Wolverines in the Upper Midwest

Repost site.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Rediscovered After 85 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the Upper Midwest. Until recently, wolverines had been extinct in the Upper Midwest for 85-200 years.

However, one was photographed recently in Michigan. Furthermore, there have been some tantalizing sightings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and even a few in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri in recent years. It is distinctly possible the wolverines may be reclaiming some of their historical territory in the Upper Midwest. If so, this is fascinating indeed.

Wolverines in Michigan

In 2004, a wolverine was photographed in Ubly, Michigan, 90 miles north of Detroit. They were extirpated from Michigan almost 200 years ago. DNA testing of this wolverine showed that it was from Alaska. How it got from Alaska to Michigan is anyone’s guess. On March 14, 2010, this wolverine was found dead in Sanilac County, Michigan, south of where it was originally sighted in Ubly.

There have been other sightings in Lower Michigan. In November 1958, a wolverine was seen near Cadillac, Michigan by a boy who was deer hunting.

A wolverine was sighted around 1998-2000 in Tawas, Michigan.

In August 2009, a wolverine was spotted by motorists twice in short period of time just outside of Alpena, Michigan which is on the shore of Lake Huron in the far north of the Thumb near the Upper Peninsula.

In November 2009, four people spotted a wolverine outside of West Brach, Michigan in the north of the Thumb south of Huron National Forest.

These wolverines could have come down from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan because there are wolverine sightings there. Or possibly they could have come from Southern Ontario near Port Huron, though that area is densely populated. There is known to be a population in Ontario, albeit in the northern part.

The sightings on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have been in Delta County, Tahquamenon Falls State Park and the Keweenaw Peninsula. I assume that the Upper Peninsula population came from Ontario, possibly across the St. Mary’s River, if it freezes over in wintertime.

There was also an unverified wolverine sighting in the UP on November 21, 2001 at 3 PM, crossing Highway M-64 1 mile south of

A forest road in Delta County, Michigan. This road is in Escanaba State Forest. A wolverine was sighted here in an unverified sighting sometime between 1999-2004. During this period, there was about one wolverine sighting a year in Michigan, all from the Upper Peninsula.
The forests here have been changed massively from 100 years ago, when most of the White Pine was logged off. I assume what we have here is Eastern second-growth forest coming back in after the old growth was logged off. This second-growth explosion is fueling an increase in wildlife numbers, especially deer, all over the East Coast.
Tahquamenon Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. This area is located at the far east end of the UP near Ontario. The town of Paradise is nearby, as is Whitefish Bay. If the St. Mary’s River is frozen over, wolverines may well come down from Ontario to the UP. The part of Ontario near Sault Saint Marie is pretty sparsely populated. An unverified sighting of a wolverine was reported here in 2002.

Wolverines in Minnesota

In the late 2000’s, there was rash of wolverine sightings around Babbitt, Minnesota, which is near Ely in the far northeastern part of the state near Canada. A tiny lynx population has recently also been confirmed there. The sightings around Babbitt appear to be genuine. one documented sighting in Northeastern Minnesota in 1965, but details are lacking. In 1974 there was a report of a wolverine in a hay field in North-Central Minnesota, near the North Woods. There was also a sighting on Koochiching County on the Minnesota border with Canada in 1982. That sighting was deemed credible.

In early 2008, there have been reports of dog and horse kills in and around Rollag, Minnesota lately. Certain things about the killings indicate that a wolverine may be doing this. Rollag is far to the north, getting up near the North Woods. It is east of and not far from Fargo, North Dakota.

There is also a report of a wolverine captured on a security camera in 2005-2006 at a Ford dealership in the town of Zumbrota in Southeast Minnesota. This land is very much prairie.

In 1991, a baby wolverine was seen dying by the side of the road on Highway 232 near Lake Nichols close to Cotton, Minnesota. The motorists did not know how rare it was or else they would have kept the carcass. In 1999, a wolverine was spotted by a canoeist in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota on the border of Ontario, Canada.

In November 2004, a wolverine was seen eating a gut pile from a dead deer near Askov, Minnesota.

In 2005, a wolverine was spotted in the Tamarack National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

In Summer 2006, a fisherman fishing in the Narrows between Big and Little Cut Foot Sioux Lakes in Northern Minnesota saw a wolverine. He was able to watch it for 15 minutes until it caught his scent and left.

In Summer 2008, a wolverine was spotted in the forest of Eagles Nest, Minnesota, south of Ely and north of Tower. In Fall 2008, a hunter spotted a wolverine in the Black Brook Swamp east of Camp Ripley, Minnesota.

In 2010, a deer hunter saw a wolverine in Douglas County, Minnesota. Another wolverine was photographed near there five years later. In July 2010, a wolverine was seen by a motorist at night on US 53 ten miles south of International Falls, Minnesota. In Summer 2010, a wolverine was seen outside of Chisholm, Minnesota near Superior State Park.

In July 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing Highway 232 near Lake Nichols close to Cotton, Minnesota.

On January 12, 2012, a wolverine was spotted somewhere in Southern Minnesota. Someone went out to their car late at night, and a wolverine was by the garage. Tracks were found the very next day.

On July 12, 2012, two hunters saw a wolverine while driving on the Dick’s Parkway road 13 miles south of Warroad, Minnesota. The GPS location was given as 48 42.131, -95 20.566.

On October 20, 2012 at midnight, a wolverine was seen on someone’s driveway in Ham Lake, Minnesota.

