Lindybeige
Published on 15 Aug 2018http://www.audible.com/Lindybeige or text ‘Lindybeige’ to 500 500 for a free thirty-day trial and one free audio book.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LindybeigeTales of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles in World War One, El Alamein in WW2, and of the extraordinarily successful failure that was Operation Camilla in East Africa. One man with terrific hair rambles for over half an hour about ruses of deceit against the enemies of the Empire.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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website: http://www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
August 16, 2018
Three Great British Wartime Deceptions
In praise of Donald Knuth
David Warren sings the praises of the inventor of “TeX”:
Among my heroes in that trade is a man now octogenarian, a certain Donald Knuth, author of the multi-volumed Art of Computer Programming, and of the great mass of algorithms behind the “TeX” composing system. A life-long opponent of patenting for software, and still not on email, he is one of the finer products of the Whole Earth Catalogue mindset of that era, though as a devoted Christian, he had it from older sources. (The mindset of: forget politics and do-it-yerself.)
Perfesser Knuth’s life journey was somewhat altered when a publisher presented him with the galley proofs for a reissue of one of his earlier volumes. They were, compared to the pages of the original hot-metal edition, a dog’s breakfast. In particular, even when technically correct, the mathematical formulae appeared to have been set by monkeys. He resolved to “make the world a better place” by doing something about this.
Knowing (pronounce the “k” as we do in this author’s surname) that computers can do many things that humans can’t — or can’t within one lifetime — he set about designing the computer processes to calculate beautiful letter and word spacings, line-breaks, line spacings, marginal proportions and such. He understood that civilization depends on literacy, literacy on legibility, and legibility on elegance. Ruthlessly, he recognized that things like “widowed” and “orphaned” lines of text are moral evils, and discovered algorithms that could exterminate them by complex anticipation. Too, he contributed to the counter-revolution by which the letters themselves could be drawn not pixelated.
I will quickly lose my few remaining readers if I go into the details. But here was a man (and still is) who discerned that nature herself is built on aesthetic principles, which men can investigate and apply. It is when something is ugly that we can know that it is wrong. Mathematicians, like poets and other artists, can embody the Faith at the root of this.
To my mind, or I would rather say K-nowledge, there is nothing wrong with technology, per se. We can often do things better with new tools. But we must be guided by the uncompromising demands of Beauty. Everything must be made as beautiful as we can make it: there must be no wavering, no surrender. All that is ugly must be consigned to Hell.
August 15, 2018
Robert Heinlein – Highs and Lows – #2
Extra Credits
Published on 14 Aug 2018Heinlein’s novels made science fiction mainstream and even contributed to modern libertarianism. His novels vary widely in the philosophies they explore, but ultimately they all reflect how Heinlein saw himself: as the self-reliant “competent man” protagonist of his stories, despite glaring inconsistencies.
August 14, 2018
German Submarine Warfare in World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 13 Aug 2018Find out more about War2Glory: https://war2glory.com/
Submarines played a vital part in Germany’s WW1 strategy. They would disrupt allied shipping despite the British Naval Blockade and ensue fear across the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.
Sean Gabb’s view of Anglo-American relations from 1945 to today
He seems such a nice, mild-mannered chap but who else but a virtual bomb-chucking anarchist could title an article “Death to America?”
My view of America is tinged with a paranoia born from jealousy and resentment. I believe that American self-respect has, for at least the past hundred years, required the destruction of England as a great and independent nation. The Americans speak a language that did not emerge among themselves. They live within a system of law and within a set of constitutional assumptions that are also not co-existent with their nation. If their country were a minor power, they could, like Haiti, or Australia, or America before the 1870s, accept the fact of inferiority. If it were to vanish from the earth, they could look on the originator of their language and institutions with sentimental affection, as the Byzantines did on Athens and Rome.
