AdamSmith

I love Sedaris. Thought maybe he was losing it with his last book, but the new one mentioned below is him in top form, from the one story I've read in it so far (the one about visiting the taxidermist, also mentioned below). David Sedaris at Edinburgh: 'I'll never run out of things to laugh about'As he prepares for his Edinburgh festival show, David Sedaris talks about the things that scare him: hecklers in their 80s, the stench of enthusiasm – and the word 'loo' Stuart Jeffries The Guardian, Sunday 4 August 2013 13.00 EDT David Sedaris: 'People keep asking me, "When are you going to run out of things to write about?" Why would I?' Photograph: Jacob van Essen/Hoge Noorden One day David Sedaris went into a taxidermy shop to buy a stuffed owl for his boyfriend Hugh. It was a Valentine's gift. I know what you're thinking: what's wrong with chocolates and flowers? But let's press on. "Later," says the American author and humourist who has made his home in London and West Sussex, "I start writing this story about buying Hugh an owl for Valentine's day. And it's not working. The only person it would resonate with is someone who's bought an owl. And that's like three people in the world. "So I rewrote it and made it about meeting someone for the first time and having that feeling that they're looking into your black heart right through all the filters. And you feel so exposed and grateful that they see you for who you are. That made it a story because that's a feeling everyone can relate to, right?" Before I can answer – heaven knows what I would say – tea and scones arrive. "With lashings of whipped cream and jam," announces the waiter. "I like that he said lashings," Sedaris whispers, as the waiter retreats. "I can't get enough of that word." We're taking afternoon tea somewhere nice in London and the native of North Carolina, best known here for his books and his Radio 4 series Meet David Sedaris, can't wait to get back to owls. The guy who looked into Sedaris's black heart was the taxidermist at Get Stuffed in Islington. As Sedaris relates the story in his latest book, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, the man looked him over then pulled out a bag. "Now a smell is going to hit you when I open this up," he warned. "But don't worry. It's the smoke they use to preserve the head." Inside the bag was a teenage girl's head, some 400 years old. Why, Sedaris wondered, would this guy think he'd be interested in that? Or, as happened earlier, the skeleton of a pygmy? As he explains in his book, people often make assumptions about him. "I've been mistaken for a parent, a pickpocket, and even, God forbid, an SUV-owner. What's rare is not to be misread. The taxidermist knew me for less time than it took to wipe my feet on his mat and, with no effort whatsoever, looked into my soul and recognised me for the person I really am: the type who'd love a pygmy and could easily get over the fact that he'd been murdered for sport, thinking breezily, 'Well, it was a long time ago.' I could imagine my neighbours whispering as I walked down the street, 'They say he has a pygmy.' I'd love to be talked about this way – how did the taxidermist know?" It's possible Sedaris will read this story at An Evening with David Sedaris, his Edinburgh show. But he may not, as he often changes his plans once he's got the measure of an audience. The show is billed as an encounter with "America's pre-eminent humour writer" and what will happen is this: you'll arrive and Sedaris will greet you at the door and shake your hand. "That way, if you need people's forgiveness during or after the show, they'll give it to you because they feel they know you. I worry that, this being Edinburgh, people will think it's a stand-up show and heckle." Has anyone ever heckled him? "In Chicago," he recalls. "An 80-year-old lady. She yelled, 'Enough already. Enough with the filth and the four-letter words.' It didn't look good to be mean to her, like you would with an ordinary heckler." But what he especially fears is the warm-up guy getting the crowd too stimulated. "It's happened. I'm in the wings and some guy is saying, 'Are you excited to meet David? Can't hear you!' Then I have to go on into that stench – the stench of enthusiasm." He has learned not to kick off with funny passages. "The stuff that gets the big laughs I save for later, then I can cover up what happened earlier – like a cat in a litter tray." After the reading, there will be a question-and-answer session. Here's a tip: don't ask stupid questions. "Somebody once asked, 'If you were a hot dog, what kind of condiment would you be?' I could have answered, 'Ketchup with you later.' But I just sighed and said, 'Next question.'" There will then be book signings. Just don't be surprised if Sedaris eats his dinner as he signs. "When else am I going to have it? At 3am in the hotel? I don't think so." So, any happy memories of Edinburgh? "One year, Hugh and I couldn't get a hotel so we ended up staying in this very Christian family's house, in the son's bedroom. I looked out of the window and there was the son in the camper in the driveway glowering at me." He cackles. "The fags took all the rooms!" I demand a better Edinburgh story. "I was just told this story that's too good to be true. A woman sleeps with this guy at his place. He leaves early to go to work. She defecates in the toilet but realises it's blocked, so she fishes the turd out and puts it in a plastic bag, planning to put it in a trash can after she leaves. Then she writes him a note about what a lovely time she's had and leaves. Just as the door clicks, she realises she's left the turd on the kitchen counter." We both laugh and, in my case, wince – wondering if this sort of thing really happens in Edinburgh. Glasgow, maybe. "That's what I live for, that kind of story. People keep asking me, 'When are you going to run out of things to write about?' Why would I? I could leave here and get run over and write about that. I'm not afraid of running out of material – no more than a fiction writer would be." I glance at Sedaris as he sips mint tea. The glasses that make him look as nebbish as Woody Allen lie on the table. He's now 56 and has been writing and reading this self-immolating, scabrous stuff for years now. I've been laughing at it for more than two decades, ever since his SantaLand Diaries, which described his time working as Crumpet the Elf at a Macy's store in New York one Christmas. As I glance at him, I recall a fantasy story in Barrel Fever, in which Sedaris imagines having sex with Mike Tyson that ends up with the writer swallowing the boxer's false teeth. But I wonder if, these days, he's increasingly relying on being an outsider, an American abroad, to get funny material. He lived in France for years and, in 2008, made the move to England. He would like to live in Germany for a year and has been learning the language. Only problem: Hugh loves his Sussex garden too much to uproot. Is he becoming a travel-hopping succubus, like a dirtier – and much funnier – Bill Bryson? "But I didn't move to France or here to write about it. I learned in France there's, like, tourist observation – and you need to move beyond that to write interestingly as an outsider." He's delightful about Scotland, but when I mention my looming holiday in Pembrokeshire, he says: "I was in Wales the other week and I thought they might as well just eat each other's asses. It says 'coffee shop' and you get instant coffee. Oh try. Would it kill you to try?" In the new book, there's a fine chapter about Obama's 2008 election. He was in France at the time and, when Obama won, found himself being congratulated by the French. "But it wasn't, 'How wonderful that you have a thoughtful new president.' It was, 'How wonderful that you elected the president we thought you should elect.'" Later, during Obama's inauguration, he was in London watching the BBC and couldn't believe that "every three seconds" he was reminded that Obama was black and would become America's first black American president. At its best, this outsider perspective can reveal truths locals might miss. In another new story, called Rubbish, he excoriates his Sussex neighbours for what they have done to their countryside, suggesting DNA tests be done on every discarded can and wrapper. Culprits could then be arrested, perhaps shot. A touch extreme? "I don't think so. I find it exasperating because this country is unspeakably beautiful. I've been to places that are not beautiful – Texas. But here, you've got a place that's so beautiful that's being trashed up. I think cars that are clean should be stopped and the drivers arrested." Why? "If your car has no trash in it, you've chucked it out of the window." I suspect the conviction rate would be low. "I guess. I just don't get some things about this country. I'll never fit in. I can't use Britishisms. I couldn't ask where the loo is. I'd feel a fraud." Time for Sedaris to go. He has to buy pillow protectors for the people staying at his place while he's in Edinburgh. He apologises for not telling me a good festival story involving late-night debauchery. "I don't drink, you see." So he never goes on the lash? "On the what?" Lash. He giggles. These Britishisms. Lashings of cream, going on the lash – it takes an outsider to spot that so many of our expressions have a weird S&M vibe. "I just need the bathroom," he says. Typical American, I think, as he trots off. He'll be so disappointed when he finds there isn't a bath in there. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/04/david-sedaris-edinburgh-festival-interview

