My Degeneration, First Blood, Loving God's Wildness, Ket'aq, Show Time, Thermal Physics, and Digital Storytelling

Some books I saw on the new books shelf at UAA library yesterday.

My Degeneration

I was delighted to see local blogger Peter Dunlap-Shoal's graphic story of living with Parkinson's had made its way into the library.  This is an incredible book that only Peter, as a cartoonist with an  impish curiosity could pull off so well.

He treats his current life like an epic heroic adventure against a relentless adversary. The comments on his blog show that it brings comfort to others with the disease and it's incredibly valuable for people who are around them.





  Schroeder's Thermal Physics

This was originally published (with the same cover) in 1999. From Good Reads:

"This might be my favorite physics text book ever (on any subject). It's very readable - strikes a balance between big picture concepts and calculations. I also love how the book explains the connections between the microscopic description of statistical physics and macroscopic thermodynamics. (I wish I knew of a quantum mechanics text book that did this as well.) I used this book intensively while struggling through my graduate Stat Mech class (in retrospect, my undergraduate engineering oriented class on thermodynamics was not adequate preparation), and I'm not sure I would have made it through pancreas...? pathogen...? oh, Pathria... (whatever -- at the time I'm pretty sure it made me feel sick in various vital organs) without it. Although I haven't taught an entire class on thermal physics I have drawn on it heavily when teaching units on entropy and heat engines. In all honesty, I'm not sure how much my students appreciate this, but I at least still appreciate the insights I get! (If only I had found Schroeder's book on Quantum Field Theory as illuminating!) This book is geared towards advanced undergraduate physics majors, but like the Feynmen lectures, there are nuggets here that transcend the intended audience. Unlike the Feynmen lectures, this text is also helpful for solving actual problems. Highly recommended!"

Most of the comments there are in the same vein, but there is also this:

"I found this textbook very frustrating. Not nearly enough theory."

First Blood and The Blockade

From Wikipedia:

The Civil War book series (OCLC 20080930) chronicles in great detail the American Civil War. Published by Time Life the series was simultaneously released in the USA and Canada between 1983 and 1987, with subsequent identical reprints in the late 1980s - early 1990s following suit for foreign, though untranslated, dissemination as well. Some titles focused on a specific topic, such as the blockade, and spies, but most volumes concentrated on the battles and campaigns, presented in chronological order. Each volume in the series was 176 pages in length, heavily illustrated and with pictorial essays on specific topics within each volume and came standard without a dust jacket. Executed in hardcover, each volume was bound in silvery-gray leatherette, the cover endowed with in deep blue printed text imprints, and heavily embossed with Civil War symbology with an oval shaped illustration glued on. There are 28 volumes in the series
:

So, if you're thinking like I am - that these seem to not be 'new books,' - you'd call the reference desk and ask about them. And librarian Ralph Courtney said that the Civil War books and probably the Physics text are gifts that have been donated to the library. And that a lot of the new books to the library right now would fit in that category.


 Ket'aq and Mingqutem Iinga

I couldn't find anything on either of these books - and when I thumbed through them in the library I didn't see anything written in English.  But my google search did land me on an article about St. Lawrence Island by Sarah Garland,   "In remote Alaskan villages, teachers struggle to make school meaningful" that also appeared in The Atlantic.

It had this memorable phrase:

"Despite the near-fatal brush with Western culture, the Yupiks rebounded. . ."

 In any case, these appear to be Yupik language children's books.

Loving God's Wildness: The Christian Roots of Ecological Ethics in American Literature;

From a Project Muse review of Jeffrey Bibro's book:

"When the Puritans arrived in the New World to carry out the colonization they saw as divinely mandated, they were confronted by the American wilderness. Part of their theology led them to view the natural environment as “a temple of God” in which they should glorify and serve its creator. The larger prevailing theological view, however, saw this vast continent as “the Devil’s Territories” needing to be conquered and cultivated for God’s Kingdom. These contradictory designations gave rise to an ambivalence regarding the character of this land and humanity’s proper relation to it. 

Loving God’s Wildness rediscovers the environmental roots of America’s Puritan heritage. In tracing this history, Jeffrey Bilbro demonstrates how the dualistic Christianity that the Puritans brought to America led them to see the land as an empty wilderness that God would turn into a productive source of marketable commodities. Bilbro carefully explores the effect of this dichotomy in the nature writings of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Willa Cather, and Wendell Berry. 

Thoreau, Muir, Cather, and Berry imaginatively developed the Puritan theological tradition to propose practical, physical means by which humans should live and worship within the natural temple of God’s creation. They reshaped Puritan dualism, each according to the particular needs of his or her own ecological and cultural contexts, into a theology that demands care for the entire created community. While differing in their approaches and respective ecological ethics, the four authors Bilbro examines all share the conviction that God remains active in creation and that humans ought to relinquish their selfish ends to participate in his wild ecology. . ."

The Tax Aspects of Acquiring a Business

I tried to find a review of W. Eugene Seago's book, but could only find book selling websites.  This blurb comes from Readara:

"The decisions about whether to purchase a business and the price to pay is usually a matter of determining the present values of future cash flows and the availability of funds to acquire the business. Generally, each dollar of cash flow has an associated tax effect and therefore the numbers are meaningless if taxes are omitted from the calculations. Each dollar paid for the business will eventually become a tax deduction, either as an expense or recovery of capital investment. The present value of the benefit of the deductions or cost recovery depend upon when the tax benefit will be realized, the marginal tax bracket of the entity receiving the deduction and the discount rate assigned to the benefit. This book is intended to provide the tools to take into account the tax consequences of how the acquisition is structured. The acquisition may be a purchase of business assets, partners interests, or stock of a corporation, and may be undertaken by an individual, an existing business organization, or a newly formed entity. The consideration may be all cash, cash and debt, or equity interests. The tax consequences of the structure of the acquisition can vary widely, depending upon the form of the transaction. This book will provide a framework for analyzing the forms the transaction can take and the resulting tax consequences. As will be seen in this book, the old adage of substance over form often loses its significance in business acquisitions: Form matters. The audience for this book is graduate business students."