Their problem is that, before 1940, England was a strong competitor. Since then, it has been generally subordinate, but never with full willingness. Therefore, the Americans have mixed occasional humiliation, as at Suez, with continual meddling in our politics. Our foreign policy has, since 1945, been largely set by Washington. Our leaders are mostly American Quislings, and these have systematically promoted American culture at the expense of our own. It may be that the accumulation of blocking powers by our new Supreme Court is an imitation to be welcomed. But the importation of American political correctness is not to be welcomed. Nor, I suggest, should we welcome the official replacement of English with American words and expressions — see, for example, the use of “train station” for “railway station”. This may appear, in itself, a trivial complaint. Repeated across the whole administrative and educational machinery, it has the effect of making our own recent past into a foreign country.
What the Americans want is for England to be discussed mainly in the past tense. They will study our literature, and sometimes our history. Some of their higher classes will put on Anglicised airs and graces, much as the Romans turned hellenophile after they had plundered and enslaved Greece. But to see their preferred model for living Englishmen, look at the characters played by Wilfred Hyde-Whyte, or the character of Alfred in Batman — polite, reliable, elderly, and, above all, ineffectual.
Though I dislike the European Union, I believe that the long term interests of my country lie in a close relationship with France and Germany, and in an amicable working arrangement with Russia. We have an obvious commonality with France and Germany of economic and strategic interests. We are of approximately equal weight. None is able to dominate the others. Each must work in compromise with the others. Any talk of “hands across the Atlantic” is either self-deception or a lie. Except perhaps between 1922 and 1940, there has never been an equality between England and America. Any close relationship between these countries has otherwise rested on the domination of one by the other — a domination with at best a limited overlap of interests. Though roles have changed, so it was at times before 1914, and so it has been since 1940.
August 13, 2018
History of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published on 23 Jan 2018The History Guy remembers humanity’s deadliest flu outbreak, the influenza pandemic of 1918.
The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.
Tank Chats #34 Chieftain | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 31 Mar 2017The thirty-fourth Tank Chat, this time presented by Curator David Willey after some help from Eli. https://youtu.be/T33hp0J-LAw
Britain’s Main Battle Tank for twenty years, Chieftain was one of the first true Main Battle Tanks, designed to replace both medium and heavy tanks in front line service.
To find out more, buy the new Haynes Chieftain tank manual. https://www.myonlinebooking.co.uk/tan…
Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum
Or donate http://tankmuseum.org/support-us/donate
August 12, 2018
1918 Flu Pandemic – The Forgotten Plague – Extra History – #6
Extra Credits
Published on 11 Aug 2018Why did everyone forget about the flu pandemic so fast? Partly because its effects were intermingled with the death and depression of World War I, and partly because we chose to forget.
Public statuary … can we just get rid of the politicians?
In the wake of Victoria’s city council deciding to remove a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Colby Cosh suggests that we apply a broader brush to what is acceptable for public display and get rid of the rest of the politicians, too:
The mayor of Victoria, Lisa Helps, emphasized that the removal of the statue is “temporary,” promising to “find a way to recontextualize Macdonald in an appropriate way.” This suggests that the statue will find a home somewhere, perhaps even in its accustomed place, but will have to be accompanied by a sanitizing “This was a bad, racist guy despite having led the creation of our federation” text inscribed nearby.
All of this gives me a chance to rehearse my inconveniently unclassifiable views on the subject of revisionist iconoclasm in public settings. Part of me is sympathetic to the anti-revisionist case. Even if Victoria took a year with this decision, a year is not a long time to reconsider an act of commemoration that was intended to be permanent in the first place. Any one generation, let alone a small group within it, ought to be hesitant in removing public statuary — doubly so, perhaps, if you are doing it “temporarily” but without a deadline for its return. Putting objects of built heritage in storage is the easiest way for a government to demolish them, through neglect, on the sly.
