Sunday, May 25, 2014
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Paradine v. Jane; Aleyn 26, 82 Eng. Rep. 897 (K.B. 1647)
In debt the plaintiff declares upon a lease for years rendering rent at the four usual feasts; and for rent behind for three years, ending at the Feast of the Annunciation, 21 Car. [1646] brings his action; the defendant pleads, that a certain German prince, by name Prince Rupert, an alien born, enemy to the King and his kingdom, had invaded the realm with an hostile army of men; and with the same force did enter upon the defendant’s possession, and him expelled, and held out of possession from the 19 of July 18 Car. [1642] till the Feast of the Annunciation, 21 Car. whereby he could not take the profits; whereupon the plaintiff demurred, and the plea was resolved insufficient.
1. Because the defendant hath not answered to one quarters rent.
2. He hath not averred that the enemy were all aliens, which shall not be intended, and then he hath his remedy against them; and Bacon cited 33 H. 6.1. e where the gaoler in bar of an escape pleaded that alien enemies broke the prison &c. and exception taken to it, for that he ought to shew of what country they were, viz. Scots, &c.
3. It was resolved, that the matter of the plea was insufficient; for though the whole army had been alien enemies, yet he ought to pay his rent. And this difference was taken, that where the law creates a duty or charge, and the party is disabled to perform it without any default in him, and hath no remedy over, there the law will excuse him. As in the case of waste, if a house be destroyed by tempest, or by enemies, the lessee is excused, Dyer, 33 a. Inst. 53, d. 283, a. 12 H. 4.6. so of an escape. Co. 4.84. b. 33 H. 6. 1. So in 9 E. 3.16 a supersedeas was awarded to the justices, that they should not proceed in a cessavit upon a cesser during the war, but when the party by his own contract creates a duty or charge upon himself, he is bound to make it good, if he may, not withstanding any accident by inevitable necessity, because he might have provided against it by his contract. And therefore if the lessee covenant to repair a house, though it be burnt by lightening, or thrown down by enemies, yet he ought to repair it. Dyer 33. a. 40 E. Ill. 6. h. Now the rent is a duty created by the parties upon the reservation, and had there been a covenant to pay it, there had been no question but the lessee must have made it good, notwithstanding the interruption by enemies, for the law would not protect him beyond his own agreement, no more than in the case of the reparations; this reservation then being a covenant in law, and whereupon an action of covenant hath been maintained (as Roll said) it is all one as if there had been an actual covenant. Another reason was added, that as the lessee is to have the advantage of casual profits, so he must run the hazard of casual losses, and not lay the whole burthen of them upon his lessor; and Dyer 56.6 was cited for this purpose, that though the land be surrounded, or gained by the sea, or made barren by wildfire, yet the lessor shall have his whole rent; and judgment was given for the plaintiff.
1. Because the defendant hath not answered to one quarters rent.
2. He hath not averred that the enemy were all aliens, which shall not be intended, and then he hath his remedy against them; and Bacon cited 33 H. 6.1. e where the gaoler in bar of an escape pleaded that alien enemies broke the prison &c. and exception taken to it, for that he ought to shew of what country they were, viz. Scots, &c.
3. It was resolved, that the matter of the plea was insufficient; for though the whole army had been alien enemies, yet he ought to pay his rent. And this difference was taken, that where the law creates a duty or charge, and the party is disabled to perform it without any default in him, and hath no remedy over, there the law will excuse him. As in the case of waste, if a house be destroyed by tempest, or by enemies, the lessee is excused, Dyer, 33 a. Inst. 53, d. 283, a. 12 H. 4.6. so of an escape. Co. 4.84. b. 33 H. 6. 1. So in 9 E. 3.16 a supersedeas was awarded to the justices, that they should not proceed in a cessavit upon a cesser during the war, but when the party by his own contract creates a duty or charge upon himself, he is bound to make it good, if he may, not withstanding any accident by inevitable necessity, because he might have provided against it by his contract. And therefore if the lessee covenant to repair a house, though it be burnt by lightening, or thrown down by enemies, yet he ought to repair it. Dyer 33. a. 40 E. Ill. 6. h. Now the rent is a duty created by the parties upon the reservation, and had there been a covenant to pay it, there had been no question but the lessee must have made it good, notwithstanding the interruption by enemies, for the law would not protect him beyond his own agreement, no more than in the case of the reparations; this reservation then being a covenant in law, and whereupon an action of covenant hath been maintained (as Roll said) it is all one as if there had been an actual covenant. Another reason was added, that as the lessee is to have the advantage of casual profits, so he must run the hazard of casual losses, and not lay the whole burthen of them upon his lessor; and Dyer 56.6 was cited for this purpose, that though the land be surrounded, or gained by the sea, or made barren by wildfire, yet the lessor shall have his whole rent; and judgment was given for the plaintiff.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Angelus Novus (1920)
A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. - Walter Benjamin
Monday, May 19, 2014
Ordinal Numbers
The set N of natural numbers is naturally ordered: 1, 2, 3, 4, ... But this is not the only order the numbers may be arranged in. For example, the famous Sarkovskii's theorem lists the natural numbers starting with all the odd numbers, followed by the odd numbers times the increased powers of two (a power of 2 at a time) and closing by the powers of 2 in the decreasing order:
3, 5, 7, ...,
2·3, 2·5, 2·7, ...,
2²·3, 2²·5, 2²·7, ...,
... 2³, 2², 2, 1.