He did that after the bomb was dropped, not before. The considerable history written since the war concludes more or less universally that we used the bomb on Japan specifically as a message to the Soviet Union as to what we intended to be the world order and our supremacy in it post-war. Several in power, such as Gen. Leslie Groves, the military overseer of the Manhattan Project, specifically said that even before it was dropped on Japan. Also James Byrnes, Truman's secretary of state at the time: "[byrnes] was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. Russian troops had moved into Hungary and Rumania, and Byrnes thought it would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw her troops from these countries, that Russia might be more manageable if impressed by American military might, and that a demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia." (Spencer Weart and Gertrud Szilard, Leo Szilard: His version of the Facts, pg. 184).

Life in a Toxic Country Li Wen/Xinhua, via Corbis A baby being given nebulizer therapy at Beijing Children’s Hospital. By EDWARD WONG The New York Times Published: August 3, 2013 BEIJING — I RECENTLY found myself hauling a bag filled with 12 boxes of milk powder and a cardboard container with two sets of air filters through San Francisco International Airport. I was heading to my home in Beijing at the end of a work trip, bringing back what have become two of the most sought-after items among parents here, and which were desperately needed in my own household. Liu Jin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe China Central Television headquarters building in Beijing, wreathed in haze. China is the world’s second largest economy, but the enormous costs of its growth are becoming apparent. Residents of its boom cities and a growing number of rural regions question the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. It is as if they were living in the Chinese equivalent of the Chernobyl or Fukushima nuclear disaster areas. Before this assignment, I spent three and a half years reporting in Iraq, where foreign correspondents talked endlessly of the variety of ways in which one could die — car bombs, firefights, being abducted and then beheaded. I survived those threats, only now to find myself wondering: Is China doing irreparable harm to me and my family? The environmental hazards here are legion, and the consequences might not manifest themselves for years or even decades. The risks are magnified for young children. Expatriate workers confronted with the decision of whether to live in Beijing weigh these factors, perhaps more than at any time in recent decades. But for now, a correspondent’s job in China is still rewarding, and so I am toughing it out a while longer. So is my wife, Tini, who has worked for more than a dozen years as a journalist in Asia and has studied Chinese. That means we are subjecting our 9-month-old daughter to the same risks that are striking fear into residents of cities across northern China, and grappling with the guilt of doing so. Like them, we take precautions. Here in Beijing, high-tech air purifiers are as coveted as luxury sedans. Soon after I was posted to Beijing, in 2008, I set up a couple of European-made air purifiers used by previous correspondents. In early April, I took out one of the filters for the first time to check it: the layer of dust was as thick as moss on a forest floor. It nauseated me. I ordered two new sets of filters to be picked up in San Francisco; those products are much cheaper in the United States. My colleague Amy told me that during the Lunar New Year in February, a family friend brought over a 35-pound purifier from California for her husband, a Chinese-American who had been posted to the Beijing office of a large American technology company. Before getting the purifier, the husband had considered moving to Suzhou, a smaller city lined with canals, because he could no longer tolerate the pollution in Beijing. Every morning, when I roll out of bed, I check an app on my cellphone that tells me the air quality index as measured by the United States Embassy, whose monitoring device is near my home. I want to see whether I need to turn on the purifiers and whether my wife and I can take our daughter outside. Most days, she ends up housebound. Statistics released Wednesday by the Ministry of Environmental Protection revealed that air quality in Beijing was deemed unsafe for more than 60 percent of the days in the first half of 2013. The national average was also dismal: it failed to meet the safety standard in nearly half the days of the same six-month period. The environment minister, Zhou Shengxian, told People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, that “China’s air quality is grim, and the amount of pollution emissions far exceeds the environment’s capacity.” I want my daughter to grow up appreciating the outdoors — sunsets and birdcalls and the smell of grass or the shape of clouds. That will be impossible if we live for many more years in Beijing. Even with my adult-size lungs, I limit my time outdoors. Though I ran on the banks of the Tigris River while in Baghdad and competed in two marathons before moving to China, I am hesitant about doing long-distance training for that kind of race here. One thing I refuse to forgo is biking, even if it means greater exposure to hazardous air than commuting by car or subway. Given the horrendous traffic here — itself a major contributor to the pollution — I go to the office and restaurants and my courtyard home in Beijing’s alleys on two wheels. This winter, I bought a British-made face mask after levels of fine particulate matter hit a record high in January in some areas — 40 times the exposure limit recommended by the World Health Organization. Foreigners called it the “airpocalypse,” and