Category Archives: Anniversaries

Remembering On Memorial Day

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Memorial DayHappy Memorial Day everyone! I’ve been looking for ways to ruin the holiday (it is the tradition of my people), but it is so hard to do it without offending people. For example, I hate the bumper sticker that reads, “If You Like Your Freedom Thank a Vet.” I agree with the basic sentiment: it really is necessary for a country to have an army to product the nation from marauding hordes. On the other hand, there has not been an existential threat to the United States in about 200 years. Certainly there has not been one in my lifetime. In general, the military is used by countries for immoral purposes, like accumulating resources and providing leaders with glory. Thus, it isn’t the military who we should despise but the country’s generally vile leaders. At the same time, I think it is a major mistake to pretend that we owe the military any greater acknowledgement than other public servants.

But this isn’t Veterans Day, it is Memorial Day. It is the day to honor those who died in our wars. Most of these people (one way or another) had no choice about serving. Regardless, they were all doing what our leaders said was the right thing to do. These people should be honored. My only wish is that we honored them by not thinking that every new war was a great idea. We should honor the dead by limited who we send to die in the future.

Here’s something to think about: did you get a paid holiday today? Did the company that you work for honor our fallen dead by taking a little less in profit by allowing you to get paid while not working? If you get a paid holiday, you are one of the lucky few. On Friday, Rebecca Ray, Milla Sanes, and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research released a new paper, No-Vacation Nation Revisited. In it, they show that of all the rich countries (16 European countries, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States), we are the only country that doesn’t mandate any paid holidays or vacations. It is true that France only gives 1 paid holiday a year, but that’s kind of made up for with the six weeks of paid vacation they provide. The third worst country is Canada with one day short of four weeks. The second worst country is Japan with only two weeks paid vacation. But again, we are the worst. Or as we say in American, “We’re number one!”

No Vacation Nation

But that’s America, right? We honor veterans every day. See all the bumper stickers? But when it comes to actual veterans, not so much. They require us to spend our actual money on the VA and stuff like that. I guess we like the dead veterans more, because they don’t complain. Just the same, our war policies never change:

And when it comes to our people, we don’t provide them with time off—even out of respect for our war dead. If weekends hadn’t been a settled matter for many decades, I’m sure we would be hearing that giving workers two whole days off every week was destroying our business effectiveness. We—and by that I mean our leaders—don’t care about our veterans, our war dead, or even the workers of the nation. And that is something to remember on Memorial Day.

Modern Chess with Wilhelm Steinitz

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Wilhelm SteinitzThis is kind of crummy day for birthdays. I’m not Tarzan but Maureen O’Sullivan was Jane, and she was born on this day in 1911. Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was born in 1912. Songwriter Bob Merrill was born in 1921. Heaven’s Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite was born in 1931. If he’s alive on that spaceship, he’s 82 today. And Dennis Hopper was born in 1936.

Film producer A. C. Lyles is 95 today. Computer scientist Alan Kay is 73. Blues legend Taj Mahal is 71. And comedian Bob Saget is 57. Here he is discussing the most disgusting joke of all time “The Aristocrats.” I recommend not watching it:

The day belongs to an unusual man: chess great Wilhelm Steinitz who was born on this day back in 1836. He pretty much single-handedly changed chess into what it is today. What I mean by that is that it used to be all about clever combinations. But after him, it became a game of position. That isn’t to say that clever combinations weren’t still important. But the focus of the game became controlling the board.

This is something that annoys me to this day about the way that I was taught to play chess. The idea that you can teach a child the moves and just expect them to figure out the rest is madness. It is like telling a child you are going to teach them how to play the piano and then only show them that this key is a C, this key is a C-sharp… No one would consider that a music education and yet that is the extent of most chess education. In fact, it’s even worse. There is a kind of social Darwinian aspect to it. Step one: teach the moves. Step two: see if anyone figures out the games. Step three: properly teach the game to the survivors.

It was only in graduate school that I learned to play chess. And I did it by studying master games. By trying to understand why they moved this way rather than that, I finally figured out the nature of the game. At that point I got so that I could beat people who previously had trounced me. All that was missing between my being a hopeless player and being all right, was an understanding of the game that I think I could teach a child is a short period of time. What’s key is that without this knowledge, you end up in games that are extremely frustrating. After a few moves you are in a position were even your best moves are bad.