(The theorem states that if a real function f: R → R has an orbit of period n and m comes after n in the above ordering, then f has an orbit of period m.)
Another curious order comes from the enumeration of rational numbers. If rn is the nth rational number according to a particular enumeration we may define a total dense order on the set N of natural numbers.
However, here we are concerned only with well orderings of N. The term for an ordering of a well ordered set is ordinal number or just ordinal.
The natural order of N is denoted ω and is the first transfinite ordinal. Every positive integer is a finite ordinal.
If a well-ordered set A with the ordinal α is similar to a subset of a well-ordered set B with the ordinal β then, by definition, α ≤ β. In particular, for every finite n, n ≤ ω. However, since there is no injection, let alone an order-preserving one, from N into a finite set, we may claim that n ≠ ωand n < ω.
3, 5, 7, ...,
2·3, 2·5, 2·7, ...,
2²·3, 2²·5, 2²·7, ...,
... 2³, 2², 2, 1.
(The theorem states that if a real function f: R → R has an orbit of period n and m comes after n in the above ordering, then f has an orbit of period m.)
Another curious order comes from the enumeration of rational numbers. If rn is the nth rational number according to a particular enumeration we may define a total dense order on the set N of natural numbers.
However, here we are concerned only with well orderings of N. The term for an ordering of a well ordered set is ordinal number or just ordinal.
The natural order of N is denoted ω and is the first transfinite ordinal. Every positive integer is a finite ordinal.
If a well-ordered set A with the ordinal α is similar to a subset of a well-ordered set B with the ordinal β then, by definition, α ≤ β. In particular, for every finite n, n ≤ ω. However, since there is no injection, let alone an order-preserving one, from N into a finite set, we may claim that n ≠ ωand n < ω.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Friday, May 16, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
The Russian Conquest of Central Asia in the 19th Century
http://www.karakalpak.com/histrussia.html
By now the British were well aware of Russian ambitions in Central Asia and of the possible risk to India. The Great Game was well under way with British and Russian spies criss-crossing Central Asia to gather intelligence for their respective governments. The British sent Connolly to spy on Khiva but his mission had to be aborted after robbers attacked him in the desert. "Bukhara" Burnes successfully reached Bukhara and Pottinger became a hero after assisting Herat to overcome a siege by the Shah of Persia. The British were not quite so concerned about Persia gaining a foothold in Afghanistan – gunboat diplomacy was enough to warn the Persians off. Their real concern was Russia and in 1839 they decided to take control of Afghanistan themselves, conquering Ghazni (ancient Ghazna) and establishing a garrison in Kabul. India was now protected by a formidable defensive buttress.
Britain's increasingly aggressive stance had alarmed the Russians, who in any event had decided that the time was right to take Khiva. With the approach of winter General Perovsky set out from Orenburg with a force of 5,000 men, 2,000 horses and 10,000 camels, under the guise of freeing the Russian slaves. He was armed with 22 guns and a rocket battery. He had chosen this time of year to make sure that there would be sufficient water for his men and animals, hoping to arrive in Khiva before the weather deteriorated badly. However 1839 turned out to have one of the earliest and most severe winters in living memory. By January Perovsky was only half-way there, bogged down in snow and ice, losing men from frostbite and with his camels dying at the alarming rate of 100 a day. On 1 February he gave the order to retreat but did not get back to Orenburg until May, his progress and supplies being disrupted by the constant snowstorms and whirlwinds. He had lost 1,000 men and 8,500 camels and had not even fired a shot in anger.
The British spy network had long ago passed news of the intended Russian mission back to London, and at the end of 1839 Captain Abbott had been sent on a reconnaissance mission from Herat to Khiva, travelling via Merv. Abbott arrived in mid-winter with a message of friendship from the British Envoy at Herat, along with modest gifts of firearms. He found Allah Quli Khan to be an amiable man, aged about 45, with a rather timid manner and a lack of vigour. The Khan, fully aware of the Russian advance, was disappointed that Abbott had come without any offer of British military assistance. The Khan was totally ignorant of Britain or its Empire, finding it hard to take a country with a female head of state seriously. It soon became clear to Abbott that the Khivans had little concept of either Russian or British military power, or even of the general geography of Eurasia – Abbott was amazed to see the Khan refer to a local map on which Italy was located to the north of Britain and China was located to the north of Russia! After much questioning and evasion Abbott discovered that the Russians had advanced from Orenburg to Emba and had then sent a detachment of troops forward to entrench themselves to the north-west of the Aral Sea. Meanwhile the Khan had dispatched an army on horseback, ridiculously claimed to be 40,000 strong, up the west coast of the Aral Sea, where they had encountered heavy snow. An advance party of Turkmen had attempted to seize the cattle from the advance post of the Russians, only to have been spotted and picked off like flies by the Russian fusiliers. Meanwhile many members of the main Khivan army had been mutilated by the intense cold and its commander had sought the Khan's permission to retreat to Qon'ırat.
