Michael Prescott's Blog

Late Antiquity

In the latest issue of National Review (February 27, 06), there's an interesting review by Christopher Levenick of Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.

I haven't read this book. What caught my eye was the reviewer's use of the term Late Antiquity to refer to the Dark Ages.

If you think about it, "the Dark Ages" is a pretty tendentious way of characterizing a historical era. I suppose the term derives from the widespread illiteracy of the period, which has left historians somewhat "in the dark" about exactly what happened then. But the term also implies that this was a particularly backward and uninteresting time, when nothing of note happened. Was it?

Levenick writes that Stark

... recounts in considerable detail the evolution of humble business enterprises run by medieval monks into the thriving commercial city-states of Renaissance Italy. More suggestively, he traces these developments back to the so-called “Dark Ages.”

Along with a growing number of historians, Stark is inclined to view Late Antiquity as a period of remarkable commercial expansion and technical ingenuity. Measured against the Parthenon or the Coliseum, things like windmills, horseshoes, chimneys, water-wheels, stirrups, compasses, eyeglasses, swivel-point axles, and mechanical clocks may not seem particularly impressive. Nonetheless, such was the era’s humbler, but ultimately more consequential, scale of invention. The absence of large states may have invited external invasion, but it also spurred competition and fostered creativity, setting the stage for the global predominance that first became apparent in the 16th century.

Let's take another look at that list:

windmills

horseshoes

chimneys

water-wheels

stirrups

compasses

eyeglasses

swivel-point axles

mechanical clocks

Not bad for the "Dark" Ages, huh? I hope the more neutral - and more accurate - term Late Antiquity catches on.

Two great posts

The blog Science is a Method, Not a Position (AMNAP for the cognoscenti) currently features two terrific posts.

One of them summarizes a lengthy radio debate between skeptic Michael Shermer and three paranormal researchers. I haven't heard the broadcast itself (though apparently it can be downloaded for a fee), but if the summary is accurate, Shermer seems to have made a fool of himself. It's amusing to read, and demonstrates the paucity - one might even say the bankruptcy - of the skeptics' shopworn arguments.

Watching skeptics self-destruct is good clean fun, but the other post is more important. It addresses recent research by the distinguished biologist Miroslav Hill, who is known for groundbreaking work on the reverse transcription of DNA.

In his newer work, Hill exposed mammalian cells to toxic substances and then measured how quickly the cells could adapt to the challenge. What is remarkable is that he discovered that other cells, physically separated from the test cells, adapted in the same way. Somehow the information on how to adapt to the toxins was transferred from the test cells to other cells in separate containers. In other words, the evolutionary change was communicated by some means other than DNA - possibly by some mechanism analogous to quantum entanglement or to Rupert Sheldrake's "morphic fields."

Hill's finding is not the first of its kind by any means, but it is one more nail in the coffin of the reductionistic, materialist paradigm that has dominated mainstream science for the last century.

Read both posts. In fact, bookmark AMNAP - it's always well worth your time.

A yardstick for skepticism

In a used bookstore today, I came across a 1983 nonfiction book called The Spiritualists, by Ruth Brandon.  The book recounts the history of spiritualism in America from the mid-19th century through the early 20th-century from a skeptical point of view. I spent some time flipping through the book, but since I've already read a great deal on the subject -- both from the skeptical and nonskeptical perspective -- I didn't buy it.

Still, I found the book interesting, not so much for its content but for its approach. It is just so very typical of the way skeptics handle this material.

First, there is the inevitable snideness and sarcasm. Anyone who believes in the paranormal - or has investigated it in a serious way and come to the conclusion that these are legitimate phenomena - is subtly or not-so-subtly derided as eccentric, gullible, or just plain dumb. Psychoanalysis is liberally employed to investigate the subconscious motives of those who believe in the phenomena; we are repeatedly informed that they want to believe and that this bias has colored and distorted their perception. Naturally, no similar psychoanalytic techniques are leveled against the skeptics, whose motives are presumed to be purely objective. Skeptical authorities like James Randi and Isaac Asimov are quoted with unblinking approval, while authorities who have come to pro-paranormal conclusions are invariably disparaged, even if they stand taller in their fields then Randi and Asimov do in theirs. (Does anyone seriously doubt that Alfred Russel Wallace, the codiscoverer of the theory of evolution, and Oliver Lodge, knighted for his pioneering contributions to physics, and William James, America's foremost psychologist and philosopher, all rate higher in the history books than Randi and Asimov?)

