OK, is there a bio-pic movie about “Redbone”? If not, why not?
Movie Idea.
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Zion Island 14.
Reichsarchiv. Nachlass Bach-Zalewski. Private files–Miscellaneous.
Sipo-SD IV-B-4.
Partial transcript of a recorded conversation, Toamasina, Madagascar, 14 May 1948.
……….
MA[3]: I saw him. Talked to him. Talked for hours. Aliphas[4] met me at the train station and took me home. It took a week to set up.
MB: And? Will he help? What did you tell him?
MA: I explained our situation, what it’s like here, how it isn’t what they put in the fucking papers, when they do put anything in the papers. I told him from now on we had to be strong, rely on ourselves.
MB: And he agreed? He understood?
MA: Eventually, yes, the little bastard agreed. He’d seen that news-reel. It took forever to talk him out of that. He’s German, but he got out a long time before. Everything is theoretical to him.
MB: Will he help us? Does he understand what we want?
MA: Maybe. There are a lot of moving parts. A lot of things have to be organized. Organized like we did in the old country.
MB: It’s going to take time, then. If we have it. They’re probably watching us even now.
MA: He gave me the name of a man, Raymond. Arranged for me to see him. I went to El Paso to see Raymond. It’s just across the border. Took the train up to the north. Had to wade across the river in the night with a bunch of laborers just to get in. Raymond says the place is like a fortress since the election.
[1] Menachem Begin: b. 1913, Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire.
[2] Reference unclear.
[3] Mordechai Anielewicz: b. 1919, Warsaw, Russian Empire.
[4] Avram Aliphas: b. 1911, Kolno, Russian Empire; migrated to Palestine 1936; settled in Mexico 1940: taught at the Hebrew School in Mexico City.
Zion Island 13.
Reichsarchiv. Nachlasse Bach-Zalewski. Private files–Miscellaneous.
Sipo-SD IV-B-4.
Partial transcript of a recorded conversation, Theresienstadt, Madagascar, 14 August 1952.
(excerpt).
…..
AG[1]: There’s something else. The piano player from Rick’s. You’ve heard him? Course you have. You love the night-life. I met him at a party. There were a lot of people there and a lot of booze. We ended up in one of the little groups late in the evening.
PR[2]: You ended up in the same group or he was working his way toward you?
AG: Dunno. Could have been. Turns out he’s not French or German either, the “Graf” aside. He’s a Russian, one of the refugees. Grew up in Shanghai, then the family moved to France maybe twenty years ago. He speaks French and Russian, but also English and German.
PR: What’s he like?
AG: Smart. Big talker, but not so much boasting. More like he can run on and on with stories. Lots of them funny. Sort of puts you to sleep, like the doctor before an operation. A feygele[3] I think.
PR: So why tell me?
AG: He wants to meet people. Says it’s lonely being so far from home; says the Germans aren’t too interesting. Said it in a way that might make you think he didn’t like them—without coming right out and saying so. Also, he wants to see something of the island. He says the steamer from Shanghai stopped here on the way to France when he was a boy, but he never got off the ship.
PR: OK, I’ll tell them. Try to avoid him until they decide.
[1] Abraham Gancwajch: b. 1902, Czestachowa, Russian Empire. Head of Office to Combat Usury and Profiteering in the Resettlement Community.
[2] Perec Rachman, b: 1919, Lwow, Polish Republic. Interned by Soviet Union, 1940.
[3] Yiddish: a man who is believed to be gay.
My Weekly Reader 7 June 2019.
Often times, modern readers misunderstand the monarchies of the Middle Ages. They know that monarchy came to seem so tyrannical to the people of the 18th and 19th centuries that an “Age of Revolutions” took place between 1775 and 1850. If they are lucky, they’ve seen Kenneth Branagh’s version of “King Henry V”: a king both conscious of his own humanity and imperious in his ambitions. People may believe that Medieval kings wielded immense power.