 Show Time:  The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art
We Make Money Not Art gives a long and detailed review of the book. Here's a short excerpt:

"Show Time examines the most game-changing and risk-taking exhibitions of the past 30-ish years. The survey begins in the late 1980s when the Cold War ends and globalization takes off. The book surprised me. I knew i’d find beautiful images, compelling ideas and elegant texts in there and i haven’t been disappointed. But i also thought that Show Time would provide me with a clear confirmation that contemporary art is far too busy contemplating its own navel to question its relevance in today’s society and to engage with a public whose idea of a wise investment does not involve shelling out 32 pounds to enter the immaculate tents of the Frieze art fair. But i was wrong (up to a certain extent) as many of the innovative exhibitions the author selected not only show the evolution of the profession but also a clearer desire to go and meet the public whoever and wherever it may be. Another fairly recent trend in curatorial practice is to cross boundaries, to explore and communicate with other practices such as theater, architecture, literature, science (though i didn’t find any convincing example of art&science exhibition in the book), etc. The book explores nine themes in contemporary curating"

It then goes on to discuss each of those themes.  Go to the link to find them.

Digital Storytelling


From the author Carolyn Handler Miller's website:

"The new edition contains up-to-date material about hot areas like tablet computers and how to create content for them; the latest developments in gamification, mobile apps and second screen TV, and an updated chapter on transmedia storytelling, with new case studies. It also contains a brand new chapter on harnessing social media for storytelling purposes. In short, the entire book is revised and updated. Meanwhile, the second edition of my book continues to be the only book on the market to cover the entire arena of content creation for digital media. It is still completely relevant and contains timeless information about character development, structure, and the development process. It also covers transmedia storytelling, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), virtual worlds and serious games. In addition, it contains an entire multi-chapter section on using digital storytelling techniques for information, education, training, promotion and marketing."

Triomphe To Luis Vuitton Foundation's Frank Gehry Designed Museum

I'm in Paris, I don't have time to blog the way I'd like so here are some appetizers.  Two stops:  The Arc de Triomphe and the Louis Vuitton Foundation museum.   See this Vanity Fair story on this Frank Gehry creation.

A lot of people have walked these stairs to the Arc de Triomphe.

And then there was the Frank Geary designed Louis Vuitton Foundation museum yesterday.  So much to think about.  Main reactions, briefly - while I love Geary's work, the colors on the sails of this one set me off when I first saw it.  In many ways the building itself overpowers whatever is inside it, even though the exhibit rooms are huge and small and wonderful.

The building makes you question what a building is - the inside flows into outside, which was obvious because it was raining.  There was basically one exhibit - of contemporary, edgy Chinese artists including a tree by, perhaps, the most famous - Ai Wei Wei.  Enough said for now.

Such an incredible space to be in down inside/outside by the water.

Zhang Huan's Sudden Awakening.

Zhang Xiaogang's  My Ideal.








And my favorite part of the space, the sloping waterfall.  

Lots more to ponder, but there's a metro to catch.

From Love To War - New Books At UAA

I checked the new books shelves at UAA library the other day and I'm finally getting around to putting up a short sampling.  I'm trying to spend more time off the computer, so this will be brief.  There were also some more technical books, but social sciences and humanities seemed to dominate.

These two books with practically the same title:

From an interview with Nancy Sherman the author of Afterwar:

"The concept of ‘moral injuries’ associated with combat experience, an affliction of growing interest to both military and healthcare communities, features prominently throughout the book."

And from a review of Zoë Wool's After War:

"In After War: The Weight of Life At Walter Reed, Zoë Wool shares her experience working with some of the most grievously wounded veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During a year of research from 2007-2008, Wool conducted fieldwork with amputees recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center, the military hospital complex that has become emblematic of the post-war experience of American combat wounded service members."

There were two books about Yiddish - one on short stories and one on theater.
















These covers seemed a bit out of place at a university library - but they're Alaska stories.

And now that I've looked it up, it seems that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.  From Lifeway, where you can watch a video of the author and/or read the transcript :

"Christian Romance Fiction author Dani Pettrey talks about her books Shattered and Submerged. We also find out more about her writing process, the role of fiction in ministry, and her favorite authors."

Here's a more academic look at romance.  You can read a review of Brossard's On Romantic Love.

This one deals with a subject dear to my heart - how we know things.  In particular it looks at how the stories sent from the New World back to Europe reflected what Europeans thought about the New World as much, if not more, than it reflected the New World.  From the back cover:

"Comparing the official 1784 edition of [Captain James] Cook's journal for that voyage with Cook's actual journal accounts, Curie demonstrates the representation of North America's northwest coast in the late eighteenth century was shaped as much by the publication process as by British notions of landscape, natural history, cannibalism, and history in the new world.  Most recent scholarship on imperialist representation of the non-European world takes these published accounts at face value.  Constructing Colonial Discourse combines close textual analysis with the insights of postcolonial theory to critique the discursive and rhetorical strategies by which the official account of the third voyage transformed Cook into an imperial hero."

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is one of the UAA/APU Books of  the Year along with The Color of Water.

These books should show up in a lot of different classes and discussed from the perspective of the course subject.  The "Topics of Relevance" for 2015-2017 is "Negotiating Identity in America."

From Project Muse:

"Networks of Modernism offers a new understanding of American modernist aesthetics and introduces the idea that networks were central to how American moderns thought about their culture in their dramatically changing milieu. While conventional wisdom holds that the network rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of information technologies, digitization is only the most recent manifestation of networks in intellectual history. Crucial developments in modern America provide another archive of network discourses well before the advent of the digital age. The rise of the railroad recast the American landscape as an assortment of interconnected hubs. The advent of broadcast radio created a decentralized audience that was at once the medium’s strength and its weakness. The steady and intertwined advances of urbanization and immigration demanded the reconceptualization of community and ethnic identity to replace the failing “melting pot” metaphor for the nation. Indeed, the signal developments of the modern era eroded social stratification and reorganized American society in a nodal, decentralized, and interpenetrating form—what today we would label a “distributed” network that is fully flattened and holds no clustered centers of power."

