History
oracknows | November 29, 2006Andrew Mathis over at Flavor Country does it well. Indeed, his demolition of Holocaust deniers on Usenet on the newsgroup alt,revisionism undoubtedly had an influence on what later became my special brand of Respectful Insolenceâ¢.
So, sit back and enjoy as he thoroughly fisks an article by Mark Glenn, the webmaster of the Crescent and Cross (WARNING: Glenn likes to post extremely gory pictures), a website that is, as Andrew puts it, dedicated to "uniting Christians and Muslims against Jews."
Here's a little taste of Andrew's response to one of Glenn's claims that Jews are "exploiting in a…
oracknows | November 27, 2006I've mentioned one particularly odious (well, more odious) subset of Holocaust deniers, a type that I call the "Holocaust never happened but the Jews deserve it" type of Holocaust denier. These Holocaust deniers claim that either the Holocaust never happened or that it was greatly exaggerated, while at the same time spewing anti-Semitism along the lines of, "The Jews deserved everything they got" from the Nazis. (Never mind that the denier just said in the previous breathe that the Jews never got much of anything as far as persecution from the Nazis). If you don't believe that this type of…
oracknows | November 27, 2006With the internecine sniping that's been going on lately throughout ScienceBlogs ove Larry Moran's intemperate "flunk the IDiots" and "Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists" remarks, or, more specifically, whether opposing ID requires that one oppose religion in general as well, I hesitate to tread here. However, given my interest in the Holocaust, World War II history, and how Nazi racial hygiene programs laid the groundwork for Germany's plan to exterminate the Jews and all others viewed as threats to the regime, I can't resist putting my two cents in about this issue.
Before I…
razib | November 24, 2006Via Kambiz I found this post which argues that the high-protein diet of the Mongols was important in allowing them to defeat their enemies, who were relatively nutritionally deficient. Perhaps. But history isn't that simple, after all, if "more meat = more ass-kicking," you wouldn't have predicated that the grain-fed Roman soldiers would be able to cut a scythe through meat & milk gorging Celts and Germans, would you? How did those ancient Italians defeat the northerners? If you read about the suppression of the rebellion of Boudicca and how outnumbered Roman infantry formed a…
oracknows | November 19, 2006Via Holocaust Controversies, I've become aware of a new anti-denier blog, Holocaust Denial Absurdities. Its first couple of posts look promising, such as this description of the censorship of opposing viewpoints that goes on at a denier forum.
oracknows | November 15, 2006While we're plugging blog carnivals, why not pay a visit to the History Carnival, over at the Axis of Evel Knievel?
pharyngula | November 14, 2006Religious ritual can make you very, very sick, and even kill you. This somewhat morbid, mildly gross, and terribly sad story about the Essenes, the religious zealots who authored the Dead Sea scrolls, is an interesting anthropological look at an ancient failed cult.
It seems that their requirements for dealing with their own waste were mistakenly ineffective. They excreted into pits that protected parasites, which they would then carry back…and before they could return to the group, they had to bathe by total immersion in a cistern, which meant they'd basically soak in each other's…
oracknows | November 10, 2006On November 10, 1975, the most famous maritime disaster in Great Lakes history occurred, when the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior while trying to make it to Whitefish Bay in a gale, with the loss of 29 lives. Having grown up in the Detroit area, I still remember it almost as though it were yesterday. Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the crew and the loss in his famous song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Here's a tribute video incorporating the song:
And here are the lyrics:
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on…
oracknows | November 9, 2006Just what a high school needs to warm up the crowd at a football game, a little speech by Joseph Goebbels:
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina: Part of a speech by World War II Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was played over the public address system before a high school soccer game, prompting an apology by the home team's principal.
Forestview High School principal Robert Carpenter said neither he nor his team's coach knew about the speech before the 90-second excerpt was played during pre-game training Saturday, according to a letter he sent Monday to visiting Charlotte Catholic High School…
oracknows | November 9, 2006I was sitting in my office around 7:45 AM yesterday morning, going through my messages and mail in preparation for a long day of animal protocol and grant writing interspersed with meetings, the radio playing in the background. It was Curtis and Kuby, the usual talking heads show with a conservative paired with a liberal that I listen to when I get up, on the way to work, and even in my office if I'm not operating, in clinic, or otherwise out of my office in the morning. Bret Schundler, former candidate for Governor of New Jersey was being interviewed about the election results and the loss…
purepedantry | November 8, 2006I meant to post this early, but the Neurophilosopher has an excellent history of Alois Alzheimer, for whom the disease is named:
On November 25th, 1901, a 51-year-old woman named Auguste Deter (below right) was admitted to the hospital, and was examined by Alzheimer. Deter at first presented with impaired memory, aphasia, disorientation and psychosocial incompetence (which was, at that time, the legal definition of 'dementia'); her condition gradually worsened, and she started losing other cognitive functions and experiencing hallucinations. Because of her age, Deter was diagnosed with…
oracknows | November 6, 2006While perusing the new Richard Dawkins website a while back, I came across an article that, if you know my interest in World War II, you'd know that I couldn't resist commenting on, and it's been in my "to write about" queue for a few weeks now. In it, Dawkins discusses the aerial bombing campaigns of World War II and contrasts our acceptance of such carnage then with our revulsion at the thought of inflicting so many civilian casualties now. His point is that the moral zeitgeist changes with time, which is something it would not do if religion's claim of unchanging morality were truly at the…
oracknows | November 2, 2006The History Carnival XLII has been posted at Holocaust Controversies. Sergey runs a great blog about Holocaust denial and history; you should add Holocaust Controversies to your regular blogroll.
One entry that particularly saddened me was the story of how Deathcamps.org, which was a great resource for information on the Aktion Reinhard camps, self-destructed. Sergey gives an insider's account of its unfortunate demise in the wake of a dispute between members over the introduction of photos and documents of dubious authenticity, which Sergey strongly resisted while providing arguments and…
purepedantry | November 1, 2006Whatever you think about Michael Barone's personal views, he knows more about the history of American politics than any man alive. Here is an article he wrote in the WSJ about the history of party changes in Congress during second-term off-year elections. Interesting stuff. Money quote:
All of which leaves me with the conclusion that ideas are more important than partisan vote counts. Democrats could not go beyond the New Deal from 1938 to 1958, because they had not persuaded most Americans to go Roosevelt's way until 13 years after his death. Similarly, Republicans never had reliable…
evolvingthoughts | October 25, 2006There's a fair bit of to-and-fro going on with the Sciblings about Richard Dawkins' latest book The God Delusion, which, being at the edge of empire, I haven't yet seen. When I do, I will read it and comment, of course.
But I want to ask a general question - is religion in itself a malign influence on society? For example, any number of Islamic Imams, including the leader of Australia's Muslim community, think that women who don't dress "modestly" (which can mean anything from wearing a long sleeved top to the burka) are to blame for being raped.
And attacks on the moral influence of…
oracknows | October 23, 2006The Carnival of Bad History has been posted at Archy. Go there and learn how history can be distorted and abused for ideological purposes or just plain ignorance. Oddly enough, though, there doesn't appear to be an article on that ultimate form of bad history, Holocaust denial. There is, however, a rather odd article on the Nazi-Yeti alliance.
pharyngula | October 19, 2006Yes! You can now read the complete works of Charles Darwin free, online. Since an original copy of The Origin will set you back roughly $50,000, last I heard, this is a really good deal.