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Holocaust Remembrance Day

National Archives

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a memorial day designated by the United Nations to mark the anniversary of the January 27, 1945 liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp.

“The National Archives is the international epicenter of Holocaust-related research. NARA holds millions of records created or received by the U.S. Government during and after World War II that document Nazi war crimes, wartime refugee issues, and activities and investigations of U.S. Government agencies involved in the identification and recovery of looted assets (including gold, art, and cultural property)—as well as captured German records used as evidence at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunals.”

So I was… appalled is far too weak a word… when I saw one of the January 6 insurrectionists. He was wearing a Camp Auschwitz T-shirt. Did he not know the awful history of the place? Or did he approve of it?

“By the end of World War II, the Holocaust had claimed the lives of over 6 million Jewish people—nearly two out of every three in Europe.” Was he a Holocaust denier? If he believed the Big Lie about the “stolen election,” maybe he had drunk that Lool-Aid too.

Nuremberg

I no longer remember the first time I watched a film of emaciated people walking out of the camps. It was at least half a lifetime ago. The survivors reminded me of sentient skeletons. Seeing them on film was far more awful than looking at still photos.

With the clear growth of a white supremacist movement in the United States and elsewhere, perhaps you should view Investigating the Holocaust. It is a series of short videos that “trace the history of the Nazi Party from its inception through World War II… The videos feature original film footage used as evidence by the International Military Tribunal at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany — the most famous courtroom drama in modern times, and the first to make extensive use of film as evidence.

“The FDR Presidential Library and Museum has also produced an accompanying Curriculum Guide to introduce students to the Holocaust through historical materials drawn from the FDR Library’s archives and the recently remastered documentary, ‘ Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today.'”

Also, check out the ADL website.

Lydster: The Biopolitics of Feeling

19th-century “scientists

Biopolitics of Feeling Sometimes, your teenager hangs in their room all day. Other times, they wander into your office and engage you in a fascinating conversation.

My child started talking about how sexism, homophobia, and transphobia has been promulgated by a false duality. If they didn’t exist, perhaps those social ailments would not either. What prompted the discussion was an Instagram book report on the book The Biopolitics of Feeling by Kyla Schuller. The subtitle of the book is Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century. It was published by Duke University Press in 2018.

Ah. From the book report: “The sex binary – the idea that there are only two, inherently opposite sexes – is not natural. It is a political invention that emerges from 19th-century race science. It has since been naturalized such that in 2020 people understand the sex binary as an indisputable ‘biological fact.’ This is historically inaccurate.”

I was aware that some 19th-century “scientists” were “invested in identifying presumed anatomical differences between the races to justify discrimination.” But I did not know that they posited that “that only the white race could achieve a pure, binary distinction between sexes. BIPOC people were dismissed as gender non-conforming and sex indistinct… They used this racist interpretation of evolutionary theory to define fixed norms and roles for men and women that still influence us today.”

A serious book

In the description of the book, the publisher notes a remarkable analysis by the author. “Kyla Schuller unearths the forgotten, multiethnic sciences of impressibility—the capacity to be transformed by one’s environment and experiences—to uncover how biopower developed in the United States… Her historical and theoretical work exposes the overlooked role of sex difference in population management and the optimization of life, illuminating how models of binary sex function as one of the key mechanisms of racializing power.” Got that?

“Schuller thereby overturns long-accepted frameworks of the nature of race and sex difference, offers key corrective insights to modern debates surrounding the equation of racism with determinism and the liberatory potential of ideas about the plasticity of the body, and reframes contemporary notions of sentiment, affect, sexuality, evolution, and heredity.” There are some impressive reviews cited for The Biopolitics of Feeling.

Fat shaming and racism

Since my daughter pointed out something I didn’t know, I shared with her an article I had only recently come across. CBSN has a piece called The racial origins of fat stigma.

“Fatness wasn’t always culturally undesirable in the Western world. … As the art and fashion historian Anne Hollander wrote in a New York Times article from 1977, ‘The look of actual human bodies obviously changes very little through history. But the look of ideal bodies changes a great deal all the time.'”

