N.R.A. Calls for Armed Guards in Schools to Deter Violence

WASHINGTON — After a weeklong silence since the Connecticut school shootings, the National Rifle Association on Friday called for a program to arm and train guards in schools as the best way to protect children from gun violence. The group blamed video games, the news media and lax law enforcement – but not guns – for a recent rash of mass shootings.

So, how would I kill people with my video games?  First, I would explain to them the rules of “Civilization” and once they are lulled into a coma, I could repeatedly stab them with the CD.  It probably would take three months.

Actually, I believe my old table games might be deadlier.  If I hone the edge of my Monopoly board, I could try using it like a Samurai sword.  One paper cut on the jugular, and you could start adding up the body count.   I admit: it is unlikely.  No, the real lethality of Monopoly would be getting my victims to swallow the hotels and houses.  Of course, I would have to coax them at gunpoint.

The Human Resources Cathecism…

If there are any theologians among us, the following job may be for you….

“We are introducing a new position into our teams, the Communications Planner. This Director-level position works within client teams to develop holistic, marketing and media discipline agnostic, cross-channel and consumer-centric plans.”

I imagine that heretics will also be disciplined.

Kreme de la Kremlin

Vladimir Putin is feeling sentimental today. It is the 95rd anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police. In honor of this special day, 95 journalists will be assassinated. (To make that quota, the corpse pile will have to include four movie critics and seven cooking columnists; Russia is running out of journalists.)

We tend to think of Lenin as a misunderstood old dear, just a badly tailored Edmund Gwenn. Of course, that is only because we are comparing him to Stalin. In fact, Lenin wasn’t that old, a mere 47 at the time of the November Revolution. (Now, don’t you feel like an under-achiever.) Nor was he remotely lovable. Although he was not a Stalinoid monster, Lenin was a certifiable creep. He was an obsessed, remorseless tyrant who actually read calculus books for fun. Would you be any less dead if Lenin shot you for the sake of dialectic materialism than if Stalin shot you because it was his hobby?

So, it was not surprising that Lenin would establish a secret police just six weeks after the November Revolution. (So much for the honeymoon.) The first head of the Cheka was Felix Dzerzhinsky who was unique among the Bolshevik aristocracy in that he really was an aristocrat. Anyone who slighted him at a soiree or beat him at tennis probably did not live to regret it. Dzerzhinsky may have betrayed his class but not his tastes. In the midst of revolution and civil war, Dzerzhinsky requisitioned a Rolls-Royce for his personal use. It should be noted that his timing was as impeccable as his style. He died of heart attack in 1926, and so avoided a less natural cause of death from Stalin.

In organizing the Cheka, Lenin was just observiing a hallowed Russian tradition. Since Ivan the Terrible, the Tsars had relied on secret police as well. Indeed, Ivan set the standard. His death squads, the Oprichniki, had a very distinctive insignia: the severed head of a dog on their saddles. The dog’s head presumably would sniff out treason. Ivan distrusted his nobles, and the Oprichniki eliminated the causes of his anxiety. Of course, even the Oprichniki found that Ivan could be a little too whimsical. There is a story of a father-and-son team who had risen high in the Oprichniki hierarchy. While at a feast, Ivan thought of a test of loyalty for entertainment. The son was ordered to strangle the father. Before the guests, the son did as he was ordered. Then Ivan ordered the son to be executed; after all, how could Ivan trust anyone who would kill his father?

At least, subsequent Tsars and their secret police refrained from decapitating dogs for decor. (However, Faberge could have made some wonderful facsimiles.) In the last decades of the Russian Empire, the secret police was known as the Okhrana. Their chief concern was suppressing the growing radical movement. They proved so successful at infiltrating revolutionaries groups that Okhrana agents actually were managing many of the revolutionary plots. In 1911, Okhrana oversaw the assassination of the Russian Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin. A political moderate, at least by Russian standards, Stolypin’s attempts at reforms outraged the conservatives. So, Okhrana manipulated a thoroughly infiltrated radical group to kill him. The actual assassin was a genuine revolutionary but his supervisor and his supervisor’s supervisor were all on the Okhrana payroll. It was a perfect Okhrana coup: the reactionaries kill the moderate and frame the radicals.

