"Pulgasari": True Escapism (part 3)

Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee. Paid prisoners of Kim Jong-il for four years after four previous years of starved imprisonment after separate, violent kidnappings. No communication with the outside world. No freedom to travel or do anything not directly related to staying alive and making movies for the benefit of the North Korean military-state. Over the eight years, the couple was given millions of dollars and attempted suicides.

In 1986, after the “success” of “Pulgasari,” Shin suggested that the next film be a retelling of Ghengis Khan’s life. Kim jumped at the idea and agreed that this would be North Korea’s breakout film. Shin and Choi were sent to Vienna, Austria to meet with a European distributor, under the “protection” of North Korean armed guards, of course. Before meeting with the distributor (who only may have ever existed), Shin and Choi got lunch with an old friend, a Japanese film critic who had heard of “Pulgasari” and, more importantly, his friends’ shoot-on-sight tail. This Japanese man has since been referred to as “K” in official government correspondences, foreshadowing some serious shit went down.

Pictured above: (another?) government official referred to as "K"; not Japanese.

And went down it did. During their lunch, “K” sneaked the couple out of the restaurant and the three of them got into a taxi—it’s unknown if this was a taxi-driver’s dream-come-true or if “K” just went ahead and hot-wired the ride. We’ll go with “hot-wiring” because the three of them raced through the streets of Vienna, that were inches wider than the car, with the North Koreans chasing in pursuit. Considering “K” was a film critic and the other two were a married couple, the equivalent scene in “The Bourne Identity” is actually a water-down version of this real life chase scene.

Eventually, “K” Tokyo-Drifted his way to within a foot of the U.S. embassy and everybody got out and pled for asylum, having it granted at least quick enough. It can also be assumed the North Koreans growled from across the streets with the driver slamming his hands on the steering wheel of the taxicab they ACTUALLY STOLE. Or perhaps the North Koreans simply crashed their cab in the most cinematic way possible at some point towards the end of the race. Also, do you think there were any Austrian police cars involved? Because I think so.

For reasons defying logical explanation, Shin and Choi were not immediately embraced by their home country of South Korea and instead stayed in America for some time. The South Korean government was skeptical why it had taken the couple eight years to escape and why they had accepted payment for making movies in North Korea. Furthermore, they would not allow Shin to show the movies he had made (and smuggled with him through Vienna?), because they MIGHT display the cinematic prowess of North Korea.

America, to our own end, has spent decades deciphering and hypothesizing the thought process, mental capacity and overall sanity of Kim Jong-il. In most regards, it seems this man was, and is, a paradox of power. More so than in any other recent example, Kim was dependent on his prisoners. He was so adamant that North Korea’s failing was in logistics, not message, that he was willing to sacrifice (or at least risk) the purity of his message. Notably, he did not kidnap European, American or even Japanese filmmakers, but rather South Koreans; indicating that perhaps Kim sees Koreans as one people and that the South Koreans are not so much “enemies of the state” as they are innocent Koreans who have been led astray by capitalism and/or democracy.

At no point is Kim’s insanity predictable, though, as in response to the escape of Shin and Choi, North Korea claimed the couple were con artists who embezzled $2.3 million out of the government. And, afraid that the story had a few holes in it, North Korea issued another statement claiming that the couple voluntarily worked for Kim but were kidnapped by Americans while in Vienna.

Continuity the baffling international relations, when the Japanese film-going audience heard about “Pulgasari,” they begged Kim Jong-il to release the film beyond his borders. Despite his archival-knowledge, Kim had not heard of “camp” films (Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the like) and eventually gave in to international cinema pressure in the late nineties. The film was received on par with a plague of locusts in some circles and snickering riots in other circles. Had the monster movie, released in 1998, been received any worse, it would have starred Matthew Broderick. (Boom!) Kim then, essentially, screamed that only people who liked the movie are invited to his birthday party. Jeez, the guy handled criticism worse than Kevin Smith. (Boom! Two in a row!)

To this day, North Korea’s film industry still pumps out about 60 films a year but it is very unclear what the movies are about, who is making them and what they are like—as Western culture is still non-existent outside of Kim’s palaces. Kim, to his credit, now says cartoons are his favorite movies.

So, uh, word of advice to my animation friends: don’t pursue job offers that take you to Hong Kong.

"Pulgasari": True Escapism (part 2)

Try to imagine all this. Your film studio was ruined. Your actress-wife divorced you. You both got separately kidnapped and then placed in North Korean prison for nearly five years. Then you receive a completely out-of-the-blue invitation to eat dinner with the future ruler of North Korea. He promises you a sizable financial offer to go back to making movies—or face execution. And then the man, who reportedly believes he can change the weather with his mind, asks that you remarry your ex-wife. That is where we last left off.

While at the dinner table for two hours, Kim Jong-il explained his cinema dilemma to his South Korean prisoners/guests Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok. North Korean filmmakers were limited in education and inspiration because many of the global filmmaking industries (U.S., England, France, Japan, etc.) were enemies of the state. Kim himself knew of North Korea’s shortcomings because he owned, in 1983, 15,000 films—in reel form, stored in a three-floor archive. Kim’s discussion with himself, witnessed by Shin and Choi, took a nosedive into a diatribe and has since played a major role in American-Korean relations.

How? Choi smuggled a tape-recorder into the meeting. The 45-minutes captured provide an unparalleled window of frankness into the unusually candid thoughts of the dictator. The tape has since been circulated among international intelligence agencies not solely possessed as the Dr. Claw to Fidel Castro’s Inspector Gadget (“I’ll get you next time!”). Indeed, that tape is really what spurred the image of Kim Jong-il that Westerners have come to see/parody, topping out in the 2004 film “Team America: World Police”—a film Kim, in all real likelihood, saw and owns.