At 6 PM on On October 13, 2013, a wolverine was seen in the Superior National Forest crossing Pike Lake Road on the east side of Pike Lake between Lutsen and Grand Marais, Minnesota. This is seven miles from Lake Superior.

On June 6, 2014, a wolverine was spotted in Jordan, Minnesota in a corn and alfalfa field. It was running away from a neighbor’s elk ranch. Two men observed it for a full two minutes. The areas consists of open farm country with some random tree lines.

On June 13, 2014 at 2:30 in the afternoon, a wolverine was seen crossing Road 327 in Watowan County, Minnesota. It was seen two miles east and six miles north of Saint James, Minnesota on the Watowan River.

On April 30, 2015, two wolverines were seen running, one behind the other, just east of Rush City, Minnesota in the Saint Croix River Valley.

In May 2015, a wolverine was photographed by a trail cam in Douglas County, Minnesota. I have seen the photo and felt that it was interesting but inconclusive. I showed the photo to a wolverine expert, and he also said it could be a wolverine, but it was unclear enough so it was inconclusive.

 

Old State Route 52 north of Zumbrota, Minnesota. It’s hard to believe that wolverines inhabit such terrain. Wolverines are recolonizing their old habitat on the US prairie. Why?

Many have questioned whether wolverines were actually common in prairies or if prairies merely served as population sinks. It is looking more and more like prairies are a natural home for wolverines, strange as it may seem. If these reports are accurate, it means that wolverines are re-colonizing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and possibly also Iowa, which is fantastic news!

Prairie Island (Sioux) Indian Reservation near Zumbrota, Minnesota. Is it possible that wolverines in the past preyed on the vast buffalo herds of prairie, perhaps especially on dead buffaloes?

Wolverines in Wisconsin

The occurrence of the wolverine in Wisconsin is rare but documented.

On an unknown date, a wolverine was spotted on Peshtigo Brook Fire Road where it joins Kitzinger Road near Gillett, Wisconsin.

In May 1978, a wolverine was spotted by a boy and his father while walking along the Oconto River in Oconto County eight miles west of Crooked Lake, Wisconsin. The boy was able to observe it for one minute.

A man grew up in Land O’ Lakes in far Northern Wisconsin on the border with Michigan in an area known as the North Woods. This is an area of very thick, wild forest and swamps. There are many wolves, bears, and possibly wolverines in this part of Wisconsin.

In 1982, the man saw three wolves in his front yard. In 1990, he and his friends treed 22 different bears in a single day while training bear dogs. They also had a frightening standoff with a wolverine on that day. From about 1983-1995, when he engaged in frequent deer hunting, the man saw one or more wolverines every year.

In September 1990, a wolverine was seen several times over two weeks. The last time the man saw one was in 2006 near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. All sightings took place between 1983-2006 in the North Woods approximately between Rhinelander and Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. The bear density in this region is said to be incredible, or at least it was 10 years ago (Bangs 2009).

In the early 1990’s, a wolverine ran in front of a man’s car in Marinette County, Wisconsin.

In 1998, Jeffrey Wiitala saw a wolverine in Taylor County, Wisconsin while trout fishing on the Big Rib River at a distance of about 25 feet. It paid no attention to him and leisurely lumbered off into the brush.

A wolverine was photographed on top of a woodpile in Green Lake County, Wisconsin in recent years. The disposition of the photo is unknown.

There are also recent sightings in the Black River Falls area and to the north in Wisconsin from 2000-2007.

A 2003 sighting in Lafayette County in the far south of the state was regarded as credible by the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

In 2004-2005, a wolverine was spotted in Niagara, Wisconsin in the fall on opening day of deer hunting season.

In Winter 2006, Mary Ann Ludwikowski of Weyerhauser, Wisconsin. In addition, Mary Ann found a dead wolverine roadkilled in her driveway. She gave it away to a man.

In October 2007, Ludwikowski and Sheri Bodecker of Weyerhauser, Wisconsin about 2 miles west of Weyerhauser. It crossed Hwy 8 and proceeded to run northeast through a large field. The wolverine that crossed the road in front of us was on a full run, but it frequently turned to look at us. We watched it run through a 40 acre field for about two minutes.

In 2010, a roadkilled wolverine was found by the side of the road in Green Lake County, Wisconsin.

In November 2010, a father and son saw a wolverine while sitting in a deer stand north of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

In March 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing Highway 53 between New Auburn and Bloomer, Wisconsin.

On July 29, 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing the highway on US 20 east of Sac City, Wisconsin.

On November 25, 2011, a deer hunter saw a wolverine run by his blind south of Gillette, Wisconsin.

In Fall 2011, a wolverine was seen twice in a one week period by two hunters in northern Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, one mile south of Brown County. Over the next year, a wolverine, suspected to be the same one as before, was seen in area.

On November 6, 2012, a wolverine was spotted by a man and his girlfriend hunting deer on their farm in Buffalo County, Wisconsin. They observed it for half a minute. A wolverine had been seen in the area 20 years before in the early 1990’s.

In July 2013, a wolverine killed a woman’s two cats at a home at in Wisconsin at Highway 53 and I-94 Highway 9 miles form Eau Claire and 6 miles form Osseo. A few days later, a neighbor came within three feet of a wolverine. Three weeks before, a nearby tavern owner said he had seen a wolverine on a county road. Around the time the woman’s cats vanished, neighbors in the vicinity started seeing their pets disappearing. Before the cats were killed, it had been eating the woman’s cat food for some time.

