The man to the right is Pradeep Sharma, once renowned as one of Mumbai’s top “encounter specialists”—that is, a cop whose not-so-secret mission is to assassinate underworld figures. Though these killings are said to take place during chases or confrontations gone awry, the Indian public knows full well that they are usually the product of planned hits. And many people have long supported this extrajudicial approach to crimefighting, given their lack of faith in the justice system’s ability to control certain gangland factions.
But has the Indian establishment finally decided to rein in the encounter-specialist beast it created? Sharma was arrested in January and continues to languish in jail, and many of his former colleagues are faring no better. This has resulted in a surfeit of rage amongst encounter specialists, who are feeling abandoned by the very government that used to let them operate with impunity:
“I can’t remain alone for too long. The dead gangsters haunt me. I’m forced to ask myself, ‘Who did I do all the dirty work for?'” asks one encounter specialist. “We are used and discarded like condoms by our seniors. We outlived our utility once the underworld was wiped out. Now, the authorities don’t know what to do with us.”
It would seem to us that the architects of this system are just as culpable as the triggermen. But we won’t delude ourselves into thinking that higher-ups will face consequences for their actions here. They achieved their primary goal, to the delight of a supportive public—at least until the ratio of violence to security benefits tilted too heavily toward the former. Now that it’s time to clamp down, the encounter specialists are ripe for sacrifice. Those that approved of their actions, meanwhile, will probably be promoted.
Our long holiday weekend would’ve been much more enjoyable had New York City enjoyed its typical July weather. Instead, we were slammed with a heatwave of the utmost severity, which made strolling the streets only slightly more pleasant than roaming the post-apocalyptic Outback from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. And, alas, the worst is yet to come, which means another long day or two of bewailing our lack of central air conditioning.
When the mercury soars as it has, we feel entirely disinclined to work—a condition we ascribe to a fundamental flaw in our species makeup. Like all other sentient beings, we have an optimal temperature range, and excesses in either direction cause us to underperform. But by how much? As the chart above shows, tremendous effort has been exerted in the name of identifying precisely how much heat drags on productivity. Much of that work has centered on the construction industry, where productivity projections must be factored into multi-million dollar bids, and minor errors can bring about endless litigation and abrupt bankruptcy. Check out this fascinating breakdown of the various formulas used to estimate how heat turns construction workers sluggish:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has developed a model for calculating the productivity factor when temperatures vary. This is the factor that would be multiplied by the productivity achieved at 60 F. The model for use when [wet bulb globe temperature, or WBGT] is less than 60 F is:
P = 0.000048 WGBT + 0.0081 WGBT + 0.6875
When WGBT is greater than 60 F, the formula is:
P = 2.2 log(c) WBGT – 0.0366 WBGT – 5.8116.
The upshot is that certain construction tasks are severely impacted by hot weather, while others are less so. The smart project leader will thus reassign his crew to tackle the appropriate tasks when the heat gets nasty. But then again, that assumes a certain sensitivity on the part of management. And in some of the globe’s most sweltering regions, that may be sorely lacking.
We’re operating on the assumption that the masses have either a) already bolted for the holiday weekend or b) are too absorbed in the World Cup quarterfinals to pay attention to fresh information on The Tubes. As such, we’re signing off for a spell with the most patriotic scene from 1980s filmdom: Sylvester Stallone’s final speech from Rocky IV, in which he single-handedly convinces the Soviet Politburo to abandon Communism, tear down the Berlin Wall, and authorize the export of Stolichnaya and Caspian caviar to the decadent West. Very realistic, of course, given Stallone’s grand eloquence. The man really has a Cicero-like gift for punching the word “change.”
Count us among the many millions who are counting the seconds until The RZA’s directorial debut, Wu-Tang vs. The Golden Phoenix, hits the big screen. In the meantime, we must sate our martial-arts jones with less cinematic fare, starting with this 13-year-old account of Manipuri swordfighting. The denizens of the Indian province have long been renowned for their skills with the blade, dating back to the region’s spell as one of the British raj’s more unruly possessions. Prior to the colonialists’ arrival, Manipur defended itself against invasion by relying on a citizen’s militia of expert swordsmen, who occasionally demonstrated their mastery for a few extra coins—a tradition that continues to the present day. The American anthropologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer wrote about one such demonstration he witnessed while doing field work:
The most memorable performance with the sword involved in a blindfolded swordsman and a man lying on his back with five pieces of melon balanced on various parts of his body. A wedge of melon was place on each knee, as well as in each hand, and a single wedge was precariously balanced between his chin and his chest, directly above the throat. The swordsman was blindfolded using a piece of cloth filled with sand, so that everyone could see that there was no way for him to peek through the cloth. After being blindfolded, the swordsman would begin a rhythmic chopping and prancing in place, while a third person took up a position directly opposite the swordsman. In the middle was the man lying with melon slices balanced on various parts of his body. Drumming and cymbals accompanied the whole act and the third man would begin chanting, in order to provide the blindfolded swordsman a directional cue.
