This book is not a complete biography of Stalin: rather its subject is just what its subtitle says it is, the court of the Red Tsar. Naturally, the period of Stalin’s having a court covers the most important part of his life.
The author spent years gathering documents and remembrances from survivors in Russia. As well, he had unprecedented access to the Stalin archives. His patient collection of new information shows in the book’s many fascinating anecdotes, ranging from bizarre to horrifying.
For those familiar with the career of Stalin, the book has no great shocking revelations. Rather it is in its anecdotes we gain grim new details of this almost unprecedented tyranny. The contrast in court life before the first great terror, 1937, and after; Stalin’s intense interference with the personal lives of his colleagues, whom the author nicely terms the magnates; Stalin’s endless lists of names carefully checked off; certain glimpses of Stalin’s wartime behaviour; and details of Stalin’s death – all these and more are new stories and add detail and nuance to our understanding of one of history’s greatest monsters.
Stalin, by the reckoning given here, was the second greatest mass-murderer in human history, surpassed only in the sheer volume of victims by Chairman Mao, but such counts are never accurate even with good archives because so many of the events in those horrifying regimes were disguised or unreported.
When Stalin wanted a prominent person killed, often the act was disguised as something like an automobile accident. Beria, one of his chief killers, sometimes employed poisons, reminding one of a prince in the court of the Borgias, and he may have done so in the end with the Vozhd himself as Stalin became obviously senile and busied himself with still new terrors in the early 1950s, ones aimed at doctors, Jews, and Mingrelian speakers from Georgia – the last including Beria himself. All of the magnates in the last days feared another great wave of murder and torture, as they also feared Stalin’s failing mind carelessly risking war with the West.
Stalin believed the government needed regular shaking up. In that he reminds me of Thomas Jefferson’s belief that the tree of liberty needed new blood every fifteen or twenty years. Stalin also, I believe, simply tired of some of the people with whom he worked for any time. He had such a severe set of standards of behaviour and performance – Stalin was a workaholic - that he grew tired of magnates who, with success, assumed manners that suggested being at odds with his deeply rooted concepts of Bolshevik standards. Above all, Stalin was paranoid about anyone who doubted him or anyone who might challenge him, and his extraordinary ability to read human beings made it close to impossible for anyone to hide their doubts. His relentless intelligence apparatus also fed his doubts or fears about people. Everyone of consequence was bugged, and it only took one casual suggestive remark at home to start Stalin’s thinking about the end of someone’s usefulness.
Stalin’s human-intelligence operation abroad might well have been the greatest ever assembled (it included Kim Philby and the other Cambridge spies in Britain, Richard Sorge in Japan, someone unknown high in the German government, and important people in America’s Manhattan Project) and it provided him with many important tips, but Stalin’s paranoia often caused him to reject the information in a bizarre twist on the Cassandra legend.
Stalin certainly suffered from some form of mental illness: his extreme paranoia alone attests to that. He was also a true psychopath, able to charm and disarm people even while planning to kill them. Stalin had a stare, with yellowy unblinking eyes, that he used often to question or discomfort or threaten people, sometimes terrifying those he was about to destroy. He enjoyed, like a cat with a captured mouse, toying with his victims. It was a significant sport for him during his campaigns against magnates or officials. His sense of humor was crude, and he enjoyed throwing bits of orange peel or wine corks at his dinner guests. He sometimes greeted officials or friends with questions like “haven’t they arrested you yet?” But, as Montefiore tells us, he was exceptionally intelligent and, like Hitler, he had a prodigious memory.
But of course, most of his killing was not competitors, their families, authors or artists who displeased him, but millions of ordinary people: the millions of kulaks (successful farmers, the beginnings of a Russian middle class) he arrested and tortured and killed, the millions of Ukrainians whom he deliberately consigned to starvation (on the order of 10 to 12 million), and various other national groups from Poles to Germans who were killed by the hundreds of thousands. Stalin had a godlike stance towards the suffering and deaths of millions of victims: what happened was simply necessary, like a gardener pulling weeds, in working towards the ideals of Bolshevism.
I believe the author has straightened out the conflicting tales of Stalin’s behaviour in the first days of Hitler’s invasion. There have been many conflicting stories in reputable books about whether Stalin crumpled into a useless drunken heap or kept his steely grip.
The author has given us more information about Stalin’s death, but the picture remains unclear in some details. Here again, reputable books have contained conflicting stories.
Rich with new information, the book is not without faults. Indeed, it has several significant ones.
The index, I realize in writing this review, is seriously inadequate to the size and complexity of the book’s subject matter. I recall specific events or descriptions, but when I try finding them in the index by several possible routes, there are no adequate references.
The book has an episodic nature in which years at a time on some subjects disappear. There is also the sometimes annoying practice of a very brief fact tacked on to a passage, almost a non sequitur, I assume just to employ material people had supplied the author.
The writing varies between quite good and not so good. For example, Riumin, one of his last killers, is described at the start of Chapter 56 as “…plump and balding, stupid and vicious….” Yet in the same paragraph, Riumin is said to have completed a good education (for that day) and qualified as an accountant, hardly the achievement of a stupid person, especially in those days of much more stringent school requirements. This kind of thing is fairly common through the book, and it is annoying, being the result I suggest of the author’s readiness to dash off colorful descriptions of new characters which later prove less than accurate as their tales are told.
Despite its shortcomings, the book is an indispensable source for students of the Soviet Union, Stalin, tyranny, modern European history, and psychology.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF DAVID CECIL’S MELBOURNE
Here is that rare thing, a beautiful book, gracefully written and displaying genuine scholarship, Lord David Cecil’s biography of William Lamb, Lord Melbourne.
Melbourne was prime minister to the eighteen-year old Queen Victoria when she assumed the monarch’s role and had first to deal with the complex and perplexing demands of being head of state. It was a time when the monarchy no longer ruled but retained considerable importance in British society and political affairs. He became Victoria’s intimate advisor and friend, a role perhaps unlike that of any other prime minister in British history.
Cecil’s style perfectly suits his subject – graceful, learned, thoughtful - a rare harmony in biography. The author admires his subject, although well aware of Melbourne’s limitations, and I tend to favour biographers who are not hostile.
Melbourne was a controversial figure for a number of reasons, but especially owing to his role in the early years of Victoria’s reign. One can imagine the feelings of the opposition party over his special relationship with the Queen, and we read a fair amount about it here. Victoria had an unpleasant childhood with an intense and overwhelming mother, who worked to shape her daughter to her own purposes, and little contact with her father. Melbourne provided an advisor of matchless charm and understanding and sophistication, filling a place in her young life as something of a father figure, intimate friend, and truly expert political and protocol advisor.
Victoria filled an important place in Melbourne’s life too, for Melbourne was a man who loved the society of women. While as a young man he had many love affairs - behaviour typical of his Whig aristocracy class in the late 18th century and early 19th, a period called the Regency era and marking the transition from Georgian England to Victorian - he was not a Les Liaisons dangereuses type of character but a man who was perfectly capable of having happy and affectionate relationships with women. Indeed, he absolutely needed such relationships. When his government fell and he lost the Prime Minister’s access to Victoria, there was a haunting emptiness to his last years.
This is not a definitive biography, and it was certainly not intended to be one, but it tells us the main stories of Melbourne’s life, both personal and political. It is perhaps more than anything else a study in human character. Melbourne was an interesting man, highly polished and intelligent, and one of the last of the Regency era’s privileged Whig statesmen. To a considerable degree, he was already outdated by the time he was given great political power, although deep understanding of human nature is never outdated. There are wonderful glimpses here too of Queen Victoria as an uncertain 18-year old thrown into the role of official head of the world’s great empire.
Melbourne was something of a reluctant politician, being most comfortable with dinner parties, good company, and good books. The extent to which he was active in some reforms was not so much from his personal convictions in the matters but from his conviction that society changed and laws must accommodate the change. His greatest horror was civil unrest and the threat of a repeat of the French Revolution, and he believed in not creating any tensions or popular hopes which could not be fulfilled. Ironically, he lived through a time of tremendous unrest in England, the unrest that pushed a long series of reforms, from parliamentary representation to Catholic emancipation in Ireland and to the repeal of the Corn Laws, the last having been the very foundation of the Whig class’s privileged place in society.
Melbourne’s underlying strength of character is displayed in his relationship with his wife, a beautiful, frail woman who appears to have suffered from late-onset schizophrenia. Despite the many embarrassments she caused him, including a tempestuous and very public love affair with Lord Byron, he stood by her until the end. And just so with any friend or intimate companion, including the Queen, he stood by them, often taking blame for matters of which he was not the cause, rather than betray friendship.
Recommended for all students of British history, students of human psychology, those who love good biography, and those who simply love books.
Melbourne was prime minister to the eighteen-year old Queen Victoria when she assumed the monarch’s role and had first to deal with the complex and perplexing demands of being head of state. It was a time when the monarchy no longer ruled but retained considerable importance in British society and political affairs. He became Victoria’s intimate advisor and friend, a role perhaps unlike that of any other prime minister in British history.
Cecil’s style perfectly suits his subject – graceful, learned, thoughtful - a rare harmony in biography. The author admires his subject, although well aware of Melbourne’s limitations, and I tend to favour biographers who are not hostile.
Melbourne was a controversial figure for a number of reasons, but especially owing to his role in the early years of Victoria’s reign. One can imagine the feelings of the opposition party over his special relationship with the Queen, and we read a fair amount about it here. Victoria had an unpleasant childhood with an intense and overwhelming mother, who worked to shape her daughter to her own purposes, and little contact with her father. Melbourne provided an advisor of matchless charm and understanding and sophistication, filling a place in her young life as something of a father figure, intimate friend, and truly expert political and protocol advisor.
Victoria filled an important place in Melbourne’s life too, for Melbourne was a man who loved the society of women. While as a young man he had many love affairs - behaviour typical of his Whig aristocracy class in the late 18th century and early 19th, a period called the Regency era and marking the transition from Georgian England to Victorian - he was not a Les Liaisons dangereuses type of character but a man who was perfectly capable of having happy and affectionate relationships with women. Indeed, he absolutely needed such relationships. When his government fell and he lost the Prime Minister’s access to Victoria, there was a haunting emptiness to his last years.
This is not a definitive biography, and it was certainly not intended to be one, but it tells us the main stories of Melbourne’s life, both personal and political. It is perhaps more than anything else a study in human character. Melbourne was an interesting man, highly polished and intelligent, and one of the last of the Regency era’s privileged Whig statesmen. To a considerable degree, he was already outdated by the time he was given great political power, although deep understanding of human nature is never outdated. There are wonderful glimpses here too of Queen Victoria as an uncertain 18-year old thrown into the role of official head of the world’s great empire.
Melbourne was something of a reluctant politician, being most comfortable with dinner parties, good company, and good books. The extent to which he was active in some reforms was not so much from his personal convictions in the matters but from his conviction that society changed and laws must accommodate the change. His greatest horror was civil unrest and the threat of a repeat of the French Revolution, and he believed in not creating any tensions or popular hopes which could not be fulfilled. Ironically, he lived through a time of tremendous unrest in England, the unrest that pushed a long series of reforms, from parliamentary representation to Catholic emancipation in Ireland and to the repeal of the Corn Laws, the last having been the very foundation of the Whig class’s privileged place in society.
Melbourne’s underlying strength of character is displayed in his relationship with his wife, a beautiful, frail woman who appears to have suffered from late-onset schizophrenia. Despite the many embarrassments she caused him, including a tempestuous and very public love affair with Lord Byron, he stood by her until the end. And just so with any friend or intimate companion, including the Queen, he stood by them, often taking blame for matters of which he was not the cause, rather than betray friendship.
Recommended for all students of British history, students of human psychology, those who love good biography, and those who simply love books.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF WILLIAM MANCHESTER’S THE LAST LION
William Manchester died before finishing his massive three-volume biography of Winston Churchill, having completed Visions of Glory - Churchill’s childhood, military career, and early politics - and Alone, covering the period of relative political inactivity from 1932 to the start of World War II.
This is a biography which covers both Winston’s personal life and political career.
The first volume of the set is gripping, Manchester having a subject of almost unparalleled interest, a bright but very difficult child who finally finds his place as a soldier and uses his family connections – his father being a descendent of the Duke of Marlborough – to gain assignments in zones of danger from fighting on the frontiers of Afghanistan to fighting the Boers in South Africa. His adventures in faraway realms of the Empire are absolutely absorbing, sort of Boy’s Own stuff for adults. Churchill was almost fearless and often extremely lucky. He also later served as a brave officer on the front in the Great War.
Manchester’s style is clear and direct, but there are times he enters into subject areas I prefer he hadn’t, as speculations on Winston’s sexuality or rather lack of it, but Manchester had a remarkable memory and did extensive research so that all kinds of interesting little facts are scattered through the text. He also follows the custom of periodically giving little vignettes of the kind of events which were happening at the time.
Churchill’s childhood was not one anyone would envy, despite the wealth and privilege and great connections with history. His father, who died fairly early, was one of the most promising men in Parliament, having been marked out as a future Prime Minister. However, he simply did not like Winston, and theirs was a cold and often unpleasant relationship. His mother was a handsome East Coast American from a well-off family, a woman who was regularly unfaithful to her husband and reportedly even slept with the future king. She simply had no time or even interest in Winston, although there was some change when Winston’s father died.
Winston had a temperament as a boy reminding me of several historical figures who simply could not get on well in school and yet were immensely successful later, Einstein coming first to mind. Winston’s brilliance was evident to teachers but his application was slim to non-existent.
I do think Manchester goes out of his way at times trying to justify some of Winston’s schemes such as the disastrous Dardanelles campaign in World War I, an event over which others have roundly condemned Churchill. He is clearly in his subject’s corner, something I generally prefer to hostile biographers, but still it is worth pointing out that he is at times a bit excessive in this.
The second volume is less interesting, and there are two reasons for this. First, it is simply a much less engaging chapter in Winston’s life, but, second, I think Manchester plays too strongly on the word “appeasement,” even offering up a definition early on. The word and its variants, such as “appeasers,” are repeated over and over in the text, communicating to me the chilling tone of Right-wing American language.
After all, Americans barely were scratched in World War I while Europe experienced what was to that time the greatest, most pointless carnage in history. Efforts to stop a repeat of that vast horror only twenty years later remain to me not contemptible. In general, too, it was less the appeasers that eased Hitler’s path than it was a French government, in possession of the strongest army in Europe by far during the early thirties, which was unstable and uncertain and failed in the simplest, almost bloodless acts such as opposing the re-occupation of the Rhineland.
The second volume does have some nice tableaux of Winston, from his painting, which became a major hobby, to his trudging around the estate in overalls building brick walls for his gardens.
Churchill was extraordinary, and this biography captures a good deal of the flavour or tone of the man. It is recommended for students of history, leadership, world affairs, politics, psychology, and those who love a good biography.