On August 28, 2013, a man saw a wolverine running away from a trash bin at a gas station in Elk Mound, Wisconsin.

On June 13, 2014, a wolverine was seen in a field only two miles north of Independence, Wisconsin.

North Dakota

There have been a few unverified sightings of wolverines in North Dakota recently.

In 1988, two wolverines were seen along the Little Missouri River in the Badlands of far Western North Dakota by a very experienced fur trapper.

In 1992, a man saw a wolverine in Central North Dakota while hunting sharp-tailed grouse. It was about 50 yards away.

In 2004, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine near Minot. The observer watched it for a good five minutes.

On June 23, 2013, a wolverine was seen in the Turtle Mountains in far Northern North Dakota on the Manitoba border.

In February 2015, mailmen spotted a wolverine on their route near Rugby, North Dakota. That is 50 miles east of Minot and 60 miles south of the Manitoba border with Canada.

South Dakota

There have also been wolverine sightings in South Dakota in the past 60 years. There was a verifiable wolverine sighting in the south-central portion of the state in 1961 (Aubry et al 1967). From 1998-2016, an 18 year period, three wolverines were seen in Lake County, South Dakota. One was an adult and two were juveniles. The adult was severely mauled by people’s dogs.

On July 12, 2012, someone saw a wolverine near Nisland, South Dakota on the Belle Fourche River in Western South Dakota 25 miles from the Wyoming border. Their neighbor had seen a wolverine shortly before the sighting. People 10 miles northwest of Nisland said that they had seen a wolverine earlier.

Wolverines in Iowa

A female wolverine was Wolverines in Nebraska

Incredibly enough, there have been a number of wolverine sightings in Nebraska in recent years.

It makes sense because wolverines are native to Nebraska, at least in the more mountainous parts to the north. In the Hall of Nebraska Wildlife in the University of Nebraska Natural History Museum, there is a mounted specimen of a wolverine that was shot on Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska in the 1880’s. That area is in far Western Nebraska on the North Platte River only 20 miles from the Wyoming border. This part of Nebraska borders on Southeastern Wyoming, which is known to have wolverine populations.

In particular, wolverines have been repeatedly sighted in and around Antelope and Knox Counties in far Northeastern Nebraska near the Missouri River and the South Dakota border. This area is near Louis and Clark Lake and the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation.

In this area, there have been many sightings along the Verdigre and Niobrara Rivers. For instance, in Summer 1998, a number of people spotted a wolverine near Verdigre, Nebraska. One was seen chasing a deer out of a draw in the middle of a hay meadow.

In April 2012, a fire and range ecologist spotted a wolverine running away after a cedar burn operation in a steep area near Scotia on the North Loup River. This is about in the dead center of Nebraska.

On October 29, 2014, a wet wolverine that seemed to have been swimming somewhere was seen in a pasture in Central Nebraska near Doniphan between Hastings and Grand Island. This is quite close to the Platte River where it may have been swimming. The area is between Lincoln and Platte, Nebraska.

There has also been one sighting north of Gordon in Northwestern Nebraska on the headwaters of Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This area is east of the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, now the scene of a famous fight over selling booze to Pine Ridge Indians.

Wolverines in Missouri

Incredibly enough, there have even been wolverine sightings very close to Missouri.

On October 28, 2011, a man spotted a wolverine emerging from a cornfield and crossing State Highway E just south of Highway 13. This is hilly farm country. This area is in Eastern Nebraska not far from the Missouri River and is close to the place where the borders of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri all meet. There are a number of good sightings in both Nebraska and Iowa, so it is possible, though bizarre, that wolverines may exist in Western Missouri.

Grey Wolves in Massachusetts and Michigan!

The first grey wolf in 94 years was seen recently in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It was a lone male. The UP, Minnesota and Wisconsin all have healthy populations. The Black Bear and wolf populations in Minnesota have shown dramatic increases in recent years, and there is now a healthy population of over 25 lynx in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the first time in 30 years.

In other great news along similar lines, an Eastern grey wolf, the first in 160 years, was detected in Massachusetts. It killed over a dozen lambs before the farmer shot it to death. The killing was probably justified, but it is unfortunate that the first wolf in the state in over 150 years got shot to death. There will probably be more wolves coming to the state after this one, though.

References

Aubry, K. B., McKelvey, K. S., and Copeland, J. P. 2007. “Distribution and Broadscale Habitat Relations of the Wolverine in the Contiguous United States.” Journal of Wildlife Management 71, 7: 148-158.
Bangs, Ray. 2009. Personal communication.
Haugen, A. O. 1961. “Wolverine in Iowa.” Journal of Mammalogy 42: 546-547.
Zimmermann, W. J.; Biester, H. E.; Schwarte, L. H.; and Hubbard, E. D. 1962. “Trichinella spiralis in Iowa Wildlife during the Years 1953 to 1961.” The Journal of Parasitology, 48:3:1, pp. 429-432.

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Repost: Englishes, Portugueses, and Chineses

In the comments to a previous post, Goyta made several comments. First of all he noted that the differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese are considerable, especially when a Brazilian hears a less educated, working class or rural Portuguese.

He also said that when European Portuguese are interviewed on Brazilian TV, Brazilians wish they had subtitles. Wanting to have subtitles when you see a video of someone speaking is actually a symptom that you are dealing with another language. He said the differences are particularly severe when it comes to IT. He said he cannot understand 9

It does appear that the differences between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are pretty significant, more significant than the differences between US and British English.