While the… article considers the switch to thinness as the preferable body type to be part of “a period of revolution in both taste and politics” in the late 18th century, Sabrina Strings’ research traces how that ‘revolution’ is actually rooted in slavery and Protestantism.

Those involved in the slave trade “decided to re-articulate racial categories, adding new characteristics… One of the things that the colonists believed was that Black people were inherently more sensuous, that people love sex and they love food, and so the idea was that Black people had more venereal diseases, and that Black people were inherently obese, because they lack self-control. And of course, self-control and rationality, after the Enlightenment, were characteristics that were deemed integral to Whiteness.”

Movie review: The Vast of Night

Cayuga, NM

The Vast of Night made it onto Ty Burr’s 10 movies to watch. He writes: “Andrew Patterson’s first film is a crowd-sourced labor of love about two high school kids discovering strange doings in the skies over 1950s New Mexico.

“It’s an example of the most movie that can be squeezed from the least amount of resources, with beguiling performances from Jake Horowitz and Sierra McCormick in the leads.”

It “premiered at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival in January 2019. Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film and released it on May 29, 2020, including drive-in theaters in the United States and via video-on-demand on Prime Video,” which is how I saw it.

This movie is clearly influenced by the TV series The Twilight Zone. The setting is Cayuga, NM. Cayuga Productions was the name of Rod Serling’s production company…

“The name was taken from Cayuga Lake, one of New York’s ‘Finger Lakes.’ The lake is about an hour drive northwest of Binghamton, and was where Rod and his family had a summer home.”

The Vast of Night is very much dialogue-driven. Initially, I found the radio DJ (Horowitz) a bit obnoxious, but I really liked the teen switchboard operator (McCormick) from the start.

As the mystery unfolded, I found myself rooting for them both. And the witnesses they spoke with were convincing. The film had the right atmospherics to keep me watching these two, who wanted to get out of town and follow their dreams.

And then…

I’m afraid the great failing for me is the conclusion. It lacked a satisfying resolution, that part in TZ where you hear Serling wrap up the story. Nevertheless, it may well be the opening salvo of Patterson’s directorial career.

The Vast of Night is on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of best films of 2020 at #97, with 92% positive reviews from the critics. The audience reviews were less favorable, at 65%.

Wondering about Kobe Bryant

Mamba and Mambacita Foundation

Greg, one of the first bloggers I met online, nearly 15 years ago, and the father of two daughters (relevant here, I think) wondered:

I don’t know if I’ve asked you, but how do you reconcile Kobe Bryant’s rather skeevy sex life – and possible raping – with admiring his work with his daughters and girls’ sports in general? So many people seemed to give him a pass on the former when he died while lauding the latter, and I just can’t.

It really annoys me that he quite probably got away with rape because he’s rich, and it simply vanished from his biography except for some minor mentions. His wonderful work with girls’ sports always seemed like an attempt to buy redemption to me. It’s great and I’m glad he did it, but it seemed to work, too.

A reasonable question. First of all, I had to look at the Los Angeles Times article about the case. The piece came out shortly after he died, about a year ago.

“Yet one major off-the-court hit to Bryant’s reputation took place June 30, 2003, in a hotel room at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in the Rocky Mountains town of Edwards, Colo. A 19-year-old woman working as the front-desk clerk accompanied Bryant on a tour of the property. She later went to Bryant’s hotel room, where she said he raped her.

Kobe Bryant, 24 at the time, was charged with one count of felony assault. It took 14 months for the criminal case to be resolved. The accuser decided she would not testify, and prosecutors dropped the case Sept. 1, 2004. A civil suit brought by the accuser in August 2004 was settled out of court on March 2, 2005, marking the end of an often-graphic legal saga that drew worldwide attention but never resulted in a trial.”

There’s a whole bunch of details about the accuser’s loss of resolve, and mistakes by the court system, including her name being released to the media.

“Bryant never spoke publicly about the case after the July 2003 news conference, although he did issue the following statement on the day the criminal case was dismissed.”

Apology

“’First, I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year. Although this year has been incredibly difficult for me personally, I can only imagine the pain she has had to endure.

“’I also want to apologize to her parents and family members, and to my family and friends and supporters, and to the citizens of Eagle, Colorado. I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman…

“Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.”

