history

Bruno’s memory structures

education, history / /

From Laura Miller’s “The heretic” (Salon: 25 August 2008):

Still, the mental powers of Bruno and his fellow memory artists seem almost superhuman today. The basic principle, Rowland explains, is simple enough, “to link words with images.” Nevertheless, the structures employed were mind-boggling: vast, elaborate patterns and nested wheels within wheels (like the color wheels used by visual designers) that could be used to juxtapose and rearrange huge quantities of information without recourse to any extra-mental form of storage (like writing). This ability makes the minds of Renaissance intellectuals radically different from our own, almost incomprehensibly so.

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John Berryman’s suicide note

art, history, language & literature / /

From Steve Marsh’s “Homage to Mister Berryman” (Mpls St Paul Magazine: September 2008):

Berryman’s last words to Kate came on that January morning—he told her he was going to campus to clean his office. He had never said that before, she says, but Kate, who was attending Al-Anon meetings at the time, was trying “not to manage this situation.” Berryman had actually been sober for several months following repeated periods of hospitalization, twice at St. Mary’s and once at Hazelden. “But he had developed a hum,” Kate says. “He would hum all the time. And he stopped talking very much.”

After his suicide, Kate found a note written on the back of an envelope in a wastebasket.

O my love Kate, you did all you could.
I’m unemployable & a nuisance.
Forget me, remarry, be happy.

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The 6 stages of political scandal

history, politics / /

According to Mickey Kaus’ Why write about the Edwards scandal? (Slate: 4 August 2008), these are the 6 stages of any political scandal:

… the natural progression in cases like this: 1) Too horrible and shocking; it can’t possibly be true; 2) It’s not true; 3) You can’t prove it’s true; 4) Why are you trying to prove it’s true? 5) It’s disgusting that you’ve proved it’s true; 6) What’s the big deal anyway?

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The Elizabethans and their love of booze

history / /

From Sam Anderson’s “A History of Hooch“, a review of Iain Gately’s Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol (6 July 2008):

Elizabethan England had a pub for every 187 people. (By 2004, the country was down to one for every 529 people.) The Pilgrims’ Mayflower was actually “a claret ship from the Bordeaux wine trade,” and a group of settlers who came over to join them brought 20,000 gallons of beer and wine but only 3,000 gallons of water.

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The Aztecs and their New Year’s Festival

history / /

From Sam Anderson’s “A History of Hooch“, a review of Iain Gately’s Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol (6 July 2008):

Aztecs liked fermented sap, but had a legal drinking age (52) higher than their average life expectancy – although every four years they’d hold a New Year’s festival called “Drunkenness of Children,” at which all citizens, including toddlers, were required to drink.

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Modern piracy on the high seas

business, history, law, security / /

From Charles Glass’ “The New Piracy: Charles Glass on the High Seas” (London Review of Books: 18 December 2003):

Ninety-five per cent of the world’s cargo travels by sea. Without the merchant marine, the free market would collapse and take Wall Street’s dream of a global economy with it. Yet no one, apart from ship owners, their crews and insurers, appears to notice that pirates are assaulting ships at a rate unprecedented since the glorious days when pirates were ‘privateers’ protected by their national governments. The 18th and 19th-century sponsors of piracy included England, Holland, France, Spain and the United States. In comparison, the famed Barbary corsairs of North Africa were an irritant. Raiding rivals’ merchant vessels went out of fashion after the Napoleonic Wars, and piracy was outlawed in the 1856 Declaration of Paris (never signed by the US). Since the end of the Cold War, it has been making a comeback. Various estimates are given of its cost to international trade. The figure quoted most often is the Asia Foundation’s $16 billion per annum lost in cargo, ships and rising insurance premiums.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which collects statistics on piracy for ship owners, reports that five years ago pirates attacked 106 ships. Last year they attacked 370. This year looks worse still.