But perhaps what was most eye-opening to me was the way the author treats a well-known controversy involving the Boston medium mean Mina Crandon. I know quite a bit about Mina Crandon and have written an essay on her here. The controversy involves the famous escape artist Harry Houdini, who was an inveterate enemy of all psychics and mediums, and who made it his mission to expose them as fakes whenever possible. He is the hero of skeptics to this day, and apparently served as a model for fellow escape artist James Randi and other magicians who crusade against the paranormal.

Houdini was invited to investigate Mina Crandon; in a series of sittings he was unable to debunk her. Finally, in one sitting, just as Mina was about to start she suddenly said (while allegedly in a trance and controlled by her spirit guide Walter) that Houdini's assistant had planted a folding ruler in the cabinet that she occupied and that he meant to produce this ruler as evidence that she was cheating.

A folding ruler could be unfolded into a yardstick. In the dark it could be used to manipulate objects that were some distance away from the medium and outside of her normal reach. For instance, it could be used to ring bells or to move things around on a table. If Houdini had "discovered" the ruler, it would have been a smoking gun that would have discredited Mina Crandon for good.

Houdini and his assistant both denied planting the ruler, and eventually the investigation continued, though not under very amicable circumstances.

Then the author adds a single sentence to conclude this episode, pointing out that years later Houdini's assistant did in fact admit to planting the ruler on Houdini's instructions, because Houdini was so frustrated in his inability to discredit Mina Crandon that he had decided to frame her.

Now, let's just stop and think about this for a moment.

Houdini is one of history's most famous skeptical investigators of the paranormal. And yet here we have what appears to be conclusive proof that he was himself dishonest and fraudulent in his methods at least some of the time. If the assistant can be believed, Houdini was willing to frame the mediums he was investigating in order to discredit them and maintain his unbroken string of successful debunkings.

At the very least, one would think that an admission of this sort would cast some doubt on Houdini's credibility, his honesty, his integrity, and any results of his investigations both before and after the Mina Crandon episode.

So how does Ruth Brandon deal with all this?

Answer: she doesn't deal with it all. Having briefly acknowledged the assistant's confession, she simply goes on with the story and continues to treat Houdini as an entirely credible investigator whose conclusions are beyond reproach.

Doesn't this seem odd?

I remember reading another skeptical book, Psychic Paradoxes by John Booth, a magician who, like Houdini, enjoyed debunking the paranormal. Booth tells the same story about Houdini, his assistant, and the folding ruler, as well as the assistant's later public confession.

To his credit, however, Booth at least attempts to deal with the serious issues raised by the confession. He goes to some pains to try to discredit the assistant, painting him as a disgruntled former employee who was trying to get back at Houdini.

I don't find this explanation very convincing, because the assistant did at least as much harm to his own reputation as he did to Houdini's. He may even have opened himself up to potential legal sanctions. The investigation of Mina Crandon was being carried out in the context of a magazine contest that offered $2500 to anyone who could prove psychic abilities. The discovery of the ruler was at least one of the reasons why Mina Crandon did not get the award. It could be argued that the assistant, in planting the ruler, was rigging the outcome of the contest, which, I would imagine, is a criminal act, just as rigging a game show or artificially modifying the outcome of a raffle or lottery would be a crime.

So it doesn't seem likely to me that the assistant would have made this up just to get back at Houdini -- who was dead by then, anyway. But at least the author of Psychic Paradoxes tries to address the issue. The author of The Spiritualists, on the other hand, simply ignores it. In her mind, Houdini remains an entirely credible and trustworthy source, despite the obvious stain on his reputation left by his assistant's public admission.

And this is the thing about skeptics that I find so peculiar and, simultaneously, so amusing. They really are not skeptics at all. A true skeptic, hearing about the folding ruler and its likely provenance, would then be skeptical of Houdini -- skeptical that he was honest in his investigations and accurate in his reports. A true skeptic would wonder if Houdini was a credible investigator and would suggest that most, if not all, of Houdini's investigations should be viewed with some degree of doubt. Honest believers in paranormal phenomena are not shy about saying that

Mina Crandon had credibility problems of her own, as my aforementioned essay makes clear. If we are willing to place some considerable doubt on Mina Crandon because of questionable episodes in her history, why are the so-called skeptics unwilling to place any doubt on Houdini for at least equally questionable lapses on his part?

The answer is that, for the skeptics, it's not really about truth and falsehood at all. It's about winning the argument. If they can win by sarcasm or ridicule or snide innuendo, well, all's fair in war. And if they can win by casting those who take their side as spotless and stainless crusaders for the truth, while ignoring any evidence to the contrary, then by all means go ahead and do that too.

In the end, it comes down to winning at any cost, rather than getting at the actual facts. And that's why I'm skeptical of the skeptics. By any yardstick, they just don't measure up.

