The Nazi Seduction – Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

One fascinating aspect of the whole Nazi phenomenon, as The Nazi Seduction points out, is how completely it eclipsed Stalin’s atrocities:

As Anne Applebaum observes in Gulag, although “some eighteen million people passed through this massive system,” we pay far less attention to Stalin’s victims than we do to Hitler’s. Many of the millions killed during the Stalin era were simply “driven to a forest at night, lined up, shot in the skull, and buried in mass graves before they ever got near a concentration camp — a form of murder no less ‘industrialized’ and anonymous than that used by the Nazis.” But no archival film-footage records these scenes that played out behind the Iron Curtain, no harrowing photos comparable to those that followed the liberation of the Nazi camps. Stalin’s victims “haven’t caught Hollywood’s imagination in the same way. Highbrow culture hasn’t been much more open to the subject.”

Of course, Hitler committed his atrocities with a sense of style — which brings us to another point:

A kind of conceit often overtakes the cultivated, that immersion in things of beauty and great classical creations of art, architecture, and music, must, ineluctably, refine the soul and forestall brutalities and cruelties. It doesn’t — or shouldn’t — take much more than one viewing of films showing orchestras comprised of camp prisoners, hence themselves doomed, playing Mozart as condemned Jews, Slavs, and others marched to be gassed, to dispel any illusion that art will, in the end, spare us much of anything.

Reform in Russia: Free Market, Yes; Free Politics, Maybe

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

Although the US is the example of free-market capitalism, and the US is the example of a liberal democracy, that does not mean that overnight conversion to capitalism automatically means overnight conversion to liberal democracy. From Reform in Russia: Free Market, Yes; Free Politics, Maybe:

For more than a decade, Washington and its favorites in Moscow embraced a seductive theory: Free markets would anchor free democratic politics in post-Soviet Russia by creating prosperity and property owners. Now capitalism has vanquished communism across the former Soviet empire, destroyed Marxism as a global rival to America’s free-market creed and, after years of turbulence, brought Russia robust growth. But Russians’ faith in Western-style democracy has withered. Liberal economics and liberal politics, instead of being an inseparable tandem, have drifted apart. Many Russians even see the two as at odds.

Russia’s economy has grown steadily, but it’s ruled as a “managed democracy” by an ex-KGB agent:

Russia’s economy, now mostly in private hands and primed by high oil prices, has grown steadily for five years, surging 7.2% last year. The number of mobile phones, a crude barometer of confidence, doubled last year to 36 million. The share of Russians who call themselves middle class jumped to 48% from 28% in 1999.

Also distinctly on the rise is support for President Putin and his drive to replace the cacophony of pluralistic politics with the calm of “managed democracy.” The former KGB officer, who once described a strong state as part of Russia’s “genetic code,” in March won re-election in a landslide. While relentless cheerleading by state-controlled television had something to do with that, Mr. Putin clearly is in sync with the people.

Russia, he said when he first became its leader, “will not soon, if ever, become a second edition of, say, the U.S. or England, where liberal values have deep historic traditions.” The oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, jailed last fall on fraud and tax-evasion charges, recently said in a dispatch from prison that while Mr. Putin is “neither a liberal nor a democrat,” he is “more liberal and democratic than 70% of the population.”

Russia remains far from a Soviet-style autocracy. Outside of Chechnya, where tens of thousands have died, Mr. Putin hasn’t crushed political opposition, only muffled it. The Kremlin keeps critical voices off television but mostly gives them free run in print media, which have less impact. Parliament, though stacked with yes-men eager to rubber-stamp Putin policies, is chosen through elections.

Of course, this doesn’t sound too terribly different from 19th-century Great Britain, an empire, with a queen and a House of Lords — and a powerful navy used to ensure free trade overseas. Britain, of course, evolved into a liberal democracy (with a royal family) over time. Russia might very well do the same (minus the queen):

As the Soviet Union slouched toward oblivion in the late 1980s, Adranik Migranian, a reform-minded academic, put forward a thesis in a journal of ideas that appalled Western-oriented liberals: Russia couldn’t leap from totalitarianism to democracy but must transit through a long period of authoritarian rule. Only then, he argued, could Russia prosper without political and ethnic tumult.