Abbott argued that if Khiva was to seek British assistance it would first have to release all of the Russian citizens enslaved in Khorezm. However, when the Khan asked for assurances that such a release would stop the Russian advance, Abbott was unable to offer anything in return. He had come to Khiva on the spur of the moment, without even any credentials from the government of India. After some delay he finally departed empty-handed in late March, travelling to Dashoguz, then across the Ustyurt to Novo Aleksandrovsk, up the Caspian and thence to Orenburg. Here he not only discovered that the Russian invasion force had been recalled to Orenburg, but was introduced to, and entertained by, General Perovsky himself. Before leaving for Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Captain Abbott also discovered that the Russians seemed to be making preparations for another assault on Khiva later that year.
Meanwhile a young 28-year-old, Lieutenant Shakespeare, had been sent to Khiva to check on Abbott's progress, only to arrive after his departure. Although the Khan was now in good spirits, having heard news of the Russian disaster, he was also concerned about what Russia would do next. By now the local population were aware of the Russian advance on Khiva, news that the Khan turned to his advantage by spreading propaganda that the invaders had actually been slaughtered by his own forces just north of Qon'ırat.
Lieutenant Shakespeare struck up a good relationship with the Khan and convinced him that the Russians would not give up because of Perovsky's failure and would eventually send another expedition. His best defence was to release the Russian slaves and to issue orders forbidding the further capture or purchase of Russians. Although the Khan was reluctant to act, the British officer finally persuaded him to release 416 Russian slaves into his care, who Shakespeare subsequently escorted to General Perovsky in Orenburg – much to the chagrin of Tsar Nicholas I, who had just lost one of his main excuses for a further invasion.
The Tsar sent envoys to Khiva in 1841 and 1842, and a Colonel Danilevskiy finally succeeded in securing the first treaty between the two countries. The Khivans promised not to engage in hostilities with Russia, or to commit acts of robbery or piracy - promises that were not worth the paper they were printed on. However before Danilevskiy could leave Khiva, Allah Quli Khan died and was succeeded by his son, Rahim Quli (1842-46), who ruled for just a few years.
Danilevskiy recorded various statistics on the province, which indicate its small size and dilapidated state at that time. The population of Khiva was about 4,000, virtually all Sarts, while the population of (New) Urgench was about 2,000, composed mainly of Sarts and a few Uzbeks. The rectangular wall around the latter city was in ruins with only the corner towers and two collapsed stone gates remaining. The town had 300 houses, 15 mosques, 2 medressehs and 320 shops. Shahabad had a house for the Khan with a garden, one mosque, up to 100 shops and some private houses. The walls were in ruins in many places. Gurlen had no wall at all and was densely built with 60 shops and three main mosques. The town of Kath had a rectangular wall, now in ruins, a single gate from the east, 50 houses and 40 shops, and no population – the town was deserted.
The major reconstruction of Khiva that had begun under Muhammad Rahim had continued under Allah Quli Khan. He built the majolica-tiled 163-room Tash Hauli Palace in 1830-32 using the best craftsmen available in Khorezm and the Allah Quli Khan Caravanserai and Bazaar nearby, although it is likely that Persian slaves did all of the hard work. The interior of the Kunya Ark was refurbished with a new mosque, and work began on the Allah Quli Khan and several other Medressehs. The defences of the Ichanqala were improved with the western Ata Darvaza (Master Gate) and the southern Tash Darvaza (Stone Gate), being rebuilt. The expansion of the city can be gauged from the need to build a new 6½-kilometre-long outer rampart around the outskirts of the town - the Dishan qala – entered by means of ten gates. Its purpose was to defend Khiva against Yomut Turkmen raids. Residents of the town were forced to work unpaid for 12 days a year to assist in its completion.
Allah Quli Khan was also responsible for building a brick palace at Dashoguz with a royal garden, close to the stone-encircled pond from which the town derived its name. Its purpose was to provide him with an overnight stopping place. Dashoguz was a walled town with three gates: the west, the south and the palace gate. It contained a mud-brick fort. Surrounded by rich farmland it was already a large residential centre with six mosques, many shops and workshops and a caravanserai.
The rapid development of Khiva at this time is evident from a secret map drawn by a Russian topographer, G. Zelenin, who arrived in Khiva with one of the delegations of ambassadors in 1841. Given Khivan suspicions about future Russian intentions, Zelenin had to produce his map undercover. Had he been caught his party would never have survived to tell the tale. It is said that he purchased two melons from the bazaar and wandered the town asking people about the names of the streets and lanes and the mosques and medressehs, secretly inscribing this information on the melon skins so that it could be transferred to his map in the evenings. The map showed the outer city wall was pear-shaped with the stem pointing westwards. The inner city was rectangular, 600 metres from east to west and 400 metres from north to south. The city then had 17 mosques, 22 lanes and 260 merchants' stalls along with medressehs, bazaars and caravanserais. Gardens, country estates, irrigation networks, fields and roads extended beyond the outer city walls.