a growing number are leaving China because of the smog or demanding hardship pay from their employers. One American doctor here has procured a mask for his infant son. My mask of sleek black fabric and plastic knobs makes me look like an Asian Darth Vader. Better that, though, than losing years of my life. THIS spring, new data released from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study, first published in The Lancet, revealed that China’s outdoor pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010, or 40 percent of the worldwide total. Another study, published by a prominent American science journal in July, found that northern Chinese lived five fewer years on average than their southern counterparts because of the widespread use of coal in the north. Cancer rates are surging in China, and even the state news media are examining the relation between that and air pollution. Meanwhile, studies both in and outside of China have shown that children with prenatal exposure to high levels of air pollutants exhibit signs of slower mental development and of behavior disorders. Research from Los Angeles shows that children in polluted environments are also at risk for permanent lung damage. In northern China, shades of gray distinguish one day from another. My wife and I sometimes choose our vacation destinations based on how much blue we can expect to see — thus a recent trip to Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast. I will never take such skies for granted again. “We still can’t get over how blue the skies are here,” the wife of an American diplomat told me over dinner in Georgetown more than half a year after the couple had moved back to Washington from Beijing. Food safety is the other issue weighing on us. We have heard the stories of rat meat being passed off as lamb at hotpot restaurants, cooking oil being recycled and crops being grown in soil polluted by heavy metals or wastewater from factories. The food catastrophe that most frightened both Chinese and foreign parents was the milk scandal of 2008, in which six babies died and at least 300,000 children fell ill after drinking milk products tainted with melamine, a toxic chemical. Since then, many parents of newborns have gone to great lengths to bring into China foreign-made infant milk powder when it is needed to supplement breast-feeding. Months after my trip back from San Francisco, my wife and I realized that our supply of formula was dwindling. We sent e-mails to friends we thought might be traveling soon to China, asking for volunteers to be “mules.” Our friend Alexa flew in from New York this week with two boxes of powder. We have two other friends who promise to bring more this summer. I recently spoke to a woman in Beijing, Zhao Jun, who pays Chinese students and housewives living in Europe to mail her cans of Cow & Gate, a British brand. “We’re constantly worried, so we want to find a good brand from overseas with a long history,” she said. So widespread is the phenomenon of Chinese buying milk powder abroad that it has led to shortages in at least a half-dozen countries. Hong Kong has even cracked down on what customs officials call “syndicates” smuggling foreign-made powder to mainland China. The anxieties do not end with milk. Our daughter has begun eating solids, so that means many more questions for us about how we source our food. Do we continue buying fruits and vegetables from the small shops in the alleys around our home? Do we buy from more expensive stores aimed at foreigners and wealthier Chinese? Do we buy from local organic farms? Last weekend, I went with a friend to visit a village home an hour’s drive northeast of Beijing. He and his wife wanted to lease it as a weekend house, but I was more interested in gauging whether I could use the garden to grow our own vegetables. Some people I know here have done that. “It’s so difficult to protect yourself on the food issue,” said Li Bo, a proponent of communal gardening and a board member of Friends of Nature, an environmental advocacy group. “I never thought I would become a vegetarian. Then in 2011, I said enough of meat, after so many examples of wrongdoing in animal husbandry.” Each day that passes in Beijing makes it harder to discern the fine line between paranoia and precaution. Six years ago, when I was back in my hometown Alexandria, Va., to pack for my move to China, my mother handed me several tubes of toothpaste. She had read stories that summer of toxic toothpaste made in China. I felt as if I was going off to college for my freshman year all over again. I put the tubes back in my parents’ bathroom. When I go home these days, my mother still on occasion gives me toothpaste to bring back to Beijing, and I no longer hesitate to pack it in my bag. Edward Wong is a correspondent in China for The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/sunday-review/life-in-a-toxic-country.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&hp

So far, so good: ...Even though Clinton has said nothing definitive about her plans, the idea that she will run is solidifying. What was once speculation is on its way to hardening into conventional wisdom. The super-PAC that is backing her candidacy, Ready for Hillary, reported on Monday that it had raised over $1.25 million in the first six months of this year — an impressive haul for a period that ended more than 30 months before the Iowa caucuses. The organization has also created a stir with some high-profile hires: Last month, it secured the services of Jeremy Bird, who masterminded President Obama’s field operation in the 2012 campaign, and Mitch Stewart, who coordinated the Obama effort in the battleground states... Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/presidential-campaign/315379-hillary-by-far-the-best-chance-for-a-woman-president-#ixzz2b0scOkvG