So Shin and Choi got to making movies again, with mid-level budgets, no expectations and a staggering amount of creative freedom. It almost sounds like a good couple of years, and even was during the smallest moments. Shin held periodic story conferences with his sole producer, and world leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Nah, just kidding. It was Kim Jong-il. Shin and Kim found some cultural overlap and appreciation for historical dramas. Shin worked behind the camera and Choi worked in front—at one point creating the first on-screen kiss in North Korean cinema. With no less than a literal arsenal to his head, Shin’s first 6 films pleased Kim.

Despite the ultimate creative freedom and spouse-reunion afforded to Shin and Choi, they frequently discussed escaping, though perhaps none as urgently as on their trip through Berlin. Shin and Choi, like always, were ushered to the designated destinations by an entourage of armed guards. At one, point they were within a block of the U.S. embassy and Choi tried to make a run for it. Shin tackled her right there, saying that he would not allow the two of them to try an escape unless they were 100% certain to get away with it. 99% certainty wasn’t good enough for Shin, who had not only spent over four years in prison for his last escape attempt but also already underwent the pain of losing Choi once before.

Back in North Korea, during one of the film shoots, Shin realized it’d be kind of cool to blow up a real train in a movie and tentatively asked one of his assistants to pass along the requests to his unstable, military-minded, film producer. Within days, Shin got the go-ahead. The go-ahead to blow up a North Korean train. For a film nobody would see outside of North Korea. As Shin and Choi were far from content in their employed imprisonment, it’s possible that Shin was just having a little bit of fun with Kim—asking to destroy North Korean military property under the guise of filmmaking. Best. Sabotage. Ever.

Inspired by this (minor) act of destruction against the regime, in 1985 Shin took up Kim’s suggestion to do a Godzilla-esque monster story, called “Pulgasari.” This gets a little confusing (oh, NOW you tell me), but this idea of a monster growing large and desecrating an Asian population was something of a story-telling staple over there. In fact, there was a Godzilla-esque monster movie called “Bulgasari” released in 1962. And even now “Pulgasari” (1985) is frequently (yet incorrectly) referenced as “Bulgasari”—again, despite any production relation to the real “Bulgasari” (1962).

As a film, “Pulgasari” just may well be the Fran Tarkenton of insane Korean films. 1970s gibberish, occasionally separated by screams of extras—mostly farmer-clothed North Korean soldiers. While “Godzilla” may be bold and stirring with its sardonic parody of U.S. nuclear power flattening, then eventually saving the Japanese population, the symbolism of “Pulgasari” is so formless yet heavy-handed that you’d swear that Kim Jong-il threw mud at the camera lens and Shin just kept it there out of spite. Pulgasari is a monster born of rice balls and blood who eats metal to grow big and protect the poor peasants of Korea. Seeking justice, or perhaps just food, Pulgasari launches a series of arguably coherent attacks on the military-industry centers of society, only to grow larger. With the former (capitalist?) regime in ruins, Pulgasari turns on the peasants and just all around acts like every step he takes crushing the villagers stubs his toe.

"I am not a Pokemon! And I am freaking out!"

Had Shin, South Korea’s own Orson Welles, gone insane? Only as insane as the smartest fox, apparently. Because Kim Jong-il absolutely LOVED “Pulgasari.” After seeing the film, Kim threw the entire film studio a feast, likely totaling some 60% of the nation’s daily food supply. Kim praised “Pulgarasi” as the best film ever made, which is ridiculous because it was not named “The Lion King,” nor starred Robert Duvall.

The next movie, Shin promised Kim, was going to be something special. And Kim agreed. It was time the world saw the brilliance of North (but actually South) Korean cinema. But for such global reach, they’d need to team up with an international film distributor and so, for the second time in their eight years as royal artists/prisoners, Shin and Choi got to go to Europe.

Taking a cue from the movies, the South Korean couple would save their best scenes for the end.

To be continued…

"Pulgasari": True Escapism

I have a confession. South Korean films baffle me. They are not entirely bad by any means, but rather just confusing—mostly because of their seeming disregard for genre. “Host,” for example, is a light-hearted, dysfunctional family story until a giant Godzilla-type monster starts terrorizing the city. And from monster genre, it turns into this police-state allegory, then character-drama with a family being torn apart (emotionally, then physically). Then it’s a comedy again. Anyways, the most baffling aspect of South Korean cinema is that nobody has made a film about the most incredible story that ever fallen into an industry’s collective lap. This is the—I swear to God—true story of director Shin Sang-ok and his collaborations with North Korea’s batshit insane dictator, Kim Jong-il.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Shin Sang-ok was one of the few critically renowned South Korean film directors, in a nation less than a generation out of the bi-Korean cease-fire. In the mid-1970s, Shin let it slip that he was critical of the repressive South Korean government and was promptly shut down by said sensitive government. By any measure, Shin was ruined by, and pissed at, his militaristic government. Doubly unfortunate, Shin was not alone in this sentiment and his famous actress-wife Choi Eun-hee divorced him. While packing her bags, Choi told him that she was going to Hong Kong, hearing about some filmmaker who wanted to work with her, specifically. In all likelihood, Shin collapsed in his chair, gave one of his Joe Every Man-thousand-yard stares and wondered how his life had become the first one-fifth of a Steven Spielberg movie.