Despite the major setback of Perovsky's mission, the Russian encirclement of Central Asia was gradually progressing. The earlier Russian forts along the eastern Caspian coast had been quickly abandoned after the demise of Bekovich's mission, so new garrisons were needed in the region. The construction of Fort Novo Aleksandrovsk had begun in Tsarevitch Bay on the eastern Caspian shore in 1833 and was followed by the construction of a chain of forts to the south-west of the Aral Sea, giving Russian forces increasing control of the Ustyurt. Fort Aleksandrovsk was later relocated to the western tip of the Mangishlaq peninsula. In 1847 the Russians built Fort Raim, a small hilltop fortification close to the mouth of the Syr Darya, which became the base for the new Aral Flotilla, established to undertake research work on the Aral Sea and its two river deltas.
By now the British were well aware of Russian ambitions in Central Asia and of the possible risk to India. The Great Game was well under way with British and Russian spies criss-crossing Central Asia to gather intelligence for their respective governments. The British sent Connolly to spy on Khiva but his mission had to be aborted after robbers attacked him in the desert. "Bukhara" Burnes successfully reached Bukhara and Pottinger became a hero after assisting Herat to overcome a siege by the Shah of Persia. The British were not quite so concerned about Persia gaining a foothold in Afghanistan – gunboat diplomacy was enough to warn the Persians off. Their real concern was Russia and in 1839 they decided to take control of Afghanistan themselves, conquering Ghazni (ancient Ghazna) and establishing a garrison in Kabul. India was now protected by a formidable defensive buttress.
Britain's increasingly aggressive stance had alarmed the Russians, who in any event had decided that the time was right to take Khiva. With the approach of winter General Perovsky set out from Orenburg with a force of 5,000 men, 2,000 horses and 10,000 camels, under the guise of freeing the Russian slaves. He was armed with 22 guns and a rocket battery. He had chosen this time of year to make sure that there would be sufficient water for his men and animals, hoping to arrive in Khiva before the weather deteriorated badly. However 1839 turned out to have one of the earliest and most severe winters in living memory. By January Perovsky was only half-way there, bogged down in snow and ice, losing men from frostbite and with his camels dying at the alarming rate of 100 a day. On 1 February he gave the order to retreat but did not get back to Orenburg until May, his progress and supplies being disrupted by the constant snowstorms and whirlwinds. He had lost 1,000 men and 8,500 camels and had not even fired a shot in anger.
The British spy network had long ago passed news of the intended Russian mission back to London, and at the end of 1839 Captain Abbott had been sent on a reconnaissance mission from Herat to Khiva, travelling via Merv. Abbott arrived in mid-winter with a message of friendship from the British Envoy at Herat, along with modest gifts of firearms. He found Allah Quli Khan to be an amiable man, aged about 45, with a rather timid manner and a lack of vigour. The Khan, fully aware of the Russian advance, was disappointed that Abbott had come without any offer of British military assistance. The Khan was totally ignorant of Britain or its Empire, finding it hard to take a country with a female head of state seriously. It soon became clear to Abbott that the Khivans had little concept of either Russian or British military power, or even of the general geography of Eurasia – Abbott was amazed to see the Khan refer to a local map on which Italy was located to the north of Britain and China was located to the north of Russia! After much questioning and evasion Abbott discovered that the Russians had advanced from Orenburg to Emba and had then sent a detachment of troops forward to entrench themselves to the north-west of the Aral Sea. Meanwhile the Khan had dispatched an army on horseback, ridiculously claimed to be 40,000 strong, up the west coast of the Aral Sea, where they had encountered heavy snow. An advance party of Turkmen had attempted to seize the cattle from the advance post of the Russians, only to have been spotted and picked off like flies by the Russian fusiliers. Meanwhile many members of the main Khivan army had been mutilated by the intense cold and its commander had sought the Khan's permission to retreat to Qon'ırat.
Abbott argued that if Khiva was to seek British assistance it would first have to release all of the Russian citizens enslaved in Khorezm. However, when the Khan asked for assurances that such a release would stop the Russian advance, Abbott was unable to offer anything in return. He had come to Khiva on the spur of the moment, without even any credentials from the government of India. After some delay he finally departed empty-handed in late March, travelling to Dashoguz, then across the Ustyurt to Novo Aleksandrovsk, up the Caspian and thence to Orenburg. Here he not only discovered that the Russian invasion force had been recalled to Orenburg, but was introduced to, and entertained by, General Perovsky himself. Before leaving for Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Captain Abbott also discovered that the Russians seemed to be making preparations for another assault on Khiva later that year.
Meanwhile a young 28-year-old, Lieutenant Shakespeare, had been sent to Khiva to check on Abbott's progress, only to arrive after his departure. Although the Khan was now in good spirits, having heard news of the Russian disaster, he was also concerned about what Russia would do next. By now the local population were aware of the Russian advance on Khiva, news that the Khan turned to his advantage by spreading propaganda that the invaders had actually been slaughtered by his own forces just north of Qon'ırat.
