#a grain of wheat

[52booksproject]

Book 19 A Grain of Wheat

The random letter generator popped out "WA" and while Gertrude Chandler Warner's Boxcar Kids looked tempting, I instead went with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 's A Grain of Wheat. I've found that books about African wars and independence can be challenging, but ultimately rewarding and so this proved to be.

The book is a look at how the Kenyan fight for independence from Brittan affected the people of one village. Many of them, including the protagonist, a hermit named Mugo, spent times in concentration camps where they were beaten and starved among other things. The reticent Mugo is asked to lead the Uhuru independence celebrations in the present, where Kenya is finally free, and to help find the traitor who betrayed their local martyr, Kihika, who was executed for assassinating a murderous British official.

Contrasted to Mugo are Gikonyo, a carpenter who was in the camps, but confessed to be released and Karanja, a collaborator who is lost with the white man pulling out of Kenya. Incidentally, while some of the writing about women felt slightly awkward, the white people felt spot on. It makes sense with Thiong'o being at Leeds University at the time he wrote it.

Incidentally, I found this was picked as one of the 70 novels for the Queen's Jubilee which seems incredible considering its depictions of the Queen are not that flattering and tells about what abominable things the British did. But I guess kudos to them for being honest about her legacy that way.

BEST LINE: "He also told them about the American War of Independence and how Abraham Lincoln had been executed by the British for leading the Black folk in America to a revolt."

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK? Yes, with the warning it has some triggering elements including torture, SA, and some violence against animals. Though the book does make the point that if you can handle violence against Black people, but not animals there's something wrong.

ART PROJECT: I wanted to try all number of things for the art project, but I was worried I didn't have the knowledge to pull off anything genuinely Kenyan with the respect it deserved, so I drew some nice, safe wheat.

[quotation--marks]

Mugo was now alone in the darkness. He felt he could embrace the whole night, could contain the world within his palms. For he walked on the edge of a revelation: Gikonyo and Githua had brought him there. He remembered the words: he shall save the children of the needy. It must be him. It was he, Mugo, spared to save people like Githua, the old woman, and any who had suffered. Why not take the task? Yes. He would speak at the Uhuru celebrations. He would lead the people and bury his past in their gratitude. Nobody need ever know about Kihika. To the few, the elect of God, the past was forgiven, was made clean by great deeds that saved many. It was so in the time of Jacob and Esau; it was so in the time of Moses.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat

[minecraftbookshelf]

So like…there are potatoes and cacao in empires because there are potatoes and cacao in minecraft which means that clearly trade has been established with the americas they have a mixture of european and american crops.

So its plausible that at least one empire grows corn as a staple crop.

Anyway, how is everyone else’s night going?

That is a genuine question if anyone wants to answer I’m procrastinating at work.

[strangergraphics]

Hi lovely, I hope you're well! Could I please request Demeter dividers?

thank you, I am doing well!

and absolutely! i hope you like them 💕

please like and credit if you use, reblogs are appreciated! thank you! 💕

[bisexual-engineer-guy]

On a very psychological level I really like eating just straight up grains. Like a horse. I'm such an oatpilled grainmaxxer

[thingsdavidlikes]

Yeoman's Yellows II by AnnaLittleAlice

[schizononagesimus]

anybody else feeling. a way. about the state of the world

[anti-dazai-blog]

The three generations of Double Black and their purpose, or lack thereof

In honor of my birthday, I was planning on making an analysis of whichever character has a birthday closest to mine. However, it seems like my birthday falls directly in between Natsume’s and Mori’s birthday (February 9th and 17th respectively, with my birthday being February 13th).

Which means I gotta combine the two and turn this into a closer look at the three generations of Double Black.

[for the sake of clarity I’ve decided to use “double black” here instead of soukoku, since soukoku is used more in reference to the ship than the duo]

Please note that I’m getting a lot of information from the bsd wiki, which I know isn’t always so accurate, but going through every chapter and light novel with Natsume or mention of the original framework he set up would not be a doable amount of work for me to complete today.

