
Scene from the HBO mini series, "A Band of Brothers"
Working conditions were grisly in the weeks that followed. With no surgical instruments and no anesthesia, amputations and other procedures were performed with an army knife, with cognac to dull the patient's pain. On Christmas eve, a direct hit from a 500-pound bomb hit one hospital building, instantly killing dozens of wounded GIs and the only other nurse, Renée Lemaire. She would be remembered as "The Angel of Bastogne."
Augusta Chiwy was in a neighboring building at the time. The explosion blew the petite nurse through a wall but, unhurt, she picked herself up and went back to work. There were grisly injuries and many died due to inadequate medical facilities, but many lived, their families reunited thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Jack Prior, and nurse Augusta Chiwy.
Given the month of hell the pair had been through, Augusta was heartbroken when Dr. Prior had to move out, in January. The pair exchanged addresses and stayed in touch, writing letters and exchanging small gifts, of candy. They last saw each other in 2004, when Dr. Prior returned from his home state of Vermont, for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.
Augusta Chiwy suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition poorly understood at that time. She would go long periods without speaking, becoming quiet and withdrawn even years later. She married a Belgian soldier in 1959 and the couple had two children. It would be twenty years, before she resumed her nursing career. She almost never spoke of her experience in Bastogne.
Thanks to King's efforts, Augusta Chiwy would finally receive the recognition she had earned.
"On June 24, 2011, she was made a Knight in the Order of the Crown by King Albert II of Belgium. Six months later she received the U.S. Army's Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service. And on March 21, 2014, Augusta was recognized by her hometown as a Bastogne Citizen of Honor". http://www.augustachiwy.org
When asked about her heroism, she'd always say the same thing: "I only did what I had to do."
Augusta Marie Chiwy died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 94, on August 23, 2015. How many lives would have been cut short, will never be known. But for the selfless and untiring efforts, of the Forgotten Angel of Bastogne.
Hat tip to http://www.augustachiwy.org, for most of the images used in this essay
Author Cape Cod CurmudgeonPosted on December 22, 2018 December 22, 2018 Categories Humanitarian, Medicine, Today in History, Wars and Military ConflictsTags Augusta Chiwy, Battered Bastards of Bastogne, Battle of the Bulge, Today in History, WW211 Comments on December 22, 1944 The Forgotten Angel of Bastogne


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Q: Can I control Windows Setting Focus Assist (On/Off) in my WPF Project I would like to implement a feature in my C# WPF project where within the application a User can turn on/off Focus Assist (a setting within Windows 10) using a checkbox which will automatically switch the Focus Assist Setting to 'On' or if unchecked 'Off'.
If possible I don't want to open the Focus Assist window for the user to click manually on/off.
I've tried searching how to have the ability to control these settings and all I could find was to implement the class Windows.System, however, the only controls seems to be for Windows.System.RemoteDesktop, Windows.System.Power, Windows.System.Display and lacking FocusAssist.
Could anyone point me in the right direction?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