In Hong Kong, Choi met with the filmmakers and, in an unusual casting technique, was kidnapped and smuggled to North Korea. Yeah, still think your job interview went bad? While Kim Jong-il wasn’t yet the head leader of North Korea (that position belonging to his father at this time), Kim was the director of propaganda and other spheres of political/military influence—including the filmmaking-arm. And the wheels in Kim’s head had been spinning for some time. As a young man, Kim Jong-il literally wrote the (or at least “a”) book on the relations between film art and spreading the greatness of North Korea. For years North Korean filmmakers disappointed him, despite all his threats, imprisoning, physical/psychological abusing, kidnappings and executions. So Kim, in all his batshit craziness, decided to import the best Asian filmmakers he could (this side of Akira Kurosawa, of course).

In South Korea, Shin Sang-ok hears rumors about his ex-wife being kidnapped and possibly killed in Hong Kong. Unlike The Honeymooners’ Ralph Kramden, who might celebrate some relief from his wife, Shin booked it to Hong Kong to start his own investigation. Amazingly, Shin found the kidnappers and they, appropriately, kidnapped him, too. In North Korea, Shin was placed in a pretty fancy hotel and even received his own guards who wanted to protect him so much that they stopped him from leaving, making phone calls or asking too many questions. Despite his eagerness to see the sights of the foreign city, they assured him, no, there was nothing to see or do and to stay in his room. Before long, Shin attempted to escape the premises but was caught. Insulted, the North Korean guards moved Shin and decided to put the film director somewhere really safe…prison.

In the North Korean prison, Shin ate grass, salt and the occasional side dish of rice. To be even bigger jerks, the guards told Shin that his kidnapped wife was dead. Reflecting on his time there, Shin has said, “I experienced the limits of human beings.” And that is how he spent his life for the next FOUR YEARS.

Then something strange happened. (Finally!) In his jail cell, Shin received a dinner invitation to the grand palace of one Kim Jong-il. Starving, grieving and otherwise losing his mind, Shin was taken to the palace and led to a large dinner table, set for three. Kim Jong-il takes the head of the table and across from Shin sat somebody even more heart stopping: Shin’s wife, Choi Eun-hee.

Besting the imagination of any sitcom, this dinner was about to get a lot more awkward. Politely, Kim Jong-il apologized to both of his guests for their, separate, four-year imprisonment. Kim laughed to himself, embarrassed that he and his subordinates had mis-communicated a while back. Apparently nobody had caught the mistake earlier because it had just been “chaos back at the office.” Ah, well, Kim assured his undoubtedly speechless guests, the important thing is that we are all here and can talk about a future together. Specifically, Kim wanted Shin and Choi to creatively reunite and make movies for North Korea. They’d be paid well, have over 200 employees, and thousands of soldiers to use as overly synchronized extras.

"Do you need ridiculous marching? Because we got that shit covered!"

It’s unclear if Shin and Choi ever really ate at their dinner with Kim Jong-il, but what is certain is that the dictator rambled for over two hours about communism and cinema. And then, as if to gently blow over a woozy opponent in lieu of a knockout-hit, Kim Jong-il asked the divorced couple, Shin and Choi, to get remarried.

I’ll give you a couple of days to think about that scene.

To be continued…

The Car: America’s Love Affair

What is American culture? Historically, we are the land of refuge. Indeed, the absence of an obvious, unique culture is what makes the United States a welcoming place. Yes, some may have just scoffed hard enough to choke on their own tongue, but it’s the explanation all the same. America has size and unlike similarly sized nations, America is entirely habitable. We go all across our nation because there is reason to go all across the nation. New Yorkers want to go to California, Texans want to go to Washington, D.C. and Missourians want to leave Missouri. This mobility—while always an element of our collective ideology—became possible, predictable and just wildly profitable in the second half of the 20th century because our nation fell in love, and that love’s name was the automobile.

Cars were a part of American society before World War II but much in the way the Internet was a part of American society before the millennium. That is, both were immediately useful to peripheral sectors of American culture—some trading, military services and vice. And as most people know, WWII helped lift America, if not the entire world, out of the global depression. Specifically though, it meant that the federal government starting buying vehicles (jeeps, tanks, trucks, airplanes and numerous short-lived amphibious endeavors). This meant a huge boom to the few car manufacturers that existed, but not just in having the biggest buyer of all time. For the United States actually paid car manufactures to build more factories because—and this is truly American logic—why not buy two for twice the price? More than just the factories built, the government also paid the manufactures to create test vehicles and ultimately let the corporations keep ownership of the factories and all patents developed for the war efforts, as a thanks for the patriotism.

Well, (spoiler alert!) the Allies won the war (end spoiler) and the car companies had way more supply than there was demand, so they made the demand by buying up mass-transportation systems in the late forties. Not unlike Chevron buying carbon credits as early as the 1990s, these businessmen showed how rampant capitalism could motivate the devastatingly smart among us. The car companies destroyed their competition buying them, and then pushed for the creation of Levittowns.

Levittowns were the original name of what we now know as sub-urban areas—neighborhoods of single-family homes built outside of big cities. Because these neighborhoods were built for individual families, nothing was within walking distance anymore. Just a generation earlier, people went their entire lives without owning any transportation, but now, with no consistent public transportation, such a life was impossible. The Levittown homes were cheap and promised to go up in value, as original locations were ideally placed and each neighboring area would become father away from, yet still outside of, the city and major roads.

Majors roads may have been an understatement. President Dwight Eisenhower’s proposed Federal Highway Defense Act was the largest development of infrastructure ever undertaken by any nation—only to be bested over the last couple of years by the Nigerians (just kidding, it’s actually the Chinese and we’ll come back to this). But in the 1950s, Eisenhower was adamant that America fix the highway system that took his convoy 16 days to transverse from Oregon to D.C. in the 1930s (and two months to transverse in 1919). Keep in mind, Congress was suffering a little bit of a spending hangover since FDR’s New Deal 15 years earlier (helluva hangover, right?) but—and this is also pretty American—Congress always opens its purse for defense spending. In fact, Congress will usually just add on an extra zero or two for any defense budget just to prove to the American public that they care just that much.

