Tancrede Dumas (1830-1905)

 

I've often seen, and noticed, this photo of a remarkable couple of close friends from The Middle East: A blind man carries a paralyzed man on his back, thus making a workable unity. By helping each other as best they can, both of them are able to move along, one being the eyes of both, and the other one the feet. One of the interesting things about this solution to the difficult lives of disabled men in the Middle East is that one of them is a Christian and the other one is a Muslim, but still they are able to work together. The photo is tagged "Tancrede Dumas", and somehow I got the impression that that was the name of one of these men, but it's actually the name of the photographer who took the photo.

Tancrede Dumas (1830-1905)

His parents were fervent supporters of Napoleon, who had to leave their native France to seek refuge in Italy. That's why Tancrede Dumas most often is called an Italian. He was some kind of adventurer, who tried his luck in several different professions. For instance, he was also a banker, but at the same time he offered pianos to buy or hire. His job as a photographer must have started some time in the middle of the 1860ies when he founded a studio in Constantinople with some others. However, in 1866 he started his own studio in Beirut, actually in the consulate quarter. That, I suppose, must have been valuable to him as it must have given him good opportunities with the so-called "elite". For instance, he accompanied The Archduke of Mecklenburg on his journey to the Orient, thus attaining the right to introduce himself as "Photographer To The Imperial And Royal Court of Prussia".  

The journey with The Archduke must have been of value to Tancrede in several ways. For instance, he also had the opportunity to follow The American Palestine Exploration in 1875 as the assigned photographer. His published collections of photographs from this kind of expeditions must be of high value to e.g. historians, as they tell about life as it was lived in the Orient at that time. As a photographer Tancrede was a witness to a world of yesterday. This, for instance, is a photo of snake charmers:

It seems that it's well-known that his work included several more albums or portfolios which have not been found yet. However, when he died in 1905 his legacy was - and is - impressive.

 

^{https://www.gettyimages.no/photos/tancrede} 

 

^{https://luminous-lint.com/phoenix.php/photographers/single/Tancrede__Dumas/biography/} 

 

^Wikipedia 

Some Considerations About The Uses of Religion

Some people will be horryfied at the implications of such a statement, but others will nod in agreement. However, as it is, the latter group may be the one which consists of more true believers than the first one. "How come?" you may ask, not believing your own ears. The first group are confirmedcChurch-goers, which the second one isn't, so how are they maybe more true believers than people who attend sermon after sermon? Well, to attend sermons and bleat religious hymns without much understanding of what they are about, is not a religious act, but it certainly is a social one: Religion is a way of bringing  "order" to a society in the conformity-manner. "Bend your knees, bleat with me and remember the religious slurs of our community. When doing that, you shall be fine."

Those ardent Church-goers often seem to be beset by thought, ideas and even plans which not exactly equal devotions. The so-called main-religions - and maybe even others - have attained a suppression function in society that has nothing to do with spirituality or a deeply heart-felt wish of "getting close to God, whoever this particular deity is". On the contrary, it's more like a "I shall twist you arm until it breaks if you don't come to see eye to eye with me when it comes to religion". The arm-twister may even see him-/herself as a true believer, a "swordsman" for God which is totally crazy. 

 

Yup, that's how it has been used for ages, but humans are the ones who enslave other humans, not "God" and not "Satan", who are nothing but figments of the imagination of numerous generations of humans. No matter what, it's interesting how these intricate fantasy-figures have grown into tools for suppression, but it makes one wonder at how it shall be in the future. The "2025-project" in the USA set out to turn a thoroughly Capitalistic society into what they see as Christian, but which we know is anything but that ....

No Legs, Arms or Hands? James Gillingham Will Fix That in A Whiff!!!