Combine the lack of proper elementary chess instruction with the hyper-aggressive style that is encouraged and you end up with a game that very few people enjoy. Although I enjoy the game, I don’t much like the people I’ve played against. I’m not an aggressive person. My interest in chess is more academic. In a sense, reading those master games was perfect for me. It can be as thrilling to analyze a game as it is to listen to a symphony. Thus, I have no interest in destroying my opponent. My desire in playing is to have a good game. As a result, I commonly have opponents redo bad moves. I don’t ever recall anyone reciprocating. This seems to be because of this aggressive chess mentality that teaches that the purpose of chess is to crush the opponent. I recall one time allowing an opponent to take five moves back before eventually beating me. He was very full of himself after the game. And that’s fine with me because I think he’s pathetic.

Anyway, the point of all this is that understanding positional play and the overall theory of the game makes it fun to play. It also makes it beautiful and even artistic. And we largely have Wilhelm Steinitz to thank for that. Of course, this style of play would have come along eventually. But the fact is that he is the one who did it. Unfortunately, over the last 50 years, this has been taken to extreme to the point where serious players spend much of their time studying openings that can go up to 40 moves or more. This more than anything is the reason that computers are now the best “players” in the world. That’s why I think we need to move on to something like Chess960. But for the average player, chess is still a great and fun game, and that is largely thanks to Steinitz.

So happy birthday Wilhelm Steinitz!

. . . – – – . . . for Samuel Morse

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Samuel MorseUlysses S. Grant was born on this day in 1822. The creator of Woody Woodpecker, Walter Lantz was born in 1899. Jack Klugman was born in 1922. And Coretta Scott King was born in 1927.

Casey Kasem is 81 today. Sheena Easton is 54. The poor man’s Brad Pitt, James LeGros is 51. Wanker Dana Milbank is 45. And Newark Mayor Cory Booker is 44.

The day, however, belongs to Samuel Morse who was born on this day back in 1791. In addition to all that business about the telegraph, he was rather a good painter. He was also a total asshole. Let me count the ways. First, he was radically anti-Catholic, because, you know, he was a protestant and knew the one true way. Second, he was anti-immigrant, because, you know, he was already here. Third, he was pro-slavery, because, you know, being born in Massachusetts he had no reason to be for it except that the Bible told him so. Just listen to the great man on the subject:

My creed on the subject of slavery is short. Slavery per se is not sin. It is a social condition ordained from the beginning of the world for the wisest purposes, benevolent and disciplinary, by Divine Wisdom. The mere holding of slaves, therefore, is a condition having per se nothing of moral character in it, any more than the being a parent, or employer, or ruler.

That’s the problem with getting your morality from a book—especially one from thousands of years earlier that is filed with the vilest of social conventions cloaked in the idea that it was God’s will. Anyway, like most evil men, he had a long and happy life. He certainly didn’t make as much money off his patents as he could have, but he lived and died quite rich. So if you hear anyone complain that he didn’t get his due, remember: he lived like Mitt Romney but might have lived like Warren Buffett if his patents had been better controlled. Excuse me if I don’t care.

Anyway, happy birthday you bigot! Morally, you should have telegraphed to the word: . . . – – – . . .

Max Planck

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Max PlanckYou may have heard that William Shakespeare was born on this day in 1564. But the truth is that we don’t know. The same goes for Christopher Marlowe and Miguel de Cervantes. What we know is when they were baptized. And the convention is to assume that babies were baptized on the third day. So really all we can say is that Shakespeare was born on or before 26 April 1564.

The painter J. M. W. Turner was born in 1775. The great Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev was born in 1891. Director Ronald Neame was born in 1911. Roy Orbison was born in 1936. And American terrorist Timothy McVeigh was born in 1968.

Shirley Temple is 85 today. She is known for her political work in the Republican Party, which isn’t surprising given her marriage to businessman Charles Alden Black. Of course, that was when the Republicans weren’t quite so radical as they are now. Just the same, she was in favor of the Vietnam War after reasonable people had figured out it was bad for all involved. The great documentarian Michael Moore is 59. Judy Davis is 58. George Lopez is 52. And actor Dev Patel is 23.

