BOOKS
COMMAND AND CONTROL, by Arthur Schlosser.
In 1980, at a Titan nuclear missile silo in Arkansas, a simple act of clumsiness causes a fire which threatens to destroy the silo and the hydrogen bomb inside. While attempts are made to evacuate the nearby civilian population, a team from the US Air Force struggles to contain the fire. Highly toxic missile fuel has already escaped, and if the bomb goes off...
"This is the way non-fiction should be written!" gushes one quoted reviewer, and I can only agree. From the author that ripped the lid off the dubious practices of the convenience food industry in his book Fast Food Nation, Sclosser now takes us on a crazy ride through the Cold War and America's preparations for the hot one they thought was imminent. He reveals some horrifying truths, particularly about the handling of the thermonuclear devices themselves, many of which were dropped while loading them on aircraft, or fell from planes in flight, sometimes over the sea, sometimes over land. They caught fire, were destroyed when the conventional explosives around them blew up and sometimes, incredibly, lost. The miracle is that Americans never had a nuclear weapon go off by accident. That this was more down to luck than judgement is made terrifyingly clear in this remarkable book. And yet, as Schlosser points out, all this, all the trillions of dollars spent by either side for over 50 years, was about weapons that could never be used in anger.
Not long ago Jeremy Corbyn got himself in hot water by saying he would never under any circumstances press the red button, yet his only crime was saying out loud what world leaders for half a century had acknowledged behind closed doors. And I say, if you can't use a weapon it kind of makes it obsolete, so isn't it time we phased it out and consigned the whole concept of nuclear warfare to the dustbin of history? Discuss.
THE LOCKED ROOM, by Maj Stowell and Per Waloo. It's the classic murder mystery scenario: a man is found murdered in a room locked from the inside and there is no sign of the murder weapon. This is the conundrum faced by Martin Beck when he returns to work after taking nearly a year out to recover from being shot in the chest (in the last book).
But at the office there are other crimes to solve, particularly a series of bank raids which have netted over a million, and in the most recent a bank customer is killed.
This is book number 8 in the 10 book series created by husband and wife team Stowell and Waloo which has the overall title of "The Story of a Crime" and has been widely acclaimed as one of the finest examples of the "police procedural" ever written. But the writers, both committed socialists, also use their plots and characters to produce a devastating critique of the new Sweden, exposing the myth of a progressive and permissive society and revealing at its heart a heartless bureaucracy which overlooks poverty, homelessness and the highest suicide rate in Europe. If you like a crime thriller and haven't tried the Martin Beck series yet, I say go for it.
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, by John Bunyan. A man falls asleep and dreams a fantastical tale of struggle and redemption as his hero "Christian" journeys from his home in the City of Destruction via the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair before arriving at the gates of Paradise. Later, his wife, who at first refused to travel with him, herself undertakes the perilous journey accompanied by her two sons and a maid.
My wife told me she read a children's version of the book as an eight-year-old, yet somehow I have avoided reading one of the most famous books in the English language until now. I didn't even know that terms like "Slough of Despond" and "Vanity Fair" came from this extraordinary book.
Bunyan was a puritan preacher whose ideas lost favour after the restoration, and when he refused to stop preaching he was imprisoned in Bedford Gaol for 12 years. He turned to the pen to spread the word, and when The Pilgrim's Progress was eventually published it became a bestseller both here and around the world, and has never been out of print since. Moreover, it has a unique style and presence which makes it a fascinating and intriguing read even today, though some might say Christian should get a life and stop going on so. But here I travel dangerously close to blasphemy...
FILMS
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA (2013) D- Steven Soderberg. In the Hollywood of the 1970s, a young man (Matt Damon) goes to a concert by Liberace and is blown away by the glamour, the glitz and prodigious talent of the sequined one. He takes a job as his assistant, but soon finds there is more to his duties than is stated in his job description...