Eisenhower, in probably his most political maneuver ever, argued that an Interstate Highway system would allow the U.S. to move troops and supplies across the country in lightning speed in the (inevitable?) event of a USSR invasion. In some respects, the German autobahn influenced Eisenhower in that the Germans really did use their highway system to facilitate the Blitzkrieg attacks on Poland and France. So, you know, thanks for the idea, Hitler. Regardless of influence, America connected dozens of major cities with 41,000 miles of new road…road that needed to be conquered.

And if something can be conquered by flamboyant consumerism, you can bet the Baby Boomer Generation bought it, used it, forgot about it, found it, repackaged it and sold it back to Generation X—who would sarcastically deride it. The car was a necessity in the immediate years after the war, but then it became a sign of upward mobility. Cars weren’t a luxury by 1960, but rather an expectation. A rite of passage into adulthood. They were mobile, miniature apartments—if not extensions of the driver themselves. This was a freedom of spatial mobility more unifying, social, and unique than cars before WWII or horses before that.

All of society felt reverberations from the auto-boom. Fast food became faster with drive-thrus. After eating dinner in your car you could watch a movie in the car at a drive-in movie. Car got dirty? Drive through a car wash. Still bored? Race other people with cars. Or just use your car as a hang-out location and drive around the city in endless loops finding other people doing the same because cars provided that feeling of “doing something” with the freedom to listen to rock and/or roll music, or use curse words. Feeling romantic? Drive to a make-out location. Need a bed? Most cars were intentionally built wide enough for a person (or two) to lie length-wise across the seats. Feel like you’ve done everything you could do in life in your car? Well, you’re in luck because eventually people could just use their cars to commit suicide.

“Thank God we have a car or this would have sucked.”

So where does this all take us? Well, history may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Because as mentioned earlier, China’s highway system has ballooned for the last decade—much in the vein of America in the 1960s. Similarly, Chinese cities seem to be growing outward at the rate of America’s waistline and they have a growing middle class that will require, and then eventually just want, cars. For the comparison to go much further, though, China will need to move away from grand displays of choreographed automatons and just allow the people to authentically create art. Perhaps I’ve strayed from the point.

But back in America, we are living in a backlash reaction to this love affair with cars. The American Dream still exists but it doesn’t involve owning a home anymore. It doesn’t involve moving out of the city, but rather (more and more) moving into the city. And this may spell the decline of suburbia in a generation and, with it, car ownership.

Most simply, Pixar’s “Cars” are more like Andy’s toys than they even know.

Roosevelt vs. Taft: Friends and War

I have been asked before who is my favorite U.S. President and after some time I realized the answer comes from admiration, and some intimidation. It has to be Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt—though he preferred to be called "TR" or "Colonel." Rather than gush like a fan girl at his bare-knuckled politics and obvious (and endearing) caffeine addiction, I’ll take this post to instead reflect on one of his most controversial decisions that has yet, and may never, prove courageous or fool-hardy. In 1904, President Roosevelt declared his next four years would be his last term as President; an unexpected promise given he had only been in office 3.5 years, following the assassination of President McKinley. In 1908, TR handpicked his Secretary of War and good friend, William Howard Taft, as the next President. And in 1912, TR sacrificed the friendship, sacrificed his membership in the Republican Party, condemned Taft’s administration, and ran for president once again.

To understand how this happened, one first needs to understand TR was never meant to be president in the first place. He was a wildly popular war hero who became a wildly popular New York governor. As Governor, TR fought political corruption and taxed big businesses. In response, these para-political forces and party bosses aligned and “promoted” TR to U.S. Vice-President, under McKinley. There, TR would have no real power. In the biggest backfire of the decade, McKinley was assassinated months later and TR became the most politically powerful president since Ol' Abe Lincoln.

About eight years later, the 50-year-old TR decides that being President isn’t interesting enough anymore and doesn’t run for re-election (despite still being wildly popular). For the previous four years, TR had groomed and polished his largely apolitical, though scholarly (read: nerdy), friend, William Taft. Taft was a soft speaker and rather big, though had a good sense of humor about it—often claiming that he was such a good gentleman that he could give his seat on the bus to three women. He was judicial and moderate. Really, he was an Anti-Roosevelt, which TR liked.

But then during Taft’s administration, Taft reveals himself to be considerably more conservative than the progressive Roosevelt. Unlike TR, Taft never demonized big businesses or monopolies. Taft lowered tariffs (frustrating American manufactures) though did not abolish them (frustrating American consumers). Taft fought against judiciary reform, himself believing judges appointed would be more powerful than judges elected. And most contrary to TR, Taft did not use to the executive office to protect labor unions, women, children, the environment or southern blacks. The southern blacks in particular were faced with voter restrictions such as the Grandfather Clause—a ridiculously illegal/racist law that basically said you could only vote if your grandfather ever had the chance to vote before 1867. This state law obviously took advantage in the fact that few slaves in the 1850s were politically active. All these issues combined, though not one really stood out, to enrage Roosevelt into challenging the incumbent president.

In what was one of the worst primary elections in the 20th century, Roosevelt lambasted his former friend for “flipping” on key populist ideals and supporting big business. Taft claimed TR was an egotist and rabble-rouser. TR called Taft a “fat head.” Taft started crying. And then to make things a little bit crazier, Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, started campaigning and won two of the first four primaries—also LaFollette kind of looked like David Lynch.

Eventually, the core Republicans decided President Taft was most conservative and so voted him to be the Republican nominee for 1912. Enraged to a Hulk-like magnitude, TR joined the Progressive Party, waving off concerns about his health, declaring, “I’m as fit as a bull moose!” Reportedly, he then ran off stage and tackled a bull moose to prove it—thus creating the party’s new name.