From 'Digester' to the Modern-Day Instant Pot!
In my new contemporary western romance, A COWBOY AND A PROMISE, my hero's (Beau) mother brings dinner out to the family's ghost town resort under construction by my heroine (Ava). She made the meal, appropriately titled "Cowboy Stew" (recipe below) in a slow cooker, often called a Crockpot.
quart, bright orange model. Works great to this day.
As my family grew, I graduated to a 6-quart model which I love, too. However, as most things go, even what's been wildly popular will eventually lose its stardom for something new and exciting.
Oh, be still my heart. I got mine for Christmas. A complete surprise cooked up (pardon the pun) by my daughters who thought I needed one. I admit to being quite intimidated by it at first. In fact, I didn't even take it out of the box for a week. But once I did, and I accomplished the first step—boiling water, by the way—I was hooked.
invented by a French physicist in 1679, which he called the digester. Yuck. But the name stuck for a couple of centuries, until it was replaced with 'pressure cooker' by the military who needed a way to make fast meals in camps, as well as other inventors working to improve canning and beef extract production.
As the years rolled by, the pressure cooker became smaller, more user friendly, and made cooking and preserving food more economical. I'm quite sure no one expected the primitive digester to evolve into an Instant Pot that can make everything from hard-boiled eggs to yogurt so fun and easy!
Here's the recipe for my Cowboy Stew. I've had this recipe for ages, and I've made it in my Rival Crockpot too many times to count. Beau and Ava enjoyed it, too!
Arrange in Crockpot in layers, beginning with the potatoes. Salt and pepper each layer.
Pour 1 8 oz can of tomato sauce on top.
Press into circle over vegetables to form a cover. Pour another can of tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle with ½ tsp. oregano leaves.
Cook until meat and vegetables are done. May be baked in 350 degree oven for one hour, or until vegetables are tender.
Here's my favorite Instant Pot recipe. Since IP recipes tend to be lengthy from the steps needed, I won't type it all out, but I'll give you the link from the food blog, Rachel Cooks. It's DELICIOUS!
Have you ever used a pressure cooker? Do you have a slow cooker? Is it a RIVAL? How about an Instant Pot? Do you love it? Hate it? Share recipes!
Join in, and you'll be eligible to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
Buy A COWBOY AND A PROMISE on Amazon!


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Afghanistan Military News
Former Football Star turned Decorated Soldier Killed in Afghanistan
35-year-old Army Sgt. 1st Class Samuel Hairston died on August 12 in Ghazni, Afghanistan. He sustained injuries from enemy troops in a small arms battle with his unit.
Hairston, from Houston, was a decorated soldier. Before entering the Army in 2003, he was a star player for the University of Houston football team. Recruited from Shalimar, Florida, he played the defensive line for the Cougars from 1997 t0 2000.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Hairston was a platoon sergeant with the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division of Fort Bragg, N.C.
Freedom Remembered, a site devoted to remembering the troops who have lost their lives while serving in the U.S. Military, lists Hairston as a highly decorated soldier who has received Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Meritorious Service Medals. They also state he held Afghanistan and Iraq Campaign medals with two stars each.
KPBS reported that Hairston's battalion commander, Lt. Col. Chris Hockenberry, released a statement. In it, he wrote:
"Sgt. 1st Class Samuel Hairston was an exceptional non-commissioned officer and a valued member of our team. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time. We will never forget him."
As reported by Click 2 Houston, Hairston's friends, family and UH football fans think of him fondly. On Cougar sports blogs, fans remembered him as a hero on both the football field and the battlefield.
Hairston is survived by his wife, Staff Sgt. Tawana Hairston, and his son, Hayden.
According to the Associated Press, with the death of Hairston, U.S. military losses hits 2,199 soldiers since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. The U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan is scheduled to remove all U.S. combat forces by the end of 2016.
The Huffington Post reported that according to military numbers at least 1,821 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action. The Defense Department also count three military civilian deaths. Almost 20,000 U.S. service member have been wounded in hostile action since the start of U.S. Military Operations in Afghanistan.
Disabled Veteran Surprised With Home
Exclusive: Wounded Marine needs your help