You can look at the table of contents here.

From a Journal of Europe Studies review of the book:

“Inner emigrants were nonconformist writers ‘dealing in ambiguity’, whose works had - and retain - ‘the potential to be read and understood simultaneously as both a form of tacit opposition to and acquiescence in the regime.’

From an interview with the author on why she chose to write about social media in the war zone:

"A: My brother was on his first deployment in Iraq while I was in graduate school studying communication. At the time, he and I mostly wrote letters back and forth. But I began paying closer attention to advancements in digital communication technologies, especially when the infamous Abu Ghraib photos emerged. At the time, it seemed like new communication technologies (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook) were becoming available at the same time we were becoming increasingly entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I was personally and academically invested in keeping a close eye on both of these “fronts.” I wondered how all this connection would change what it’s like to be at war."

Musings On The Trashing Of Clinton

Let's see, Hillary Clinton is corrupt.  We know this because every time Trump tweets her name he puts "Corrupt" before her name.

STOP!  I've been thinking about a post for the last couple of weeks.  One that would basically say, "Why all this fuss about Clinton's email?  First it was Benghazi, now it's email?  Why do so many people say she's corrupt in polls?  Duh.  Cause Trump keeps tweeting 'corrupt Hillary'.  Over and over and over and over again.

Email?  Give me a break.  She used a private email account.  OK.  That's what they have.  No intention.  No leaks that caused any harm.  Now, I'm all about following the law and all that, but no one gets to the presidential candidate level without leaving a trail.

And I think about how in 2004 the contest was between a Vietnam war hero and a draft dodger, and the Republicans managed to smear the hero with the Swiftboat campaign, and they're trying to do something similar with Clinton.  And they've managed to get the corrupt word stuck to her.

BREAK.  New thought.
There was a tweet I saw the other day:

My gurl headed to #juneau just walked past 4 senators in 1st class and then sees our governor in coach. #OfCourse. #Akleg

15 retweets26 likes

I responded.  Something like:  if you have enough mileage, they bump you up to first class for price of coach.

Others responded:  Agreed, but appearances matter. 

I added:  Appearances are important, but getting below the surface is more important.

The original tweeter responded:  Oh Gurl, I know how upgrades work but take it from someone who used to sing in malls, appearances matter.

0 retweets0 likes

Yes, appearances matter.  So, were the 4 senators in first class because they  paid for first class with state money?  Or they've flown enough that they get bumped up to first class when there are seats available?  And did the governor get bumped up to first class, but chose, for appearances, to stay in coach?  

The answer is, I guess, it doesn't matter,  Appearances matter.  

BACK TO CLINTON.  

So, I'm thinking, yeah, appearances do matter, and Clinton's team know what happened to Kerry in 2004.  They're attacking Trump regularly.  

The campaign has become attack, attack, attack.  Everyone loses in that kind of campaign.  I'm still thinking about how 'corrupt' has become attached to Hillary.  Is it because Sanders and Trump are changing the rules of the campaign and so the old ways, where politicians' compromises necessary to get to the top were basically ignored or seen as business as usual?  Or because Clinton's a woman and so she's held to a higher standard than men?   Or that Trump's 'corrupt Hillary' campaign is working?  Or a combination of all three?  

NEW SIDETRACK.

I google:  If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth.  (I'm assuming you can see the connection between this thought and Trump's 'corrupt Hillary' tweet campaign.)

It gets me to a post on "Goebbels quotes."   Whoa.  I didn't mean to get to Nazi stuff.  Everyone freaks out when you reference Nazis as though you are saying "X is a Nazi."   

What do I do now?  I read the post.  At the bottom:

Misattributed[edit] The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. 

Actually from "War Propaganda", in volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf (1925), by Adolf Hitler 

If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself. 

Attributed to Goebbels in Publications Relating to Various Aspects of Communism (1946), by United States Congress, House Committee on Un-American Activities, Issues 1-15, p. 19, no reliable source has been located, and this is probably simply a further variation of the Big Lie idea
Variants:
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth.
If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
Attributed in "The Sack of Rome" by Alexander Stille, p. 14, and also attributed in "A World Without Walls: Freedom, Development, Free Trade and Global Governance" (2003) by Mike Moore, p. 63

What does that all mean?  That it's in Mein Kampf?  That it's really from "The Sack of Rome"?

So, reluctantly I google:  Mein Kampf volume 1 chapter 6 which gets me here.
So I search for "lie " in chapter 6.  And I get some stuff. The chapter is titled "War Propaganda" and discusses how English war propaganda in WW I was so much better than German propaganda.  But how do I know the translation is any good?  So I search for Mein Kampf in German.  (I studied in Germany for a year at the time when overseas students had to take all their classes in the local language.  My German's not great, but it's good enough, especially with all the online help these days, to see if the translation is accurate.)

Das Volk ist in seiner überwiegenden Mehrheit so feminin veranlagt und eingestellt, daß weniger nüchterne Überlegung als vielmehr gefühlsmäßige Empfindung sein Denken und Handeln bestimmt. 

The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning.

Is the translation any good?  It's amazingly good.  Not because it's a literal translation - which would make little sense in English - but because it takes the meaning and renders it in good clean English.  I checked the next couple of paragraphs, and it stayed good.