 

In Danish, we have an old saying that goes like this: "Shoemaker, stay with your trade!" If James Gillingham (1839–1924) had done so he would not have been able to help William Singleton when he lost an arm in a weird accident in connection with the celebrations of the wedding of the future King Edward VII and the Danish princess, Alexandra. However, being a shoemaker, must have taught him what he needed to know about this very young art of making prosthetics in leather. It brought him fame, and he and his works is a main subject in the museum of Chad, situated in Somerset, where he lived and worked. 

He started his new trade in 1863, and from then on that was what he did for a living. As it is, he was an absolute artist, making beautiful and usable artificial limbs. Of course, he also was a pioneer, and the medical journal "The Lancet" complimented him for his work in 1868. They called his artificial limbs, which for the most part, took 10 days to make, "strong, light, and durable". Also, they wrote that they were "easy wearing and not likely to get out of repair; simple in construction, and as beautiful as life in appearance."

From the Chard Museum 

Modern day prosthetics seem to accept that the disfiguring aspects of being an amputee isn't hidden or camouflaged. Actually, nowadays one often sees artificial legs or arms looking like robotic limbs with no skin like coverings. They are all steel-constructions and don't look like natural limbs. To me, it almost looks like as if this kind of artificial limbs have become a trend. Anyway, I doubt it shall go on forever, as I suppose people will want to look as little conspicuous as possible: They will want to blend in, so to speak.

Maybe the future will bring much more advanced prosthetics. I shouldn't wonder if the experts have started to work on something that might be entirely new limbs, integrated with the body, yes, sort of "melting together with it". That might have been good for this little, Victorian girl:

Victorian prosthetic made by James Gillingham (1839–1924). Photos circa 1880s-1900s.

https://www.dearrailway.in/artificial-limbs-center/

 

https://steelbone.co.uk/types-of-prosthetic-limbs-on-the-nhs-for-amputees/ 

 

Wikipedia 

Mother Pretended to Be The Son She Murdered

 

This case undoubtedly defies some of the most common beliefs about mothers and children. We wouldn't find it hard to understand a woman who defends her children like a bear mom, risking her life in fightings to hold her cubs safe, but a mom who kills her son "on the spur of the moment", is unfathomable to most of us. The fact that she at one point also "borrowed" his identity, pretending to be him, holds such a lot of "how could she"-moments that it's almost as if this tragedy turns into some kind of sick joke. Almost, that is because all of this is tragic ....  

 

John Gaither: The Victim

According to his mother, her 42 years old son, John, was depressed, and that's the reason why she "put him out of his misery". He was living with her in her house, and he may have had problems of various art, but presumably not something that might call for her kind of euthanasia. Actually, she may have been depressed herself. Anyway, her actions don't strike one as what she called them, namely "a spur of the moment"-killing, as she handled his dead body in an almost professional gangster-manner, by hiding it in the wall. Not until relatives of the mother-son-couple made a report of John's disappearance that started an investigation was he found and retrieved. Before that happened she had sent text messages in his name, as if he were still alive.

 

The police found out that she had bought 15 bags of sand, straw, tape and dumpster bags at a certain Home Depot. All of it had been for hiding her dead son behind the fake wall she had built. Also, the police found out that she had a prior conviction of killing her drug dealer in 1993 and hiding his body in her car trunk. Strangely enough he wasn't found until several months later, and when he was, she attempted to kill herself. So she did, when her son's body was found, but both times she was saved. Her first murder landed her with a sentence of 17 years, and the second one, namely of her son, lead to a life sentence without any possibility of a parole.  

 

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/mississippi-mom-killed-son-hid-1951561

 

When Women Turn Into Men the Patriarchal Way

Yup, the figures on the cover of this Norwegian classic are upside-down, which is a feature that goes well with the intent of its creator, Gerd Brantenberg (born in 1941). The book has been translated and published in several countries since first publication in 1977 which is no wonder as it's a very well-designed and funny tale of gender squabbles in the fictive country of Egalia. Here the male sex is suppressed the way the female one is in many of our day Patriarchies. When Gerd Brantenberg tells the tale of Egalia she gives a both lucid and ludicrous portrait of the man-woman-situation in our non-fictive world of today: Look guys, follow the lead of the main character, the teenaged boy Petronius, and get to know much more about the "war of the sexes", and how suppression works when it comes to gender.