Yes, the Okhrana even infiltrated the Bolsheviks. One of their double agents was a young Georgian who called himself Stalin. We can surmise that Stalin only gave up the names of the people he didn’t like. Of course, that could have been enough to crowd Siberia.

Oprichniki, Okrana, Cheka, KGB…These are the happy memories that Vladimir Putin is enjoying today. And who says that you can’t bring back the good old days?

To his disappoint, Theodore Roosevelt only received one Nobel Prize on this day in 1905.  The superb physical specimen was prepared to share the Nobel in Medicine with Robert Koch, but the President felt cheated of the Literature Prize.  He was as readable and far more pronounceable than Henryk Sienkiewicz.  However, those inexplicable Scandinavians only awarded him the Peace Prize, their tribute for his diplomacy in ending the Russo-Japanese War.

But just how diplomatic was Teddy?  Here is my estimation of the negotiations.

Teddy to the Russians:  Although you are alcoholic cretins, even you must noticed that you’ve lost the war.  My God, if Harvard’s football team was half as pathetic, the Alumni Association would have executed the players.  Your peasants aren’t exactly Ivy Leaguers but if they ever catch on….I think that you should end the war before the Japanese turn the Kremlin into a pagoda.

Teddy to the Japanese:  You gentlemen have been a bit unsporting.  Once you thrash your opponents, it seems a little much to disembowel them.  I personally can’t fault your exuberance but the British are such sticklers for etiquette.  I don’t think that they will invite you to the 1908 Olympics.  They worry about you beheading the competing polo ponies.  Now, if you are content to take all of Korea and some hegemony in Manchuria, I think that we can get you into the better clubs.  Maybe even a marriage into the British royal family.

p.s.  And this was the war:  http://www.dixonvalve.com/files/publications/articles/1340196575Japan%20the%20Victor.pdf

December 9, 1868:  Birth Announcements in Breslau, Prussia

Frau Haber died in childbirth, sparing herself a very unpleasant acquaintance.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, the infant would not take hint.  Fritz (1868-1934) would grow up to achieve the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  His synthesis of ammonia was ostensibly for use in fertilizer–as the Nobel Committee gullibly commended him; however, its chief application was for high explosives.  There is a reason why terrorists like to buy large amounts of ammonia-rich fertilizer.  Herr Haber does have his admirers.  Indeed, without Haber’s ammonia synthesis, Imperial Germany would have run out of artillery shells before the end of 1914.  World War I might have been known as the “90 Day War.”

Of course, you could say that Haber’s work was misused by the military.  However, ammonia synthesis was not the limit of Haber’s genius.  He was also the pioneer of poison gas, creating chlorine gas in 1915.  There is little likelihood of its pacifist intent.  Indeed, Haber supervised its “introduction”  on French troops at Ypres.  The Kaiser was so impressed that he made Haber a captain in the imperial army.  Haber’s wife was not as enthusiastic.  Horrified by Haber’s work, she killed herself.  Haber didn’t bother attending her funeral.  He was off to the Eastern Front to introduce chlorine gas to the Russians.

Despite Haber’s genius, Germany did not win the war.  So he returned to the pursuit of pure, disinterested, amoral science.  In 1926 Haber invented a fumigant gas known as Zyklon B.   Its chief use was from 1942 to 1945 in a number of German resorts.  Haber’s relatives would have been guests there and possibly had the therapeutic  benefits of the gas.  (It arrests the aging process.)

Unfortunately for Haber, the Fuhrer was not as grateful as the Kaiser.  Since none of Haber’s works included a method to regenerate a foreskin or mutate Aryan genes, the scientist was distinctly unwelcome in Nazi Germany.  Haber would have gladly organized “Jews for Hitler” but the Nazis did have a few standards. Fritz Haber had to leave the Third Reich.  The Nobel Laureate received offers of sanctuary and employment from laboratories and universities around the world.  Ignoring its killed alumni, Cambridge University enticed him to come; but Haber was miserable.  If anything could break his heart, it was Germany’s rejection of him.  Haber left for Switzerland, just a few mountains away from his beloved militarism and jackboots, and there he died in 1934.

Let us hope that he is now in a Reich where the Bunsen Burners never run out of fuel.