Suddenly, the swordsman would surge forward, leaping and chopping in a very precise pattern. As he leaped over the man lying in his path, his sword deftly cut each piece of melon, including the piece directly over the man’s throat. Every spectator was tense with expectation until the man lying on the ground would jump to his feet and the swordsman would rip off his blindfold. As people shouted their approval and clapped their hands, many would throw coins and currency notes into the stage in appreciation of this spectacle.
Some excellent swordcraft video, obviously ripped from VHS, can be seen here. We hope The RZA considers adding in some Manipuris for his inevitable sequel.
Audio above of our morning appearance on The Takeaway. The other guest was a 14-year member of AA from Kentucky—many thanks to her for coming on. And apologies for a couple of malapropisms strewn throughout—we hadn’t yet gotten our requisite caffeine dose, and the gentle strains of Winnie the Pooh emanating from Microkhan Jr.’s room caused a small bit of distraction.
Do women make for better deminers? That could be the case in Sudan, in part because of the culture’s traditional division of labor:
In these war-torn communities it is typically women who are involved in gathering wood and water for their families in more remote locations. Due to their knowledge of these lesser-known areas, women have the most information in these rural communities regarding which areas are the most dangerous. These women, however, are typically an untapped resource of knowledge, since all-male teams go into these areas and speak mainly to the men from the communities about their knowledge of the mine threat in the area.
The account also notes one big drawback to employing women as deminers: the high childbirth rates in former conflict zones, which means that team members must often go on maternity leave. Yet those leaves are relatively short, and women typically continue to work well into their pregnancies. Check out these interviews with female deminers in Southeast Asia; the Laotian women was well into her second trimester when she provided her answers.
As a counterweight to the critique offered in the post below, I offer one of the more intriguing pro-AA responses I’ve received this week. It comes from a longtime AA member who offers an unusually harsh take on the organization’s history:
I’m 28 years sober…My master’s thesis looked at the influence of James and Jung on the thought of Wilson. My conclusion, Wilson really did not understand what either was saying. But it did not matter. [Though] Wilson was the ultimate flim flam man (well portrayed by James Woods in the movies), he was a genius, a con artist selling a recovery elixer that he did not really understand himself. Despite Wilson, AA has flourished. However, had Wilson been a Saint, I doubt that AA would have made it into the second half of the 20th century. It is well understood and documented that after the initial acceptance of AA by the public, the fellowship had to be rigorous in protecting itself against Wilson’s constant attempts to make it the Bill Wilson show. Understand that my comments on Wilson are not negative, it is my belief that if our first founder had been anything other than a down and outer who struggled with depression the rest of his life we would never have gotten beyond the thousand personality conflicts and self interests that would have likely stopped a more organized endeavor.
I have never been able to satisfy my thirst to better understand why AA works. The more I learn, the more I know, the less I understand. I do believe that William James comes closest in his discussion of the soul sick and the divided self where he reformulates St. Paul, John of the Cross and Ignatius. Clearly there is a Jesuit influence in the early AA literature.
When I was a few years in AA I came to believe that I found God in AA. As I have become older and more mellow I realize that I was the one who brought God to AA. Each and every time a newcomer walks through the door a new God presence is initiated. AA is the ground upon which a deeper encounter is played out. I believe AA serves exactly the same role in terms of a person seeking a psychological breakthrough that leads to substantive behavioral change.
The line I bolded really sums up why this piece was such a titanic challenge: The deeper one plows into complex systems, the tougher it becomes to employ neat explanations. Reality, unfortunately, is a rather messy beast.
As noted in the post below, I’ve been absolutely deluged with e-mail responses to the Alcoholics Anonymous piece. I’ve been doing my best to read each and every one, and to respond when appropriate. Apologies to those who don’t receive replies—I’ve only got one brain and two hands.