The Monument

Hank Whittemore has developed an exciting and fascinating new theory of Shakespeare's Sonnets, perhaps the most controversial and mysterious series of poems in all of literature. For some time now, I've wanted to blog about Whittemore's ideas, but I couldn't find a way to compress his complicated theory into a brief capsule description. I've finally decided that the only way to do it is to give you the bare bones of his ideas, with minimal elaboration, and then direct any interested readers to Whittemore's Web site, where they can read the details for themselves.

So here we go. Hang on, because this gets a little confusing.

We began with the assumption that the works of Shakespeare were actually written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. In his younger days, the dashing de Vere was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Whittemore conjectures that Elizabeth and de Vere had a secret affair which produced a son. The romance was covered up, and the boy was raised by the Earl of Southampton under the name of Henry Wriothesley. The truth of the boy's parentage was a closely held secret known only to a few knowledgeable insiders.

Illegitimate or not, Henry was the true heir to the British throne, and his biological father wanted very much to secure this prize for him. Accordingly, when Henry was 17 years old, Edward de Vere tried to orchestrate a marriage between Henry and de Vere's own daughter Elizabeth Vere. (There is good reason to think that Elizabeth Vere was not her father's flesh and blood, so the marriage would not have been incestuous.)

Elizabeth Vere's grandfather was William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the most powerful person in Elizabethan England other than the Queen herself. Had Henry married Elizabeth Vere and become part of the Cecil family, it is quite likely that Cecil would have arranged for Henry's succession to the throne upon Queen Elizabeth's death. Henry Wriothesley would have reigned over England as King Henry IX. The fact that he was the so-called Virgin Queen's son could not, of course, have been revealed to the public, but it would have been known to those highest in the government; and in those days royal blood was greatly valued as a prerequisite for a successful monarch. (See David Shelley Berkeley's book Blood Will Tell in Shakespeare's Plays for an exhaustive review of the importance of blood in Shakespeare's thinking.)

The proposed marriage was a stroke of genius on the part of de Vere, which would have virtually ensured his son's eventual succession to the throne. But young Henry, as headstrong as his biological father, refused to make the match and instead threw in his fortunes with the rebellious Earl of Essex. Essex led an ill-fated uprising against the government, possibly intending to install Henry as king. The rebellion failed, and Essex and his fellow conspirators were promptly arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Among the prisoners was Henry Wriothesley.

In short order the traitors were put on trial before a jury of nobleman. Edward de Vere, as the highest ranking aristocrat in the realm, had no choice but to serve on the jury and to vote for the death penalty for both Essex and Southampton. Essex was executed soon afterward, but Southampton's death was delayed; and later, inexplicably, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in the Tower. It seems that some political machinations were going on behind the scenes to spare Henry Wriothesley's life. When King James ascended to the throne after Elizabeth's death, one of his first orders was to release Southampton from his cell.

In Whittemore's view, the Sonnets can be read as a chronicle of Henry Wriothesley's birth, life, imprisonment, and release. It should be noted that Shakespeare had previously dedicated two long narrative poems to Henry Wriothesley, and many commentators of all persuasions have believed that the Sonnets were also addressed to Henry. Further ,there is near-universal agreement that Sonnet 107 celebrates the release of Henry, "supposed as forfeit to a confined doom," from prison following the death of Queen Elizabeth ("The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured").

It is Whittemore's insight that not just Sonnet 107, but Sonnets 27 through 126 relate directly to Henry, forming a central sequence of 100 poems that provide a chronological record of this life-and-death struggle. Of course, the poet could not express himself openly in Elizabeth's authoritarian regime. Instead he had to disguise his meaning in the form of conventional love poetry. But those who could decode the verses would discover the hidden truth behind Southampton's imprisonment and release. "Your monument shall be my gentle verse," Shakespeare/Oxford wrote in Sonnet 81.

Space does not permit a detailed listing of the almost innumerable allusions to these current events that Whittemore has uncovered. One or two examples must suffice.

Sonnet 30, which corresponds in the chronology to the time when de Vere was summoned to the trial - or "sessions," as it was known as in Elizabethan parlance - begins, "When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought..."

De Vere had to vote for his own illegitimate son's execution while working behind the scenes to save his life; in Sonnet 35 he reminds his addressee, "Thy adverse party is thy Advocate."

As part of the deal to secure the commutation of his son's sentence, de Vere had to renounce any public connection with his written works, which were closely associated in the public mind with Southampton, to whom both Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece had been dedicated. Henceforth de Vere would have to conceal his own name, a sacrifice reflected in the Sonnets' recurring motif that their author's name would never be remembered, and in verses like Sonnet 76, line 7: "That every word doth almost tell my name..."

De Vere also had to agree never to publicly acknowledge Henry Wriothesley as his son or have further contact with him. Sonnet 36, lines 1,9: "Let me confess that we two must be twain... I may not ever-more acknowledge thee."

