The Black Cherokee

In one of the first posts I did here I talked about the Black Cherokee, descendents of slaves owned by the Cherokee prior to the Civil War. After they were freed, they stayed affiliated with the tribe in Oklahoma and many were accepted onto tribal rolls. Today’s NY Times has an editorial titled “The Shame of the Cherokee” that reports the tribe has voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of 2,800 Black Cherokee and calls for Federal sanctions against the tribe. In my earlier post I pointed out that many tribes in California were expelling members to increase the the casino money shares of the remaining members. This would appear to be another sad story of that type, more unintended consequences of Indian gaming.

Greener Guns and Books

The first William Greener started an English gunmaking dynasty that still lives on. (English guns at least have not yet declined and fallen, though affording a new one can be difficult).

I own one of Greener’s products, a 10- bore Damascus duck gun from the 1880’s, still in service. (I got it from the vaults of Kirby Hoyt’s Vintage Guns).

It has far finer engraving than most wildfowl guns, on the distinctive sculpted “Facile Princeps” Greener action.


The first William wrote the first of several gun books that his family created , one of which is still in print.

The first edition was called “Greener on Gunnery” and came out in 1831.


A couple of years ago my friend Jeff Nicoll, physicist, arms negotiator, Virginia gentleman, and all- round scholar, conceived of the odd idea that we should have an entry for a word in the Oxford English Dictionary. He thought the proper term “Best Gun”, as in London Best, should be that word, and asked me to find an early reference. I did, in the original Greener. Jeff decided to get a copy, and when we were done, he gave it to me.

But being as it was Jeff, it was no “ordinary” copy. For one thing, it had the bookplate of the legendary cricketer W. R. Grace.

But Jeff also knows my Russophily, so I guess he figured the inscription from the first William to “The Emperor of all the Russias” might please me too.


I don’t think I ever had as moving a gift– scholarship, guns, books, and history. Thanks, Jeff!

Thinking Blogger Meme

Chas, at his Hardscrabble Creek Blog, has tagged me with the “Thinking Blogger” meme. Ouch! I read many (too many) blogs and have many friends among them. I don’t know that all make me THINK in the sense of change my perception– some just delight me– but some do. More than five though…

Chas himself at Hardscrabble. A teacher of writing and comparative religion who is also a hunter, dog man, gun nut, and practicing Pagan?

Darren. I have learned more new evo- bio and taxonomy from him than anyone but Jonathan Kingdon.

Pluvialis. LANGUAGE!

Mary. Can there be such thing as a wise female curmudgeon?

Rod: A Green Orthodox anti- war conservative. And he’s still a relative kid!

Patrick: another curmudgeon. Tough love for hunters.

Doc. Letters from the cyber edge, plus art, hawks, dogs & frogs.

A new one: Clio: Canadian Catholic pop (and high) culture muse.

That’ll do for this week…

Lesbian Clone Lizards..

.. is what Libby and I call Cnemidiphorus neomexicanus and her relatives. We are not being rude, but literal. Neomexicanus is described on page 319 of the newest edition of the Peterson Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians as being “ALL FEMALE”.

Patrick explains:

“For example, believe it or not, there are no male Whiptail Lizards; all Whiptail Lizards are female, and all are natural clones.

“What happens here is that two female Whiptail Lizards will engage in “pseudocopulation” in which one female gets on top of another and grinds away like a male, and then they reverse their respective roles. This activity stimulates egg production in both lizards, which then lay fertile eggs.”

From an evolutionary viewpoint this can be a problem– virgin births= parthenogenesis= clones= no variation. From a practical point of view, at least in this environment, it appears to mean little– I could go into the side yard and find one in a minute flat. Maybe I’ll get a photo later.

Buffalo Poem

Tom McIntyre sends this great Yoruba poem (song?) on Cape Buffalo.

The buffalo is the death
that makes a child climb a thorn tree.
When the buffalo dies in the forest
the head of the household is hiding in the roof.
When the hunter meets the buffalo
he promises never to hunt again.
He will cry out: “I only borrowed the gun!
I only look after it for my friend!”
Little he cares about your hunting medicines:
he carries two knives on his head,
little he cares about your danegun,
he wears the thickest skin.
He is the butterfly of the savannah:
he flies along without touching the grass,
When you hear the thunder without rain˜
it is the buffalo approaching.