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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With this private tour, you will discover Monaco, the world of chic. The medieval history of the breathtaking Eze Village. The charm of the village of La Turbie and the fabulous bay of Villefranche.
Discover the village of Eze with its medieval history! Discover the statue of Emperor Augustus, of the village of La Turbie. Finally, discover a beautiful view of Monaco, France and Italy from "Le Rocher".
Discover the Prince's Palace of Monaco, located on a rock. Awaits the Changing of the Guards at 11:55 am. Visit the Cathedral St. Nicholas. Drive on the circuit of Monaco's famous Formula 1 Grand Prix and, finally, be dazzled by Monte Carlo Square with its famous Casino.
Discover Villefranche or the Bay of Billionaires, the prestigious city, and land of retirees from around the world.
This tour is limited to a single booking of up to 7 people as it is a private tour with a private tour guide.
✔ Private transportation
✔ Bottled water
✔ On-board WiFi
✔ In-vehicle air conditioning
✔ Smile :-)
✔ Parking fees
1. Villa Sud Nice
2. Topi's Apartments Promenade Des Anglais
3. Hotel Le Negresco
4. Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel
5. Le Meridien Nice
6. Splendid Hotel & Spa
7. Radisson Blu Hotel, Nice
8. Hotel Apollinaire Nice
9. Hotel West End
10. Hotel Aston La Scala
11. Best Western Plus Hotel Massena Nice
12. Hotel Villa Victoria
13. Mercure Nice Promenade des Anglais
14. Mercure Nice Centre Notre Dame
15. Hotel Le Grimaldi by HappyCulture
16. Hotel Nice Riviera
17. Hotel Beau Rivage
18. Best Western Plus Hotel Brice Garden Nice
19. Mercure Nice Marche aux Fleurs
20. La Malmaison Nice Boutique hotel
Additional Info: Pickup in Cannes, Nice, Villefranche-sur-mer, Antibes. WE DO NOT PROVIDE PICKUPS IN MONACO.
Vieux Eze Discover Eze the medieval village, overlooking the French Riviera. With his history, his unique stars for the best pictures, and his five stars Hotels and Michelin Stars Restaurants, Eze attracts every year over two million tourists.
Parfumerie Fragonard - L'usine Laboratoire Èze - Visite Gratuite & Guidée Discover the Fragonard Perfume Factory with a special tour guide. You will be able to test if you are a "nose" or a master of Perfume by smelling all different smells and trying to guess the name of the scent or flower.
Vieux La Turbie Discover the statue of Emperor Augustus, from the village of La Turbie, built by Romans in 7 years BC and the magnificent view of the heights of the Great Corniche. You will learn the reason for the existence of the Statue.
Palais Princier Monaco Discover the Prince's Palace of the Principality of Monaco, located on a rock in the open sea, unimaginable beauty. Waiting for the Changing of the Guards of the Prince every day at 11:55.
Cathedrale Notre-Dame-Immaculee Visit the St. Nicholas Cathedral, where Princess Grace Kelly is buried.
Automobile Club of Monaco Discover the race track of the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix with a drive on the circuit of Monaco's famous Formula 1 Grand Prix. Yes, WE WILL RACE! You will see the finish-starting line, the tunnel, the Fairmont hairpin. Racing on the most famous race track in the world.
Casino of Monte-Carlo Discover the dazzling Monte Carlo Square. You will understand why Casino Monte Carlo is the most famous Casino in the world. You will see luxury shops, restaurants & hotels.
• Wheelchair accessible
• Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
• Public transportation options are available nearby
• Specialized infant seats are available
• Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Day Trips Half-day Tours Bus Tours Private and Luxury Private Sightseeing Tours Ports of Call Tours City Tours Car Tours Luxury Car Tours Shore Excursions
Mobile or paper ticket accepted
Guide in:


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Die Kirche von Strö liegt auf der Halbinsel Kålland etwa zwölf Kilometer nördlich der schwedischen Stadt Lidköping.

Die Kirche mit einem Langhaus und einem rechteckigen Chor stammt aus dem 12. Jahrhundert. Im 15. Jahrhundert wurde die Deckenkonstruktion durch ein gemauertes Gewölbe ersetzt und im 16. Jahrhundert eine Grabkapelle für die Familie Oxenstierna angebaut.

Bei einer Restaurierung in den 1920er Jahren entdeckte man im Chor Wandmalereien aus dem 15. Jahrhundert, die vermutlich vom Kirchenmaler Nils Håkansson stammen.