Apparently, Manchester, before he died, selected a writer, Paul Reid, to finish the third volume. The last I read it was due in 2011.
This is a biography which covers both Winston’s personal life and political career.
The first volume of the set is gripping, Manchester having a subject of almost unparalleled interest, a bright but very difficult child who finally finds his place as a soldier and uses his family connections – his father being a descendent of the Duke of Marlborough – to gain assignments in zones of danger from fighting on the frontiers of Afghanistan to fighting the Boers in South Africa. His adventures in faraway realms of the Empire are absolutely absorbing, sort of Boy’s Own stuff for adults. Churchill was almost fearless and often extremely lucky. He also later served as a brave officer on the front in the Great War.
Manchester’s style is clear and direct, but there are times he enters into subject areas I prefer he hadn’t, as speculations on Winston’s sexuality or rather lack of it, but Manchester had a remarkable memory and did extensive research so that all kinds of interesting little facts are scattered through the text. He also follows the custom of periodically giving little vignettes of the kind of events which were happening at the time.
Churchill’s childhood was not one anyone would envy, despite the wealth and privilege and great connections with history. His father, who died fairly early, was one of the most promising men in Parliament, having been marked out as a future Prime Minister. However, he simply did not like Winston, and theirs was a cold and often unpleasant relationship. His mother was a handsome East Coast American from a well-off family, a woman who was regularly unfaithful to her husband and reportedly even slept with the future king. She simply had no time or even interest in Winston, although there was some change when Winston’s father died.
Winston had a temperament as a boy reminding me of several historical figures who simply could not get on well in school and yet were immensely successful later, Einstein coming first to mind. Winston’s brilliance was evident to teachers but his application was slim to non-existent.
I do think Manchester goes out of his way at times trying to justify some of Winston’s schemes such as the disastrous Dardanelles campaign in World War I, an event over which others have roundly condemned Churchill. He is clearly in his subject’s corner, something I generally prefer to hostile biographers, but still it is worth pointing out that he is at times a bit excessive in this.
The second volume is less interesting, and there are two reasons for this. First, it is simply a much less engaging chapter in Winston’s life, but, second, I think Manchester plays too strongly on the word “appeasement,” even offering up a definition early on. The word and its variants, such as “appeasers,” are repeated over and over in the text, communicating to me the chilling tone of Right-wing American language.
After all, Americans barely were scratched in World War I while Europe experienced what was to that time the greatest, most pointless carnage in history. Efforts to stop a repeat of that vast horror only twenty years later remain to me not contemptible. In general, too, it was less the appeasers that eased Hitler’s path than it was a French government, in possession of the strongest army in Europe by far during the early thirties, which was unstable and uncertain and failed in the simplest, almost bloodless acts such as opposing the re-occupation of the Rhineland.
The second volume does have some nice tableaux of Winston, from his painting, which became a major hobby, to his trudging around the estate in overalls building brick walls for his gardens.
Churchill was extraordinary, and this biography captures a good deal of the flavour or tone of the man. It is recommended for students of history, leadership, world affairs, politics, psychology, and those who love a good biography.
Apparently, Manchester, before he died, selected a writer, Paul Reid, to finish the third volume. The last I read it was due in 2011.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF ALLAN BULLOCK’S HITLER A STUDY IN TYRANNY
I first read this book the best part of fifty years ago.
It stands up remarkably well, even when read with a subsequent background of many books about World War II, several biographies of Hitler and other major war figures, plus smaller specialized studies.
This is not a full biography, Hitler’s early years receiving fairly brief treatment. It is precisely what its subtitle says of it, a study in tyranny, and I don’t believe another book offers quite the same intense exploration of the subject.
Allan Bullock writes as a genuine scholar, albeit an unusually articulate one. When Bullock is uncertain about the factors contributing to a certain event, he says so, along with giving readers a clear explanation of the alternatives. Bullock had studied the vast literature available in his time and little of substance escaped his analytical mind.
Hitler surely represents three extraordinary historical phenomena.
First, the outline of his rise is remarkable, almost unparalleled in history, rising from a tramp, would-be artist, a man with limited formal education, to become absolute leader of Europe’s most important nation and then achieving a series of dazzling successes until megalomania struck, sending Europe into a ghastly spiral of horrors and destruction.
One of the few comparable rises I can think of is that of a man who shared none of Hitler’s dark obsessions and hatreds: I refer to Lincoln, a man who rose from life in a dirt-floor cabin and a year and half of formal education to become a successful corporate lawyer, president of the United States, and leader of what remains America’s bloodiest war.
Second, Hitler is, in a number of ways, the most important historical figure of the 20th century – not the greatest, not the most gifted, and certainly neither admirable nor heroic, but the most important as measured by his impact upon great events both in his own time and after.
Hitler’s career contributed to the rise or success of some of the century’s most able and heroic figures – Roosevelt, Churchill, and De Gaulle. And the gigantic destructive events Hitler unleashed profoundly affected the world to this day – the establishment of the Soviet empire, decades of Cold War, and the agonizing events following the creation of Israel.
Third, few people in all of history wielded such immense, unquestioned power over others as he did – Stalin, Napoleon, Henry VIII, Cromwell, Augustus, Genghis Khan, Attila, and a few others come to mind. Understanding the mind and methods of such a person is beyond question an important study of the human condition.
This is an essential book for students of history, statesmanship, World War II, politics, human character, and psychology. It is well enough written to hold the attention of those who are not scholars but interested in any of these subjects.
One of the most interesting qualities of Bullock’s book is his avoidance of what has now become an almost de rigueur, politically correct minimizing of Hitler’s skills and talents, very much a flaw in Ian Kershaw’s biography, and preaching about his evil, something which is apparent just in telling the true history.
Bullock makes clear that in every relationship and project Hitler ever had, the need to be regarded as final authority was an intense, overwhelming psychological drive. He also clearly had developed something of a Messiah complex, something not unknown in our own day among politicians and religious leaders. His vision of Germany’s expansion in the East was filled with ghastly concepts, yet the basic idea of a larger national landscape for Europe’s most technically and perhaps culturally advanced nation, similar to the space claimed by the United States on its rise or by the British Empire, was rational if not ethical.
We know from well-regarded psychiatric studies that Hitler was not mentally ill, yet he did more damage than any mentally ill person I can think of. That fact alone makes understanding him immensely important and should serve as a continued warning concerning those who seek power in our societies. The all-too-common “Hitler the madman” is not helpful and shows no genuine learning from history.
True madmen have little chance of gaining serious power anywhere: they are eschewed by democracies where the least evidence of experience with mental problems is an absolute disqualifier and they are not supported in tyrannies because, as Bullock shows, a tyranny requires many insiders to make it work.
Indeed, one of the most important aspects of the Third Reich that Bullock so ably brings out was the endless creation of special fiefdoms to replace older fiefdoms and new offices for ambitious lieutenants to balance off against other ambitious lieutenants. It is for this reason that I believe all true tyrannies, at least in otherwise advanced states, are doomed not to last: they are actually far more unstable and inefficient than people generally realize.
If you are reading about the Third Reich, this is, quite simply, an indispensable book.
It stands up remarkably well, even when read with a subsequent background of many books about World War II, several biographies of Hitler and other major war figures, plus smaller specialized studies.
This is not a full biography, Hitler’s early years receiving fairly brief treatment. It is precisely what its subtitle says of it, a study in tyranny, and I don’t believe another book offers quite the same intense exploration of the subject.
Allan Bullock writes as a genuine scholar, albeit an unusually articulate one. When Bullock is uncertain about the factors contributing to a certain event, he says so, along with giving readers a clear explanation of the alternatives. Bullock had studied the vast literature available in his time and little of substance escaped his analytical mind.
Hitler surely represents three extraordinary historical phenomena.
First, the outline of his rise is remarkable, almost unparalleled in history, rising from a tramp, would-be artist, a man with limited formal education, to become absolute leader of Europe’s most important nation and then achieving a series of dazzling successes until megalomania struck, sending Europe into a ghastly spiral of horrors and destruction.
One of the few comparable rises I can think of is that of a man who shared none of Hitler’s dark obsessions and hatreds: I refer to Lincoln, a man who rose from life in a dirt-floor cabin and a year and half of formal education to become a successful corporate lawyer, president of the United States, and leader of what remains America’s bloodiest war.
Second, Hitler is, in a number of ways, the most important historical figure of the 20th century – not the greatest, not the most gifted, and certainly neither admirable nor heroic, but the most important as measured by his impact upon great events both in his own time and after.
Hitler’s career contributed to the rise or success of some of the century’s most able and heroic figures – Roosevelt, Churchill, and De Gaulle. And the gigantic destructive events Hitler unleashed profoundly affected the world to this day – the establishment of the Soviet empire, decades of Cold War, and the agonizing events following the creation of Israel.
Third, few people in all of history wielded such immense, unquestioned power over others as he did – Stalin, Napoleon, Henry VIII, Cromwell, Augustus, Genghis Khan, Attila, and a few others come to mind. Understanding the mind and methods of such a person is beyond question an important study of the human condition.
This is an essential book for students of history, statesmanship, World War II, politics, human character, and psychology. It is well enough written to hold the attention of those who are not scholars but interested in any of these subjects.
One of the most interesting qualities of Bullock’s book is his avoidance of what has now become an almost de rigueur, politically correct minimizing of Hitler’s skills and talents, very much a flaw in Ian Kershaw’s biography, and preaching about his evil, something which is apparent just in telling the true history.
Bullock makes clear that in every relationship and project Hitler ever had, the need to be regarded as final authority was an intense, overwhelming psychological drive. He also clearly had developed something of a Messiah complex, something not unknown in our own day among politicians and religious leaders. His vision of Germany’s expansion in the East was filled with ghastly concepts, yet the basic idea of a larger national landscape for Europe’s most technically and perhaps culturally advanced nation, similar to the space claimed by the United States on its rise or by the British Empire, was rational if not ethical.
We know from well-regarded psychiatric studies that Hitler was not mentally ill, yet he did more damage than any mentally ill person I can think of. That fact alone makes understanding him immensely important and should serve as a continued warning concerning those who seek power in our societies. The all-too-common “Hitler the madman” is not helpful and shows no genuine learning from history.
True madmen have little chance of gaining serious power anywhere: they are eschewed by democracies where the least evidence of experience with mental problems is an absolute disqualifier and they are not supported in tyrannies because, as Bullock shows, a tyranny requires many insiders to make it work.
Indeed, one of the most important aspects of the Third Reich that Bullock so ably brings out was the endless creation of special fiefdoms to replace older fiefdoms and new offices for ambitious lieutenants to balance off against other ambitious lieutenants. It is for this reason that I believe all true tyrannies, at least in otherwise advanced states, are doomed not to last: they are actually far more unstable and inefficient than people generally realize.
If you are reading about the Third Reich, this is, quite simply, an indispensable book.
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF JOHN HORGAN’S THE END OF SCIENCE
It is difficult to know just how to treat this book. It has many serious faults.
It is well-written, was a best seller, but its very subject is to my mind a rather eccentric notion, and the author does some quite annoying things in writing about it.
By the term “end of science” the author does not mean a return to the Dark Ages but a time when all the large and exciting discoveries and theories all will have been established, leaving only relatively small subjects to science. It is the kind of notion that might pass through any thoughtful person’s mind, but I think it one that is quickly dismissed.
The interest in the book has to do with the eminent figures interviewed and not with the author’s speculations.
The author is not a scientist, but he is scientifically literate and does write pieces for magazines like Scientific American, and I am not automatically put off by the idea of inspired non-experts writing on any subject.
Perhaps the first serious fault is the way the author approaches the subject. What we have is a series of interviews with eminent figures, many of them scientists but many are social scientists or philosophers. A great deal is hidden in that word “interview.” These are relatively short interviews or conversations at conventions or discussions on the telephone.
With every live interview, no matter how brief, the author offers a concise description of the subject, some being amusing or interesting, but all highly colored and none strictly appropriate for a book on science or ideas. I regard this as padding, especially in light of how little of the subjects’ thoughts on the book’s theme the author captures. One also could fairly argue, in light of what we eventually learn of the author’s views, that these are used as devices to prejudice readers towards or away from interview subjects.
The subject is provocative, of course, thus perhaps giving the author entrée in some cases which he otherwise might not have been given, and, of course, it also helps sales
I do think, considering at least a half dozen of the world’s eminent intellects were interviewed, that the space allotted to each subject’s thought is sketchy at best. This perhaps stems from the author’s experience in writing relatively short articles but also likely reflects the effort to keep things zippy rather than genuinely thoughtful – what one might expect from most best sellers I’m afraid.
The author insists on using words that to my mind no longer are part of science, chief among these beings “laws” and “truth.”
Law is a genuinely outdated concept applied to science, although it is still somewhat carelessly used for theories of long standing. What we have in modern science are hypotheses or theories or conjectures which seem to describe our observations of phenomena but are subject to being endlessly tested against new observations and perhaps discarded.
Science is quite ruthless about ideas. When they cease working, they are set aside and replaced by others that work better. So long as a theory continues to fit new observations – and remember our scientific instruments are almost constantly improving in accuracy and scope of application and even in the measurement of things never before measured – it is viewed as useful and, in a strictly limited sense, valid.
But there are no laws in science truly today, even if phrases carrying over from the 19th century are sometimes used. Each time we rise to another perspective in looking at a phenomenon – as by the new acuteness of our instruments or building upon a new and very convincing theory or doing a kind of experiment never before done - we sometimes begin to see observations, including previous ones, in a new way. A new theory or conjecture replaces the established one, and the process continues so long as we are able to progress.
Einstein replaced Newton, but Newton still serves perfectly well under limited conditions to give the results he always did, and, as Einstein himself suggested, he will himself one day be displaced in the same way by an even more encompassing perspective.
None of these great men’s works is regarded as law: they are useful relationships which are valued and retained so long as they continue to be useful.
And none of these theories represents “truth” except in the highly limited sense that when under such-and-such conditions we may expect this-or-that.
Nothing in all of physics has any existence in reality – if we may posit such a thing as reality – neither quarks nor electrons nor electromagnetic spectra: these are our way of describing phenomena to ourselves in useful, consistent, and measurable ways, but they are not, as it were, snap shots of nature.
There is no reason known for this process ever to stop, unless we bump up against limits of perception or understanding, a possibility discussed briefly in the book but which is as utterly speculative and useless today as notions like the mind-body problem of philosophy.
I’ll leave it to readers to discover the intense experience of years ago that motivates the author: I would only suggest that someone dropped LSD into something he consumed.
It is well-written, was a best seller, but its very subject is to my mind a rather eccentric notion, and the author does some quite annoying things in writing about it.
By the term “end of science” the author does not mean a return to the Dark Ages but a time when all the large and exciting discoveries and theories all will have been established, leaving only relatively small subjects to science. It is the kind of notion that might pass through any thoughtful person’s mind, but I think it one that is quickly dismissed.