Lieutenant Shakespeare struck up a good relationship with the Khan and convinced him that the Russians would not give up because of Perovsky's failure and would eventually send another expedition. His best defence was to release the Russian slaves and to issue orders forbidding the further capture or purchase of Russians. Although the Khan was reluctant to act, the British officer finally persuaded him to release 416 Russian slaves into his care, who Shakespeare subsequently escorted to General Perovsky in Orenburg – much to the chagrin of Tsar Nicholas I, who had just lost one of his main excuses for a further invasion.
The Tsar sent envoys to Khiva in 1841 and 1842, and a Colonel Danilevskiy finally succeeded in securing the first treaty between the two countries. The Khivans promised not to engage in hostilities with Russia, or to commit acts of robbery or piracy - promises that were not worth the paper they were printed on. However before Danilevskiy could leave Khiva, Allah Quli Khan died and was succeeded by his son, Rahim Quli (1842-46), who ruled for just a few years.
Danilevskiy recorded various statistics on the province, which indicate its small size and dilapidated state at that time. The population of Khiva was about 4,000, virtually all Sarts, while the population of (New) Urgench was about 2,000, composed mainly of Sarts and a few Uzbeks. The rectangular wall around the latter city was in ruins with only the corner towers and two collapsed stone gates remaining. The town had 300 houses, 15 mosques, 2 medressehs and 320 shops. Shahabad had a house for the Khan with a garden, one mosque, up to 100 shops and some private houses. The walls were in ruins in many places. Gurlen had no wall at all and was densely built with 60 shops and three main mosques. The town of Kath had a rectangular wall, now in ruins, a single gate from the east, 50 houses and 40 shops, and no population – the town was deserted.
The major reconstruction of Khiva that had begun under Muhammad Rahim had continued under Allah Quli Khan. He built the majolica-tiled 163-room Tash Hauli Palace in 1830-32 using the best craftsmen available in Khorezm and the Allah Quli Khan Caravanserai and Bazaar nearby, although it is likely that Persian slaves did all of the hard work. The interior of the Kunya Ark was refurbished with a new mosque, and work began on the Allah Quli Khan and several other Medressehs. The defences of the Ichanqala were improved with the western Ata Darvaza (Master Gate) and the southern Tash Darvaza (Stone Gate), being rebuilt. The expansion of the city can be gauged from the need to build a new 6½-kilometre-long outer rampart around the outskirts of the town - the Dishan qala – entered by means of ten gates. Its purpose was to defend Khiva against Yomut Turkmen raids. Residents of the town were forced to work unpaid for 12 days a year to assist in its completion.
Allah Quli Khan was also responsible for building a brick palace at Dashoguz with a royal garden, close to the stone-encircled pond from which the town derived its name. Its purpose was to provide him with an overnight stopping place. Dashoguz was a walled town with three gates: the west, the south and the palace gate. It contained a mud-brick fort. Surrounded by rich farmland it was already a large residential centre with six mosques, many shops and workshops and a caravanserai.
The rapid development of Khiva at this time is evident from a secret map drawn by a Russian topographer, G. Zelenin, who arrived in Khiva with one of the delegations of ambassadors in 1841. Given Khivan suspicions about future Russian intentions, Zelenin had to produce his map undercover. Had he been caught his party would never have survived to tell the tale. It is said that he purchased two melons from the bazaar and wandered the town asking people about the names of the streets and lanes and the mosques and medressehs, secretly inscribing this information on the melon skins so that it could be transferred to his map in the evenings. The map showed the outer city wall was pear-shaped with the stem pointing westwards. The inner city was rectangular, 600 metres from east to west and 400 metres from north to south. The city then had 17 mosques, 22 lanes and 260 merchants' stalls along with medressehs, bazaars and caravanserais. Gardens, country estates, irrigation networks, fields and roads extended beyond the outer city walls.
Despite the major setback of Perovsky's mission, the Russian encirclement of Central Asia was gradually progressing. The earlier Russian forts along the eastern Caspian coast had been quickly abandoned after the demise of Bekovich's mission, so new garrisons were needed in the region. The construction of Fort Novo Aleksandrovsk had begun in Tsarevitch Bay on the eastern Caspian shore in 1833 and was followed by the construction of a chain of forts to the south-west of the Aral Sea, giving Russian forces increasing control of the Ustyurt. Fort Aleksandrovsk was later relocated to the western tip of the Mangishlaq peninsula. In 1847 the Russians built Fort Raim, a small hilltop fortification close to the mouth of the Syr Darya, which became the base for the new Aral Flotilla, established to undertake research work on the Aral Sea and its two river deltas.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Friday, May 9, 2014
Nauri
Who wants to throw the Zigendung?