Mocked then as a reactionary, Mr. Migranian today gloats at the disarray of Russia’s liberals, whom he calls “idiots completely divorced from reality.” He views Mr. Putin’s tough rule as a “second chance to do what I suggested before.” Though not close to the Kremlin, Mr. Migranian coined its best-known slogan: “managed democracy.” He says he came up with the term in late 1993 after Yeltsin aides complained about an article in which he called a new constitution authoritarian.

His model is China, which he hails as proof that market authoritarianism is a better recipe for modernization than market democracy — and that harsh methods are sometimes needed. The Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 was “absolutely correct,” he argues, because “one billion people are more important than a few thousand students shouting stupid slogans.” China’s Communists, big fans of Mr. Migranian’s theories, have translated two of his books and regularly invite him to Beijing.

Other Russian reformers have looked to Chile, where Augusto Pinochet overthrew a socialist government in 1973 and imposed radical market economics in tandem with a brutal dictatorship. Among Gen. Pinochet’s most fervent admirers is Vitaly Naishul, a mathematician who in the 1980s wrote an underground tract called “Another Life.” Working then at the State Planning Commission, he saw communism’s failures up close and embraced unyielding “Chicago School” free-market theory with a gusto that unnerved even dissident economists.

In 1990, Mr. Naishul led a group of young Russian economists to Santiago to discuss market reform and meet Gen. Pinochet, then still head of the Chilean army. “He is a political genius,” says Mr. Naishul. He praises President Putin for realizing that Russia can gain from free-market methods but “cannot copy Western democracy.” One of the architects of Gen. Pinochet’s economic program, Jose Pi?era, recently attended a conference at Mr. Putin’s country home.

Mr. Naishul has visited Chile five times. He has a medal, given him by a Chilean economist, inscribed “Mission Accomplished.” Overturning an ingrained economic system, Mr. Naishul says, inevitably triggers pain and resistance, and to continue, the effort requires either political consensus or force. “The level of repression depends on the level of resistance,” he says, adding that Russia was initially slowed by foolish mimicry of Western politics.

“We tried to be good pupils in the beginning. We attempted, in a very primitive way, to imitate Western systems. It didn’t work,” he says. Instead of a stable, pluralistic system, the country got a “spoiled democracy” of chaos and corruption. But the people want clear orders, he says, citing a Soviet-era maxim: “One bad boss is better than two good ones.”

Naturally, we have to ask if Iraq is ready for democracy.

Researcher Dies After Accidental Ebola Jab

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

At least we hear about these accidents nowadays. From Researcher Dies After Accidental Ebola Jab:

A researcher in a heavily guarded Siberian virology laboratory died after pricking herself with a syringe containing the deadly Ebola virus, a spokeswoman from the lab said Tuesday.

“It was an accident or an unlucky coincidence. Her hand just slipped and she jabbed herself,” the spokeswoman said.

Ebola begins with a high fever and can lead to massive internal bleeding. It kills between 50 and 90 percent of victims, depending on the strain of the virus, for which there is no known cure. It is one of the world’s most feared diseases.

Most outbreaks have occurred in Africa, far from the Siberian lab where the senior technician was experimenting on guinea pigs when the accident happened on May 5. She died two weeks later.

Set deep in Siberia, a four-hour flight from Moscow, the state-owned Vector research center at Novosibirsk does research into deadly diseases such as SARS and anthrax.

Along with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, it is one of only two places on earth with official stockpiles of smallpox, which killed around 300 million people last century.

After the accident, the woman was hospitalized in a ward specially equipped to contain virulent diseases. Anyone who came into contact with her was put under observation for three weeks.