Natsume is still a figure of mystery in the BSD universe. We don’t know much about him—although he’s seen as some ultimate “good” in the sense that anything he says or does is considered “correct” by the characters he has interacted with. Although it may sound extreme, he’s practically deified. Both Fukuzawa and Mori, two characters who are strong leaders and do not often take orders from others, would readily abide by Natusme’s wishes. 

The framework he created—the tripartite framework—is something that they both agree MUST be abided by. The framework itself is questionable—the basis of it was to handle the issue of the extreme rise in criminal activity post-war. Rather than working towards curbing crime in any more standard way, his solution is having a guy working for him in the criminal underworld, and attempt to put a stop to the worst kinds of crimes through him. 

Fukuzawa, being a former assassin himself, most likely is familiar with and agrees with the concept of some crimes being worse than others, and some people being enough of an evil in the world and enough of a threat that they need to be killed. Remember, he didn’t quit his job as an assassin due to feeling it’s morally wrong to kill; he quit because it’s morally wrong to kill just for the sake of killing. So it’s reasonable enough that he’d find the tripartite framework to be a valid way of handling things, and have no problem with Mori working from the criminal underworld to keep things under control from there. 

Regardless of how unheard of this method of crime-stopping is, and how Fukuzawa and Mori’s blind faith in him could be dangerous if he were to be misguided or more morally grey, this method seems to be effective in the bsd world. We see that the mafia has the criminal underground under control, while the agency deals with crime that comes up to the surface, and the government dealing with civilian issues. And regardless of what conflict Mori and Fukuzawa have currently, the tripartite framework is something that they’re both equally invested in and consider necessary. 

Out of the (so-called) “three generations,” they are the most successful. They have been working together and fulfilling their shared goal for many, many years. No matter what conflict may come up, the framework is their top priority. They will ensure Yokohama is safe, and they will oversee their respective segments of it. They are both aware of their own roles and have a mutual respect for the other’s role.

Which brings us onto the duo Mori created—double black. As Mori said, he’s forcing them to work together in an attempt to duplicate something Natsume explained to him. Double Black is, at first, Mori’s pet-project or side hobby. It’s formed for nothing more than curiosity at first, but with Chuuya and Dazai’s individual skillsets and abilities, they ended up working together as the feared mafia duo we know them as. This duo works as an extension of Mori’s role in the framework, and because of that it’s certainly not the next part of the tripartite framework. Or rather, it wasn’t when Mori made it, and it wasn’t made with that intention. 

After Dazai left the mafia, double black changed. Now it’s no longer a mafia subgroup, because half of it is no longer in the mafia. From an external view, it acts as a dangerous last resort—a final defense against major threats. The people of Yokohama can rest easy, since if everything were to go very wrong, all hope is not lost unless double black is defeated—something that will probably never happen. 

But Dazai and Chuuya themselves don’t share the same sentiment. Unlike the original heads of the framework, these two aren’t on the same page about what they’re doing or their duo’s current status. To each of them, it’s just a job. They both want to protect Yokohama, and recognize that Yokohama’s safety is a byproduct of their work—but they don’t see “protecting Yokohama” as their job. It seems like they see each job as a one-off commission work. Their job isn’t “protect Yokohama,” it’s “defeat this one specific enemy and then go home.” 

And additionally, they’re on different pages regarding double black’s current status. It seems that Dazai views double black’s inactivity as something that happened due to his absence rather than him defecting—and now that he’s back, so is double black—hence, him referring to Chuuya as his partner. On the other hand, Chuuya views double black’s inactivity as something that happened due to Dazai defecting—double black was a mafia subgroup, after all, so it makes sense that if half of the duo isn’t under mafia employment, the duo cannot be currently active. Hence, him declaring Dazai his “ex-partner.”

As things stand, they’re working more closely to the tripartite framework’s successors, since now they’re (1) positioned at opposite ends of the criminal underworld, and (2) working towards a common goal of protecting Yokohama. However, until they both realize that their official job and duty is protecting Yokohama (rather than that just being a biproduct of their work) and until they both mutually agree to work towards that shared goal together—each on their respective sides of things—they won’t be able to truly be the inheritors of the tripartite framework.