And for a more likable person: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/12/09/december-9th-a-man-of-dubious-distinction/

For the past five years I have been writing a history column for BOSS magazine.  And I have yet to run out of history.  In fact, here is my latest column-on The Spanish-American War:

http://issuu.com/dixonvalve/docs/1354198938bosswinter2012/28

Spain made a perfect enemy.  The government was repressive and vile, the country was weak, and it had something worth stealing.  Really, the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico were too tempting not to conquer.  We were even an improvement over the Spanish.

Yes, we could also have extorted the Virgin Islands from Denmark, but even the Hearst Newspapers would have had a difficult time conjuring stories about Danish atrocities.  “Defenseless Natives Expected to Eat Herring.”  “Children Taught to Spell Kierkegaard.”  No, we saved ourselves the embarrassment and just bought the damn islands.

In the course of a correspondence, a journalist told me that I was loquacious and bemusing.  Only half of her Ivy League education was wasted; she does know the meaning of “loquacious.”  Of course, I was too polite (or craven) to correct her; besides, in ten years or so, she may yet be right about bemusing.  But in the meantime….

What is the definition of “bemuse”:

a.  To confuse or baffle

b.  To  reflect on the humor of a situation

c.  To inspire Rimsky-Korsakov to compose the music for “The Green Hornet”

For the last three hundred years, the dictionary has insisted that the answer is “a”.  However, in the next edition the answer is likely to be “b.”  Language is inherently democratic.  If the majority of people misuses a word, the error becomes the correct definition.  Did you “voice” in the last election?  No, you voted–because a 15th century clerk confused the Latin words “vox” (voice) and “votium (vow), and the mistake proved popular.

And now bemuse is evolving into a synonym for amuse.  It is an effortless error.  Just by appearance, the word looks like “be amused.”  And, ironically, when correctly used, bemuse is still easy to mistake.  In today’s New York Times, a story described a midwesterner as “bemused by the situation in Washington.”  So Washington is baffling, the baffling can be ridiculous, and the ridiculous can be funny.  Ma and Pa Kettle are rarely confused with Noel Coward, yet we just transmuted a puzzled bumpkin into a wry cynic.

It is all quite bemusing.

And when we demean meaning, are we making it kinder?

When the Old Hollywood tampered with the classics, it was to simplify and cheer them up.  Hamlet and Ophelia lived happily ever after!  Now, however, literature can’t be complicated enough for films.  Perhaps you could show the cold, hungry servants in “Pride and Prejudice.”  That would be historically accurate–but that  is an insufficient challenge to the director.  No, how about recreating “Pride and Prejudice” as if Emily Bronte had written it. You could have a bedraggled, blowzy Elizabeth Bennet showing her disapproval of burly Mr. Darcy by beating to death a cow.  If you think that I am joking, then you must have missed the 2005 film with Keira Knightley.  (The bovinicide may be my slight exaggeration.)

The idea of swapping authors turned out to be trend–or at least a contractual demand by Ms. Knightley.  She is now starring as “Anna Karenina”–at least the version that Anton Chekhov and Samuel Beckett would have written.  In this version, the Revolution is imminent and the story is set on a stage.  And here is a scene…

Anna:  Shall we make passionate love or just stare at the samovar?

Vronsky:  I wonder who will kill us first: the peasants or the audience.

Boris Pasternak:  This actually is how I wrote “Doctor Zhivago.”

Anna:  Yes, the movie was more interesting than your book.

Boris:  I could say the same about the first five versions of “Anna Karenina”.

Vronsky:  But not this one!

Boris:  But not this one….

Anna:  Let’s stare at the samovar.

Now we have to worry about the next transauthor interpretation.  How about John Le Carre’s “Wind in the Willows”?  Who is the Mole in MI6?  Since this is LeCarre, it probably is everyone but Mr. Mole.  (No, we can still trust Mr. Toad; he never learned anything at Cambridge.)  But there is not really a good role here for Ms. Knightley, although she certainly could pass herself off as one of the willows.

However, I can see her as one of the repressed daughters in an Edwardian family, eager to partake of the sensuous delights allowed her rakehell brother.  In fact, we are overdue for the D.H. Lawrence version of “Peter Rabbit”.

