You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy . . .

This made me laugh.  Then, hours later, as I walked along a crowded sidewalk, I laughed again.  Some looked askance at me, but I am used to it.

Hidden History – Unit 731

Between 1932 and 1945 Japan killed somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 civilians in a series of biological weapons attacks. To put that in perspective, it is about twice the number that died as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the most deadly use of weapons of mass destruction in history and one of the worst crimes against humanity ever recorded. Most people have never heard of it.

It was orchestrated by a group called Unit 731. Unit 731 performed some of the most horrific experiments imaginable. Thousands of civilians and POWs were victimized. People were tied down, infected, and observed until they finally died. People were chopped up just to see how long it would take them to bleed out. Vivisection was commonplace. While the name Joseph Mengele has become a byword for evil, 731's leader, Shiro Ishii, is almost completely unknown.

This article from City Journal is a good introduction to this hidden history. Here's what 731 did when they wanted to learn how the diseases they had produced would spread:

The Japanese laced more than 1,000 wells in the area of Harbin with typhoid bacilli. They also inserted typhus into bottles of lemonade that children loved to drink in the summer, Harris reported. In Nanking, they distributed anthrax-filled chocolate and cake to hungry children. The Japanese discovered that packing fountain pens and walking sticks with deadly germs was a particularly effective way of secretly disseminating them.

Later the Japanese experimented with ways they could deliver germ warfare through aerial assault. They developed various bombs. At their most cartoon-like evil they even worked to infect fleas, put the fleas on bats, and drop them out of airplanes over target populations.

Why did they do it? Why kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people? Because they wanted to learn the best way to use biological weapons against the U.S. and Russia. They eventually developed a plan: Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night. Kamikaze planes were to be loaded with anthrax and attack California. It was scheduled for September, 1945. Hiroshima was bombed in August.

Two questions might occur to you about now gentle reader. First, what happened to these monsters after the war? Second, why have more people not heard of this? The City Journal article cited above answers both questions. Nothing happened to those monsters, and the reason for that is the same as the answer to the second question. Because the U.S. wanted to learn the secrets of Unit 731. The most evil research program in history became a bargaining chip in the Cold War.

I think it's time that we add this chapter to our textbooks. The lessons of this history are too important, too powerful, and sadly too relevant to our own time to be lost.

Trivial Hoot Eleven

My goodness, it's been a couple of months since I posed a puzzler to my brilliant readers. This time I will challenge your smarts in the field of history. As always the first person to get it right will receive a big hoot and will join our roll of honor as a steely-eyed missile man or woman.

Edward V and Edward VIII have a few things in common. First of all, they were both named Edward. Second, they were both English kings. Third, they are both dead guys. But they also share another distinction. They are the only English kings that we can say this about. What is this unique shared quality?

Go Dog Go

The American Kennel Club now allows mongrels to participate in their dog shows. Shocking, isn't it? Is this the beginning of the end for purebred dog breeding, or will the AKC find some way to screw up mutts?

Our concept of breeding pedigreed dogs to established standards is a legacy of the Victorians, those wonderful people who brought us eugenics, colonialism, and industrialized child labor. People had been breeding dogs to select desirable traits for countless centuries, but it was in the nineteenth century that we first got the idea of breeding to a set of written appearance standards and documenting bloodlines.

Over the years, by focusing on these arbitrary standards, the AKC has caused dogs to be bred for looks instead of health. As a result we have animals suffering hip dysplasia and any number of other genetic ailments. So-called purebred dogs are far more prone to painful physical problems than good old mutts.

Rather than celebrating the fact that healthy dogs are being allowed to play in the AKC's dog park, mongrel owners should create their own club. Papers would be created to track the mutt's family background, proving that there is not a speck of pedigree contamination in the bloodline. Canine genetic diversity would be honored. Dogs of indeterminate origin would be celebrated for their essential happy, healthy doggy-ness, and stud books would be tossed into the ash heap of history where they belong.