But the day belongs to the father of quantum mechanics Max Planck who was born in 1858. He did a whole lot of stuff during his career but he is best remembered for solving the ultraviolet catastrophe. Of course, Planck wasn’t trying to solve the problem. Anyway, what he showed was that an object can only emit light in packets of particular energies. That energy is given by h (Planck’s constant 6.63e-34 J*s) multiplied by the frequency of the light. What I find fascinating is that Planck didn’t accept Einstein’s theory of the photoelectric effect, which is more or less an application of Planck’s theory. And it wasn’t because he didn’t like Einstein. In fact, he was a friend and champion of the younger scientist. We humans are complicated. Max Planck was a great man.

Happy birthday Max Planck!

Ayman al-Zawahiri at TED

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Ayman al-ZawahiriLast week, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri gave a thought provoking talk at TED (sorry, no video yet) about the changing face of global terrorism. In the talk titled “Terror At A Crossroads,” al-Zawahiri discussed how terrorists can remain relevant in an increasingly globalized world. It isn’t hard to see the problem—especially in the United States. When any kid can grab a gun with a pile of high capacity magazines and kill 26 people in five minutes, you have to ask: what is happening to the al-Qaeda brand?

There is also a more fundamental, ontological question: how can the group terrorize if terror becomes the status quo? With daily drone strikes, how are well-planned and executed al-Qaeda attacks going to rise above the background noise of murder and mayhem that is daily life thanks to America’s domestic and international policies? These are all important questions that al-Zawahiri is grappling with.

According to an article in The Onion, al-Zawahiri told the captivated TED audience, “We find ourselves in an ever-evolving, globally connected community that is confronted with numerous societal and economic obstacles every day. The question is, and it’s a difficult one, how can we, as terrorist cells, overcome these roadblocks while staying true to our vision? How do we adapt?”

I for one am glad that the terror community is taking these questions seriously. And I’m not the only one; after the talk, the TED audience gave al-Zawahiri a standing ovation.

Afterword

Last year on this day, many people were confused about my article on the word Seagullible. So I feel the need to ask you a question, “What is the date?!”

Houdini

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Harry HoudiniTwo cartoonists where born on this day. Co-creator of Mickey Mouse, Ub Iwerks was born in 1901. I’m not fond of those early Disney cartoons, but not because of the art, which was fine. They just aren’t written that well. I love when Futurama parodies them! Also born today in 1911 is Joseph Barbera. I’m not a big fan of Hanna-Barbera, but they had their moments. The Flintstones was particularly good, but then, how can you go wrong with a series based on a “modern stone age family”?

Clyde Barrow was born in 1909. He was only 25 when he died. Although he was a very troubled, evil man, I still like him more than Warren Beatty, whose birthday is next Saturday. The great, but old fashioned choreographer Onna White was born back in 1922.

Lots of entertainment birthdays today. The great bass player, Carol Kaye is 78 today. Hardass character actor R. Lee Ermey is 69. Nick Lowe is 64. Louie Anderson is 60.

And because it is a slow day for famous births, today is Harry Houdini‘s day. He was born in 1874. When I was a kid, I read all kinds of biographies of him. It was only later that I learned they were almost all fiction. There was so much mythologizing about him. It is my working theory that he was gay. Or maybe he was just in love with himself. He did have a good body and he was fond of showing it off—especially naked. And then there’s the fact that he never had kids. What’s up with that? Anyway, he was quite an interesting performer. I tend to prefer his brother Theodore Hardeen, who is under-appreciated. He, for example, was the one who figured out that the straitjacket escape was more impressive if done in view of the audience.

Anyway, happy birthday to Houdini!

Afterword

This one goes out to Carol Kaye:

Johann, Son, Rush, and Slovoj

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Johann Sebastian BachIt is quite a day for birthdays! I’m really going to have to limit today’s article to those who are really worthy. The great mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier was born on this day back in 1768. Theater producer Florenz Ziegfeld of Ziegfeld Follies fame was born in 1867. The great blues man Son House was born in 1902. And the great independent filmmaker Russ Meyer was born in 1922.