I donated blood today.  When asked if I had syphilis or gonorrhea, I was actually flattered.  I am at that stage of life when all my appendages may be a bit arthritic.  Then there were the demographic questions.  I was asked my race.  I identified myself as “Caucasian unless you are really, really Anti-Semitic.”  Mel Gibson says we are “sorta Asiatic.”  You can imagine Genghis Cohen ransacking the dim sums of China.

My irreverence did not seem to disqualify me as a donor.  However, I may have been deliberately consigned to the clumsiest member of Life Source,  My leech must have been a graduate of the Mengele School of Acupuncture.  Perhaps I was lucky that she could find my left arm.  While I am not familiar with the rules of Mumbly Peg, I apparently was the board. I don’t know what St. Sebastian said during his blood donation, but I was disappointingly trite.  At the point where I could no longer ignore the excavation in my arm, I exclaimed, “Ouch.”

There goes my reputation for wit.  “Ouch” was the best I could offer?  Not, “You may be rushing the autopsy” or “I am ready to sign the confession” or “Let me know when you reach China”  or “Is this the third act of Julius Caesar?”  I didn’t even think of a traditional American response of swearing and punching her out.  No, I betrayed my image, profession and country with a tediously polite “Ouch.”

Fortunately, I am not Japanese; so this is not a suicide note.  I will endure my disgrace by wolfing down what is left of the Halloween candy.

And let’s remember the historic significance of this day:

Veterans Day

Florida election officials concede that there may have some degree of error in disqualifying all the state’s Afro-American voters.  A spokesman for the Governor agreed that all three million people probably weren’t convicted felons, and that having an overdue book from the library is rarely a felony.  There was further doubt that all three million Afro-Americans would simultaneously have taken out a copy of “Gone With the Wind.”  The governor office’s will look into the problem.

There also were electoral problems for the state’s Hispanic community.  Although the ballots were bilingual, the second language turned out to be Middle English.  When asked if the Governor’s office had confused Chaucer with Cervantes, the official response was “As if a real American would care?”  Hispanic-Americans were further confronted with onerous I.D. requirements.  As proof of residency, prospective voters were asked to show land grants from Charles V.

Once again, voters in Miami Beach had problems with the design of the ballots.  Election officials had no idea why this year’s ballots were shaped like swastikas.  “Maybe we were trying to save on paper.  You’d think those people would appreciate being stingy.”

Governor Romney is predicted to receive 200 percent of Florida’s vote.

Meanwhile in Ohio, in accordance with the Secretary of State’s most recent ruling, certain voters may be required to prove their identity by singing “Camptown Races”.

Hello, I’m Bob Schieffer and I welcome you to the third and last of our presidential debates.  Tonight our topic is Foreign Policy.  My first question for the candidates is this:  “What is America’s role in the world?”

We will start with Governor Romney.

Romney:  I want to agree with the accomplishments of this administration because they were all my ideas in the first place.  Killing Osama, the Marshall Plan, I am glad that I could help.  But now let’s talk about the President’s failures.  I have met bellhops around the world… Anne kids me about slumming, but it really makes them feel better especially after she has slapped them…And I have been seriously alarmed by the worldwide contempt for our current tax policies.  I remember a  maid in Paris–the George V, of course–just sobbing, ‘How can America be so ungrateful and cruel to its job creators?”  I am pretty sure that was what she was saying in French.  And I have heard the same heartfelt sentiment in Chinese, Indian and Swiss.

At the same time in these last four years, we have seen the rise of Islam in the Middle East.  Egypt and Iran are now Moslem countries.  How could you have let this happen, Mr. President.  I can promise you that when I am President, I will show my support for Israel by naming a new aircraft carrier for Bea Arthur.

We also have to stand up to China, and we can start–my fellow Americans–by boycotting P.F. Chang’s or at least not leaving tips.

Iran is our greatest threat, so I intend to acquire the country in a leveraged buyout and drive it into bankruptcy.  Bain Capital can do the same thing as Alexander the Great, and without the homosexual stuff.

Obama:  I would list the successes of this administration but apparently I was plagiarizing Governor Romney.  So let me tell you the foreign policy of our second term.  I will be doing an apology tour  for everything that he just said.