Though the vast majority of the feedback has been positive, there’s been some hate mixed in amidst the love. Most of it has come from AA members who feel that the article denigrated their beloved organization. But I’ve also received a few critiques from scientific skeptics, who believe that the Twelve Step approach to treatment has done more harm than good. A prime example:
It is a pity that you overlooked the damage done by AA to the addiction medicine field by the institutionalization of the disease concept of alcoholism (something that is no longer given credence by the vast majority of addiction specialists who are not already involved in a 12-step program, which brings me to the point).
The fact that the addiction field, for most of the 20th century, was dominated by those who came from AA/NA and refused to allow or conduct research that could or did contradict the belief of the AA/NA model. This resulted in a terrible miscarriage of justice to both those who suffered from substance abuse problems and in the policies that have come out of government dealing with these issues.
Then, there is the religious aspect of AA. I know plenty of “atheists” who claim that AA works without a belief in “God” yet they all seem inclined to label it a Higher Power, which they call God. I suggest that you have a look at some of the work of Marc Galanter in how this dynamic can become incredibly dysfunctional.
Lastly, are the numbers that AA itself gives for those who are likely to “succeed” without AA, or return to “normal”. If their numbers are correct, then I am personally acquainted with every former alcoholic or drug addict on earth who has returned to “normal use” of their drug of choice.
To put it simply, I found your article to be overly flattering to an institution that has probably done more to hurt the cause of real research into addiction medicine than any other on the planet.
Sorry for the slow start to the day. We’re working on a couple of solid posts, including a great kidnapping yarn from the ’70s, but getting clear of our other chores is taking longer than anticipated. That’s in part because of the five million e-mails that currently sit unopened in our inbox—the Times piece on our AA story sparked a major response, and we’re doing our best to read as many notes as possible.
More as soon as we’re able. In the meantime, won’t you settle for Oneida in Paris?
One of our favorite cop-show cliches is the one about the streetwise detective who’s consigned to desk duty after committing some grievous procedural sin. The implication is that doing paperwork is significantly less useful than pounding the pavement, not to mention less manly. “Pencil pusher,” after all, is invariably an insult, is it not?
In reality, however, well-done paperwork can often do far more to crack a case than roaming the streets in search of clues. That’s the lesson we took away from this excellent account of the life and crimes of Joe Luis Saenz, a Mexican-American gangster who now resides on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. According to the piece, Saenz was comfortably on the lam for years, crossing the border at will and partying at ritzy Southern California bars with near impunity. But then an FBI agent decided to turn up the heat by breaking out his trusty pen:
The Los Angeles FBI office jumped into a hard-fought nationwide contest in 2009: They proposed Saenz for the government’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, and Special Agent Scott Garriola submitted a detailed five-page application to compete against 55 other FBI offices that insisted their fugitives were the baddest.
Garriola had a major edge. For nine years, he and his Fugitive Apprehension Team had been tracking a guy on the Top Ten, a man who had shot and seriously hurt an L.A. County Sheriff’s deputy. That fugitive was caught in a rural town in Mexico last year, meaning Garriola was among the first to know that a spot on the Top Ten was about to open.
“The early bird catches the worm,” laughs the 22-year-veteran agent, who, at any given time, tracks 40 to 50 rapists, murderers, dope dealers, and gangsters. “Who else knew there was going to be an opening but me?”
We look forward to the film version of the Saenz manhunt, in which the plot turns on an agent’s mastery of both form completion and bureaucratic minutiae.
Bonus Video of Saenz preparing to murder an associate here. The victim made the mistake of losing over $600,000 of Saenz’s money during a Missouri traffic stop. And then he compounded the mistake by letting his “friend” in the front door.
What little we know about the efficacy of the 12 Steps, the system at the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous, comes from a lengthy study called Project MATCH. As I mention in my Wired piece, Project MATCH confirmed that the Steps perform as well as other therapies when applied in a clinical setting—though, as critics like to point out, no alcoholism treatment produces especially laudable results.
