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Sunday, August 31, 2003
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY In the field of politics the equivalent of a theorem is a perfectly disciplined army; of a sonnet or picture, a police state under a dictatorship. The Marxist calls himself scientific and to this claim the Fascist adds another: he is the poet--the scientific poet--of a new mythology. Both are justified in their pretensions; for each applies to human situations the procedures which have proved effective in the laboratory and the ivory tower. They simplify, they abstract, they eliminate all that, for their purposes, is irrelevant and ignore whatever they choose to regard an inessential; they impose a style, they compel the facts to verify a favorite hypothesis, they consign to the waste paper basket all that, to their mind, falls short of perfection...the dream of Order begets tyranny, the dream of Beauty, monsters and violence. --- Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence (Via Photon Courier) MORE COMMIE NOSTALGIA IN GERMANY Continuing a trend I've commented on previously, a widespread nostalgia in Germany for the communist-era East (Ostalgie, meaning "East-stalgia") has spawned a line of TV shows celebrating the happy side of living under the old regime. Not surprisingly, not everyone is amused:
As you can easily guess, I am angered by these shows too, especially since I have relatives and loved ones who suffered under the East German regime. However, knowing these people also helps me understand the following sentiments:
It's easy to forget that a decent, if deprived and limited, life is possible under totalitarianism for ordinary people. Everyday life still goes on, and despite the system some humanity will always seep up through the cracks, even if it be little more than camaraderie in shared suffering. There is no fault in ordinary East Germans wanting to remember the good things rather than seeing the era as nothing but darkness, so long as the darkness that was present is not forgotten. Friday, August 29, 2003
SOCIALISM JOKE Q: What is the difference between a scientist and a socialist? A: A scientist tries it out on mice first. FORECASTING LOCATIONS OF CRIME In the latest issue of Wired there's a short piece on a project to develop methods of forecasting where criminal activity is likely to occur. The researchers dumped a database of criminal activity into a Geographic Information System [1] and developed a predictive model similar to those used in market analysis by businesses. The system yielded predictions of future crime locations at the police beat level with 80% accuracy . The system does have some limitations, however:
...and in general this thing is being a little overhyped (as is sadly typical for a Wired piece). These types of software tools help to systematize analysis that otherwise would be only semiformal and partial as well as provide great visualization techniques, and to that extent are indeed useful, but it's very unlikely that they will ever provide something that's equivalent to precognition. The parallel to weather forecasting is quite appropriate: We can get very useful general predictions about crime this way -- ones that indeed help in our decisionmaking -- but will not be able to exactly and exhaustively pinpoint every individual instance over small increments of time. [1] That's not what the author calls it, but it's obviously what they're using. SOME FUN STUFF In recognition of the arrival of Friday, here are some entertaining sites for you. The Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness showcases various amusing oddities from product instruction manuals. Be sure to check out the translated-while-tripping-on-acid installation instructions for the Dragonball Z flyer! And for you pedantic spoilsports who love to ruin your friends' simple enjoyment of movies, there's Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. I found the discussion of dragon physics pretty funny. TRACES OF COMMUNISTS PAST Some reminders of communists of yesterday surfaced on the Web this week. The diary of Georgi Dimitrov, first prime minister of communist Bulgaria, has recently been published. Before coming to power he was a close associate of Stalin, and the diary provides further insight into the world of nervous sycophants and toadies surrounding the notorious Soviet dictator. Another article discusses the life and research of Nora Volkow, great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky. Unlike her famous ancestor, Volkow is not involved in politics, instead having a career as a medical researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse here in the US. In addition to covering her groundbreaking work on drug addiction, the article gives us a fascinating exploration of life in the Trotsky household in Mexico City after his assassination by a Soviet agent in 1940. On a lighter note, check out the plaque on this Soviet statue of Lenin currently residing in Dallas, Texas. I find it strangely appealing that he is now surrounded by tacky roadside Americana! VIDEO KILLED THE OLD DDR ** OxBlog has an interesting post on actions by West Germany and Austria that helped bring down the East German government and by extension the rest of the Eastern Bloc. What were they? West German TV broadcasts, and Hungary opening its border with Austria. I find this especially fascinating since it is exactly how someone very, very dear to me made it out of East Germany, even down to the preliminary detour through Czechoslovakia. ** For those of you too young to catch the silly reference, you can be enlightened here. Wednesday, August 27, 2003
NORWEGIAN BLOGGER ON EUROPE'S PENDING NON-DOOM I can happily report that the Norwegian Blogger has now returned from his extended blog holiday. Welcome back, Vegard! He picks up the keyboard once again to explain how predictions of Europe's imminent demise are overblown, both in terms of runaway socialism and the growth of the EU as well as Muslim immigration. There is also the latest adventure of Wally and the gang for your anti-idiotarian amusement. DON'T BANK ON CD-Rs A friend of mine passed along this cautionary article about the rapid deterioration of many brands of CD-recordable disks. It's definitely something to keep in mind if, like myself, you rely on them for archiving large datasets. Tuesday, August 26, 2003
THE SOVIET VIEW OF ISRAEL The CounterRevolutionary has discovered a Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary from the 1950s and provides us with a translation of the entry on Israel. The parallels between it and today's anti-Israel attitudes are interesting to note. NEW DIET COLA DEBUTS Enjoy new Diet Catholicism®, a theological taste sensation for the Me Generation! Now 100% dogma-free! Monday, August 25, 2003
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect That no one will need to be good. But the man that is will shadow The man that pretends to be. --- T.S. Eliot, The Rock Friday, August 22, 2003