Now for Dazai’s “new generation of double black.” Whether or not Dazai’s fully aware of the tripartite framework, its origins and its purpose is up for debate. And whether he views himself and Chuuya as an extension of that is even more unlikely. So since we can assume he’s basing this “new generation of double black” off of an incomplete picture of what double black was and what it currently is, we know right off the bat it’s going to be flawed. 

There’s truly no reason for a “new generation,” especially when the “old” generation is around two years older than them, and significantly more capable and powerful. It’s clear from Dazai’s interactions with them that creating this new generation is both a fun hobby of his, and possibly a way for him to get other people to do jobs he’d be assigned to otherwise. It serves no real greater purpose than that. They’re convenient sometimes, but there are always other ability users who could easily do what they’ve done, but better. 

Only half of this new duo even has any idea of what they’re trying to replicate. Akutagawa has a vague idea of what double black was, and strives to mimic what he thinks they do. He doesn’t have a very complete or thorough understanding of them—as he tries to explain to Atsushi, to his knowledge, double black worked as “Dazai is Smart Guy, Chuuya is Strong Guy, they win by being Brain and Brawn.” We see that this isn’t really the case—both Dazai and Chuuya are well-rounded and each are individually capable of both physical combat and strategy. Yet all the new generation has to work off of is this game of broken telephone passed through mafia rumors, to Akutagawa, to Atsushi. 

And even so, neither of them understand any real greater purpose to what they’re doing—and it’s unclear if there truly is any purpose to it. They too see it as individual fights rather than a grander purpose, but in their case, they’re right. 

And to take it a step further, they aren’t a formal duo in the first place. They never officially formed. They’re just miming the roles that Dazai told them to play with no real understanding of what’d going on. “The new generation of double black” isn’t a title they’ve ever officially been given—sure they’ve been called that by Dazai, but it’s not something that would even go on any paperwork. Their opponents don’t see them as some feared duo, they see them as an unfortunate collaboration they now must deal with. Akutagawa’s outright ditching work to go do these jobs—at least with double black Dazai clearly has some contact through the agency for when he’s assigned to double black/ mafia collaboration missions. 

In short, no one outside of Dazai (and possibly Akutagawa) sees any connect between Akutagawa and Atsushi to any former well-known duos. 

In summary—the three “generations of double black” were formed for vastly different purposes, and even though double black is converging to align with the tripartite framework, the newest variant of it is way off base. 

Natsume will need to step in and sort this out if the newest generation aligns with his wishes, and if not, I think he should step in and sort stuff out anyway—things in the bsd universe have been getting pretty messy for a while now, and it would be nice to have a leader around who both Fukuzawa and Mori would listen to.

[empirearchives]

Maximum price laws under Napoleon

Price maximums are laws that place a ceiling on the price that goods can be charged so that they are affordable to the public. Napoleon applied these regulations to bread, meat, and water (which was made free).

The Prefect of the Eure had included a moving piece of evidence in his monthly report: a sample of miserable bread, “only crudely fashioned wheat husks,” the most his department’s people could afford. In Paris, rumors had flown for months that the city was nearing starvation and emergency measures were imminent. Dreading what might follow, Napoleon determined that only direct intervention would stave off greater disorder. By the morning of May 4, he had drawn up his master plan, and by the end of the week, one might have concluded that the Jacobins had returned to the Convention. Two Imperial decrees, the first on May 4 and a second on May 8, were issued from his chambers. The former once again restricted all sales of grain to public marketplaces, and the latter imposed price maximums on all cereals.

— Judith A. Miller, Mastering the Market: The State and the Grain Trade in Northern France, 1700-1860, p. 198-199

Though he tried to reconcile the war-imposed need for regulation with the liberalism of the bourgeoisie, he was not the laissez-faire economist the Revolutionaries were. His was rather the outlook and role of an enlightened despot, doing his best to promote, according to his own lights, the welfare of his people.