"Sorry guys, turns out it was actually a bull elephant."

From the farthest left, socialist Eugene Debs got into the national campaign and said Republicans, Democrats and Progressives received too much money from trusts and companies to be honest with the American voters. Rightfully, Debs was called a madman and his views died with his political career.

Like any good spectacle, the best was saved for the end wherein everybody pulled an “October Surprise”—not to be confused with the sexual act. Roosevelt was shot by a would-be assassin moments before giving a speech. The .38 caliber bullet actually went through Roosevelt’s eyeglass case and his 50-page speech before entering his chest and finally giving up. Roosevelt, with the bullet lodged in his chest, gave the prepared speech noting the, still possibly successful, assassination attempt by saying no single bullet can take him down. Roosevelt, suspecting that the surgeons actually killed bullet-wounded presidents McKinely and Garfield, refused bullet-removal procedures and indeed died with it in his chest, though not because of it, seven years later.

Not to be outdone by ridiculous (bad?) luck, President Taft’s Vice-President James Sherman dropped dead two weeks later—seven days before the general election.

Both hurt by each other’s disregard for their previous friendship, Taft and TR focused their attacks on one another, nearly forgetting that the Democrat challenger could also be elected. And was. This was Woodrow Wilson, the originator of the cliché, New England, academic, Democrat politician. Wilson won the popular vote with 41.8%. Roosevelt came in second, Taft in third. And even crazy Eugene "No Money Bags for Me" Debs got nearly a million votes—marking the last time in U.S. history that four separate candidates received at least 5% of the popular vote.

Not to overly entertain the hypothetical, I do wonder the difference TR could have made in those next four years. Beyond the control of any American, World War I still would have started in Europe in the summer of 1914—which was also one of the worst blockbuster summers in movie history. Wilson, the real president at the time, did not want America to get involved for any number of reasons, but mostly because he felt it would be a distraction for the problems he wanted to fix domestically. Wilson himself said, “It would be a great tragedy if my presidency was consumed by international affairs.” Even after German U-boats blew up the Lusitania in 1915, Wilson kept America out of ‘the European war.’ Not until after his re-election, the sinking of seven more U.S. merchant ships and the Zimmerman telegram (Germany asking Mexico to invade America) did Wilson called for war—which Congress declared on April 6th, 1917.

It’s hard to imagine Theodore Roosevelt, given his eagerness for war with Spain in 1897, Big Stick policy and Colombian Revolution-instigation, would have waited so long. Indeed, TR was a big proponent of The Preparedness Movement in 1915, which, among other political changes, called for every 18-year-old American male to spend 6-months training for military service. Socially, it was described as “a real melting pot, under which the fire is hot enough to fuse the elements into one common mass of Americanism.” While the 6-month requirement is considerably more generous to a teenage boy’s duties of video game and Pop-Tart marathons than Germany’s then-two-year-requirement or modern Israel’s three-year-requirement, the notion was shot down as a violations of Americans' freedom to be lazy.

And you bet your McDonald's enlarged ass that Roosevelt walked the walk. Of his four sons, three honorably served in BOTH world wars, the lone exception being Quentin--who crashed his plane serving during WWI...probably even deliberately, because Roosevelts' only die when the world becomes too boring for them. There actually is a long history of suicide in that family. Anyway!

Had Roosevelt been president, America would have gone to war by 1915—when Germany was still convinced they could win. Thousands and thousands of more Americans would have been killed, including TR if he had tried to lead the American forces (once again) on horseback like some hyperactive King Théoden. And this is only barely hypothetical, as TR actually did petition President Wilson to let him round up a regiment of volunteers and go overseas. Wilson, afraid of TR becoming a war hero (once again) and running for president (once again) ordered TR to stand down. Roosevelt listened and Germany wasn't invaded until 1944.

Germany still would have lost WWI and America, like Britain and France, would have lost a devastating amount of young men (France lost over 4% of it’s total population). Perhaps then, though, America would have cared more about stopping world wars and actively engaged in any one of the numerous, international “leagues” being proposed by Taft, Wilson and several European counterparts. A league of nations with teeth, a league people wanted to have power. A league that may have economically built up Germany’s economy, rather than smashing it, and a league that could have brought about more—and this is the only goal—world peace.

And so is the tragedy of two friends fighting, not as good vs. evil (take note Mr. James freaking Cameron) but as one good vs. another good. Watch for it next time.

The Crime of Abstractions

Just a head's up, there is no comedy in this post, but rather something I found in my old class notes. I had an English teacher who found a link to an actual S.S. Memo from Nazi Germany and described it--aside from being a window into atrocities--as the worst writing ever and the exact opposite of art. Artists, bureaucrats and readers everywhere should take note, this reading requires silence.

(p.s. There will be jokes next time.)

Here is the memo:

------------

Geheime Reichssache (Secret Reich Business)

Berlin, June 5, 1942

Changes for special vehicles now in service at Kulmhof (Chelmno) and for those now being built.

Since December 1941, ninety-seven thousand have been processed by the three vehicles in service, with no major incidents. In the light of observations made so far, however, the following technical changes are needed:

The vans' normal load is usually nine per square yard. In Saurer vehicles, which are very spacious, maximum use of space is impossible, not because of any possible overload, but because loading to full capacity would affect the vehicle's stability. So reduction of the load space seems necessary. It must absolutely be reduced by a yard, instead of trying to solve the problem, as hitherto, by reducing the number of pieces loaded. Besides, this extends the operating time, as the empty void must be filled with carbon monoxide.