Diese Empfindung aber ist nicht kompliziert, sondern sehr einfach und geschlossen. Sie gibt hierbei nicht viel Differenzierungen, sondern ein Positiv oder ein Negativ, Liebe oder Haß, Recht oder Unrecht, Wahrheit oder Lüge, niemals aber halb so und halb so oder teilweise usw. Das alles hat besonders die englische Propaganda in der wahrhaft genialsten Weise verstanden – und berücksichtigt. Dort gab es wirklich keine Halbheiten, die etwa zu Zweifeln hätten anregen können. 

This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that. English propaganda especially understood this in a marvellous way and put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half-measures which might have given rise to some doubt. 

Das Zeichen für die glänzende Kenntnis der Primitivität der Empfindung der breiten Masse lag in der diesem Zustande angepaßten Greuelpropaganda, die in ebenso rücksichtsloser wie genialer Art die Vorbedingungen für das moralische Standhalten an der Front sicherte, selbst bei größten tatsächlichen Niederlagen, sowie weiter in der ebenso schlagenden Festnagelung des deutschen Feindes als des allein schuldigen Teils am Ausbruch des Krieges: eine Lüge, die nur durch die unbedingte, freche, einseitige Sturheit, mit der sie vorgetragen wurde, der gefühlsmäßigen, immer extremen Einstellung des großen Volkes Rechnung trug und deshalb auch geglaubt wurde. 

Proof of how brilliantly they understood that the feeling of the masses is something primitive was shown in their policy of publishing tales of horror and outrages which fitted in with the real horrors of the time, thereby cleverly and ruthlessly preparing the ground for moral solidarity at the front, even in times of great defeats. Further, the way in which they pilloried the German enemy as solely responsible for the war – which was a brutal and absolute falsehood – and the way in which they proclaimed his guilt was excellently calculated to reach the masses, realizing that these are always extremist in their feelings. And thus it was that this atrocious lie was positively believed. The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda is well illustrated by the fact that after four-and-a-half years, not only was the enemy still carrying on his propagandist work, but it was already undermining the stamina of our people at home.

So, you're asking, where is the stuff about lies becoming truth?  It's a ways below.  First there is the discussion of what the Germans did wrong in WW 1.  They were too even handed, not simplistic enough, too logical.  Needed experts to do this, but we left it to 'feckless statesmen' and 'placid aesthetes and intellectuals.'

Its [propaganda's] chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.  [emphasis added]
Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. In this way alone can propaganda be consistent and dynamic in its effects. Only by following these general lines and sticking to them steadfastly, with uniform and concise emphasis, can final success be reached. Then one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a persistent policy secures.

The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or political nature, depends on the consistency and perseverance with which it is employed.

The lies?  Well, it's never exactly said that way.  But the key is to repeat the simple black and white message.  The closest it comes is the last sentence below:

In this respect also the propaganda organized by our enemies set us an excellent example. It confined itself to a few themes, which were meant exclusively for mass consumption, and it repeated these themes with untiring perseverance. Once these fundamental themes and the manner of placing them before the world were recognized as effective, they adhered to them without the slightest alteration for the whole duration of the War. At first all of it appeared to be idiotic in its impudent assertiveness. Later on it was looked upon as disturbing, but finally it was believed.

The last two sentences, this time in the original again.

Sie war im Anfang scheinbar verrückt in der Frechheit ihrer Behauptungen, wurde später unangenehmundward endlich geglaubt.

CAN HE NOW PULL THIS ALL TOGETHER? 

As much as people want to blame social media like Twitter for the simplistic way many voters think, and the effectiveness of constantly repeating a message until it goes from 'idiotic' to 'believed,'  these tactics are not new.  Hitler claims these means were used by the British in WW I to rally its people and troops on to victory.

My sense is that the fuss about Hillary's emails is simply Swiftboating.  Most people understand something simple like using a private email account versus the government account.  But I think in the end it might backfire on the Republicans.  Most people know that they slip between their work and private accounts all the time.  They know that keeping up with the constantly changing technology leaves most folks vulnerable to screwing up.

Two of the key pit bulls attacking Clinton appear to have their own private/public email issues.  Or is this just the Clinton team hitting back?  And even the attorney whose client successfully sued the Palin administration for her use of private email accounts to prevent the public from seeing all her emails via public records requests, is having some second thoughts about whether the public should see every email.

Appearances matter, true.  But life isn't simple.  Getting past superficialities may be difficult with 140 characters, but I think it's still important.  And writing about the complexities helps one understand them and how to focus in on the most important aspects.  Ultimately, we probably make the biggest impact by doing what we're best suited for.  In my case, appearances are there to be questioned and examined.  And as I do that, I can't imagine the email attacks on Clinton are about serious stuff, but rather are mudslinging attempts to tear her down. The focus on the emails shows how little they have (or are they saving the serious stuff for October?)  Calling her the most corrupt candidate in history is sheer propaganda, and Trump does stay on message.  And already that idea, for many, according to the polls, has gone from 'idiotic' to 'disturbing', and by November could become 'believed.'

Putin's Syrian Strategy Seems To Be Working As Brits Poised To Vote On Their EU Membership

I've been assuming for a while now that one of Putin's strategies in Syria is to increase the number of refugees flooding into Europe.  This helps to raise tension and conflict in the EU countries and ultimately to break down cooperation across Europe, not only in economics, but in military strength and commitment along Russia's borders.  Less unity means it's harder for Europeans to stand united against Russia.

The influx of refugees has done all of this and more.  On World Refugee Day (today), we're only a few days away from the British vote on whether to stay in the EU or not.  [UPDATE June 25, 2016:  they voted to leave the EU.]

Forbes seems to think that the refugees themselves will eventually make Europe more anti-Russian than it is today. That may be, but in the meantime, European unity is being severely tested. And the lives of millions of refugees are being being uprooted.




As the son of refugees who survived Nazi Germany because they were able to get out, my heart is with all refugees.

Women In Combat - Going In The Wrong Direction

This headline

Army to commission first 22 female officers into ground combat roles
9 to join infantry in service’s first intro of women in combat.

in the Alaska Dispatch over a Washington Post article made me want to repost this item on lifting the ban on women in combat I did three years ago .