They did not, or at least not necessarily. For one thing, Medieval kings could be certain only of the troops and taxes they raised from their personal lands. Beyond that, they had to rely upon their “vassals,” who owed a specified amount for support for a limited time each year. In times of tumult, some of these vassals might increase their own power and independence relative to that of their king. To take an extreme case, in 1066, the Duke of Normandy—a vassal of the King of France—invaded and conquered the neighboring kingdom of England. Thereafter, the Duke of Normandy was a vassal of the French king, but the King of England was the independent equal of the King of France. So, that’s concerning, as young people say.
For another thing, kings were just men who had inherited a crown. A few were suited to be great kings, many were suited to be ordinary kings, and a few were—spectacularly—not suited to be kings at all. King Henry IV displaced (and probably murdered) King Richard II. His son, King Henry V, was a great soldier who might have turned into a great king. His victory at Agincourt resulted in the Treaty of Troyes, which made Henry V the heir to the French king Charles VI. England and France would be united under one ruler. A super-state that could dominate Europe loomed on the horizon. When Henry V died very young, his son became king when he was one year old. King Henry VI of England[1] was “simple-minded,” mentally-unstable, and gender-dysphoric. Not a good combination for a Medieval king.[2]
The weakness of Henry VI empowered other men. On the one hand, great nobles led the fight to hold on to England’s French empire. The long war exhausted both countries. Oddly, defeat in that war discredited King Henry VI more than it did the men who had insisted on waging the war. On the other hand, the descendants of the deposed King Richard II began to assert their claim to the throne. Richard, Duke of York, began what came to be called “The War of the Roses” (1455-1485). That civil war ended, at first, in a “Yorkist” victory. Then the victory proved unstable, thanks largely to the efforts of Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s queen.[3] However, in the end, the House of York trampled down the House of Lancaster.[4] The once-again-deposed king, Henry VI, soon died under murky circumstances. “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun/son of York.”
It was a short summer. Soon, a distant relative of Henry VI overthrew the last Yorkist king, Richard III. Nature better endowed King Henry VII to be king than it did King Henry VI. However, only Henry VII’s grand-daughter Queen Elizabeth I, matched him and “the former lions of your blood” in ability. So, monarchy was a bit of a crap-shoot. So, Revolution is…?
[1] Lauren Johnson, The Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI (2019).
[2] Or a modern elected president. Not that I think President Trump is gender-dysphoric. Far from it!
[3] She was more man then most men.
[4] Lancaster, not Lannister, but that seems to be where George R.R. Martin found his inspiration for “Game of Thrones.”
Highway of Tears 4 June 2019.
Dan Werb is a Canajun, eh? Born in Vancouver, BC, and went to grad school at UBC. Went to grad school to become an epidemiologist.[1] He started out studying IV drug users and HIV/AIDS. The work involved many interviews with people most academics wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. It would appear from his research that cops harassing losers doesn’t help those losers manage their problems. Professional success followed. Now, it appears, he’s teaching at UCSD. So, we can anticipate further studies about IV drug use and HIV/AIDs in the poor quarters to San Diego (if such exist)?
Well, no. For one thing, Werb isn’t in any kind of a rut, finding out more and more about less and less.[2] He’s willing to shift his inquiries when some new thing catches his eye. For another thing, he’s way past feeling creepy talking to “marginal” figures. Werb’s curiosity and his attempts to satisfy it led to a recent book.[3] Many different threads come together.
San Diego is a rich American city across the border from its poor Mexican half-sister Tijuana. San Diego hosts big Navy and Marine Corps bases. The bases are packed with wanna-be or actually-are sexually active young men from all over the country.[4] So, Tijuana provided bars and restaurants, and some other stuff, along with prostitution services (safe, clean, at a reasonable price). Thus, economic complementarity.[5]
After 9/11, the US slammed the brakes on easy passage through the Mexican-American border.[6] North-bound traffic backed-up on the Mexican side, delaying the timely return of lance-corporals and machinist mates 3rd class to their appointed duties. Then, for un-related reasons, drug gang conflict led to gunfire in Tijuana. Ten years ago, the Navy and Marines began impeding visits to Mexico, Republic of, by their personnel.
