Category: Uncategorized

Klava

I keep getting asked if klava is real, and if so, how do you make it?

No, it isn’t real, but people have been working on it. The problem is the wood chips, which tend to increase the bitterness, and the whole idea behind it is to remove the bitterness (I’m one of those unfortunate people with an over-sensitivity to bitter; it’s why I hate most of the really good beers).

Now, one individual says he’s actually made it work, and even sent me the recipe plus all of the ingredients to test it out, and, to my shame, I got lazy and never got around to it. But if that person wants to come forward, I’ll put that recipe here, and then stick this post onto the sidebar.

 

Baron of Magister Valley Chapter 16 Support Group

There are going to be SPOILERS for MAGISTER VALLEY here, but I’ll keep them in the comments.

So, you’ve read chapter sixteen, and you’re ready to yell at Steven about it?

Readers of Dragaeran historical romances will be familiar with wishing to yell at Paarfi and Steven. But this one is really going to cause some wailing and gnashing of teeth. Comments here for us to commiserate together.

The Police and the Army: A Question

I’ve been having some trouble explaining this, which always means I don’t understand it well enough.
 
History tells us these institutions are not at all the same, particularly when entering a revolutionary period. The army will inevitably be shaken by whatever social crises have precipitated the revolutionary upsurge. In the worst case, only the most courageous soldiers will break away to join the masses. In other cases, whole units will set down their rifles and “come over.” Sometimes they will “come over” with weapons in hand, in formation, banners flying, bands playing, led by their own officers (usually at gunpoint). The success or failure of an insurrection is determined above all by to what degree it is supported by the army (which, of course, is determined by a number of factors that are beyond the scope of my question).
 
So far as I can tell, there has never been a case of a cop doing anything except either throwing support to the ruling class, or, at best, running and hiding. Certainly history has never shown us units doing so. By the time society has entered into a revolutionary crisis, the police are hated, loathed, despised by the masses. Every time. And they return these feelings with interest.
 
And yet, if we ignore social and historical context and simply line up factors in a purely formal way, they’re so similar: Both drawn largely from the toiling classes, both used as instruments of repression by the state, both turned against their own people as soon as there are signs of social unrest.
 
So, comrades (I’m looking at you, Don Barry) , what are the social and historical factors that make them so different? We know they are different; we’ve both read about it and many of us have had personal experience of the difference; it’s easy to talk to soldiers, we have nothing to say to cops. Why?