Nuclear attack? Stay put

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s a sense of deja vu for us boomers in reports such as this one that reflect a renewed government interest in telling people what to do in the case of a nuclear blast. Those of us who go back a ways remember a youth punctuated by warnings and drills that fired the imagination and were the stuff of nightmares.

In fourth or fifth grade I made a project for the science fair that involved getting information on how to build a fallout shelter, and constructing a little model. It seemed both futile and strange even then, and I knew no family planning to actually build one. We figured that, living in New York, we’d be goners anyway as a result of the blast, and many of us fully expected that the event would happen before we reached adulthood.

Well, it can be argued that many of us never did reach adulthood. But now that we’re not just middle-aged, but bordering on old, it must be admitted that the expected attack has never—very fortunately—occurred. And now, with the Cold War over, it is unlikely to come at the hands of Russia, the old enemy of our childhood nightmares.

But terrorists exist, as do rogue countries going nuclear that might someday supply them, and the Obama administration has decided to revisit the question of how a person might best survive the fallout if he/she is fortunate enough to survive the blast. And, just as in the 50s, the answer is to take shelter, although specialized buildings with ultra-thick walls need not be built:

The advice is based on recent scientific analyses showing that a nuclear attack is much more survivable if you immediately shield yourself from the lethal radiation that follows a blast, a simple tactic seen as saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even staying in a car, the studies show, would reduce casualties by more than 50 percent; hunkering down in a basement would be better by far.

And we’re not talking the many weeks that were suggested for fallout shelters of the past. Even a few hours of shelter afterward confers benefit—at least, according to computer simulations, on which the entire set of recommendations is based.

At any rate, what’s the alternative? I suppose that some people will be unable to resist the urge to go out rubbernecking and viewing the damage. But I’ve always felt that those evacuation plans, whereby it seems inevitable that cars would jam the streets and highways in a massive and unprecedented traffic jam, would be worse than useless.

Here is (pardon the pun) a blast from the past:

Wallis’s panther

The New Neo Posted on by

A little interlude to note that the most expensive bracelet ever sold is pretty beautiful, and what a provenance! This is from a recent auction of Wallis Simpson’s jewels:

pantherdiamond.jpeg

This flamingo pin is pretty fine, too. The Duchess must have liked her bejeweled critters:

flamingodiamond.jpeg

Come to think of it, she was sort of a bejeweled critter herself, as well as a hunter of a different sort.

More about that Obama narrative

The New Neo Posted on by

We’ve read over and over in the MSM and from liberal bloggers that Obama needs to take command of the narrative in order to change America’s view of him into something more positive. Here’s a more lighthearted look at the whole thing: Samuel P. Jacobs at The Daily Beast asks a variety of fiction writers to help with that Obama-narrative thing.

The answers in the article that interest me most are Margaret Atwood’s and Alex Berenson’s. Atwood suggests a sci-fi scenario in which “the President has been taken over by the Pod People” (who are different from the iPod people). Spy novelist Berenson goes the sci-fi route, too:

Give him an enemy who is not John Boehner. Maybe he needs an alien invasion. We can all be against invasions.

Not so fast. A generation marinated in Avatar-mania might welcome one.

Atwood’s response makes me wonder whether many former Obamaphiles think he’s already been taken over by a Pod Person. That would explain quite a bit—his odd lack of emotion and/or the offness of some of the emotions he does exhibit, and the contrast between his super-confident campaign demeanor and rhetoric and his present tentative and almost-chaotic style and policies.

At this point, it’s becoming clear even to liberals that the problems with Obama go beyond narrative, and beyond fixing by any sort of transformation by narrative. A presidency requires action, and although rhetoric can help, and inspirational rhetoric can rally the public (see Ronald Reagan) and get them behind a leader, a president still must support policies that people see as beneficial and effective.

That’s not rocket science, it’s common sense. Rhetoric does not work if it’s completely untethered from reality, especially in the current economic climate. Words are mere words, but the bottom line is the bottom line.

Hunting and the heaven of animals

The New Neo Posted on by

This recent thread about Palin and hunting engendered a lively exchange in the comments section, including a discussion of the following comment by a liberal on another blog, “Only arrogant humans think it’s ok to take a life.”

What could this person mean? We all know that hunting is a part of nature among animals: all carnivores hunt, and many herbivores are hunted. But the liberal commenter is correct that only humans can think about it, or choose to do it even though meat is available by other means, and therein lies the rub.

