The Cruck

It’s laundry day (aka, accidentally torture Victor cus that was the only clean shirt left)

If this little book should see the light after its 100 years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the political equality and social and moral elevation of women.

In an effort to address the common complaint that white men dominate the climate conversation by sharing solutions:

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush. If there was only one book I could recommend it would be this one. The chapter titled Risk is itself one of the best pieces of climate writing.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. A book of essays on the places where Western botany and indigenous plant knowledge meet. This book is a treasure. I wish I had read it a slower so I could spend more time in each essay.

The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh. A book about the social and psychological forces that prevent of us from truly understanding climate change. This is also the first book I’d read to dive deep on what climate change will do to India.

Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. This is the true crime story of the people who lied to us and stole our future.

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Ostensibly a book about the botany and economics of the matsutake mushroom that grows only in disturbed environments.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. This book is a bummer.

Trace: Memory, History, Race and American Land by Lauret Savoy. This is the kind of nature writing I love best, showing how geology, and the natural and human world intersect.

Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica White. This is a little, somewhat obscure book I picked up mostly because it is about Detroit but that I can’t stop recommending. This is a wonderful corrective to histories that have downplayed Black farmer activists and contemporary narratives that imply only white people want to be small farmers. If nothing else it’s a wonderful, thorough look at Fannie Lou Hager’s work.

Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine by Gary Paul Nabhan. A beautiful, frightening exploration of agricultural diversity and the forces arrayed against it.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. A memoir about life as a geobiologist and woman working in academia.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Essays:

Mary Kathryn Nagle’s “Environmental Justice and Tribal Sovereignty: Lessons from Standing Rock”

Monica M. White’s “Sisters of the Soil: Urban Gardening as Resistance in Detroit” (which likely covers the same ground as Freedom Farmers, mentioned above)

“you’re a vampire!” you gasp.

he sighs heavily.

“You’re a vampire!”

‘you’re a dragon!’

‘kay sit your butts down and let me do the work for you, because some of you really have ZERO info comprehension and don’t even bother to fact-check stuff you hear

FIRST OF ALL, those 20.000 men were part of the men that INVADED Vlad’s country. his HOME.

Vlad was attacked by an army of ~120.000, while he only had a total of ~30.000 men. (! that’s a ratio of 4:1 !)

what was he to do?? step aside and watch his country being taken from him? sit and watch and accept his home to be ripped away from him?? the very home he was taken from, to become a hostage, at the age of only 11 and for which his father and brother died????

the guy made his strategy with that he had available to him. if it was a “forest of impaled” that would drive his attacker away and keep his country and people safe, then that was what he did.

SECOND OF ALL, that huge number happened with only one occasion. the aforementioned invasion. which, for more context, took place mainly because he refused to pay tribute, which consisted of money and children. but he was cruel and had no morale, because he refused to send his country’s children to the enemy, i guess.

“oooh but he impaled other people too!!! lots of them!!! because he was so bloodthirsty!!!111!!!11!”

THIRD OF ALL, any other people he impaled were people that 1) were traitors 2) led attacks against him 3) wanted him dead 4) betrayed him 5) worked behind his back destroy his country 6) - i think you got the idea. he didn’t impale for fun, or with any occasion. it was a punishment he used to set examples in his attempts to make his country better.

as a ruler, the one in charge, the one who led his people, was it not correct of him to want the best for his country? to want to protect it?

his methods might seem cruel by today’s point of view, but stop taking them out of context. this happened in the middle ages, not today, when times and views were different. more people had died of impaling and not by Vlad’s orders. be shocked, but he was not the only one using this punishment. and no, he didn’t invent it.

And I don’t entirely disagree with the thesis! That he’s oversimplified as a figure and the political context not taken into account and it would be more interesting if it were.

On the other hand. The series of battles that featured the most famous round of impalements was part of a loooooong run of intra-Tepes dynastic strife that, yes, was heavily driven by the royal and imperial neighbors coming in and putting in a new voivode periodically in hopes of securing their local advantage.

(In a pattern of Large Rude Country Behavior that has not changed from that day to this.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if Vlad III had a problem with the devshirme system, although accounts of the terms on which Vlad II handed him and Radu over as hostages are conflicted, but the Ottoman forces in that clash were technically there on Radu’s behalf. Vlad’s own first attempt at the…throne, as it were, had been backed by the same sort of Ottoman army, going in to overthrow his cousin Vladislav, who’d been installed by John Hunyadi of Hungary, who’d had Vlad II and his eldest son Mircea killed to install Vladislav in the first place.

But that attempt failed and ultimately Vlad III Dracul ascended to voivode of Wallachia for the first time with the backing of the Hungarians, who in the interim had had a falling-out with Vladislav. In between that conflict and this one, our boy Vlad III lost his position to his older brother known as Vlad the Monk, and got it back again.

He made himself very unpopular with the boyars during his rule through high-handed attempts to centralize power in himself, and didn’t endear himself to the people to make up for it, which probably did a lot for his poor reputation. The boyars didn’t need to be trying to betray Wallachia to dislike a pushy ruler.

But also he was infamous in his time for running a brutal prison where people got impaled a lot on his totalitarian whims. Other rulers gossiped about him to the Pope. That’s not a ‘different time’ thing. Did he actually impale two monks to death to help them get to heaven faster, and then their donkey for being noisy? Probably not, on the basis that that’s A Lot of gratuitous cruelty and sounds like something someone would make up.

But he was known, in his own time, as the sort of guy who would do that.