One of the most provocative papers to make use of Project MATCH’s data is “Are Alcoholism Treatments Effective?”, which argues that clinical approaches may actually be no better than leaving heavy drinkers to their own devices. The authors’ two most striking assertions are depicted in the chart above. First, they contend that subjects who had a single therapy session actually fared worse than those who had no treatment at all. And more importantly, they ask whether treatment need be any longer than a few days, an argument I summarized in an early draft of the Wired article:
The Project MATCH data also gave credence to an increasingly popular concept in addiction medicine: the usefulness of brief treatment. According to an analysis of the study conducted at the University of Miami School of Medicine, subjects derived virtually all of a therapy’s benefits during their first week of counseling. “There is not a lot of evidence in the alcohol field that longer is better,” says William R. Miller, an emeritus professor at the University of New Mexico’s Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addiction (CASAA). A simple statement of concern by a doctor, followed by a handful of therapy sessions, may actually be as effective as a lifetime’s worth of AA meetings.
Re-reading this discard a few months after the fact, I now realize that the last line needs a disclaimer appended to the end—”…for some people.” And that was the big challenge in tackling this piece: Just as there are many paths to becoming hooked on booze, there are many paths to recovery. What we need to figure out is a better way of determining who will benefit from what kind of treatment—and, by extension, who doesn’t need treatment at all. I don’t think we’re particularly close to making that happen, alas.
Update As a commenter on an early post just pointed out, the Wired piece got picked up by The New York Times‘ David Brooks. Here’s his take.
We can trace our lifelong fascination with technology to a few choice childhood experiences: our first time playing Pitfall on an Atari 2600, watching The Black Hole on Betamax, and, perhaps above all, visiting The Magic Castle. The foyer of said castle featured a self-playing piano, which responded to audience requests (as long as those songs were on its rolls, we presume). There was something undeniably awesome about seeing the keys press down in rapid succession, even though no human fingers were nearby.
As a result of that early encounter, we count ourselves huge fans of self-playing instruments, even though their heyday occurred many decades before we touched down on Spaceship Earth. And so how could we resist this thoroughly readable history of the Encore Automatic Banjo, an invention that once wowed drunken crowds from Atlantic City to Gary, Indiana. A teaser here:
The first automatic banjo was introduced in 1896, before the name “Encore” was used. It operated by means of an electromagnetic system, of which none are known to survive today. It is theorized that many of the these prototype machines were converted to the later pneumatic system. The magnets used in the electromagnetic version were of the telegraphic type, too jerky and noisy to be practical. Moreover, the only electricity then available was taken from street lights, which caused so much sparking that the paper rolls tended to ignite and endanger the premises. One attempted solution for this problem was to house the automatic banjo in a non-flammable cast iron case, of which at least one of these units was reportedly made, although no trace of it exists today. The cast-iron encased automatic banjo, however, proved impractical, as it was extremely heavy and difficult to move. Another hard to remedy problem was that many prospective customers had no access to electricity at all, and since no practical battery had yet been invented the electrical system was abandoned, in favor of the safer and far more feasible pneumatic system.
Dare we say that the engineers who solved the Automatic Banjo’s many quandaries deserve enshrinement in the Hacking Hall of Fame? In that era, figuring out a way to prevent the inadvertent incineration of music rolls was really no less impressive than devising L0phtcrack.
In response to a rash of homicides, the bedraggled city of Chester, Penn., has instituted an unusually harsh curfew, which mandates that everyone be off the streets of certain crime-plagued neighborhoods by 9 p.m. A noble effort to reduce violence, perhaps, but the evidence doesn’t bear out the crime-prevention strategy. Just ask the good citizens of Aberdeen, Scotland, who recently hoped that a curfew would ratchet down the drunken brawling and general ickiness that mars the fair city’s streets on weekend nights. But the curfew was lifted in April, after Aberdeen police pronounced it an abject failure. And as this comprehensive paper points out, curfews haven’t been proven to work any better than simply doing nothing:
Overall, the weight of the scientific evidence, based on ten studies with weak to moderately rigorous designs, fails to support the argument that curfews reduce crime and criminal victimization. Studies consistently report no change in crime in relation to curfews. When changes in crime are observed, they are almost equally likely to be increases in crime as opposed to decreases. Furthermore, curfew enforcement rarely leads to discovery of serious criminal behavior precipitating arrest. For the most part, curfew violators tend to be arrested for curfew-related offenses, such as lying about one’s age, and it could be argued that these arrests needlessly add to the criminal histories of some juveniles.
We actually don’t think temporary curfews like Chester’s are entirely without merit, but their effects strike us as akin to a placebo—they’re a way of telling a community that the situation has gotten out of hand, and that people need to do some serious thinking about their city’s future. But that effect probably tend to wear off once the initial shock of the curfew passes.