Whittemore's approach makes sense of the numerous legalistic terms strewn throughout the Sonnets, which otherwise seem jarring in the context of love poetry. Given that the Sonnets' real subject matter is a desperate legal dispute, the use of such terminology is entirely appropriate.

His approach also makes sense of the otherwise baffling insistence of the poet that the young man being addressed must get married and have children. Why would Shakespeare care one way the other whether or not some other man got married? And why would he pursue the subject with such urgency? In Whittemore's theory, there was more at stake than a mere marriage; Henry, in resisting the betrothal, was recklessly casting aside his best chance to become England's future king. No wonder the poet expended such efforts in an attempt to change his mind.

The enigmatic Dark Lady of the Sonnets turns out to be Queen Elizabeth herself, who was "dark" not in complexion but in her baleful influence, first refusing to acknowledge her own son and later willing to have that son executed.

And the two Sonnets that conclude the book, which under conventional interpretation seem to be an irrelevant afterthought, turn out to be highly meaningful. In Whittemore's view, they describe the Queen's royal progress to the resort town of Bath following the delivery of her son, who is mythologized in Sonnet 154 as the "Little Love-God." These two Sonnets serve as a nostalgic coda to the series, harkening back to happier times.

As I said, it is not possible to do more than sketch out Whittemore's complex hypothesis. I realize that any brief description like this is hardly persuasive. There seem to be too many wild, implausible assumptions -- that Oxford was Shakespeare, that Oxford and Elizabeth had a son, that Oxford sought to put this son on the throne, etc. People have a natural resistance to such seemingly far-fetched ideas. I can only say that when you take the trouble to read Whittemore's detailed analysis -- and I am currently working my way through his 900-page book The Monument, which is crammed with detailed argumentation -- it begins to seem surprisingly convincing. If you're interested, look for yourself.

Sonnet 81 eloquently sums up the themes of de Vere's buried name, his concern over his son's impending execution, and his determination to provide a poetic monument that future generations might decode:

• Or I shall live your Epitaph to make,
• Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
• From hence your memory death cannot take,
• Although in me each part will be forgotten.
• Your name from hence immortal life shall have
• Though I (once gone) to all the world must die.
• The earth can yield me but a common grave,
• When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
• Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
• Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
• And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
• When all the breathers of this world are dead.
• You still shall live (such vertue hath my Pen)
• Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

How great is that?

Just how great is the Internet?

Here's one answer. I was reading an interesting book called De Vere as Shakespeare, by William Farina, when I came across a reference to the obscure Elizabethan play Arden of Feversham. Some people think this play may be an early work of Shakespeare.

Intrigued, I decided I would like to read this play. But in the old days, I would have had little hope of tracking it down. Maybe if I trekked to the nearest university library I might be able to find a copy, but I wouldn't count on it.

Nowadays it's a different story. I simply went to Google, typed in the search terms Arden and Feversham, and scrolled through the results.

Within a few seconds I found the complete text of this play, with modernized spelling. I downloaded it to my PC and transfered it to my handheld computer for easy reading.

I mean, seriously. How great is that?

Godzilla: Tokyo SOS

Okay, so last night I watched my latest Netflix rental, Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, which came out in 2003. I rented it because a friend had assured me that Godzilla movies had gotten much, much better than they were when I was a kid.

Turns out he was half right. The special effects are significantly better, though it is still obvious that you're looking at miniature sets and men in suits. Still, it's nice to see some good old-fashioned effects work in an age of computer-generated imagery. A lot of craftsmanship goes into creating - and destroying - those elaborate miniatures.

That's the upside. The downside is, well, everything else. The story, dialogue, acting, etc. are all as weirdly amateurish as ever. I ended up fast-forwarding through most of the dialogue scenes, unable to take the pain.

Those movies are strange, anyway. The human characters generally act as if Godzilla and Mothra are personal friends or old acquaintances. "Hey, look, it's Godzilla!" They sound almost happy to see him. If I saw a 500-foot radioactive lizard trudging toward me, I wouldn't be smiling. I would be in need of a change of underpants.

The characters' bizarre nonchalance extends to other areas. At one point two "fairies" - insipid, simpering women who come in pairs, hold hands constantly, talk in unison, and are about ten inches tall - appear out of nowhere in a man's home. The guy's grandson comes in as the old man is talking to them. "Hey," says the kid, "who are those girls?"

Now, given the fact that the girls in question are, as I may have mentioned, ten inches tall, wouldn't a more appropriate reaction have been, "What the !%$!??"