…

In waters where piracy flourished in the past, the tradition embodied in figures such as Captain Kidd has persisted: off the Ganges delta in Bangladesh, in the Java and South China Seas, off the Horn of Africa and in the Caribbean. Three conditions appear necessary: a tradition of piracy; political instability; and rich targets – Spanish galleons for Drake, oil tankers for his descendants. A fourth helps to explain the ease with which it happens: ‘The maritime environment,’ Gunaratna said, ‘is the least policed in the world today.’

The IMB has not been able to persuade the international community or the more powerful maritime states to take serious action. The Bureau’s director, Captain Pottengal Mukundan, believes there is nothing crews can do to protect themselves. National maritime laws are not enforced beyond national boundaries – which is to say, over more than half the earth’s surface. Beyond territorial waters, there are no laws, no police and no jurisdiction. Many countries lack the will or the resources to police even their own waters. The IMB advises all ships against putting in anywhere near states like Somalia, for instance, where there is a near certainty of attack. … Piracy is a high-profit, low-risk activity.

The IMB urges crews to take more precautions, but owners can’t afford every recommended improvement: satellite-tracking devices, closed circuit cameras, electric fencing and security officers on every ship. Owners and trade unions discourage the arming of merchant ships in the belief that firearms will put crews’ lives at greater risk. Only the Russians and the Israelis are known to keep weapons aboard. Competition in the shipping business forces owners to minimise expenditure on crews as on everything else. A commission of inquiry into the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that nearly destroyed the Alaskan coast reported that ‘tankers in the 1950s carried a crew of 40 to 42 to manage about 6.3 million gallons of oil . . . the Exxon Valdez carried a crew of 19 to transport 53 million gallons of oil.’ [Quoted in Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas by John Burnett] With the automation of many shipboard tasks, vessels today carry even fewer seamen than they did when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. That means fewer eyes to monitor the horizon and the decks for intruders.

…

Air and land transport routes have come under tighter scrutiny since 11 September 2001, but improvements to maritime security are few. An oil tanker can carry a load that is far, far more explosive than any civil aircraft. And most piracy, including the seizure of oil tankers, takes place near countries with powerful Islamist movements – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Yemen and Somalia. Lloyd’s List reported on 4 November that Indonesia is ‘the global black spot’ with 87 attacks in the first nine months of this year – ‘the number of attacks in the Malacca Straits leaped from 11 in 2002 to 24 this year.’ Indonesia, which consists of two thousand islands, is the world’s most populous Muslim country. It has experienced decades of repression by a kleptocratic military, communal violence and the degradation of a once vibrant economy. Radical Islamists have made it the focus of their activity and recruitment in Asia.

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Micro-nations

art, history, law, politics, weird / /

From George Pendle’s “New Foundlands” (Cabinet: Summer 2005):

Call them micro-nations, model countries, ephemeral states, or new country projects, the world is surprisingly full of entities that display all the trappings of established independent states, yet garner none of the respect. The Republic of Counani, Furstentum Castellania, Palmyra, the Hutt River Province, and the Empire of Randania may sound fantastical, but they are a far cry from authorial inventions, like C.S. Lewis’s Narnia or Swift’s Laputa. …

Such idiosyncratic nation-building can trace its roots back to the early nineteenth century, when even the mightiest empire had yet to consolidate its grip on the more far-flung regions of the world. The swampland of the Mosquito Coast was just such an untouched area, and it was here that the Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor decided to found his new kingdom – the Territory of Poyais.

…

The Territory of Poyais displayed many of the themes that would appear in micro-nations for the next century-and-a-half: Firstly, that the love of money is usually a significant incentive in a micro-nation’s foundation. Secondly, that a micro-nation’s founders will always bestow upon themselves thoroughly dramatic titles. Thirdly, that since all the world’s good spots have been taken, micro-nations are usually gifted with dire and hazardous geography. And finally, should any other country enquire into the status of a micro-nation, it is liable to collapse.

