Tartarians

Here's one for all you cat-lovers out there. I took this photo on my recent walk through Southall. This cat was sunbathing atop some rubbish bins and old furniture, and raised its head with obvious annoyance when I stopped and lifted my camera. It wouldn't even quite look at me; it was looking past me, as if to say, "I'm aware you're there, but you do not merit my full attention."

I've been listening to my Q-Anon podcast again -- the one that picks apart many conspiracy theories, both specifically Q-Anon related and not. In the most recent episode they're talking about something called the Tartarian Empire. Apparently this is a belief being promoted online that all our big cities and many of our most famous buildings -- the White House, the pyramids, you name it -- were built by people first based in Central Asia called the Tartars or Tartarians. Supposedly their civilization became incredibly advanced and spread all over the globe, but then 200 years ago it was destroyed in a massive "mud flood" that killed the Tartarians and buried their cities. Then we came along and excavated the cities and buildings and claimed them as our own. This is supposedly why sometimes in big cities you see older buildings with basement windows at or below street level -- they're left over from the Tartarians and were never fully dug out.

Now, this whole thing sounds so wacky that it makes me wonder whether some of these online conspirators are just trying to wind people up. I can't imagine anyone actually believes this. You'd think a massive cataclysm that happened a mere 200 years ago would be foremost in our historical record; we can't stop talking about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln and many other events of that time period.

But no! Because the mud flood has been deliberately written out of our history by the Global Powers that Be, who are trying to DECEIVE YOU! They're keeping this information from you, because it was the first "great reset" in which the population was wiped out -- or so the theory goes. And of course part of modern conspiracism is that we're about to have another "great reset," driven by Covid vaccines and who knows what else.

Anyway, apparently there are all sorts of videos about Tartarians on YouTube but I can't bring myself to actually watch them. Life is too short. I'll rely on the Q-Anon Anonymous guys to fill me in. It does make me realize, though, that -- assuming people really DO believe in the Tartarian Empire -- people will believe anything. It's astonishing. (For the record, there are or were Central Asian people known commonly in the West as Tatars, though this term is somewhat vague, as are the boundaries of their historic lands. They did not, however, build the White House.)

I found these cherry (I think?) blossoms on my walk home yesterday, after they were apparently blown off one of several nearby trees.  There's no shortage of spectacular blooming trees out there at the moment. Do you suppose the Tartarians planted them?

I have been on a campaign this week to make a dent in our overdue materials. As of Monday, we still had about 30 kids with books due at the beginning of January or before. That's an astonishing amount of very late material. So I sent them all a Come-to-Jesus (not really; we are a purely humanist school) e-mail saying they had to get this stuff back this week or I'd start writing parents and requesting disciplinary action from administrators. BOOM!

Now, of course, I'll have to follow through on Monday with the ones who don't make it happen. I'm starting to get a bit nervous because it's mid-April and we only have nine or so weeks of school left, and I've got 13 pages of extremely overdue materials to collect. I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.

Olga on our walk yesterday morning. Now you're getting a dog AND a cat in this post.

If I had to guess, I'd say cats are Tartarian pets; that's why they're so detached from modern humans. I think I'll make a YouTube video about this. I could make millions!