With that said, I could be convinced to pick up a hammer if there is to be a general smashing of statues of politicians. No city or country really has a shortage of people to honour whose contribution to humanity is unambiguously and uncontentiously positive. Those who exercise political power, even in a democracy, rarely fall into this category. If we were building a country from scratch, I would suggest we start building statues to those who excel in the realm of pure thought — physics, math, music, scholarship — and work “down” through artisans, philanthropists, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Once we’re past the tradesmen who did good work and mentored the young, and we have made modest busts or reliefs of everyone who just worked to make a neighbourhood nicer or cleaner or safer, and we have put a few people on postage stamps just for contributing their own earnings or effort to any of the Corporal Works of Mercy, we can start with politicians of an especially noble and humane character who executed great necessary enterprises by means of law.
Politicians get big-ass statues because it is politicians who build statues: that’s all. The problem is that this encourages the dangerous habit of reverence for politicians, who, despite endless complaining about the thanklessness of their vocation, hardly go without social privileges or deference or celebration within their own lifetimes. In the case of statues or images of Sir John A. Macdonald, the veneration is all but explicit. The Old Chieftain represents the juvenile desire to have a George Washington-like national paterfamilias, to have a single founder to serve as the incarnation of our glorious state.
I am not a politician and I endorse this message. I’d be even more on board if we also chiselled off the names of politicians from schools, community centres, streets, and any other edifice built with taxpayer money.
Garum, Rome’s Favorite Condiment (Ancient Cooking)
Invicta
Published on 12 Jul 2018As Rome’s military expanded the Empire’s territory it also expanded the kitchen pantry. Today we take a look at one of Rome’s favorite condiments, Garum fish sauce! Credit to: http://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/…
Support future documentaries:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/InvictaHistory
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InvictaHistory
Twitter: https://twitter.com/InvictaHistoryLiterary Sources
“Logistics of the Roman Army at War” by Jonathan P. Roth
“Garum, Rome’s Favorite Condiment” by Erich B. Anderson
(Ancient History Magazine Issue 8)
August 10, 2018
The Black Day Of The German Army – The Battle of Amiens I THE GREAT WAR Week 211
The Great War
Published on 9 Aug 2018Ludendorff and his generals didn’t think the Allies had it in them, but this week they attack with the might off several hundred tanks near Amiens, the Black Day of the German Army.
“The banality of evil”
Anthony Daniels in the most recent issue of Quadrant:
“The banality of evil” is a phrase that suddenly entered the English language, probably for ever, in 1963, on the publication of Hannah Arendt’s book about Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
It hardly matters that Hannah Arendt, after much arduous study and conscientious effort, got Eichmann entirely wrong, and had the wool pulled comprehensively over her eyes by the man she thought an utter mediocrity. Surely scum like him were no match for a much-garlanded political philosopher? But far from having been a faceless bureaucrat as she portrayed him, or mere pen-pusher who somehow, as if by accident, wandered into the organisation of genocide, Eichmann was an ardent and committed Nazi, an idealist of evil so to speak, who knew exactly what he was doing and regretted only that he had been unable to do more and finish the job. Bettina Stangneth’s book Eichmann Before Jerusalem should have put paid once and for all to the notion of Eichmann as a kind of sleep-walking little man, the post office clerk of extermination. But image often triumphs over reality, and in any case, the banality of evil could well survive as a concept, even if it had been grotesquely misapplied on its first outing.Recently, I seem to be surrounded by the banality of evil: in books, I mean, not in real life (assuming that books are not part of real life, that is). For example, I just picked up a book by the well-known French forensic psychiatrist Daniel Zagury, titled La Barbarie des hommes ordinaires: Ces criminels qui pourraient être nous (The Barbarity of Ordinary Men: These Criminals Who Could Be Us). The very title, of course, makes reference to Arendt’s famous phase, and I had not gone many pages into it when her name cropped up: because Zagury is writing about men (mainly men in contrast to women) who commit appalling violent crimes without being obviously mad, he makes reference to Arendt and her banality of evil. The banality lies in the absence of all thought or reflection, of foresight or imagination. The most atrocious acts occasion no more mental trouble than, say, that entailed in the making of a sandwich.