For example, take the Republic of Indian Stream, a self-declared republic in North America that existed from 1832 to 1835. An ambiguous border treaty between Britain and the U.S. had created a 500-square mile legal loophole between Canada and the state of New Hampshire. Three hundred enterprising American citizens, all hoping to avoid federal taxes, quickly established a government and constitution and declared Indian Stream a sovereign state. The Republic went unchallenged, but when one of its members was arrested for unpaid debts and taken to serve time in a debtors’ prison in Canada, the Republic of Indian Stream swiftly planned a counterstrike. Crossing the border into Canada, they shot up a local judge’s house, broke their fellow “Streamer” out of prison, and returned triumphantly home. This bravado did not last for long. By the next morning, doubts about the attack were mustering, British retaliation was feared, and before long the Republic voted to be annexed by the New Hampshire militia. Indian Stream was soon incorporated into the state where its libertarian longing would continue to be nurtured for years to come.

…

One of the major problems in founding a new country, second only to being ignored, is the threat of invasion by a more legitimate nation. As a result, when a group of Ayn Rand disciples tried, in 1969, to set up a new country named Oceana, defense of the realm was paramount. Even though the exact location for Oceana had not been definitely fixed, boot camps were organized for all those who wanted to live there. Most ominously of all, plans were made to steal a nuclear missile, the ultimate deterrent should another country come knocking on their door. Fortunately the group was disorganized and lacking in funds, and when the ringleaders decided to rob a bar to fund their project, the hapless group was promptly arrested and their startling story discovered.

…

The United States Office of the Geographer stresses that five factors are needed to become a country: space, population, economic activity, government structure, and recognition from other countries. Of these, it is the last factor that has always been the hardest to attain. However, one micro-nation has perhaps come closer to fulfilling these requirements than any other. Founded by a former “pirate” radio operator, Paddy Roy Bates, Sealand is situated on an abandoned World War II anti-aircraft tower, seven miles off the British coast. Consisting of 550 square meters of solid steel, it was declared independent by “Prince” Roy in 1967. (The country’s initial economic activity consisted largely of selling passports and minted coins – both common practices amongst modern micro-nations out to make a quick buck).

…

Just as Sealand now plays host to the Internet, it is the Internet that has revealed itself as the host for a whole new generation of fictional state projects. As the libertarian fetish for micro-nations weakens, the virtual geography of the Internet grants a modicum of affordable tangibility to new micro-nations, without any of the traditional perils associated with abandoned anti-aircraft platforms or disputed South Pacific atolls.

…

In comparison, the Royal Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV) has no pull on believability. Although it claims physical territory, it insanely suggests that this consists of all the border frontier areas between all countries on earth. In doing so, the joint kings of KREV (for even these post-modern micro-nations can rarely resist the traditional attraction of a royal title) seem to be taking the artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s “Fake Estates” project – in which Matta-Clark bought small, inaccessible, and unusable lots of land, situated between buildings – to its furthest logical extension. KREV is a country made up of the intersections between real countries, a nation of negative space – a micro-nation that is best to debate rather than to visit.

Micro-nations listed in the article:

  •   the Republic of Counani  
  •   Furstentum Castellania  
  •   Palmyra  
  •   the Hutt River Province  
  •   the Empire of Randania  
  •   the Territory of Poyais  
  •   the Territory of Poyais  
  •   the Republic of Indian Stream  
  •   the Principality of Outer Baldonia  
  •   Oceana  
  •   Sealand  
  •   the Republic of Howland, Baker and Jarvis  
  •   the Royal Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV)  

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Graveyard shifts and torpedo coffins

commonplace book, history, science, security / /

From Atul Gawande’s “Final Cut: Medical arrogance and the decline of the autopsy” (The New Yorker: 19 March 2001):

… in the nineteenth century … [some doctors] waited until burial and then robbed the graves, either personally or through accomplices, an activity that continued into the twentieth century. To deter such autopsies, some families would post nighttime guards at the grave site – hence the term “graveyard shift.” Others placed heavey stones on the coffins. In 1878, one company in Columbus, Ohio, even sold “torpedo cofins,” equipped with pipe bombs designed to blow up if they were tampered with.

