World War I in Photos

Kyle sent me this cool link to Atlantic's WWI in photos. I thought it was one set at first, but it's 10 sets and they're currently on 4 of 10.  The technology set is particularly cool.  I like the bicycle-powered generator.  Those 38cm shells are amazing with the solider standing next to one.  And I'm going to sneak up on the neighbors in a false horse.

The pictures are amazing and some, like the Italian howitzer, look like something out of steampunk or a graphic novel.

Hitler's Furies

Hitler's Furies was interesting.  I guess I've always assumed women were complicit in the holocaust (and not in the sexploitation way like Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS).  It seems to me you can't run a genocide without the full participation of the culture, at least in the 1940s (I think governments have only gotten more skilled at deceit).

Wendy Lower's book tries to cover that aspect of the war, but eventually falls short.  She says herself that there's a lot working against her.  Societal expectations that women weren't truly involved in the killings, or ever involved in killings of any sort, particularly children.  Modified histories by individuals keen to cover their involvement or who still believe the Nazis were in the right, but know history is against them.  Time - some of those she interviewed died during her research period and World War II and even the post-war trials are now far in the past.  And a variety of rationales and silence that have been perfected over the decades, from "I was just doing my job" to "My dead husband did it and I was trying to protect him with my original testimony" to "I didn't know that's what they were doing next door."  The result is that she has a very small set of use cases to work from and Lower has to rely on more of a conjecture approach, pondering how many other women might have been involved based on modern crime statistics, Nazi-era internalization of Jews as less than human, psychology, and what little she does have as indicative of mothers, wives, nurses, administrators, and guards.  It falls a bit thin when it comes to facts and first person accounts, and it doesn't help that her end notes are truly at the end without reference within the text.  I found myself wondering whether I should have checked out two copies of the book so I could keep one open to the back as I read along.

Still, some parts stuck out as particularly horrifying.

On page 86, Lower details how the disposed bodies were everywhere.  That not knowing wasn't necessarily a plausible excuse because you could smell decomposing bodies when you picnicked.  Your feet would sink into ad hoc graves.  And road gravel was sometimes loose because bodies were buried in the middle of the road.  "The sites of mass murder were not in out-of-the-way places; rather, they often encroached on the shortcuts and paths that connected towns."

On page 93 and elsewhere she accounts that whole sections of towns were cleared out, such as 10,000 (out of a town population of 15,000) were murdered in Novogorod Volynsk, and that Germans would recount pillaging in neighborhoods left vacant but still littered with Hebrew texts and personal belongings.  The visual of the texts scattered on the floors is a powerful knowing that the owners wouldn't leave them there unless they had no other choice.

The story of one woman feeding starving children who had escaped from a boxcar only to subsequently walk them to a mass killing pit and personally shoot them in the head one by one while they cried isn't an image I'm likely to forget.  And to leverage feeding them as a sympathetic instance in a trial rather than as an indicator of someone particularly cruel or psychotic (to feed them acknowledges them as human in my opinion, but then again I was never in Nazi-era Germany) speaks to the how deeply society was skewed.

There are significant portions dedicated to the aspects of the Holocaust run by those who weren't soldiers as those were more likely roles for women.  Administrators who handled the paperwork.  Women comforted the men who couldn't handle the killing and got them going again. Nurses potentially euthanized German soldiers injured on the Eastern Front (rumored under Action T4 - see Opposition).  And "The first Nazi mass murderess was not the concentration camp guard but the nurse.  Of all the female professionals, she was the deadliest.  Centrally planned mass killing operations began neither in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau nor in the mass shooting sites of Ukraine; they began instead in the hospitals of the Reich.  The first methods were the sleeping pill, the hypodermic needle, and starvation.  The first victims were children.  During the war, nurses gave thousands of deformed babies and disabled adolescents overdoes of barbiturates, lethal injections of morphine, and denied them food and water." (120).  Lower states elsewhere that midwifery was a role of power, and midwives could condemn a child as non-Aryan, resulting in the death of the child and potentially the mother, based on an assessment of the features sometimes tinged with personal bias.  The Child Euthanasia entry on Wikipedia covers many of the details including financial remuneration for reporting a child.

I found the Nazi mottoes and linguistic constructions Lower cites more frightening than Orwellian mottos and those from The Circle:

• "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" - children, kitchen, and church (30)
• "Juden Kaput!" Which gave me the willies.  Turning that phrase into a slogan, including for women's rallies, sums up the mindset.
• Ostrausch - the intoxication of the East (164) - the idea that going to the East, Poland and Ukraine, was akin to the wild west of the US and gave one a euphoria that led to a certain hedonism, wildness, and that even nobility.

One can smell a bit of Orwell's 1984 in the language, and if you look back at possible origins of his Newspeak (Wikipedia): "The Principles of Newspeak" is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, the Party's minimalist artificial language meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible". (For linguistic theories about how language may direct thought, see the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.) Note also the possible influence of the German book LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii, published in 1947, which details how the Nazis controlled society by controlling language.

I'm going to end on the stupidest thing - in my opinion - I read in Hitler's Furies, because it speaks to what Lower was up against in trying to research the book and craft an idea of women's role in genocide.  Good historical work is often built on the accumulation of sound theory as historians leverage the ideas of each other and other disciplines and first person narrative.  Because so much of the first person narrative is potentially lies or obfuscation, Lower relies more heavily on the other aspects.  Trying to analyze the role of women in the Nazi regime obviously abuts the fields of criminality and psychology and those studies are full of a preponderance of nonsense about women as mothers, sex fiends, wives, and more. Before you can craft a meaningful story about women's roles in The Holocaust, you have to overcome meaningless statements like, "Another dubious theory posits that women have committed more crimes than have been documented, given that women are "naturally deceitful" and secretive.  The "evidence" provided is women's skill at concealing menstruation and faking orgasms (158)."  And yet those were attitudes that were believed and applied during the era and therefore important to acknowledge, not as fact, but as perception of fact that was acted upon by courts and doctors and actively leveraged by women themselves when faced with punishment.

A good book in many parts, just not executed well as a whole.

Medieval Sex

I shared this article with Kyle already.  How Medieval People Decided Whether Sex Was Acceptable (or not) - I don't think the "or not" was absolutely necessary - by Rose Eveleth over at Smithsonian.com.

This pretty much sums it up:
"Even the children born of sex during a period where the couple should have abstained — mainly based on the Church’s liturgical calendar and on the wife’s reproductive cycle — were to be considered bastards."

And a great link to a flowchart at the History Blog.  Remember to wash afterwards!
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/flowchart.png

A bit more postpourri

I read a good book, which I think I'll talk about tomorrow.  And I went back to work, which was pretty productive given I was already done with all my email and the short week has most people fairly busy and I'm coming off two release cycles.  And we had our annual New Year's party which involved the least amount of cards/poker ever and was more a few board games and watching the children wrestle in the frontroom while Kyle told them it wasn't allowed.  Instead, I'll list a few things I've been reading.  Only a few, because I've been spamming the hell out of Kyle with things I find interesting on Zite, the Eagan Patch crime section, and a variety of other locations.

• Making waffles out of leftover Thanksgiving stuffing.  Something I would have never thought to do but which is an ingenious use of leftovers.  Gravy AND maple syrup - decadent.
• Indigenous Native American Food of the Southwest - Part I and Part II.  I wish I had known about some of the restaurants that did locally sourced food when I was last down there.
• Skinny orange chicken - I was also reading about velveting meat, but that just seems like extra calories.  This looks pretty straight forward for something I like to eat.
• 22 recipes under 500 calories.  I have to try pumpkin lasagna.  Then I have to modify it to try butternut squash lasagna.  I can find the other 21 or 22 recipes on that page.  Maybe it doesn't like my browser.  But the pumpkin lasagna alone is worth my time.
• The 124 United States that could have been - even in that world, RAGBRAI would have been just as long.
• 15 ways to exercise in under 5 minutes - basically the 7 minute exercise set, but with demonstration videos in case, like me, you sometimes don't know what the hell they're trying to describe.
• 12 maps that changed the world - the map of the 124 states is not among them.
• 10 ways to be happier - I agree with them.  Live close to work and plan your next bicycling vacation.  Helps keep me happy.
• The Forgotten Souls of London's Women of the Night - Amazing little bit of history Justinian  pointed me at.  Which led me to...
• Lost Frescoes of the Maginot Line - also wonderfully interesting.

Tempting Job Opportunities

I almost wish I'd known what Secretary Hand was before today, because I think this job listing from the Center for Early Modern History at the U of MN looks interesting.  I came very close to doing my master's thesis on XML markup instead of dystopias, and the rest of the listing is primarily tech (CMS), management, and project management.  All skills where I exhibit at least some competence.  Except for those pesky parts about paleography. I'm embarrassed I didn't know what secretary hand was after many years as a Tudor/Stuart history major.  Particularly as I read all sorts of documents no doubt translated from secretary hand originals.  The Wikipedia article even mentions a shift during the reign of Henry VII, which is where I focused most of my studies.

There are some neat tutorials out there that didn't exist when I was a college student, like this one from The National Archives and this basic Scottish secretary hand tutorial.  I hope someone kicks themselves some day for not knowing they should have learned NodeJS to read some of what I produced.  Who am I kidding.  They'll probably hire some poor intern to decipher bad Visual Basic Secret Santa Code.

<listing>

EMMO Project Manager, Folger Shakespeare Library The Folger Shakespeare Library seeks an energetic and experienced Project Manager for a 3-year IMLS grant-funded project, Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO). The PM will work closely with the Curator of Manuscripts and associated staff on the planning, implementation and assessment of EMMO, a searchable database of transcribed and digitized early modern manuscript texts. The PM will: assist in the development and implementation of workflows for the execution of project activities; maintain project and content management systems for the project; manage and monitor the grant budget; and contribute to the testing, evaluation, and improvement of the transcription and tagging environment. Working closely with two grant-funded paleographers, the PM will also participate in the creation and sustaining of a community of volunteer transcribers.

 The ideal candidate will have an advanced subject degree in early modern English literature or history and an MLS, with training in early modern English paleography preferred. This position requires project management experience, preferably in a research library or museum setting. Experience with XML and project and content management systems, such as Drupal, and the ability to work in a collaborative, flexible, and creative environment, are necessary. Strong organizational skills, budget management experience, and outstanding communication skills are required. Preference will be given to candidates with experience in crowd-sourcing, scholarly textual editing, and the transcription of manuscripts in English secretary and other early modern hands. Interested individuals should email cover letter and resume to: Folger Shakespeare Library, EOE For details about the project, see the Folger research blog, The Collation: http://collation.folger.edu/2013/11/emmo-early-modern-manuscripts-online/.

</listing>

Eryn and I go to Denver and Sidney...Her Report, 2 Years Later

I found this on my iPad today when I was taking notes.  I noticed there were a few things that were something like 767 days old.  That's weird to see.  Makes it seem like it happened forever ago.  One of the documents was Eryn's homework for her teacher explaining what we had done on our vacation to Denver and then driving her Great Grandma back to Sidney.  She did a pretty good job for typing on an iPad on a train in the middle of the night with an ear ache when she was barely eight.

Five days ago,my Dad and I flew to Denver,Colorado.  We met my grandma, grandpa and great grandma at the hotel La Quinta once we got in Denver.  We took a shuttle to get to get to the hotel.  I walked my great grandma's dog and after we went to Oskar Blues for lunch.  After that my Dad tried to go on a beer tour at a place called the tasty weasel but you could not go on tours on Easter.  The next day my dad got to go on the beer tour  at Great Divide.  I liked to watch the bottling machine then we went to Casa Bonita for lunch. I got a flasher when we where there.  We also saw divers at Casa Bonita. 

The next day we said bye to my grandma and grandpa we drove, and drove stopped for lunch drove some more and got to Hot Springs.  For dinner we went to All Star and the wings were the best ever!  We got a room at a Best Western and I got to swim!  The next day we went to the Mammoth Site.  We saw mammoth bones,tusks,and teeth. 

We also saw a sink hole inside the building.  I got a stuffed mammoth there and then we drove lots more and got to Medora.  I got a dragon in Medora.  We stayed at the Badlands hotel.  They had a really cool mini golf course that unfortunately I did not get to play on.the next day we got to sidney,montana and to my great grandma's trailer.  Later we set up my great grandma's garden.  We slept in her fold-out bed and then at five p.m. We went to the train station and my great grandma drove back to her trailer.we got in our sleeper car at seven,had dinner with another family,and then went back to our car.   

I played with Ipad for little while then went to bed,woke up in the middle of the night with an earache,went to the bathroom,my dad and I went to the View car, went back to our car,and went to sleep.  When I woke up my ear was all better and we went to breakfast with another person and then we went back to our car,got our stuff,and got off the train in st.paul.

Things That Might Interest Klund: Snowclones and Ferdinandea

1.) What's a horse's favorite band? Snow Patrol! I posit that this might actually be an example of a snowclone, and that Klund has cleverly used a named piece of language.

"A snowclone is a type of cliché and phrasal template originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants".

An example of a snowclone is "gray is the new black", a version of the template "X is the new Y". X and Y may be replaced with different words or phrases – for example, "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll". Both the generic formula and the new phrases produced from it are called "snowclones".

The term was coined by Glen Whitman on January 15, 2004, in response to a request from Geoffrey Pullum on the Language Log weblog.[3] Pullum endorsed it as a term of art the next day, and it has since been adopted by other linguists, journalists and authors. The term alludes to one of Pullum's example template phrases: If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.

2.) Ferdinandea - I once wrote a lengthy post about how I suspected Terry Pratchett had a old book of particularly uncommon words. He knows his peculiar history as well and Jingo is based on an island that sometimes crests above the sea near Sicily, and sometimes sinks, and was once a source of contention among four different nations who all laid claim to it. Our own government once dropped depth charges on it, believing it to be a Libyan Submarine. I thought the idea of a Libyan submarine was nonsense, but apparently they own six, although none of them was consistently at sea between '85 and '94, so the U.S. attack in '86 wasn't even a potential victory, despite misidentifying an island. However, it seems fitting that if we don't know what it is, we declare it to be from a rogue nation and ask questions later. I quote from Third World Submarines: "Libya's submarine crews have a reputation for being poorly trained, and their boats are so shoddily maintained that only one or two out of six may be operable--not one has routinely gone to sea since 1985." I can't remember if Pratchett mocked the Libyan navy in Jingo.

Last Hanging in Montana

My father once mentioned that he had witnessed a hanging while a boy in Montana. I've always suspected he witnessed a reenactment or that grandma took him off to see the gallows at some local fair and scared the little kid out of him. Given the last execution was 66 years ago and a semi-private affair, that would put him pretty close to 0 years old, so I suspect I'm right. But I like to do a bit of research, so I dug up the information below at the Missoula website, "Missoula County Sheriffs Buried in the Missoula Cemetery" (Mary Ellen Stubb, Sexton, MT). Presumably this sentence, "The specially made gallows for Coleman's hanging were eventually located in a dusty old section of the Missoula County fairgrounds," pertains to what scarred my Dad. He'll have to wrack his memory to see if he can remember the details. Hopefully I'm not taking away a cherished memory, but replacing it with a more calming version (and I really hope he didn't see a hanging unsanctioned by the state...e.g. lynching. But by the 1950s anti-lynching legislation should have pushed those to the south, such as Emmett Till's death, which was a precursor to the Civil Rights movement, was 1955).

It's interesting that the sheriff involved was a MacLean, as my family is supposedly related to them (Scottish clan-wise) if you go back far enough.

Last Legal Execution in Montana.

September 10, 1943, the last legal execution in state of Montana was overseen by Sheriff MacLean. Philip 'Slim Coleman Jr., 24 years old, was accused of viciously killing Carl and Roslyn Pearson at Lothrop, Montana. He had robbed them of $200. Coleman escaped in the Pearson family car which was later discovered abandoned in Drummond. A large manhunt was activated by Sheriff MacLean. From the time Coleman was apprehended, he had a need to brag about his dirty deeds. He showed no remorse, instead, he was extremely cheerful and commented how 'funny' the whole situation was. He became more serious the day before his scheduled hanging. At that time Coleman told of 23 other murders he had committed since he was 14 years old, growing up in the black ghettos of St. Louis, Illinois. In a dictated confession the night before he died, however, he only gave details of eight of those murders. The confession is said to still be in Missoula but inquiries have not found it. It is also believed that none of Coleman's confession was ever used to solve unsolved murder mysteries. Coleman had refused to be visited by the only local negro minister, Father Webster Williams. In the end, Coleman was baptized into the Catholic faith and accompanied to the gallows by Father Henry L. Sweeny. The gallows were specially built inside the jailhouse and the hanging was done in a very quiet, dignified manner with no news reporters and only a few invited guests. All former hangings had been conducted in the open jail yard with a stockade placed around the gallows and the infamous "Gallopin' Gertie‟ gallows used. The specially made gallows for Coleman's hanging were eventually located in a dusty old section of the Missoula County fairgrounds. They have since been re-located to the Fort Missoula Historical Museum.

Couchbike

If you've never seen the couchbike, I encourage you to give it a gander. The Bicycle Forest has a lot of neat links and neat bikes, and if I'm ever in Ontario, I' m pretty sure it'll be worth a visit to rent something to ride, just so I can take a picture of me on a bike that's not traditional.

The couchbike is what it purports to be...couch...and bike. There are numerous pictures and video if you follow the first link. It's been around for a long time, but I had never been introduced to it before my Adventure Cyclist magazine showed up in the mail.

If it truly perplexes you, you might be interested to know that quadricycles have a long history.

Prince Honeycutt

That's right, I have one left. If I really felt like it, I could start doing movie review. After all, I did mention at the start of this whole thing that we finished three movies over the weekend. Instead, I'll just say that if you like screwed up, semi-violent, really weird movies, then King of the Ants is for you. You won't appreciate Norm (George Wendt) quite so much after his showing.

I discovered the other day that my company actually owns a copy of North Star, a documentary detailing the lives of influential black Minnesotans. I blogged about it once quite a while ago as I took time off work to go watch a few of the clips in Town Hall. While it's a bit embarrassing that I was interested in a book on ambient findability that was nearby (which I found by way of a book on Real World Web Services), that's how I found the DVD, and find it I did. It is wonderful. If you get a chance to watch it, do so. One of the first bits is on Prince Honeycutt of Fergus Falls, a sleepy little town home to both my dentist and Erik the Bearded Swede (of Overheard in Minneapolis fame). And he's not even the most interesting individual in the series. Lena Smith, the first black, female lawyer in Minnesota, who graduated from what became William Mitchell, is just fascinating. If you mosey around the Minnesota museums, you'll see plenty of references to the Pantages Theater, from which she was forcibly removed, and which she basically forced into integrating.

You can't have it until I'm done, unless you own a VCR. But we should be done soon.