BURKE QUOTES & THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY RETURNS Hey folks, just a quick entry to let you know I'm still alive. All my time has been getting sucked into georectifying some datasets that refuse to go into the correct projections. But I'm doing fine... or would be except for THOSE @#!$*% DATASETS! WHAT THE HELL IS WRO... Uh, heh heh... No, no, I'm fine. Really. Heh. Anyway, Chicago Boyz has a list of insightful quotes from Edmund Burke, who is probably my favorite political philosopher. Also, long-time favorite The CounterRevolutionary is back to regular blogging after his summer break, so definitely drop in and pay him a visit. Tuesday, August 12, 2003
SOCIALIST EUGENICS Though few can countenance a consideration of eugenics in today's post-Holocaust world, for many "progressives" in the first half of the 20th century eugenics was part and parcel of their ideology. This eugenics movement grew out of several interrelated streams of thought: overt racism/elitism, a fetish for "rationalizing" every aspect of society, and the desire to hasten the arrival of socialist utopia. The first stream consisted of those wishing to reduce the population of "undesirable peoples," whether they be non-white races or despised groups within society, in order to protect and foster either the white race as a whole or the elites of the Western nations. Falling into this category were such still-vaunted figures as birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger, who drew up ambitious plans for the sterilization and segregation of undesirables. The social engineering spirit of Sanger's "Plan For Peace" also embodies the second stream feeding into the eugenics movement, those wishing to "rationalize" more and more aspects of society along "scientific" principles, including the reproduction of the population. Dissecting Leftism points out Bertrand Russell as an exemplar of this group. The combination of a rage for order with a boundless faith in the capabilities of Science led Russell and his ilk to dream of a "scientifically" based program to increased desired stocks in the population. [1] No longer would humanity be subject to the chaos of wild breeding -- the Scientist would step in and guide the process, nurturing here and pruning there, refining each generation more and more into the desired ideal. Talk of a New Man and the broad-scale "scientific" management of society brings us to the third stream feeding into the eugenics movement, socialism. As Fightin' with Grabes documents, long before the rise of Fascism socialist thought included a good share of racism. This perhaps grew out of the application to racial categories of the historical-materialist conception of a progressive vanguard versus surrounding retrograde forces, with the European peoples' advanced state proving that they were history's chosen. [2] The "less-developed" races getting an upper hand would therefore be a setback for the socialist dream and must be prevented. Eugenics provided the tool for this, and fit in nicely given the frequent conflation of socialism and "science" in the minds of Western intellectuals. They soon discovered, however, that the gun and the gas chamber in their crude efficiency are a little more handy for utopians in a hurry. [1] Since the would-be controllers just happened to have the superior genes and would therefore have to engage in their widespread, uh, dissemination, one has to wonder whether this was really all about juvenile fantasies of nerdy stud farms! [2] If true, it's interesting to note that this is a reverse image of contemporary Marxism's take on the First versus Third World, embodied most blatantly in international Maoism, in which now the Third World is the vanguard. Monday, August 11, 2003
MORE ON ALLENDE & PINOCHET Conservative Commentary brings together and adds to discussion of Pinochet's coup in Chile. It's a nice little addition to last month's Allende discussions initiated by Val's masterful post. Sunday, August 10, 2003
THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid. --- G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, 6-3-22 Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself. --- G. K. Chesterton, The Common Man Friday, August 08, 2003
"MAOIST PEOPLE'S WAR" IN NEPAL Among the many developing nations of the world plagued by communist insurgencies is the mountain kingdom of Nepal. Since 1996 the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been fighting to overthrow the nation's fledgling constitutional monarchy, with the support of various international communist groups. The conflict seems to not be registering very strongly on international radar screens, but as Steven C. Baker reports, that needs to change:
Read the full article for the complete analysis, as well as more background on the CPN(M) and its ties to international communism. Thursday, August 07, 2003
MORE ON THE "ATHANASIAN DARK AGES" In my previous post on the reformability of Islam, I asked readers for their guesses as to why Imad A. Ahmad seems to blame "the establishment of Athanasian Christianity" for the Dark Ages. William Luse of Apologia writes in to say:
Thanks for expanding the picture a bit, Bill. I was thinking of Athanasius' offense to Islam as simply the issue of Trinity versus Unity, but of course that carries with it the issue of the nature of Christ. Basically we're seeing here the Muslim idea that Christianity began as at least a proto-Islam -- if not full Islam -- until its original message was distorted along the way. Apparently Ahmad would fix this turning point with Athanasius, which makes sense since his defeat of Arianism spelled the end of views of Christ as non-divine having any sort of significance in Christianity. Looking over Ahmad's statement once more, I find it interesting that he seems to equate modernity and Islam:
... implying that something's "modernity" is a function of its "Islamicity." If that's true, I'd be interested to know what he makes of the fact that the West has pulled ahead politically and technologically despite the Ummah's 800-year lead in coming out of a state of apparently equal backwardness. "Seven American Nights" Thinking about this has reminded me about a neat little science-fiction novella by Gene Wolfe entitled "Seven American Nights", which can be found in his anthology The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories. It takes place in a future America where our country has collapsed due to some sort of technologically-induced ecological catastrophe, making it a global backwater and apparently pulling the rest of the West down with it. Left untouched due to its lesser development has been the Muslim world, which fills the vacuum and leaps into a second Golden Age. The story follows the journey of a visitor from this resurrected Caliphate through our strange and barbarous land. What makes the story so memorable is Wolfe's skill at capturing the feel of a medieval travel journal -- it's the sort of thing one can easily imagine coming from a figure like Ibn Battuta. Well worth checking out. Speaking of The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, an online review of it caught my eye, which starts off with this:
If a passage like that doesn't pique your curiosity, I don't know what will! |
