Nazis: Always Good For a Knee-Jerk Response
According to Godwin’s law , “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches [100%]”.
Yesterday, I was searching around for a topic to blog and having little luck. I thought, “Aha, Nazis, always good to incite strong feelings”. 🙂 Well, seriously, I was going to write a timeline on how civil rights were eliminated in Germany. It’s an interesting subject and I may still write about it in the future.
As I was researching the subject, I discovered that the Nazi party never managed to get more than 37.2% of the popular vote. In 1932-33, no political party had a majority in the Reichstag (parliament) so on January 4, 1933, a coalition was formed between the Nazis and a right-wing conservative party led by Alfred Hugenberg, a wealthy media mogul. I must admit that I flashed on Rupert Murdoch at that point.
The rest was horrifying history; Hitler immediately grabbed absolute power and became dictator. I was curious about what became of Alfred Hugenberg since you don’t dance with the devil and expect to keep your soul. Unlike many of Hitler’s political enemies, he managed to avoid the concentration camps but ended up losing his media companies to the Nazis.
Interesting history but BFD, right? Too commonly, there is a tendency to invoke the vast corporate conspiracy which corrupts government and highjacks true democracy. I’ve done it many times but I admit that’s an oversimplification. While Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of a military-industrial complex which threatened American institutions of government, he did not blame all corporations.
Corporate America is not a monolith. They have competing interests and their lobbyists fight each other in the halls of Congress. Although they enjoy the tax breaks and subsidies bestowed by our honorable legislators, they don’t determine who we invade and when we go to war. If they did, the Iraq War wouldn’t be such a monumental screw-up.
Oil company executives did not want to invade Iraq since the risks did not outweigh the rewards. They make huge amounts of money anyway; why risk the entire Middle East going up in flames?
Fascist governments have close ties to corporations and ignore the interests of the public. Still, while I.G. Farben may have profited by their Zyklon B contract, how did those executives feel as they watched their cities bombed into rubble? I’m pretty sure that wasn’t good for business.
Sorry. On drugs at the moment.
This summer cold’s a bitch. Hacking cough won out over crushing fatigue last night, so I drugged up on Tylenol #3 (left over from my strangulated hernia operation two years ago) and Benadryl and still stayed up until 2:00. Karen forgot to set the alarm (yup — I can’t program a VCR, either), so I overslept and had no time to go a-bloggin’ this AM to check up on my e-friends. I feel like a heel. A heel with a cough.
But you learn toughness from residency. (For those of you not in the medical biz, residency = five or six years of indentured servitude, after which you may call yourself a specialist. In my case, a snot doc.) I didn’t pull all-nighters in the OR with Maisie Shindo (one of New York’s best doctors — go Maisie!) to wimp out over a stupid cold. Or, as we used to say at Big County, “You’re either in the hospital working, or you’re in the hospital as a patient. Either way, your butt better be here.”
And here I am.
I drew a blank on a topic, unfortunately. Best I can do is reminisce about my earliest memories of the Web. In 1994, Karen and I rented a house in Alhambra, California. We had two of the nicest landlords — a Jet Propulsion Laboratory rocket scientist (no kidding!) and his wife. That’s when I first remember truly surfing the Web — getting my ears wet, wiping out. My favorite website was Mirsky’s Worst of the Web.
Nowadays, if you google Mirsky, you’ll find (through mirsky.com) a tee-shirt vendor. With a bit more stick-to-it-iveness, you’ll find this site, where three latter day Mirskys pick their very Worst. However, this seems like a thin cover to sell stuff for something called outfitters.com.
I miss the old Mirsky. The Worst I remember Most was Slut Boy, a skanky young dude who had posted photos of himself in all his slutty glory. You’d feel cleaner just looking at him. Alas, Slut Boy is gone, too, although perhaps he’s still out there, lost in Net Space amongst all the other Slut Boys. But if you know what’s good for you, you won’t try googling for him. It’s a mean hard-fisting organ-piercing jungle out there.
