VII: Birch
The misuse of John Birch's life and legacy.
Good morning. Today is septidi, the 7th of Germinal, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le bouleau, a classic pale-colored hardwood.
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The most obvious feature of birch is its white and flaky bark, and that is the part of the tree that was acquired the most uses across cultures and time. Birch bark is a pliable but hard wood that can be woven into shoes, written on like paper, or turned into a boat. Birch bark also has medicinal and fungicidal properties, serving as a sort of all-purpose aspirin in many North American societies. In Japan, it's formed into boxes; in Russia, it was fashioned into arrows and quivers; in the Great Lakes region, the Ojibwe bit holes into thin strips of birch bark to construct elaborate, lace-like works of art known as mazinibaganjiganan.
This is the extremely abbreviated story of how one man in the wrong place at the wrong time led, 75 years and many Sugar Daddies later, to the wrong man in the wrong place in our time. It begins with a spy by the name of John Birch.