Stro
Bauwerk in der Gemeinde Lidköping
Stro
Stro

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Broadway/Off-Broadway Review
Scare Tactics: Thérèse Raquin and Humans Frighten for Different Reasons
By David Sheward on November 4, 2015 in Theatre
Two productions from Roundabout Theatre Company explore scary demons just in time for the Halloween season. The big star vehicle, Thérèse Raquin, is full of fake emotion while the Off-Broadway intimate drama, The Humans, is truly terrifying in its portrayal of the bumps and creaks in the night we all hear and fear.
Gabriel Ebert, Matt Ryan, and Keira Knightley in Therese Raquin.
Credit: Joan Marcus
The first act of Helen Edmundson's stage adaptation of Emile Zola's classic 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin from Roundabout at Studio 54 really had me going. I was totally enraptured by Keira Knightley's nearly silent performance as the titular frustrated heroine, expressing her sexual and spiritual longing through body language and eloquent features. Thérèse is trapped in a passionless marriage to her bourgeois cousin Camille, first in a provincial backwater and then in a confining Paris apartment. Edmundson's conceit is that Thérèse can only react to the stifling conditions of her life and remains silent as the oafish Camille and his control-freak mother order her existence. That is, until Camille's dashing friend Laurent, a would-be painter, enters the picture. (Spoiler alert here if you have not read the novel or seen any of the numerous previous stage versions including Harry Connick Jr.'s 2001 musical update Thou Shalt Not.) The connection between Thérèse and Laurent is electric, and they plot to eliminate Camille. The drowning scene on a real river is really scary; kudos to director Evan Cabnet and set designer Beowulf Boritt.
So far, so good, but in the second act Thérèse opens her mouth. Knightley and Matt Ryan as Laurent start overacting all over the place and Cabnet turns a tragic tale of passion into an episode of Dark Shadows. The lovers become racked with guilt and imagine Camille's accusing ghost haunting them as Josh Schmidt's twisted sound design and Keith Parham's haunted-house lighting grow more ominous. There are some effective moments, mostly provided by Boritt's impressive set. Thérèse seems to be crushed by her all-black apartment as it descends from the flies and she appears to soar when she meets Laurent in his attic, suspended above the stage amid a starry backdrop (Parham's lighting achieves the right romantic tone here.) Gabriel Ebert's comically clueless Camille, Judith Light's well-meaning Madame Raquin, and Jeff Still, David Patrick Kelly and Mary Wiseman as a trio of shallow family friends provide welcome depth. But they cannot rescue this screamfest from the spookhouse.
Sarah Steele, Arian Moayed, Jayne Houdyshell, and Lauren Klein in The Humans.
Thérèse attempts to evoke genuine fear, but The Humans succeeds in doing so. Stephen Karam's new play starts out like a dozen other dysfunctional-family works, with the Blake clan revealing harsh secrets on Thanksgiving as the turkey is served and the wine flows. What sets this haunting and heartbreaking drama apart is the subtle depiction of the nightmares which invade and twist the lives of everyday people. The six characters' fears for the future take various frighteningly familiar forms. Dad Erik obsesses over terrorist attacks and floods. Mother Deirdre forwards emails of dire scientific studies to her daughters Aimee, a lawyer struggling with losing her lesbian lover, her job and her health, and Brigid, a young composer facing a dead-end career. The senile grandmother Fiona ("Momo") is lost to dementia and Richard, Brigid's much older boyfriend, has recovered from depression but still has bizarre dreams, but much less frightening than Erik's, which involve a faceless woman and a forbidding tunnel.
During 90 intermissionless minutes, an expert cast, directed with subtlety by Joe Mantello, convey the petty conflicts and major tragedies of these frightened people, beset by the shifting and uncertain landscape of modern America. Lights switch off, weird sounds emanate from all over Brigid and Richard's spacious but crumbling Chinatown duplex (great set by David Zinn and sound by Fitz Patton), and the lives of the Blakes are gradually revealed as pitiful and desperate. The entire cast is top-rate, with veterans Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell delivering their customary solid work, but Cassie Beck's Aimee is outstanding in this stand-out ensemble. Her shattered, scattered cellphone call to an estranged girlfriend is a heartbreaking moment in an intensely real performance.
