Adonis Diaries

Posts Tagged ‘WWI’

Tidbits and notes posted on FB and Twitter. Part 201

Posted by: on: May 27, 2018

Tidbits and notes posted on FB and Twitter. Part 201

Note: I take notes of books I read and comment on events and edit sentences that fit my style. I pa attention to researched documentaries and serious links I receive. The page is long and growing like crazy, and the sections I post contains a month-old events that are worth refreshing your memory.

The deep reason for Brexit was that in the last 2 decades, the British establishment went through deep depression as Germany dominated Europe in economic development and world export market share. England started WWI because Germany became #2 in world export after USA

The rationale of depressed British establishment for quitting EU was: “If there is no way to catch up with Germany, it is better for our sanity to lick our wounds in isolation”

In a complicated night dream, I handed a friend a $5,000 bill (does it exist?). He busted his ass to gather me some change which amounted to $30. My lucid dream got me working 3 minimum jobs to make ends meet.  Woke up relaxed

Suppose Palestinian teenage girl 3ahd Tamimi was Not a white blonde girl? Would a dark skinned girl wearing a veil Not be already handicapped by soldiers at age 10 when she refused to blink first?

“L’Ecume des Jours” by Boris Vian. A beautiful title that I keep forgetting.

Les cannoniéres Israeliennes se sont données a Coeur joie, bombardant le camps Palestinien de Rashidiya en 1982. Elles auraient pu bombarder toute une journée, mais la politique limite le nombre des victims.

The various factions among Shias and Sunnis have always been political in nature: positions according to the power-to-be. The Sunnis sided with the Caliph of Islam, regardless of Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid… The Shias were considered the heretic opposition factions because they opposed the Caliph.

Elle avait des yeux oú il faisait si bon vivre que je n’ ai jamais su oú aller depuis.

Begun in 2005 by the largest trade union federations and organizations in Palestinian society, B.D.S. calls for ending Israel’s 1967 occupation, “recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality,” and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes and lands from which they were forcibly dispossessed, displaced and transferred to Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in 1948.

Since Hezbollah is the most powerful political and social movement in Lebanon in number, organization, military training, and in readiness, it has the potential to either drive Lebanon to a secular democratic system or strengthen the multi-theocratic structure that the Lebanese have been subjugated to since independence in 1943.

Estafeed min zafaraatikat al tawilat wa anta waa3i. Kteer ma bi sorlon yozforo wa2t al abadiyyat, min mashaakel wa tasa2oulaat hal denyyeh

Estejdaa2 colonial powers yastalzem mouwazanat lel Dawlet

Internal security Officer Khashfeh is back among the Mouyamimeen bil kahrabat? Kaal kellon ekhweto wa wlado: a3taked biyodrob wlado bil bayt kamaan

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30 Millions Locusts hits Egypt as Easter approaches

Posted by: on: March 7, 2013

Millions (more than 30) Locusts hits Egypt as Easter and Passover approach

Do you think the troubles in the Middle East are way too bad?

Threats of nuclear weapons, civil wars, insurrections, political intrigue, religious violence, terrorist jihadist Wahhabi movements, absolute monarchies, military dictatorship… And Egypt is experiencing a plague of locusts.

Joel C Rosenberg posted on March 4, 2013: “30 million locusts hits Egypt as Passover approaches. Mideast troubles take a Biblical twist”

locusts 

“A plague of over 30 million locusts swarmed over Egypt’s cities and farms just three weeks before Passover begins,” reports The Atlantic magazine.

“This happens every year as part of the locusts’ natural migration pattern, though this year’s swarm is especially large. That doesn’t mean Egyptians aren’t freaked the heck out by millions of nasty bugs buzzing through the air at all hours of day and night, possibly descending upon the agriculture fields where they’re known to destroy entire crops, just like in the actual Passover story.”

Other reports are popping up on CBS News  and MSNBC, and in the Times of Israel,Haaretz, and other publications in the Middle East.

“The crops are so far safe, Egyptian officials assured the public,” The Atlantic reports. “As the plague made its way from the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia at the end of last week and this weekend”.

Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abdel Moamen explained the situation to the country in a calmly worded statement. ‘The current inspection teams at areas targeted by locusts did not witness swarms damaging a single inch of crop,’ said Moamen. He added that the locusts are ‘sexually immature and do not depend on plants for energy since they mainly rely on fat stores.’”

“That said, these plagues can be unpredictable,” notes The Atlantic. “Egyptian officials didn’t expect the plague to pass by the country’s capital. And by Sunday the locusts unexpectedly arrived in Cairo.