On other hand, I find Hibernian English spoken in Ireland to be nearly incomprehensible, though it is said to be just a dialect of English. It’s clearly been influenced extensively by the Irish language. Scots, the regional English spoken in Scotland and exemplified by the movie Trainspotting , is actually a completely separate language from English. That movie actually needed subtitles. On the other hand, there is a Scottish English dialect that is not Scots that is pretty intelligible.

We can always understand British English no matter who is writing it. Same with understanding spoken Australian and New Zealand (Kiwi) English. British English is often written a bit differently in slang expressions, but we pick them up. The formal writing is totally understandable.

There have been huge fights on Wikipedia between British English and US English speakers with complaints from the Brits of bullying by the Americans. There was an attempt to fork the English Wiki into Br and US versions but it failed. Wikipedia demands that you have an ISO code in order to get a Wikipedia and ISO codes only come from SIL, who publishes Ethnologue. I petitioned for a few new languages a couple of years ago and they all got shot down.

There is an ongoing war between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese on the Portuguese Wikipedia with complaints from the European Portuguese of bullying on the part of the Brazilians. Gotya noted that he, a Brazilian, could not read Portuguese IT materials. This is unfortunate. All written British is intelligible to us. We can read anything written in the UK, though most of our reading material here is from the US. I can read The Economist and The New Standard and The Spectator with no problems at all.

As a Californian, I speak completely normally, of course, and have no accent whatsoever! Haha. We can understand the Midwest accent perfectly, though it can be different. It sounds “flat”. They also insert rhotic consonants before some consonants at the end of a word and the raising of the preceding vowel – “wash” becomes “worsh”.

The Oklahoma accent is different and sometimes it can be hard to understand. I heard some people speaking Oklahoman in the doctor’s office the other day for a minute or so I thought they were speaking a foreign language! Of course they were mumbling too. Then I asked them where they were from and they said Oklahoma. At that point, I had caught onto their accent and could understand them perfectly.

I do not know why the Texan accent is said to be hard to understand. We understand it perfectly, but it sounds funny. We make a lot of jokes about it. George Bush has a strong Texan accent. There is also an Arkansas accent (Arkies) that is different but understandable. This is also the source of jokes. In this part of California there are many Whites who still speak Arkie and Okie. They are the descendants of those who came out here from the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. Steinbeck wrote a book about this called The Grapes of Wrath.

Other than that, there are no accents in the West.

There is some sort of a Kentucky-Tennessee accent, but I am not sure if they differ. This is also a source of jokes. It’s sort of a general Appalachian accent, and it’s the source of jokes about inbred hillbillies and whatnot.

The Southern accent is well-known but usually understandable. My brother went to live in Alabama though and he said that the workers in the factory he worked at were often completely unintelligible. The Blacks were worse than the Whites, and they had separate accents. He has imitated their incomprehensible accent to me and it’s pretty hilarious.

I have heard poor Blacks from Memphis on the Cops show who were completely unintelligible to me. People with more money and status tended to be more comprehensible. I sometimes have a hard time understanding a Mississippi or Alabama accent, but it’s no problem. Our Southern politicians all have thick Southern accents.

Cajun English from Louisiana is often unintelligible to us, but the people with more money and status are quite intelligible.

There is also a Black accent from the coast of South Carolina called Gullah that is hard to understand. The Blacks from around there speak something like it and you can pick it out if you are sharp. It has a pretty, lilting sound to it. It’s different from the standard Southern accent and is sort of charming. Moving up the coast, there is a Virginia accent that is softer, pleasant and charming.

There is the famous New York accent, which to us laid back Californians sounds horribly rude, obnoxious, loud and belligerent. Some forms of it also sound ignorant – these tend to be associated with working class Whites in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

One thing they do is to glide and lengthen rhotic consonants – “New York” becomes New Yawwk” “Brooklyn” becomes “Bwwoklyn”.

A similar accent seems to be spoken in New Jersey, but it may be different. One again, it involves lenition of rhotic consonants, in this case turning them into dipthongs with long vowels. “New Jersey” becomes “New Joiisey”. This is also a source of jokes. There is a Boston accent which is completely understandable. Ted Kennedy speaks that. It involves the lenition of hard consonants into glides and the end of a word – “car” becomes “caw”.

I believe there is a sort of a slow drawl from Vermont and New Hampshire too. Those people, especially the older men, are known for not talking much. Men of few words.

Some Blacks around here still talk with thick Black accents that sound Southern even though they were born in the Central Valley. There is also an “Ebonics” English (for lack of a better word) that is spoken here by sort of ghettoish or semi-ghettoish Blacks. It is frankly, almost completely unintelligible. They seem like they are talking with their mouths full, mumbling and speaking extremely fast, running all of the sounds together.

Everyone who talks like this can also speak Standard English thank God, and they can quickly move in and out of that Ebonics talk when you talk to them. It’s sort of a language for them to talk so that we can’t understand them, I think. To us, it sounds sloppy, low class and ghetto, but it reportedly a full-fledged language. The Blacks in the Caribbean do not speak English! That makes me feel good because I can hardly understand a word they say. Each island has its own form of Creole English which is a completely separate language.

I think that Indian English (Chichi derogatorily) and West African English need to be split into separate languages because they are often incomprehensible to us. This is a case of regional Englishes evolving on their own. Further, West African English often differs a lot in its written form.

Indian English is often so mangled in its written form that it is incomprehensible, but more educated writers are comprehensible. The tendency to drop articles is very annoying and makes written Indian English sound ignorant to us. Don’t mess with our damned useless articles!