Also he raided Transylvania and probably sacked churches there so he wasn’t precisely heroically holding the line of Christendom against the Turks, and if we’re going to talk about him being misrepresented the Saxons he was fighting then are probably the chief suspects. Vlad III Dracula got woodcuts, and was one of the first famous tyrants to be immortalized in print.

So like. Yes he was resisting imperial encroachment, but it was hardly a lovely clean motherland-versus-invaders scenario, and the thing he mostly fought for was himself.

And his chief enemies were his brothers, and while Radu can certainly be considered a sell-out if you like, there’s no particular reason to think the same of Vlad ‘The Monk’ IV. If anything he had a better record there than Vlad II or III.

The Ottomans abandoned Radu too, iirc, in spite of his having distinguished himself in the Conquest of Byzantium and being close with Mehmet II, and he died of syphilis. Vlad III got the throne again for a bit. Vlad IV The Monk got it back, had a fairly stable rule for a bit with the support of Moldavia, left the principality to his son Radu…who was unseated by Vlad III’s son, Mihnea.

I mean, I don’t know why I’m surprised to see impassioned historical Dracula apologism

“Historical Dracula” starting off badly I’m afraid. There’s no Țepeș “apologism” here. What he did was brutal, immoral, and quite frankly terrifying.  Why he did it, however? To protect his country, his people, and, as much as his sense of justice was very strict, cleanse his piece of land from any crimes. When did he do it? 600 years ago. I’m afraid that the standards were different and that at the times you had many more rulers who did awful things for worsts reasons than he had.

On the other hand. The series of battles that featured the most famous round of impalements was part of a loooooong run of intra-Tepes dynastic strife that, yes, was heavily driven by the royal and imperial neighbors coming in and putting in a new voivode periodically in hopes of securing their local advantage.

Indeed, part of his actions happened because it was heavily driven by the royal and imperial neighbors coming in and putting in a new voivode periodically in hopes of securing their local advantage. Glad we can agree on that. Also: “intra-Tepes dynastic” Țepeș isn’t a dynasty. It’s a nickname given to one singular person.

In a pattern of Large Rude Country Behavior that has not changed from that day to this.

I’m glad to announce to you that impaling people is quite hated nowadays even if the Ottoman Empire kept this going until the 19th century.

Vlad’s own first attempt at the…throne, as it were, had been backed by the same sort of Ottoman army, going in to overthrow his cousin Vladislav, who’d been installed by John Hunyadi of Hungary

Yes, he was 17 and the Ottoman Empire sent him to get the throne of Wallachia, hoping they could have a puppet here who will accept all their demands instead of having someone they don’t know from Hungary who would’ve probably caused them more issues. Quite understandable.

 Vlad III Dracul

Vlad II was Dracul, Vlad III is Drăculea (Dracula).

He made himself very unpopular with the boyars during his rule through high-handed attempts to centralize power in himself. The boyars didn’t need to be trying to betray Wallachia to dislike a pushy ruler.

The boyards hated him because they were corrupt and wanted a voivode easy to manipulate to keep being as wealthy as they were. If the previous voivode wasn’t laxist enough, they killed him to put another one on top. Of course, they would hate someone who refused to do commerce with the Ottoman Empire and wasn’t into Saxons walking in his land.

Other rulers gossiped about him to the Pope.

And he was quite liked by him!! Indeed, Vlad was the only one who accepted to start crusades again and the pope saw him as a defender of Christianity, I am not a believer myself but this kind of trust is pretty incredible to receive from the Pope I’d say.

On the basis that that’s a lot of gratuitous cruelty and sounds like something someone would make up.

I’m also glad to tell you that most of his stories of gratuitous cruelty are not only something someone would make up, but also actually made up.

Vlad III Dracula got woodcuts, and was one of the first famous tyrants to be immortalized in print.

Vlad was of the first famous tyrants to be immortalized in print because once the printing machine got invented, they needed to profit off it. What sells better than stories of a cruel, tyrannic, monster of a ruler who disliked the Saxons?

but it was hardly a lovely clean motherland-versus-invaders scenario, and the thing he mostly fought for was himself.

Let me reassure you, no one said that it was a lovely clean motherland-versus-invaders scenario. He mostly fought not for himself, not for all the people, but for the ones that weren’t corrupt and to keep his country alive.

there’s no particular reason to think the same of Vlad ‘The Monk’ IV. If anything he had a better record there than Vlad II or III.

What is Vlad the Monk doing in all this? They never fought.

The Ottomans abandoned Radu too, iirc

Yes. Because Radu was nothing to them than another puppet who could be at the head of Wallachia and obey them. Aside from that, he wasn’t much to them. Vlad understood it, that’s why he left and fought against them.

Politics suck, okay?

It does, but you started the subject so here I am, talking about it. Plus you need to understand them to understand Vlad’s life and actions.

Politics are horrible and the number of people killed in the Tepes crown-snatching game would be horrible even if it hadn’t been a lot of imperial maneuvering to procure suzerainty and secure borders, and even without thousands of them being impaled to make a point.

Excuse you? The Tepes crown-snatching game? It was all but a game, it was a fight to keep a country free from corruption and invaders. And yes, it is horrible. But necessary. What else could he have done? Sat here like a good dog in a leash the Ottoman Empire grabbed? Closing his eyes on the Boyards corruptions and accepting traitors in his land? Yes, he could’ve done that. But It wouldn’t be any better. I’d take a Vlad who fought furiously because he cared about his country and his people than a puppet.

A wild fox discovered in a fisherman’s bag after eating all the fish