"Instead, we should be banning men from combat.

". . . they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." [Isaiah 2.4] 

Now this is a bible passage that I'd like to see more pastors getting fanatical about."

Is "Kurd" More Than Just A Word In The News For You? Who Are They?

We'd just gotten back from a Bainbridge library Great Decisions presentation by Dr. Reşat Kasaba, Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington Future of Kurdistan,  when I saw this piece in the Morning Briefings section of the Saturday ADN online. (Here's the longer original AP story.) From the ADN:

TURKEY Kurdish group claims responsibility for Ankara attack ANKARA — 

"A Kurdish militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara which killed 28 people. In a statement posted on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons said it carried out the attack to avenge Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey. The Turkey-based group is considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and has carried out several violent attacks in the past. Turkey had blamed a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group for the attack, saying they had acted in collaboration with the PKK."

[If you're looking at the picture and wondering about the Bainbridge Island library - well, the talk was held at the Bethany Lutheran Church which has more space than the library.]


Violence by Kurds in Turkey was not addressed, but here are some points Dr. Kasaba made:

• Kurds are the indigenous people who have been in the Middle East longer than anyone else there today, including Arabs.
• They've never had their own autonomous state.
• They are tribal - which he said means family based - and so there are many tribal divisions
• They have a major presence in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, and a smaller but more integrated presence in Iran.
• The Kurdish area of northern Iraq is relatively autonomous and doing ok.  The Syrian group, with military support from the US to fight ISIS is relatively ok.
• The Turkish Kurds are having trouble because of the 15 year Islamic government in Turkey.  He pointed out that any government in control that long becomes more autocratic and corrupt.
• Cities with the biggest number of Kurds include Istanbul and Berlin.
• Helping the Turks to treat the Kurds better - recognizing their ethnic and linguistic identity and better integrating them into Turkish society - would go a long way to improving the region.
• The nuclear treaty with Iran isn't a solution, but it gives the US a ten year breather in relations with Iran
• Kurds tend to be more egalitarian and women have much more power than is generally the case in the countries they live
• The 2003 Iraq war set back the US in the Middle East
• Trying to solve the Syrian conflict alone would take hundreds of thousands of US troops and lots of funding and with a person like Asad who is willing to destroy his country rather than lose power, even that would have no guarantees
• Russia is not a strong as people think.  Internally they are suffering due to the drop in oil prices and nationalistic ventures like the Ukraine and Syria are attempts to gain support for Putin

'Major Kurdish populations in the Middle East' from Encyclopedia of the Middle East

When you consider his thoughts, you might want to consider that Dr. Kasaba's undergraduate degree is from Turkey and his graduate degrees are from SUNY Binghamton.  So he has a native's understanding of Turkey and the region, but has been in the US long enough to have a good understanding of us as well.  His webpage at UW says:

"Over the last three decades, my research and publications on the Ottoman Empire, Middle East, and Turkey have covered economic history, state-society relations, migration, ethnicity and nationalism, modernity and urban history. Recently, I have started researching the role of education in the formation of modern Turkish identity in the twentieth century."

The Encyclopedia of the Middle East has more on Kurds and the map I'm using comes from their site because the photos I took of Kasaba's maps were awful.   It does say there are 26-36 million Kurds in the world, 10-15 million of whom live in Turkey.

To put that into context, this list of countries ordered from highest to lowest population, would put a country of 30 million at number 39, right after Uganda, in its list which includes 155 nations with a population of over 1 million people (plus more with fewer).

I'd note, it's Sunday and here's another story I saw in the Alaska Dispatch News from the (longer) Washington Post article, that highlights Kasaba's point that coming to terms with its Kurdish population is one of the key issues in the Middle East today.

"A rift with the United States, Turkey’s closest and most vital ally, over the status of the main Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), has further exposed Turkey’s vulnerability. A demand by President Recep Tayyep Erdogan that Washington choose between NATO ally Turkey and the YPG, its main Syrian ally in the fight against the Islamic State, was rebuffed by the State Department this month, despite Turkish allegations that the YPG had carried out the bombing in Ankara. On Saturday, Turkey dug in, demanding unconditional support from the United States. “The only thing we expect from our U.S. ally is to support Turkey with no ifs or buts,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told journalists in Ankara."

Why Did The Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor? Has Anything Changed?

The China Mirage tells the story of how missionaries serving in China and wealthy descendants of opium traders (like both the Roosevelt presidents) believed in the Christianization and Americanization of China and were easy prey for the Soong sisters who were married to Chiang Kai-Shek, Sun Yat Sun, and the richest man in China, banker H.H. Kung.  Their Chinese father had gone to college in the US in the late 1800s and became a Methodist.  And saw how much money Christians were sending to China and decided to take advantage.  All three sisters had gone to Wesleyan college in Georgia and spoke excellent American English.  Their brother TV Soong, graduated from Harvard and played an important role negotiating with top American leaders, including President Franklin Roosevelt.


Author James Bradley makes the argument that the Soong family took advantage of Americans' desire to believe that China was ready to become Americanized and Christian.  They helped form, with a number of prominent Americans, including the son of American missionaries in China, Henry Luce, the owner of Time  and Life magazines, The China Lobby.  Bradley tells us Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Mayling were on Time's cover more than any other people on the planet, including being Man of the Year in 1937. The Lobby painted this greatly misleading picture of China for politicians and the American public.

This false image of China played well and led, according to author Bradley, to disastrous results in China and Southeast Asia.  By aligning with the Soongs and Chiang Kai-Shek, Americans failed to see the rise of Mao in China and speeded up World War II's spread  into the Pacific. The US gave money and weapons to the Soong-Chiang alliance to fight the Japanese who had invaded Manchuria, but Chiang was more interested in fighting Mao and Ailing, the oldest sister, was more interested in filling her husband's bank.