On the other hand, if the load space is reduced, and the vehicle is packed solid, the operating time can be considerably shortened. The manufacturers told us during a discussion that reducing the size of the van's rear would throw it badly off balance. The front axle, they claim, would be overloaded. In fact, the balance is automatically restored, because the merchandise aboard displays during the operation a natural tendency to rush to the rear doors, and is mainly found lying there at the end of the operation. So the front axle is not overloaded.

2. The lighting must be better protected than now. The lamps must be enclosed in a steel grid to prevent their being damaged. Lights could be eliminated, since they apparently are never used. However, it has been observed that when the doors are shut, the load always presses hard against them as soon as darkness sets in. This is because the load naturally rushes toward the light when darkness sets in, which makes closing the doors difficult. Also, because of the alarming nature of darkness, screaming always occurs when the doors are closed. It would therefore be useful to light the lamp before and during the first moments of the operation.

3. For easy cleaning of the vehicle, there must be a sealed drain in the middle of the floor. The drainage hole's cover, eight to twelve inches in diameter, would be equipped with a slanting trap, so that fluid liquids can drain off during the operation. During cleaning, the drain can be used to evacuate large pieces of dirt.

The aforementioned technical changes are to be made to vehicles in service only when they come in for repairs. As for the ten vehicles ordered from Saurer, they must be equipped with all innovations and changes shown by use and experience to be necessary.

Submitted for decision to Gruppenleiter II D, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Rauff.

Signed: Just

"All Jefferson Needed was a Handlebar Mustache" -- an essay from Tyler

A guest column, written by Tyler.

Many Americans see the President of the United States as more than an elected position. The American President becomes an idealized figurehead of ideals and aspirations during their era on a democratic throne. Of all of the Presidents few will ever receive the appropriate criticisms of the third: Thomas Jefferson.

As an establisher of one of the preliminary political parties in America and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a founding member of the U.S. government without a presidential term. He was a man who believed in the small, family farm; and that a big, invasive government was harmful. He feared that the federal government was in a habit of over-reaching and over-spending. That is, until he got to lead the federal government and over-stretched executive power in order to buy a quarter of the American continent from the French on a hunch that we just might want it someday. However, there was more beneath ol’ Thomas Jefferson than just Sally Hemings. In fact, many of the political problems of the United States can be traced back to Jeffersonian hypocrisy.

As argued by previous scholars, in TJ’s early drafts of the Declaration of Independence, he may have tried to stop slavery. There are still other signs that he disliked the practice. But this Virginian was a coward. Jefferson was willing to sign a letter of treason against the British but, in the end, freeing the American slaves was too much. Expressing a death wish against the most powerful military in the world was safer to him than freeing enslaved people. He depended on those slaves to protect his way of life and he could not let that go. Jefferson predicted slavery would lead to a division of the country, such as the Civil War, and decided “Well… that sucks. Glad I don’t have to deal with that.” (Directly quoted by the way. If it’s not on Wikipedia yet, please fix it for me.) He refused to live the way he argued people should. With his dependence on slave labor, Jefferson was anything but the simple farmer. He argued for no regulation on small farmers, of which he included his multi-field farm. Because of the slaves, he had enough time to piss off the English and hide in a presumably comfortable hole (again, not just Sally Hemings). Jefferson was pretending to be a small commoner as he reaped massive wealth.

Speaking of his farming tendencies, Jefferson is also largely responsible for all of the bullshit, awkward zoning issues of the United States. Remember how Jefferson bought nearly half the nation? He is also primarily responsible for the lazy shapes of the states. Jefferson had enough time on his hands to grid out America west of the Appalachian Mountains. Unlike the eastern U.S--which mostly used geographical distinctions to separate land and states--Jefferson ignored land features in favor of arbitrary boundaries. This led to many issues in the U.S. such as water disputes or parts of states separated entirely from the rest of the state. Even individual properties were separated with uneven access to water—in more cases forcing Americans to trespass their neighbor’s property just to get to their own land.

"Tell me about it."

Thomas Jefferson attempted to do what he thought was right for the nation that would grow into the United States as we know it. He just didn’t think he had to be a part of it.

The Presidential Election of 1828: When Politics Struggled

The world of politics is an ugly and vapid world and the most common sentiment seems the world has been stretched even thinner, unable to support the weight of statesmen and cowardly tactic known as compromise. In the last twenty years perhaps this is a fair feeling, but in the context of American political history, it is simply not true. Political discourse, as regrettably as predictably, breaks down in a democracy. The strength of the United States has been the ability to repeatedly correct itself (albeit for short amounts of time). This is not to say hatred, unintelligible reasoning or violence surrounding politics is condonable, but rather I’d like to take us back to a time in American history where modern schemes and tactics would first become recognizable to modern talkers. We’re going back to 1828.

In 1828, President John Quincy Adams (also referred to as JQA or Q-Ball) was not so excited about campaigning for a re-election. His last four years had been marred by inaction, not entirely from his own ineptitude but from the venomous opposition he faced. In a way, JQA never had a chance to be wholly productive during his first term despite a focus on domestic issues and disinterest in foreign affairs. Since FDR, the hyper-media has a heart attack from the excitement of a President's First 100 Days. John Quincy Adams didn't have a First 100 Days, he had an Only 100 Days. From that, his first term was decided by all and he was thrown into a perpetual campaign presidency almost 150 years before Nixon would get Congress to finance the practice by creating an "Office of Communications" in the White House.

In 1824, JQA came to the presidential throne after the first, of several, highly controversial presidential elections. The national election results, via the Electoral College, were split four ways: between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Harries Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson easily had the most of the four but did not achieve an Electoral majority—so the House of Representatives were put in charge of voting among the top three candidates. Crawford went and had a heart attack, so he was out. And Clay, while dropped as the fourth horse in the race, took his original seat as Speaker of the House. Clay stemmed discussion of the issue and (secretly?) campaigned for JQA, who won the Representatives’ votes and became president. JQA’s first order of business was to name Clay as the Secretary of State, which was about the political equivalent of handing somebody a sack with a dollar sign on it during the Inaugural speech, as nearly every president to that point had previously been the Secretary of State.

