When Tambora, located on the island of Sumbawa, erupted, it killed about 100,000 people, if not directly by fire and flying debris, then by starvation due to crop failure. However, that was only the beginning of the mayhem to follow. The eruption projected 12 cubic miles of matter up to 25 miles above the Earth. Of course, the larger stuff fell right back down, but small particulate matter remained in the atmosphere to be transported around the globe and wreak havoc on the weather. Bad weather didn’t plague just the west. It snowed that year in China’s Yunan province, causing rice crop failures and years of famine to follow. In India, in 1817, the monsoon season was fearsome, which is thought to have brought about the conditions that induced the cholera pandemic that originated there that year. The pandemic eventually spread to Indonesia where, ironically, it killed more people than the original eruption.
Evidence of that particulate matter in the atmosphere can be seen in paintings made by landscape artists at the time, such as J. M. W. Turner and John Constable. Dramatic red sunsets and hazy skies were apparent in these paintings. The summer of 1816 and its bad weather also gave birth to two cultural icons that have been with us ever since: Frankenstein’s monster and the legend of the vampire. Poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and Shelley’s 17-year-old fiancé, Mary Godwin, were vacationing with friends in Switzerland. However, the weather was so bad that, one day, they decided to stay indoors and tell each other ghost stories. Mary Shelley’s eventually became the novel Frankenstein, and Lord Byron’s provided the framework for John Polidori’s novel The Vampyre.
At the urging of my husband, I’ll mention also that the only corn that bore a crop in Vermont in 1816 was a variety called Roy’s Calais Flint. It’s an 8-row flint corn obtained from the Abkenaki native American people of Vermont. This is field corn, not the sort of corn you eat fresh, but what you grind when dry to make cornbread or pone out of. Hubby has grown it in our garden for a couple years, and we have quite a bit. Most ears are gold in color, but a few are dark maroon. It’s recently become the fashion among foodies.
I suppose that’s an odd way to end a blog post, but there you have it.
So, then, on to The Comments!
TOP COMMENTS November 19th, 2015
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU when you find that proficient comment.
From lineatus:
Really, couldn't have said it better or more succinctly than this...
If you cannot lead with love, you shouldn't be in the lead.
by ToKnowWhy
From ZenTrainer:
I think this is both the story and the comment
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We need a little honesty. We should accept refugees despite the fact that one or more of them, or their disaffected offspring, might eventually resort to extremism. Eyes wide open. Deliberately. Why?
* Because the identity and origin of America itself was built upon religious and political dissidents. I’ve been idly occupied with some genealogy BS lately, and my own family’s history is neither more nor less interesting than anyone else’s. But fully two dozen direct ancestors arrived here as refugees or dissidents over nearly 400 years. That’s literally where I come from, and probably where you come from too. And that’s just my family. It makes no sense to shut the door on religious (Yezidi, Christian) or political (anti-ISIL) refugees. They may not be family now, but assuredly they will be in time.
* Crime and terrorism happens. We helped destabilize Central America, and the resulting gangs that formed in LA alone have already killed more people in the United States than any refugee who enters from Syria is ever likely to kill. Do we freak out when Central American kids cross the Rio Grande? Well, nativists and heartless assholes freak out, but the truth is, we don’t view the Central American kids with the same horror with which some people view Syrians, because they are Latino and not Middle Eastern. We have been conditioned to fear Arabs and Muslims.
* Actually defeating “terrorism”, or more accurately, undermining Salafist ideology, is partially accomplished by providing an alternative. The US has done better at integrating Muslim immigrants than most European countries. You know what might eventually do some good in Somalia? Remitted income and educated, decent Somalis from Minneapolis. I work in Iraq. Some of the most effective Iraqi government officials who are actually trying to keep things together started out as refugees in the West and then returned. We want to build stable societies over there, import real Democracy? Well, one place to start is granting refuge and helping people get professional skills, education and incomes and then let them influence their own societies in a decade or two or three. Successful integrated, educated Syrian-Americans are Daesh’s worst nightmare. The national security benefits of admitting Syrian refugees far outweigh the risks.
by ivorybill
From Angela Marx:
1. This comment by Lawreance Lewis in this diary by Meteor Blades:
we already have corporate socialism. maybe we should end that and try socialism for people.
It caught my eye, because most people in America clearly never think about corporations as being the beneficiary of socialism, they only connect that word with poor people who (they think) want someone else to pay their way. VERY insightful comment.
2. From the same diary, this comment by J Edwards.
It's not the usual one line quip which I generally find so apropos, but a paragraph of stunning analysis encapsulated in the final 2 sentences:
In my day long ago in school socialism was defined as public ownership of the means of production. No one is proposing that here nor is that true of any European country I know of. Social Security and Medicare are funded by workers and the ACA has done what Obama intended in ending the GOP emergency room strategy and containing costs while greatly cutting numbers of uninsured. Universal health care would be even more efficient. The GOP calls this socialism I call it smart. All you really need to know is that before Social Security the 2 most common causes of death among the elderly were exposure and starvation.
3. This comment by Major Kong in this diary by Jen Hayden:
On the issue of those who worship at the alter of Smith and Wesson:
I think they prefer to be called Firearm-Americans these days.
TOP MOJO November 18, 2015
(excluding Tip Jars and first comments) *Got mik!*
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TOP PHOTOS January 1, 2015
Enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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