Hair Is a Dead Giveaway

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

An interesting factoid from Hair Is a Dead Giveaway:

African hair grows more slowly and is more fragile than European hair, but Asian hair grows the fastest and has the greatest elasticity.

Evangelicals Give U.S. Foreign Policy An Activist Tinge

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

American evangelical Christians “are embracing international causes with the same moral fervor they have long brought to domestic matters.” From Evangelicals Give U.S. Foreign Policy An Activist Tinge:

Led in part by the irrepressible Mr. Horowitz, a neoconservative at the Hudson Institute think tank, evangelicals are embracing international causes with the same moral fervor they have long brought to domestic matters. Since 1998, they have helped win federal laws to fight religious persecution overseas, to crack down on international sex trafficking and to help resolve one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest civil wars, in southern Sudan.

In so doing, evangelical groups, once among America’s staunchest isolationists, are making a mark on U.S. foreign policy. They have tipped the balance, at least for the moment, in the perennial rivalry in Washington between “realists,” who believe the U.S. has limited capacity to change the world and shouldn’t try, and “idealists,” who strive to give U.S. conduct a moral purpose.

This, of course, sounds a lot like the British Empire of the 19th century:

This activism harks back to another world power that struggled to balance ambitions for gold and God: the British Empire. Though driven in its early years by slave traders and other rogues, the British Empire later was increasingly influenced by evangelicals — who in 1807 succeeded in abolishing the global slave trade. Fifty years later, the “Christian element” was hotly debated in London, when some critics blamed a mutiny by colonial Indian troops on heavy-handed Christian moralizing. Religion played a role in Britain’s push into the Mideast later in the 19th century, too, after William Gladstone, a deeply Christian prime minister, railed against a massacre of Bulgarian Christians by Ottoman Turks.

As in today’s Washington, Britain’s imperial evangelicals made common cause with the neoconservatives of their era, known as liberals. The liberals’ mission was spreading representative government and free trade. (“The two pioneers of civilization, Christianity and commerce, should be inseparable,” said David Livingstone, the famous explorer of Africa, in 1857.) Mr. Horowitz says U.S. evangelicals are driven by the same “tough-minded Christianity” that propelled Britain’s empire.

Naturally, Muslim extremists view any conflict with the US as a religious war. Acting explicitly on behalf of Christian interests supports that point of view — and may conflate democracy and rule of law with Christianity.

Gum Returns to Singapore After 12 Years

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

Singapore wouldn’t work as a fictional nation. No one would find it remotely plausible. From Gum Returns to Singapore After 12 Years:

Ultra-tidy Singapore is lifting its notorious ban on chewing gum after 12 long years — but only for registered users. Gum dealers face jail if they break the rules.

Before Singaporeans think about unwrapping a pack of the Wrigley’s Orbit gum that’s just started selling here — and only in pharmacies — they have to submit their names and ID card numbers. If they don’t, pharmacists who sell them gum could be jailed up to two years and fined $2,940.

Why did Singapore back down on its ban?

Gum became a sticking point months ago in Singapore’s free trade talks with Washington, when Representative Philip Crane of the U.S. state of Illinois — home of chewing gum giant Wrigley — pressed the issue.

Singapore compromised, agreeing to allow only the sale of “therapeutic” gum in pharmacies. The free trade pact took effect Jan. 1.

The Health Sciences Authority, responding to questions from The Associated Press, said it’s allowed the sale of 19 “medicinal” and “dental” gum products.

Wrigleys’ Orbit, which the company claims is good for teeth, hit pharmacy shelves just days ago. Pfizer’s Nicorette, a nicotine gum meant to help smokers kick their addiction, has been available since March.

Mayor Tells Sorcerers to Banish Evil Spirits

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

It’s good to see responsible government in an African nation. From Mayor Tells Sorcerers to Banish Evil Spirits:

The mayor of Niger’s capital has ordered “qualified” sorcerers to chase away evil spirits reported to be making terrifying appearances at night.