Members of Congress denied access to basic information about NSA Documents provided by two House members demonstrate how they are blocked from exercising any oversight over domestic surveillance Glenn Greenwald theguardian.com, Sunday 4 August 2013 08.26 EDT Members of Congress have been repeatedly thwarted when attempting to learn basic information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and the secret FISA court which authorizes its activities, documents provided by two House members demonstrate. From the beginning of the NSA controversy, the agency's defenders have insisted that Congress is aware of the disclosed programs and exercises robust supervision over them. "These programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate," President Obama said the day after the first story on NSA bulk collection of phone records was published in this space. "And if there are members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up." But members of Congress, including those in Obama's party, have flatly denied knowing about them. On MSNBC on Wednesday night, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct) was asked by host Chris Hayes: "How much are you learning about what the government that you are charged with overseeing and holding accountable is doing from the newspaper and how much of this do you know?" The Senator's reply: The revelations about the magnitude, the scope and scale of these surveillances, the metadata and the invasive actions surveillance of social media Web sites were indeed revelations to me." But it is not merely that members of Congress are unaware of the very existence of these programs, let alone their capabilities. Beyond that, members who seek out basic information - including about NSA programs they are required to vote on and FISA court (FISC) rulings on the legality of those programs - find that they are unable to obtain it. Two House members, GOP Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, have provided the Guardian with numerous letters and emails documenting their persistent, and unsuccessful, efforts to learn about NSA programs and relevant FISA court rulings. "If I can't get basic information about these programs, then I'm not able to do my job", Rep. Griffith told me. A practicing lawyer before being elected to Congress, he said that his job includes "making decisions about whether these programs should be funded, but also an oath to safeguard the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which includes the Fourth Amendment." Rep. Griffith requested information about the NSA from the House Intelligence Committee six weeks ago, on June 25. He asked for "access to the classified FISA court order(s) referenced on Meet the Press this past weekend": a reference to my raising with host David Gregory the still-secret 2011 86-page ruling from the FISA court that found substantial parts of NSA domestic spying to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment as well as governing surveillance statutes. In that same June 25 letter, Rep. Griffith also requested the semi-annual FISC "reviews and critiques" of the NSA. He stated the rationale for his request: "I took an oath to uphold the United States Constitution, and I intend to do so." Almost three weeks later, on July 12, Rep. Griffith requested additional information from the Intelligence Committee based on press accounts he had read about Yahoo's unsuccessful efforts in court to resist joining the NSA's PRISM program. He specifically wanted to review the arguments made by Yahoo and the DOJ, as well as the FISC's ruling requiring Yahoo to participate in PRISM. On July 22, he wrote another letter to the Committee seeking information. This time, it was prompted by press reports that that the FISA court had renewed its order compelling Verizon to turn over all phone records to the NSA. Rep. Griffith requested access to that court ruling. The Congressman received no response to any of his requests. With a House vote looming on whether to defund the NSA's bulk collection program - it was scheduled for July 25 - he felt he needed the information more urgently than ever. He recounted his thinking to me: "How can I responsibly vote on a program I know very little about?" On July 23, he wrote another letter to the Committee, noting that it had been four weeks since his original request, and several weeks since his subsequent ones. To date, six weeks since he first asked, he still has received no response to any of his requests (the letters sent by Rep. Griffith can be seen here). "I know many of my constituents will ask about this when I go home," he said, referring to the August recess when many members of Congress meet with those they represent. "Now that I won't get anything until at least September, what am I supposed to tell them? How can I talk about NSA actions I can't learn anything about except from press accounts?" Congressman Grayson has had very similar experiences, except that he sometimes did receive responses to his requests: negative ones. On June 19, Grayson wrote to the House Intelligence Committee requesting several documents relating to media accounts about the NSA. Included among them were FISA court opinions directing the collection of telephone records for Americans, as well as documents relating to the PRISM program. But just over four weeks later, the Chairman of the Committee, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, wrote to Grayson informing him that his requests had been denied by a Committee "voice vote". In a follow-up email exchange, a staff member for Grayson wrote to the Chairman, advising him that Congressman Grayson had "discussed the committee's decision with Ranking Member [Dutch] Ruppersberger on the floor last night, and he told the Congressman that he was unaware of any committee action on this matter." Grayson wanted to know how a voice vote denying him access to these documents could have taken place without the knowledge of the ranking member on the Committee, and asked: "can you please share with us the recorded vote, Member-by-Member?" The reply from this Committee was as follows: Thanks for your inquiry. The full Committee attends Business Meetings. At our July 18, 2013 Business Meeting, there were seven Democrat Members and nine Republican Members in attendance. The transcript is classified." To date, neither Griffith nor Grayson has received any of the documents they requested. Correspondence between Grayson and the Committee - with names of staff members and email addresses redacted - can be read here. Denial of access for members of Congress to basic information about the NSA and the FISC appears to be common. Justin Amash, the GOP representative who, along with Democratic Rep. John Conyers, co-sponsored the amendment to ban the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records, told CNN on July 31: "I, as a member of Congress, can't get access to the court opinions. I have to beg for access, and I'm denied it if I - if I make that request." It is the Intelligence Committees of both the House and Senate that exercise primary oversight over the NSA. But as I noted last week, both Committees are, with the exception of a handful of members, notoriously beholden to the NSA and the intelligence community generally. Its members typically receive much larger contributions from the defense and surveillance industries than non-Committee members. And the two Committee Chairs - Democrat Dianne Feinstein in the Senate and Republican Mike Rogers in the House - are two of the most steadfast NSA loyalists in Congress. The senior Democrat on the House Committee is ardent NSA defender Dutch Ruppersberger, whose district not only includes NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, but who is also himself the second-largest recipient of defense/intelligence industry cash. Moreover, even when members of the Intelligence Committee learn of what they believe to be serious abuses by the NSA, they are barred by law from informing the public. Two Democratic Committee members in the Senate, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, spent years warning Americans that they would be "stunned to learn" of the radical interpretations of secret law the Obama administration had adopted in the secret FISA court to vest themselves with extremist surveillance powers. Yet the two Senators, prohibited by law from talking about it, concealed what they had discovered. It took Edward Snowden's whistleblowing for Americans to learn what those two Intelligence Committee members were so dramatically warning them about. Finally, all members of Congress - not just those on the Intelligence Committees - are responsible for making choices about the NSA and for protecting the privacy rights and other Constitutional guarantees of Americans. "I did not take an oath to defer to the Intelligence Committee," Rep. Griffith told me. "My oath is to make informed decisions, and I can't do my job when I can't get even the most basic information about these programs." In early July, Grayson had staffers distribute to House members several slides published by the Guardian about NSA programs as part of Grayson's efforts to trigger debate in Congress. But, according to one staff member, Grayson's office was quickly told by the House Intelligence Committee that those slides were still classified, despite having been published and discussed in the media, and directed Grayson to cease distribution or discussion of those materials in the House, warning that he could face sanctions if he continued. It has been widely noted that the supremely rubber-stamping FISA court constitutes NSA "oversight" in name only, and that the Intelligence Committees are captured by the agency and constrained to act even if they were inclined to. Whatever else is true, members of Congress in general clearly know next to nothing about the NSA and the FISA court beyond what they read in the media, and those who try to rectify that are being actively blocked from finding out. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/04/congress-nsa-denied-access