There are lots of birthdays today. Rose Stone of Sly & the Family Stone is 68 today. Timothy Dalton is 67. The brilliant philosopher and social critic Slavoj Zizek is 64. The great British actor Gary Oldman turns 55 today. And The Young Turks creator Cenk Uygur is 43.

I really had to grapple with giving the day to Zizek or Meyer or Son House. But in the end, I had to give it to Johann Sebastian Bach. It is interesting that when he was alive and for a while afterwards, Bach was not that popular. It was only toward the end of Mozart’s life that people began to appreciate just how great a composer Bach the elder was. Here is one of his best known works, Toccata & Fugue in D Minor:

Happy birthday old man! You’ve made my life incalculably richer!

Afterword

I can’t help it. Here’s a little Son House:

And a bit from an early Russ Meyer film that I really like, Eve And The Handyman:

And an animated Slavoj Zizek lecture:

Update (29 April 2013 9:36 pm)

I made a mistake. Bach was actually born 31 March 1685.

B. F. Skinner Thinks You’re a Terrible Parent

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B. F. SkinnerHenrik Ibsen was born on this day in 1828. If it weren’t for him being generally a jerk, I would have given the day to him. He was a hell of a playwright though. I really appreciate Russian painter Illarion Pryanishnikov, who was born in 1840. Most people won’t care, but I have an unnatural love of the Nixon White House: John Ehrlichman was born in 1925. And Fred Rogers was born in 1928. What a group of people!

There are a lot of old people who are still alive. Vera Lynn is 96 today! Carl Reiner is 91! Hal Linden is 82. And there are other birthdays. William Hurt is 63. Spike Lee is 56. Holly Hunter is 55.

But I have to give this day to B. F. Skinner. It isn’t that I don’t think that he wasn’t largely a creepy guy. But he is the only major psychological thinker of the 20th century whose ideas were basically right. And more important: his ideas are actually helpful in a therapeutic setting. I know: most of it is like the Henny Youngman joke, “I went to the doctor and said, ‘Doc, it hurts when I do this!’ So he said, ‘Then don’t do that!'” But it is a hell of a lot better than the Freudian ideas of childhood sexuality or the Jungian ideas of cross generational haunting. (Note: I like Jung, I just don’t find him all that useful.)

So a big “Happy birthday!” to the strange Dr. Skinner.

Afterword

I will use any opportunity to listen to this song:

No comments about the teeth!

Tobias Smollett Day

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Tobias SmollettBack in 1860, William Jennings Bryan was born on this day. He has a bit of a bad reputation because he was on the wrong side of the Scopes Trial. But the truth is that he was a good strong progressive. I don’t doubt that today he would accept evolution. Sadly, he died just after “winning” that trial in 1925.

It seems most days are good days for Nazi birthdays, and today is no exception. Hitler’s architect Albert Speer was born in 1905. He spent most of his life after World War II arguing that he didn’t know about the genocide. I tend not to believe him, but I will allow that he wasn’t the evilest of men. Speaking of the evilest of men, Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906. I will give Eichmann this: at least he had the good taste to get captured so we could hang him. (I know, I know: I don’t believe in capital punishment. But if anyone does deserve it, it is Eichmann.)

Philip Roth is 80 today. He’s been spouting a lot of nonsense recently, but he was very important to me when I was younger. Burt Metcalfe, the MASH TV series writer, is 78. There are Hollywood birthdays today: Glenn Close, Harvey Weinstein, and Bruce Willis. If you want more details, go over to IMDb! One birthday today shocked me: Sirhan Sirhan is 69 today. I thought he died years ago.

And finally, the man of the day: Tobias Smollett was born in 1721. He wrote the fourth real English translation of Don Quixote. It is one of two mid-18th century translations (the other being Charles Jervas), both of which are quite readable today, even without modern editing. However, Smollett has the advantage of being edited by Carole Slade for the Barnes & Noble Classics edition. As I’ve written before, this edition is worth its price just for Slade’s notes. Give it a read!

I claim this day, 19 March, as Tobias Smollett Day. Hallmark may start printing the cards!