This is why he turned from the Revolutionary, physiocratic idea of unregulated trade to the fixing of prices on meat and bakery items. His natural inclination was to regulate trade by means of corporations, but bankers, industrialists, and the Council of State so generally opposed the idea that freedom of work remained the rule. There were, however, numerous exceptions, particularly in the liberal professions. Bonaparte ordered the prefect of police in Paris to establish trade bodies for baking and butchery; this corporative regime spread to several provincial cities.

“I fear insurrections based on a lack of bread: I should fear less a battle of 200,000 men.” His early popularity, particularly in Paris, rested on his providing food, at low prices, and work.

— Robert B. Holtman, The Napoleonic Revolution, p. 105-106

Napoleon wrote to his stepson in 1810 about this subject:

“The question of wheat is the most important and the most delicate for sovereigns. The owners never agree with the people. The first duty of the sovereign is to lean towards the people, without listening to the sophisms of the owners.”

— Source: Europeana

[landschaftsmalerei]

Das Weizenfeld von Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1878, Öl auf Leinwand)

[maretriarch]

turns out how not to be deficient in fat in your diet is to stop eating only low fat versions of foods

[quotation--marks]

And now the hatred he had felt towards Kihika rose fresh in him. He trembled with a victorious rage as he blurted out the story that had tormented him for a week. For a time he experienced a pure, delicious joy at his own daring, at what he suddenly saw as a great act of moral courage. Indeed, for him, at that moment, there was a kind of purity in the act; he stood beyond good and evil; he enjoyed the power and authority of his own knowledge: did he not hold the fate of a man's life in his head? His heart - his cup - was full to overflowing. Tears of relief stood on the edge of his eyes. For a week he had wrestled with demons, alone, in an endless nightmare. This confession was his first contact with another man. He felt deep gratitude to the whiteman, a patient listener, who had lifted his burden from Mugo's heart, who had extricated him from the nightmare. He even dared to look at the whiteman, the new-found friend. A smile spread across Mugo's face. The smile, however, froze into a grin that appeared like scorn, when he met the whiteman's inscrutable face and searching eyes.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

I thought I'd use Solarpunk Action Week as an excuse to start reducing our diet's reliance on the top four of the ten staple crops--maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, soybeans, sweet potatoes, yams, sorghum, and plantain--that humanity is overly reliant upon.

I cooked up some amaranth to go with a lentil-tomato-feta salad and braised collard greens. The little pile of nutty amaranth was viewed initially with skepticism, but the ultimate verdict was two thumbs up.

In the future, I'll try to set aside one or two days a week where we eat amaranth or quinoa instead of rice, wheat, potatoes, or even sweet potatoes as our carb.

-Christina

[lost-harts]

September 2021

[centeris2]

okay this is a very silly nitpick especially for something that looks nice

But I would have given Holdsworth more bee-things. Like a honeycomb knit/crochet pattern to her shawl, or hexagon shaped glasses, or hexagons instead of squares on her skirt. Just like. More obvious bee theming to her design. You don’t have to slap on yellow and black stripes and wings on her, but just lil touches so you go “oooh!” when you find out about her and bees. Maybe a cute little bee brooch if you wanna be more direct in “hey, look, bees!”

anyway that’s my two cents

[gxldencity]

There are Just so many funny things about this statement from the implication that pasta isn't poor people food to rice being so important in Antiva that they don't export it that often to keep the price low but literally every food we've seen Antivans eat are all pasta based. Prime example of someone who never was from a culture where rice is a staple trying to Write about it. I get u want risotto and paella to happen but you could've just....had it as a secondary grain to pasta (like how it is irl) and maybe not as readily available to all Antivans unless you live in areas that produce rice. Bc if the price was kept Low that even the poor could have it, this would mean Antivans would be having rice for every meal. Every noodle based dish would be rice noodles. They'll have rice based desserts and baked goods. I'm sorry Mr. Matt Rhodes but the way they would make pasta would be So different than how it is irl and pasta would Not exist in the way u described it. Illario would NOT be ordering cacio e pepe in tevinter