Nightlife lovers in Niamey have repeatedly complained of a woman who appears from nowhere, curses and threatens them before vanishing as if she had “evaporated.” Young women in skimpy outfits have been particular targets for the evil spirits.

“Given the rumor which has been circulating for at least three weeks now of strange apparitions stalking people, notably young women, I have ordered all the elderly chiefs of Niamey to resort to the traditional sacrifices, with qualified people, to stop this curse,” Niamey Mayor Jules Oguet said Monday.

Without state regulation of sorcerers, who knows what kind of unqualified quacks might swindle the public?

Mortensen to Speak at Event in Denmark

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

When I read the headline, Mortensen to Speak at Event in Denmark, I had to ask, Does Aragorn speak Danish?:

Viggo Mortensen, who played King Aragorn in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, will be the main speaker at Denmark’s annual Fourth of July celebration.

Mortensen, whose father emigrated to the United States, will speak at the annual Rebild festival in northern Denmark — billed as the biggest Fourth of July party outside of the United States.

Born in New York City, Mortensen spent several summers in Denmark as a teenager and speaks some Danish.

“All Danes consider him to be nearly Danish,” the organizers said in a statement Monday.

Mortensen will be joined by Etta Cameron, an 84-year-old American-born gospel and jazz singer who lives in the capital, Copenhagen.

Danes and descendants of emigrants have celebrated the U.S. Independence Day with barbecues, square dancing and country music outside Rebild, a village 155 miles northwest of Copenhagen, since 1912.

Malleus Maleficarum

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

I recently stumbled across an on-line copy of the Malleus Maleficarum (literally, The Hammer of Witches), a witch-hunting guide from 1486. It’s as horrifyingly bad as some of the Monty Python skits mocking medieval justice. I particularly enjoyed this chapter’s title:

Question IX

Whether Witches may work some Prestidigatory Illusion so that the Male Organ appears to be entirely removed and separate from the Body.

Humor aside, the Malleus Maleficarum is a pretty scary document.

Video Game Helps Players Lose Weight

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

For a long time I’ve felt that we needed a physical video game. Video Game Helps Players Lose Weight describes how Dance Dance Revolution works:

The premise of DDR is simple: Players stand on a 3-foot square platform with an arrow on each side of the square — pointing up, down, left and right. The player faces a video screen that has arrows scrolling upward to the beat of a song chosen by the player. As an arrow reaches the top of the screen, the player steps on the corresponding arrow on the platform.
[...]
More than 1 million copies of DDR’s home version have been sold in the United States, said Jason Enos, product manager at Konami Digital Entertainment-America, which distributes the Japanese game in the United States. About 6.5 million copies have been sold worldwide.

The home version, which costs about $40 for a game and $40 for a flat plastic dance pad, includes a ‘workout mode’ that can track how many calories the user burns while playing.

The game was designed to be fun. But ‘what the creators knew is that this is a physical game no matter how you dice it,’ said Enos, who says he has lost 30 pounds playing DDR. ‘At some level there’s going to be people who want to focus on that element of the game for their own physical health or for exercise.’

One pediatrician is so convinced of the health benefits that he’s planning a six-month study of DDR and weight loss among 12- to 14-year-olds, in an effort to give the game credibility among physicians.

Anyone who’s seen Lost in Translation should be familiar with the arcade version.

Bucking Tradition, Bull-Riding Fans Cheer for the Beasts

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

Bucking Tradition, Bull-Riding Fans Cheer for the Beasts reports on a new facet to bull-riding:

Competitive bull-riding, a staple of the Old West, has a new set of stars: the bulls, some of which these days are more famous than their riders.

Professional Bull Riders Inc., which stages competitions, aims to draw in more animal lovers, so it promotes the bulls aggressively. ‘Our philosophy is that there are two athletes in every ride,’ says Randy Bernard, chief executive of the Colorado Springs, Colo., organization.