Zigendung
That I want to throw in the sky
Sky
That it may let some water fall on me
some water
That the burned grass may grow a little
fresh grass
That my old cow may eat
Old cow
I want to kill her for the vultures there
The vultures there
That they may give me their feathers
feathers
Those I want to fix to my arrow
arrow
I want to hunt the enemy's oxen
oxen
to receive my wife
wife
That she may give me a child
child
that it may pick my lice
lice
that an old man I may go and die with them
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
To be governed
To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
Idée Générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle [The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century] (1851); Proudhon
Idée Générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle [The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century] (1851); Proudhon
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Requiem for a Clown
“Finish in 20 minutes or you’re dead”
- the first rule of clowning.
Boris the Clown turned off the engine and sat in the car outside 3301 Forrester Avenue.
(listen to me, it don’t matter if the name stinks - what name comes up first when people type Chicago Children’s Clown into Google? That’s right, Boris the fucking Clown, that’s who.)
A high pitched wail drifted out of the dark brick bungalow. It was quickly joined by another, an octave above. Girl screams. Boris sighed, the order form had said it was Sasha’s 5th birthday. Wasn’t Sasha a boys name? It had been when he was young, oi! imagine if he had told Sasha Ivanovich in 4th grade that he had a girl’s name? Boris smiled, he would have beat me bloody.The smile faded. Well, beat me bloody more often.
Another banshee joined the chorus. Boy parties were more trouble than girl parties, but girls were screamers. And these were drilling right into the fifth of Zubrowka vodka that was sitting inside Boris’ head. As he closed his eyes against the screams, he remembered the reason for his hangover and the smile returned.
(so you want the name, the website boristheclown.com, the outfit, the wig, the client list, the blacklist. All of it... and you’ll pay me how much?)
The signed contract sat on the dashboard. But this gig at Forrester Avenue had been paid in advance. Once he was done here he would put the contract in the mailbox. Boris picked up a small suitcase off the back seat and walked up to the house. He pushed the doorbell and waited. Maybe they didn’t hear it. He raised his hand again.
The door opened on a small dark-haired WASP woman. There it was - the classic three stage reaction. Shock at the appearance of a grease-painted man with an orange wig; then recognition that this was the clown she had ordered on-line two months ago; and finally pity, at seeing a grown man dressed that way. It was the pity that always stung.
She recovered quicker than most. “Ah, Mr Sokolov, please come in.”
Boris smiled at the mangled pronunciation. “Please, call me Boris.”
She smiled back. “Thanks Boris, I’m Sarah, Sasha’s mom. They’re all in the living room.”
The screams redoubled when he entered, all eyes fixed on his outfit and wig. Boris worked his way through the maelstrom of pigtails and tiny fists and set down his suitcase on the table. He looked at the clock - 3:30pm on the dot. There was no point calling for attention, the best thing he had learnt was just to start. He launched into his routine.
The screaming stopped immediately. Boris glanced up from where he was pulling a rope of knotted handkerchiefs out of his fist, worried that the kids had all disappeared into thin air. But he saw something even more incredible, they were watching him. Each face rapt with attention at his every move.
The deafening silence attracted the parents from the kitchen who gathered at the back of the room to watch his schtick. But it was no longer schtick, it was a performance. Everything worked perfectly - the timing, the sleight of hand. He wasn’t just interesting, he was leading them by the nose, telling them what emotions they should be feeling - happy, curious, worried, relieved. They were hooked.
Boris looked back at the clock - 3:50pm. He had to stop. But the upturned faces stared at him in fascination. Even the smirks on the adults had been replaced by broad smiles. He had captured them, like he had captured his first audience all those years ago. That first hot shot of acting that convinced him he had to live his life on the stage. That half-forgotten thrill, like seeing an old lover again for the first time in years, crept up his spine. He had to hold this moment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards.
“Take a card, any card,” he gestured to the nearest girl. “But don’t show me.”
She grinned and drew one out. Boris’ heart pounded. Now for the grand finale.
Like a shark swimming up behind its prey, a small girl had circled around Boris, her dorsal fin sliding below his peripheral vision.
“And now I predict... ” Boris began.
With a swift jab, the shark behind Boris lashed out and jabbed his left knee. The knee that Sasha Ivanovich had broken all those years ago; that was held together by small strands of sinew and cartilage.
Boris collapsed, the house of cards in his hands flying out over the audience - every one of them was a seven of diamonds.
The spell broke. The children leapt up and started throwing the cards at each other. The smirks had returned to the lips of the parents. Jabbing needles shot up through Boris’ body as he knelt on the carpet. The pain matched only by the humiliation of his failed act.
Sarah walked over to him and took him by the arm, helping him stand.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry Boris, I didn’t see little Sasha there behind you. Are you OK?”
Boris gritted his teeth as he stood and looked at the mock sincerity behind the smile. “I’m fine, I’m fine. That was how I meant it to end. Ha, little bubelah - she’ll be a performer herself one day.”
Sarah beamed at the fake praise.
Boris walked out the front door and limped back to the car. Slumping into the front seat he tore off the wig and threw it onto the floor. He picked up the contract sitting in front of him. It was the end of the shame, the ridicule. But still, he’d had them, hadn’t he? Even if it was just for a moment?