The fairies tell the old man that unless a certain action is taken, Mothra will declare war on Tokyo. The action is not taken, but when Mothra shows up, he defends Tokyo against Godzilla. What happened to the declaration of war? I suppose you can't expect much logical consistency from a giant moth.

Anyway, if Mothra did declare war on Tokyo, couldn't they just launch a few giant mothballs at him? Or deploy a giant flyswatter?

The fight scenes between monsters are strange, as well. The rubber suits are so cumbersome that the stuntmen inside can't really maneuver very well, so all they end up doing is walking toward each other and locking arms, then falling into a variety of miniature buildings. They look sort of like drunken sumo wrestlers.

There was a complicated back story to this film that I didn't understand. Apparently a giant mechanical Godzilla (Mecha-Godzilla) has been constructed over a framework of "Godzilla's bones." But Godzilla himself is still very much alive. How can Godzilla be walking around breathing radioactive halitosis on people, without his bones? I'm sure there's a logical explanation, but ...

No, on second thought, I'm sure there's not a logical explanation. Nothing about these movies is logical.*

And while we're on the subject, why would the Japanese government build Mecha-Godzilla anyway? It's supposed to be the ultimate weapon against Godzilla, but all it does is lock arms with the big reptile and then fall into buildings. Not unlike a drunken sumo wrestler.

Whose bright idea was it to build a mechanical replica of Godzilla as a defensive weapon? This is like building a big mechanical King Kong to fight off the real Kong. Oh, wait. You know, I think one of the old Toho movies actually did use a plot along those lines. Must be a cultural thing. Something is getting lost in translation.

The first Godzilla movie, released in 1956, is very different from all the rest. Unfortunately the DVD is the Americanized version featuring Raymond Burr. The scenes with Burr were filmed in Hollywood and inserted into the original film to make it more palatable for US audiences, but they distract and detract from the story.

I saw the Japanese version, sans Burr, on TV a few years ago and was struck by how superior it was. Made on a very low budget, the film takes advantage of moody black-and-white cinematography to show the giant lizard - Gojira, not Godzilla, in Japanese - advancing slowly through the burning ruins of Tokyo at night. There is nothing kid-friendly about this Godzilla; he - or it - is simply a force of nature, risen from the deep to crush mankind. Images of Japanese victims suffering from radioactive burns amid the rubble cannot help but call to mind the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was inflicted only ten years earlier.

The film has flaws, and the effects vary from genuinely impressive to crudely amateurish, but somehow the overall experience of the original Godzilla sticks in my memory in a way that few monster movies do. Maybe someday it will come out on DVD in its unadulterated form.

In the meantime, there's always Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. Or the one with Matthew Broderick and the giant gila monster. Take your pick.   

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* To be fair, one possible explanation is that there's more than one Godzilla. This seems to be implied by a line of dialogue in the film. Pointing to an unhealed scar in the reptile's hide, a military man says the injury proves that this is "the same Godzilla" who was seen in a previous movie. So maybe the term Godzilla is generic, and there are a whole bunch of Godzillas out there. I don't know, and I lack the motivation to find out.

Fatheads

So now the largest study of its kind ever conducted has shown that a low-fat diet in women does not reduce the risk of "heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer or colon cancer," according to the Washington Post. The findings are assumed to apply equally to men.

You have to love this. For years, the health "experts" have been inveighing against the myriad dangers of a high-fat diet, engaging in a vociferous propanganda campaign against any food that tastes good, scaring people into foregoing butter, cheese, bacon, and other culinary delights in favor of yucky stuff like tofu and Brussels sprouts - all in the name of Science.

Now it turns out that Science was promoting just another myth, one apparently no more reliable than the hoariest old wives' tale.

With a straight face, the Post reports that some "researchers fear that the findings will leave the public skeptical about all health advice."

Gee, ya think?

The colorfully named Jacques Rossouw of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute tries to put a positive spin on the unwanted results of the Institute's own study. He is quoted as saying,

We set out to test a promising but unproven hypothesis that has proven to be less promising than we anticipated.... This is the nature of science: to have incremental gains and setbacks. We have a duty as scientists to put the best information out there at any given time, even if it can become confusing at times.

The satirical blog Scrappleface puts it another way:

A spokesman for the National Institutes of Health said scientists were not surprised by the findings of the study, that refuted a decade of nutritional wisdom.

“Science works by first making definitive recommendations, and then doing several years of research to discover if we were right,” said an unnamed NIH spokesman. “During the research phase, our job is to vigorously promote our assumptions until the facts disprove them.”

Scrappleface's unnamed source* adds, “Americans should trust us, because our faith in our assumptions is rock solid.”

Look. Jacques Rossouw is correct in implying that Science is not and cannot be absolutist in its conclusions. All generalizations and inferences from empirical data are probablistic. Any hypothesis can be overturned by new evidence, as has occurred in this case.