In one's obsessive reading about the bomb, it was surprising to learn that Eisenhower, MacArthur, Nitze, even the wretched Lewis Strauss (nemesis of Oppenheimer) thought -- at the time, not just in hindsight -- that it should not have been used on Japan. Not the view we usually get from the predigested history lessons. DWIGHT EISENHOWER "...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. "During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..." - Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380 In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson: "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63 ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman) "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. "The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." - William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441. HERBERT HOOVER On May 28, 1945, Hoover visited President Truman and suggested a way to end the Pacific war quickly: "I am convinced that if you, as President, will make a shortwave broadcast to the people of Japan - tell them they can have their Emperor if they surrender, that it will not mean unconditional surrender except for the militarists - you'll get a peace in Japan - you'll have both wars over." Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 347. On August 8, 1945, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Hoover wrote to Army and Navy Journal publisher Colonel John Callan O'Laughlin, "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul." quoted from Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 635. "...the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945...up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped; ...if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs." - quoted by Barton Bernstein in Philip Nobile, ed., Judgment at the Smithsonian, pg. 142 Hoover biographer Richard Norton Smith has written: "Use of the bomb had besmirched America's reputation, he [Hoover] told friends. It ought to have been described in graphic terms before being flung out into the sky over Japan." Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, pg. 349-350. In early May of 1946 Hoover met with General Douglas MacArthur. Hoover recorded in his diary, "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria." Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 350-351. GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary." William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512. Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71. JOSEPH GREW (Under Sec. of State) In a February 12, 1947 letter to Henry Stimson (Sec. of War during WWII), Grew responded to the defense of the atomic bombings Stimson had made in a February 1947 Harpers magazine article: "...in the light of available evidence I myself and others felt that if such a categorical statement about the [retention of the] dynasty had been issued in May, 1945, the surrender-minded elements in the [Japanese] Government might well have been afforded by such a statement a valid reason and the necessary strength to come to an early clearcut decision. "If surrender could have been brought about in May, 1945, or even in June or July, before the entrance of Soviet Russia into the [Pacific] war and the use of the atomic bomb, the world would have been the gainer." Grew quoted in Barton Bernstein, ed.,The Atomic Bomb, pg. 29-32. JOHN McCLOY (Assistant Sec. of War) "I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs." McCloy quoted in James Reston, Deadline, pg. 500. RALPH BARD (Under Sec. of the Navy) On June 28, 1945, a memorandum written by Bard the previous day was given to Sec. of War Henry Stimson. It stated, in part: "Following the three-power [July 1945 Potsdam] conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia's position [they were about to declare war on Japan] and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the [retention of the] Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for. "I don't see that we have anything in particular to lose in following such a program." He concluded the memorandum by noting, "The only way to find out is to try it out." Memorandum on the Use of S-1 Bomb, Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy files, folder # 77, National Archives (also contained in: Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 1987 edition, pg. 307-308). Later Bard related, "...it definitely seemed to me that the Japanese were becoming weaker and weaker. They were surrounded by the Navy. They couldn't get any imports and they couldn't export anything. Naturally, as time went on and the war developed in our favor it was quite logical to hope and expect that with the proper kind of a warning the Japanese would then be in a position to make peace, which would have made it unnecessary for us to drop the bomb and have had to bring Russia in...". quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 144-145, 324. Bard also asserted, "I think that the Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and, I think, the Swiss. And that suggestion of [giving] a warning [of the atomic bomb] was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that they could have readily accepted." He continued, "In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb. Thus, it wouldn't have been necessary for us to disclose our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the bomb." War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report, 8/15/60, pg. 73-75. LEWIS STRAUSS (Special Assistant to the Sec. of the Navy) Strauss recalled a recommendation he gave to Sec. of the Navy James Forrestal before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima: "I proposed to Secretary Forrestal that the weapon should be demonstrated before it was used. Primarily it was because it was clear to a number of people, myself among them, that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate... My proposal to the Secretary was that the weapon should be demonstrated over some area accessible to Japanese observers and where its effects would be dramatic. I remember suggesting that a satisfactory place for such a demonstration would be a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood... I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest... would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. It seemed to me that a demonstration of this sort would prove to the Japanese that we could destroy any of their cities at will... Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation..." Strauss added, "It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world...". quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 145, 325. PAUL NITZE (Vice Chairman, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey) In 1950 Nitze would recommend a massive military buildup, and in the 1980s he was an arms control negotiator in the Reagan administration. In July of 1945 he was assigned the task of writing a strategy for the air attack on Japan. Nitze later wrote: "The plan I devised was essentially this: Japan was already isolated from the standpoint of ocean shipping. The only remaining means of transportation were the rail network and intercoastal shipping, though our submarines and mines were rapidly eliminating the latter as well. A concentrated air attack on the essential lines of transportation, including railroads and (through the use of the earliest accurately targetable glide bombs, then emerging from development) the Kammon tunnels which connected Honshu with Kyushu, would isolate the Japanese home islands from one another and fragment the enemy's base of operations. I believed that interdiction of the lines of transportation would be sufficiently effective so that additional bombing of urban industrial areas would not be necessary. "While I was working on the new plan of air attack... concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945." Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pg. 36-37 (my emphasis) The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that was primarily written by Nitze and reflected his reasoning: "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." quoted in Barton Bernstein, The Atomic Bomb, pg. 52-56. In his memoir, written in 1989, Nitze repeated, "Even without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands [scheduled for November 1, 1945] would have been necessary." Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pg. 44-45. ALBERT EINSTEIN Einstein was not directly involved in the Manhattan Project (which developed the atomic bomb). In 1905, as part of his Special Theory of Relativity, he made the intriguing point that a relatively large amount of energy was contained in and could be released from a relatively small amount of matter. This became best known by the equation E=mc2. The atomic bomb was not based upon this theory but clearly illustrated it. In 1939 Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt that was drafted by the scientist Leo Szilard. Received by FDR in October of that year, the letter from Einstein called for and sparked the beginning of U.S. government support for a program to build an atomic bomb, lest the Nazis build one first. Einstein did not speak publicly on the atomic bombing of Japan until a year afterward. A short article on the front page of the New York Times contained his view: "Prof. Albert Einstein... said that he was sure that President Roosevelt would have forbidden the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had he been alive and that it was probably carried out to end the Pacific war before Russia could participate." Einstein Deplores Use of Atom Bomb, New York Times, 8/19/46, pg. 1. Regarding the 1939 letter to Roosevelt, his biographer, Ronald Clark, has noted: "As far as his own life was concerned, one thing seemed quite clear. 'I made one great mistake in my life,' he said to Linus Pauling, who spent an hour with him on the morning of November 11, 1954, '...when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them.'". Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, pg. 620. LEO SZILARD (The first scientist to conceive of how an atomic bomb might be made - 1933) For many scientists, one motivation for developing the atomic bomb was to make sure Germany, well known for its scientific capabilities, did not get it first. This was true for Szilard, a Manhattan Project scientist. "In the spring of '45 it was clear that the war against Germany would soon end, and so I began to ask myself, 'What is the purpose of continuing the development of the bomb, and how would the bomb be used if the war with Japan has not ended by the time we have the first bombs?". Szilard quoted in Spencer Weart and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, ed., Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts, pg. 181. After Germany surrendered, Szilard attempted to meet with President Truman. Instead, he was given an appointment with Truman's Sec. of State to be, James Byrnes. In that meeting of May 28, 1945, Szilard told Byrnes that the atomic bomb should not be used on Japan. Szilard recommended, instead, coming to an international agreement on the control of atomic weapons before shocking other nations by their use: "I thought that it would be a mistake to disclose the existence of the bomb to the world before the government had made up its mind about how to handle the situation after the war. Using the bomb certainly would disclose that the bomb existed." According to Szilard, Byrnes was not interested in international control: "Byrnes... was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. Russian troops had moved into Hungary and Rumania, and Byrnes thought it would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw her troops from these countries, that Russia might be more manageable if impressed by American military might, and that a demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia." Szilard could see that he wasn't getting though to Byrnes; "I was concerned at this point that by demonstrating the bomb and using it in the war against Japan, we might start an atomic arms race between America and Russia which might end with the destruction of both countries.". Szilard quoted in Spencer Weart and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, ed., Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts, pg. 184. Two days later, Szilard met with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head scientist in the Manhattan Project. "I told Oppenheimer that I thought it would be a very serious mistake to use the bomb against the cities of Japan. Oppenheimer didn't share my view." "'Well, said Oppenheimer, 'don't you think that if we tell the Russians what we intend to do and then use the bomb in Japan, the Russians will understand it?'. 'They'll understand it only too well,' Szilard replied, no doubt with Byrnes's intentions in mind." Szilard quoted in Spencer Weart and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, ed., Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts, pg. 185; also William Lanouette, Genius In the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, pg. 266-267. THE FRANCK REPORT: POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS The race for the atomic bomb ended with the May 1945 surrender of Germany, the only other power capable of creating an atomic bomb in the near future. This led some Manhattan Project scientists in Chicago to become among the first to consider the long-term consequences of using the atomic bomb against Japan in World War II. Their report came to be known as the Franck Report, and included major contributions from Leo Szilard (referred to above). Although an attempt was made to give the report to Sec. of War Henry Stimson, it is unclear as to whether he ever received it. International control of nuclear weapons for the prevention of a larger nuclear war was the report's primary concern: "If we consider international agreement on total prevention of nuclear warfare as the paramount objective, and believe that it can be achieved, this kind of introduction of atomic weapons [on Japan] to the world may easily destroy all our chances of success. Russia... will be deeply shocked. It will be very difficult to persuade the world that a nation which was capable of secretly preparing and suddenly releasing a weapon, as indiscriminate as the rocket bomb and a thousand times more destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire of having such weapons abolished by international agreement.". The Franck Committee, which could not know that the Japanese government would approach Russia in July to try to end the war, compared the short-term possible saving of lives by using the bomb on Japan with the long-term possible massive loss of lives in a nuclear war: "...looking forward to an international agreement on prevention of nuclear warfare - the military advantages and the saving of American lives, achieved by the sudden use of atomic bombs against Japan, may be outweighed by the ensuing loss of confidence and wave of horror and repulsion, sweeping over the rest of the world...". The report questioned the ability of destroying Japanese cities with atomic bombs to bring surrender when destroying Japanese cities with conventional bombs had not done so. It recommended a demonstration of the atomic bomb for Japan in an unpopulated area. Facing the long-term consequences with Russia, the report stated prophetically: "If no international agreement is concluded immediately after the first demonstration, this will mean a flying start of an unlimited armaments race.". The report pointed out that the United States, with its highly concentrated urban areas, would become a prime target for nuclear weapons and concluded: "We believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an early, unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States would be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race of armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons.". Political and Social Problems, Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy files, folder # 76, National Archives (also contained in: Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed, 1987 edition, pg. 323-333). ELLIS ZACHARIAS (Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence) Based on a series of intelligence reports received in late 1944, Zacharias, long a student of Japan's people and culture, believed the Japan would soon be ripe for surrender if the proper approach were taken. For him, that approach was not as simple as bludgeoning Japanese cities: "...while Allied leaders were immediately inclined to support all innovations however bold and novel in the strictly military sphere, they frowned upon similar innovations in the sphere of diplomatic and psychological warfare." Ellis Zacharias, The A-Bomb Was Not Needed, United Nations World, Aug. 1949, pg. 29. Zacharias saw that there were diplomatic and religious (the status of the Emperor) elements that blocked the doves in Japan's government from making their move: "What prevented them from suing for peace or from bringing their plot into the open was their uncertainty on two scores. First, they wanted to know the meaning of unconditional surrender and the fate we planned for Japan after defeat. Second, they tried to obtain from us assurances that the Emperor could remain on the throne after surrender." Ellis Zacharias, Eighteen Words That Bagged Japan, Saturday Evening Post, 11/17/45, pg. 17. To resolve these issues, Zacharias developed several plans for secret negotiations with Japanese representatives; all were rejected by the U.S. government. Instead, a series of psychological warfare radio broadcasts by Zacharias was later approved. In the July 21, 1945 broadcast, Zacharias made an offer to Japan that stirred controversy in the U.S.: a surrender based on the Atlantic Charter. On July 25th, the U.S. intercepted a secret transmission from Japan's Foreign Minister (Togo) to their Ambassador to Moscow (Sato), who was trying to set up a meeting with the Soviets to negotiate an end to the war. The message referred to the Zacharias broadcast and stated: "...special attention should be paid to the fact that at this time the United States referred to the Atlantic Charter. As for Japan, it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter." U.S. Dept. of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, vol. 2, pg. 1260-1261. But on July 26th, the U.S., Great Britain, and China publicly issued the Potsdam Proclamation demanding "unconditional surrender" from Japan. Zacharias later commented on the favorable Japanese response to his broadcast: "But though we gained a victory, it was soon to be canceled out by the Potsdam Declaration and the way it was handled. "Instead of being a diplomatic instrument, transmitted through regular diplomatic channels and giving the Japanese a chance to answer, it was put on the radio as a propaganda instrument pure and simple. The whole maneuver, in fact, completely disregarded all essential psychological factors dealing with Japan." Zacharias continued, "The Potsdam Declaration, in short, wrecked everything we had been working for to prevent further bloodshed... "Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia. "Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb. "I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds." Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21. GENERAL CARL "TOOEY" SPAATZ (In charge of Air Force operations in the Pacific) General Spaatz was the person who received the order for the Air Force to "deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945..."(Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pg. 308). In a 1964 interview, Spaatz explained: "The dropping of the atomic bomb was done by a military man under military orders. We're supposed to carry out orders and not question them." In the same interview, Spaatz referred to the Japanese military's plan to get better peace terms, and he gave an alternative to the atomic bombings: "If we were to go ahead with the plans for a conventional invasion with ground and naval forces, I believe the Japanese thought that they could inflict very heavy casualties on us and possibly as a result get better surrender terms. On the other hand if they knew or were told that no invasion would take place [and] that bombing would continue until the surrender, why I think the surrender would have taken place just about the same time." (Herbert Feis Papers, Box 103, N.B.C. Interviews, Carl Spaatz interview by Len Giovannitti, Library of Congress). BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE (The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors) "...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs." Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England