Just after it opened, The Humans announced its transfer to Broadway next year. It will be fascinating to see if this disturbing, unflinching look at the way we live now succeeds on the Great White Way.
Thérèse Raquin: Oct. 29—Jan. 3, 2016. Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., NYC. Tue.—Sat., 8 p.m.; Wed., Sat., Sun., 2 p.m. Running time: two hours and 30 mins. including intermission; $47—$137; (212) 719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org.
The Humans: Oct. 25—Dec. 27 (then moving to Broadway with dates and theater TBA). Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre, Harold and Miriam Sternberg Center for the Theatre, 111 W. 46th St., NYC. Tue.—Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Wed., Sat., Sun., 2 p.m. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission; $99; (212) 719-1300 or www.roundabouttheatre.org.
TagsEmile ZolaJudith LightKeira KnightleyMatt RyanRoundabout Theatre CompanyStephen KaramThe HumansTherese Raquin
Art Takes Control
Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate for the Masses
David Sheward
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David Sheward is a respected writer, editor, and critic. He is the former executive editor and theater critic for Back Stage, the actors' resource. He has published three books on show business: Rage and Glory: The Volatile Life and Career of George C. Scott, It's a Hit! The Back Stage Book of Broadway's Longest-Running Shows and The Big Book of Show Business Awards. He served as president of the Drama Desk, the organization of New York-based theater critics, editors and reporters for seven years. He's also a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle, the Outer Critics Circle and the American Theater Critics Association where he currently is a member of the organization's New Play Committee. For over ten years, he was a contributing correspondent on NY-1 News' weekly theater show On Stage. In addition to his blog, which you can access from the link above, David also provides Broadway walking tours: http://criticschoicetours.com/
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A FORMER Royal Marines Commando has driven a taxi for nine years to pay his way through university as he bids to become an established TV documentary maker.
Mature student Matt Jones, 51, has got behind the wheel of a black cab nearly every night to fund his studies at Edinburgh Napier and buy his own film studio and equipment.
His dedication and years of sacrifice paid off yesterday as he joined classmates at a ceremony in the Usher Hall to graduate with a First Class BA (Honours) in Television.
Matt said: "The TV course has been a brilliant journey.
"Colleagues often ask where I find my energy, and sometimes I have to ask myself the same thing, especially at 4am when I have forgotten to go to bed. Perhaps my endurance and resilience comes from my 12 years as a commando.
Matt added: "It was easy to feel envious of weekend revellers partying in the back of my taxi, but I went home with money in my pocket to pay for my education.
Matt – the uncle of the Scotland rugby team's Calcutta Cup double try scoring hero Huw Jones – joined the Royal Marines Commandos as a teenager, seeing active service in Northern Ireland, The Gulf and on anti-drugs and anti-piracy missions in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and South China Seas.
Even as a young man he was creating films and training videos, and the TV bug never went away as he went on to run his own businesses.
The nine years he has spent driving taxis, as well as supporting his studies and his three sons, have enabled him to build his own film studio and edit suite at his home in Longniddry, East Lothian.
He has already completed a music production with National Museums Scotland for a new exhibition on Scottish pop from the 1950s to present day. Classical music enthusiast and trumpet player Matt has also worked on a documentary about Felix Mendelssohn and is currently working on Fryderyk Chopin.
Now, following his graduation, he can't wait to get his documentary career underway in earnest.
He said: "Whilst studying I have been coached and trained by lecturers who are well-known in the industry, and it has been wonderful to benefit from their experience.
The Jones family have not finished with Edinburgh Napier though. Matt's youngest son Louis, 18, has just completed his first year of a degree in Building Surveying, and his middle son, Oliver, 21, has also just completed a three-year Fine Arts course with the Atelier School in Leith.
Dr Kirsten MacLeod, programme leader for BA (Hons) Television, said: "Matt has been an enthusiastic and committed student who has really made the most of his time at Edinburgh Napier to expand his knowledge and skills and to gain work experience.