Jackson and his people went berserk. They were “the voice of the people” and had their power usurped by the coastal elitists. Months after the elections, Andrew Jackson resigned in the middle of his unfinished term as U.S. Senator and began a speaking tour that lasted for about four years. JQA, after appointing Clay, was concerned about appearances and so appointed several political rivals to cabinet positions and other offices. This half-hearted conciliatory gesture backfired, as JQA was constantly fighting his own administration—and still trying to respond to the regular criticism from Jackson and others.

Jackson, meanwhile, found more political strength in not being a politician for those years. He had strong military credentials for booting the Seminole Indians out of Florida and defending the city of New Orleans in 1814. Jackson also stayed “a man of the people” despite being a practicing lawyer, land speculator, slave-owner and one of the founders of Memphis, Tennessee.

For the actual election of 1828, the mudslinging reached new, and arguably unmatched to this day, lows. No longer were the opponent’s politics bad for the nation, but the man’s morality was bad for the nation, if said morality existed at all. Jackson was accused of marrying, Rachel Robards (true)—who was a bigamist (technically true, at one point) and a whore (not true). Jackson, in turn, accused JQA of being a pimp. A not-so-cool (at the time) accusation that came from the rumor that the president gave a visiting Russian czar his choice of American virgins at the Executive Mansion. Jackson was accused of not being a Christian, an apparent disqualification for the presidency. JQA was accused of a gambling addiction—as he liked playing billiards. Jackson called JQA’s government spending lavish and contemptuous to all good Americans. Daniel Webster, in JQA’s camp, called Jackson a dangerous man. Thomas Jefferson called Jackson a clear-minded man. Adams' people called Jackson “a jackass”—which Jackson liked and made it the mascot of his new political party.

Are you joking with me!?

JQA’s polished political career and academic knowledge did little to negate the perception he was too egocentric to properly govern. Furthermore, the election had an incumbent this time, making the politics more two-sided and scaring away pesky third-party challengers. Jackson won in a landslide. Weeks later, Rachel died—in Jackson’s view from a broken heart after all the personal attacks against her. Andrew Jackson told Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams to pray to God for mercy, because neither of them would find it from the new president.

The inaugural party for Jackson, thrown by a bunch of pirates and yahoos from New Orleans and Memphis, caused such a ruckus late into the night that the 61-year old Jackson was not able to sleep in the Executive Mansion for the first night of his presidency.

Indeed, for the first time ever, the Democrats were in power.

George Washington: America Found a Father

Happy America Day! USA! USA!

Have you blown anything up yet? Well hopefully by now you’ve blown something up, blown up the pieces, blown up the ashes, ate six hot dogs and blew something else up. In between your friendly neighborhood explosions, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on President George Washington and blow up Americans' misconceptions. (Helluva a transition, right?) In short, this is a man who is considered great for all the wrong reasons.

Most of history surrounding the man is anecdotal, blurring the lines between facts, fun and fun facts. For instance, it's said the British tried to embarrass early American diplomat Ethan Allen by putting a portrait of President George Washington in the outhouse, to which Allen admitted was the perfect place for Washington's picture as "nothing would make an Englishman shit as quickly as the sight of General George Washington." To make that story even better, it may not be historically accurate, but it was recalled by President Abraham Lincoln.

As another story goes, when George Washington was a child, he was given an ax. Oh, I remember my own boyhood-ax-days—I called him “ol' Chopper.” Anyways, Little George went around cutting everything, including a cherry tree in one swing (or two, if he held the ax backwards and hit the trunk with the handle). Upon seeing the downed tree, George’s father demanded an explanation, to which George said, “I cannot tell a lie, I cut down the tree.”

Unfortunately this entire story is historical gibberish with as much reality as that number scrawled on the bathroom stall. Rather the anecdote was written by best-selling author Mason Locke Weems in 1800, after Washington’s death. The young nation needed a hero and Weems gave them an American Jesus—infallible, wise, peaceful and sporting a pre-Vibro Toning Belt six-pack. I certainly knew this American parable several years before knowing its fabrication but can’t for the life of me remember if it was actually taught in schools or just Tiny Toons, or even the more obscure-oriented Animaniacs.

But the most iconic image of George takes us back to the painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” Amazingly, this is neither a photograph, nor was painted really fast in another boat but actually created in 1851, celebrating one of the turning points of the Revolutionary War. In the painting, a noble Washington stands on up in his canoe and is about four seconds away from screaming, “I’m King of the World!”—to which no one would have argued. Glorifying the slave-owning Washington inspired Union-patriotism in the South, but only a couple of years later Senator Charles Sumner broke Preston Brook's cane with his face and the Civil War was "back on."

Rather than nit-pick the historical inaccuracies of the painting, though, I think it’s more important to know how desperate this military move was. And that it's controversial for showing Washington's junk.

The Christmas Day surprise attack depicted worked because Hessian (German) mercenaries employed by the British were drunk from the day’s celebration—and, in fact, had even received a message to prepare for an America sneak-attack hours earlier. The Hessians, and British, somewhat expected a dangerous gambit from Washington because he had just gotten his butt kicked in the Battle of New York; though Washington really may have just let the British have the city. Regardless, several of Washington’s troops were deserting him, freezing to death, starving to death and/or a few days away from having their enlistment expire. Further, Washington couldn’t get support from fellow generals and often retreated from battles with new bullet-holes in his uniform--that were little more than a fashion statement for the guy. In the end, crossing the Delaware River was a relatively small victory, killing 22 Hessians. Frankly, before 1779, Benedict Arnold’s military victories were more impressive than anybody; but unlike Washington, Arnold was not connected politically, raised in poverty and hated the French a lot more than he hated the British.