There are lots of examples in the book of Americans dealing with the Soong-Chiangs - Americans who spoke no Chinese and had no background in Chinese history or present.  They'd go to China for a week on tour led by the Soongs, and come back with reports of their great army and how some military help would keep the Japanese at bay.  Bradley even says that the Soongs staged war zones and suggests that the Japanese soldiers they showed them in the binoculars were really Chinese actors.  The results almost always that the Soong's, with their perfect American English, good looks, and charming ways, successfully sell their highly misleading story of China and China's affinity to the US.

Overlooked was Mao's growing power and bond with Chinese peasants who made up most of the population, the loyalty and enthusiasm of Mao's army, or the incompetence of Chiang's army, and Chiang's interest in fighting Mao rather than the Japanese.  And not known to most, was that many of those Americans - missionaries, diplomats, businessmen - who lobbied for the Soongs, were also on their payroll.

Here's the plan one of their American educated Chinese employees offered to gain US support:

"1.  Recruit American missionaries, arm them with evidence of Japanese atrocities, and have them return to the U.S. to give testimony and speeches. (Tong emphasized that the American target audience would not know that the paid missionaries were acting as agents for the Soong-Chiang syndicate.  Tong wrote that he would 'search for international friends who understand the realities and politics of the Chinese war of resistance and have them speak for us, with Chiinese never coming to the fore.')
2.  Hire Frank Price (Mayling's favorite missionary) to lead the missionary campaign.
3.  Recruit American newsmen and authors to write favorable articles and books."

Besides lobbying for money and arms, they were lobbying to stop the US from selling oil and steel and other materials to Japan, which Japan used to invade and bomb China.  People at the State Department feared an embargo would prod Japan to retaliate.  At the very least, Japan would head south to take over the oil in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).  Having read other accounts of this battle in FDR's administration, I'm surprised that Bradley never (well, I still have another hundred pages to go, but I'm 3/4 into the book) mentions another argument - the money that US oil companies were making and and how that was helping an economy still recovering from the Great Depression.

Probably, you can see where I'm going with all this.  We know this is still going on today.  Who did the Bush administration rely on for advice on invading Iraq?  Which Afghans and Syrians have been advising our government on Afghanistan and Syria?  To what extent have Western educated natives of those countries been able to have undue credibility because their knowledge of English and of the US was so superior to our knowledge of their countries?  And how misleading were their assessments of how the war was going and how was their own personal wealth affected?

There were Americans who understood what was going on in China.  The US embassy's military attaché in China, in 1936, Colonel Joseph Stilwell, for example,

"observed Chiang's dragooned 'scarecrow' soldiers:  many were less than four and a half feet tall, under fourteen years of age, and barefoot.  Stilwell wrote in his diary, 'The wildest stretch of the imagination could not imagine the rabble in action except running away.'

Forty pages later,

[Colonel Stilwell] wrote:  'No evidence of planned defense against further Japanese encroachment.  No troop increase or even thought of it.  No drilling or maneuvering.  Stilwell also observed Mao's warriors, about whom he noted, 'Good organization, good tactics.  They do not want the cities.  Content to rough it in the country.  Poorly armed and equipped, yet scare the Government to death.'"

Then there's the secret army that FDR sends to China (led by the man who will be Stilwell's biggest nemesis later when Stilwell's in command of the US military in China.)

"Roosevelt was now running an off-the-books secret executive airforce through Ailing's front companies.  Claire Chennault was a private contractor - a mercenary - being paid by the China Lobby.  Roosevelt was sheep-dipping:  taking U.S. personnel, cleansing them with the fiction of their resignations, and then sending them off as secret mercenaries.  Today, many mistakenly believe that Chennault's mission was an American invention controlled by the U.S. military, but when he returned to Asia, Chennault reported back to Washington not through American military channels but privately, through his boss, T.V. Soong."

Bradley argues that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because Dean Acheson managed to block oil shipments in August 1941 without Roosevelt knowing.  This, plus the mercenary air force in China, and the movement of US navy ships to Hawaii, sent signals to Japan that led the Japanese to do what neither the Japanese nor the Americans wanted - start a war between the two nations.  While our history books paint the Pearl Harbor attack as a dastardly, the US was already supplying China with bombers and pilots - offensive weapons that could be used to attack Japan.

Disturbing that not much has changed.  Even though we have better access to information about what our leaders are doing, there is still much we don't know.  And Edward Snowden is still in Russia because they don't want us to know.  Democracies are in a quandary.  There's a need for voters to be able to assess what their leaders are doing, yet you don't want your enemies to know as well.  But better understanding of the Soongs well funded and massive campaign at the time, might have helped people ask for a more accurate assessment.  It will be very interesting to hear what Obama and others have to say in 20 years about who was doing what to influence our foreign policy in his administration.

I'm a little skeptical of Bradley.  I think he too may be overly sold on his own thesis.  Despite the power of the China Lobby, FDR's leadership style has his subordinates constantly in competition.  Instead of groupthink, there seemed to have been epic battles over policy, with FDR getting to hear a wide range of views.  Though the groupthink link above gives the failure to anticipate the bombing of Pearl Harbor as an example.  The book makes it clear that Secretary of State Hull was vehemently opposed to the oil embargo in fear of prodding the Japanese into a Pacific war, but I don't think bombing Hawaii was what they had in mind.  This may not have been so much groupthink as failure to understand what the Japanese were thinking.  There's an interesting passage in the book where Secretary of State Hull negotiates with the Japanese ambassador, a former naval admiral whose English was poor.  They didn't use an interpreter and the book's account has the ambassador not understanding Hull's warning and sending back to Japan a totally incorrect interpretation of Hull's message.