Reading about the Chinese languages, there are efforts underway to get speakers to speak proper Putonghua, whatever that means. Speakers from different parts of China still speak Putonghua with an accent that can be heavy at times.

Here in the US, we do not have this problem. Even our politicians still speak in heavy regional accents, and no one cares. We can always understand them. There is no national effort to get everyone to speak proper English that involves wiping out regional accents, though I understand that in the corporate world, they are offering classes to help people get rid of Southern accents, which are stereotyped as sounding backwards, ignorant and racist. I think this is sad. Our regional accents are what makes this country great.

Goyta also notes that Brazilians are starting to speak Spanish and the neighboring Spanish speaking countries are starting to speak Portuguese. When I was dealing with them 5-10 years ago, most Brazilians did not speak much Spanish (They acted like it was extremely low on their list of priorities) and Spanish speakers had zero interest in learning Portuguese (In fact, they regarded the suggestion as offensive and preposterous!)

Goyta notes that with regional integration, more Portuguese are speaking Spanish and more Spanish speakers from nearby countries are learning Portuguese. Spanish is becoming a prerequisite to getting a good job in Brazil. This is good as it’s good to see Latin Americans getting together.

It is also true that in China there has been a big fight over Chinese language classification. The unificationist – fascist types, associated with the Communist government (and actually with the Nationalist government before also – this is really a Chinese elite project) insist that there is only one Chinese language. This goes along with racism of Northern Chinese against Southern Chinese and to some extent vice versa. This racism is most evident in the Cantonese vs Mandarin war in China.

Cantonese speakers say that they speak the real Chinese and that Northern Chinese speak a bastardized tongue derived from the old Manchu language. Cantonese speakers also resent that a Northern Chinese was turned into the national tongue and imposed on them against their will. They also say that Northern Chinese are really from the South and that the real NE Asians are the Mongolians, Koreans, Manchu, Japanese, etc. Genetic studies show that this is not the case.

Northern Chinese say that Southern Chinese are not real Chinese and their blood is “contaminated” with Tai types like the Tai, Zhuang, Vietnamese, etc. There is probably something to this. Although Putonghua is the only official language in China and there is a war going on against the regional Chineses, enforcement has been held off against Cantonese. And Cantonese  areas are still where you will hear the least Putonghua and the most regional Chinese in all spheres of life. Cantonese is also allowed on the radio and TV, whereas regional Chineses had previously banned from the media.

The Putonghua-only campaign has been too successful and regional Chineses are being wiped out. There is now a regionalism movement arising in China to promote and retain regional Chineses.

I think that the Putonghua campaign has been good, but that China should promote bilingualism. The Putonghua campaign has not yet been successful. As of 2001, only 5

China clearly needs a language that they can all speak. For its entire history, many Chinese have not been able to speak to each other, including folks from one village to the next if you go to the southeast and the central coast. Provinces like Fujian, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Henan and Hunan are notoriously multilingual.

Most of these places have a lot of very high mountains, and transportation was typically very poor. Even today, you can scarcely get around by vehicle and you sometimes have to walk from one place to the next, sometimes for dozens of miles! Bottom line is they were very isolated from each other.

These places also retained a tradition of being hideouts for “hillbilly” types where there was a lot of unemployment and many folks turned to crime. Also criminals fled to the mountains where they could hide. Upshot was that due to all of this, and people seen as backwards, lazy, stupid and thieving, people from the rest of China had no interest in going to these places anyway. When people left these parts of China to go to big cities, they were stereotyped in a way similar to how ghetto Blacks and Browns are in the US. This made them want to stay in their mountains.

Liberal/Conservative Trends by State over the Last 20 Years

Big G: If the demos keep pushing gun control the Republicans will win. The only republican to win any contested government seat anywhere was over the gun issue. Another William Playfair Web: certainly does cut into support of battlegrounds like Iowa, Virginia, N.C. In W.V. that and coal are we are reddening by the hour.

She will win Iowa, Virginia and North Carolina. All three of those states are trending quite a bit more liberal over 20 years. However, West Virginia is trending dramatically more conservative over the past 20 years. There are not a lot of states trending more conservative, but that is one of them. Tennessee is another. Red states trending more conservative are West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Utah and Arizona. A few blue states are going a little more conservative, but they are still solid blue. I am thinking places like Massachusetts and Rhode Island are getting more conservative.

“The First Woman to Vote in America,” by Alpha Unit

The first woman recorded as legally voting in America did so long before 1920, the year the 19th Amendment was passed. This amendment declared:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

No, this historic vote took place in 1756, in an official New England Open Town Meeting at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. The woman’s name was Lydia Taft.

She was born Lydia Chapin, one of the many children of Seth Chapin. Seth Chapin was a militia captain who owned a lot of property in what became Worcester County, Massachusetts.

In 1731 she married Josiah Taft, a member of the prominent Taft family of Massachusetts, which went on to produce more prominent Tafts (including William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States). Like her father, her husband owned a lot of land. He served as a local official and a Massachusetts legislator.

By 1756 Josiah Taft was the largest taxpayer in the town of Uxbridge. But that was the year he died, at the age of 47. It happened to be right before an important vote on the town’s support for the war effort in the French and Indian War (one of the colonial conflicts between France and Britain). According to one account:

The only individuals allowed to vote were freeholders (free male property holders), and Josiah’s estate was valued as one of the largest in the town. Out of respect for his large contribution to the town, the town fathers allowed Lydia to vote as Josiah’s proxy. She cast a vote to increase the town’s contribution, thereby giving herself the distinction of being the first woman to vote in this country.