“Dane Gun”? A friend of his checked it out:

“It would appear that the danegun was part of the slave trade, perhaps made in Denmark and then carried to Africa to be traded for human cargo, and subsequently put to use to round up more Africans for the plantations of the West Indies and North America (the Danes had an island or two out there). These guns are still around–I found contemporary uses of the word without definitions, including one about a juju to create “poison” gunpowder which would ruin the Danegun. Flints for the Brown Bess are still being manufactured in India to accommodate all of the muskets still floating around, so it wouldnt be too much to assume that Daneguns are still in the hands of folks in Yoruba land.

Doom

England is having a bad week. First, from The Daily Mail (HT Maggie’s Farm): omnipresent video cameras:

“Britain has more than 4 million closed-circuit security cameras, more than any other Western democracy.

“Police say the average Briton is on as many as 300 cameras every day, usually unaware.

“The density of surveillance is significantly higher than in any other Western democracy, says Jen Corlew, spokeswoman for Liberty, a London-based human rights group.”

(Snip)

” “We appreciate that the cameras and some of the other measures are seen as invasive, but only people who really have something to worry about should be concerned,” David Morgan, a Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent, said on a tour of the bunker.

“As he spoke, a series of seemingly private moments unfolded – ranging from a young couple stepping into the shadows for a kiss to a driver sneaking into a restricted bus lane.”

Dr Hypercube has some interesting observations on life in an information- rich environment (please Read The Whole Thing):

“All this is fine as I wander around documenting what I want to document, writing what I feel like writing. But (there’s always a but), here comes Monty! Who is Monty, you ask? He is the cat in the window. A new feature of Google Maps provides street level zooms for select urban areas – the Google folks have vehicles driving around cities taking pictures. When the Google car came by, Monty was sitting in his normal perch. Later, when Google rolled out the new feature, Monty’s owner took a look at her neighborhood, saw her cat in her window, and got a little – understandably in my book – freaked.”

And then there is the matter of park bench height.

“Did you see that Park benches across the UK will have to be replaced at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds – because they are too low? Under new “health and safety” laws, benches must be more than 17.75 inches high so the elderly and disabled can get off them easily. The new rules came to light after Bramcote Crematorium in Nottinghamshire was told by officials from the local Broxtowe council to replace 40 memorial benches costing £400 each.

“An inspector found that the benches were 14.75in high – 3in lower than the “allowed minimum” height and 5in lower than the “optimum” height. The crematorium has also been ordered to pay a further £200,000 for lighting, because, under the same legislation, the new benches must be lit at night.”

And just maybe, a creeping vegan cabal (this one sounds like it comes from the Onion but….)

And of course, the lords and masters don’t want us drinking wine anymore (“We want to target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening,” a Whitehall source said. “They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease. We are not talking here about the traditional wino.”)

Or letting flyers put pinups on bombers.

I read the first volume of Manchester’s “Last Lion” bio of Churchill last week. When tasked with “living in the past” Churchill replied that he would rather live in the past than the future as the future “looked to be not much fun”. Hmmm…

On the other hand and as a small ray of hope, someone in PC Canada has revolted against their intrusive gun questions.

“My friend, noted Quebec academic and author Pierre Lemieux, submitted his firearms licence-renewal application directly to the Prime Minister’s office this week. “Mr. Prime Minister,” he wrote in a covering letter enclosing his Form 979, “I would like to suggest that you should enforce your own “laws” yourself. You will note that, as a proud descendant of the disobedient French Canadian coureurs de bois, I have not answered one of the form’s indiscreet and obscene questions. I answered that my love affairs are none of your business.” (Form 979 asks, among other things, about recently ended romantic relationships.)”

The writer goes on to say– in Canada!–:

“The problem is that gun control in any form practical in a free society — certainly in any form currently proposed or practised in Canada or the U.S., such as demanding details about Professor Lemieux’s love life — doesn’t keep guns away from criminals. It only keeps guns away from law-abiding citizens. Interfering with the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and carry arms does nothing to reduce violence in the street.

“Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens pose little danger to public safety. (Less danger, to be statistically precise, than unattended swimming pools.)”

The spirit of churchill may yet be alive in the Anglosphere, if not in the UK.

Update re pinups: “Officials admitted they had no record of any complaints from the 5,400 women in the RAF.”

Goats Love Kudzu

I couldn’t pass up this piece in the NY Times on the city of Chattanooga’s use of goats to control kudzu, that invasive vine that grows a foot a day and that covers large areas of the South. Us native Southerners have kudzu as part of our heritage, along with grits and barbecue.