William Gibson in Retirement

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William GibsonDespite what Wikipedia says, this is the birthday of the great British Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean. Since he died in 1833, I know him only from the writings of William Hazlitt. But he made quite an impression on Hazlitt and that’s good enough for me. In addition, Kean lived quite a colorful and scandalous life, so that works in his favor.

I suppose I should also mention Mikhail Vrubel who was born on this date back in 1856. I am not a big fan, but there is no doubt that he was a great painter. Nat King Cole was born in 1919. He was only 45 when he died of lung cancer. I’m not a big fan, but when I was a kid, I thought “The Little Boy Who Santa Claus Forgot” was deeply affecting. And Michael Been of The Call was born in 1950.

But no day would be complete without a serial killer. John Wayne Gacy—or as Michele Bachmann refers to him, John Wayne—was born back in 1942. He is one of the most creepy of the serial killers. Dontcha just love the picture of him with Rosalynn Carter!

Now on to the birthdays. Kurt Russell is 62. Gary Sinise, the guy who seems to be in a lot of Ron Howard movies but maybe just two, is 58. Earl and Mooch creator Patrick McDonnell is 57. Rob Lowe is 49. And when you’ve reached Rob Lowe, you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel.

The day belongs to William Gibson who turns 65 today. He is probably best known as the author of Neuromancer, but as always, I recommend that you read Fragments of a Hologram Rose. As I’ve discussed before, Gibson is one of the inventors of cyberpunk. He used to have a blog that was really good, but I guess he’s just too big to be bothered anymore. Regardless, happy birthday old man! What are you going to do in your retirement?

Happy 60th Richard Stallman

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Richard StallmanSome interesting people were born on this day. Three Nazis: Josef Mengele, Dorothea Binz, and Traudl Junge (Hitler’s last secretary—not so much a Nazi). And there are lots of great birthdays. Jerry Lewis is 87—I don’t know how many more birthdays he’s going to see. Bernardo Bertolucci is 73. Game show host Chuck Woolery is 72. The great Jerry Jeff Walker is 71. The unintentionally hysterical Erik Estrada is 64. The beautiful and modestly gifted Nancy Wilson is 59. Gore Verbinski of the three lesser Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Mouse Hunt, and Rango fame is 49. So is the lovely and talented Patty Griffin. And actor Alan Tudyk is 42.

But none of those people matter. Well, I guess those two Nazi war criminals matter, but in a bad way. This guy matters in a good way. Richard Stallman is 60 today. You may not know who he is but he’s affected your life. He started the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation. If it weren’t for him, there would have been no Linux. And it wouldn’t have mattered if there was because there wouldn’t have been anything to run on it. He is a programmer. He is probably best known for creating the Emacs editor. But he did far more important work with compilers and other base development tools. But none of that is as important as his political vision and work as an activist.

So a big “Happy birthday!” to Richard Stallman. But also: a big “Thank you!”

Happy Birthday Albert Einstein

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Albert EinsteinQuincy Jones is 80 today. Wolfgang Petersen, the director of Das Boot and other quite watchable films since, is 72. And Billy Crystal is 65, so he won’t be making anymore pictures. (I kid Billy Crystal!)

Horton Foote, who did such a great job with the screenplay to To Kill a Mockingbird, would have turned 97 today, but he died back in 2009 right before his 93rd birthday. And I just learned that Casey Jones was a real guy born this day back in 1863. Of course, he died young or else the Grateful Dead never would have done a song about him.

All these fine people fade to the back of my mind because 134 years ago, Albert Einstein was born. I’m the first to note Einstein’s ideas were in the air. If he hadn’t been born, other people would have come up with them. But that does show his brilliance: it would almost certainly have been “people” and not “person.” He is mostly known for five pieces of research, but in fact he did a lot more than that. Although really, it is general relativity that is most important. It completely changed our conception of space. I struggle with it to this day.

Last night, I was talking to a young college student about Einstein. He mentioned that special relativity didn’t make much sense. I told him about my trials as a young man trying to understand it. In the end, I came to this: it doesn’t make sense. It is about phenomena that are totally outside our experiences. You just have to accept it and then everything falls into place. But it won’t ever be like Newtonian gravity: you drop an apple and it falls.

Happy birthday you magnificent bastard, I read your books!