In a decision that leaves us with mixed emotions, Lindsay Collins has elected to participate in this year's World's Greatest Shave and rid himself of his infamous mullet.
The massive positive to come from this decision is that all the proceeds raised from the shave will be donated to the Leukaemia Foundation.
Lindsay has raised nearly $500 so far, but there's still a ways to go to reach the end goal of $2,000 and beyond.
Support Lindsay and donate to the cause by CLICKING HERE.
He spoke to RoostersTV about the decision above.


I'm still playing with the Windows 8 beta – er, sorry, "Consumer Preview" — and exploring its details. However, first impressions are important, and I think I have a few key observations to make.
Last year, I downloaded the developer preview when it became available. I didn't spend too much time with it, because it was obvious how early of a build it was. Still, the Metro interface was promising, and the few apps that were available showed great promise.
One big complaint about the developer preview, though, was how much it relied on touch. You could use a mouse and a keyboard, sure, but they were second-class citizens. On the one hand, this was good: Microsoft desperately needed a good touch interface, and there was nothing better than Metro. But on the other hand, it was awkward to use on a traditional computer. Considering that this was the next version of Windows, that was a major problem.
Sinofsky's concern, however, is ensuring developers are on the same page, designing Metro apps that work just as well on touchscreens as they do with a mouse.
"The goal should be that the operating system scales with you," added Sinofsky.
"That's what we mean by a no-compromise experience."
For the Consumer Preview, they took many steps to help make the Metro interface more intuitive for the keyboard and mouse, so that there were no compromises. But were they successful?
Last week, my Macbook Pro hard drive suddenly died after about two years of dedicated service. While it's a bit surprising, I did push the little guy pretty hard – I regularly run OS X alongside Windows 7 on VMWare, and I keep both platforms busy. Considering the VM is actually running off the Boot Camp partition, it's a lot of work for the drive. But I digress.
I've been running Time Machine for a while, so I was hoping that I could restore its most recent backup onto my replacement hard drive. There was just one snag, and I knew this would be an issue: my Time Machine backups are stored on my Windows Home Server. As you can imagine, doing this is a bit of a hack (here are some instructions if you don't know how to do this yet). And as I'm sure you can also imagine, doing a hack like this makes a "normal" Time Machine restore impossible.
What I mean by "normal" is that if you boot off the OS X installation disk, you can choose to restore a Time Machine backup instead of installing a brand new copy of the operating system. When you choose this option, it scans for a Time Machine backup – but only the locations it supports, like external hard drives or Time Capsules.
Now, sure, you could probably copy the Time Machine backup on your WHS to an external drive, since the backup on the WHS is essentially just a disk image. But I didn't have an external drive large enough to spare – and besides, there must be a better way.
Install a brand spanking new copy of OS X. Make a throw-away account when you're prompted to create your first account. I named mine "Admin".
Run Migration Assistant. This tool is located under Applications –> Utilities on your Mac hard drive. Start it up, and read the intro if you'd like. Click Continue when you're ready. Choose the "From a Time Machine backup or other disk" option, and click Continue. If you were able to mount the disk image in step #2, then it should be an option to choose from. Select it and Continue.
Restore the backup. The last screen shows you the available items to restore, and how much space they'll take up. If you created the throw-away account in step #1, then there should be no conflicts with restoring your real account from the Time Machine backup. Select what you do or do not want to restore, and then click Continue. The restore can take a while depending on how much data you have.
That's it! When it finishes, your account should be back to the way it was, exactly as you left it (as of the last Time Machine backup). You can now throw away your throw-away account, or leave it as a battle scar.
Paul Thurrott recently wrote up an excellent article about how to replace your hard drive, but keeping your OS install completely intact. The secret is using Windows 7's backup "system image" feature to create a complete, bootable image of your old drive, then restore it onto the new drive. Check out the full article for the details.
But I always end up making things more difficult for myself. When I was faced with a similar situation, I ended up taking a different route.
A week ago today, FedEx dropped off my shiny new laptop, direct from China. Since then, I've been hurriedly prepping it and setting it up to see how well it would fit into my digital world – especially since that world is mostly Windows-based.
The "too much text, didn't read" version is that Windows 7 and Mac OS X coexist very nicely. There are certainly frustrations in doing so, however – you have to be willing to work through the issues. I also don't think MBP is the ideal solution if Windows is the only operating system you plan on using. But as a laptop, the machine is stellar. And for running both Windows and OS X, the choice is obvious (not that there is much of a choice). Read on for the nitty gritty.