 

Gerd Brantenberg, some time in the 1970ies

She studied philology and became a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen for some years. In the 1970ies she was very active in the women's rights movement. Something which was met with acclaim as she got several honorary offices before turning into a full-time author from 1982. Her first books - which I don't think have been neither translated nor published outside of Norway - were about her life as a young lesbian. However, when she published her dystopian novel "Egalias døtre" ("The Daughters of Egalia") in 1977 she won a well-deserved international fame and recognition, and by now, the novel has turned into a genuine classic.

 

The novel tells the story of young Petronius who is full of romantic notions and longings. Being lean, tall and starting to grow a beard he is not considered handsome, as the ideal of male beauty in Egalia is plump, no special muscular strength, modest and submissive. Actually, men should be what women are expected to be in modern day Patriarchies. After what to us appears to be a somewhat ludicrous sexual meeting with a true "Alpha woman", Gro Maydaughter, who robs him of his virginity by using him sexually without many thoughts of his sexual gratification, he gets hooked on her emotionally. She - this quite coarse and selfish - woman is what he has been taught to consider the female ideal, and he sort of feels honored by her attention at the "Maidmen's Ball" where many young males lose their virginity to someone like her. These feelings are connected to his general inferiority complex because of his "unmasculine" looks, which are exactly what we consider proper and handsome in men of today.

 

Being a philologist, Gerd Brantenberg works the language in an expert manner, creating new words or giving old words a new meaning. Also bringing new meanings to well-known objects, as e.g. the brassiere, which, by the way, isn't something the women of Egalia are wearing. Actually, I don't think they have ever heard about something like that, but everyone, male or female, know that boys at a certain age have to wear an attraption on their penis.

 

What Gerd Brantenberg did in such an expert manner was to develop a new set of words, motifs and ideologies within a traditional form in order to tell us of life in a Patriarchy of today. Logically enough, at a certain point, Petronius takes part in the newly established, and very controversial Men's Movement. I guess that his experiences mirror those of Gerd Brantenberg in the 1970ies. However, the novel doesn't appear to be "time bound", it's scope is much wider than that.

https://zantimes.com/2023/10/04/egalias-daughters-a-satirical-novel-about-gender-differences-and-discrimination-book-review/

https://nordicwomensliterature.net/writers/brantenberg-gerd/

The Forgotten, But Cool, Spying Opera Singer, Margery Booth

 

Margery Myers Booth (1906-1952) was a well-known English-born opera singer who married a German and moved to Germany with him. As is well-known, Adolph Hitler, loved opera and definitely got some of his ideas by watching operas by Wagner which extolled the looks and characteristics of Scandinavian heroes and heroines from a far gone mythical time period. When Margery sang for him in Bayreuth in 1933 he was enthralled and gave her 200 roses, presumably wrapped in a swastika. What he didn't know was that this beautiful and very talented woman wasn't only an opera singer, but also a British spy who worked with Mi6 during WWII. At one point she also hid a Jewish woman in her flat in Berlin.

 

Her career as a singer blossomed in Germany. She had performances both at Bayreuth and with the Berlin State Opera, and Hitler was one of her most ardent admirers. Maybe that's why she was allowed to perform for British prisoners of war, which gave her the opportunity to smuggle out certain kinds of information, some of it hidden in her underwear. The Germans, on the other hand, hoped that they, by letting her sing for these British prisoners, might persuade some of them to switch sides and fight against the Soviet Union in a "Britischer Freikorps". 