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Jughead’s weird hat

history, weird / /

From Jim Windolf’s “American Idol” (Vanity Fair: 20 December 2006):

A vestige of the franchise’s 1940s roots remains in the form of Jughead’s hat. In those days, explains Archie Comics managing editor Victor Gorelick, kids would take their fathers’ discarded fedoras, cut off the brims, and scissor them into jagged beanies. Archie artists have recently tried giving Jughead a backward baseball cap in an effort to make him more up-to-date, but fans always cry out for the crown.

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50 years of change due to senior citizens

history, non-fiction, politics / /

From Charles C. Mann’s “The Coming Death Shortage” (The Atlantic: 1 May 2005):

The twentieth-century jump in life expectancy transformed society. Fifty years ago senior citizens were not a force in electoral politics. Now the AARP is widely said to be the most powerful organization in Washington. Medicare, Social Security, retirement, Alzheimer’s, snowbird economies, the population boom, the golfing boom, the cosmetic-surgery boom, the nostalgia boom, the recreational-vehicle boom, Viagra—increasing longevity is entangled in every one. Momentous as these changes have been, though, they will pale before what is coming next.

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1 Henry VI: capital punishment for fighting in the king’s palace

history, language & literature, law / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (III: 4):

Scene: Paris – The Palace

BASSET:

Villain, thou know’st the law of arms is such
That whoso draws a sword, ’tis present death,
Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.

Blackstone in his Commentaries (IV. 124): “By the ancient law … fighting in the king’s palace … was punished with death.”

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1 Henry VI: an example of euphuism

art, history, language & literature, on writing, word of the day / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (I: 5):

TALBOT:

My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do;
A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists:
So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench
Are from their hives and houses driven away.
They call’d us for our fierceness English dogs;
Now, like to whelps, we crying run away.

euphuism: in English literature, a highly elaborate and artificial style that derived from the Euphues (1578) of John Lyly and that flourished in England in the 1580s. It was characterized by extensive use of simile and illustration, balanced construction, alliteration, and antithesis. Euphuism played an important role in English literary history by demonstrating the capabilities of English prose. The term has come to mean an artificial, precious, high-flown style of writing.

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More on Fordlandia

business, history, politics, technology / /

From Mary A. Dempsey’s “Fordlandia” (Michigan History: July/August 1994):

Screens were just one of the Yankee customs transported to Fordlandia and Belterra. Detroit physician L. S. Fallis, Sr., the first doctor sent from Henry Ford Hospital to run the Fordlandia medical center, attempted to eradicate malaria and hookworm among Brazilian seringueiros (rubber gatherers) by distributing quinine and shoes. The quinine was accepted but shoes were an unwelcome novelty. It is an exceptional photo that shows the shirtless seringueiros, machetes in hand, shod only with floppy rubber-soled sandals; their children went shoeless. The jungle dwellers also found Fordlandia’s two-family homes hopelessly hot and ugly and the idea of bathrooms repulsive. Even today, plumbing is a rarity in the jungle.

At the same time, Ford’s 6:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. work schedule was unpopular with plantation employees accustomed to slashing trees several hours before dawn, then resuming the work at sunset for piecemeal pay. But the promise of free housing and food, top-notch health care for the workers and their families, and a salary of thirty-seven cents a day—double the regular wage—kept the seringueiros on the job. …

Generally, the company-imposed routine met hit-and-miss compliance. Children wore uniforms to school and workers responded favorably to suggestions they grow their own vegetables. But most ignored Ford’s no liquor rule and, on paydays, boats filled with potent cachaca—the local sugar-can brew—pulled up at the dock. Poetry readings, weekend dances and English sing-alongs were among the disputed cultural activities. …

Former Kalamazoo sheriff Curtis Pringle, a manager at Belterra, boosted labor relations when he eased off the Dearborn-style routine and deferred to local customs, especially when it came to meals and entertainment. Under Pringle, Belterra buildings did not contain the glass that made the powerhouse at Fordlandia unbearably hot, and weekend square dancing was optional. Alexander said Henry Ford balked at building a Catholic church at Fordlandia—even though Catholicism was the predominant Christian religion in Brazil. The Catholic chapel was erected right away at Belterra. …

Alexander said of the long-closed but impeccably maintained facility that once boasted separate wards for men and women, thirty nurses, a dentist, three physicians and a pharmacist, who also administered anesthesia during surgery.