Share and Enjoy

y06 '5owel '''eay 3fer47gldy/ Oops. Sorry, I was trying to type this entry with a towel over my head. I wanted to be fully protected in case my office should be invaded by the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Safe for the moment I see. Today is, of course, Towel Day, and a happy Towel Day to you, gentle reader. Today we celebrate the life and work of the great Douglas Adams by proudly carrying our towels for all to see. As you surely know, a truly hoopy frood always knows where his towel is.

Let me suggest a project for this day of days. Talk to your friends and colleagues about Towel Day. You may run across someone who has not yet been introduced to Douglas Adams. Often this is a sign that the person you are talking to is a bit of a dullard. Give them a chance. They may, in fact, be pretty hoopy but have been deprived of good literature through no fault of their own. Strive to Share and Enjoy. Tell your friend about Adams. Steer them toward good reading. In fact, you could give them a copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. A paperback version is available for short money. If your friend reads it and loves it, then you know that he (or she) is as hoopy as you had hoped. What if your gift is not appreciated? Don't panic. You have learned that you needn't waste further effort on this person as he is irredeemably uncool.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going back under the towel. You can never be too careful with Bugblatter Beasts about.

Scientific Heresy?

Here's an opinion piece in New Scientist that posits what has become a radical notion: that questioning science is not blasphemy.

I should have thought this obvious, but it clearly is not. Those who raise serious questions about received wisdom are ostracized, insulted, and tarred with the epithet “denier,” a word that carries the moral baggage of “holocaust denier.” The question is not addressed; the questioner is attacked.

If those who hold opposing views are treated as if they are heretics, and if great scientists like Freeman Dyson can step out of the mainstream and be treated as vile apostates, then science is becoming our culture's newest religion. And not the open, welcoming religion of the vibrant, loving church down the street, but the oppressive closed-minded religion the like of which persecuted Galileo. Which is, if this isn't too obvious, rather ironic.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “the faith that stands on authority is not faith.” I would say that the science that stands on authority is not science. Science is supposed to be a method of seeking truth. Those who engage in that pursuit must be free to question, to dissent, and yes, to be wrong. Otherwise, science is not science at all.

Ineffable

I just read Karen Armstrong's A History of God and it is going right onto my to-be-re-read pile. I knew it would be going there when I was only about a third of the way through the book. I was standing in a crowded subway car reading. At the stop before mine a woman who had been sitting across from me got up to leave, saying “that's a great book.” I agreed, telling her that it had got me thinking in new ways about the history of religion. She said that she wanted to read it again. I told her that I thought I would too.

A History of God is not, in fact, a history of God. Nor is it a history of religion, per se, but a history of the concept of God as considered by the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Armstrong begins at the beginning, in the years before the concept of the one God took hold. Our species has always worshiped and wondered about the spiritual matters, the world beyond our senses and the mysteries of existence. It is a defining characteristic of mankind. Built into our DNA, we are creatures that seek God.

All three faiths see Abraham as the progenitor. It was he who began to worship one God. As an old man he heard the voice of God and began to follow him and him alone. Who was this one God? The Bible tells us that Abraham did not know the sacred name of the Lord. He called him “El Shaddai.” Here Armstrong asks a question. Was El Shaddai, the God of Abraham, the same God as the one worshiped by Moses and his followers in the desert? She tells us that scholars think that El Shaddai was a local Canaanite deity.

What was so unusual about worshiping one of the many local deities? Nothing, really. What was unusual was the exclusive covenant Abraham made. He worshiped his God and his God alone. Even more radical, when he moved he and his family continued to worship his God. He refused to pay fealty to the local gods. This was the great difference, this idea that God could more universal, greater than the small regional gods all around them.

By the time of Moses God had become something wholly other. While Abraham's grandson Jacob could have a literal wrestling match with God, such a concept would have been blasphemous to the Israelites who followed Moses. God had developed into a being of such unimaginable power and majesty that He could not even be contemplated in mere human form. He would appear as flame or smoke. To look upon him was more than a man could bear. Moses, who spent time with Him, was physically changed. His face glowed with such light that he had to wear a veil so as not to cause injury to those who encountered him.

What happened to the relatively simple deity of Abraham? Had he evolved? Did he change? Of course not. But as man changes, grows, and becomes more capable, his concept of the divine changes. Armstrong traces a history of these changes, comparing and contrasting the different strains of faith and understanding in its three major expressions. It's a fascinating journey.

