Society Blogs (898)

Archeologists are gingerly and respectfully exploring what is known as Dig Hill 80 in Flanders, Belgium today.

In 1914 invading Germans and Bulgarians surrounded a tiny, bucolic, village on a hill 80 meters high and and occupied it. The name of the village was Wytschaete. This village was defended by British & French forces as well as the civilian male occupants and their families. The civilians were very unfriendly to the invaders too. Letters home from the victorious Bulgarian and German soldiers described how they were often repulsed or took heavy losses from the defenders when they tried to clear the village house by house. So they barricaded the houses and other buildings, then set them all afire with the various occupants still inside. The fighting, screaming and dying lasted for 3 days. Afterwards the Germans and Bulgarians built a fortress wall around the smouldering village

The site offered an excellent observation of nearby Ypres and the German forces wasted no time bringing in their best optics and using the site as both an artillery observation point and also their fortress. Elaborate trenches and underground structures were built as part of the defense.

For the next 4 years every day artillery shells landed there or were launched from there. There were repeated major unsuccessful attempts to recapture the area. By 7 June 1917 British sappers had succeeded in tunneling secret tunnels under the German walls and they then placed 900,000 pounds (450 tons) of high explosives in their man made caverns 75 feet down under the fortress. At 3pm that day they detonated them and made the largest (until then) conventional explosive blast in history. The fortress vanished along with many of the occupants and the British moved in and occupied the torn earth and rubble.

Fighting continued and in April of 1918 the Germans succeeded in retaking the site and began re-fortifying it. Only in September 1918 when the Germans pulled back did the fighting there end when the British again reoccupied the site.

At least a full regiment of men who died fighting inside those walls to capture or defend it on behalf of one side or another now lay where they fell (along with whatever villagers who were been trapped there by the events) or were buried or burnt alive. Over 100 years later still nothing remains above ground except a few bricks. The bones, artifacts and unexploded artillery shells lay below.

the site today.


A cloud funded, multi national group of archaeologists, both amateur and professional is now very carefully and respectfully excavating the old fortress grounds to preserve for history whatever they can about the people who died there.

Here is a release at seminar of their first report.

... Today, on a talking head show, an alt-lefty reporterette was interviewing a nice young Black man, concerning gun violence in his community. It seems some likely gang banger cretin was passing by where this fellow and his mom were sitting on the stoop, and the lowlife shot both of them, fortunately with no life threatening injuries. The point of the program was youth's solutions to gun violence, and this well spolen 17 year old did a great job giving his thoughtful views on the subject. But the lady had to introduce race into it, pressing him on how special his situation was, give his race. I saw where this was headed, having seen this sort of thing many times. I turned it off before she predictably lead into how our brilliant President might just as well have pulled the trigger himself on that scary day. These media folks are a major reason it is so hard for all of us to try our best to relate to others in human, but not racist, ways. Wish I had a dollar for each time I've seen this sort of thing. Outrageous.

.................Faith Can Move Mountains

Just a little social experiment to see if anyone reads the blog info or just comments on anything

And was tired of the same old topics and faces

................. I spent like five minutes trying to figure it out

Go 24 hours without complaining

............. No contact is the best way .………………

.................... Be Different...Be Yourself...

................... simplified blogging

......most of the polling says few seem affected by it, or are even aware of this latest fake news biased media boondoggle. Our Brilliant President Trump appropriately is letting things stew, including the days/lives of so many paper pushing govenment "workers". And now has made a strategic offer that the dems reject out of hand, moving the blame a bit more in their direction, inspite of how hard the media tries otherwise. The pseudocrisis will end when the government employees' unions, largest of such anachronistic outfits, start banging on dems' doors on behalf of their usually coddled charges. Wonderful chance to rif many of these folks, who wouldn't survive in the dreaded private sector. And to thereby deregulate their meddlesome input into the lives of us all, to cut the costs of ever burgeoning government, and to sell the enormous infrastructure housing them to real economy productive enterprise. The talk of their doing so to avoid future shutdowns is pathetic. Oh yeah, they'll leave the jobs where now the pay is on average higher than in private "real work" employment. And where firing them is near imposssible. And where, unlike nearly nowhere else, over generous lifetime defined pensions still are the rule. And where we see how many are deemed "nonessential" at the tiniest snow storm. Except of course where municipal and state governments are realizing how this latter is unsustainable, and where new employees will have to live as all the rest of us, with the non pensions we have to fund on our own. How's government employment/pensions going in Kentucky these days? Watch many states follow.