Before the dawn of AIDS, this is a world of drug fueled anonymous sex where Liberace was king, and Michael Douglas turns in one of his strongest performances to date portraying this bizarre genius. "Some say Rubenstein is a better pianist than me", he says at one point, "But no one says he's better looking!" Matt too does brilliantly with his part as the real-life Scott Thorson, as does Rob Lowe, who plays a plastic surgeon commissioned to make Thorson resemble Liberace himself.
Weird...
This film, too close to the bone for some Hollywood insiders, never received the acclaim it deserved and only had a limited release over here. Which is strange because it is one of the best films I've seen in a long time...
THE DANISH GIRL (2015) D- Tom Hooper. In 1920s Copenhagen, a married man slowly comes to realise he is living in the wrong skin. He becomes an occasional cross-dresser, but that doesn't satisfy his longings to be... someone else. Then he meets a surgeon who is willing to carry out an experimental procedure to transform him into the woman he really wants to be. All the while he is supported by a loving, but uncomprehending wife.
Eddie Redmayne is carrying all before him at the moment, though even he couldn't really expect to win two Oscars in a row. But on sheer talent alone he perhaps should have. In this beautiful film, shot around a series of stunning Art Nouveau locations, his presence shines, as does the performance of his wife played by Alicia Vikander, who deservedly did win the Academy Award for best supporting actress. Highly recommended.
THE SWEET HEREAFTER (1997) D- Atom Egoyan. In a remote Canadian township, a school bus veers off the road into a lake. Many children perish, and lawyer Ian Holm goes to the town in search of grieving parents to enroll in his scheme to launch a class action against the school, the bus manufacturers, whoever they think they can beat in court. His task is a daunting one, not made any easier by a group of people anxious to leave the past behind and get on with the life-long process of adjusting to their loss.
All this takes place in the vast, unforgiving landscape of central Canada, which almost assumes a central role in this bleak, heart-rending film about grief and guilt.
Excellent.
FAST AND FURIOUS SEVEN, aka FURIOUS 7 (2015) D- James Wan. Vin Diesl, Paul Walker and the gang now familiar to us through six prequels take on supervillain Jason Statham and his plans to... you know I've actually forgotten what, but never mind. The F and F franchise isn't about plot, it's about tough, absurdly good looking men and their improbably gorgeous GFs driving nitro fueled muscle cars and sometimes crashing them spectacularly.
In this film, which turned out to be one of the most successful films ever made, there is the added piquancy of having one of its stars being already dead by time it was released, and that in a high speed car crash in which no other vehicle was involved. Is this why so many people around the world flocked to see it? I wouldn't be surprised. Hats off to the directors though, who insisted on completing the film anyway, using stunt doubles, Walker's own brother and some highly creative use of previously unused footage, so that you hardly notice that your main star seems to vanish two thirds of the way into the movie...
For petrol heads only.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015) D- George Miller. In a mean, post-apocalyptic world, Max teams up with a group of women designated as baby factories to escape the vicious tyrants who rule the roost.
Many of the people who raved about this movie, and it is certainly a triumph of design and cinematography, were probably not even born when the three original Mad Max movies appeared in the 70s and 80s. In those far-off days they were a breath of fresh air in a movie scene which was flagging, especially in Australia. We loved Mel as the leather clad loner with a mission to destroy, and we loved the way the movies looked. Now, thirty years on it is still the look of the film which attracts. The cars look like some Autogeddon nightmare, the people (including an excellent Charlise Theron as leader of the baby mamas) look great too, and the whole thing is filmed with a sense of originality that the F and F franchise could only dream of. Like Furious 7 I have forgotten much of the specific details of the plot, which is odd because I only saw it three days ago, though in this film too it doesn't really matter. It's how it looks and sounds that counts, and it deservedly won several Oscars in the technical sections.
Definitely worth a look.
Monday, 29 February 2016
Monday, 22 February 2016
BDS in peril
The BDS (Boycott, divest, sanctions) movement against Israel is under threat from a Tory government determined to offer aid and comfort to its friend, the Apartheid state of Israel. Soon it will be illegal to boycott Israeli goods on political grounds, which to my mind is one of the most wicked incursions of freedom we have seen here in a long time. Now it seems, we are not allowed to disapprove of another country to the point of refusing to buy its produce or discouraging its apologists from coming to our shores to justify its own brand of injustice.
In America a very well funded group of Zionists does nothing else but disrupt and attempt to ban any exhibitions of Palestinian art, music or literature. I am told they are highly successful in gagging the voice of the Palestinian opposition to Israeli hegemony. I don't know if such a group exists in Britain, but the Israeli lobby is certainly very strong; strong enough to have persuaded their friends in the Tory administration to pass this new law. Speaking of America, I hear Beyonce is to throw a concert in Tel Aviv in the Summer. This is a woman who caused controversy when she appeared to support the Black Panther movement during her half-time show at the Superbowl. So she believes in defending the rights of one minority, the blacks of America, but she doesn't seem to care much about the problems of another minority, the Palestinian Arabs. Sounds like it's green power she cares about most, not black power. Shame on her.
In the 1980s, the boycott of South African exports was one of the factors which contributed to the fall of Apartheid. The ban on sporting links likewise hurt that fascist regime badly. Today we have full sporting links with Israel, they are in the Olympics, they are part of UEFA, and Israel is allowed and even encouraged to sell goods here that are produced on the illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Yet, incredibly, we are not allowed to organise boycotts against them. This is a disgrace, and a stain on our character as a nation.
In America a very well funded group of Zionists does nothing else but disrupt and attempt to ban any exhibitions of Palestinian art, music or literature. I am told they are highly successful in gagging the voice of the Palestinian opposition to Israeli hegemony. I don't know if such a group exists in Britain, but the Israeli lobby is certainly very strong; strong enough to have persuaded their friends in the Tory administration to pass this new law. Speaking of America, I hear Beyonce is to throw a concert in Tel Aviv in the Summer. This is a woman who caused controversy when she appeared to support the Black Panther movement during her half-time show at the Superbowl. So she believes in defending the rights of one minority, the blacks of America, but she doesn't seem to care much about the problems of another minority, the Palestinian Arabs. Sounds like it's green power she cares about most, not black power. Shame on her.
In the 1980s, the boycott of South African exports was one of the factors which contributed to the fall of Apartheid. The ban on sporting links likewise hurt that fascist regime badly. Today we have full sporting links with Israel, they are in the Olympics, they are part of UEFA, and Israel is allowed and even encouraged to sell goods here that are produced on the illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Yet, incredibly, we are not allowed to organise boycotts against them. This is a disgrace, and a stain on our character as a nation.
Madeira dispatch
Madeira is an extinct volcano situated 500 miles off the coast of Morocco. It looks tiny on a map, but is actually half as big again as the Isle of Man and features peaks that reach nearly 2000 metres above the sea. and these are only the tips of a huge shield volcano which stretches 6000 metres down to the abysmal plain of the Atlantic ocean. Its topography is extraordinary: deep valleys surrounded by dramatic cliffs a kilometre high, providing varying micro-climates which allow all sorts of exotic fruits to grow, from apples and pears in the upper reaches to bananas and even pineapples in wind-shaded sun-traps.
In the winter it has to endure everything the Atlantic weather can throw at it. At one point, out on the far north-western tip of the island we were almost blown off our feet by some of the strongest gusts of wind I have ever experienced, On another occasion we drove from pleasant, if cool conditions in Funchal up to the central plateau which is at 1500 metres above sea level, where we were eventually driven back by heavy snow which rendered the road impassable.
It is clear billions of euros have been expended on the island's infrastructure in recent years. The roads are in good condition; there is even a motorway of sorts running along the southern rim of the island which features dozens of tunnels which had to be blasted through the incredibly hard volcanic tuff from which the whole island is made. One is no less than 7 km in length; several are 3 and 4 km long and scores are up to a kilometre long. Thus the "V1" as it is called must have cost at least £50 million per mile to build its 20 mile length. Yet the traffic on these roads is scanty at best, except for an hour twice a day entering and leaving Funchal. And what traffic there is is at least 50% hire cars.
That isn't the half of it. Many tiny villages feature large community centres which seem largely unused: did anyone ask the locals if they actually wanted these amenities? Based I suspect on huge EU grants, a tiny group of developers and raw material suppliers must have made a huge killing as all this development proceeded, but has it really helped the island's 75,000 inhabitants? I wonder. All I know is the island must have changed out of all recognition from the ocean paradise so loved by Winston Churchill in the 1940s and 50s. But for the better? I'm not sure.
In the winter it has to endure everything the Atlantic weather can throw at it. At one point, out on the far north-western tip of the island we were almost blown off our feet by some of the strongest gusts of wind I have ever experienced, On another occasion we drove from pleasant, if cool conditions in Funchal up to the central plateau which is at 1500 metres above sea level, where we were eventually driven back by heavy snow which rendered the road impassable.
It is clear billions of euros have been expended on the island's infrastructure in recent years. The roads are in good condition; there is even a motorway of sorts running along the southern rim of the island which features dozens of tunnels which had to be blasted through the incredibly hard volcanic tuff from which the whole island is made. One is no less than 7 km in length; several are 3 and 4 km long and scores are up to a kilometre long. Thus the "V1" as it is called must have cost at least £50 million per mile to build its 20 mile length. Yet the traffic on these roads is scanty at best, except for an hour twice a day entering and leaving Funchal. And what traffic there is is at least 50% hire cars.
That isn't the half of it. Many tiny villages feature large community centres which seem largely unused: did anyone ask the locals if they actually wanted these amenities? Based I suspect on huge EU grants, a tiny group of developers and raw material suppliers must have made a huge killing as all this development proceeded, but has it really helped the island's 75,000 inhabitants? I wonder. All I know is the island must have changed out of all recognition from the ocean paradise so loved by Winston Churchill in the 1940s and 50s. But for the better? I'm not sure.
Friday, 12 February 2016
Zika: What's going on?
In Recife, northwestern Brazil, they used to see ten cases of microcephaly a year. Now they're seeing ten cases a week. I'd say that's a bit odd. So far the good old Aedes mosquito has been blamed, and intensive efforts have been put in place to eradicate the horrible thing. But now attention has been focused on these eradication methods as being themselves possibly responsible for the dramatic rise in microcephaly cases.
First there's the agent pyriproxifen, manufactured by a Japanese firm under the umbrella of the chemical giant Monsanto. This agent is teratogenic, that is it has an injurious effect on embryological development, specifically the mosquito in question. But there are growing concerns that the agent has a likewise injurious effect on the human foetus. It is certainly true that the explosion in cases of malformed foetuses has concentrated itself in areas where this pesticide has been used the most. The pesticide inevitably finds its way into fresh water sources. Colombia, for example, where the pesticide has not yet been deployed, has its fair share of zika cases, but hardly any cases of microcephaly. Interesting...
Second, another method deployed to control the mosquito involves releasing colonies of genetically modified non-harmful mosquitoes made by the Oxitec company that, as the story goes, replace the nasty ones. Oddly enough, cases of microcephaly started to skyrocket after the campaign to introduce it began.
I'm normally sceptical about conspiracy theories, tending to believe more in the "cock-up" theory of how terrible things happen. Hence I'm doubtful that zika is some kind of bio-weapon perhaps developed by the CIA, just as I'm doubtful that august organisation invented AIDS to punish evil gays and junkies. But just because those theories are doubtless crap, we should not ignore the possibility that enormous companies like Monsanto care more about expanding their profits and spheres of influence than they do about the health of ordinary human beings. Perhaps it will need Brazil itself, at the epicentre of the microcephaly disaster, to take serious steps to uncover what's behind it before their tourist industry collapses completely. I wish them luck.
First there's the agent pyriproxifen, manufactured by a Japanese firm under the umbrella of the chemical giant Monsanto. This agent is teratogenic, that is it has an injurious effect on embryological development, specifically the mosquito in question. But there are growing concerns that the agent has a likewise injurious effect on the human foetus. It is certainly true that the explosion in cases of malformed foetuses has concentrated itself in areas where this pesticide has been used the most. The pesticide inevitably finds its way into fresh water sources. Colombia, for example, where the pesticide has not yet been deployed, has its fair share of zika cases, but hardly any cases of microcephaly. Interesting...
Second, another method deployed to control the mosquito involves releasing colonies of genetically modified non-harmful mosquitoes made by the Oxitec company that, as the story goes, replace the nasty ones. Oddly enough, cases of microcephaly started to skyrocket after the campaign to introduce it began.
I'm normally sceptical about conspiracy theories, tending to believe more in the "cock-up" theory of how terrible things happen. Hence I'm doubtful that zika is some kind of bio-weapon perhaps developed by the CIA, just as I'm doubtful that august organisation invented AIDS to punish evil gays and junkies. But just because those theories are doubtless crap, we should not ignore the possibility that enormous companies like Monsanto care more about expanding their profits and spheres of influence than they do about the health of ordinary human beings. Perhaps it will need Brazil itself, at the epicentre of the microcephaly disaster, to take serious steps to uncover what's behind it before their tourist industry collapses completely. I wish them luck.
Thursday, 11 February 2016
Should we feel sorry for the junior doctors?
Back in the middle 1970s, when I was a junior doctor, we worked long hours. I mean, long. Despite David Mellor's famous remark that accounts of doctors working long hours were "fisherman's tales", they were true.
For nearly four years I worked what what was called "one in two". That means working every other night and every other weekend, over and above the forty hours of "nine to five" duty. A weekend, therefore, started at nine on Friday morning and ended at five pm on Monday evening- 80 hours of continuous on-call. The total averaged out to 120 hours a week. Of course not all these hours were spent working. Sometimes, blessedly, you could spend an uninterrupted night in your bed, though in practice these nights were few and far between. You could be called from your bed two, three, four times in a night, effectively destroying any possibility of sleep. My most demanding job was paediatrics. During the day I would work on the wards, but at night the responsibility extended to the neonatal ward as well, where we would have to attend any delivery deemed "difficult". This often resulted in what I have always found to be the most stressful situation in medicine: while already engaged in one task, you are called upon to do another. I remember discussing this with a consultant once, and he said:
"yes, it is hard, but think of it this way: you're gathering the experience from two jobs while only doing one." Did that make me feel better? Not exactly.
Worse, the government of the day had just imposed a contract whereby we got paid 30% of our normal rate when working "out of hours" (ie other than nine to five) You haven't mis-read: we were paid 70% less when working "unsocial hours". We were furious, we demonstrated, we worked to rule, we even threatened all out strikes (though this never happened). It was nearly 20 years before these rules were replaced with a more equitable contract.
Junior doctors today have a much better contract than we did, yet they appear to enjoy support from much of the community in their endeavours to secure a better one.. Even the SWP (Socialist Worker's Party) would like to organise a general strike to support them. But others feel that perhaps they protest too much. The inescapable fact is that junior doctor do not remain junior for very long, and by the time they become consultants or partners in general practice they enjoy very good rates of pay indeed, often over £100,000 a year. Plus their pensions are so good they are the envy of almost every other professional group. So maybe they should shut up and get on with it?
For nearly four years I worked what what was called "one in two". That means working every other night and every other weekend, over and above the forty hours of "nine to five" duty. A weekend, therefore, started at nine on Friday morning and ended at five pm on Monday evening- 80 hours of continuous on-call. The total averaged out to 120 hours a week. Of course not all these hours were spent working. Sometimes, blessedly, you could spend an uninterrupted night in your bed, though in practice these nights were few and far between. You could be called from your bed two, three, four times in a night, effectively destroying any possibility of sleep. My most demanding job was paediatrics. During the day I would work on the wards, but at night the responsibility extended to the neonatal ward as well, where we would have to attend any delivery deemed "difficult". This often resulted in what I have always found to be the most stressful situation in medicine: while already engaged in one task, you are called upon to do another. I remember discussing this with a consultant once, and he said:
"yes, it is hard, but think of it this way: you're gathering the experience from two jobs while only doing one." Did that make me feel better? Not exactly.
Worse, the government of the day had just imposed a contract whereby we got paid 30% of our normal rate when working "out of hours" (ie other than nine to five) You haven't mis-read: we were paid 70% less when working "unsocial hours". We were furious, we demonstrated, we worked to rule, we even threatened all out strikes (though this never happened). It was nearly 20 years before these rules were replaced with a more equitable contract.
Junior doctors today have a much better contract than we did, yet they appear to enjoy support from much of the community in their endeavours to secure a better one.. Even the SWP (Socialist Worker's Party) would like to organise a general strike to support them. But others feel that perhaps they protest too much. The inescapable fact is that junior doctor do not remain junior for very long, and by the time they become consultants or partners in general practice they enjoy very good rates of pay indeed, often over £100,000 a year. Plus their pensions are so good they are the envy of almost every other professional group. So maybe they should shut up and get on with it?
Saturday, 6 February 2016
The British government: bad as the Israelis?
A UN convened legal panel has said we should allow Julian Assange to leave the Equadorean embassy and walk free. Our government has called the decision "ridiculous" and refused to comply with its findings. This reminds me of the Israeli response to any international court that finds their activities towards the Palestinian people a breach of international law. "You don't understand the situation on the ground" they say. "If you did you wouldn't say such silly, hurtful things about us."
Sweden has asked us to extradite Assange to answer accusations of rape. On the face of it that seems reasonable, though the situation is not as transparent as it seems. Apparently Assange and the woman in question did have consensual sex earlier that evening, then when she had fallen asleep he attempted to have sex with her once again. I admit here and now I have done that with more than one girlfriend. Sometimes they woke up and were as enthusiastic as I was. Sometimes they pushed me away and said "not now". I'm the kind of guy who does take no for an answer- but I don't know exactly what happened in Assange's case. What I do know is that it doesn't sound like rape on the basis of the evidence produced so far.
Perhaps Jules would be willing to go to Sweden to refute the charges, if it weren't for the fact that the US would like to have him in their clutches over the Wikileaks revelations and put him in a super-max facility for the next 400 years. With that kind of threat hanging over him, you can understand why he has imposed a form of house arrest on himself for nearly four years. As the situation currently stands he could remain there for the rest of his natural life. The UK government has been given a way out of the impasse, but unfortunately they're being so stupid they are refusing to grasp it with both hands. And the way they are playing it makes us look as bad as a number of loser countries who care little for international law. Shame on them.
Sweden has asked us to extradite Assange to answer accusations of rape. On the face of it that seems reasonable, though the situation is not as transparent as it seems. Apparently Assange and the woman in question did have consensual sex earlier that evening, then when she had fallen asleep he attempted to have sex with her once again. I admit here and now I have done that with more than one girlfriend. Sometimes they woke up and were as enthusiastic as I was. Sometimes they pushed me away and said "not now". I'm the kind of guy who does take no for an answer- but I don't know exactly what happened in Assange's case. What I do know is that it doesn't sound like rape on the basis of the evidence produced so far.
Perhaps Jules would be willing to go to Sweden to refute the charges, if it weren't for the fact that the US would like to have him in their clutches over the Wikileaks revelations and put him in a super-max facility for the next 400 years. With that kind of threat hanging over him, you can understand why he has imposed a form of house arrest on himself for nearly four years. As the situation currently stands he could remain there for the rest of his natural life. The UK government has been given a way out of the impasse, but unfortunately they're being so stupid they are refusing to grasp it with both hands. And the way they are playing it makes us look as bad as a number of loser countries who care little for international law. Shame on them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)