Recently the book has been criticized by scholar Stephen Prothero who says that Armstrong stretches to find commonalities that don't exist and ignores significant differences. This strikes me as being deliberately obtuse. Armstrong is careful to point out differences, explaining that core dogma of each faith can be seen as being blasphemous to the others. She also points out the significant splits within those faiths as different groups of people at different times followed their own path toward understanding. What is remarkably similar is the experience, as articulated by some adherents to each religion, of the ultimate, of the feeling of the divine and the sense of the numinous. Those who have have followed the paths of their faith or who have broken new ground within that faith will describe a deep, profound experience that transcends dogma. She writes that it “seems that when human beings contemplate the absolute, they have very similar ideas and experiences. The sense of presence, ecstasy, and dread in the presence of a reality—called nirvana, the ONE, Brahman or God—seems to be a state of mind and a perception that are naturally and endlessly sought by human beings.”

The faiths evolve as man grows. Some adherents follow a path of reason, others of dogma, and some of mysticism. All seem to have their place and all have enriched the history. But Armstrong is not an uncritical observer. She uses the example of St. Bernard's persecution of Abelard to demonstrate what religion can become when dogma rejects reason. She writes of the differences between the mystical, imaginative approach and the path of pure reason.

In the end I see the greatest wisdom in accepting the imaginative power of mysticism while employing reason and engaging in the centuries long conversation that is tradition.

The concept of the divine changes and grows as man himself changes and grows. Now we are in a new age, an age different from all others in history. Today, belief in God is a matter of personal choice. Faith is no longer an societal given. Each generation must create its own imaginative concept of God. God is a subjective experience; he cannot be described by a formula that is universal for all. Our concept of Him is transformed by our own personal religious experience. I wonder what the next generation's expression of the divine will say about Him. And us.

Silence

I've been kind of quiet here lately. I've been dealing with some demons. Things should be getting back to what passes for normal shortly.

Funny, You Do Look Jewish

Yesterday morning finds me where it often finds me, sitting in a subway car, heading off to work. And since I'm sitting in a subway car heading off to work, I'm doing what I always do when so situated, I'm reading a book. Just now I'm reading Hooray For Yiddish! by Leo Rosten. It's an interesting, funny book and I'm enjoying it greatly. As the train is clicking along and my pages are turning, I see that a man is approaching from the other side of the car. He's looking at my book. I know what's coming.

He wants to know where I found the book, which is long out of print. I tell him that I bought it years ago. I had read Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish, picked up this follow-up somewhere, and sort of forgot about it until I ran across it the other day. He introduces himself. He's an attorney. He tells me what temple he belongs to and begins to mention things I know little or nothing of. I have to interrupt him.

“The thing is,” I tell him, “I'm not a Jewish guy.”

He's surprised. I understand. The thing is, I do look Jewish. Something about my face. My beard, certainly, but there seems to be more to it. I just look, I don't know, Semitic.

It's happened to me before. Sometimes it's funny. Years ago I was sitting in a Denny's, eating ham and eggs. I was reading a book about Judaism. Why was I reading a book about Judaism? Because it's interesting and I'm ignorant. I find that when I read about something I become slightly less ignorant while the subject becomes yet more interesting. So there I am, Beardy Ben-Beardface, eating my ham and reading my book, when my waiter stops, sits down, and asks me some polite questions about my faith. Since it wasn't my faith and since I had only just started the book, there really wasn't much I could do but commend him on his curiosity.

That was kind of fun. Having kids sing Hava Nagila as I walked by was less pleasant, but still kind of funny. Having a drunk start talking about how greedy “the Jews” are while looking at me in a crowded subway car was not funny at all.

But this particular subway ride wasn't too bad at all. My new friend asked me why I was reading a book that would seem to be of limited interest to a gentile. I told him that the subject is fascinating and Rosten is a heck of a writer. He agreed. I also told him that it wasn't the first time someone had made his mistake and alluded to one of the more unpleasant encounters. He shook his head knowingly. He knew.