Before I took up Zagury, I had just read Behind the Shock Machine, a book by the Australian psychologist and writer Gina Perry, about the famous, or infamous, experiments carried out by Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s at Yale on man’s obedience to authority. These experiments, as written up by Milgram in his book Obedience to Authority, have more or less entered common consciousness, at least that of intellectuals, as proving that there is in most of us an inner Eichmann, if not quite struggling to get out, at least prepared to obey the most frightful orders if authority gives them.
Milgram published his book in 1974, which was twelve years after the conclusion of his experiments and eleven years after the publication of Arendt’s book. He was, I surmise, much influenced by Arendt’s masterfully summarising — or one might say misleading — phrase, for the truth behind which he retrospectively tried to supply some psychological evidence. Gina Perry, by examining the records of his experiments in detail, found that Milgram had misrepresented his results, exaggerating his subjects’ willingness to comply with orders in his eagerness to show man’s tendency to obey, a tendency which demonstrates that the Holocaust could happen again — by implication anywhere.
What’s So Great About Casablanca? Ask a Film Professor.
ScreenPrism
Published on 19 Dec 2016We all know Casablanca is a great movie — but what makes it great? We talked to film professor Julian Cornell about why Casablanca is one of the classic love stories in cinema.
August 9, 2018
Robert Heinlein – Rise – Extra Sci Fi – #1
Extra Credits
Published on 7 Aug 2018Before we delve into Robert Heinlein’s famous works, let’s look at an overview of his writing career and the philosophical ideals he was known for: particularly his libertarian worldview, although even this is still hotly debated.
QotD: Gandhi the man
Gandhi rose early, usually at three-thirty, and before his first bowel movement (during which he received visitors, although possibly not Margaret Bourke-White) he spent two hours in meditation, listening to his “inner voice.” Now Gandhi was an extremely vocal individual, and in addition to spending an hour each day in vigorous walking, another hour spinning at his primitive spinning wheel, another hour at further prayers, another hour being massaged nude by teenage girls, and many hours deciding such things as affairs of state, he produced a quite unconscionable number of articles and speeches and wrote an average of sixty letters a day. All considered, it is not really surprising that his inner voice said different things to him at different times. Despising consistency and never checking his earlier statements, and yet inhumanly obstinate about his position at any given moment, Gandhi is thought by some Indians today (according to V.S. Naipaul) to have been so erratic and unpredictable that he may have delayed Indian independence for twenty-five years.
For Gandhi was an extremely difficult man to work with. He had no partners, only disciples. For members of his ashrams, he dictated every minute of their days, and not only every morsel of food they should eat but when they should eat it. Without ever having heard of a protein or a vitamin, he considered himself an expert on diet, as on most things, and was constantly experimenting. Once when he fell ill, he was found to have been living on a diet of ground-nut butter and lemon juice; British doctors called it malnutrition. And Gandhi had even greater confidence in his abilities as a “nature doctor,” prescribing obligatory cures for his ashramites, such as dried cow-dung powder and various concoctions containing cow dung (the cow, of course, being sacred to the Hindu). And to those he really loved he gave enemas — but again, alas, not to Margaret Bourke-White. Which is too bad, really. For admiring Candice Bergen’s work as I do, I would have been most interested in seeing how she would have experienced this beatitude. The scene might have lived in film history.
There are 400 biographies of Gandhi, and his writings run to 80 volumes, and since he lived to be seventy-nine, and rarely fell silent, there are, as I have indicated, quite a few inconsistencies. The authors of the present movie even acknowledge in a little-noticed opening title that they have made a film only true to Gandhi’s “spirit.” For my part, I do not intend to pick through Gandhi’s writings to make him look like Attila the Hun (although the thought is tempting), but to give a fair, weighted balance of his views, laying stress above all on his actions, and on what he told other men to do when the time for action had come.
Richard Grenier, “The Gandhi Nobody Knows”, Commentary, 1983-03-01.