I can only wait! (hito, are you hearing?)

My observations were solely on the original posts. I have (regrettably!) not been to any of the remarked destinations, nor am booked to be.

One is unable to interpret the untargeted hostility in your post. Could you elaborate?

I have never heard it called that.

I think axiom means he did not go to Point 202 during his 2010 and 2011 trips to Rio.

I know. Silly me!

P.S. With all the silliness I forgot to say what I was hoping for when I first saw this thread's title: some sizzling Asian scrotum. Ah well.

How humiliating!

...prefer George over Barry?

Not bad, for right-wing humor...

Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties. She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all. One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cut-glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a condom! When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat. The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist. "Miss Beatrice," he said, "I wonder if you would tell me about this?" pointing to the bowl. "Oh, yes," she replied, "Isn't it wonderful? I was walking through the Park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease." http://www.you-can-be-funny.com/Organ-Jokes.html

If the purpose of myths is to make orderly sense of the world, isn’t it funny that the very first question the Judeo-Christian mythology in Genesis sets out to explain- after the origins of the Creation itself- is how mankind fell from grace? In effect, “How did things get to be so bad?” “Why is life so hard?” From a modern perspective, the early farming civilizations that gave us Genesis enjoyed a slow-paced life with meaningful community bonds, a deeply-felt connection with the environment, and a rich array of festivals and folklore which reassured each member of an orderly and predictable universe, and their place in it. Why did the Ancients feel the need to explain to each other how they had lost a way of life so much easier and more fulfilling than the one they already had? Maybe it’s because life in pre-agricultural times was easier. Let’s face it: working the land is more difficult than gathering up nature’s bounty as you find it. The advent of agriculture produced storable surpluses for the first time in history, and in some ways that made survival more stable, less tenuous, less vulnerable. On the other hand, the rise of agriculture prohibited the wandering life of hunting and gathering, and with sedentary populations came new problems. Increasing population density, especially without adequate sanitation, invited more frequent and devastating spread of disease, as well as increased resource competition. Worse still, it necessitated a way of organizing the growing mass of humanity, and resolving conflicts. In short, it grew more extensive, sophisticated apparati for government. True, oppression of one people by another was not unknown in the pre-agricultural era, but once populations became geographically fixed, and land apportioned into parcels with yields predictable, auditable, and siezable by the State, that’s when tyranny could first operate on a large scale, and project itself over distances. All the "great" oppressive regimes of the ancient world were grain-based military-agricultural combines: Persia, China, Rome, Egypt, Sparta. In fact, State power was so invested in those particular crops most legible to State management and attainability (Rome- wheat; China- rice, etc) that their economies became dominated by their respective most-easily administrated grain, even though "monocropping" (a hyperbolically used term) tended to deplete the soil, promote crop-specific diseases and pests, and made the overall economy more vulnerable to unfavorable environmental conditions like droughts or floods. In tandem with the growth of large-scale government was large-scale commerce, and the evolution of money and taxation. While the hunting/gathering man may have paid tributes and made sacrifices of a portion of his food stocks, the surpluses of agriculture, and the above factors (State legibility) set up Agricultural Man to sacrifice a much larger fraction of the fruits of his labor in the form of taxes. mosaic of Roman farmers, Sicily So yeah, it’s not so difficult to see why early agricultural peoples may have looked back on the majority experience of human (pre)history with envy, and wondered how they got tossed out of the Garden of Eden. Green Eggs and Ham is an alternative story of Man’s expulsion from paradise. It’s one where Man isn’t thrown out by a vengeful Father-figure God, but rather enticed out by a Faustian Stranger God. Act I is very short, and introduces us to the opposing forces, Sam I Am and the unnamed Everyman, who advocate for the agricultural/ pastoral vs. hunting/gathering ways of life, respectively. Sam I Am is a pretty easy allegory to crack, referring as it does to Exodus 3:14. God’s name is “I AM”, so Sam is God, in a manner of thinking. Is he omnipotent? Well, he does get his way in the end. Is he the Divine Creator? Seuss leaves that unaddressed, but I think it is safe to say he is the champion of the agricultural way of life, just as the God of the Old Testament is: giving laws, ruling over sedentary populations, intervening with the movement of armies, influencing kings, etc. These things aren’t part of a forager’s world; these are the accessories of grain-powered empires in an agricultural world. Sam’s mission in life is to force green eggs and ham onto an unsuspecting Everyman. Why green eggs and ham? Ham and eggs is the traditional “farmer’s breakfast”; the ultimate icon of the agricultural life. And green? Do you really need me to spell it out for you? Manipulated fiat currencies are the hidden trap of any large-scale political-economic system. Rome’s history with currency