“Anybody who is different, people will pick on,” he said. He told me about a girl in his office. She's Asian. He heard people giving her a hard time because of it, making fun of her. “Makes me sick,” he said.

I understood. We've seen that aspect of humanity. Me the Christian. He the Jew. But right then we were both of the same tribe.

Intolerance

Would you boycott a bookstore because it hosted an author you disagreed with? When did McCarthyism become part of the mainstream? Before we patronize a bookstore should we investigate their loyalty to what we believe to be correct? “Are you now providing or have you ever provided a forum for members of this party or that?”

In order for this thing called America to work it requires open forums that allow free expression. It also requires tolerance, even of those beliefs that we may despise. Without that the Bill of Rights is meaningless. Intolerance is un-American.

Another Good Bookstore Closes

Dammit.  PhiloBiblos reports that Rodney's Bookstore in Cambridge is closing.  Central Square is decaying before our eyes.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook?

A couple of weeks ago I set up a Facebook account. I did it more out of curiosity than anything else. I wanted to know what this thing was. I'm still not sure.

I didn't do anything to make my presence known, but some friends found me anyway.

I've only been looking at the thing for a little while, but I'm not all that sure I like it. The user interface seems to be poorly designed. When I want to change privacy settings I have to do a lot of clicking. And it's not all that intuitive. I've tried to use a couple of applications, but some of them don't work right. I've been told that when Facebook updates its system it can cause some apps to fail. That's pretty clumsy right there.

Then there are the privacy concerns. Just scanning the web today I see articles in PCWorld, The New York Times, and Bloomberg. ZDNet has lots of stuff, including an article on how to secure some measure of privacy on Facebook.

The more I look at it, the more it seems to me that the people who run Facebook are not to be trusted. Their business model seems to be one of exploitation. The users of Facebook are not its customers. They are its commodity. That's true of any successful social media network or any free web service. The real customers are either advertisers or people who are paying for information about users. Services I like to use seem to understand the balance between making money from the paying customers and keeping the users happy and secure.

I found this piece, advocating quitting Facebook altogether, thought provoking.

My question is, should I just lock down my account or should I kill it? I link some of my Tweets to Facebook, so my friends who don't use that service can see what I'm saying. It's nice to see what friends who don't Tweet or have blogs are thinking about. For that, if nothing else, Facebook is kind of nice. Other than though, I don't think I'm going to use the service very much. It's just a little too creepy.

I Met a Superhero!

It's true!  I met one of my all-time favorite superheroes, Zatanna.  For some reason she was hanging around a comic book store.  I assume there was some sort of magical skulduggery going on that she needed to monitor.  Whatever, she was very nice and she's even prettier than her pictures.  I, on the other hand, am just as not-pretty, which may explain why this is the first picture of me I've posted here.  She didn't say "Kool ekil a gninnirg toidi," but she might as well have.

To Boldly Go Across the Universe

I just saw this on Byzantium's Shores and had to share.  Two of my favorite things in the world, Beatles and Star Trek.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Eighteen

“Depression is melancholy minus its charms.” – Susan Sontag

I like this quote. It reminds me that, once upon a time melancholy was known as “the English disease.” Today, of course, the English disease is soccer.

Melancholy, the blues, whatever you call it, is a condition of human life. Some try to deny it, some wallow in it dramatically, wearing it like a badge. There are times in my life when I've dressed in black, thrown myself on fainting couches, and written execrable poetry. Well, maybe not all that. I have written some terrible limericks. Anyway, being down in the dumps isn't the worst thing. It can lead to contemplation, occasional bouts of creativity, and can look rather romantic. Or it's just self-absorption, sobbing, and too much ice cream. Don't worry, you'll get over it.

Depression, on the other hand, is not at all charming. It's not funny, and just saying that you'll get over it doesn't help a bit. It is a serious disorder of the mind and body. It can ruin every aspect of your life, including your health. It's not a mood or a 'tude, it is death in life. Sometimes it is death itself.

You probably already know that. There's a good chance that someone close to you has been through it or is going through it. It may even be you. Sucks, doesn't it? I know, I've been there.

