The seven whistlers. Source: Posted by Jim Moir on X
On this day in 1909, journalist John Cotton attempted, in the Bromsgrove Messenger, to unravel the sinister legend of the Seven Whistlers. Cotton reminded his readers that the Whistlers had long been a sign of ill omen. To hear one Whistler meant a death in the family; four meant famine or pestilence and six meant earthquakes or some other physical disaster. In truth, the Seven Whistlers are a well established piece of folklore common across the breadth of the British Isles: at sea they were held to be the mournful spirits of drowned sailors; on land they were believed to be the malign ghosts of deceased children, and the more whistlers that were heard, the greater the calamity that they prophesied. It is generally accepted that these folk tales of supernatural crying probably originated in the eerie call of curlews. Although in modern times the notion of death-foretelling whistling spirits has been largely discredited, there remains a belief that curlews are indeed birds of misfortune and best avoided. In Scotland, the gloomy curlew is known as the whaup and was held to be a curve-beaked goblin, who would swoop down and carry off the unwary.
John Cotton’s interest in the Whistlers may have been promoted by the fact a favourite haunt of the mysterious doom-foretellers are the Lickey Hills near Bromsgrove, also allegedly frequented by Satan and his huntsman companion, Harry-ca-nab.
“This is a song about things that you infuse too much of yourself into so that when you have to see them destroyed, or forget where they went, it gets to count as a greater loss than it otherwise might have. If you suffer from a certain type of neurosis-slash-mental-illness, this is a very appealing process to you, i.e. me."
John Darnielle about Cotton, 9/9/2010, London, England
James Wilby & Sporting: Part One:
1. Maurice (1987): Boxing
2. Woman In White (1997): Croquet
3. Cotton Mary (1999): Tennis
4. A Handful Of Dust: (1988): Diving
5. Adam Bede (1992): Horse Riding
6. Caccia Alla Vedova/The Siege Of Venice (1991): Fencing
7. Gosford Park (2000): Shooting
8. Regeneration (1997): Golf
9. You Me And It (1993): Cricket
10. Dutch Girls (1985): Field Hockey
As anti-Israel protests have spread across many of the country’s most prestigious college campuses this week, several Republicans in Congress have sought to burnish their pro-Israel credentials by calling for the U.S. military to respond.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton exhorted President Joe Biden to send in National Guard units, while obliquely encouraging motorists to run over protestors. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley similarly demanded a militarized federal response “to protect Jewish Americans,” while Mitch McConnell and John Thune penned a letter, signed by 25 of their fellow GOP senators, calling the demonstrators “anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist mobs” and demanding that “federal law enforcement” respond.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson paid a visit to Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday where he was greeted by catcalls and boos. Upon leaving, Johnson also declared he would be demanding that Biden deploy the National Guard to quell the protests if they continued.
As Adam Serwer, writing for the Atlantic, observes, these reflexive calls by Republicans for a military response to protests seem to be less rooted in genuine concern that the protests pose a serious danger to the public or Jewish people than “because these powerful figures find the protesters and their demands offensive.” Serwer points out that school administrators have, when necessary, called in local police to address potential violence, harassment, and property damage, and thus far, the protests do not evince the kind of “mass violence and unrest” that would normally suggest the need for federal involvement. He also notes that such a deployment of federal troops would likely escalate the protests.
Without debating the relative merits or lack thereof of the protests themselves, then, it’s important to note that these demands for a federal militarized response are coming almost entirely from one side of the political aisle. As Serwer points out, they echo the same sentiments Republicans expressed in 2020 in response to the protests by Black Lives Matter over the police murder of George Floyd.
In other words, thus far we have seen a markedly asymmetrical, political response by Republicans to campus protests this week. But we are also witnessing something else: an explicit acceptance of a militarized solution to protests where Republicans find it politically advantageous.
Notably, another well-known Republican has also proposed sending the U.S. military and National Guard units to quell anticipated public protests, albeit of a far different nature, should he be afforded another term in office. That person is Donald Trump, and the people he proposes to target are those Americans he suspects would turn out in the hundreds of thousands to protest the policies he intends to implement.
Prominent Republicans such as Tom Cotton, Donald Trump, and Mike Johnson are demanding a militaristic response to end the pro-Palestinian protests across the nation's campuses as a way of burnishing their pro-Israel Apartheid bona fides.
Such a response would further escalate protests instead of quell them.
See Also:
Vox: Student protests are testing US colleges’ commitment to free speech
The Nation: The Crackdown on Campus Protests Is Happening Everywhere
Sunny Harnett wears a fine white cotton dress, slightly striped with blue, or brown or gray, and buttoned with small jewels, belted with white leather. By David Levine. Bergère mother-of-pearl bracelets.
Sunny Harnett porte une robe en fin coton blanc, légèrement rayé de bleu, ou de brun ou de gris, et boutonné de petits bijoux, ceinturé de cuir blanc. Par David Levine. Bracelets en nacre de Bergère.