debasement is particularly well-documented, but by no means unique. By page 10, Sam drops the bomb, “Do you like green eggs and ham?” And we’re off to Act II. Act II is the conflict. Sam persists, waving the green eggs and ham under Everyman’s nose. At each turn, Everyman protests. “I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham.” But Sam is persistent and undaunted. The allure of the agricultural world must have seemed irresistible to many: population centers with an abundance of potential mates, luxury items, and storable food surpluses to include fermented drinks! As a bonus, the development of sturdier, more permanent architecture let Agricultural Man house all his new stuff in a place much more comfortable from the elements! How fabulous it must have all seemed! Who would want to wander around in the forest, getting rained on, when a life of such opulent accumulation awaited down in the valley? On the other hand, an agricultural economy is very preoccupied with manpower. “Land without men to work it is a wilderness” , as the saying goes. For most of the Agricultural Era, controlling populations was more important to political and economic power than controlling land itself. That makes every member of society a commodity to be consumed. The grain empires instituted frequently oppressive laws to keep the population immobile, and drew much of its manpower from the slave trade, debt-bondage, conscription, and corvée labor. Green eggs and ham suddenly ain’t so attractive any more. Further, the higher population density invited plagues and epidemics on an unprecedented scale. On the whole, Everyman’s reluctance to partake of the green eggs and ham seems entirely reasonable. Act II is a bit overplayed, but some of the word choices are interesting. “I do not like them in a house.” - a rejection of the sedentary life. “I would not eat them in a box.” ...containers being a symbol of storage- again getting to the issue of storable surpluses, as well as the ethos of accumulation, which is far more materialistic than one’s hunter/gatherer forebears who had to carry everything they owned. At the end of Act II, we get to “Would you, could you eat them in a car?” and later on a train. These vehicles are both a reference to technologies only possible with a sedentary population, with surplus resources to support learning and engineering. These vehicles also refer to the significance of distance for ancient grain-based economies. Overland transport of goods in carts drawn by animals has a very easily-calculated profit point: as soon as the cost of feeding the animal and driver exceeds the value of the goods being transported, the crop is no longer profitable. Thus, grain-based empires were very constrained by geographic factors, which acted as a sort of friction on commerce. The greatest agricultural empires owed their success to the development of distance-destroying technologies, such as all-weather roads, maritime technology and warfare to protect maritime trade routes, inland canals and waterways, and (much later) railways. Each of these has their allure, as well as their drawbacks, but our Everyman still refuses the green eggs and ham. Act II culminates in a sort of upheaval. Sam subjects Everyman to increasingly chaotic situations, putting him in a car, or on top of a train rushing through a dark tunnel, all the while incessantly pressuring him to partake of the green eggs and ham. Note, Sam is always the provocateuer, the proactive; while the hunter/gatherer Everyman is passive. Finally, they plunge off a cliff into the ocean- a sort of allegorical collapse of order. It’s is again the classic Order Out of Chaos strategy of rule, as explored in detail by Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine. Everyman, floating in the water with Sam I Am finally breaks down, leading us in to Act III. This is where it gets ugly. Where the book crosses over from story to agro-industrial Statist propaganda. Green Eggs and Ham ends the same way 1984 does: with a tearful Winston Smith smiling in joyful defeat, supine at the feet of an icon of the all-powerful State. Every last vestige of resistance has been stamped out of him by an overwhelmingly-resourced system. Sam I Am’s incessant harassment has achieved its objective: Everyman’s complete and uncompromising submission. The final scene closes with our Everyman now willingly taking the platter of green eggs and ham from Sam. He is castrated and domesticated. The system has its newest slave. Ugh. Vomit. How old are kids when they read this? Four? Five? It’s so young to be telling them “Resistance if Futile”, isn’t it? Some day (I probably won’t live to see it), the injustices of a highly-centralized agro-industrial system will face some harsh reappraisal. Our charmed but also enslaved life has for centuries been in a dialectic of ever-increasing centralization, complete with the corruption and loss of liberty that always implies. Green eggs and ham are the pathway to slavery, taxes, fiat money, war, terrorism and Facebook. I have no doubt Mankind will reach a tipping point when we will start to see these things for what they are. When that day comes, Green Eggs and Ham will be rewritten. Our black-hatted Everyman will wrest the plate of green eggs and ham away from Sam and smash it on the floor. Then he’ll drive the twerpy would-be oppressor from his spaces forever, and it will be no less significant than the dawn of the Agricultural Era. Green eggs and ham will pass forever from history’s menu, to be supplanted with nuts and berries on a plate of GOLD! Posted by reviewer "Brian's ghost" at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23772.Green_Eggs_and_Ham

ROFL "...P.D.Q. Bach's famous Toot Suite for Calliope or Organ, Four Hands, here performed by the famous four-handed organist Emanuel Pedal..." Prof. Peter Schickele