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This morning on a drive home I listened to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit on high volume, and tried to reimagine the hypnotic power it once held over me, when under the moderate influence of cannabis. As I heard the steady drumbeat, Gracie Slick's almost mesmerizing voice, and the imagery conveyed by the lyrics, I said to myself something like, "I see how it can lead one down a rabbit-hole." And for the first time in all these years, I made the connection between Lewis Carroll's rabbit and the hole Alice fell down, and that common expression of going down a rabbit-hole. Only took me 60 years to make that connection.

I may be slow, but at least I'm cute.
 
One song from the 1970s that never fails to pump my blood whenever I hear it is Paranoid by Black Sabbath

 
This talk of American colonial history has sent me to some books I have here. I just spent a little bit of time reading a few pages in Rebellion In the Mohawk Valley: The St. Leger Expedition of 1777, reading about John Butler, a Loyalist from upstate New York, who ended up being very important in the founding of the town of Niagara on this side of the border.
 
Ooh how timely! I've been watching Ken Burns' The American Revolution for the past week. Think I've got about 5 hours left. Highly recommend if one needs a refresher on some of these events. I've appreciated the maps with troop movements and stuff. Great content.
 
CatrionaGrace said:
If you go back and pass a new course in historical research methods, you may retain your degree. :)
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It shall be done!

Louanne Learning said:
This talk of American colonial history has sent me to some books I have here. I just spent a little bit of time reading a few pages in Rebellion In the Mohawk Valley: The St. Leger Expedition of 1777, reading about John Butler, a Loyalist from upstate New York, who ended up being very important in the founding of the town of Niagara on this side of the border.
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Niiiice! I do have a memoir written by a young man who joined the Patriot army in 1775, not because he had any drive for the cause, but because he wanted something to do and his friends goaded him to join. Apparently he made a mark on the recruitment document and was all, ‘Oh well…’

CatrionaGrace said:
Where does your story take place?
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1775 Massachusetts, a fictional town on the mouth of the Charles River, an hour’s carriage ride from Boston.

Set2Stun said:
Ooh how timely! I've been watching Ken Burns' The American Revolution for the past week. Think I've got about 5 hours left. Highly recommend if one needs a refresher on some of these events. I've appreciated the maps with troop movements and stuff. Great content.
Click to expand...
I ought to check it out. Hadn’t watched his stuff since The War.
 
The Loyalists were also called Tories and that’s what we still call the Conservative Party here in Canada
 
Ah damn, the word 'Tories' had become synonymous with 'stuck up old farts not interested in change' I'm guessing?

Huh, I'm reading up on the different types of colonies that existed in America pre-Revolution. All this lore I'm learning. 😁 Amazing stuff.

en.wikipedia.org

Massachusetts Provincial Congress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
So in other words, Dunbrooke (the setting of my historical fiction, a town an hour's carriage ride from Boston) would be under the control of a provincial government answerable only to the Provincial Congress in Boston Which means if you're a Loyalist, you'd be walking a *MIGHTY* thin line and would have to be careful exposing your true allegiances. And... there would likely not be British regulars in Dunbrooke.
 
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Louanne Learning said:
The Loyalists were also called Tories and that’s what we still call the Conservative Party here in Canada
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Link the Writer said:
Ah damn, the word 'Tories' had become synonymous with 'stuck up old farts not interested in change' I'm guessing?
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I'm neither American nor Canadian (nor even British), but I know the word 'Tories' from my reading of British history! :)

'Tory' is a nickname for the Conservative Party, who are, indeed, 'stuck up old farts interested in the status quo'. ;) It comes from the Irish term
tóraidhe (or tóraí), meaning "outlaw" or "pursuer," originally used for Irish Catholic royalists and outlaws in the 17th century, later becoming a nickname for supporters of the Duke of York. The modern Conservative Party embraces the term despite its derogatory origins as a "robber" or "brigand". ;)

On the other side, 'Whig' (for the Labour Party) comes from a derogatory Scottish nickname, "Whiggamore," used for radical Presbyterian Covenanters, meaning "horse thieves" or "rebels," which was then applied to English political opponents of Catholic succession (James, Duke of York) during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, eventually becoming the name for a major British political party and later inspiring the American Whig Party.

So now you know. One side is outlaws, the other side is horse thieves. Let's hang them all and start again. :P

Interestingly, the word 'Tory' also appears in Thomas Paine's The American Crisis (Crisis No. 1, 1776), famous for its beginning line "These are the times that try men's souls." Paine questions "Why is it that the enemy have left the New England provinces, and made these middle ones the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not infested with Tories, and we are..." and later defines all Tories as cowards, because they are loyal to the British government that deserted the Patriots and forced them to rebel.

I learned about The American Crisis from listening to Orson Welles read a dramatization the speech, which inspired me to learn more. I'm sure everyone here knows this speech, but I still recommend listening to Orson deliver it. He does a masterful job.

