9.24.2007

Civics Quiz

Test your civic literacy!

I got 46 out of 60 correct, or 76.67%, barely a C+.

The quiz was produced by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Liberties Board.

I'd like to see this quiz given to every candidate for national office. Before any debate, before any advertising, before any policy speeches. Candidates who score less than 83% should be ineligible to hold office. I'd guess this test would eliminate at least 75% of the current candidate pack, and would certainly have prevented Bush from getting into office (vote stealing notwithstanding).

Del Puckett

Remember when Eddie Van Halen could play this? Me neither. Check out Puckett's MySpace page for more. Thanks to Chris for passing this along.

9.19.2007

Auschwitz Photo Album

The NY Times has a disturbing story about a recent donation to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum made by a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who worked in Germany after World War II. The donation was of a photograph album found in an abandoned apartment in Frankfurt which the then soldier took home with him.

The album was labeled "Auschwitz 21.6.1944" and contains 116 pictures of the most notorious of the Nazi death camps. Unlike most of the horrific photos from Auschwitz and the other concentration camps, these photos depict the lives of the senior SS officers at the camp. The album was compiled by Karl Hocker, the adjutant to the camp commandant.

The photos are startling, not because they document any aspect of the lives of the camp's prisoners or the means by which most of them were murdered, but because they depict the SS officers in various, rather mundane, duties and, more tellingly, some of the off-duty activities the officers engaged in at a nearby resort. If you didn't know better, you might regard these photos are relatively dull vacation photos taken by a soldier on leave.

The historic value of these photos is enhanced by a few that depict Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. According to the Holocaust Museum, these are the first authenticated pictures of Mengele at the camp.

What strikes me about these photos is the lack of any visible sign of distress, guilt, or concern on the faces of the people who operated Auschwitz. They are cheerful, seemingly carefree, mugging for the camera with mock pouts and empty tins of blueberries. They engage in singalongs, they lounge on deck chairs, they light Christmas trees.

There are no pictures of Nazis posing with any of the prisoners, flashing a thumbs up sign, or placing Jews into demeaning positions. There are no photos of hooded Jews attached to electrodes, no photos of German Shepherds barking at restrained prisoners.

But I almost expect to see photos like this. And I wonder why I expect to see them. Perhaps the Nazis kept such photos out of their personal albums. Perhaps the Nazis wouldn't think of soiling their hands with the Jewish prisoners, or bothering to pose with them before their extermination. Perhaps the Nazis were just doing their jobs, efficiently burning humans by day, lounging in the forests on the weekend. Looking at these photos, one sees nothing amiss, nothing that might give one pause, even today.

But we know better. At least, I hope we do.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has posted all the pictures from the album on its website, compares Hocker's photos with contemporary photos of the camp's prisoners, and provides a biography of Hocker along with detailed contextual information about the time period.

9.15.2007

Sage Francis

You may find, as I do, that this video strangely parallels many of your post-curry dreams, only with a cooler soundtrack. Enjoy!

9.11.2007

Riding the Elevator into the Sky

As the fireman said:
Don't book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won't shut.
There are the warnings
that you must forget
if you're climbing out of yourself.
If you're going to smash into the sky.

Many times I've gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor:
small plants and swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars,
skeletons on fire,
their arms singing.
A very large key,
that opens something--
some useful door--
somewhere--
up there.

--Anne Sexton (1975)


How to remember September 11.

Year Six


A few days after 9/11, I put up a picture of the Twin Towers on my office door along with some lines from a Jackson Browne song, "The Next Voice You Hear." Six years later, with Ground Zero still an open wound, with no permanent memorial to the victims of United 93, with our country engaged in a losing war in Iraq that was cynically sold to the American public as a patriotic effort, and with Osama bin Laden still free to deliver his messages of hate, I offer the same lyrics in the hope that we will someday find our voice again.
Gather your deeds and your possessions
Whatever certainty you've known
Forget your heroes
You don't really need those last few lessons
Stand in the open
The next voice you hear will be your own
Well alright, they knew how they could hurt you
And you let them cut you to the bone
But god forbid
You allow them to rid you of your virtue
Forget their laughter
The next voice you hear will be your own
Throw down your truth and check your weapons
And don't look to see if you're alone
Just stand your ground
And don't turn around whatever happens
Don't ask directions
The next voice you hear will be your own.
Today, the streets of my neighborhood are lined with American flags. I hope they will stay there, to quote another Browne song, "until the Land of the Free is awake and can see, and until her conscience has been found."
Peace and good luck.

9.05.2007

The Disaster


During the last year of my time in Ohio, I had a persistent, uncomfortable feeling that I should not be there. Of course, this feeling was prompted by a number of factors: my disappointment and disillusionment in the school I was attending, the overwhelmingly conservative personality of the town in which I lived, the flat land, the effect of Ohio humidity on my desert-fired pores. But coupled with those aspects was something like a faint buzz in my head, a sensation that I can only compare to the sense one gets before looking over one's shoulder.
Since my teenage years, I have had these sensations on occasion. These "gut feelings" have steered me away from otherwise disastrous incidents and, I believe, have saved my life. One day back in the late 1990's, for example, before leaving on a drive from Logan to Salt Lake, I knew, knew, that I had to drive the car. There was no question about it--no one else was supposed to drive that vehicle. Fortunately, I was able to persuade the owner of the car to let me take the wheel without making her think I was insane, and, on that day, we were involved in a rather nasty wreck. Neither of us, however, sustained any major injuries; I wasn't injured at all. The car was destroyed. (Lesson to the Reader: If I ever ask to drive your car, you should try to persuade me to stay put.)
I don't know why I felt I was supposed to drive that car. Perhaps it was less of a personal endangerment-warning, than some vindictive act by a Toyota-hating gremlin. But I've learned, on the rare occasions when these feelings arise, not to question them.
Three years after I left Ohio, the Blanchard River, which runs directly through the town of Findlay, overran its flood stage by about seven feet, causing the most severe flooding in that area for nearly a century. The place where I lived was located only a few blocks from the banks of that river. Reports from friends in the area are that the single-level home I lived in was completely inundated, flooded under several feet of water. Had we stayed there, everything we own would have been lost.
So, was the faint buzzing in my head some kind of premonition, or merely a growing sense of discomfort with my circumstances at the time? I cannot tell you that, but I can say that my first thought on seeing the images of Findlay like the one above (from the Toledo Blade) was, "That was it. That was the disaster."
To explain: another of the strange things going on in my head is the sensation that I will experience (or survive) three events before my death. One of those events, so I have felt since my teenage years, was that I would survive a disaster. (Although, since I wasn't actually there during the flood, I'm not sure I can claim that I survived anything.) This event was the first of the three, all to follow in order, though I have no idea of the length of time between the events. The next, which I don't feel comfortable revealing here, would (will?) involve a major life change, one that would alter nearly every facet of the life I live now.
So it's hard for me to say whether these feelings have any credibility, or if my brain is slowly failing. And, really, I suppose the end result will be the same. But the feeling, the sensation, persists--sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger. When I looked at the pictures of Findlay, my scalp was buzzing like a fridge whose warranty has expired. My gut tells me that's one down, two to go. Needless to say, I'm nervous as hell.
Here is a large set of photos from flooded Findlay. Do you feel the buzz?