The interest in the book has to do with the eminent figures interviewed and not with the author’s speculations.
The author is not a scientist, but he is scientifically literate and does write pieces for magazines like Scientific American, and I am not automatically put off by the idea of inspired non-experts writing on any subject.
Perhaps the first serious fault is the way the author approaches the subject. What we have is a series of interviews with eminent figures, many of them scientists but many are social scientists or philosophers. A great deal is hidden in that word “interview.” These are relatively short interviews or conversations at conventions or discussions on the telephone.
With every live interview, no matter how brief, the author offers a concise description of the subject, some being amusing or interesting, but all highly colored and none strictly appropriate for a book on science or ideas. I regard this as padding, especially in light of how little of the subjects’ thoughts on the book’s theme the author captures. One also could fairly argue, in light of what we eventually learn of the author’s views, that these are used as devices to prejudice readers towards or away from interview subjects.
The subject is provocative, of course, thus perhaps giving the author entrée in some cases which he otherwise might not have been given, and, of course, it also helps sales
I do think, considering at least a half dozen of the world’s eminent intellects were interviewed, that the space allotted to each subject’s thought is sketchy at best. This perhaps stems from the author’s experience in writing relatively short articles but also likely reflects the effort to keep things zippy rather than genuinely thoughtful – what one might expect from most best sellers I’m afraid.
The author insists on using words that to my mind no longer are part of science, chief among these beings “laws” and “truth.”
Law is a genuinely outdated concept applied to science, although it is still somewhat carelessly used for theories of long standing. What we have in modern science are hypotheses or theories or conjectures which seem to describe our observations of phenomena but are subject to being endlessly tested against new observations and perhaps discarded.
Science is quite ruthless about ideas. When they cease working, they are set aside and replaced by others that work better. So long as a theory continues to fit new observations – and remember our scientific instruments are almost constantly improving in accuracy and scope of application and even in the measurement of things never before measured – it is viewed as useful and, in a strictly limited sense, valid.
But there are no laws in science truly today, even if phrases carrying over from the 19th century are sometimes used. Each time we rise to another perspective in looking at a phenomenon – as by the new acuteness of our instruments or building upon a new and very convincing theory or doing a kind of experiment never before done - we sometimes begin to see observations, including previous ones, in a new way. A new theory or conjecture replaces the established one, and the process continues so long as we are able to progress.
Einstein replaced Newton, but Newton still serves perfectly well under limited conditions to give the results he always did, and, as Einstein himself suggested, he will himself one day be displaced in the same way by an even more encompassing perspective.
None of these great men’s works is regarded as law: they are useful relationships which are valued and retained so long as they continue to be useful.
And none of these theories represents “truth” except in the highly limited sense that when under such-and-such conditions we may expect this-or-that.
Nothing in all of physics has any existence in reality – if we may posit such a thing as reality – neither quarks nor electrons nor electromagnetic spectra: these are our way of describing phenomena to ourselves in useful, consistent, and measurable ways, but they are not, as it were, snap shots of nature.
There is no reason known for this process ever to stop, unless we bump up against limits of perception or understanding, a possibility discussed briefly in the book but which is as utterly speculative and useless today as notions like the mind-body problem of philosophy.
I’ll leave it to readers to discover the intense experience of years ago that motivates the author: I would only suggest that someone dropped LSD into something he consumed.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: MEXICAN LASAGNE
Not an authentic dish at all, but very tasty
INGREDIENTS:
5 Large Tortillas (if you need to fit casserole pan, cut sides)
1 Large Onion - chopped
2 cans refried beans – Herdez from Mexico are my favorite
2 pounds ground beef and pork mixed
Frozen of fresh Corn kernels – several handfuls
Green Pepper – finely chopped – several handfuls
1 1/2 pounds Cheddar or Monterey Jack Cheese – grated
2 cans La Victoria Sauce (Hot) from Mexico – see bottom of recipe
for alternative with my Green Sauce
Red Spaghetti Sauce – leftover or bottled – about equal to half of
La Victoria Sauce
Green stuffed Olives – handful to decorate top
Soft Cream Cheese – Laughing Cow from Quebec is perfect – enough
to crumble over top with Olives
METHOD:
Saute ground Meat with chopped Onion.
Mix the two Sauces.
In the bottom of a large glass oven casserole pan, rub a little oil, then drizzle a little mixed Sauce. Place a Tortilla. Spread Re-fried Beans over tortilla like frosting. Sprinkle a good layer of sautéed ground meat mixture. Sprinkle some Corn and Green Pepper. Sprinkle with grated Cheese. Lightly coat with Sauce.
Repeat with more layers. Stop with a Tortilla on top.
Over the top Tortilla, spread remaining Sauce mix. Crumble soft Cream Cheese pieces in roughly even spacing. Spread a little remaining grated cheese. Sprinkle Olives with roughly even spacing.
Cover pan with foil top and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.
Great leftover and re-heated (cover).
NOTE ON ALTERNATIVE SAUCE VERSION:
My Green Pepper Sauce – used for Fish Enchiladas – is also perfect for this recipe. Skip adding Spaghetti Sauce in this case, although I can imagine a thin drizzle of Spaghetti Sauce followed by a thick drizzle of Green Pepper Sauce being very good too.
Saute two or three finely-diced cloves of garlic in oil. Use this garic-infused oil to make a smooth White Sauce, mixing flour into Milk and then into warm oil. Use about one-quarter Light Cream or Half-and-half with Milk. Add a Knorr Chicken bullion cube or, if you have it, some heavily-reduced Chicken Stock. Add a generous amount of a Green Hot Sauce based on Jalapeno peppers, amount depending on taste. I use Mama Africa’s Zulu Sauce (Jalapeno) from South Africa. Any such sauce will do.
INGREDIENTS:
5 Large Tortillas (if you need to fit casserole pan, cut sides)
1 Large Onion - chopped
2 cans refried beans – Herdez from Mexico are my favorite
2 pounds ground beef and pork mixed
Frozen of fresh Corn kernels – several handfuls
Green Pepper – finely chopped – several handfuls
1 1/2 pounds Cheddar or Monterey Jack Cheese – grated
2 cans La Victoria Sauce (Hot) from Mexico – see bottom of recipe
for alternative with my Green Sauce
Red Spaghetti Sauce – leftover or bottled – about equal to half of
La Victoria Sauce
Green stuffed Olives – handful to decorate top
Soft Cream Cheese – Laughing Cow from Quebec is perfect – enough
to crumble over top with Olives
METHOD:
Saute ground Meat with chopped Onion.
Mix the two Sauces.
In the bottom of a large glass oven casserole pan, rub a little oil, then drizzle a little mixed Sauce. Place a Tortilla. Spread Re-fried Beans over tortilla like frosting. Sprinkle a good layer of sautéed ground meat mixture. Sprinkle some Corn and Green Pepper. Sprinkle with grated Cheese. Lightly coat with Sauce.
Repeat with more layers. Stop with a Tortilla on top.
Over the top Tortilla, spread remaining Sauce mix. Crumble soft Cream Cheese pieces in roughly even spacing. Spread a little remaining grated cheese. Sprinkle Olives with roughly even spacing.
Cover pan with foil top and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.
Great leftover and re-heated (cover).
NOTE ON ALTERNATIVE SAUCE VERSION:
My Green Pepper Sauce – used for Fish Enchiladas – is also perfect for this recipe. Skip adding Spaghetti Sauce in this case, although I can imagine a thin drizzle of Spaghetti Sauce followed by a thick drizzle of Green Pepper Sauce being very good too.
Saute two or three finely-diced cloves of garlic in oil. Use this garic-infused oil to make a smooth White Sauce, mixing flour into Milk and then into warm oil. Use about one-quarter Light Cream or Half-and-half with Milk. Add a Knorr Chicken bullion cube or, if you have it, some heavily-reduced Chicken Stock. Add a generous amount of a Green Hot Sauce based on Jalapeno peppers, amount depending on taste. I use Mama Africa’s Zulu Sauce (Jalapeno) from South Africa. Any such sauce will do.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: FISH IN A MOROCCAN TAGINE STYLE
Not authentic but a delicious and easy-to-make dish.
INGREDIENTS:
Haddock or another meaty white fish, in large chunks – 1 ½ pounds
Oil – enough for lightly sautéing fish
Garlic – at least two cloves
Onions – one large, finely chopped
Chicken stock – 4 cups – if you do not make rice (below) with Chicken Stock, you need only 2 Cups for Fish
Olives – large green with pits – at least a cup
Lemons – two sliced very thinly, keeping rinds on
Rice for serving on – 1 Cup dry to 2 Cups Chicken Stock (or water)
SPICE MIX:
Black Pepper - ¼ teaspoon
Powdered Ginger - ¼ teaspoon
Cumin - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric – 1 teaspoon
Coriander – 1 teaspoon
Saffron (I use the cheap stuff) – pinch or two
METHOD:
Rub Spice Mix on Fish pieces and let stand for an hour.
Heat oil and sauté Fish pieces. Note they need very little cooking. Remove fish from pan and set aside.
Sauté Onion and Garlic in pan drippings.
Add Chicken Stock, add Olives and Lemon Slices,
and leave on high heat to reduce by a third of its volume.
Place Fish on a bed of rice and pour over the reduced sauce.
INGREDIENTS:
Haddock or another meaty white fish, in large chunks – 1 ½ pounds
Oil – enough for lightly sautéing fish
Garlic – at least two cloves
Onions – one large, finely chopped
Chicken stock – 4 cups – if you do not make rice (below) with Chicken Stock, you need only 2 Cups for Fish
Olives – large green with pits – at least a cup
Lemons – two sliced very thinly, keeping rinds on
Rice for serving on – 1 Cup dry to 2 Cups Chicken Stock (or water)
SPICE MIX:
Black Pepper - ¼ teaspoon
Powdered Ginger - ¼ teaspoon
Cumin - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric – 1 teaspoon
Coriander – 1 teaspoon
Saffron (I use the cheap stuff) – pinch or two
METHOD:
Rub Spice Mix on Fish pieces and let stand for an hour.
Heat oil and sauté Fish pieces. Note they need very little cooking. Remove fish from pan and set aside.
Sauté Onion and Garlic in pan drippings.
Add Chicken Stock, add Olives and Lemon Slices,
and leave on high heat to reduce by a third of its volume.
Place Fish on a bed of rice and pour over the reduced sauce.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF DOUGLAS HURD'S ROBERT PEEL
Here is a fine biography of a politician written by another politician.
Robert Peel, while a figure of considerable importance to British history, led what many would regard as an unexciting life, and Peel was the kind of aristocratic figure many people today might find relatively unsympathetic. So it is a good measure of Hurd's success with the book that he makes it interesting, and it is very well written.
I use the adjective "aristocratic," because Peel was actually one of the "new men," a rich merchant's talented son, but his political alliances were necessarily frequently with the landed aristocrats who played a large role in the Conservative Party of that time, and his own views were not the stirring stuff of democratic principles and modern conceptions of human rights. Of course, he was given a title for his service, a practice which itself reflects the evolution of British government with the growth of the middle class.
What Douglas Hurd does exceptionally well is to show us the decent and sympathetic man Peel was. Peel was ready when his keen mind perceived that the world was changing in ways that warranted change by government to advocate the needed change, often finding himself opposed by the kind of conservatives who believes little should ever change. We get a nice feel for the stresses and difficulties involved in Peel's various efforts at reform, given his political world and party.
I admired Hurd's effort to give the modern reader some appreciation of the changing nature of Parliament and its rules, often giving comparisons with how things worked then to how they work now. The nineteenth century was a dynamic era of political change in Britain - driven by the forces of the industrial revolution and exploding world trade - as the country developed into a modern democratic state, and the book reflects that.
This is a fine book for students of British or European history or social change or the evolution of modern democratic government.
Robert Peel, while a figure of considerable importance to British history, led what many would regard as an unexciting life, and Peel was the kind of aristocratic figure many people today might find relatively unsympathetic. So it is a good measure of Hurd's success with the book that he makes it interesting, and it is very well written.
I use the adjective "aristocratic," because Peel was actually one of the "new men," a rich merchant's talented son, but his political alliances were necessarily frequently with the landed aristocrats who played a large role in the Conservative Party of that time, and his own views were not the stirring stuff of democratic principles and modern conceptions of human rights. Of course, he was given a title for his service, a practice which itself reflects the evolution of British government with the growth of the middle class.
What Douglas Hurd does exceptionally well is to show us the decent and sympathetic man Peel was. Peel was ready when his keen mind perceived that the world was changing in ways that warranted change by government to advocate the needed change, often finding himself opposed by the kind of conservatives who believes little should ever change. We get a nice feel for the stresses and difficulties involved in Peel's various efforts at reform, given his political world and party.
I admired Hurd's effort to give the modern reader some appreciation of the changing nature of Parliament and its rules, often giving comparisons with how things worked then to how they work now. The nineteenth century was a dynamic era of political change in Britain - driven by the forces of the industrial revolution and exploding world trade - as the country developed into a modern democratic state, and the book reflects that.
This is a fine book for students of British or European history or social change or the evolution of modern democratic government.
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF FRANK MCLYNN'S NAPOLEON
Another biography of Napoleon you might ask?
You could fill a small library with biographies of this remarkable and notorious man, quite a number of them significant works.
Yet Frank McLynn has managed the considerable task of adding something new and quite interesting to the literature.
Here is a gripping version of the life of one of history's great soldier-conquerors. It is well written, roars right along much as a good novel, is packed with interesting anecdotes, but it does come with some controversial interpretations of its subject. So you have every reason to read it.
McLynn spends some time on Napoleon's love life and especially on his immensely complicated and messy relationship with Josephine, surely one of history's stormiest and most perverse love stories. He also gives readers a terrific appreciation for Napoleon's genuinely grotesque family. This immensely talented man dragged his family through his career, almost like a great actor with a wagon full of noisy, grasping, bickering relatives always parked just outside the entrance to the theater. For me, at least, McLynn broke new ground on both of these subjects.
There is a good deal of analysis here of some of Napoleon's battles, but the book is never a mere military history. One of McLynn's controversial views is about the decline of Napoleon's once razor-sharp military abilities.
McLynn does an excellent job in giving readers an appreciation of how utterly ruthless and deceptive Napoleon could be, in personal relationships - his twists and turns with Désirée Clary - and in politics - his dealings with Barras - and in campaigning - his murder of prisoners in the Middle East and the abandonment of the army he brought needlessly to Egypt.
McLynn stresses what he calls Napoleon's "Oriental complex," reminding me of Mark Anthony, and I think he is right in that.
I think, too, in the matter of Napoleon's mysterious death on St Helena, McLynn gets the story right, pointing the finger at one of his retinue, Montholon, who likely acted as an agent for the Bourbons in administering periodic doses of arsenic.
All readers of good biography and history will enjoy this book, and each will likely find something new or interesting in it, and that's a pretty high recommendation.