Just like the riders, the bulls now have their own rankings, statistics, sponsorships, training programs and devoted fans. Top bulls also have their own line of stuffed animals, figurines and T-shirts.

Genius.

It won’t work for bull-fighting until they get rid of the picadores (who spear the bull in the neck before he gets to “fight” the matadore).

In Combat, Marine Put Theory to Test, Comrades Believe

Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

In Combat, Marine Put Theory to Test, Comrades Believe describes an instance of hand-to-hand combat in Iraq:

Around 12:15 p.m., Cpl. Dunham’s team came to an intersection and saw a line of seven Iraqi vehicles along a dirt alleyway, according to Staff Sgt. Ferguson and others there. At Staff Sgt. Ferguson’s instruction, they started checking the vehicles for weapons.

Cpl. Dunham approached a run-down white Toyota Land Cruiser. The driver, an Iraqi in a black track suit and loafers, immediately lunged out and grabbed the corporal by the throat, according to men at the scene. Cpl. Dunham kneed the man in the chest, and the two tumbled to the ground.

Two other Marines rushed to the scene. Private First Class Kelly Miller, 21, of Eureka, Calif., ran from the passenger side of the vehicle and put a choke hold around the man’s neck. But the Iraqi continued to struggle, according to a military report Pfc. Miller gave later. Lance Cpl. William B. Hampton, 22, of Woodinville, Wash., also ran to help.

As Marines’ martial arts training aims to make the tough tougher explains, the Marines have finally integrated unarmed martial arts into their training:

The tan belt is the first of 10 rungs on the new Marine Corps martial arts training ladder. For the first time, all 172,000 active-duty Marines, from the commandant on down to the newest recruit, must earn tan belts — and by no later than 2003. And all are encouraged to progress to higher belt levels throughout their careers.

The tan-belt course includes 27.5 hours of instruction in 49 killing techniques to be used on enemies who are too close to stop with bullets or grenades. Among them are bayonet thrusts, knife slashes, “vertical stomps,” choke holds (and how to break them), leg-sweep throws, eye gouges, and more.

From my perspective, 27.5 hours isn’t much time to drill 49 “killing” techniques. A typical jiu-jitsu blue-belt probably has 200 hours of training — and relies on the same half-dozen moves to submit an opponent.

This sounds straight out of jiu-jitsu class:

The urge to say, “I quit” must be considerable during a drill called “bull in the ring.” Today’s variant has a passing resemblance to college wrestling, only with eye gouges, face rips, and other unsporting techniques.

The unlucky “bull” has to grapple with seven other Marines in rapid succession, for several minutes each, starting each time from a seated, back-to-back position. By the time the bull faces the third opponent, exhaustion has set in — with four more fresh adversaries to go. The others cheer the bull on before and after they take him on.

“You’ve got a whole lot of heart, staff sergeant,” one calls out. There is also some coaching: “You’ve got to get underneath that jaw or you’re not getting any pressure on the carotid.”

And I may have to integrate this into class, just for kicks:

Occasionally an instructor will toss a “weapon of opportunity” within reach — a (plastic) knife, say, or a rock — to give whichever grappler can grab it first a chance to finish his adversary quickly.

But let us return to the original narrative:

A few yards away, Lance Cpl. Jason Sanders, 21, a radio operator from McAlester, Okla., says he heard Cpl. Dunham yell a warning: “No, no, no — watch his hand!”

What was in the Iraqi’s hand appears to have been a British-made “Mills Bomb” hand grenade. The Marines later found an unexploded Mills Bomb in the Toyota, along with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers.

A Mills Bomb user pulls a ring pin out and squeezes the external lever — called the spoon — until he’s ready to throw it. Then he releases the spoon, leaving the bomb armed. Typically, three to five seconds elapse between the time the spoon detaches and the grenade explodes. The Marines later found what they believe to have been the grenade’s pin on the floor of the Toyota, suggesting that the Iraqi had the grenade in his hand — on a hair trigger — even as he wrestled with Cpl. Dunham.