Tijuana’s personal services industry crashed. Many displaced employees became independent entrepreneurs. There, that sanitizes it for your protection! Instead of fucking the brains out of nice American boys who tipped generously—and doing it on clean sheets to boot, they ended up standing around truck stops at night or propping up the bar in some dive. As a result, in Baja California, many of them got AIDS (and gave it to others); many got beaten to a pulp by crazy men who both burned with desire and hated what they desired; many crashed up against drugs; and a really frightening number were murdered or “disappeared.” A “really frightening number” means 1,200 a year/100 a month/3 a day/1 every 8 hours.
Mexican society keeps churning out poor people. Some—uncertain—share of the girls end up on the roads to Tijuana or Juarez or other border cities. Mexican Federal Highways 1, 2, and 15 are those roads. All are highways of tears.[7]
[1] Epidemiology: “the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.”
[2] See William Langer’s effort to counter this trend: “The Rise of Modern Europe” series by Harper and Row.
[3] Dan Werb, City of Omens: A Search for the Lost Women of the Borderlands (2019).
[4] Increasingly with women too, but I doubt they go south of the border. Probably have their hands full, what with harassment by other military personnel and all.
[5] See: Steven Bender, Run for the Border: Vice and Virtue in U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings. Same thing went for American bases in the Philippines. Adam Smith would be delighted and appalled
[6] As a result, the Mexican side of illegal crossing-points are now littered with discarded copies of the Koran and Jihad for Dummies. S’what I’ve been told anyways.
My Weekly Reader 16 May 2019.
If you want to think about “God” in simple evolution-of-ideas terms, then the stages would run something like the following. At first, humans believed all Nature was alive and that all living creatures possessed an “anima” (spirit, soul).[1] Later, seeking to appease these powerful natural forces, people “personified” them as “gods.” There were many things that could go wrong or right in life, so there were many gods. Build temples, offer sacrifices, and hope for the best.[2] Then they refined this polytheism into each city having one particular patron god or goddess, along with the others. That deity lived in a temple in the particular city that s/he protected. Participation in religious rites figured as an important duty, rather than as a choice. The deity didn’t move around. Greek and Roman religion were merely stems from this stock, but elaborated non-religious ethical systems of great power.[3] Animism yielded to Polytheism.
After a while, what became Western civilization diverged from this broad cultural pattern. The Hebrews developed “ethical monotheism.” That is they believed that only one real God existed; all the others were false gods. That God existed everywhere in the world, rather than being bound to the confines of some runty city-state. That God had made a “covenant” with His “chosen people.” He would protect them if they worshipped only Him. He didn’t settle for mere rites and offerings. He also required adherence to a moral code of action in this world. Then Christianity emerged from Judaism by opening the “covenant” to anyone who would profess the faith and by extending the “covenant” to include a promise of life after death.
If you want to go all sociological-psychological, then you might argue that Christianity amounted a generational revolt by young men against the old men who ran Judaism. Alternatively, you could argue that God now wanted all of His Creation to share in the benefits and strictures of the faith he had granted first to the Jews. Polytheism yielded to Monotheism.
Then, in the 7th Century AD, another monotheistic faith arose: Islam. This, too, is an example of ethical monotheism. If you want to go all sociological-psychological, then you could argue that the Prophet Muhammad borrowed much from Judaism and Christianity, and then preached his new faith to the polytheist Arabs at a critical moment in their history. Alternatively, you could argue that God had gotten fed-up with the inability of Jews and Christians to follow His instructions. He had sent Muhammad to call back the whole world to the benefits and strictures of the faith he had granted first to the Hebrews.
Since then, Judaism and Christianity have divided between growing secular majorities and shrinking “fundamentalist” minorities. Islam, however, has not followed the same path. The Koran remains the unalterable Word of Allah.