The grease paint stained the paper as Boris sat and stared at it for a long time.
- the first rule of clowning.
Boris the Clown turned off the engine and sat in the car outside 3301 Forrester Avenue.
(listen to me, it don’t matter if the name stinks - what name comes up first when people type Chicago Children’s Clown into Google? That’s right, Boris the fucking Clown, that’s who.)
A high pitched wail drifted out of the dark brick bungalow. It was quickly joined by another, an octave above. Girl screams. Boris sighed, the order form had said it was Sasha’s 5th birthday. Wasn’t Sasha a boys name? It had been when he was young, oi! imagine if he had told Sasha Ivanovich in 4th grade that he had a girl’s name? Boris smiled, he would have beat me bloody.The smile faded. Well, beat me bloody more often.
Another banshee joined the chorus. Boy parties were more trouble than girl parties, but girls were screamers. And these were drilling right into the fifth of Zubrowka vodka that was sitting inside Boris’ head. As he closed his eyes against the screams, he remembered the reason for his hangover and the smile returned.
(so you want the name, the website boristheclown.com, the outfit, the wig, the client list, the blacklist. All of it... and you’ll pay me how much?)
The signed contract sat on the dashboard. But this gig at Forrester Avenue had been paid in advance. Once he was done here he would put the contract in the mailbox. Boris picked up a small suitcase off the back seat and walked up to the house. He pushed the doorbell and waited. Maybe they didn’t hear it. He raised his hand again.
The door opened on a small dark-haired WASP woman. There it was - the classic three stage reaction. Shock at the appearance of a grease-painted man with an orange wig; then recognition that this was the clown she had ordered on-line two months ago; and finally pity, at seeing a grown man dressed that way. It was the pity that always stung.
She recovered quicker than most. “Ah, Mr Sokolov, please come in.”
Boris smiled at the mangled pronunciation. “Please, call me Boris.”
She smiled back. “Thanks Boris, I’m Sarah, Sasha’s mom. They’re all in the living room.”
The screams redoubled when he entered, all eyes fixed on his outfit and wig. Boris worked his way through the maelstrom of pigtails and tiny fists and set down his suitcase on the table. He looked at the clock - 3:30pm on the dot. There was no point calling for attention, the best thing he had learnt was just to start. He launched into his routine.
The screaming stopped immediately. Boris glanced up from where he was pulling a rope of knotted handkerchiefs out of his fist, worried that the kids had all disappeared into thin air. But he saw something even more incredible, they were watching him. Each face rapt with attention at his every move.
The deafening silence attracted the parents from the kitchen who gathered at the back of the room to watch his schtick. But it was no longer schtick, it was a performance. Everything worked perfectly - the timing, the sleight of hand. He wasn’t just interesting, he was leading them by the nose, telling them what emotions they should be feeling - happy, curious, worried, relieved. They were hooked.
Boris looked back at the clock - 3:50pm. He had to stop. But the upturned faces stared at him in fascination. Even the smirks on the adults had been replaced by broad smiles. He had captured them, like he had captured his first audience all those years ago. That first hot shot of acting that convinced him he had to live his life on the stage. That half-forgotten thrill, like seeing an old lover again for the first time in years, crept up his spine. He had to hold this moment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards.
“Take a card, any card,” he gestured to the nearest girl. “But don’t show me.”
She grinned and drew one out. Boris’ heart pounded. Now for the grand finale.
Like a shark swimming up behind its prey, a small girl had circled around Boris, her dorsal fin sliding below his peripheral vision.
“And now I predict... ” Boris began.
With a swift jab, the shark behind Boris lashed out and jabbed his left knee. The knee that Sasha Ivanovich had broken all those years ago; that was held together by small strands of sinew and cartilage.
Boris collapsed, the house of cards in his hands flying out over the audience - every one of them was a seven of diamonds.
The spell broke. The children leapt up and started throwing the cards at each other. The smirks had returned to the lips of the parents. Jabbing needles shot up through Boris’ body as he knelt on the carpet. The pain matched only by the humiliation of his failed act.
Sarah walked over to him and took him by the arm, helping him stand.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry Boris, I didn’t see little Sasha there behind you. Are you OK?”
Boris gritted his teeth as he stood and looked at the mock sincerity behind the smile. “I’m fine, I’m fine. That was how I meant it to end. Ha, little bubelah - she’ll be a performer herself one day.”
Sarah beamed at the fake praise.
Boris walked out the front door and limped back to the car. Slumping into the front seat he tore off the wig and threw it onto the floor. He picked up the contract sitting in front of him. It was the end of the shame, the ridicule. But still, he’d had them, hadn’t he? Even if it was just for a moment?
The grease paint stained the paper as Boris sat and stared at it for a long time.
Monday, May 5, 2014
A Piece of Steak - Jack London
With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had borrowed from the neighbor across the hall. The last two ha'pennies had gone to buy the bread.
He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him aware of his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the pipe away. His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied, stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy resoling that was itself of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two-shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.
But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless, and constituted a mouth harsh to excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal, heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy, lion-like - the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a villainous-looking head. A nose, twice broken and moulded variously by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.