Benedict Arnold: Too American…?

In truth, while George Washington might have been a normal child, gold-digging officer and maybe even a mediocre war strategist, he was a phenomenal politician. He single-handedly shaped more of America’s ideology, philosophy and personality than anybody else, ever. Literally, his first moments as President are felt every four years, as after his Oath of Office, Washington improvised the ending response, “So help me God.” No one can know for sure what Washington meant, but under most assumptions, Washington was terrified about being President, knowing that whatever he did could be and would be mimicked by future Presidents. Including that line.

Now many people know that Washington turned down power upon becoming the president—potentially making him King of America—but really, it’s the subtleties that boggle the mind. It was suggested that Washington, as President, be greeted as “His High Mightiness.” Imagine that for a moment. Barack Obama enters Congress to give his Inaugural Address, announced as, “His High Mightiness.” Imagine George Bush. Jimmy Carter. Richard Nixon. No, it was with Washington that the title “Mr. President” was coined and adopted—limiting the power the executive had in the minds of Americans.

During Washington’s term, the British and the French were at it again—and really, they never stopped fighting until Germany did something stupid. But with pressure on both sides, Washington chose neutrality and set the ideology that somehow the United States can avoid the world at will, a de facto policy for nearly the next two hundred years—if not still murmured today. An under spoken pattern in American history seems to be that leaders who have a prior history of war are the most reluctant to go to war while President. Former military leaders such as Washington, Jackson, Grant, Hayes, Harrison, McKinnely and Eisenhower worked toward administrations of peace with perpendicular effort to Polk, Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ and W. Bush. This is not about “weakness” but rather a curious coincidence. Washington, to his end, was far from a weak president.

In 1791, farmers dusted off their Revolutionary signs and--more importantly--guns to cry, “No taxation without representation!” Their distilleries were being taxed to pay down the national debt, mostly accumulated over the previous war about taxes. Washington sent negotiators to talk down the near-rioters while raising a federal military force. Washington told the protesters they ARE represented in Congress but in this case the interests of other Americans came first. Nowadays it’d be like comparing your effort to get second desserts to the protests led by Gandhi. Being represented doesn’t mean your views win every time. On second thought, people still claim no representation so this is actually an example of Washington not having an effect on American culture.

Lastly, while Washington’s act of stepping down from presidency in 1796 was noble and influential, it actually overshadows the more noble action of one of his contemporaries. John Adams was Washington’s Vice-President and the nation’s second president. Adams, though, is more than some 18th century Buzz Aldrin ("Second comes right after first!"). He was the first American president to lose re-election. Really put yourself in John Adams’s shoes. You have the power to help millions of people. You know you have the right ideas but your opponent, a rich, stuttering asshole, had cronies work over the public against you. And your opponent, while continually lambasting your policies, religion and personality, was your own Vice-President. Indeed, John Adams hated Thomas Jefferson with a passion and feared what he would do to the fledgling nation and citizens, yet Adams STILL stepped down from the presidency.

That’s faith in America; and an act that validated Washington’s trust in the system.

Disdainful and dying on his bed in 1826, Adams’s last words were, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.” Incredibly, and unknown to Adams, Thomas Jefferson had died just hours earlier. While George Washington may have invented "the dance-off," Presidents Adams and Jefferson had vibrant, volatile and explosive personalities...and both died on July 4th, 1826.

And so we blow things up.

Aphorisms on History

Aphorisms on History....

Intelligence is the toleration of ambiguity.

A historian’s job is to complicate people’s understanding of history. Think about it this way: “America won the War of 1812.” That’s a simple concept, and not (er...only partially) correct. Whereas this: “America signed a peace treaty with England in 1814 requiring the return of land in Ontario and legal rights for Indians and slaves.” That is a far more complicated statement and one that is more correct.

Complicating history to non-historians is most important. People need to accept and appreciate ambiguities in history—this will naturally led to appreciating ambiguities among other, living, people. When people appreciate one another, it is much more difficult to be mean. Following through, that means properly studying history can lead to world peace.

The Department of Defense should spend a couple billion dollars to mass-produce “universal” translators because I think everyone would be less willing to go to war with peoples they can understand.

History can not be repeated and never will be. We can not have another Hitler because we had Hitler and anybody who is remotely close to Hitler will be dealt with in a way Hitler was not. This is not to say there will not be atrocities in the future, but rather the atrocities will be a result of new elements, not yet understood.

History does not vindicate people. Leaders like to hide behind this possibility, but the truth is that people are still debating nearly every decision in history and its reverberations.

As of 2011, I think American History ends with the Watergate Scandal. Everything after that point is still too political, rather than historical. You don’t perform an autopsy on somebody still alive and you don’t study a people’s history when their future is still at stake.

The best storytellers complicate the audiences’ understanding of people. The worst writers simplify human beings down into cutouts or caricatures of their true selves.

Most historians focus on two elements of history and hope somebody needs to research one of the two. I want to make my two issues always be the narrative and the future--the later of which relates to everybody. Think about this, which is more interesting to more people: "President Madison and the War of 1812" or "President Madison and the Wars of 2012"?

People are like stars, from far away they all look the same but up close, they all have a unique beauty. Also, most are surprisingly gassy.

Memorization is a display of paying attention. Application is a display of intelligence. Innovation is a display of brilliance.

And most important of all...

[insert picture of Nancy Reagan and Mr. T]

[Where is it? Or there it is!]

History is weird.