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Henry Ford’s debacle in the jungle

business, history, politics, technology, weird / /

From Alan Bellows’s “The Ruins of Fordlândia” (Damn Interesting: 3 August 2006):

On Villares’ advice, [Henry] Ford purchased a 25,000 square kilometer tract of land along the Amazon river, and immediately began to develop the area. …

Scores of Ford employees were relocated to the site, and over the first few months an American-as-apple-pie community sprung up from what was once a jungle wilderness. It included a power plant, a modern hospital, a library, a golf course, a hotel, and rows of white clapboard houses with wicker patio furniture. As the town’s population grew, all manner of businesses followed, including tailors, shops, bakeries, butcher shops, restaurants, and shoemakers. It grew into a thriving community with Model T Fords frequenting the neatly paved streets. …

But Ford’s effort to transplant America– what he called “the healthy lifestyle”– was not limited to American buildings, but also included mandatory “American” lifestyle and values. The plantation’s cafeterias were self-serve, which was not the local custom, and they provided only American fare such as hamburgers. Workers had to live in American-style houses, and they were each assigned a number which they had to wear on a badge– the cost of which was deducted from their first paycheck. Brazilian laborers were also required to attend squeaky-clean American festivities on weekends, such as poetry readings, square-dancing, and English-language sing-alongs.

One of the more jarring cultural differences was Henry Ford’s mini-prohibition. Alcohol was strictly forbidden inside Fordlândia, even within the workers’ homes, on pain of immediate termination. This led some industrious locals to establish businesses-of-ill-repute beyond the outskirts of town, allowing workers to exchange their generous pay for the comforts of rum and women. …

Workers’ discontent grew as the unproductive months passed. Brazilian workers – accustomed to working before sunrise and after sunset to avoid the heat of the day – were forced to work proper “American” nine-to-five shifts under the hot Amazon sun, using Ford’s assembly-line philosophies. And malaria became a serious problem due to the hilly terrain’s tendency to pool water, providing the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.

In December of 1930, after about a year of working in a harsh environment with a strict and disagreeable “healthy lifestyle”, the laborers’ agitation reached a critical mass in the workers’ cafeteria. Having suffered one too many episodes of indigestion and degradation, a Brazilian man stood and shouted that he would no longer tolerate the conditions. A chorus of voices joined his, and the cacophony was soon joined by an orchestra of banging cups and shattering dishes. Members of Fordlândia’s American management fled swiftly to their homes or into the woods, some of them chased by machete-wielding workers. A group of managers scrambled to the docks and boarded the boats there, which they moved to the center of the river and out of reach of the escalating riots.

By the time the Brazilian military arrived three days later, the rioters had spent most of their anger. Windows were broken and trucks were overturned, but Fordlândia survived. …

In 1933, after three years with no appreciable quantity of rubber to show for the investment, Henry Ford finally hired a botanist to assess the situation. The botanist tried to coax some fertile rubber trees from the pitiful soil, but he was ultimately forced to conclude that the land was simply unequal to the task. The damp, hilly terrain was terrible for the trees, but excellent for the blight. Unfortunately no one had paid attention to the fact that the land’s previous owner was a man named Villares– the same man Henry Ford had hired to choose the plantation’s site. Henry Ford had been sold a lame portion of land, and Fordlândia was an unadulterated failure. …

Be that as it may, Ford’s perseverance might have eventually paid off if it were not for the fact that scientists developed economical synthetic rubber just as Belterra was establishing itself. In 1945, Ford retired from the rubbering trade, having lost over $20 million in Brazil without ever having set foot there.

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