While we are warned that history repeats itself, it's also true that picking the wrong examples from history leads to bad assessments.  The domino theory was a key argument to get into Vietnam after Eastern Europeans fell into the Soviet sphere in 1946.  But was it the right one?  Would the Southeast Asian countries have fallen one-by-one to Communist leaders had we not gone to war in Vietnam?  That's still debated, but in part, we supported authoritarian pro-Western leaders (at least those who portrayed themselves that way as did the Soongs) over the nationalist, anti-colonial leaders, like Ho Chi Minh, who found support from the Soviets when we rejected them.

Life is endlessly complicated and seeing through the complications to the real issues is too.  Probably why a candidate like Trump appeals to a sizable minority - he makes it all simple.  He tells them what they want to believe, just as the Soongs did.

[Update Jan 31, 2016:  I should have mentioned that a 2012 post goes through Doris Kearns Goodwin's description  (in No Ordinary Time) of the lead up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Bradley's book cites Goodwin's book, and there's nothing that's inconsistent, but the two emphasize different details.]

AIFF 2015: Saturday Overview From 5 pm - Animation, Magic Utopia, Love Between The Covers

Already posted Part 1 for Saturday,  

Here's Part 2, and a reminder - no Festival movies at the Bear Tooth today, but there are films at the Snow Goose, so don't go to the wrong venue.  An * means the film is in competition. Here's the grid, with details below.  Grid is screenshot, so no links.  Go to the original here to get links for everything.   For Saturday Part 1 - the morning and early afternoon, go here.

Since this is the second half of the day's grid, the locations got cut off.

Left is AK Experience Large,    Middle is AK Experience small,    Right is SNOW GOOSE

Screenshot has no links, for links go here.

Animation Program* - All the animated films are in this program.  I haven't seen it yet, but these usually have some of the most interesting films.  And they're short, so if you don't like what you're watching, a better one will be soon.  All the 'in competition' animated films are in this program.  For more on each film, click here. 5pm AK EX Large

No Greater Love - A military chaplain's movie about his work with the soldiers in war and going home.  5:30 pm AK EX small.








Where Do We Go From Here?  - A 25 year old moves into an nursing home.  6pm Snow Goose.







Magic Utopia* - I saw this Thursday night and have some video of the co-directors during the Q&A that I haven't had time to put up yet.  This is a beautiful film, but definitely NOT a Hollywood film.  A lot of loving attention is paid to details.  Art is part of the fabric of this film.  And strange things happen - levitation, a phone call from a dead person.  But I'd note, they played the trailer for Die Hard before this film, and there's nothing more unreal in this film than there is in Die Hard.   If you're looking for a strong plot line and plenty of action, skip this film.  If you want to see the kind of artistic film you can't normally see, then this is for you.  7pm AK EX Large




Love Between The Covers* - I haven't seen this documentary yet.  It didn't get the audience I expected when it first played.  It's an exploration of romance novels and novelists, why they aren't taken seriously, and why they are such an important part of the fiction market.  I'm told this is a serious film to be watched.  And I'm looking forward to seeing it.  8pm AK EX Small


They Look Like People  -  Here's the blurb:

"Suspecting that those around him are actually malevolent shape-shifters, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself."   8pm Snow Goose

Living With The Dead - I still have some of my mom's ashes.  Does that mean I can relate to this film?  The blurb:

"Max McLean is eighteen years old and can't get out of bed. Since her boyfriend Adam killed himself over a year ago, Max has been using sex, drugs, and parties to ignore the pain until one day she wakes up in a hospital, haven taken a nearly lethal dose of sleeping pills. While being haunted by visions of Adam, Max runs away from home and ventures into the forest with a bizarre but endearing boy named Ish."

As you can see, I can't post the trailer here, but just go to the link below.   9pm AK EX Large



Living with the Dead - Trailer from Tobias Beidermühle on Vimeo.

AIFF 2015: Saturday Afternoon Report

It's been a hard day.  I started out at the Bear Tooth watching The Incredible Adventure of JoJo,  which wasn't bad.  Basically, it was a Little Red Riding Hood story of two very young kids - seven and maybe 18 months - finding their way back to grandma's house after mom drives off the road and doesn't wake up.  It started off with some snarky humor for the parents, but that faded away pretty fast and I got impatient.  I wondered whether it was a movie I'd take my three year old granddaughter too, and I think not.  Probably seven year old boy is perfect. 

Then downtown to watch the best film of the day, for me, The Descendants, an Iranian film that tells the story of less affluent students studying in the west from any country.  When his son has not contacted the family back in Iran, the father travels to Sweden to find his son and discovers a number of students whose lives are much less successful than the stories they are sending home.  Scholarships  don't exist, they are working many hours to support their studies, and living precariously from day to day.  The father was a strong character as were the students he meets in Upsala.  But I think of the much richer presentation of the same basic story that are in books like The Americanah and this film is pretty superficial in comparison.  We get told that things are hard, but but didn't get much detail of why.

I do have audience reaction on video for the filmmakers who couldn't be here, but did, through an intro before the film, ask for such feedback.  Look for that later - both in English and Farsi.

The last film I saw was Madina's Dream.  This is the sort of documentary that everyone who lives comfortably in a nation that sells arms to the rest of the world should see.  It's just video of kids and their mom's in the Yiba refugee camp in South Sudan and the men fighting against the Sudan national army to keep their land in the Nuba Mountains.  I don't recall any narrative, just subtitles to translate for us.  This film didn't create a story to package this for us, like many docs do, and that was refreshing.  But it was pretty depressing.  And this sort of thing is repeated here and there all over the world.

OK, my last show is about to begin - Midori in Japan.  I hope this is a little lighter.

[Reposting for Feedburner issues.]

AIFF 2015: Shorts in Competition - From Iran, Belgium, Kenya, US, South Africa,

I started a little ahead this year, but grandchildren rightly claimed my attention this last week.  And passed on their germs.  So my goal at the festival is to see as many good films as I can while my health improves.  I will blog as much as I can and meet those other two goals.  Because of the four different programs these films play in, this got a bit complicated.  I hope I've made it easier for you to find the films you want.  And let me know if there are any typos.