As long as they are part of modern society, even meat-eating liberals can choose not to hunt—which is the same choice I make, although I’m not a liberal. I’m an omnivore rather than a vegetarian, and since I eat meat I obviously partake indirectly (and literally) in the killing of animals, as does every omnivore, and everyone who wears leather.

Liberals can also choose to condemn human hunters as bloodthirsty killers—a point of view in which I do not join. But their logic is strange, because human hunters ordinarily are no more bloodthirsty than animals who kill (the ones the liberal conveniently forget). They just have made the decision to hunt in order to supplement their meat-eating that way—unless they are natives who only hunt or mostly hunt, in which case they get a pass. Liking the activity of hunting doesn’t mean one is bloodthirsty, although it means that one doesn’t shy away from the truth that should be acknowledged by all meat-eaters but can only be denied by those who never hunt—which is that everyone who eats meat is eating an animal that was killed for that purpose (unless you’re into eating roadkill; but that’s a topic I’ll leave alone right now).

Hunting is highly regulated in this country, and often culls the herd in a beneficial way. Deer, for example would be a menace but for hunting. But they’re so cute! Don’t kill them!! And don’t get me started on geese.

I’ll end with a poem by James Dickey, a writer who was far more well-known for another rural idyll, Deliverance and the movie it spawned. The poem gives me chills every time I read it :

The Heaven of Animals

By James L. Dickey

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle’s center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.

HCR ruled unconstitutional

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I have a busy busy day today, and don’t have time to discuss this right now, although I plan to later. But it’s so potentially important that I thought I’d put up a quick post and a link so you can talk about it in the comments section.]

A federal district court judge (and Bush appointee) in Virginia has ruled the individual mandate in HCR unconstitutional. However, it’s always been clear that these cases will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court, which will have the final word (that’s why it’s called “Supreme”).

Volokh has more discussion of the legal issues.

Hitler assassination plots: Henning von Tresckow

The New Neo Posted on by

Most of us know about the famous July 1944 Hitler assassination plot that failed, led by Claus von Stauffenberg and code-named Operation Valkyrie. The co-conspirators paid with their lives, and their families were punished as well.

I became interested recently in the life story of one of the co-conspirators, Henning von Tresckow. Like most of the others who plotted to kill Hitler, he was a member of an old aristocratic family (note all those “vons”). They constituted a German Resistance moverment within the Wehrmacht itself.

Tresckow not only was the mastermind of the Valkyrie plot, but it was not his first attempt to kill Hitler. He had tried as early as March of 1943. Tresckow was a German of a certain sort; although born into a military family, he seemed to have had more of the poet’s temperament:

He wore his uniform only when it was absolutely required and disliked the regimentation of army life. He was lyrical, recited Rainer Maria Rilke, and spoke several languages…

His disillusionment with Nazism began very early on, in 1934, after the Night of the Long Knives, when the SS “murdered extrajudicially many SA leaders and political opponents, including two generals.” He saw Kristalnacht as an abomination. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this), he made a fateful decision to stay in the Wehrmacht:

[Tresckow] sought out civilians and officers who opposed Hitler, such as Erwin von Witzleben. Witzleben dissuaded Tresckow from resigning from the Army arguing that they would be needed when day of reckoning comes. By the summer of 1939, he was saying to Fabian von Schlabrendorff, his cousin by marriage, that “both duty and honor demand from us that we should do our best to bring about the downfall of Hitler and National-Socialism in order to save Germany and Europe from barbarism.”

So he always saw himself as a secret agent, working within the Wehrmacht for the destruction of Hitler. It was a delicate balancing act, one with a multitude of moral complexities. But I cannot find it in my heart to condemn him at all; in fact, I consider him a heroic figure. And he did not remain silent, either:

When he learned about the massacre of thousands of Jews at Borisov, Tresckow appealed passionately to Field Marshall Fedor von Bock: “Never may such a thing happen again! Therefore we must act now. We have the power in Russia!” (Although Bock personally detested Nazism, he remained loyal to Hitler.) As the chief operations officer of Army Group Center, [von Tresckow] systematically placed officers who shared his views in key positions…The headquarters of Army Group Center thus emerged as the new nerve center of Army resistance

What’s more, Tresckow started sending messages that this group was ready for some sort of action as early as 1941, when Hitler’s campaign was going very well. However, it wasn’t until March of 1943 that the first assassination attempt was finally hatched and executed:

[Tresckow] asked Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Brandt who was traveling with Hitler if he would oblige to take a bottle of Cointreau to Colonel Helmuth Stieff (who was then not yet a conspirator) at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia as a payment for a lost bet. Brandt readily agreed. The “Cointreau” was actually a bomb constructed of a British plastic explosive “Plastic C” placed into the casing of a British magnetic mine, with a timer consisting of a spring which would be gradually dissolved by acid. Before Hitler’s Condor plane was to take off, Schlabrendorff activated the 30-minute fuse and handed the package to Brandt, who boarded Hitler’s plane. After takeoff, a message was sent to the other Berlin conspirators by code that Operation Flash was underway, which they expected to take place around Minsk. Yet when Hitler landed safely at his East Prussian headquarters, it became obvious that the bomb had failed to detonate (probably due to the extremely low temperature in the unheated luggage compartment thereby preventing the fuse from working). The message of failure was quickly sent out and Schlabrendorff retrieved the package to prevent discovery of the plot.

One week later, another attempt was made, this time by co-conspirator Gersdorff, who volunteered to be a suicide bomber while giving Hitler a tour of a military museum:

He had with him bombs with ten-minute fuses, knowing that Hitler was scheduled to be in the museum for 30 minutes. However, at the last minute just before Hitler was to appear, the duration of his stay was reduced to just eight minutes as a security precaution. Hitler breezed through in two minutes. As a result Gersdorff could not accomplish his mission, and the assassination plan failed again, but he barely managed to get out and defuse the bombs.

Hitler lived a charmed life, apparently. After Operation Valkyrie—the plot that actually was carried out, but failed to do any serious harm to Hitler—failed, Tresckow killed himself at the front. “To protect other conspirators, he staged an appearance of partisan attack by firing his pistols and then dispatched himself by holding a hand grenade below his chin.”

This is what he told a colleague before he died:

Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours’ time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. No one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus. A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defense of his convictions.

It is of interest that most of the Wehrmacht plotters were religious men as well as aristocrats and patriots. I believe that was of consequence; note the religious reference in Tresckow’s final words. He fought Hitler the best way he knew, and if he was a failure, he was aware that at least his gesture proved that there were some righteous people in Germany.

This is why it’s called Palin Derangement Syndrome

The New Neo Posted on by

Case in point: the big hoo-ha over Sarah’s supposed “hairdresser” coming to Haiti with her on her humanitarian trip. Only trouble is that said hairdresser, who had the nerve to fix a strand of Palin’s hair in front of the AP cameraperson, was none other than Palin’s daughter Bristol.

And then there’s the nefarious hand-washing. At the Huffington Post, Michael Shaw writes:

…[T]he multiple shots of Sarah sanitizing and washing her hands suggests the former Gov is primarily concerned, above all humanitarian else, about catching something.

Shaw thinks the AP is out to get Palin by showing these particular photos, and he’s correct. He also indicates that it’s the “Palin team’s behavior, attitude or reputation” that may have brought it on. If he really thinks that, he hasn’t been following this thing right from the very start; it began the day Palin was chosen as VP pick.

As for the handwashing—would Sarah finally prove her selfless bona fides by coming down with some disease as a result of her travels? I doubt it; it would probably be interpreted as merely another bid for attention.

Madoff’s son a suicide

The New Neo Posted on by

This is terribly sad. It’s not for Bernie Madoff that I have compassion, it’s for the wife and the children.

I have written several times before about the Madoff family and their guilt or lack thereof (this piece focused primarily on the sons). I am of the opinion, until proven otherwise, that the sons did not know of the father’s crimes until he confessed.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s an article that appeared in the WSJ today, but before the news of Mark Madoff’s suicide broke. It discusses some of the repercussions of the Madoff scandal for the family members, and says this about Mark:

“Mark remains unalterably bitter about his father’s deception and the injury his father has caused,” said a spokeswoman for the two men. “Andy was also deeply impacted by his father’s deception.”

Neither has talked with his father or mother in two years, mostly out of personal choice and also because of legal sensitivities, a person familiar with the matter said. Mark Madoff recently has been using an email address that doesn’t include his first or last name, a friend noted.

This week Mr. Picard, the trustee, sued children of Andrew and Mark, alleging that Ruth and Bernard Madoff transferred funds to them. A spokesman for Mark and Andrew and their wives declined to comment, as did Mark Madoff’s ex-wife.

And here’s more on the Picard suit.]