None of the other Marines saw exactly what Cpl. Dunham did, or even saw the grenade. But they believe Cpl. Dunham spotted the grenade — prompting his warning cry — and, when it rolled loose, placed his helmet and body on top of it to protect his squadmates.

The scraps of Kevlar found later, scattered across the street, supported their conclusion. The grenade, they think, must have been inside the helmet when it exploded. His fellow Marines believe that Cpl. Dunham made an instantaneous decision to try out his theory that a helmet might blunt the grenade blast.

Cpl. Dunham died of his injuries — eventually — but he has been recommended for a Medal of Honor. He saved the two other Marines — and the Iraqi, until he got up and another Marine shot him down.

Normally, a modern grenade is lethal out to five meters and causes 50% casualties out to 15 meters.

News Coverage as a Weapon

Monday, May 24th, 2004

News Coverage as a Weapon contrasts our current “defeat” in Iraq with previous wars:

Viewed in this context, the American “defeat” in Iraq projected by the press must be understood as being something wholly different from anything that has gone before. The 800 odd US military deaths suffered since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom a year ago are less than the number who died in the Slapton Sands D-Day training exercise in 1944. The campaign in Iraq has hardly scratched American strength, which has in fact grown more potent in operational terms over the intervening period. Nor has it materially affected the US manpower pool or slowed the American economy, which is actually growing several times faster than France, which is not militarily engaged. The defeat being advertised by the press is a wholly new phenomenon: one which leaves the vanquished army untouched and the victor devastated; the economy of the vanquished burgeoning and that of the victor in destitution; the territory of the loser unoccupied and that of the winner garrisoned. It is an inversion of all the traditional metrics of victory and defeat. That the assertion is not instantly ludicrous is an indication of the arrival of a new and potentially revolutionary form of political wafare.

Modern war is fought in the media:

The emergence of the press and media as decisive implements of warfare arose from changes in the nature of late twentieth century war itself. If battlefield reality was paramount in earlier wars it was because literally everyone was there. During the Civil War 15 percent of the total white population took the field, a staggering 75% of military age white males. During the Great War the major combatants put even higher proportions of their men on the line. Even after World War 2 it was still natural for children to ask, ‘Daddy what did you do in the War?’ and expect an answer. Reality affected everybody. But beginning with the Vietnam War and continuing into the current Iraqi campaign, the numbers of those actually engaged on the battlefield as a proportion of the population became increasingly small. Just how small is illustrated by comparing a major battle in the Civil War, Gettysburg, which inflicted over 50,000 casualties on a nation of 31.5 million to a “major” battle in Iraq, Fallujah, in which 10 Marines died in the fighting itself, on a population of 300 million. A war in which the watchers vastly outnumbered the fighters was bound to be different from when the reverse was true. A reality experienced by the few could be overridden by a fantasy sold to the many. This exchange of proportions ensured that the political and media dimensions of the late twentieth century American wars dwarfed their military aspects.

Iraq: the "Duh!" Theory

Monday, May 24th, 2004

I can see the War Nerd’s point. From Iraq: the “Duh!” Theory:

And how hard is it to turn a 17-year-old into a guerrilla? Man, if they’d had that option when I was a senior I never would’ve had to take another vocational aptitude test. “Guerrilla fighter” would’ve been my first, second and third choice. Now there are hordes of Iraqi teenagers with no jobs and no money who get the chance to fire at Americans on the streets where the USAF can’t swoop down on them.

Diocletian on Why Bush Should Read Newspapers

Monday, May 24th, 2004

Diocletian on Why Bush Should Read Newspapers:

“How often,” was he accustomed to say, “is it the interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive their sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity, the truth is concealed from his knowledge; he can see only with their eyes, he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects. By such infamous arts,” added Diocletian, “the best and wisest princes are sold to the venal corruption of their courtiers.”