Michelle writes:
. . . how about a post for female writers on what guys really
think/feel/do [during sex]?
Great question, Michelle. So great I’m going to save my answer until a day when my comic super-powers are at their zenith. For now, let me end with this teaser of a reply:
One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five, one thousand six . . .
D.
PS: Give poor Bare Rump a visit. Lately, she’s endured more than an extraterrestrial should have to bear, what with having to watch Martha Stewart and Keanu Reeves make out, then having to eat Martha and drive cross country with Keanu. And not even the real Keanu Reeves — some cheap wannabe. And now, to add insult to injury, the poor dear’s blog has only been getting three hits a day. Since one of those hits comes from me, that’s pathetic.
Bare Rump hates to be thought of as pathetic.
Do You Feel Like a Loyal Patriot? A Political Rant
There’s been a torrent of Op-Ed pieces over the red state/blue state split in America. After the 2004 election, the San Jose Mercury News printed a slightly tongue-in-cheek picture of a U.S. map with all blue states attempting to escape to Canada. How divided are we?
I’m uncomfortable even writing that last sentence. There is no we; there’s only two bitterly divided groups: the blues who consider themselves cosmopolitan and educated and the reds who hold themselves up as the last bastion of morality. One could argue that there’s a large group of apathetic centrists who have little interest in even voting, but they’re not the ones who drive the poltical debate.
Except for our blowhard politicians, when was the last time that you heard anyone say “we Americans”? When was the last time that you wrote “our government”? Most Americans would say that the government is controlled by right-wing Republicans but they would be wrong. The U.S. is controlled by corporations and demagogues who, while enriching themselves and their friends at government expense, seek to distract the general public into fighting one another in a verbal civil war over issues like gay marriage and abortion.
This wouldn’t matter as much if it was just a question of government corruption. As any historian will tell you, corruption is the price of democracy; only absolute dictatorships can ensure total accountability. No, it’s the death and destruction in Iraq that matters.
Except for a few yellow stickers haphazardly placed on bumpers, there are few visible signs that the country is at war. The public feels little or no direct effect which would distract from the usual media babble; the pain is primarily borne by a thin demographic section that supplies the military recruits. U.S. deaths are closing in on 2,000 but there is little outcry. Casualty reports have been banished to the back pages of newspapers or relegated to the thin ribbon crawling along the bottom of the television screen. At best, they’re worthy of a three-second sound bite, accompanied by appropriately sad music.
The Bush administration orchestrated the unseen war by rigorously preventing the press from reporting honestly on the blood soaking the ground in Iraq. The “news” consists of press releases handed out by a military spokesman and some sanitized video taken by Iraqi cameramen, the only news employees who dare to leave the Green Zone. There is no blood, no screaming soldiers and civilians whose limbs lie twisted and mangled; sensitive viewers might complain and real life might become too real.
None of this is lost upon the U.S. soldiers in Iraq. I can’t bring myself to call them “our” soldiers; my soldiers wouldn’t fight a war based on a lie, torture innocents because they might have information about terrorists, or continue to support a president who has cost them lives and credibility. Those soldiers in Iraq are correct when they worry whether the public still supports them. If Iraq is Vietnam-in-a-desert, what will U.S. veterans face after Iraq dissolves into a morass of civil war, terrorism, and butchery? Will returning soldiers be welcomed home with parades? Or will they be scapegoated as failures? That’s what happened after Vietnam. It took decades for public opinion to acknowledge that the leadership was the failure; it was far easier to blame the foot soldiers for “not being good enough, not like the dedicated soldiers in World War II”.
The soldiers will be an easy target for the Bush administration to use to deflect responsibility because the public doesn’t really care about them. They may wave a flag on July 4th but how many people care about the lack of body armor? They care more about the price of gasoline and that’s because they aren’t our soldiers. As far as the public is concerned, they’re just a group of people who volunteered to join the military and tough luck that they got sent to war.