Actually, it appears that the town fathers gave her that distinction, out of a sense of respect for a departed fellow town father, if this account is accurate.

At least one local writer questions the story of “America’s first woman voter.” He points out that the first account of Lydia Taft’s historic vote was published over a century later, and that there are no actual official records of the town meeting.

He also points out that in 1756 Josiah Taft had a 23-year-old son who would have inherited his father’s place as head of the family with voting rights. No mention is made of this son in published accounts of the vote.

He suggests that the men of Uxbridge might have allowed Lydia Taft to vote as her late husband’s administrator and as a proxy, perhaps, for her adult son.

Whichever way you look at it, Lydia Taft was perfectly primed to make history in the way she did – born to one successful man and married to another. The town fathers of Uxbridge made history by permitting the widow of one of their own to cast a legal ballot, acting as head of the family.

"The First Woman to Vote in America," by Alpha Unit

The first woman recorded as legally voting in America did so long before 1920, the year the 19th Amendment was passed. This amendment declared:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

No, this historic vote took place in 1756, in an official New England Open Town Meeting at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. The woman’s name was Lydia Taft. She was born Lydia Chapin, one of the many children of Seth Chapin. Seth Chapin was a militia captain who owned a lot of property in what became Worcester County, Massachusetts. In 1731 she married Josiah Taft, a member of the prominent Taft family of Massachusetts, which went on to produce more prominent Tafts (including William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States). Like her father, her husband owned a lot of land. He served as a local official and a Massachusetts legislator. By 1756 Josiah Taft was the largest taxpayer in the town of Uxbridge. But that was the year he died, at the age of 47. It happened to be right before an important vote on the town’s support for the war effort in the French and Indian War (one of the colonial conflicts between France and Britain). According to one account:

The only individuals allowed to vote were freeholders (free male property holders), and Josiah’s estate was valued as one of the largest in the town. Out of respect for his large contribution to the town, the town fathers allowed Lydia to vote as Josiah’s proxy. She cast a vote to increase the town’s contribution, thereby giving herself the distinction of being the first woman to vote in this country.

Actually, it appears that the town fathers gave her that distinction, out of a sense of respect for a departed fellow town father, if this account is accurate. At least one local writer questions the story of “America’s first woman voter.” He points out that the first account of Lydia Taft’s historic vote was published over a century later, and that there are no actual official records of the town meeting. He also points out that in 1756 Josiah Taft had a 23-year-old son who would have inherited his father’s place as head of the family with voting rights. No mention is made of this son in published accounts of the vote. He suggests that the men of Uxbridge might have allowed Lydia Taft to vote as her late husband’s administrator and as a proxy, perhaps, for her adult son. Whichever way you look at it, Lydia Taft was perfectly primed to make history in the way she did – born to one successful man and married to another. The town fathers of Uxbridge made history by permitting the widow of one of their own to cast a legal ballot, acting as head of the family.

The Smallpox-infected Blankets

Repost from the old site. Oh, how the American Indians love this story! I’ve heard it endlessly. Did you know that the US gave these evil blankets to Indians all over the country, even here in California? Or Hudson Bay traders gave them to Indians in Canada? That those blankets wiped out “generations” of Indians? That the US gave them out to reservation Indians in the 1800’s? That Puritans gave out the blankets to Massachusetts Indians? Neither did I. Ward Churchill said the US Army gave Indians them diseased blankets. He lied, and he should have known better. It’s always nice to track down a myth, or is it really a myth? So let’s track it down. Turns out, Americans never gave smallpox blankets to any Indians anywhere at anytime. Not the government, not the Army, not anyone. So we are absolved on that one. The incident in question occurred in 1763, before there even was a USA, before there even were Americans. And American colonists (pre-Americans) didn’t do it either. It was the British that done the deed, and the one man who is always accused of doing it never even did it. Further, it was in the midst of a horrible and genocidal war (on both sides) called French and Indian War, with which the rebellion is often incorrectly associated. In the aftermath of that war, the area which had been ruled by the French was now ruled by the British. And the Indians, far from reflexively hating every White man around, had previously adjusted well to French rule and were angry about now being ruled by the British. The Indians hated the deal they were getting from the British, who were sawed-off shotgun-type muskets so they could hide them under their blankets. The Indians were horrible and vicious in the course of this war, and the British were too. But it was the British who were really getting pounded. Whole forts were being overwhelmed by 300-strong Indian armies, and after the storming, the Indians would kill everyone in the place, soldiers, women, kids, anyone. The Indians were raiding towns, settlements and schools and killing every White they could find. These were some of the most hard-ass Indians in the history of the Indian Wars. Further, the Indians actually made an alliance of many tribes living in the area during this war, which is incredible, since the Indians usually hated their neighbors so much they would not even ally with them to fight the Whites. In the course of the Pontiac Rebellion, a famous British general named Lord Jeffrey Amherst wrote a letter to his subordinate among the besieged British troops in one of the forts suggesting that they give the Indians smallpox-infected blankets. Turns out that this 5 Another example of a big fat myth/legend/historical incident, that, once you cut it open – well, there’s nothing much there. The tactics in this war were downright terrifying. At one point the city of Detroit itself was contribution to support the continuation of the site.