What galls some of us is that the spokesmen for Science seem to remember this principle only when they are cornered into admitting that their hypothesis was wrong. The rest of the time, they natter with blithe assurance that "Science says this, and Science says that," never intimating that these conclusions are necessarily tentative and provisional.

Scientists themselves may be more cautious, but the people who claim to speak for Science on our airwaves and in our newspapers rarely qualify their statements for public consumption. A high-fat diet is bad, because Science says so - this has been their unrelenting message for more than a decade, ritualistically repeated with smug, unblinking certainty, pounded daily into the heads of the American public (whose waistlines, it may be noted, have only expanded during that time, despite the rash of low-fat and non-fat foods on the market).

Science is the god of our time - "a jealous god," to quote the title of a newly released book on the subject. What is properly understood as a method of investigation - one which, like any method, has both strengths and weaknesses - has been transmogrified into an all-purpose, all-inclusive, infallible guide to everything.

But every now and then, a news story like this one comes along to remind us that while the Emperor may not be stark naked, he's not nearly as well-dressed as he pretends. 

Now pass me the whipped cream, will you?  ;-)

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*In case there is any confusion, Scrappleface's unnamed "source" is made up, and its "news" entry is satire - although in this instance, it's pretty tough to distinguish between satire and reality.

Vigilance

The biggest news of the day, beating out even the Britney Spears carseat controversy, is the information provided by President Bush on an attempted terrorist attack in 2002.

USA Today reports:

President Bush said the U.S.-led global war on terror has "weakened and fractured" al-Qaeda and allied groups, outlining as proof new details about the multinational cooperation that foiled purported terrorist plans to fly a commercial airplane into the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast ...

Bush has referred to the 2002 plot before. In an address last October, he said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaeda terror network in the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts. The White House initially would not give details of the plots but later released a fact sheet with a brief, and vague, description of each.

The president filled in details on Thursday.

He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One of Mohammed's key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaeda related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said.

Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said ...

The president said the plot was derailed when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key al-Qaeda operative. Bush did not name the country or the operative.

This information is most interesting. For one thing, it helps explain why airport security screeners insist on making all passengers present their shoes for inspection. When this measure was implemented after a failed shoe-bombing plot, it seemed to some people like an overreaction, especially since a bomb that small probably wouldn't bring down a plane anyway. But now we know that the terrorists hoped to use shoe bombs to blow open the sealed cockpit door in order to hijack a plane.

We can also see why calls for profiling passengers along ethnic lines have been resisted. It's not just political correctness (although this doubtless plays a part). It's a pragmatic realization that al-Qaeda will use operatives other than Middle Easterners to carry out their plots. In this case, "Southeast Asian men" were to have been used.

Above all, the story shows that it's too early to be complacent in the fight against terror. Those with short memories, who have dismissed 9-11 as ancient history, need to be reminded that our enemies have long memories and great patience. They will continue their efforts to find a weak spot in our homeland security. They will not just get bored and go away.

While our political and legal pundits amuse themselves in debating whether or not government wiretapping violates the rights of al-Qaeda sympathizers, the terrorists themselves remain focused on their prime objective: to inflict massive damage and maximum loss of life in an attack on US soil.

We need to be vigilant. Remember, the enemy only has to get lucky once.

Cartoon violence

Hysteria is one of the least attractive human qualities. Unfortunately, because hysteria makes good video and (sometimes) good copy, it is constantly showcased  on TV news, talk radio, and the Internet. One might even say that we live in the Age of Hysteria - if the statement itself didn't sound like an emotional overreaction.

The latest outburst of hysteria involves the publication of some cartoons depicting Mohammed. A Danish newspaper printed the rather mild caricatures, and a few other European publications followed suit. Because many Muslims find any representation of their prophet to be offensive, the cartoons ignited a literal firestorm, with angry mobs torching embassies around the globe.

The response of some commentators has also been tinged with a certain hysteria. More than one conservative blogger has declared that this latest clash between Islam and the West constitutes a "war." Some of them are the same folks who had already dubbed the US counterterror operation "World War III." A few, having given that designation to the Cold War, are calling the present "war on terror" World War IV.

Who would have thought that so many people would be so eager for another world war? Weren't two global shooting matches enough?

In all this, it is a good idea to retain some perspective. The cartoon controversy is not the first issue to divide the largely secular West from the militant anti-secularists who comprise part (but by no means all) of Islam. And it won't be the last. Nor is it the end of the world. What's needed is not invective and abuse, which are about as helpful as pouring gasoline on a fire. What's needed is context.