 

 

Her main contact from the camp seems to have been one of the prisoners, John Brown, who later told about her endeavors in his memoirs. He tried to give the Germans the impression that he might switch sides and become a soldier in their "Britischer Freikorps", but he was found out. Both he and Margery were arrested and tortured, but she was released when they couldn't prove anything. She escaped Berlin during a bombing raid and then returned to Britain where she gave very valuable information and evidence in criminal cases against British traitors in Old Bailey.

 

 

https://www.wiganlocalhistory.org/articles/margery-booth-the-operatic-spy

 

https://www.imdb.com/video/embed/vi3794712089/ 

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2128497/ 

 

Wikipedia 

A Christian Fan of Israel

One of my late friends was the well-known writer and translator, Clara Svendsen (1916-2008). She was the private secretary of Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen for many years, but some time after her death in 1962 she got a new and more international surname and became Clara Selborn. As to Clara's personality she was a deeply engaged, devout and philosophical woman who at one point in her life became a Catholic although she wasn't born one. 

Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), to the left, and her loyal secretary, Clara Svendsen (Selborn), to the right, buying flowers on Højbro Plads in Copenhagen

It has been said about Clara that she had two passions, namely Lord Byron and Karen Blixen, but actually there were three, as she also had very deep feelings for Israel, and especially, Jerusalem. She often visited this historical city and came back to Denmark in a sort of "refuelled" state, praising the spiritual input of what to her were holy places, chosen by the God she believed in. Sometimes we discussed Israel, and I remember how she argued that "the Jews had bought the land they now lived in and thus had all the rights to it they needed." I never held any strong opinions on the subject, but all in all, I felt that the Palestinians had been let down and robbed of their ownership by everybody concerned, especially the Brits. After Holocaust the sympathy was for the homeless Jews who claimed to have a historical "right" to what they saw as "The Promised Land", but I felt that religion and old myths were too feeble statements of ownership. Actually, I argued for the idea that the survivors of the Holocaust should claim a large part of Germany as their rightful inheritance and compensation. Palestine, on the other hand, belonged to the Palestinian people who had worked the land for centuries, and not the Jews/Zionists, who sort of came in through the backdoor. I'm sure the religious and ancestral perspective meant a lot to Clara, but not to me: I never had much respect or veneration for Yahwe. 

Clara would have found it very hard to understand the reality of this kind of incidents. Some Christian visitors have been harrassed, even attacked physically, and that would have been a shock to her. Actually, I don't think she would have believed it, so she would have been devastated at watching the video evidence, that really is shocking because of the Israeli cruelty. Spitting on Christian tourits or residents, burning defenceless Palestinians in their tents, burying some kids alive would have appeared to her to be lies. However, we see much of it by press released videos here in 2026, although it by now is difficult for foreign journalists to get impass everywhere in the area which has been barred to them.

     

Yes, there were heaps of shoes, clothes and other belongings of the murdered Jews in the kz-camps, and this is a reminder of that fact. It may not be the intention or the main purpose, but it makes one think of all those innocent people that were murdered in WWII. At that time, the general sympathy for the persecuted Jews was strong. The tragedy of what happened to these innocent people was totally unfathomable, so difficult to work into an overall picture of the world at that time that many decent and well-meaning people forgot the fact that the so-called "Promised Land" was the homeland of another people, namely the Palestinians. Many were disposed of or displaced which one may argue means that they were regarded as disposable, somebody of no influence. A very unpleasant thought, also because these people are being turned into the same kind of victims as the Jews of WWII were. Clara would have been very sad indeed to see that these wrongfully persecuted Jews have turned into mirror-images of those who hunted them down and murdered them. 

 

https://globalis.dk/konflikter/israel-palaestina

 

https://faktalink.dk/emner/israel-palaestina-konflikten 

 

https://www.dragoerhistorie.dk/livshistorier/baronessen-i-strandstraede/  

 

https://boobytrapec.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-killing-of-god.html 

 

For comprehensive background context, see the Council on Foreign Relations tracker or read the BBC historical overview. 

 

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict