Quotulatiousness

July 26, 2020

French War In Syria – British War Against The Iraqi Revolution I THE GREAT WAR 1920

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published 25 Jul 2020

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The French and British colonial powers had their own plans on how to rule the Middle East after the costly campaigns of World War 1. National self-determination for the different groups in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Arabia were not part of these plans. And so in the summer of 1920 the situation in Iraq and Syria escalated and the French-Syrian War and the Iraqi Revolt broke out.

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» SOURCES
Kadhim, Abbas. Reclaiming Iraq: the 1920 revolution and the founding of the modern state (U of Texas Press, 2012).
Allawi, Ali. Faisal I of Iraq (Yale University Press, 2014).
Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace (Macmillan, 2009 [1989]).
Naaman, Abdullah. Le Liban: histoire d’une nation inachevée.
Karsh, Efraim & Karsh, Inari. Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923, (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1999)

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Hagia Sophia

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Lars Brownworth (author of the excellent Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization) on the building of the Hagia Sophia by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian in Constantinople:

Illustration of the Hagia Sophia from European History: An outline of its development by George Burton Adams, 1899.
Wikimedia Commons

The Hagia Sophia was the brainchild of a unique figure in history. At birth, Justinian was a nobody among nobodies in a grindingly poor part of what is today North Macedonia. By his mid-40s, he was a Byzantine emperor. His appetites were large, his dreams larger. The man who knew what it was like to have nothing gave new meaning to the idea of luxury. For one memorable celebration, he spent almost two tons of gold on decorations.

Justinian had no time for small things. By the second year of his reign, he had decided to codify all of Roman law, founded several new cities, and had started construction on at least eight new churches.

The money for all these projects inevitably came from the public. And by the fifth year of his reign, his subjects had had enough. Already upset by rampant corruption, an inefficient bureaucracy, and crushing taxes, they hit the boiling point when Justinian severely restricted public games. A mob tore through the streets, overwhelming the unprepared police forces. Several stores were set on fire, and the wind quickly spread the flames to a nearby hospital, which burned down with its patients inside. An inferno raged. For five long days, Constantinople burned.

By the time Justinian reasserted control, more than 30,000 citizens were dead, and perhaps a third of the city was a blackened shell. It looked as if some barbarian horde had sacked the capital. The fact that its own people had inflicted such a wound hovered like a black cloud over the streets.

Characteristically, Justinian saw a perfect opportunity within the ashes. This was a blank canvas on which to create a new city in his image. The transformation would begin with the cathedral. The original building, known simply as the Magna Ecclesia — the Great Church — had been built by a son of Constantine the Great in the fourth century, but had burned down a few decades later. Since it was a standard Roman basilica — a large hall with square walls and angled wooden roof — it had been fairly easy to rebuild along the same lines.

But of course, Justinian had no intention of following the tired plans of an earlier age. This was a chance to remake the cathedral on a new scale, something worthy of the ages. It was to be nothing short of a revolution, equal parts art and architecture, the enduring grandeur of the emperor himself frozen in physical form.

Everything about this project was audacious, including his selection of architects. Instead of choosing a traditional builder, he picked two teachers who — like himself — had more vision than practical experience. This was a lifelong pattern with Justinian. He had a habit of plucking genius out of the common crush; his wife was a reformed prostitute, and his greatest generals were an elderly eunuch and a former bodyguard.

The emperor’s instructions to Isidore of Miletus, a physics teacher, and Anthemius of Tralles, a mathematician, should have terrified them. They merely had to design and successfully build a church unlike anything else the world had seen. Sheer scale wasn’t enough — the empire was full of grand monuments and immense sculpture. This had to be something different, something fitting for the new golden age that was dawning. Expense wasn’t an issue, but speed was. Justinian was already in his 50s, and he didn’t intend to have some successor apply the final coat of paint and claim the project as his own.

Hagia Sophia in the Faith district of Istanbul, 18 November 2004.
Photo by Robert Raderschatt via Wikimedia Commons.

The Wehrmacht – an Army on Horseback – WW2 – 100 – July 25 1941

Filed under: China, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 25 Jul 2020

Although we may picture panzers when we think of the German Army in WW2, it was very much an army that relied on horses — especially in the east — for a large part of its supplies and logistics, and the horse situation on the Eastern Front has grown dire. Japan’s economic situation has also grown dire and they are now looking south for new sources of raw materials.

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J.K. Rowling receives an apology

Filed under: Books, Britain, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In his first Weekly Dish newsletter, Andrew Sullivan reports on the retraction and apology by The Day to J.K. Rowling:

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books have been pivotal for many Millennials in encouraging them to move away from traditional religious beliefs.

We’re used to public apologies by now, but this one is a little different. It comes from a magazine for schoolchildren in England, called The Day. It reads:

    We accept that our article implied that … JK Rowling … had attacked and harmed trans people. The article was critical of JK Rowling personally and suggested that our readers should boycott her work and shame her into changing her behaviour … We did not intend to suggest that JK Rowling was transphobic or that she should be boycotted. We accept that our comparisons of JK Rowling to people such as Picasso, who celebrated sexual violence, and Wagner, who was praised by the Nazis for his antisemitic and racist views, were clumsy, offensive and wrong … We unreservedly apologise to JK Rowling for the offence caused, and are happy to retract these false allegations and to set the record straight.

The Day had been referring to JK Rowling’s open letter on trans issues, which you can read in its entirety here and judge for yourself.

I have to say it’s good to see this apology in print. It remains simply amazing to me that the author of the Harry Potter books, a bone fide liberal, a passionate feminist and a strong supporter of gay equality can be casually described, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp did yesterday, as “one of the most visible anti-trans figures in our culture.” It is, in fact, bonkers. Rowling has absolutely no issue with the existence, dignity and equality of transgender people. Her now infamous letter is elegant, calm, reasonable and open-hearted. Among other things, Rowling wrote: “I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection.”

She became interested in the question after a consultant, Maya Forsteter, lost a contract in the UK for believing and saying that sex is a biological reality. When Forsteter took her case to an employment tribunal, the judge ruled against her, arguing that such a view was a form of bigotry, in so far as it seemed to deny the gender of trans people (which, of course, it doesn’t). Rowling was perturbed by this. And I can see why: in order either to defend or oppose transgender rights, you need to be able to discuss what being transgender means. That will necessarily require an understanding of the human mind and body, the architectonic role of biology in the creation of two sexes, and the nature of the small minority whose genital and biological sex differs from the sex of their brain.

This is not an easy question. It requires some thinking through. And in a liberal democracy, we should be able to debate the subject freely and openly. I’ve done my best to do that in this column, and have come to many of the conclusions Rowling has. She does not question the existence of trans people, or the imperative to respect their dignity and equality as fully-formed human beings. She believes they should be protected from discrimination in every field, and given the same opportunities as anyone else. She would address any trans person as the gender they present, as would I. Of course. That those of us who hold these views are now deemed bigots is, quite simply, preposterous.

[…]

It pains me to see where this debate has gone. There’s so much common ground. And I do not doubt that taking into account the lived experiences of trans people is important. But if we cannot state an objective fact without being deemed a bigot, and if we cannot debate a subject because debating itself is a form of hate, we have all but abandoned any pretense of liberal democracy. And if a woman as sophisticated and eloquent and humane as JK Rowling is now deemed a foul bigot for having a different opinion, then the word bigotry has ceased to have any meaning at all.

Gewehr 98: The German WWI Standard Rifle

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 11 Jun 2016

Sold at auction for $1,840 (w/ 5 other rifles).

The Gewehr 1898 was the product of a decade of bolt action repeating rifle improvements by the Mauser company, and would be the standard German infantry rifle through both World Wars. Today we are looking at a pre-WWI example (1905 production) that shows all the features of what a German soldier would have taken to war in 1914.

QotD: Bureaucracy at its heart

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Government, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Nassim Nicholas Taleb summed up in a simple aphorism what most of us instinctively know about bureaucracies:

    Bureaucracy is a construction designed to maximize the distance between a decision-maker and the risks of the decision.

When something goes wrong, the bureaucrats play the blame-shifting game. Musical chairs will begin, and some poor fool will be stuck without a chair. When something goes right, of course, executive management will take credit. Your job as a bureaucrat is to be an implicitly political creature; to make your boss look good and, for yourself, to evade blame.

Bureaucracies become much worse when they are divorced from the profit motive. At least a large corporation must theoretically serve its customers in some positive manner, or they won’t remain in business for long. So while the internal politics of a large corporation are likely to suck like a Hoover, the external face of the company is often still somewhat pleasant for the customer.

With government bureaucracy, even that small consolation is lost. Go to the DMV, or any large government bureau. Long lines, smelly “customers”, and agents with extremely unpleasant attitudes abound. The motive is not to serve citizens well, or even to serve them quickly, but rather to meet the bare minimum necessary to avoid blame — and sometimes not even that.

Thales, “Bureacracy is Designed to Suck”, The Declination, 2018-05-02.

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