People who are understandably appalled by the riots and arson may say things like, "That's not the way we settle our differences here in the (civilized) West." But, sadly, sometimes it is. Consider:

• I grew up near Asbury Park, New Jersey, a coastal town that was wiped out by race riots in the 1960s and has never recovered. To this day, some of the choicest real estate on the Jersey Shore sits unused, occupied by abandoned buildings that are homes only to squatters and drug dealers.
• In 1992, I was living in Los Angeles when the Rodney King riots set that city ablaze. Through my bedroom window I could smell the distant smoke.
• More recently, there were numerous acts of violence during the last election - gunshots fired at campaign offices, vandalism, and in one case, the invasion of a Republican storefront office by a mob of "activists" who trashed the place and injured one of the volunteers.

These are just the events that I remember personally. There have been countless others - coal miners clashing with the company "security guards," union workers scuffling with the police, immigrants tangling with those who arrived on these shores a few generations earlier. There have been quite a few political assassinations. And there was a little dustup called the Civil War. American history is full of violent disputes. Let's not pretend it can't happen here.

Some commentators insist that the actions of some riled-up mobs prove that we are engaged in a war between civilization and barbarism, or as they sometimes put it, "between civilization and the Middle Ages." (This latter formulation implies that the Middle Ages was not a civilization, when of course it was. One might even argue that a culture that produced the Gothic cathedrals, Roger Bacon, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the troubadours was, in some respects, superior to one known largely for Frank Gehry, Richard Dawkins, Truman Capote, and Britney Spears. But I digress.)

What is more correct is that we are seeing a clash of cultures, which is basically a clash of modernity with a very aggressive brand of traditionalism. As far as it goes, this is true, but the implied corollary is that modernity is entirely good and traditionalism is entirely bad. Stated this baldly, the proposition would not win universal assent even in our own country - which is why it is rarely stated at all. Not every aspect of a traditional, religion-based culture is bad, and not every aspect of a secular humanist, hedonist, materialist society is good.

Why would I say such a thing, which only serves to undermine our moral superiority in the struggle? I would say it precisely because it undermines our moral superiority - and aggressive self-righteousness is not the most helpful attitude to take in resolving conflict. It doesn't do us much good to think in broadly simplistic terms that "we" are Good and "they" are Bad. In fact, as Bob Wallace points out in an online essay, this black-and-white worldview is exactly the way terrorists and their sympathizers think. As Wallace further points out,  the typical terrorist (or, in this case, rioter) is someone who is marginalized, powerless, frustrated, and deeply angry about it. Such a person's self-esteem is too fragile to bear the weight of responsibility for his own failings, so he will look beyond himself and his immediate community, seeking somebody else to blame for his problems. Having found a scapegoat, he will seek to lash out against the target in any way he can.

If we want to combat this mindset, the last thing we should be encouraged to do is to fall into it ourselves.

It's also worth remembering that many of these rioters and their supporters have been deliberately misled by their own leaders. They have been shown phony cartoons that are far more offensive than the ones that were actually printed. They have been told that Americans (or others) are burning the Koran in the street and dancing on the ashes.  (Most Americans, of course, have never even seen a copy of the Koran.) These are the same people who have been told, since earliest childhood, that "the Jews" literally kill babies and drink their blood. Ignorant, confused, impoverished, powerless people can be whipped up into a state of hysteria easily enough. There's nothing new about it.

Some people voice the worry that "Hitler got his start this way," and that any attempt to accommodate the offended Muslims will be a step down the road of appeasement, leading inexorably to war. Certainly there are  similarities between the embassy-burning crowds and Hitler's followers - in both cases, we see enraged mobs chanting slogans against the US, the democratic West, and "the Jews." But let's not overlook the differences. Hitler came to power because his message resonated with a large part of the German electorate, especially the middle-class burghers who constituted the core of the Nazi Party in its formative years. The Islamist rioters have almost no political power in Europe, which is one reason they are so frustrated, and their message does not resonate with a plurality of voters in Western countries. Hitler, upon attaining office, was able to rebuild the German war machine in a few years and quickly became a genuine military threat to his neighbors. There is no Islamic country today that has a "war machine" worthy of the name, and the only one that might conceivably pose a military threat to the West is Iran - if it can cobble together an arsenal of nukes. That's a development we in the West can prevent, assuming we have the nerve.

At a time when hysteria seems to be in fashion, it is more necessary than ever to take a deep breath and see the bigger picture. This is not World War III, let alone World War IV, even if some would wish it to be.

In this era, it's good to remember the opening words of Kipling's great poem If - words that take on an unintended irony in a time of videotaped decapitations:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you ...

 

Hitler's oddities

Although the subject of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany is undeniably depressing, there are some interesting tidbits of information that I've picked up in my recent reading on the topic. Here are a few odd facts I gleaned from the excellent little book A Concise Biography of Adolf Hitler, by Thomas Fuchs.