Here's the thing. Help is available. If you're suffering you don't have to take it forever. You're not going to be able to fix it on your own, you're not going to be able to talk yourself out of it, and you're certainly not going to be able to tough it out or endure it forever.

People with asthma don't try to make their own inhalers. People with myopia don't try to grind their own lenses. Then why should someone expect that they can handle this one on their own? If you're depressed, you need professional help.

Who do you call? Depression is a sickness. When you are sick, you call a doctor. Talk to him or her. Describe your symptoms. You're probably feeling physical symptoms along with the emotional symptoms. It's all part of the illness. Ask your doctor for help. You may get a referral to see someone who can help you work your way through it. You may get a prescription for medicine. You may get both. Either way, you'll probably feel a little better after seeing the doctor because you know you've begun to do something important. The way back can be difficult, but it's a lot better than where you are.

Here's a handy little guide from the Mayo Clinic. It includes some good ideas about preparing to see your doctor.  Check out the symptoms section.  You might see something that looks familiar.

If you're just feeling blue, write me a poem or something.  If you're a hot, mopey goth chick, give me a call.  But if you've got this terrible condition, you can do something about it.  You can get help.

Tractor Beams!

New Scientist says we've got tractor beams!  Take that Jonathan Archer and your wimpy grappler.  Oh, wait, it's just a repulsor.  Tony Stark's had one of those for years.  Still, pretty cool.

Song Silenced

The school board of Franklin Township, Indiana, has pulled Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon from their school and out of students hands. The book had been assigned to about 50 11th grade students in advanced placement English classes. Acting quickly to protect the college-bound students from the National Book Critic's Circle Award winning novel, the youths were ordered to stop reading the text and return the book to the school where it could be locked up immediately. School board member, noted literary critic, and protector of public morals Scott Veerkamp, said that he “was about as appalled as I've ever been in my life. I wouldn't want to expose my children to that garbage.” He went on to report that he “couldn't even sleep last night when I read some of the excerpts.”

Indeed, great literature can be powerful stuff. Especially great literature that deals with adult themes and uses adult language. As we all know, most 11th graders have never thought of, been exposed to, or discussed such things before. To suddenly encounter them in the form of a book can be far too much for them to bear.

Seriously, these are students who will likely be heading off to college in a couple of years. In college they are going to be reading things that are sometimes challenging. Isn't it the job of a school to prepare kids for their future and not to keep them in an intellectually sanitized bubble?

Therefore, I now declare Franklin Township, Indiana, to be Maniacal Hooting's official Most Embarrassing Place in America ™ (outside of Arizona).

Civil War

It rested there, taunting me. Looking down at me, mocking my ignorance, intimidating me with its heft and reputation. I'd sit down on the couch with some silly little book, a bit of literary fluff, and there it would be, too proud even to smirk. Shelby Foote's The Civil War, a Narrative. Three volumes of it. Almost 3,000 pages. Big, heavy books. This wasn't a quick read, this was a commitment.

I'm not a complete idiot. I knew something of that war. I knew when it was fought, where (generally), why (mostly), and how (a little). I knew something about the major players. I'd read this and that. I've watched the Ken Burns documentary. But even as I watched and listened to Foote himself fill in a detail here and add an impression there, I knew I wasn't getting it. I knew there was so much more to understand than could possibly be covered in a few hours of TV and a patchwork education. What I needed was a complete picture, an overview of the war from start to finish.

There it was, as I said. My Best Beloved's thrice-read copies (yeah, she's like that – turbo history buff). As I've written before (somewhere I'm sure), one of the reason I read is to reduce my huge store of ignorance. It seems I have a never ending supply of the stuff. So I picked up the first volume, determined to plow right through to the end.

I couldn't do it, actually. As good as it was, and it was very good, I needed to take a break from war from time to time, so between volumes I took little excursions. I read about religion, romance, and the British. And then I went back to the war.