Genocide in Australia

Repost from the old site. Looks like it was way worse than the genocide of the Amerindians in the US. The wiping out of the Amerindians was done mostly by disease. The much-repeated story of blankets poisoned with smallpox apparently occurred in once, back East. There was a large poisoning of maybe 200-300 Amerindians in the Shasta area of California in the 1800’s, and there was a massacre of 200-300 Amerindians near Eureka at the same time. California was actually one of the worst places of all. There was an all-out war against the Amerindians here. I spent months going over old newspaper archives in a library as part of work I did for an Indian tribe here in the Sierras (now doing great with a casino). In the 1850’s and 1860’s, the California Indians were fighting back. The governor himself was making wild proclamations about how this war a war of one race against another, a war that had to lead to the extinction of one or the other. For 15-20 years or so, it was more or less legal to kill any Indian you wanted in the Sierras and Northern California and for any reason. You could rape an Indian woman too if you want to, and take an Indian child captive. All of this was more or less legal. Of course this was taking place against the backdrop of the utterly insane mass criminality and homicide of the California Gold Rush, a crime wave the likes of which the state has never even come close to seeing since. Too many young unmarried men, hardly any women, few to no families, lots of money in the form of gold, little law enforcement, all the ingredients were there. The law that existed was a brutal one, and men were hanged right and left in the Gold Rush for all sorts of things, but preying on Indians was not one of them. On Sundays, the men would all go to church, then they would head back to the camps to drink, take drugs, steal, fight, kill and just in general act like animals. There were regular hangings at the camps, and these were well-attended. Folks would go watch the hangings, then head back to camp to commit more crimes later that evening. Sometimes, even capital punishment just doesn’t cut it. Recall the stories of the pickpockets that roamed through the crowds in England at the hangings. This was when pickpocketing was a capital offense. Until 1870 or so, an Indian in this part of the state kept his head down and his mouth shut and hoped to stay alive. Epidemics and disease took their toll. By 1890, 9 That’s interesting to folks who insist that genetic change in humans takes a long time. Not necessarily, when something happens that kills 9 Those who tally such things say that ultimately, Whites killed 7,000 Indians and Indians killed about 11,000 Whites. It’s true, the Indians were could be brutal and women and children were at times killed, but they also often kidnapped them and made them members of the tribe. There are a couple of stories in my family about encounters with Indians. These all stem from one line of my family, who actually came over with the first invaders on the Second Ship of the Mayflower. Sometime in the 1640’s in Massachusetts, Indians attacked the village where all the men were off hunting. They rounded up the women and children and prepared to set fire to them. Some of the women started singing a pretty song, and the Indians stopped to listen. Well, this was long enough for the menfolk to return, chase off the Indians and save the day. Two of my ancestors were in that group, a woman and her young child. Later, in late 1700’s Virginia, one of my relatives was taken captive by Indians with his friend. They made them run the gauntlet, a popular thing that Indians liked to do with captured Whites. As you ran the gauntlet, the Indians beat on you. Well, the friend was apparently killed in this process. My ancestor, though, when prodded to run the gauntlet, started jumping around and squawking like a chicken. The Indians all started laughing and decided he did not have to run the gauntlet. I’m not sure if it’s the same story, but one of my ancestors at one point was either captured by Indians or joined them. This in late 1700’s Virginia again. His family just gave him up for dead. Well, 10 years later, the son returns home, about 30 years old, and he’s walking up to his father’s house all dressed like an Indian. His father got out his gun and was ready to shoot his own son until he recognized him. Back in those days, if an Indian was coming onto your property, you shot him. My family goes back to 1600’s Virginia and it’s said that if you can trace your line back that far, you have a 5 The first two stories are probably apocryphal. If you notice the themes: clever Whites use their ingenuity (and common human nature) to fool the Indians by disarming them and appealing to their sensibilities for comedy and appreciation of music. As the Indian is a barbarian savage in both tales, at the same time, he is a fellow human, revealed by his ability to appreciate a clever joke or a beautiful song. At the end of the day, there is really no way to figure out if such stories are true or not. But they got passed down through the family for years for a reason that is at once egotistical and at the same time a warning: our line is a clever line, able to cheat death by our wits. Remember this, and use this lesson in the close calls you may experience in your own dangerous times. The treatment of the Aborigines looks like a real genocide. There were sterilization attempts, deliberate attempts at “breeding them out”, mass imprisonments for minor infractions, infantilization throughout life by being confined to child-care like institutions where even their shit had to pass muster. In these homes, both sexes experienced mass sex abuse, and this went on for decades. Single women were not allowed to have sex, and males were punished for being a “menace to White women”. Half-breeds were taken away to be raised by Whites, and many Aboriginal children were stolen from their families. There was a conscious attempt to make this race fade into history. There are not many full-blooded Aboriginals left. There are not that many in cities, and most are in remote areas. They still have very serious problems, but they are hardly any kind of threat to the rest of Australians in any way. At the moment, alcohol and drugs are the worst problems, and fetal alcohol syndrome is epidemic among them. The damaged children are petty criminals and find it hard to function on their own. When the Whites first showed up, Aboriginals were waging their own war of extinction on the Negritos of Australia, who may have been there even before the Aborigines showed. The Negritos are the first people out of Africa 70,000 years ago, who moved along the Indian Ocean to SE Asia, leaving trace populations (or relatives) behind (possibly) in Yemen, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, Malaysia, the Philippines and New Guinea.

The journey taken by early man out of Africa 70,000 years ago. As you can see, one line goes to Australia. Negritos, not Aborigines, were probably the first people in Australia.