• Hitler never learned to drive.
• The Volkswagen Beetle was developed during Hitler's reign, and the design was based in part on Hitler's suggestion that the car should look like a beetle.
• Hitler compulsively sucked his fingers and chewed his fingernails when offstage.
• He was known for his extreme flatulence.
• A woman whom Hitler attempted to seduce later reported that he had stripped naked and begged to be kicked.
• Psychological profiles of Hitler written during his lifetime suggested that he probably achieved sexual orgasm by having women urinate and defecate on him.
• He was drawn to teenage girls even when he was in his late thirties.
• His first serious girlfriend committed suicide.
• His longest relationship with a woman was with Eva Braun, who twice attempted suicide.
• Hitler and Eva Braun were married in 1945 in Hitler's bunker; they killed themselves 36 hours later.
• Hitler was an insomniac who typically stayed up until 4 or 5 AM and slept until eleven o'clock in the morning.
• Among Hitler's unconventional medical remedies were enemas (self-administered) and leeches.
• Hitler had an insatiable taste for sweets; he consumed two pounds of chocolate a day and drank copious quantities of hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream on top; he also devoured pastries and cakes.
• He was afraid of haircuts.
• He insisted on shaving himself because he would not allow someone else to hold a razor near his throat.
• He wore only pre-tied neckties.
• He wore full-length underwear even in hot summer weather.
• Hitler's close associate Hermann Goering, known for his prodigious girth, sometimes ate as many as ten lobsters at a single meal.
• The name Adolph is a contraction of the archaic German words Altha and Wolfa and means Noble Wolf; Hitler used the alias Herr Wolf during his early years when he wished to avoid recognition; he named his favorite German shepherd pup Wolf; he named his field headquarters Wolf's Plan, Wolf's Lair, and Werewolf; he was particularly fond of the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?," which he often whistled absentmindedly.
• Although popular legend claims that Hitler consulted astrologers before making military decisions, the truth seems to be that he had no particular interest or belief in astrology, at least until his final days in the bunker when, insane, he did turn to horoscopes for reassurance and inspiration.
• A photo sometimes shown of "Adolf Hitler's corpse" is almost certainly an image of some other German man who simply bore a passing resemblance to Hitler; in fact, the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun were set afire by Hitler's followers after their joint suicide; the cremation was not entirely successful, and the charred remains were confiscated by the Russians when they took Berlin. After being definitively identified by dental records, Hitler's remains were properly burned. The Russians did not release this information until 1968, and in the meantime many legends sprang up to the effect that Hitler had escaped Germany and had been seen in Argentina or Spain or working as a waiter in Bavaria.

I'd meant to end my post here, but when I went to the Amazon sales page to get the book's URL, I noticed some reader reviews that I found appalling. Here's an excerpt from one:

This book is endorsed on the front cover by some Holocaust organization, and on the back by some Jewish Press guy. Do you think it's an unbiased book that puts out information and let's you make up your own mind about the man? Nope.... This book is Jewish slander passed off as a biography. Want to know how paranoid these people are? I remember when Passion of the Christ came out, they were scared there would be riots and backlash against them. And in stores sat the newly released dvd Schindler's List. Coincidence? I think not. They will remind the rest of us to the end of time, and will put it in your face that Hitler was a monster and that's all you need to know. That's the take home message of this pitiful book.

And another:

This book was a poorly compiled regurgitation of Allied World War II propaganda. The author had an incredible bias against Adolf Hitler and it gushes out in every chapter.... Unless you want to read a book that is dedicated to Hitler bashing, I would stay away from this one. You will learn absolutely nothing, except disproven lies, from it. I am not quite sure how people can get away with publishing such discredited information and call it history.

And one more, this one from a reader in Stuttgart, Germany:

The author of this book set out to write about a subject he apparantly didn't understand. I don't know what his sources were, but if his readers actually believe most of the things he has written here as "facts", then they are as naive as he is. It is a small book full of hearsay and fabrications ...

If the last-quoted reader didn't know what Fuchs's sources were, she could have tried flipping to the back of the book, where Fuchs cites his sources for every detail. There are 38 pages of endnotes, plus a bibliography listing approximately 100 titles.

It is true that Fuchs 's repeated reminders that Hitler was evil can be a trifle heavy-handed, but to call the book fabrication, hearsay, propaganda, lies, or worst of all, "Jewish slander," is groundless and, in the last case, unconscionable.

And God forbid that anyone should have a "bias" against Hitler or consider him a "monster" or engage in "Hitler bashing!"

I guess the sad truth is that even today, Adolf Hitler still has his fans.  And that's the oddest fact of all.