The government denied reports that the locusts had started devastating crops as well as a report from United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that the Ministry of Agriculture cleared 11,000 hectares of land in an attempt to save the harvest.

When they get hungry, a one-ton hoard of locusts can eat the same amount of food in one day as 2,500 humans, according to the UN. Egypt knows this too.

Less than a decade ago, a plague of locusts nearly 40 miles wide swept over Egypt damaging crops at the majority of the country’s farms.

Note 1: It appears that the vast island of Madagascar on the Indian Ocean and in East Africa is the hardest hit by the locust calamity.

Note 2: Lebanon witnessed a locust “hazard” in 1915, and for 3 months ate the dry and the green, adding to the famine generated by the WWI when the Turkish army confiscated all food and able men to the war machine. Almost a fourth of Lebanon population died of famine and consequent illnesses, particularly in the mountain districts of Betroun and Jbeil where half the people in towns perished.

Note 3: I read that locust is your regular normal critter that transforms into a devouring insect when conditions are appropriate.

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In the war fields. “Voyage to the end of the night” By Ferdinand Celine, Part 5

Posted by: on: September 19, 2012

Part 5. “Voyage to the end of the night” By Ferdinand Celine

Note: Ferdinand Celine volunteered in WWI, was seriously injured in the first year.  Many authors vouched that this book was the most truthful in describing wars , the soldiers, the military, and its calamities, with direct, ironic writing, and new words and vocabulary that obfuscated the military and brought the ire of many “patriotic” people in France

Here are a few collection of statements and opinions by Celine:

Bravery is suspicious in wartime as well as in peacetime. Is a maggot brave? Rosy, pale, and soft: Similar to mankind, the maggot.

The war has lasted over a month by now. We were so tired and miserable that we lost a little of the fear on the roads.

We have been tortured by the top officers and by the subordinates, a condition that removed the last shred of hesitation to continue surviving. All that I wanted was to sleep, anywhere, anytime…

It required many cruel situations for our brain to allow one thought to make a complete rotation, paying quick visits to the convoluted crevices in the brain.

I never ceased wondering if the officers lacked battlefield maps and cards, would they be that pressured to send hundreds to their deadly fate?

It was the end of a dry summer, and villages were burning. Little villages on little hills, which we couldn’t locate in daytime, were fantastic apparition at night, burning down all night-long. Within a month, all villages were torched to the ground, churches, barns, trees…

Civilians had a one-way exit from the region, and the heavy artillery used the exclusive opposite direction. Even the General had to sleep in the open air, and morale sank to its lowest level, and the army began executing those too tired soldiers in order to “elevate” the morale of the remaining hopeless souls…

We advanced north, while the cold followed in our steps.

We were supposed to be searching for the Germans, and as we stumbled on a few of them haphazardly, we made a long detour to side-step them, the further away from the Germans the more secure the search and reconnaissance mission…

Squad leader Bardamu (the author) was ordered by Captain Orlotan to search for the remaining German soldiers lost in the region. Orlotan was on cocaine and seemed indefatigable, sending troops to certain death. Orlotan collaborated with death under contract, and he could barely walk: He broke so many bones in horse riding contests. On his weak legs and walking stooped, Orlotan resembled the ghost of the rear part of his horse…

The best guide to finding our ways was the odor of shit, of every conceivable living organism…The only exit for the crazed cats, from the constant bombardment, was to run and get drowned in any poodle of water…

You are hit, and still you keep picking up old sandals found on the road. The sheep is badly wounded, and resumes grazing, more and more grazing until it dies.

I was not wise at all, but I finally learned to be practical and a coward: I radiated calmness, which impressed my superiors and sent me on reconnaissance missions, all by myself…These missions seemed welcomed vacations, a fictitious deliverance…

After the war ended, everyone wanted to display his uniform, including the nurses, except the neutral and spies: Two buttocks in the same pant. The ridicule of this mass massacre was dawning on everyone. It was hard feeling proud, returning from the front, and naturally engaging in more murders as a reaction of our deep shame…

The old General had two grown up girls, and unmarried. It was because of this recollection that he got this habit of growing older than normal and constantly grumbling.  The binoculars hanged to his neck as the cow bell. He couldn’t suffer to be bothered, like an old dog who can’t wait to crawl between the pillows inside his basket.

Nothing like Generals to love roses..

I wished to be made prisoner. But how to go about it? You have an enemy, from the farthest part, deep in Europe and who hate you for obscure reasons, and what could I say to him as introduction in the split-second before he fires on me? Like: “what job you practiced before the war? Are you married with children?…”

I entered a village. It was empty. I owned the entire village, its moon, and a humongous fear…

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