You could fill a small library with biographies of this remarkable and notorious man, quite a number of them significant works.
Yet Frank McLynn has managed the considerable task of adding something new and quite interesting to the literature.
Here is a gripping version of the life of one of history's great soldier-conquerors. It is well written, roars right along much as a good novel, is packed with interesting anecdotes, but it does come with some controversial interpretations of its subject. So you have every reason to read it.
McLynn spends some time on Napoleon's love life and especially on his immensely complicated and messy relationship with Josephine, surely one of history's stormiest and most perverse love stories. He also gives readers a terrific appreciation for Napoleon's genuinely grotesque family. This immensely talented man dragged his family through his career, almost like a great actor with a wagon full of noisy, grasping, bickering relatives always parked just outside the entrance to the theater. For me, at least, McLynn broke new ground on both of these subjects.
There is a good deal of analysis here of some of Napoleon's battles, but the book is never a mere military history. One of McLynn's controversial views is about the decline of Napoleon's once razor-sharp military abilities.
McLynn does an excellent job in giving readers an appreciation of how utterly ruthless and deceptive Napoleon could be, in personal relationships - his twists and turns with Désirée Clary - and in politics - his dealings with Barras - and in campaigning - his murder of prisoners in the Middle East and the abandonment of the army he brought needlessly to Egypt.
McLynn stresses what he calls Napoleon's "Oriental complex," reminding me of Mark Anthony, and I think he is right in that.
I think, too, in the matter of Napoleon's mysterious death on St Helena, McLynn gets the story right, pointing the finger at one of his retinue, Montholon, who likely acted as an agent for the Bourbons in administering periodic doses of arsenic.
All readers of good biography and history will enjoy this book, and each will likely find something new or interesting in it, and that's a pretty high recommendation.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF KATHY GANNON'S I IS FOR INFIDEL
Ms Gannon writes at the beginning of her book’s Acknowledgments, “This book is the culmination of eighteen years covering Afghanistan and Pakistan as a reporter.”
Well, I’m sorry, but you would never know it just from reading the main part of the book.
Here is a book by a seasoned journalist, although I’ve never read Ms Gannon’s reportage, and it is poorly written, repetitive, but most importantly, it just fails to give the reader the much-desired understanding of a complex situation.
Even more, her credentials would lead us to expect some genuine enlightenment concerning the desperate matters in Afghanistan, a sparkling narrative history of events so incompletely understood. We do learn some things here, but the quantity, quality, and the consistency are meagre at best.
Moreover, I was quite troubled to read passages of the book, which seemed to me, could well have been written by a CIA operative: their tone and the direction in which they take the reader simply do not ring true for the observations of a genuinely independent journalist, at least not a first-rate one.
Some while back, I heard Ms Gannon on CBC Radio as part of a panel of people commenting on the conflict in Afghanistan. It was because I heard her say a few striking things that I so looked forward so much to this book, her first.
But what a disappointment it proved. Ms. Gannon’s writing is so poor, something one does not expect from a seasoned journalist. She repeats herself many times in so brief a book, and there is a fair amount of padding which seems ridiculous in a book of about 160 pages.
But what I found most disappointing was the incompleteness and anecdotal nature of the story she tells. As just one example, she introduces al Qaeda well into the book with no explanation of its origins. Or for a time she is writing about the Mujahedeen, then the Northern Alliance shows up. There is an explanation of the rise of the Taleban, but in bringing in the role of Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI), there is confusion and statements made which are never expanded upon.
She attributes motives to Osama bin Laden for which she has no basis, at least she offers readers none. One should remember that to this day, we have never been given any genuine proof of bin Laden’s role in 9/11, and requests for his extradition by the Taleban government of day were rejected because the U. S. offered no evidence, a normal part of extradition requests by any country.
She brings Pakistan’s Musharraf onto the stage briefly and gives a highly slanted view of him.
No good newspaper editor would run with a story which contained the same kind of flaws this book does.
Because there are a few passages worth reading, I do not give the book the lowest possible rating, but neither can I possibly recommend it.
Well, I’m sorry, but you would never know it just from reading the main part of the book.
Here is a book by a seasoned journalist, although I’ve never read Ms Gannon’s reportage, and it is poorly written, repetitive, but most importantly, it just fails to give the reader the much-desired understanding of a complex situation.
Even more, her credentials would lead us to expect some genuine enlightenment concerning the desperate matters in Afghanistan, a sparkling narrative history of events so incompletely understood. We do learn some things here, but the quantity, quality, and the consistency are meagre at best.
Moreover, I was quite troubled to read passages of the book, which seemed to me, could well have been written by a CIA operative: their tone and the direction in which they take the reader simply do not ring true for the observations of a genuinely independent journalist, at least not a first-rate one.
Some while back, I heard Ms Gannon on CBC Radio as part of a panel of people commenting on the conflict in Afghanistan. It was because I heard her say a few striking things that I so looked forward so much to this book, her first.
But what a disappointment it proved. Ms. Gannon’s writing is so poor, something one does not expect from a seasoned journalist. She repeats herself many times in so brief a book, and there is a fair amount of padding which seems ridiculous in a book of about 160 pages.
But what I found most disappointing was the incompleteness and anecdotal nature of the story she tells. As just one example, she introduces al Qaeda well into the book with no explanation of its origins. Or for a time she is writing about the Mujahedeen, then the Northern Alliance shows up. There is an explanation of the rise of the Taleban, but in bringing in the role of Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI), there is confusion and statements made which are never expanded upon.
She attributes motives to Osama bin Laden for which she has no basis, at least she offers readers none. One should remember that to this day, we have never been given any genuine proof of bin Laden’s role in 9/11, and requests for his extradition by the Taleban government of day were rejected because the U. S. offered no evidence, a normal part of extradition requests by any country.
She brings Pakistan’s Musharraf onto the stage briefly and gives a highly slanted view of him.
No good newspaper editor would run with a story which contained the same kind of flaws this book does.
Because there are a few passages worth reading, I do not give the book the lowest possible rating, but neither can I possibly recommend it.
Monday, August 31, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF ROBERT HUTCHINSON'S ELIZABETH'S SPY MASTER
Much of this book reads with the pace of a well-written novel.
But it suffers from Hutchinson’s excessive use of quoted passages, a practice I regard as pernicious, one often used to pad the size of books.
Hutchinson’s book suffers, too, from his own motives in writing it.
“By right, he should rank with Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and even Sir Winston Churchill as one of the great patriotic defenders, against all-comers, of this island state, its monarchs, governments, beliefs and creeds.”
I cannot agree. Here we have a man who said more than once that he could not be effective without torture, one who used the worst forms of torture extensively. He was also a man who plotted the downfall of great figures, including Mary Queen of Scots, with elaborate and devious schemes much in the style of what we would today term “entrapment.”
I am more in agreement when Hutchinson writes of “the numbing fear of that sudden Gestapo-like knock at the door from Walsingham’s questing pursuivants.”
Walsingham was an extraordinarily intelligent man and very talented at what he did. Those who are familiar with Elizabeth I know she did not suffer fools gladly and had a group of advisors and servants of extraordinary ability, so Walsingham’s skills are as we would expect.
But Walsingham was, like so many Puritans, a true fanatic, relentless in his pursuits, reminding the modern reader in many respects of dark figures in the Cold War or of the immortal and horrible, Inspector Javert.
Hutchinson’s greatest fault is overstating the importance of Walsingham’s contribution, crediting him, among other things, with England’s success against Spain’s Great Armada. This, it seems to me, is both a misreading of history and a dangerous error for people’s understanding of parallel situations in today’s world, the War on Terror having many similarities with the Elizabethan crusade against a re-establishment of Catholicism.
Elizabeth’s period has been a favourite of mine for years, and I believe strongly that it is a serious misreading of history to say that Walsingham’s intelligence was crucial to victory over the Great Armada. The Armada project was doomed from the start for the simple reason that Philip II of Spain did not have the resources to carry it off.
Philip was spending his treasure in every direction – fighting Turks in the Mediterranean, fighting a war in the Netherlands, running his inquisitions, and many other vast expenses - a treasure that was under constant attack by magnificent rascals like Sir Francis Drake, and he simply never had enough resources to succeed with the Armada. The Pope failed to deliver any significant resources, offering only talk and a fairly modest reward – modest in relation to the size of the project – payable upon the actual invasion of England.
The key to the invasion was landing the forces of the ferocious Duke of Alva from the Netherlands on the coast of England. Philip never had the beginning of enough ships for the secure passage of 30,000 heavily armed troops. The Armada’s main naval force, launched from Spain, was to meet up with Alva’s men on small boats launched from the coast of the Netherlands, an impossible task, especially given England’s naval forces, daring tactics, and superior naval technology, both in fast and manoeuvrable ships and in more accurate cannon.
Indeed, first class intelligence – intelligence of the purely information-gathering and analysis kind, as opposed to the intelligence of dark operations – would have concluded that.
It is creepily interesting to read of Walsingham’s career and exploits – interesting, that is, removed as we are by centuries of progress in human freedoms.
You will see here, in the events of more than four centuries ago, the kind of thinking and fear and paranoia we have experienced again in recent years under Bush’s War on Terror, although I think it safe to say that the intensity of fear and hatred was greater in Walsingham’s day.
Definitely worth reading, so long as readers are aware of its limits.
But it suffers from Hutchinson’s excessive use of quoted passages, a practice I regard as pernicious, one often used to pad the size of books.
Hutchinson’s book suffers, too, from his own motives in writing it.
“By right, he should rank with Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and even Sir Winston Churchill as one of the great patriotic defenders, against all-comers, of this island state, its monarchs, governments, beliefs and creeds.”
I cannot agree. Here we have a man who said more than once that he could not be effective without torture, one who used the worst forms of torture extensively. He was also a man who plotted the downfall of great figures, including Mary Queen of Scots, with elaborate and devious schemes much in the style of what we would today term “entrapment.”
I am more in agreement when Hutchinson writes of “the numbing fear of that sudden Gestapo-like knock at the door from Walsingham’s questing pursuivants.”
Walsingham was an extraordinarily intelligent man and very talented at what he did. Those who are familiar with Elizabeth I know she did not suffer fools gladly and had a group of advisors and servants of extraordinary ability, so Walsingham’s skills are as we would expect.
But Walsingham was, like so many Puritans, a true fanatic, relentless in his pursuits, reminding the modern reader in many respects of dark figures in the Cold War or of the immortal and horrible, Inspector Javert.
Hutchinson’s greatest fault is overstating the importance of Walsingham’s contribution, crediting him, among other things, with England’s success against Spain’s Great Armada. This, it seems to me, is both a misreading of history and a dangerous error for people’s understanding of parallel situations in today’s world, the War on Terror having many similarities with the Elizabethan crusade against a re-establishment of Catholicism.
Elizabeth’s period has been a favourite of mine for years, and I believe strongly that it is a serious misreading of history to say that Walsingham’s intelligence was crucial to victory over the Great Armada. The Armada project was doomed from the start for the simple reason that Philip II of Spain did not have the resources to carry it off.
Philip was spending his treasure in every direction – fighting Turks in the Mediterranean, fighting a war in the Netherlands, running his inquisitions, and many other vast expenses - a treasure that was under constant attack by magnificent rascals like Sir Francis Drake, and he simply never had enough resources to succeed with the Armada. The Pope failed to deliver any significant resources, offering only talk and a fairly modest reward – modest in relation to the size of the project – payable upon the actual invasion of England.
The key to the invasion was landing the forces of the ferocious Duke of Alva from the Netherlands on the coast of England. Philip never had the beginning of enough ships for the secure passage of 30,000 heavily armed troops. The Armada’s main naval force, launched from Spain, was to meet up with Alva’s men on small boats launched from the coast of the Netherlands, an impossible task, especially given England’s naval forces, daring tactics, and superior naval technology, both in fast and manoeuvrable ships and in more accurate cannon.
Indeed, first class intelligence – intelligence of the purely information-gathering and analysis kind, as opposed to the intelligence of dark operations – would have concluded that.
It is creepily interesting to read of Walsingham’s career and exploits – interesting, that is, removed as we are by centuries of progress in human freedoms.
You will see here, in the events of more than four centuries ago, the kind of thinking and fear and paranoia we have experienced again in recent years under Bush’s War on Terror, although I think it safe to say that the intensity of fear and hatred was greater in Walsingham’s day.
Definitely worth reading, so long as readers are aware of its limits.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: THAI CURRY SHRIMP & CHUCKMAN'S THAI-INFLUENCED SPINACH SALAD
CHUCKMAN’S THAI CURRY SHRIMP
I love Thai food, but is there any Asian cuisine I don’t love? This dish is not authentic, but it will please lovers of Thai food, and it will please lovers of shrimp, especially those who love shrimp done with hot sauces – it is one of the tastiest shrimp dishes I know.
INGREDIENTS:
Shrimp – About 20 Large - never use pre-cooked which heat to rubberiness – use uncooked, fresh or frozen
Red Curry Paste – 1 Tablespoon - either store-bought or make your own – found in most Asian grocery stores and many supermarkets
Red Pepper Flakes – A generous sprinkling depending on how hot you want the dish
Pad Thai Concentrate – 1 Tablespoon - available at most Asian grocery stores
Thai Fish Sauce – 2 Teaspoons – available at most Asian grocery stores and many supermarkets
Lemon Juice – Juice of ½ a lemon – the equivalent in lime may also be used
Coarse Black Pepper – 2 Teaspoons
Coarse Sea Salt – 1 rounded Teaspoon
Oil – A few Tablespoons – enough to make a thick marinade - Canola is ideal
NOTE: Ingredient proportions are approximate because I cook this dish without measuring. Adjust to your taste.
METHOD:
Thaw Shrimp if frozen, leaving a short while in cold water, then peel.
Mix all other ingredients – except for Salt and half of Pepper – and stir into shrimp as a marinade. Let marinade at least an hour.
Oil sauté pan and heat to high, sprinkling with reserved Salt and Pepper. Quickly sauté shrimp, tossing as you cook. Remove from pan when shrimp are nice and pink.
These may be eaten over rice noodles or as is.
___________________________
The following Spinach Salad is excellent with the shrimp.
CHUCKMAN’S THAI-INFLUENCED SPINACH SALAD
INGREDIENTS:
Dressing:
Thai Hot Chilli Sauce – 3 Tablespoons - this is the sweet/hot bottled sauce Thai people use as a condiment
Rice Vinegar – 2 Tablesppons
Pepper Flakes – light sprinkling
Oil – Canola is excellent – enough to make a dressing
Fresh Ginger – about a thumb-end - finely chopped
Salad Greens:
Fresh Shredded Spinach or Baby Spinach - always wash spinach well
Sweet Red Pepper - sliced thinly or into matchsticks
Red Onion – sliced thinly
NOTE: some fresh bean sprouts would also be nice.
METHOD:
Shake dressing ingredients in a capped bottle. Toss greens together in a bowl. Dress when serving.
I love Thai food, but is there any Asian cuisine I don’t love? This dish is not authentic, but it will please lovers of Thai food, and it will please lovers of shrimp, especially those who love shrimp done with hot sauces – it is one of the tastiest shrimp dishes I know.
INGREDIENTS:
Shrimp – About 20 Large - never use pre-cooked which heat to rubberiness – use uncooked, fresh or frozen
Red Curry Paste – 1 Tablespoon - either store-bought or make your own – found in most Asian grocery stores and many supermarkets
Red Pepper Flakes – A generous sprinkling depending on how hot you want the dish
Pad Thai Concentrate – 1 Tablespoon - available at most Asian grocery stores
Thai Fish Sauce – 2 Teaspoons – available at most Asian grocery stores and many supermarkets
Lemon Juice – Juice of ½ a lemon – the equivalent in lime may also be used
Coarse Black Pepper – 2 Teaspoons
Coarse Sea Salt – 1 rounded Teaspoon
Oil – A few Tablespoons – enough to make a thick marinade - Canola is ideal
NOTE: Ingredient proportions are approximate because I cook this dish without measuring. Adjust to your taste.
METHOD:
Thaw Shrimp if frozen, leaving a short while in cold water, then peel.
Mix all other ingredients – except for Salt and half of Pepper – and stir into shrimp as a marinade. Let marinade at least an hour.
Oil sauté pan and heat to high, sprinkling with reserved Salt and Pepper. Quickly sauté shrimp, tossing as you cook. Remove from pan when shrimp are nice and pink.
These may be eaten over rice noodles or as is.
___________________________
The following Spinach Salad is excellent with the shrimp.
CHUCKMAN’S THAI-INFLUENCED SPINACH SALAD
INGREDIENTS:
Dressing:
Thai Hot Chilli Sauce – 3 Tablespoons - this is the sweet/hot bottled sauce Thai people use as a condiment
Rice Vinegar – 2 Tablesppons
Pepper Flakes – light sprinkling
Oil – Canola is excellent – enough to make a dressing
Fresh Ginger – about a thumb-end - finely chopped
Salad Greens:
Fresh Shredded Spinach or Baby Spinach - always wash spinach well
Sweet Red Pepper - sliced thinly or into matchsticks
Red Onion – sliced thinly
NOTE: some fresh bean sprouts would also be nice.
METHOD:
Shake dressing ingredients in a capped bottle. Toss greens together in a bowl. Dress when serving.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF JAMES DOUGLASS'S JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE
Let me make my perspective clear in reviewing this book: I am a complete sceptic of the official story of Kennedy’s assassination . As well, I have been a fierce critic of the Warren Commission whose work was riddled with flaws and whose only investigation was wholly adopted from J. Edgar Hoover, a man who loathed the Kennedys and had several motives for hiding the truth, including Oswald’s (almost certain) embarrassing work as a paid FBI informant right up to the end.
It always amazes me when I confront the reality of a whole new generation of readers who appear, from their embrace of books like this, to be so completely unfamiliar with what has gone before. But of course that perspective is true in so many things: the Vietnam War, a pointless bloodbath which determined much of the course of my life and that of millions of others, is almost unknown to young people today if polls are to be believed.
That said, James Douglass’s book was a great disappointment. I had expected from some reviews, including one by Oliver Stone, as well as from the fact that Douglass is an experienced author, albeit of religious books, a significant contribution to the assassination literature.
But no critical mind familiar with the assassination literature could possibly regard this book as a contribution.
Every witness ignored by the Warren Commission or those whose testimony was twisted by Hoover’s FBI (and there were many) has been heard from in nearly forty-six years of books and articles. I accept the validity of a number of these witnesses, and, very importantly, I embrace Bertrand Russell’s profound question on the assassination: "If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?"
Douglass, in his most successful passages in terms of suspense (undoubtedly, part of his appeal) presents once again a relatively small selection of these, letting readers assume they are getting these stories as new revelations. What is most regrettable is that Douglass includes and emphasizes a couple of the least credible witnesses, while leaving out other interesting, far more credible ones.
Douglass takes the idea of an Oswald double to new heights, quoting the more far-fetched witnesses, as seeing a man who was virtually his double. For those who’ve read the assassination literature, there is no doubt that there was at least one individual vaguely fitting Oswald’s description who was used by the conspirators as a means of spreading legends about Oswald’s activities, but we know from several pieces of evidence that he was no actual double.
Douglass offers nothing new on any of the most critical events around the assassination, including the remarkable activities of George de Mohrenschildt, former-FBI Agent Guy Banister’s operations in New Orleans, and Oswald’s supposed trip to Mexico City, absolute keys to understanding. He sorts out nothing new on these or other vital topics.
Why on earth does Douglass in the early part of his book spend time on an obscure a monk named Thomas Merton? It seems Merton inspired Douglass’s thoughts, but if you read between the lines of Douglass on Merton you find something close to ridiculous, a monk whose hobby was writing long letters to very famous public figures and who published a collection of these.
Douglass carefully avoids dealing with the fact of whether any of these people read Merton’s letters, or even opened them, or ever responded. The picture that emerges is one of a highly eccentric man one would not want to quote in the beginning of a book on a serious subject.
Again, of all the past books on the assassination, Douglass quotes some of the least interesting and credible, including the ponderous and, for me, seemingly delusional, The Man Who Knew Too Much, the supposed experiences of one Richard Case Nagell. Douglass never mentions the most important investigative book ever written on the topic, Anthony Summers’ Conspiracy, a work of immense credibility.
I have often written, when criticizing the many dishonest anti-conspiracy books which have appeared over the years (many of them undoubtedly financed or at least juiced-up by the CIA and its American media allies), that until we have new evidence, we are unable to make the kind of pat conclusions such books make.
We know only to a near certainty that Oswald did not shoot at Kennedy, that Oswald found himself (as an FBI informer) caught up in a series of elaborate plots with which he was not familiar, that no assassination of this nature takes place without considerable resources and planning, that Kennedy’s key wound was inflicted from the front, and that the official agencies, for whatever reason, have hidden what truth they know and certainly some key files.
This book is simply unsatisfying on many levels: read it only if you enjoy carnival side-shows.
Readers interested in my analysis of the assassination may find it in the published pieces, Forty Years of Lies and Lincoln Was Wrong. You’ll find both of them on any of several sites, including Chuckman’s Words On Wordpress.
It always amazes me when I confront the reality of a whole new generation of readers who appear, from their embrace of books like this, to be so completely unfamiliar with what has gone before. But of course that perspective is true in so many things: the Vietnam War, a pointless bloodbath which determined much of the course of my life and that of millions of others, is almost unknown to young people today if polls are to be believed.
That said, James Douglass’s book was a great disappointment. I had expected from some reviews, including one by Oliver Stone, as well as from the fact that Douglass is an experienced author, albeit of religious books, a significant contribution to the assassination literature.
But no critical mind familiar with the assassination literature could possibly regard this book as a contribution.
Every witness ignored by the Warren Commission or those whose testimony was twisted by Hoover’s FBI (and there were many) has been heard from in nearly forty-six years of books and articles. I accept the validity of a number of these witnesses, and, very importantly, I embrace Bertrand Russell’s profound question on the assassination: "If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?"
Douglass, in his most successful passages in terms of suspense (undoubtedly, part of his appeal) presents once again a relatively small selection of these, letting readers assume they are getting these stories as new revelations. What is most regrettable is that Douglass includes and emphasizes a couple of the least credible witnesses, while leaving out other interesting, far more credible ones.
Douglass takes the idea of an Oswald double to new heights, quoting the more far-fetched witnesses, as seeing a man who was virtually his double. For those who’ve read the assassination literature, there is no doubt that there was at least one individual vaguely fitting Oswald’s description who was used by the conspirators as a means of spreading legends about Oswald’s activities, but we know from several pieces of evidence that he was no actual double.
Douglass offers nothing new on any of the most critical events around the assassination, including the remarkable activities of George de Mohrenschildt, former-FBI Agent Guy Banister’s operations in New Orleans, and Oswald’s supposed trip to Mexico City, absolute keys to understanding. He sorts out nothing new on these or other vital topics.
Why on earth does Douglass in the early part of his book spend time on an obscure a monk named Thomas Merton? It seems Merton inspired Douglass’s thoughts, but if you read between the lines of Douglass on Merton you find something close to ridiculous, a monk whose hobby was writing long letters to very famous public figures and who published a collection of these.
Douglass carefully avoids dealing with the fact of whether any of these people read Merton’s letters, or even opened them, or ever responded. The picture that emerges is one of a highly eccentric man one would not want to quote in the beginning of a book on a serious subject.
Again, of all the past books on the assassination, Douglass quotes some of the least interesting and credible, including the ponderous and, for me, seemingly delusional, The Man Who Knew Too Much, the supposed experiences of one Richard Case Nagell. Douglass never mentions the most important investigative book ever written on the topic, Anthony Summers’ Conspiracy, a work of immense credibility.
I have often written, when criticizing the many dishonest anti-conspiracy books which have appeared over the years (many of them undoubtedly financed or at least juiced-up by the CIA and its American media allies), that until we have new evidence, we are unable to make the kind of pat conclusions such books make.
We know only to a near certainty that Oswald did not shoot at Kennedy, that Oswald found himself (as an FBI informer) caught up in a series of elaborate plots with which he was not familiar, that no assassination of this nature takes place without considerable resources and planning, that Kennedy’s key wound was inflicted from the front, and that the official agencies, for whatever reason, have hidden what truth they know and certainly some key files.
This book is simply unsatisfying on many levels: read it only if you enjoy carnival side-shows.
Readers interested in my analysis of the assassination may find it in the published pieces, Forty Years of Lies and Lincoln Was Wrong. You’ll find both of them on any of several sites, including Chuckman’s Words On Wordpress.
Monday, June 15, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: SUKIYAKI
CHUCKMAN’S SUKIYAKI
I love Japanese food in general, but this dish is one of my favourite meals from any cuisine. It offers a complete, delicious meal from one pot. It’s all preparation and little cooking.
INGREDIENTS:
1 ½ pounds of Beef – decent steak like top sirloin is good – sliced into very thin strips – Tip: slice steak when partially frozen to get best results, or use a good long scissor
Shirataki Mushrooms – about 6 to 8, depending on size – caps sliced thinly, stems not used - fresh or dried – if you use dry, soak in warm water for half an hour before cutting
Bok Choi – 1 large stalk or equivalent Baby Bok Choi – Greens sliced thinly, leave white bottom for a future recipe
1 pound soft Tofu – break up with fingers until little chunks like cottage cheese
Scallions – 4 large – sliced very thinly
Onion – 1 large – sliced very thinly
½ cup Soy Sauce – Kikkoman’s distinctive flavour is best for this
½ cup Sake
1 Tbsp sugar or sugar substitute
Togarashi – Japanese Red Pepper powder – available in any decent Asian grocery and even some supermarkets
Soba (Japanese buckwheat) Noodles – 3 or 4 of the little bundles as they typically come packaged
Oil sufficient for cooking a stir fry
METHOD:
Prepare sauce, combining Soy Sauce, Sake, and Sugar and set aside.
Place Noodles – remove little plastic ties first - into a medium pot of boiling water. Cook just a couple of minutes – they are very thin - and drain. Oil very lightly to keep from clumping and set aside.
Lightly oil large frying pan and cook Onion slices until translucent. Add Beef slices and Mushroom slices, cooking an additional minute or two stirring as you fry. Add Bok Choy and cook briefly until reduced by water loss. Add Tofu and Scallions and Sauce. Simmer briefly.
Add Noodles, stirring into mixture.
This ready to serve as soon as well mixed except for the Togarashi powder. I consider it essential, but some do not use it. By leaving it until last, you can customize plates.
NOTES:
Traditional Japanese people eat Sukiyaki with a raw egg on top.
Soba Noodles are not the noodles traditionally used, but I like them very much, and they are much easier to find than the more exotic noodles made from sweet potato which even many Asian grocers do not carry.
Togarashi is zesty but not hot.
Japanese Ginger (Sushi) Pickles, for me, go with Sukiyaki the way a big dill pickle goes with a corned-beef sandwich. Serve them cold on the side.
You may also make Sukiyaki with chicken.
I love Japanese food in general, but this dish is one of my favourite meals from any cuisine. It offers a complete, delicious meal from one pot. It’s all preparation and little cooking.
INGREDIENTS:
1 ½ pounds of Beef – decent steak like top sirloin is good – sliced into very thin strips – Tip: slice steak when partially frozen to get best results, or use a good long scissor
Shirataki Mushrooms – about 6 to 8, depending on size – caps sliced thinly, stems not used - fresh or dried – if you use dry, soak in warm water for half an hour before cutting
Bok Choi – 1 large stalk or equivalent Baby Bok Choi – Greens sliced thinly, leave white bottom for a future recipe
1 pound soft Tofu – break up with fingers until little chunks like cottage cheese
Scallions – 4 large – sliced very thinly
Onion – 1 large – sliced very thinly
½ cup Soy Sauce – Kikkoman’s distinctive flavour is best for this
½ cup Sake
1 Tbsp sugar or sugar substitute
Togarashi – Japanese Red Pepper powder – available in any decent Asian grocery and even some supermarkets
Soba (Japanese buckwheat) Noodles – 3 or 4 of the little bundles as they typically come packaged
Oil sufficient for cooking a stir fry
METHOD:
Prepare sauce, combining Soy Sauce, Sake, and Sugar and set aside.
Place Noodles – remove little plastic ties first - into a medium pot of boiling water. Cook just a couple of minutes – they are very thin - and drain. Oil very lightly to keep from clumping and set aside.
Lightly oil large frying pan and cook Onion slices until translucent. Add Beef slices and Mushroom slices, cooking an additional minute or two stirring as you fry. Add Bok Choy and cook briefly until reduced by water loss. Add Tofu and Scallions and Sauce. Simmer briefly.
Add Noodles, stirring into mixture.
This ready to serve as soon as well mixed except for the Togarashi powder. I consider it essential, but some do not use it. By leaving it until last, you can customize plates.
NOTES:
Traditional Japanese people eat Sukiyaki with a raw egg on top.
Soba Noodles are not the noodles traditionally used, but I like them very much, and they are much easier to find than the more exotic noodles made from sweet potato which even many Asian grocers do not carry.
Togarashi is zesty but not hot.
Japanese Ginger (Sushi) Pickles, for me, go with Sukiyaki the way a big dill pickle goes with a corned-beef sandwich. Serve them cold on the side.
You may also make Sukiyaki with chicken.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: FRESH CORN SALAD WITH MEXICAN FLAVORS
CHUCKMAN’S FRESH CORN SALAD
A delicious way to use fresh corn
SALAD:
4 Cobs of fresh Corn
1 medium Zucchini quartered lengthwise and sliced thinly
1 small Red Sweet Pepper diced finely
1 medium Red Onion finely chopped
2 Stalks Celery finely sliced
DRESSING:
1 Lime – zest and juice – use two limes if you want a strong Lime flavor
2 Tbls Rice Vinegar
1 Tbls Chilli Powder
Tabasco sauce – several shakes or to taste
Fresh Cilantro – several sprigs finely chopped
Oil sufficient for a dressing - at least 2:1 to acids
Sea Salt coarse
METHOD:
Cut corn off cleaned cobs. Combine with other chopped vegetables and set aside.
Mix dressing but leave until ready to serve salad so that Lime does not dehydrate vegetables. Sprinkle coarse Salt when serving.
NOTE: I use old glass spice bottles with screw tops to mix dressings, putting in ingredients, closing top, and shaking vigorously. Works nicely, and you can store any leftover.
A delicious way to use fresh corn
SALAD:
4 Cobs of fresh Corn
1 medium Zucchini quartered lengthwise and sliced thinly
1 small Red Sweet Pepper diced finely
1 medium Red Onion finely chopped
2 Stalks Celery finely sliced
DRESSING:
1 Lime – zest and juice – use two limes if you want a strong Lime flavor
2 Tbls Rice Vinegar
1 Tbls Chilli Powder
Tabasco sauce – several shakes or to taste
Fresh Cilantro – several sprigs finely chopped
Oil sufficient for a dressing - at least 2:1 to acids
Sea Salt coarse
METHOD:
Cut corn off cleaned cobs. Combine with other chopped vegetables and set aside.
Mix dressing but leave until ready to serve salad so that Lime does not dehydrate vegetables. Sprinkle coarse Salt when serving.
NOTE: I use old glass spice bottles with screw tops to mix dressings, putting in ingredients, closing top, and shaking vigorously. Works nicely, and you can store any leftover.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF PETER GREEN'S ALEXANDER TO ACTIUM
Here indeed is a difficult book to review: it is so obviously a work of impressive scholarship, yet it has a number of notable shortcomings.
The comment has been made in other reviews that Green is an elegant writer, but I believe that only superficial readers or the author's friends and associates would say that. Green's writing has important and obvious flaws that prevent the book from being what it might have been.
While he sometimes offers elegant sentences, he too often offers convoluted sentences or sentences stuffed like long, fat sausages, sometimes even diverging from the subject in the course of setting down his words. He also maintains a rather superior gesturing in his prose. I know the effect Green likely hoped he was achieving - the majesty of Edward Gibbon or Thomas Macaulay - but he just does not succeed.
He is often an extremely pedantic writer, generously sprinkling his text with words and phrases not just from Greek and Latin but German and French, and always selecting obscure words or Latinisms where solid Anglo-Saxon words would serve better.
There are indeed times when a foreign expression captures the special sense of a concept that a translation may loose, and I have no objection to their use where that is true, but that is not the case here.
I very much object to the gratuitous use of foreign words and phrases to display an author's learning, something which makes the work less accessible to many while simply annoying others with a gimmick related to the use of "as the eminent, such-and-such prize-winner once said..." to bolster a quoted source's authority (something Green spares us). The effects are poisonous in a work of this nature.
Yet Green knows a great deal about his subject, and I certainly learned from him despite the faults. His interpretation of the Hellenistic world after Alexander as representing a decay and gradual departure from (reaching almost a bastardization of) Greece's true classical period is interesting, and he mounts some strong supporting evidence for the view.
The book is not properly understood as a history, because large portions of it are arguments of positions on historical or philosophical or esthetic or moral issues. There's nothing wrong with that, but potential readers should be aware of the fact.
There is such a huge cast of characters involved in the three great divisions of Alexander's conquests over a couple of centuries that one loses track of some of them in the narrative, many of course being minor or simply having left few records, but one might have hoped for a clearer, more sustained narrative of the truly important figures. There is a sense of fragmentation here which may be just the fault of a fragmentary record.
There is a considerable difference in Green's success in explaining some events. He sometimes leaves you mentally saying, "Yes, indeed," while other times he leaves you saying, "What?"
Despite the flaws, this is a significant book and one worth reading by anyone interested in the Hellenistic era and in the successors to the dead Alexander and in the rise of imperial Rome.
The comment has been made in other reviews that Green is an elegant writer, but I believe that only superficial readers or the author's friends and associates would say that. Green's writing has important and obvious flaws that prevent the book from being what it might have been.
While he sometimes offers elegant sentences, he too often offers convoluted sentences or sentences stuffed like long, fat sausages, sometimes even diverging from the subject in the course of setting down his words. He also maintains a rather superior gesturing in his prose. I know the effect Green likely hoped he was achieving - the majesty of Edward Gibbon or Thomas Macaulay - but he just does not succeed.
He is often an extremely pedantic writer, generously sprinkling his text with words and phrases not just from Greek and Latin but German and French, and always selecting obscure words or Latinisms where solid Anglo-Saxon words would serve better.
There are indeed times when a foreign expression captures the special sense of a concept that a translation may loose, and I have no objection to their use where that is true, but that is not the case here.
I very much object to the gratuitous use of foreign words and phrases to display an author's learning, something which makes the work less accessible to many while simply annoying others with a gimmick related to the use of "as the eminent, such-and-such prize-winner once said..." to bolster a quoted source's authority (something Green spares us). The effects are poisonous in a work of this nature.
Yet Green knows a great deal about his subject, and I certainly learned from him despite the faults. His interpretation of the Hellenistic world after Alexander as representing a decay and gradual departure from (reaching almost a bastardization of) Greece's true classical period is interesting, and he mounts some strong supporting evidence for the view.
The book is not properly understood as a history, because large portions of it are arguments of positions on historical or philosophical or esthetic or moral issues. There's nothing wrong with that, but potential readers should be aware of the fact.
There is such a huge cast of characters involved in the three great divisions of Alexander's conquests over a couple of centuries that one loses track of some of them in the narrative, many of course being minor or simply having left few records, but one might have hoped for a clearer, more sustained narrative of the truly important figures. There is a sense of fragmentation here which may be just the fault of a fragmentary record.
There is a considerable difference in Green's success in explaining some events. He sometimes leaves you mentally saying, "Yes, indeed," while other times he leaves you saying, "What?"
Despite the flaws, this is a significant book and one worth reading by anyone interested in the Hellenistic era and in the successors to the dead Alexander and in the rise of imperial Rome.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF ARNALDUR INDRIDASON'S ARCTIC CHILL
I am not a traditionally a reader of mysteries, but since my wife introduced me to selected writers, there are a few to whose new books I quite look forward.
Scandinavian writers of this genre appeal a great deal. After all, part of what we get from any novel is being taken into a world we do not know, and the place and people names of Scandinavia are exotic and fascinating. Also, there is a great touch of humanity in the stories coming from Scandinavian writers, quite in distinction to some well-known, hard-boiled American writers whose fiction I find almost unreadable.
Norway's Karin Fossum is chief among the Scandinavians, being a writer and storyteller of top quality, but I enjoy Iceland's Arnaldur Indridason too. His first books were not in the same class with Fossum's, but with Arctic Chill, he rises to a new level of quality. This is fine and gripping book, an interesting tale with many twists and turns.
Indridason weaves several plots together here and manages them with great skill. The two criminal cases - a murder and a separate missing person - actually nicely reinforce each other and are used to introduce some interesting complexities.
Indridason is always a clear writer, but this book introduces a new level of sophistication in his storytelling. We still have his intelligent, very human, and sympathic detective, Erlendur, a man with whom we feel it might be nice to spend some time discussing the human condition. We still have the wonderfully forbidding weather and brooding landscape of Iceland as major characters.
This is a book you will not want to put down. Highly recommended.
Scandinavian writers of this genre appeal a great deal. After all, part of what we get from any novel is being taken into a world we do not know, and the place and people names of Scandinavia are exotic and fascinating. Also, there is a great touch of humanity in the stories coming from Scandinavian writers, quite in distinction to some well-known, hard-boiled American writers whose fiction I find almost unreadable.
Norway's Karin Fossum is chief among the Scandinavians, being a writer and storyteller of top quality, but I enjoy Iceland's Arnaldur Indridason too. His first books were not in the same class with Fossum's, but with Arctic Chill, he rises to a new level of quality. This is fine and gripping book, an interesting tale with many twists and turns.
Indridason weaves several plots together here and manages them with great skill. The two criminal cases - a murder and a separate missing person - actually nicely reinforce each other and are used to introduce some interesting complexities.
Indridason is always a clear writer, but this book introduces a new level of sophistication in his storytelling. We still have his intelligent, very human, and sympathic detective, Erlendur, a man with whom we feel it might be nice to spend some time discussing the human condition. We still have the wonderfully forbidding weather and brooding landscape of Iceland as major characters.
This is a book you will not want to put down. Highly recommended.
Monday, May 04, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: MY ZESTIEST LENTIL SOUP
MY ZESTIEST LENTL SOUP
1 Pound dry Red Lentils
2 Boxes Beef Stock
1 pound of Spanish Chorizo Sausage – Sweet – sliced thinly
1 large Onion - diced
1 large Green Pepper - diced
2 medium Carrots – sliced thinly
2 stalks of Celery – sliced thinly
Hungarian Sweet Paprika – at least two tablespoons, more if you like
Salt – to taste
Pepper – coarsely ground – at least 1 teaspoon
Bring a medium pot of water to boil and add Lentils. Boil for 5 minutes. Drain with a strainer and add to the Beef Stock in a large soup pan.
Saute Onions and Carrots until softened. Add Green Pepper and Celery to cook a briefer time. Add Paprika to vegetables and continue cooking a brief time to work in all the Paprika with oil and cook through.
Add Onions, Carrots, Green Pepper, Celery to pot of Beef Stock.
Add Chorizo slices to frying pan and briefly sauté. Then add to Stock. Add pepper.
Simmer for at least fifteen minutes, longer if you like something closer to a porridge consistency with much softened vegetables.
Great with yogourt.
1 Pound dry Red Lentils
2 Boxes Beef Stock
1 pound of Spanish Chorizo Sausage – Sweet – sliced thinly
1 large Onion - diced
1 large Green Pepper - diced
2 medium Carrots – sliced thinly
2 stalks of Celery – sliced thinly
Hungarian Sweet Paprika – at least two tablespoons, more if you like
Salt – to taste
Pepper – coarsely ground – at least 1 teaspoon
Bring a medium pot of water to boil and add Lentils. Boil for 5 minutes. Drain with a strainer and add to the Beef Stock in a large soup pan.
Saute Onions and Carrots until softened. Add Green Pepper and Celery to cook a briefer time. Add Paprika to vegetables and continue cooking a brief time to work in all the Paprika with oil and cook through.
Add Onions, Carrots, Green Pepper, Celery to pot of Beef Stock.
Add Chorizo slices to frying pan and briefly sauté. Then add to Stock. Add pepper.
Simmer for at least fifteen minutes, longer if you like something closer to a porridge consistency with much softened vegetables.
Great with yogourt.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF SEBASTIAN FAULKS' BIRDSONG
This is a difficult book to review, the reason being is that it has so many contradictory qualities. It has some good writing combined with material that is sentimental and even purplish.
It has some strong images, and it has a series of preposterous incidents. It is packed with improbabilities.
The author starts with a mini-version of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," oddly hybridized with Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover." While there is some nice writing here, it strikes me as self-consciously so, and the story lacks any freshness.
There are ridiculous improbabilities in this part of the book. Why would an English firm considering a business venture with a French firm send this young man, the protagonist, Stephen, to size up the opportunity? He isn't even educated in business. He is very young. And he proves emotionally unstable.
And why would the French proprietor - M. Azaire, husband of the beautiful woman, Isabelle, who becomes Stephen's lover - have Stephen spending time at lunches and other business of the floor workers in his plant? It's a genuinely silly idea.
The sentimentality begins shortly after Stephen and Isabelle become lovers, and, in cheap romantic fashion, Isabelle suddenly disappears with their young child, returning to her family.
When you get into the Great War, supposedly the real stuff of the book, you will wonder why you've had about ninety pages of rehashed Madame Bovary. You will find out towards the end, but it is a very unsatisfying idea of neatness and completeness that drives things.
Here and there in the war business, there are a few strong images and interesting stuff about the tunnel systems that were extensively used in the Great War.
But the author even manages to make the front sentimental and clichéd. Egad, there's even the proverbial friend who has never been with a woman and who is given the surprise present of a prostitute one night.
There's lots of hard drinking and calculatedly gruesome incidents - pure Hollywood. And the author has nothing fresh to say about the war we haven't all seen in movies or read in other books.
The end-of-war portion was clearly written with the hope of selling the book for movie rights. The idea of two men trapped in a huge tunnel far underground is gruesomely interesting, but the author draws it out to impossibly long time with an impossibly heroic series of efforts. People typically die after 3 or 4 days without water, but Stephen hangs in there for God knows how long.
Yes, he licks a bit of brackish water in a corner in his Herculean labors, but that just wouldn't do it.
His rescue would have been a good surprise - he is rescued by Germans digging in their own lines - had it been handled well. But we get an awkward effort by a couple of Germans, one of whom, we have explained at some length and repetition, happens to be Jewish. Why? Why is the author suddenly focusing on a man's religion? An intended irony about a good Jewish soldier in the German army? Whatever the intention, it simply does not work.
The ending is silly, the author bringing us what he regards as full circle.
I really do believe Faulks thought he was writing a racier, more action-filled "Gone with the Wind" for World War I in hope of a big movie contract.
I read this book wanting to like it, thinking from things I read that it might be another of those memorable books about people caught in the gears of war, but I found it impossibly flawed.
It has some strong images, and it has a series of preposterous incidents. It is packed with improbabilities.
The author starts with a mini-version of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," oddly hybridized with Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover." While there is some nice writing here, it strikes me as self-consciously so, and the story lacks any freshness.
There are ridiculous improbabilities in this part of the book. Why would an English firm considering a business venture with a French firm send this young man, the protagonist, Stephen, to size up the opportunity? He isn't even educated in business. He is very young. And he proves emotionally unstable.
And why would the French proprietor - M. Azaire, husband of the beautiful woman, Isabelle, who becomes Stephen's lover - have Stephen spending time at lunches and other business of the floor workers in his plant? It's a genuinely silly idea.
The sentimentality begins shortly after Stephen and Isabelle become lovers, and, in cheap romantic fashion, Isabelle suddenly disappears with their young child, returning to her family.
When you get into the Great War, supposedly the real stuff of the book, you will wonder why you've had about ninety pages of rehashed Madame Bovary. You will find out towards the end, but it is a very unsatisfying idea of neatness and completeness that drives things.
Here and there in the war business, there are a few strong images and interesting stuff about the tunnel systems that were extensively used in the Great War.
But the author even manages to make the front sentimental and clichéd. Egad, there's even the proverbial friend who has never been with a woman and who is given the surprise present of a prostitute one night.
There's lots of hard drinking and calculatedly gruesome incidents - pure Hollywood. And the author has nothing fresh to say about the war we haven't all seen in movies or read in other books.
The end-of-war portion was clearly written with the hope of selling the book for movie rights. The idea of two men trapped in a huge tunnel far underground is gruesomely interesting, but the author draws it out to impossibly long time with an impossibly heroic series of efforts. People typically die after 3 or 4 days without water, but Stephen hangs in there for God knows how long.
Yes, he licks a bit of brackish water in a corner in his Herculean labors, but that just wouldn't do it.
His rescue would have been a good surprise - he is rescued by Germans digging in their own lines - had it been handled well. But we get an awkward effort by a couple of Germans, one of whom, we have explained at some length and repetition, happens to be Jewish. Why? Why is the author suddenly focusing on a man's religion? An intended irony about a good Jewish soldier in the German army? Whatever the intention, it simply does not work.
The ending is silly, the author bringing us what he regards as full circle.
I really do believe Faulks thought he was writing a racier, more action-filled "Gone with the Wind" for World War I in hope of a big movie contract.
I read this book wanting to like it, thinking from things I read that it might be another of those memorable books about people caught in the gears of war, but I found it impossibly flawed.
Monday, April 06, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF DAVID HACKETT FISCHER'S CHAMPLAIN'S DREAM
Not every historical character is so lucky in his biographer as Samuel de Champlain is in David Hackett Fischer. Fischer has tremendous good will and sympathy towards his subject, and that always makes a biography more pleasurable to read.
Champlain was an explorer, a mapmaker, an artist, a writer, a capable captain of people in difficult circumstances, an idealist, a seasoned soldier, and person of extraordinarily good temperament. In short, he was a French version of the fabled Elizabethan man, and with qualities of character superior to many Elizabethan men.
This is a very good book: it has a genuinely heroic subject in Champlain, and it tells a great story in vigorous language.
Fischer follows in part the example of Samuel Eliot Morison's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," a venerable though somewhat dated biography of Columbus, by using his personal knowledge of sailing and the contemporary geography of Champlain’s New France to bring vivid life to his story and explain matters like the naming of certain places. Since I too know and have lived in some of these areas, I found this fascinating.
His treatment of the Indians of New France is refreshingly honest yet sympathetic, much in the spirit of Champlain himself, and by honest I’m including the very brutal aspects of aboriginal society sometimes overlooked today in sentimental history.
The book’s shortcomings are relatively small. Fischer is repetitive in small quantities at times, repeating some fact or observation offered not many pages before. This surely is the fault of a somewhat slack editor.
Another fault is in the somewhat poor reproduction of many illustrations, including a number of Champlain’s own drawings.
Fischer also does not tell us enough about certain matters such as Champlain’s marriage, a fascinating subject involving as it does a woman from a fairly distinguished French family who comes and spends time in New France. He briefly tells us how the marriage goes through ups and downs, but any reader will want a few more details filled in, if indeed such material exists in the records.
A significant book for Canadian history, the history of North American settlement and exploration, the history of North American aboriginal people, and all lovers of good biography and good yarns.
Champlain was an explorer, a mapmaker, an artist, a writer, a capable captain of people in difficult circumstances, an idealist, a seasoned soldier, and person of extraordinarily good temperament. In short, he was a French version of the fabled Elizabethan man, and with qualities of character superior to many Elizabethan men.
This is a very good book: it has a genuinely heroic subject in Champlain, and it tells a great story in vigorous language.
Fischer follows in part the example of Samuel Eliot Morison's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," a venerable though somewhat dated biography of Columbus, by using his personal knowledge of sailing and the contemporary geography of Champlain’s New France to bring vivid life to his story and explain matters like the naming of certain places. Since I too know and have lived in some of these areas, I found this fascinating.
His treatment of the Indians of New France is refreshingly honest yet sympathetic, much in the spirit of Champlain himself, and by honest I’m including the very brutal aspects of aboriginal society sometimes overlooked today in sentimental history.
The book’s shortcomings are relatively small. Fischer is repetitive in small quantities at times, repeating some fact or observation offered not many pages before. This surely is the fault of a somewhat slack editor.
Another fault is in the somewhat poor reproduction of many illustrations, including a number of Champlain’s own drawings.
Fischer also does not tell us enough about certain matters such as Champlain’s marriage, a fascinating subject involving as it does a woman from a fairly distinguished French family who comes and spends time in New France. He briefly tells us how the marriage goes through ups and downs, but any reader will want a few more details filled in, if indeed such material exists in the records.
A significant book for Canadian history, the history of North American settlement and exploration, the history of North American aboriginal people, and all lovers of good biography and good yarns.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF RUSS BAKER'S FAMILY OF SECRETS
This is one of those books which, while not being great, is nevertheless of some value.
Baker takes the point of view that it is impossible to write a book about George W. Bush without writing also about his father. I agree: George Junior would not ever have amounted to more than a small-time failure at business in Texas without his father's friends and influence.
The dual approach has certainly been taken before, a favorite father-and-son biography of mine being Anthony Cave Brown's Treason in the Blood about master-spy Kim Philby and his remarkable father, Harry St. John Philby.
But the parallels do not continue. George Junior is not a figure of personal achievement or significant talent; Kim Philby very much was, whatever you think of his treasonous work. Harry St. John was almost a character from Shakespeare; Bush pere is a fairly uninteresting, but intelligent, government-service lifer from a wealthy family. Brown's book is masterly; Baker's only interesting and competent.
I think Baker failed to investigate some of these matters adequately. For example, I, along with many others, do not believe Bush Junior either bright or hard-working enough to have earned a place in the prestigious universities he attended, much less graduate. He was certainly what is called a "legacy" student: someone who does not make the grade but is given a pass in the hope his wealthy family will contribute generously to the endowment fund. This is a common practice at "ivy league" universities, one of whose constant aims is their own perpetuation as institutions.
The main fact about Bush pere Baker attempts to establish is that he has a lifelong association with the Central Intelligence Agency. He does not prove this, but I think he offers strong circumstantial grounds for a reasonable assumption.
Bush pere's C.I.A. connection was not news for me: being in the past a serious student of the Kennedy assassination, I knew Bush pere's name came up in the long and costly secret war against Castro's Cuba. Also, the C.I.A.'s headquarters at Langley, Virginia, is named after Bush pere, and that kind of honor isn't granted for serving one quite short stint as Director.
I found the first half of the book a bit slow-moving. The pace picks up in the second half, and while Baker never achieves a consistent level of fascinating story-telling, some events are beautifully summed up. He does a handsome job, for example, with the story behind the story that cost Dan Rather his job at CBS News over documents purporting to prove Bush's shabby record with the National Guard in Texas.
There is a mistake or two here, but they are minor. Baker says Lewis "Scooter" Libby was pardoned, but, in fact, Bush only granted clemency on Libby's sentence. His conviction stands, despite the efforts behind the scenes of Dick Cheney, whose dirty work he did, to get him a pardon.
But then Bush never was one much for pardons, or compassion for that matter.
Baker takes the point of view that it is impossible to write a book about George W. Bush without writing also about his father. I agree: George Junior would not ever have amounted to more than a small-time failure at business in Texas without his father's friends and influence.
The dual approach has certainly been taken before, a favorite father-and-son biography of mine being Anthony Cave Brown's Treason in the Blood about master-spy Kim Philby and his remarkable father, Harry St. John Philby.
But the parallels do not continue. George Junior is not a figure of personal achievement or significant talent; Kim Philby very much was, whatever you think of his treasonous work. Harry St. John was almost a character from Shakespeare; Bush pere is a fairly uninteresting, but intelligent, government-service lifer from a wealthy family. Brown's book is masterly; Baker's only interesting and competent.
I think Baker failed to investigate some of these matters adequately. For example, I, along with many others, do not believe Bush Junior either bright or hard-working enough to have earned a place in the prestigious universities he attended, much less graduate. He was certainly what is called a "legacy" student: someone who does not make the grade but is given a pass in the hope his wealthy family will contribute generously to the endowment fund. This is a common practice at "ivy league" universities, one of whose constant aims is their own perpetuation as institutions.
The main fact about Bush pere Baker attempts to establish is that he has a lifelong association with the Central Intelligence Agency. He does not prove this, but I think he offers strong circumstantial grounds for a reasonable assumption.
Bush pere's C.I.A. connection was not news for me: being in the past a serious student of the Kennedy assassination, I knew Bush pere's name came up in the long and costly secret war against Castro's Cuba. Also, the C.I.A.'s headquarters at Langley, Virginia, is named after Bush pere, and that kind of honor isn't granted for serving one quite short stint as Director.
I found the first half of the book a bit slow-moving. The pace picks up in the second half, and while Baker never achieves a consistent level of fascinating story-telling, some events are beautifully summed up. He does a handsome job, for example, with the story behind the story that cost Dan Rather his job at CBS News over documents purporting to prove Bush's shabby record with the National Guard in Texas.
There is a mistake or two here, but they are minor. Baker says Lewis "Scooter" Libby was pardoned, but, in fact, Bush only granted clemency on Libby's sentence. His conviction stands, despite the efforts behind the scenes of Dick Cheney, whose dirty work he did, to get him a pardon.
But then Bush never was one much for pardons, or compassion for that matter.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF NICHOLSON BAKER'S HUMAN SMOKE
This is an odd book: its format is less like a book than a research folder or elaborate clipping file for the writing of a more conventional history. Its subject is undoubtedly controversial for some because it makes strong statements about the nature of modern war and it questions the clarity with which we traditionally define the heroes and villains in that vast human enterprise in destruction called World War II.
The book consists of a long series of quotes from all kinds of documents and publications and from famous people. The quotes go in time sequence leading up to and during World War II, and they are selected and orchestrated to make important points about modern war.
The points made here are so difficult for some to accept that I believe the author wanted to use a method that excluded his own voice, offering only the actual words of those who lived the history. In the end, the book has a powerful impact and its title nicely captures what it is about.
As a student of history, I did not find eyebrow-raising facts here, although particular quotes were startling, but I know many will not have been exposed to the disgusting facts of modern warfare. I have long believed, and I wrote an essay on the subject a few years ago, that the methods of modern warfare render the term terrorism meaningless. America or Israel today routinely kills far more civilians than soldiers. You simply cannot use horrible weapons and methods like napalm, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, or carpet-bombing without doing this.
The author makes the point strongly - and I do think it an important one - that it was not Hitler who started the indiscriminate bombing of civilians but the British. He shows Churchill's history of advocating gruesome destruction for enemies of the British Empire. This part of Churchill was less than valiant and less than honourable and had little to do with the values of democracy.
More generally, the conclusion emerges inexorably that there are no heroes in the gruesome business of turning war into something that targets civilians more than armies.
The book consists of a long series of quotes from all kinds of documents and publications and from famous people. The quotes go in time sequence leading up to and during World War II, and they are selected and orchestrated to make important points about modern war.
The points made here are so difficult for some to accept that I believe the author wanted to use a method that excluded his own voice, offering only the actual words of those who lived the history. In the end, the book has a powerful impact and its title nicely captures what it is about.
As a student of history, I did not find eyebrow-raising facts here, although particular quotes were startling, but I know many will not have been exposed to the disgusting facts of modern warfare. I have long believed, and I wrote an essay on the subject a few years ago, that the methods of modern warfare render the term terrorism meaningless. America or Israel today routinely kills far more civilians than soldiers. You simply cannot use horrible weapons and methods like napalm, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, or carpet-bombing without doing this.
The author makes the point strongly - and I do think it an important one - that it was not Hitler who started the indiscriminate bombing of civilians but the British. He shows Churchill's history of advocating gruesome destruction for enemies of the British Empire. This part of Churchill was less than valiant and less than honourable and had little to do with the values of democracy.
More generally, the conclusion emerges inexorably that there are no heroes in the gruesome business of turning war into something that targets civilians more than armies.
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF ALEKSANDR FURSENKO'S AND TIMOTHY NAFTALI'S KHRUSCHEV'S COLD WAR
This book is a gripping read, and it contains new insights into the Cold War, and the authors add some interesting brushstrokes to our historical portrait of Krushchev.
Khrushchev has always been a minor hero of mine. I call him a minor hero because one cannot talk about heroism in an unqualified way with a major figure of an absolute government. Beethoven angrily re-titled the dedication of the Eroica symphony, and I agree with his sentiments in doing it, yet it remains possible to admire some aspects of Napoleon's career.
All individuals must be judged with an appreciation for the constraints under which they operated, and Khrushchev did some very important things and maintained a kind of idealism, despite its rough peasant expression. Khrushchev did want his people to achieve a better life; he cared a great deal about improving agriculture; he was a sincere believer in the ultimate benefits of socialism; he did not want war; and he did want peaceful coexistence with the West before that phrase became commonplace. Above all, Khrushchev was and remains a very human figure, something that cannot be said of a great many absolute leaders.
Khrushchev's role in changing the operations of the Soviet government after decades of Stalin - perhaps the most terrifying dictator of the modern era - was heroic, something I believe he has never been adequately recognized for in the West.
But the same man was ready to crush revolt in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
The title of the book is absolutely accurate: this is Khrushchev's Cold War. Other actors enter and leave the stage, but Khrushchev shapes the story. In that sense, it is necessarily incomplete as a history of the Cold War.
The new insights in the book come from Soviet archives not opened until well into the 21st century. They include who knew what when; the impact of certain events on the Soviet leadership; the real reasons for certain Soviet positions in international affairs; and some of the misunderstandings of American analysts and leaders at the time.
In a few cases, the authors indicate that materials are missing yet, so the book cannot be taken as definitive.
But the book is indispensable to understanding the Cold War, aspects of how the Soviet Union worked, and the Cuban Missile crisis. It is recommended to all with interest in these subjects and to anyone just wanting a good historical read.
Khrushchev has always been a minor hero of mine. I call him a minor hero because one cannot talk about heroism in an unqualified way with a major figure of an absolute government. Beethoven angrily re-titled the dedication of the Eroica symphony, and I agree with his sentiments in doing it, yet it remains possible to admire some aspects of Napoleon's career.
All individuals must be judged with an appreciation for the constraints under which they operated, and Khrushchev did some very important things and maintained a kind of idealism, despite its rough peasant expression. Khrushchev did want his people to achieve a better life; he cared a great deal about improving agriculture; he was a sincere believer in the ultimate benefits of socialism; he did not want war; and he did want peaceful coexistence with the West before that phrase became commonplace. Above all, Khrushchev was and remains a very human figure, something that cannot be said of a great many absolute leaders.
Khrushchev's role in changing the operations of the Soviet government after decades of Stalin - perhaps the most terrifying dictator of the modern era - was heroic, something I believe he has never been adequately recognized for in the West.
But the same man was ready to crush revolt in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
The title of the book is absolutely accurate: this is Khrushchev's Cold War. Other actors enter and leave the stage, but Khrushchev shapes the story. In that sense, it is necessarily incomplete as a history of the Cold War.