 
There's a very good book that I read years ago - Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War - by Thomas B. Allen

A fascinating and well-researched examination of the enmity between the Tories and the Patriots, with many personal stories

In the 1770s, there was a large concentration of Tories in New York, and many of them were arrested - including Reverend Samuel Seabury, rector of Saint Peter's Anglican Church in Westchester (now the Bronx) - later revealed as the anonymous author of Letters of a Westchester Farmer, in which he had written: "If I must be enslaved, let it be by a KING at least, and not by a parcel of upstart, lawless Committee men. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin!" (Tories, page 162)

It reminds me of something I read in Life of Johnson, by James Boswell. Samuel Johnson was staunchly pro-monarchy. He saw the King as a powerful unifying symbol, and monarchy as the best to guarantee order and stability, as opposed to a system of government that serves factions.

His famous quote:
In republics there is not a respect for authority, but a fear of power.
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Dr Samuel Johnson (Boswell’s Life, p.464)

After the war, most of the Loyalists - the Tories - became refugees to Canada
 
Okay, I think I have found the ultimate WTF genre category. A speaker at an online Christian writers conference declares herself to be a writer of Cozy Apocalyptic fiction.

Tea and crumpets with zombies? Curling up on a window seat under a crocheted afghan to watch the pretty lights from the nuclear explosion? Teaming up with one's BFF to fight off marauders and bake cookies to celebrate the win?

It's too much to hope that the absurdity of the concept is the point.
 
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Louanne Learning said:
There's a very good book that I read years ago - Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War - by Thomas B. Allen

A fascinating and well-researched examination of the enmity between the Tories and the Patriots, with many personal stories

In the 1770s, there was a large concentration of Tories in New York, and many of them were arrested - including Reverend Samuel Seabury, rector of Saint Peter's Anglican Church in Westchester (now the Bronx) - later revealed as the anonymous author of Letters of a Westchester Farmer, in which he had written: "If I must be enslaved, let it be by a KING at least, and not by a parcel of upstart, lawless Committee men. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin!" (Tories, page 162)

It reminds me of something I read in Life of Johnson, by James Boswell. Samuel Johnson was staunchly pro-monarchy. He saw the King as a powerful unifying symbol, and monarchy as the best to guarantee order and stability, as opposed to a system of government that serves factions.
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All of this is true, except for two important factors:

1. In Monarchy, Order and Stability depends very much on the monarch himself. If the monarch is weak and cannot impose his will on others (e.g. King John of England, or -- even worse -- King Stephen), then you will have trouble.

This becomes even worse when the king is underage (e.g. Henry VI of England, who became king of both England and France when he was just 6 months old), or when the monarch is the result of decades of inbreeding. (Google "The Habsburg Jaw" for a grotesque example. The House of Habsburg in modern Austria and Germany tried to preserve "pure" bloodlines and maintain vast territories within a single family -- but this led to severe genetic disorders, high infant mortality, and the eventual extinction of major dynasties, including the Habsburgs themselves).

2. If the king is militarily strong (and strong-willed), then order and stability are the result ... but this can easily also lead to stagnation. Furthermore, order continues only as long as the king himself is alive.

If the king's successor cannot continue his predecessor's policies, then trouble is bound to result. An example: Edward I "Longshanks" of England, in his lifetime, subdued the Welsh and Scots. But when he died, Edward II was too weak to impose his will on them. The result was Robert de Brus's rebellion, culminating in the Battle of Bannockburn, and eventual freedom for Scotland. :)
 
CatrionaGrace said:
Okay, I think I have found the ultimate WTF genre category. A speaker at an online Christian writers conference declares herself to be a writer of Cozy Apocalyptic fiction.

Tea and crumpets with zombies? Curling up on a window seat under a crocheted afghan to watch the pretty lights from the nuclear explosion? Teaming up with one's BFF to fight off marauders and bake cookies to celebrate the win?

It's too much to hope that the absurdity of the concept is the point.
Click to expand...

I suddenly have an even more ridiculous (and horrifying) mental picture: "Christian writers conference" + "Cozy Apocalyptic Fiction" == Zombies having tea and biscuits while getting brainwashed by televangelists ... and THEN going out to proselytize themselves. And never stopping.

So, basically, they're a bunch of utterly devoted, maniacal zealots. The kind we had in the Middle Ages, only now they're undead too. *shudder* It's like the Borg from Star Trek, if the Borg were religious evangelists.

To paraphrase James Cameron: They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and they absolutely will not stop! Ever... until you die -- and rise again to join them.

The horror, the horror ...
 
Went to my Saturday writers group. Out of two hours, the self-publishers spent an hour and forty minutes talking about design and formatting software, marketing, and distribution platforms.

Dear. Freaking. Dog.
 
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