“Every schoolboy knows” the term “a willing suspension of disbelief” when approaching a work of fiction. What might make understanding between faiths easier would be a “willing suspension of his belief” on the part of the individual.[4]
[1] For a serious, accessible, and sympathetic portrayal of this belief system, see Brian Moore, Black Robe (1985).
[2] I suppose one could think of this as either bribery by the people or extortion by the gods. Living now in a more secular age, it appears that politicians have become the new source of manna. Reading the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in parallel each day, I conjecture that Democrats believe in the bribery interpretation and Republican believe in the extortion interpretation. But what do I know?
[3] If not of universal compliance. That’s one of the things that makes Ancient History so much fun.
[4] I stole this from Eric Ormsby, “Allah: A Biography,” WSJ, 17 January 2019.
Couple of Factual Points.
First, so far as I can tell at the moment, the first use of the term “collusion” came on “Meet the Press,” on 18 December 2016. The person who used the term was John Podesta, a major figure in Hillary Clinton’s shambolic presidential campaign. Did Podesta not want to use the term “conspiracy”? Later that week, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada)—who may have been watching “Meet the Press”—also used the term “collusion.”[1] From there it entered the lexicon of both Democrats and the media. Then, apparently, it became the term of choice for the President and his supporters when asserting his innocence. Then it became a term roundly denounced by Democrats and the media as meaningless and an obfuscation.
Second, firing James Comey as “obstruction of justice.” On 14 February 2017, Trump reportedly told FBI Director James Comey that “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” After all, “he’s a good guy.” On 4 December 2018, a sentencing memorandum from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller said Flynn “deserves credit for accepting responsibility in a timely fashion and substantially assisting the government.” As a result, Flynn should receive little or no jail time. What’s the diff?
Third, the Mueller Report “did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation.” More emphatically, “the Special Counsel’s report did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations.”
Fourth, “as the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”[2] His actions should be seen in this light.
Watching the “analysis” following Attorney General William Barr’s press conference this morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded of President Obama’s remark that he had to hold on “until the fever breaks.”[3] Many people seem to have behaved badly in this mess.[4] What to do?
I’m “concerned” (i.e. worried, frightened, angry) that Republicans will NOT let it go. We don’t need a “reckoning” or a bloodbath or a counter-vailing “witch hunt.” All of us—liberals, conservatives, and independents–would be lucky if the perpetrators of the “witch-hunt” calmly reflected on what went wrong. The New York Times did so admirably after the Jayson Blair[5] and Judith Miller[6] events.
Calm reflection is difficult when the hounds are baying at your heels. So, hounds, lay off. Much as “they” need to be on the next thing smoking to Guantanamo, just lay off. America’s democracy is at stake.
[1] See: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/opinion/collusion-meaning-trump-.html
[2] Quotes from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/transcript-barr-press-conference-1280949
[3] See his equally shrewd statements that “the Cambridge police were stupid”; that ISIS is “just the JV team”; and that “Russia is only a regional power.”
[4] See: “Ace in the Hole” (1951), “Absence of Malice” (1981); “Network” (1986); “Shattered Glass” (2003). These are among the real origins of the belief in “fake news.”
Rising Tide.
In the 1840s, two republics contended for power in the southwestern quadrant of North America. In 1846, Mexico and the United States went to war over the issue. The United States inflicted a catastrophic defeat on Mexico. As prize of war, the United States got California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Plus the Republic of Texas was allowed to join the United States. In 1853, the United States “purchased” the Gadsden Strip from a chastened Mexico.
Until 1924, the United States pursued a policy of “open borders.”[1] That meant millions of Southern and Eastern Europeans could migrate to the USA. Big industrial cities in the East and the Midwest filled up. It also meant that there were no restriction on cross-border movements in the Southwest. Many Mexicans migrated northward toward the more dynamic economy of the United States.