Here are the Shorts in Competition.

Shorts = fictional films much shorter than features.
In Competition = films the screeners thought should be up for awards.

Since 'good' is often subjective - a couple of my favorite shorts weren't in competition last year - this doesn't necessarily mean these are the very best.  [UPDATED 8:53am:  I speculated wrong in the original about what the Jury Selection title actually meant.  So I've cut that out and I'm adding the info I got back from AIFF:  "These were the shorts and super shorts selected for competition." ]

AIFF 2015:  SHORTS IN COMPETITION
Film Title	Director	Country	Length
Nkosi Coiffure	Frederike Migom	Belgium	14 min
Scary Larry	Greg Ivan Smith	USA	13 min
The Bravest, The Boldest	Moon Molson	USA	17 min
The Call	Zamo Mkhwanazil	South Africa	10 min
The Story of a Rainy Night	Mehdi Fard Ghaderi	Iran	23 min
Zawadi	Richard Card	Kenya	12 min

The GOOD NEWS:  The will play several times in different programs.
The BAD NEWS:  Keeping track of when and where is tricky.

So, I've tried to make it a little easier for you to find when they play.  You still have to think a bit.

Program (right)   Film (below)	LOVE & PAIN Saturday Dec 5, 2015 2-4 pm - AK Exper Large	SHORTS JURY SELECTION Thursday. Dec 10 5:30-7:30PM BEAR TOOTH	SHORTS REAL LIFE Saturday Dec. 12 2-4 pm Snow Goose	GLOBAL VILLAGE Sunday, DEC. 13  1PM-2:45PM AK Exper Large
Nikosi Coiffure	√	√	√	√
Scary Larry	√
Bravest,Boldest	√	√	√
The Call		√	√	√
Story of Rainy Night		√		√l
Zawadi		√		√

Nkosi Coiffure
Frederike Migom

Belgium

14 Min

Showing all four programs in table above

"During a fight with her boyfriend on the street in Brussels’ Congolese neighbourhood, Eva escapes into a hair salon. The African women in the salon initially support her, seeing a woman in distress. But when they find out what the fight is about, opinions differ…"

Scary Larry

Greg Ivan Smith (attending  Dec. 5)

USA

13 min

From Middlesex.edu

Over Columbus Day weekend, Middlesex was thrilled to have Greg Ivan Smith back on campus shooting his original short film, "Scary Larry." The movie is set on a college campus in the early 1950's and follows the story of four coeds in the first year the college adds women to its ranks.   Greg wrote the movie to feature the talents of the ensemble of the Theatre 80 acting class.
Greg has been named by indiewire.com as one of “Ten Short Filmmakers You Should Know." Greg's short films have screened on five continents in over 35 film festivals.

This is NOT the slasher movie by the same name.

One Take Films suggests Greg is a pretty flexible film maker:

"I am currently seeking new representation, and would love to write and direct and edit your next zillion dollar movie, independent film, commercial campaign, television series, web series, music video, actor reel, or other exciting project..."

And that he directed the web series Darwin. 

The Bravest, The Boldest
Moon Molson
USA
17 Min
Showing three programs (not Global Village)

You can look at the trailer - two army officers knock on a Harlem door to make an unwelcome announcement.  This film has been to a lot of festivals in the last two years, including Sundance.



The Bravest, the Boldest - Original Trailer from Moon Molson on Vimeo.

The Call

Zamo Mkhwanazi  

South Africa 10 min.

Showing three times (not Love  & Pain, which seems most fitting)

A pregnant woman, a man, a decision.  

The Story of a Rainy Night 
Mehdi Fard Ghaderi 
Iran
23 min
Showing Jury Selection and Global Village

From an Iranian website:

"Story of a Rainy Night" was praised for using a different approach in presenting filling the gap between the reality of family relations in Iran and the West's demonizing media reports with sincere emotion and empathy.
Fard-Qaderi's 24-minute film is produced by Iran's Youth Cinema Association and narrates the story of an elderly man who is celebrating his birthday and takes a new look at the relationships among his grown children.
It has been screened and awarded in numerous international film festivals, including the Hollywood Festival of New Cinema and the 9th annual Colony Film Festival in Marietta, Ohio.
Mehdi Fard-Qaderi is one of Iran's promising filmmakers who has directed several successful short films so far. His films have been screened in numerous national and international festivals."

Zawadi
Richard Card
Kenya
12 min
Showing Jury Selection and Global Village

Having some trouble finding out about this movie without just copying from other film festivals.  Here's a bio of the director from his website:

"RICHARD LIVES IN LOS ANGELES BUT IS STILL A PROUD TEXAN. HIS STYLE AND TECHNIQUE HAS BEEN SHAPED BY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE BUT ALSO BY WORKING WITH AND STUDYING UNDER MANY INDUSTRY SHAPING DPS INCLUDING BILL POPE ASC (THE MATRIX TRILOGY), ROBERTO SCHAFER ASC (THE KITE RUNNER) AND DANA GONZALES (SOUTHLAND). A NOMAD AT HEART, RICHARD FINDS GREAT INSPIRATION IN OTHER CULTURES AND TRAVEL. IF HE IS NOT SHOOTING A MOVIE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY HE IS TRAVELING THERE WITH A STILL CAMERA TO DOCUMENT ITS INTRICACIES.

RICHARD BELIEVES NOTHING GREAT IS MADE WITHOUT PASSION, HE APPROACHES ALL OF HIS WORK WITH THIS MENTALITY.

IN 2008 RICHARD RECEIVED 2 DEGREES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS BOTH BACHELORS OF SCIENCE FOCUSING IN FILM PRODUCTION AND PHILOSOPHY."

There's also a Vimeo video there from the film, but I couldn't find a share link.  And it doesn't have subtitles, so I'm guessing it is not a trailer.  There's a kid collecting bottles.  You can see it here.  Looks to have promise.