The first Whites witnessed Aborigines hunting Negritos the way man would hunt wild animals. They were killed just for the pleasure of it, and because they were small. Early investigations A photo of Australian Negritos from the Cairns rainforest, taken in 1890, found by Tindale in 1937. He went looking for some Negritos in the area and found a few of them. I haven’t seen any genetic studies on these people, since there are few if any of them left, but studies did seem to show that like most Negritos, they are most closely related genetically to the people around them, in this case, the Aborigines.

Native Tasmanians are now apparently extinct. They were also hunted like animals for decades. The people that we commonly know as Aborigines (or at least one group called Carpentarians named for the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia) seem to have come much later from Southern India (and seem related to the Veddoids) and largely replaced the Negritos, a genocide that was in its final phases when the Whites showed up.

Indo-Melanid Yanadi boys in Southern India. Note the resemblance with Aborigines. Unfortunately, cranial studies do not show a relationship with Veddoid types and Aborigines. However, genes did seem to show a link a while back. Nevertheless, cranially and surely genetically, these Yanadis are Caucasians. They may be some of the most ancient Caucasians of them all. It’s fascinating to think that the Aborigines as we know them are the original people, but were actually later arrivals from India and the Pacific Rim respectively.

The Carpentarians showed up about 15,000 years ago, were darker and had little body hair. A classic Aborigine, probably a cross between an Ainu type and an early South Indian type. These types were generalized across India and SE Asia about 24,000 years ago. Another group, called Murrayians, are apparently related to the Ainu, and arrived 20,000 years ago. The Ainu are thought to be the remnants of the original people of Northern Asia. They were stocky, wavy-haired, hairy, and fairly light-skinned.

A photo of Ainu Yasli Adam in traditional garb. I love this photo. Note that he could be mistaken for an Aborigine or a Caucasian. Anthropological studies suggest that Ainu types showed up in Australia about 20,000 years ago. There seems to be evidence of them in Thailand around 16,000 years ago, and about this time they went to Japan to form a very early Japanese culture called the Jomonese. There is a suggestion that proto-Jomonese people were also in Thailand around this time. At the same time, the Americas were being populated by types that best resemble the Ainu. These are the Paleoindians, and the Amerindians today are no relation, no matter how much they scream. The famous Kennewick Man is also a Paleoindian most closely related to an Ainu or a Maori. He only appears Caucasian because the Ainu types do look Caucasian. However, in facial structure, they are Australoid, and genetically, they are Asians. Complete moron White nationalists claim that Kennewick Man is a White Man, and this proves that Whites were here before Amerindians, and therefore the whole continent is ours. Stupid or what? I’m going to do a whole post taking these clowns to task over this. In traditional early anthropology of the Philippines, a group called the proto-Malay is postulated. They arrived after the Negritos and after an Australoid group called Sakais, who seem to resemble Veddoids or the Senoi of Malaysia. The proto-Malay are described as short and very hairy. A hairy Asian sounds like an Ainu, and indeed, there were Jomon types in Thailand, and Ainu types may have settled Australia 20,000 years ago, and the Americas 12,000 years ago. In short, Ainu types were on the move around the Pacific Rim from 12-20,000 years ago, and may even have settled in the Philippines. This is real cutting-edge stuff here and I am totally going out on a limb. Feel free to dive in.

An Australian fossil called Kow Swamp from 20,000 YBP curiously looks more like Homo Erectus than Homo Sapiens. The Negritos were least advanced, then the Murrayians, then the Carpentarians. Tindale and Birdsell did the best work on the peopling of Australia long ago and much of it stands to this day. In between the 1960’s saw such idiocies as pan-Aboriginalism, which mandated that all Aborigines had to come from a single source. Ridiculous theories postulated Negritos not as ancient remnants of the first modern humans in their regions, but as the result of microevolution (in particular, to living in a rain forest) and evolutionary drift. This same scenario plays out in Africa, where Bantus kill Pygmies just for the fun of it, and take special pleasure in eating them. This old habit has come back with the horrible civil war in Zaire that has killed 5 million people. In the Philippines, Negritos have been murdered by settlers for their land for decades now, with few legal consequences. The remainder are a defeated people, their lands stolen by Filipinos, working for Filipinos on their former lands as agricultural labor, living in squatter villages, families falling apart, riven by alcohol, dope and even pornography.

A full-grown Ati woman. The Ati, a Philippines Negrito group, live on Panay Island, where they number about 1,500. The Filipinos have been stealing their land and killing them when they resist for decades now, and the government could care less. The Negritos of the Philippines are starting to look like a defeated race.

On the Andaman Islands, most of the Negritos have gone extinct due to disease. The few remainders, for some odd reason, are afflicted with very low fertility, that is, the women seem to be unable to bear children. Is this nature’s way of marking the extinction of a race?

Andaman Islands Negritos. Contact with advanced civilization is fatal to them. They have some immunity to malaria, but none to Hepatitis, venereal diseases or even the common cold or the flu. They quickly succumb to venereal disease, violent crime, beggary, and sloth upon contact with modern civilization. There is a group on the Sentinel Islands that attacks all researchers who come near. Indian nationalist fuckheads keep sending expeditions to “bring them into civilization” but every Andamans group that has come to the modern world has been destroyed. Long may the Sentinelese prosper in the Paleolithic glory. I actually think these Stone Age chicks are kinda cute. Hell with modern woman anyway. Every one I meet wants to know my net worth. Think these babes care? Hell with Late Capitalism, how do I get me one of these Negrito chicks anyway?
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