Then came the Depression, which decreased wages in both Mexico and the United States.[2] When the United States entered the Second World War, the American economy began a long boom. Between 1944 and 1966, 5 million “braceros” (Mexican temporary workers) came to the United States. Not all of them went back. By 1969 an estimated 540,000 illegal immigrants were working in the United States. That number increased markedly in the 1970s and 1980s. The economy of Mexico slumped far more than did that of the neighboring United States. By 1986, perhaps 3.2 million illegals were living in the United States. Mostly they were doing work that ordinary American citizens would not do. Hard, dirty, and for long hours.
In 1979, the Carter Administration (1977-1981) proposed building a border wall. In contrast, inn1986, the Reagan Administration supported an Immigration Reform and Control Act that granted amnesty to 2.7 million of the illegals.
Under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations, it was back to “get tough.” From a dozen miles of fence between San Diego and Tijuana, the amount of fence grew to 560 miles after 9/11. In 2000, 1.6 million illegals were caught at or near the border. Then the Obama Administration added 137 miles of fence for a total of 697 miles of fence on the 1,954 mile-long Mexican-American border. Purportedly, improvements in the Mexican economy then reduced the migration of Mexicans.[3] In 2017, the Border Control arrested only 310,000 illegals. So, triumph without a—full–wall!
The recent border “crisis” arises from different sources. Many Central American countries are collapsing under the weight of gang violence and mis-government. Whole families are migrating and presenting themselves as “refugees” at US points-of-entry.
However, people crossing the Sonoran desert is a peripheral issue in so far as illegal immigration is concerned. In 2017 alone, 700,000 people obtained US tourist visas and then over-stayed their visas. They just disappeared into the American hinterland.[4] That is better than half of all the illegals.
Why should Central Americans get priority while Asians, Africans, and Muslims wait? “It’s a serious question.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vInFuLgwR1U
[1] From 1882, the United States did try to limit immigration by Asians to the Pacific Coast.
[2] “A history of the southern border,” The Week, 8 February 2019, p. 11.
[3] The huge slump in the American economy—the “Great Recession”—may also have had something to do with it.
[4] This was basically the story with the 9/11 hijackers.
Bus Station.
Back in the day (as my undergrads used to say back in the day) I was in the head in the Greyhound station in like, IDK, Winnemucca, Nevada? Cold as all get-out. Riding the bus east from Seattle to Boston after Christmas break. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GONmFCkCGCc Black kid is using the head also. Then this cowboy staggers in through the swing-door. Older guy in jeans, boots, sheep-skin lined jacket, real Stetson. So, a real cowboy. His saddle is probably in the luggage compartment under a bus bound for Casper. He’s holding a fifth of some amber colored fluid and I don’t think it was green tea full of whatever green tea is full of that’s supposed to be good for your health. OTOH, it’s in a regular “factory whiskey”–as Henry Fonda said in “Grapes of Wrath”–bottle instead of a Mason jar, so you probably won’t wake up two days later, blind and in a culvert. Anyway, who was I? Oh, yea. The cowboy sees the black guy and says “Hey darky, help me get this thing whipped” and holds out his jug. Black kid is just frozen. He knows the guy meant it in a friendly way. He knows that he isn’t going to do some Man-Tan “Nossuh, Ah don’t drink no whiskey” routine. He knows that he should fight for being called “darky.” He knows that there isn’t another black person around for 250 miles—unless there’s a train stop and some old porter named Ulysses Grant Weems is aboard.
Once every five years or so, I think about those two guys and wonder how it shook out after I left in embarrassment for all three of us.
Zion Island 11.
NEU FILME!!
Apparaitre a la “Theatre d’Ete a Madagascar.”
“Die Hunde von der d’Urbervilles.”
Avec Hardy Kruger comme “Vitus Gasthaus” et Mina Loy comme “Frau Murnau.”
Realise par Franz Seitz, Sr.
Scenario de Graf Guy de Marcheret d’Eu.
waroftheworldblog 