The United States is not a country. It is a collection of special interest groups with so little patriotism that they don’t even blink an eye when they see their politicians commit treason.
I’m DONE!
Working title: The Brakan Correspondent
Date I finished the first version of the outline: 4/27/03
Date I finished the first version of Chapter One: 6/16/03
Final word count: 301,280
A very public thanks to my wife Karen, my son Jacob, and my readers: Ben, Debi, Edwin, and Maureen. You too, Gabriele! Thank you all for your love and support.
The rest of you can read the blurb here.
D.
I won’t be posting on Sunday
Seriously, tomorrow is tarantula feeding day and maybe I’ll get around to trying to mate my pair of Avicularia metallica tarantulas. Hopefully, the female will play nice.
Nuclear Japan
Or, how Japan may learn to love the bomb.
Obviously, Japan has the technology and resources to build pretty much any military weapon in existence. It does not have the political or cultural inclination to produce nuclear weapons, at least, not currently.
As Japan lacks natural resources, it has increasingly turned to nuclear energy for the production of electricity, despite public trepidation over the accidental release of radioactive material. By 2010, 40% of their electricity will come from nuclear power plants.
This points out Japan’s quite serious energy problems. Although they are the only country to have experienced nuclear warfare, they are still willing to build nuclear power plants in the most earthquake-prone nation on earth.
In addition to the “usual” uranium power plants, Japan also built two fast-breeder reactors. These reactors use plutonium and, moreover, produce more plutonium in the waste product. This waste product can be re-processed to obtain more plutonium. Thus, as stated in this link:
“By 2003 Japan owned more plutonium than in the United States nuclear arsenal…In 2003 Japan owned 38 tons of plutonium, 5 tons located in the country and 33 tons at its European processors. That is enough for 7,000 nuclear weapons. Japan is also accelerating its production of plutonium. By 2010, the amount of plutonium being stockpiled in Europe will have mounted to 45 tons.”
While reactor-grade plutonium is not as pure as weapons-grade, it can still be used for nuclear warheads. Of course, there is nothing to prevent the Japanese from purifying their plutonium.
The second question is method of delivery. Within a very short time, they could build a Nagasaki-type bomb and use aircraft to deliver it. They also have alternative technology. Japan has had a commercial space program since 1963; starting in 1970, they have launched satellites using solid-fuel rockets. Currently, they have two types of missiles that are suitable for conversion to intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, they would still have to design and build the re-entry vehicle to detonate the warhead.
So, why should anyone care? The Japanese aren’t going to bomb anyone with conventional weapons, much less start a nuclear holocaust. Although many Asian nations are still quite suspicious of Japanese motives due to lingering memories of World War II, there is no evidence of any type of militarism in Japan. Besides, there’s no need for Japan to become a nuclear power; since the end of World War II, the U.S. has guaranteed Japan’s security. That is, there is no need as long as the U.S. has the capability and desire to protect Japan.
How long will that last? Damned if I know. However, China and Japan are wrangling over the natural gas fields in the East China Sea. This is just a prelude to the increasingly desperate struggle over access to oil and other natural resources that are vital to industrialized nations and the emerging superpower, China. As Iraq spirals into civil war, its oil exports will drop even below its current paltry level and further strain supplies. Bush, aka Bushusuru the Younger (scroll to end to 8 Jan 1992), put the U.S. in hock to the central bank of China, which limits American options; essentially, China can crush the U.S. economy by selling the $200 billion in T-bills/bonds that are held by China’s central bank. Plus, in 1994 and 1998, North Korea shot medium-range missiles over Japan which landed in the Pacific; that, coupled with their suspected nuclear arsenal, would make anyone nervous.
Japan and the U.S. need each other; for example, Japan’s central bank holds $800 billion in T-bills and the U.S. hold Japan’s security. They are tied by economic and military necessity, but only an idiot believes that conditions will never change.
