Memory

"Das habe ich gethan" sagt mein Gedächtnis. "Das kann ich nicht gethan haben" sagt mein Stoltz und bleibt unerbittlich. Endlich - giebt das Gedächtnis nach.

-Friederich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse


"I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that," says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually - memory yields.

-Friederich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

You call this archaeology?

A new series on the History Channel, Ice Road Truckers, debuted about a week ago. A description on the show's web site reads:

The History Channel embarks upon an unparalleled adventure revealing the virtually unknown occupation of ice road trucking, considered to be one of the world's most dangerous jobs. ICE ROAD TRUCKERS charts two months in the lives of six extraordinary men who haul vital supplies to diamond mines over frozen lakes that double as roads. The livelihood of many depends on these tenuous roads, which through the years have been responsible for the deaths of dozens of men.

Always prepared for the ice to give way under the weight of their trucks, these drivers put their lives and financial security of their families on the line in an exhilarating dash for cash. Beginning Sunday, June 17 at 10pm ET/PT, this adrenaline packed series reveals the raw, gripping quest of ice road truckers.

Ok. First of all, I can see maybe an episode or two about this particular profession, but an entire series? Are they so strapped for ideas that they need to stretch this out through a whole season?

Secondly - and much more importantly - this is the History Channel. Exactly what does "Ice Road Trucking" have to do with history? Wouldn't this be a program more appropriate for the Discovery Channel? Or the Travel Network? Or Fox?

And this isn't the first History Channel series to stray from the historical path. Though dubbed "the Hitler Channel" several years ago by critics who (justifiably) thought that there was too much WWII coverage, the History Channel nowadays would more appropriately be nicknamed "the Construction Channel". Shows such as Modern Marvels and Mega Movers (the producers of the History Channel seem to have a passion for alliteration with m's) focus on modern technology and large-scale construction, and have nothing to do with history. Unless one accepts the weak caveat that today's modernity is tomorrow's history, these shows deserve no place on the History Channel.

Shame on you, History Channel. Keep living in the past - it's where you belong!

Thou Shalt Not Tailgate

CNN: Vatican issues ten commandments for drivers

Out of touch with reality as usual, the Vatican has issued its official stance regarding the moral use of automobiles. The document is full of weak, sententious 'commandments' that should have already been covered by a driver's manual and plain common sense. Except, of course, for the recommendation that you pray before or while you drive. As if that drunk driver wouldn't have hit you if only you had recited the Lord's Prayer at the stoplight.

So keep your eyes open for people who are DWP: Driving While Pious. They're even more dangerous than cell phone drivers; at least people who drive while on their cell phones are talking to somebody real, not having an imaginary conversation with a man in the sky who they think is magically protecting them.

Ole

AP News: Spanish matador back in the ring

Bullfighting. There are many who would call it a beautiful sport. But I fail to see the beauty or sportsmanship in leading an innocent creature into a stadium, taunting it for a while with a red bedsheet, and then heartlessly stabbing the poor thing.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm usually quite tolerant of other cultures' views and customs. But bullfighting is obviously and patently cruel. Why have a 'sport' that involves slaying an animal? Why not kick a fucking ball around?

I reserve no sympathy whatever for anyone who dies while participating in this barbaric and primitive bloodsport. It's only fair that the bull pay you the same courtesy that you would give it. I only wish it happened that way more often.

Tear Down This Myth

Imagine that I have a bowl of fruit on my kitchen table. I walk into the kitchen and proclaim, "Bowl of fruit - I command you to rot!". Lo and behold, a week later the fruit is brown and rotten. Clearly, my strongly worded imperative resulted in the fruit's decomposition.

Sound specious? Try this one. Twenty years ago today, Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Berlin in which he exhorted Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". A couple years later, the Berlin Wall indeed came down. Therefore, Reagan's uncompromising rhetoric and hard-line policies caused the fall of the Berlin Wall and led to our ultimate victory in the Cold War.

These two stories are textbook examples of the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc - 'after this, therefore because of this'. Such a fallacy asserts that because A occured before B, A must have caused B. This is a fallacy because the simple fact that A happened before B is not sufficient evidence to conclude that A actually caused B. Many other factors could have been at work.

In the story of the fruit bowl, my command had nothing to do with the organic processes that would lead to the fruit's decomposition. And the case of Reagan's speech is similar: although he was in the right place at the right time to make it look like his leadership hastened the end of the Cold War, his efforts had little to do with the developments that would lead to the opening of the Berlin Wall and the end of the USSR.

The popular argument for Reagan’s cold-war legacy, which is embraced by American conservatives as gospel truth, usually goes like this: Reagan won the Cold War for the USA and the Free World. He defeated the Soviet Union peacefully and brought freedom and democracy to the citizens of the Soviet Bloc. He accomplished all this by drawing a hard anti-communist line in foreign policy, fueling the arms race to exacerbate Soviet economic problems, and making stringent, no-nonsense demands for arms reductions and for freedom for citizens under communist rule. A true hero and visionary, he made the world a safer place.