One thing I knew. The Civil War was the most transformative event in our country's history. The big, obvious things were settled; whether or not we would be a house divided, whether or not we would be a nation of freedom or slavery. It also changed the very definition of our country, the very way that we saw our nation. It changed the United States from a plural to a singular. Before 1861 most people would say “The United States are . . .” From 1865 on we say “The United States is . . .” In trying to split us apart the south inadvertently stitched us together tighter than before. As Foote points out in his third volume, once these Americans who previously had never been but a few miles from where they were born walked, fought, bled, died, suffered, and grieved all over their country it became something it had never really been before. Their country. E pluribus unum indeed.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started reading Foote because I wanted to get a good overview of the whole war. I got that. But I also learned how really huge this topic is. Even Foote couldn't capture it all. He missed bits and pieces. One of my favorite people, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of Maine, is only briefly mentioned. The horror of Andersonville isn't covered except to say that the war crimes trial of it's commander was unfair. And the more I read the more I realized that no matter how big, no matter how many volumes, no one writer can ever describe the whole of the war. It is just too huge a story.

So Foote's Civil War isn't the place to end your studies. It is the place to begin. It is, as the title says, a narrative history. For all its heft it isn't a dry, scholarly tome. It is a story. A huge, amazing, fascinating, complex, and vitally important story, and Mr Foote took it upon himself the daunting task of telling it. He tells it very well. He was not, when he began this project, an historian. He was a novelist. He approached his history in that way, with a novelist's sense of character, place, plot, pacing, and story. The reader gets a strong sense of the people, mostly of the leaders but peppered with insight into the lives of lower ranking soldiers. The horror of some of the individual battles is shown clearly. Foote's language is poetic when there is call to be poetic, stark when that is called for, and always insightful and informative.

I saw for the first time how battles in far-flung theaters of war affected feelings and strategy across the country. I've always been more aware of the fighting in the east, such as in Gettysburg and Georgia, but now I see the importance of the whole war, including riverboats on the Mississippi, the blunders on the Red River, and fighting ships off the coast of France.

Unlike some readers I tend to view this as a battle of good versus evil. For the north it was a war to make sure that a “government conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” should “not perish from the earth.” For the south it was about preserving a way of life predicated on the right of some people to own other people. While reading I would cheer northern victories and was saddened by their losses. As a good historian Foote took a more evenhanded approach, not going out of his way to condemn but not shying from making moral judgments when they were called for. I was unaware of but unsurprised by the savagery with which Confederate soldiers dealt with black men wearing blue uniforms. I was also unaware of and was surprised by the heartless way U.S. Grant treated his own wounded men, letting them suffer and die on the field rather than allowing a ceasefire to rescue them.

Insights into the leaders of the war is one of the special gifts of these books. The strengths and flaws of Jefferson Davis, contrasted with those of Abraham Lincoln, the single-mindedness of Grant, the manias of Stonewall Jackson, the remarkable and occasionally brutal leadership of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and the tremendous energy and loyalty of Sherman are some of the profiles Foote presents. I don't think anyone will ever understand the incredibly deep and complex mind of Lincoln, but I have come a step closer after reading this.

And I've come a step closer to reducing my store of Civil War ignorance. Unfortunately (or fortunately, since I rather enjoy learning things), I've discovered that even with this huge overview stuffed into my head, my supply of ignorance is greater than I had imagined.

I May Never Eat Pastrami Again

Here's a fashion trend I never understood – butt print pants. Why someone would go around with “juicy” or “dance” or a school's name printed across their bottoms I do not know. I hadn't really thought about it until this afternoon. I was walking along the sidewalk. In front of me, facing away, was an elderly woman. She looked to be in her eighties. She was taking tiny little steps with the help of her gray metal cane. As I got closer I noticed the writing. They were sparkly gold letters on the tan sweatpants. “Mike's,” it said on one octogenarian buttock, “Deli,” it said on the other.

There are some things that I am not meant to understand.

Well Done, Mr Nimoy

After six decades, Leonard Nimoy has decided to retire from the acting profession. He will be officially finished after today's final trip to Vulcan (really, that's where he is today). A veteran of stage (my parents once saw him as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof) and screen (big and small), he did voice-overs, directed, wrote, and, of course, sang. I will miss seeing him work, but if he feels it's time to rest, you can't say he hasn't earned it. Of Mr Nimoy I will say this – I am, and always will be, his fan.