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Sunday, May 4, 2014
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
Friday, May 2, 2014
The Haymarket Martyrs
On May 1, 1886, Albert Parsons, head of the Chicago Knights of Labor, led 80,000 people through the city’s streets in support of the eight-hour day. In the next few days they were joined nationwide by 350,000 workers who went on strike at 1,200 factories, including 70,000 in Chicago.
On May 3, August Spies, editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers Newspaper), spoke at a meeting of 6,000 workers, and afterwards many of them moved down the street to harass scabs at the McCormick plant. The police arrived, opened fire, and killed four people, wounding many more.
On May 4, Spies, Parsons, and Samuel Fielden were speaking at a rally of 2,500 people held to protest the police massacre when 180 police officers arrived, led by the Chicago police chief. While he was calling for the meeting to disperse a bomb exploded, killing one policeman. The police retaliated, killing seven of their own in the crossfire, plus four others; almost two hundred were wounded. The identity of the bomb thrower remains unknown.
On June 21, 1886, eight labor leaders, including Spies, Fielden, and Parsons went on trial, charged with responsibility for the bombing. The trial was rife with lies and contradictions, and the state prosecutor appealed to the jury: “convict these men, make an example of them, hang them, and you save our institutions.”
Even though only two were present at the time of the bombing (Parsons had gone to a nearby tavern), seven were sentenced to die, one to fifteen years imprisonment. The Chicago bar condemned the trial, and several years later Governor John P. Altgeld pardoned all eight, releasing the three survivors (two of them had had their sentences reduced from hanging to life imprisonment).
On November 11, 1886, four anarchist leaders were hanged; Louis Lingg had committed suicide hours before. Two hundred thousand people took part in the funeral procession, either lining the streets or marching behind the hearses.
Unfortunately, the events surrounding the execution of the Haymarket martyrs fueled the stereotype of radical activists as alien and violent, thereby contributing to ongoing repression.
Over the years the remains of many deceased or martyred radicals, among them Emma Goldman, Bill Hayward, and Joe Hill, were deposited at the Haymarket Monument in Chicago, where seven of the eight men on trial lie buried. Ever since that time, in almost every country except one (guess which?) May 1 has been honored as International Workers Day.
The internationalization (if not “globalization”) of the Haymarket legacy was apparent two days after the hangings when José Martí, leader of Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain, who was then living in exile in New York, wrote a detailed, emotion-filled report of the events leading up to the executions. Full of analysis, his article entitled “A Terrible Drama” appeared on January 1, 1888, in the Argentine paper La Nación, published in Buenos Aires. Early on in his piece he notes:
“Frightened by the growing power of the plain people, by the sudden coming together of the working masses (previously held back by the rivalries of their leaders), by the demarcation of two classes within the population — the privileged and the discontented (the latter a thorn in the side of European high society) — the republic determined to defend itself with a tacit covenant, a complicity whereby criminal action is triggered by the authorities’ misdeeds as much as by the fanaticism of the accused, in order to use their example to terrify — not by means of pain directly visited upon the rabble, but by the fearsome revival of the hangman’s hood.”
At the end of his long article José Martí quoted from the Arbeiter-Zeitung issued on the day of the executions:
“We have lost a battle, unhappy friends, but we will see in the end an ordered world that conforms to justice: we will be wise like the serpent and quiet like the dove.”
In our own time the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has commented on “A Terrible Drama” (in his Memories of Fire, vol. II):
“The scaffold awaited them. They were five, but Lingg got up early for death, exploding a dynamite cap between his teeth. Fischer was seen unhurriedly humming the ‘Marseillaise.’ Parsons, the agitator who used the word like a whip or a knife, grasps the hands of his comrades before the guards tie his own behind his back. Engel, famous for his sharp wit, asks for port wine and then makes them all laugh with a joke. Spies, who so often wrote about anarchism as the entrance into life, prepares himself in silence to enter into death.
“The spectators in the orchestra of the theater fix their view on the scaffold — a sign, a noise, the trap door gives way, now they die, in a horrible dance, twisting in the air. [Here he quotes Martí.]
“José Martí wrote the story of the execution of the anarchists in Chicago. The working class of the world will bring them back to life every first of May. That was still unknown, but Martí always writes as if he is listening for the cry of a newborn where it is least expected.”
Thursday, May 1, 2014
The Tyrant Lists: Tacitus' Obituary of Petronius
According to Tacitus, Petronius' last act was to send to Nero a list of the latter's sexual partners and activities. Petronius' list in Annals 16 illuminates the structure of the Book, which conveys the tyranny of Nero's last years as a list of deaths and punishments. The nature of these lists—series of elements whose connection their authors decline to spell out—mirrors the arbitrary nature of imperial power under Nero and Domitian, which punishes according to no legitimate judicial logic. Tacitus' interest in Petronius extends beyond the latter's list to his function as Nero's elegantiae arbiter, a seemingly superficial position that Tacitus suggests actually illustrates the important function of pleasure in the principate.