Nation Living in Fear

In 2004, the Canadian Mint turned out a number of quarters imprinted with a red poppy to commemorate our war dead. It was the world's first colourized coin. Lo and behold, it led to an international flap.

The U.S. Defense Security Service issued a sensational warning that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. defense contractors traveling in Canada, on three different occasions. They were puzzled because a power source was not evident. The coins were examined under high-power microscopes. It was thought the coins were meant to track the whereabouts of these contractors. The whole thing was too ridiculous for words and eventually the Americans, embarrassed, dropped it. Check the story here

I was wondering just who these contractors were. If they were so suspicious of being tracked, it would not surprise me if they were in the spook business themselves. How many of these characters are running around our country anyway? It reminded me of a cartoon that used to run in Mad magazine called Spy vs. Spy.

In this strip, the black spy was always trying to destroy the white spy, and vice versa, using all sorts of Rube Goldberg devices, booby traps, etc. They each took their turn winning.

Paranoia in the U.S. is running rampant. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. We are witnessing the peak of the American Empire. Could it also be the beginning of decline? Empires are most dangerous in their decline.

Cry Havoc!

Going through the TV listings, I came across a program where the killer wreaks havoc on a train. I got to thinking. Wreaks havoc. Those two words always seem to go together. Can they be separated? Are they ever used alone? Is anything ever wreaked except havoc? And can havoc somehow be brought about without wreaking it? One could say makes havoc, I suppose, but that doesn't cut it. No panache. Cause havoc? Nah. I checked the thesaurus for wreak. Nothing, no synonyms. Nor could I think of anything else, off-hand, that we normally wreak.

My fevered mind then remembered; was there not an actress named Havoc? June Havoc? I googled it. Sure enough, there was. Would her mother have wreaked her? No, I'm told she delivered her. And her name was really Hovick, and you can't wreak Hovick. June was the sister of Gypsy Rose Lee.

I must think of something else to explore. I have a lot of time on my hands.

The End of History

There is often good stuff on the History channel. Flipping through the channels about a week ago, I came across a program about the emperor Constantine, the foundation of Constantinople, and his successors. Now it just so happened that I was re-reading Volume One of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and I was at that very chapter. It was a brutal period. No matter that Constantine is revered by the Christian church, he was responsible for various atrocities including the murder of his son and step-son. Apparently it goes with the territory, if you want to maintain your authority. His mother Helen, was complicit in these killings. She was canonized by the church. St. Helen. It went on to describe the ferocious reign of Theodosius. Then there was Basil II. Early in his reign he had been defeated by the Bulgarians. It rankled, so he eventually raised an army and marched into Bulgaria. He inflicted an enormous defeat on the enemy, took 15,000 prisoners and had their eyes put out except for every hundredth one, who was left with one eye, the idea being that these lucky ones could lead their companions back home. The care of this blind horde would be a burden on the state and serve to prevent any further aggression. An economist would appreciate that. That reminded me of the adventures of a previous emperor, I forget which, who defeated the army of a king who was troubling the Empire. Following the victory, he generously made a present to the defeated king of 5,000 eunuchs. When the king came out to inspect his gift, he recognized his own soldiers, recently castrated. There's a downside to everything. Then I started thinking of other histories I've read. Mexico, for instance, has had a colourful history. Mostly red. Atrocities are common. As an example, during one revolution, a group of captive women were tied to trees or posts or anything handy, left all day in the blazing sun and then as evening came on, had various body parts lopped off with machetes as a punishment, presumably, for their men. It would not be the first time women suffered for their men. One of the later Byzantine emperors, overturned in a palace coup, witnessed his beautiful wife having her lips and nose cut off as a punishment to him.
I can now understand women's lib. The more I thought about these things, the more I became disgusted with history.

The title of this piece is from Francis Fukuyama's book, The End of History and the Last Man where he argues that Marx had it all wrong. Marx foresaw a world where classes would be eliminated, all would be equal, share everything, no more capitalists, etc. He called it communism. No need for wars, no more history. Some dream! As Fukuyama wrote his book after the fall of the Soviet Union, he could easily contradict Marx. But he says that his own version of the end of history will come when all the nations of the earth become liberal democracies. In 1900 there was not one democracy with universal suffrage, but now 60% of countries claim to be democratic. The process will continue and maybe in a few hundred years it will be achieved, with a few setbacks along the way. Another nice dream, be patient. I was curious about the phrase "and the last man". Here he gets into Hegel/Nietzsche gobbledygook with which I have little patience, but as I understand it, once the dream is achieved the "last man" will be a wuss only interested in earning a living and staying warm. This is Fukuyama's pessimistic view of his own utopia??? I have read neither Marx nor Fukuyama nor do I intend to. The introduction is enough.

At the end of viewing the program mentioned above, I picked up my copy of Gibbon's history and put it back on the shelf. It's going to stay there. That's the end of history for me.