So I felt that Kobe Bryant took at least some responsibility for his actions. More to your point, I think that the court case, and especially being the father of four daughters, changed him. One sees the inequality and difference of opportunity for girls compared with boys, though it is shrinking.

I’m not sure he wanted to “buy” redemption. In addition to his family foundation, he worked with Make-A-Wish Foundation, and also supported after-school programs, cancer research, efforts to help the homeless, and more . His participation was usually hands-on, not just writing a check.

Just Mercy

I’m also taken by something that lawyer Byran Stevenson wrote in his book Just Mercy. He notes that “he often had conversations with clients who were struggling and despairing over their situations and the things they had done, or were done to them. These clients would question the value of their lives, and he would remind them that <em>they were more than the worst thing they had ever done.</em> You can also hire a drug crime lawyers in Festus to fight your case.

“‘If you tell a lie, that does not mean you are just a liar. If you take something that is not yours, that does not mean you are just a thief. Even if you kill someone, you are not just a killer.

“‘Understanding this is helpful not just for those who may be questioning the value of their lives, it is also helpful for all of us. We have all judged someone as a result of something that person has done, but we should not define someone just based on that act.’

“Stevenson notes that we are all broken in one way or another, and understanding our brokenness creates not only a need and desire for mercy but also a corresponding need to show mercy.

“The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving; it’s when mercy is least expected that it is most potent.” Check out the movie.

I think we all deserve a shot at redemption.

Music producer Phil Spector has died

art v artist

Every December, I listen to the Phil Spector box set Back to Mono. Why December? Because his birthday was on Boxing Day. There are three discs of music he had produced from 1958-1969 by such artists as the Ronettes, the Crystals, Darlene Love, and the Righteous Brothers. The fourth disc is the amazing album A Christmas Gift For You.

And yet it was increasingly clear that Phil Spector was a really awful individual. “In her 1990 memoir, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, or My Life as a Fabulous Ronette,” his ex-wife Ronnie “depicted Spector as an abusive husband prone to eccentric if not outright insane behavior.” He notoriously enjoyed playing with guns. Notably, a drugged Spector fired a gun in a recording control room, inches from former Beatle John Lennon’s ear in the early 1970s.

In 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was found dead at Spector’s mansion from a gunshot wound. “Despite telling his chauffeur that ‘I think I just shot her,’ as the chauffeur told police in an affidavit, Spector later recanted this.” Spector told police, and said “in interviews that Clarkson ‘may have accidentally taken her own life.’”

There was a hung jury in the first trial, ending in 2007. But he was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009. He died in a California prison on January 16, 2021.

Little Steven quote

How does one describe a certain musical magician who was so fundamentally flawed as a human being? The BBC blew it initially. The first version of the breaking news story on the BBC News website carried the headline: “Talented but flawed producer Phil Spector dies aged 81”. Flawed? “The BBC said the headline ‘did not meet our editorial standards’. The text was quickly changed to: ‘Pop producer jailed for murder dies at 81.'”

Stevie Van Zandt wrote on Twitter, “A genius irredeemably conflicted, he was the ultimate example of the Art always being better than the Artist, having made some of the greatest records in history based on the salvation of love while remaining incapable of giving or receiving love his whole life.”

There are so many examples of the Art better than the Artist, and it is always a source of conflict for people with moral centers. Shall I watch X’s movies? Or read Y’s books?

Some songs

And more links in the Rolling Stone article.

Spanish Harlem –Ben E. King, #10 pop, #15 RB in 1961
Da Doo Ron Ron –The Crystals, #3 pop, #5 RB in 1963
A Fine, Fine Boy –Darlene Love, #29 RB, #53 pop in 1963
Unchained Melody –The Righteous Brothers, #4 pop, #6 RB in 1965; #13 pop in 1990

River Deep, Mountain High –Ike and Tina Turner, #88 pop in 1966; #112 pop in 1969. “The baroque pop epic he considered his masterpiece… stalled… in the U.S. (though it would hit Number Three in the U.K.) A resentful Spector secluded himself in his Hollywood mansion for two years.”
Black Pearl –Sonny Charles And The Checkmates Ltd., #8 RB, #13 pop in 1969