Hey, don’t be a girlie-man!
This weekend is the final push. One way or another, the novel ends tomorrow. I wrote 3400 words today (not a record, but close), and wept, or at least sniffled, through most of it.
But I cry easily, especially when I have a cold (and I do). As a kid, I remember weeping over a rerun of All in the Family, one of the episodes where Archie and the Meathead have some sort of rapprochement. That I can understand; crying over commercials still baffles me.
There came a time towards the end of my grad student days when my boss, Larry Kedes, insisted I do one last S1-mapping experiment before he’d let me defend my thesis. Hey, here he is right now!
Doesn’t he look like a nice man? Well, I didn’t think so at the time. Larry had just left Stanford for USC, so I had to spend winter break down in Los Angeles to get one stinking experiment done. That was the longest Karen and I had ever been apart — oh, boo-hoo-hoo, enough already. Point is, I got the work done, and when I developed the autoradiograph and saw that pretty black smear right where it was supposed to be, I called Karen and cried over the phone.
To me, it made perfect sense to cry. This little black band meant that the last seven years were drawing to a successful close. I’d get the damned PhD, for whatever that was worth (not much, as it turned out). I could say to myself: You didn’t give up. You stuck with it. You made it work.
For someone with self image problems, this was a big deal.
As the title of this piece suggests, Karen’s reaction was — well, let me be polite and use the word ‘incredulous’. I think the comments, “What’s the matter with you?” and “You’re crying over that?” came up a few times. Growing up, my wife emulated Mr. Spock. What else is there to say?
None of this bothers me anymore. The way I look at it, I have two good reasons to cry over this novel. One, it has taken me over two years to write it, and I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Two, the ending is sad, and I feel like a total heel doing this to my characters.
Okay. Think I’ll go bawl my eyes out over a Britney Spears video.
D.
Mark Tiedemann collection reviewed on Tangent
Other Ways: Three Tales from the Secant, by Mark Tiedemann
Excellent trio of short stories from veteran SF author Mark W. Tiedemann. I’d never read Tiedemann before reviewing this collection, and I was delighted to make his acquaintance. Tiedemann has a keen sense of drama and doesn’t shrink from (or oversimplify) the thorny issues.
D.
Only thin white women have orgasms. News at 11.
I was leafing through the July ’05 issue of Wired when I found Annalee Newitz’s story about female orgasms, “The Coming Boom”. The subtitle says it all: “Big Pharma has made billions pumping up the male population. Now neuroscientists are reverse engineering the female orgasm.”
You can read the story online here. The article itself didn’t capture my interest, though. I’d recently seen something that covered the same ground on one of the health & science networks. No, what caught my eye was the very eye-catching photo-mosaic of twenty-four women caught in the throes of orgasm. If you follow the above link and click on the photo in the left margin, you’ll see what I mean.
I really don’t consider myself a member of the Political Correctness Police, but what’s going on with the racial mix in this photo? I count three Asians, one Hispanic, and twenty-one white women. I see one, maybe two women who look overweight. Oh, and nearly all of them are attractive. They must be beautiful women, because they’re making that face (I’m having a twelve pound baby, and he’s coming out sideways!) and they’re still cute.
If you follow that photo link, you’ll find a second link at the bottom for Beautiful Agony, a website that sells mpeg videos of men and women experiencing la petite mort.
Rove & Libby Caught Lying to Grand Jury?
Someone perjured himself to Fitzgerald. See link.
Libby told Special Prosecuter Fitzgerald that he learned Plame’s identity from Tim Russert. Tim Russert told a grand jury NO, I didn’t tell Libby about Plame.
Rove told Fitzgerald he learned Plame’s identity from Robert Novak. Novak “has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor”. The story goes on to detail discrepancies between Matt Cooper’s testimony, and Rove’s.
Perjury: probably. But there may be more serious charges pending.