The new insights in the book come from Soviet archives not opened until well into the 21st century. They include who knew what when; the impact of certain events on the Soviet leadership; the real reasons for certain Soviet positions in international affairs; and some of the misunderstandings of American analysts and leaders at the time.
In a few cases, the authors indicate that materials are missing yet, so the book cannot be taken as definitive.
But the book is indispensable to understanding the Cold War, aspects of how the Soviet Union worked, and the Cuban Missile crisis. It is recommended to all with interest in these subjects and to anyone just wanting a good historical read.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: SAVORY MIDDLE-EAST STYLE STUFFED PEPPERS
CHUCKMAN’S SAVORY MIDDLE-EAST STYLE STUFFED PEPPERS
INGREDIENTS:
2 Cups Dry Couscous (Whole wheat or regular)
2 Cups Chicken Broth for Couscous (You will obtain this from the Chicken you cook)
1 Cup or more Chicken Stock for Sauce (You will obtain this from the Chicken you cook)
2 medium Onions
1 or 2 Carrots
4 Legs and Thighs of Chicken
Chatta – Pepper Paste from the Mideast (This is not hot, it is savory - available at any Middle East grocer)
4 Large Green (or Red) Sweet Peppers
Oil – for frying
1 Tablespoon Corn Starch (dissolved in a small quantity of water – for moderately thickening Sauce)
Tomato - a handful diced
METHOD:
Simmer Chicken pieces in a large saucepan of water until flesh easily pulled off.
Take out Chicken and let cool a bit. Set aside liquid (your Stock).
To prepare Couscous, boil 2 Cups of Stock (liquid from cooking Chicken), add dry Coucous, stir together, cover, and remove from burner. Couscous is ready in 5 minutes.
When cool enough to work with, shred Chicken meat, removing skin.
Finely slice or dice Onions and grate Carrot. Saute in a frying pan. Add several Tablespoons of Pepper Paste. When Onion is soft, add shredded Chicken and just warm through.
Stir together Chicken, Onion, and Carrot mix into prepared Couscous.
Halve and seed Green Peppers. Place on small baking sheet (covered with parchment paper, or oiled), or use Pyrex casserole dish, oiled. Pile up with Couscous mix. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about an hour.
Prepare Sauce on stovetop. Use desired quantity of Chicken Stock, adding several Tablespoons of Chatta paste, a quantity of chopped Tomato, and a generous sprinkling of dry parsley. Add Corn Starch and water mix. Simmer covered for half an hour.
Pepper filling will be lightly browned. Serve as is with Sauce on the side.
NOTES:
Also serve Yogurt on the side, if desired (very nice).
The Coucous/Chicken filling mixture is delicious on its own – a kind of West Asian fried rice.
OTHER INTERESTING INGREDIENTS:
For the Couscous/chicken filling include: pieces of thinly sliced lemons that have been quickly sautéed, sliced (canned) artichoke hearts, olives, or pistachios.
INGREDIENTS:
2 Cups Dry Couscous (Whole wheat or regular)
2 Cups Chicken Broth for Couscous (You will obtain this from the Chicken you cook)
1 Cup or more Chicken Stock for Sauce (You will obtain this from the Chicken you cook)
2 medium Onions
1 or 2 Carrots
4 Legs and Thighs of Chicken
Chatta – Pepper Paste from the Mideast (This is not hot, it is savory - available at any Middle East grocer)
4 Large Green (or Red) Sweet Peppers
Oil – for frying
1 Tablespoon Corn Starch (dissolved in a small quantity of water – for moderately thickening Sauce)
Tomato - a handful diced
METHOD:
Simmer Chicken pieces in a large saucepan of water until flesh easily pulled off.
Take out Chicken and let cool a bit. Set aside liquid (your Stock).
To prepare Couscous, boil 2 Cups of Stock (liquid from cooking Chicken), add dry Coucous, stir together, cover, and remove from burner. Couscous is ready in 5 minutes.
When cool enough to work with, shred Chicken meat, removing skin.
Finely slice or dice Onions and grate Carrot. Saute in a frying pan. Add several Tablespoons of Pepper Paste. When Onion is soft, add shredded Chicken and just warm through.
Stir together Chicken, Onion, and Carrot mix into prepared Couscous.
Halve and seed Green Peppers. Place on small baking sheet (covered with parchment paper, or oiled), or use Pyrex casserole dish, oiled. Pile up with Couscous mix. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about an hour.
Prepare Sauce on stovetop. Use desired quantity of Chicken Stock, adding several Tablespoons of Chatta paste, a quantity of chopped Tomato, and a generous sprinkling of dry parsley. Add Corn Starch and water mix. Simmer covered for half an hour.
Pepper filling will be lightly browned. Serve as is with Sauce on the side.
NOTES:
Also serve Yogurt on the side, if desired (very nice).
The Coucous/Chicken filling mixture is delicious on its own – a kind of West Asian fried rice.
OTHER INTERESTING INGREDIENTS:
For the Couscous/chicken filling include: pieces of thinly sliced lemons that have been quickly sautéed, sliced (canned) artichoke hearts, olives, or pistachios.
Monday, January 05, 2009
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF LAURA THOMPSON'S AGATHA CHRISTIE: AN ENGLISH MYSTERY
I enjoyed an interview with Laura Thompson on CBC Radio, and I thought her biography of Agatha Christie might well be good reading, even though I am not a fan of its subject.
I enjoy any first-rate biography, and the times Ms. Christie lived through are loaded with interesting events and people. She was moreover a remarkable literary phenomenon, becoming a house-hold name, setting record runs for plays, and creating two unforgettable characters - Miss Marple and M. Poirot.
Reading the first few pages of this book, I was sure that I had been right: this was going to be a fine book. In these pages, Ms Thompson creates almost a prose-poem around the idyllic time in Ms. Christie's childhood.
But my illusion gradually faded: the book is a weak one, having a number of faults.
First, Ms. Thompson uses a huge number of quotes from Ms. Christie, to such an extent I regard them as padding. I don't object to using quotes in the fashion Ms. Thompson does, I just object to the sheer volume of them.
Second, Ms. Thompson, time and again, refers to this or that old photograph, making some special observations about them, but virtually none of these photographs is included in the book's selection of photos.
Third, Ms. Thompson appears to have done a weak job of research on some topics, as for example the crucial one around Ms. Christie's first husband leaving her. I think the questions readers have around that event, and there are many, are left not answered.
Fourth, the sense and drama of history is largely missing from a book covering a remarkable era.
The book is a real disappointment.
I enjoy any first-rate biography, and the times Ms. Christie lived through are loaded with interesting events and people. She was moreover a remarkable literary phenomenon, becoming a house-hold name, setting record runs for plays, and creating two unforgettable characters - Miss Marple and M. Poirot.
Reading the first few pages of this book, I was sure that I had been right: this was going to be a fine book. In these pages, Ms Thompson creates almost a prose-poem around the idyllic time in Ms. Christie's childhood.
But my illusion gradually faded: the book is a weak one, having a number of faults.
First, Ms. Thompson uses a huge number of quotes from Ms. Christie, to such an extent I regard them as padding. I don't object to using quotes in the fashion Ms. Thompson does, I just object to the sheer volume of them.
Second, Ms. Thompson, time and again, refers to this or that old photograph, making some special observations about them, but virtually none of these photographs is included in the book's selection of photos.
Third, Ms. Thompson appears to have done a weak job of research on some topics, as for example the crucial one around Ms. Christie's first husband leaving her. I think the questions readers have around that event, and there are many, are left not answered.
Fourth, the sense and drama of history is largely missing from a book covering a remarkable era.
The book is a real disappointment.
Friday, December 26, 2008
JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF JAMES AND BEN LONG'S THE PLOT AGAINST PEPYS
This book is very good narrative history; in parts, it is truly excellent.
The period of English history from the Restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II, 1660, to the Glorious Revolution, the overthrow of James II, younger brother of Charles in 1688, is a fascinating one, and the events of this book take place during a portion of that period.
The immediate background to these events includes the English Civil War and the rise and fall of the Cromwells. It is a time marked by an extreme turmoil over religion, Protestant versus Catholic, in the affairs of state. Ironically, the period covered was also one of considerable and fairly open decadence in English society, showing once again how little religion has to do with morals.
This book has as chief characters Samuel Pepys and one of the lesser-known nasty pieces of work in modern history, John Scott. With a cast like that, you almost cannot miss.
Pepys, famous for a diary, which is a fact-filled look at part of the period's society and a somewhat salacious record of its morals, was an able and conscientious (at least after the Restoration) civil servant who rose to high rank. The important part of his career was associated with the Royal navy, going from Clerk of the Acts to the Navy to Secretary to the Admiralty Board and finally to Secretary for the Affairs of the Admiralty.
Scott was a lifelong fraudster, murderer, and opportunist who rose up and fell down several times in several countries. With "the gift of the gab," a talent for forgery, and great energy in his schemes, Scott was almost certainly a psychopathic personality. He crossed paths - and as it happens, swords - with Pepys virtually by accident. His unquenchable hatred of Pepys apparently was sparked by a random event in which Pepys, just doing his official duty, thwarted one of Scott's high-flown schemes for gaining fame and fortune. His intense hatred was then harnessed by those interested in the overthrow of Charles II, especially Lord Shaftsbury, himself a considerably larger-than-life and rather grotesque figure.
Pepys was charged with being a secret Catholic and being part of a plot to kill the King and see a Catholic Monarchy installed. The main accuser was the psychopathic John Scott. A modern reader might think that this seems such a simple matter to clear up - especially the part about being a Catholic, which Pepys was not - but there was an atmosphere thickly charged with paranoia and suspicion in England at the time, and it was being actively added to by people like Shaftsbury, himself interested in turning over the existing monarchy.
Because this period was also one of a rapidly changing balance of power between Parliament and the Crown, the King and his brother - the future James II - were not in a position to simply lift a loyal public servant from extreme danger. Pepys spent a long and exhausting period fighting charges that already had seen notable prisoners hung, cut down alive, castrated, disemboweled, and drawn-and-quartered - the contemporary penalty for treason, a penalty which itself tells us something of the frenzied paranoia of the time. He was in and out of prison, had many court dates, and spent a small fortune collecting evidence and trying to understand the precise nature of the plot against him, although he had understood immediately that it was part of some unknown larger effort to get at the Stuarts.
Ultimately he was victorious, but only because he was smart, had considerable resources to employ, and enjoyed a few lucky brakes with past associate or victims of Scott's coming forward from various countries, and, most importantly, the King finally felt comfortable enough reaching down with limited but indispensable help.
The first part of this book reads like a rip-roaring crime novel, but it may be enjoyed on several levels. The English paranoia of the time and the dark operations of the courts in matters of treason remind one very much of the insane swirl of events in America following 9/11. Pepys could almost be an American secret prisoner under the deliberately misnamed Patriot Act. The almost unbelievable career of John Scott reminds one of the way career killers and abusers are so rarely caught even today before they have done immense damage to others. The meek definitely do not inherit the earth still.
The period of English history from the Restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II, 1660, to the Glorious Revolution, the overthrow of James II, younger brother of Charles in 1688, is a fascinating one, and the events of this book take place during a portion of that period.
The immediate background to these events includes the English Civil War and the rise and fall of the Cromwells. It is a time marked by an extreme turmoil over religion, Protestant versus Catholic, in the affairs of state. Ironically, the period covered was also one of considerable and fairly open decadence in English society, showing once again how little religion has to do with morals.
This book has as chief characters Samuel Pepys and one of the lesser-known nasty pieces of work in modern history, John Scott. With a cast like that, you almost cannot miss.
Pepys, famous for a diary, which is a fact-filled look at part of the period's society and a somewhat salacious record of its morals, was an able and conscientious (at least after the Restoration) civil servant who rose to high rank. The important part of his career was associated with the Royal navy, going from Clerk of the Acts to the Navy to Secretary to the Admiralty Board and finally to Secretary for the Affairs of the Admiralty.
Scott was a lifelong fraudster, murderer, and opportunist who rose up and fell down several times in several countries. With "the gift of the gab," a talent for forgery, and great energy in his schemes, Scott was almost certainly a psychopathic personality. He crossed paths - and as it happens, swords - with Pepys virtually by accident. His unquenchable hatred of Pepys apparently was sparked by a random event in which Pepys, just doing his official duty, thwarted one of Scott's high-flown schemes for gaining fame and fortune. His intense hatred was then harnessed by those interested in the overthrow of Charles II, especially Lord Shaftsbury, himself a considerably larger-than-life and rather grotesque figure.
Pepys was charged with being a secret Catholic and being part of a plot to kill the King and see a Catholic Monarchy installed. The main accuser was the psychopathic John Scott. A modern reader might think that this seems such a simple matter to clear up - especially the part about being a Catholic, which Pepys was not - but there was an atmosphere thickly charged with paranoia and suspicion in England at the time, and it was being actively added to by people like Shaftsbury, himself interested in turning over the existing monarchy.
Because this period was also one of a rapidly changing balance of power between Parliament and the Crown, the King and his brother - the future James II - were not in a position to simply lift a loyal public servant from extreme danger. Pepys spent a long and exhausting period fighting charges that already had seen notable prisoners hung, cut down alive, castrated, disemboweled, and drawn-and-quartered - the contemporary penalty for treason, a penalty which itself tells us something of the frenzied paranoia of the time. He was in and out of prison, had many court dates, and spent a small fortune collecting evidence and trying to understand the precise nature of the plot against him, although he had understood immediately that it was part of some unknown larger effort to get at the Stuarts.
Ultimately he was victorious, but only because he was smart, had considerable resources to employ, and enjoyed a few lucky brakes with past associate or victims of Scott's coming forward from various countries, and, most importantly, the King finally felt comfortable enough reaching down with limited but indispensable help.
The first part of this book reads like a rip-roaring crime novel, but it may be enjoyed on several levels. The English paranoia of the time and the dark operations of the courts in matters of treason remind one very much of the insane swirl of events in America following 9/11. Pepys could almost be an American secret prisoner under the deliberately misnamed Patriot Act. The almost unbelievable career of John Scott reminds one of the way career killers and abusers are so rarely caught even today before they have done immense damage to others. The meek definitely do not inherit the earth still.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
JOHN CHUCKMAN STORY: AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT - A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTMAS TALE
AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT
A Contemporary Christmas Tale
John Chuckman
It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot’s license.
Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.
It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in such matters with the people now running America, a wing of America’s most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.
As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles exploding.
Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too, scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying off.
Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.
Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life. Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving reindeer.
The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.
Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of global warming.
Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.
A Contemporary Christmas Tale
John Chuckman
It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot’s license.
Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.
It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in such matters with the people now running America, a wing of America’s most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.
As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles exploding.
Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too, scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying off.
Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.
Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life. Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving reindeer.
The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.
Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of global warming.
Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.
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