But in reality, Reagan’s hard-line, anti-communist policies didn’t accomplish all that much; in fact, they may have even prolonged the Cold War. For the entire first term of Reagan’s presidency, despite the staunch ideological stances of Reagan and Thatcher, no progress whatsoever was made in ‘winning’ the Cold War for the West. There were no talks or agreements between the superpowers, and Reagan’s harebrained SDI program (Star Wars), intended to scare the Soviets into overspending on the arms race, did not have the desired effect (the only significant changes in the Soviet military budget during the 80s were reductions). In addition, Reagan’s penchant for flexing nuclear muscles alienated the USSR, and once again made our sudden extinction as a species a distinct possibility (and it didn’t help that Reagan’s Soviet counterparts were equally wizened, cantankerous and obstinate).

In 1985, however, things took a turn for the better – not because of Reagan, but because of Mikhail Sergeyevic Gorbachev. Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union and, on his initiative, the leaders of both countries met for the first time since before Reagan came to office. At the summit meetings, Gorbachev advocated arms reduction, an unheard-of step in the Cold War peace process. Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader since Krushchev to realize that the arms race had been harming the Soviet economy, and he sought peace with the West in the interest of mutual survival and progress. Progressive change was not limited to foreign policy; behind the Iron Curtain, Gorbachev strengthened civil liberties (such as freedom of speech), and allowed the Eastern Bloc more leeway in self-governance. These developments, intended to strengthen the USSR, ironically ended up destroying it, but it would be wrong to attribute such effects to Reagan.

So if you want to award credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall, blame glasnost and perestroika. Blame Soviet bureaucratic incompetance. Blame a long-standing popular yearning east of the Iron Curtain for the freedoms enjoyed by the Western world. Blame the Soviet imbroglio in Afghanistan. Blame Mikhail Gorbachev. But don't give the credit to Ronald Reagan. Actor that he was, he just happened to be on stage at the right time to steal the limelight.

A friend I made at the Bronx Zoo

Those eyes are so strikingly human. I wonder if he was thinking about how my eyes were so strikingly apelike.

CPR

You know what the motto of the New York Police Department is? It's written on all of their cop cars: "CPR: Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect." Three words that mean exactly the same thing. I mean, could one really be respectful without being courteous? Could one be professional without being respectful?

You can tell that they thought of the catchy abbreviation before they came up with the words themselves. Here's a better version of CPR: Control Police Redundancy!

Olympic Politics

During tonight's Democratic primary debate on CNN, the candidates were asked what they would do to stop the Darfur genocide. Bill Richardson was the first to answer, saying that among other things, he would threaten to boycott the 2008 Olympics in China, because the Chinese acquire much of their oil from Sudan. To threaten to boycott the Olympics, he argues, would send China a message to stop funding genocide.

The US has made the mistake of an Olympic boycott before. When Jimmy Carter had the US sit out the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, he not only cheated our own athletes, but he undermined the very meaning of the Olympic Games themselves.

The Olympics were first held in Greece in 776 BC, and they continued almost without interruption for the next millennium. In an age when warfare among city-states was the rule rather than the exception, the Olympic Games provided a rare break in the bloodshed: a time when Greeks put down the spear and the shield, picked up the javelin and the discus, and came together - not to fight, but to compete.

The Olympics were thus about putting aside political and geographical differences. And that is the spirit of the modern games as well - and in more than just theory. For instance, the US participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, when Germany was under Nazi control. What would have happened if FDR had decided to have America sit out? Jesse Owens never would have been able to embarrass the Nazis by proving that for all their talk about being the master race, they certainly weren't the masters of the footrace.

And one must consider the athletes themselves. These people dedicate their lives to a sport, in order that every four years they have a shot at personal glory, national recognition, and international victory. It is unfair to deny them their dreams, and to render their daily efforts moot, in the name of a squabble about international trade.

And what better way to stick it to a country than to enter the games and beat them on their own turf? Look at not only Jesse Owens, but at the famous 1980 Winter Olympics hockey finals, when the USA beat the USSR in a surprise upset. That victory was huge. What further victories could we have won if Carter had let us trounce the Russkies in the summer games as well? Gold medals speak louder than boycotts.

Sitting out the games was a bad idea in 1980, and it remains a bad idea. Bill Richardson has visited the Darfur region; he should have less petty and more efficacious proposals for a solution.

Blind

"Haven't you noticed that all opinions without knowledge are ugly? The best of them are blind. Or does one who has a true opinion without knowledge seem any different than a blind man who just happens to be traveling on the right road?"

-Plato, The Republic, Book VI