We couldn’t bear to leave an AA-related post atop the blog all weekend, so let us instead sign off with another addition to our growing Asha Bhosle collection. Back on Monday with more AA extras, as well as the standard Microkhan fodder that hopefully makes the drudgery of existence a little brighter for all involved.
One of the most controversial aspects of AA’s history is the role that psychedelics may have played in Bill Wilson’s creative process. As I discuss in the Wired piece, when Wilson experienced his spiritual epiphany in December 1934, he did so at a New York City drying-out facility. Part of his treatment there consisted of something called the Belladonna Cure, in which detoxing alcoholics were given hourly infusions of a potentially hallucinogenic drug. A recent New York Times piece gives some backstory on the Cure, including its many shortcomings—particularly the fact that it didn’t seem to impact the relapse rate (typically quoted at around 90 percent during the first 12 months of sobriety).
The fact that belladonna was coursing through Wilson’s veins during his spiritual awakening raises an important question: Can psychedelics play a role in the treatment of psychological disorders? My answer, which I posted on comments yesterday, is a qualified yes, though I think we’re many decades away from employing such tools in the medical realm. An effective drug must have predictable results when used among a broad cross-section of patients, and the odds of catastrophic side effects must be small. This cannot be said of psychedelics at the moment, though that is in large part due to the dearth of research—something we can blame on the War on Drugs. It’s probably high time that we heed the words of LSD’s creator and acknowledge that psychedelics aren’t worthless just because they can be abused.
Wilson’s psychedelic exploration did not end with belladonna, of course. Years later, while suffering from deep depression, he tried LSD. A 2005 article from Modern Drunkardrelates some details, which seem to have been plucked from Francis Hartigan’s exhaustive biography:
One of his therapeutic journeys lead him to Trabuco College in California, and the friendship of the college’s founder, Aldous Huxley. The author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception introduced Wilson to LSD-25. The drug rocked Wilson’s world. He thought of it as something of a miracle substance and continued taking it well into the ‘60s. As he approached his 70th birthday, he developed a plan to have LSD distributed at all AA meetings nationwide. The plan was eventually quashed by more rational voices, and a few years later the Federal government made the point moot by making the drug illegal.
It’s probably for the best that Wilson’s plan didn’t come to fruition. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t on to something.
When I started working on the AA piece for Wired, I assumed that the nascent organization insisted on anonymity because of a 1930s stigma against alcoholism. But as it turns out, Bill Wilson created the policy for a more pragmatic reason, which he explained thusly:
[In the past], alcoholics who talked too much on public platforms were likely to become inflated and get drunk again. Our principle of anonymity, so far as the general public is concerned, partly corrects this difficulty by preventing any individual receiving a lot of newspaper or magazine publicity, then collapsing and discrediting AA.
It’s not totally clear which “public platforms” Wilson was referring to, but it’s likely that he was familiar with the curious case of the Washingtonian movement, a mid-19th century precursor to AA. An early draft of my article contained a snippet about the Washingtonians’ fabulous early success, and then their incredibly swift collapse:
In the early 1840s, a group called the Washingtonian Society formed around the idea that drunkards could help each other kick the liquor habit. The Washingtonians held massive public meetings at which recovered alcoholics told their stories of redemption, in order to inspire audience members to quit drinking, too. The movement quickly attracted 400,000 followers, then completely disintegrated before the decade was through. Widespread charges of hypocrisy played a big role in the Washingtonians’ rapid demise: Many of the movement’s most famous speakers would lift thousands of hearts at a meeting one day, only to be discovered dead drunk on a tavern floor the next.
The Washingtonians’ other big organizational mistake was getting too cozy with the temperance movement, to the point that it became more political than therapeutic. Wilson made sure that AA avoided this pitfall, too, by insisting that the organization remain neutral in all outside matters. By refusing to take public sides on social issues, AA has ensured that its “tent” is as big as possible—a pretty important asset, given the organization’s extremely high attrition rate.
Regular readers know that I’ve been spending the better part of 2010 working on a Wired piece about addiction. Well, the feature is finally live, and now the full truth can be revealed—the article’s central narrative is about the history and science (or lack thereof) of Alcoholics Anonymous, which just celebrated its 75th anniversary. Here’s the essence of the tale:
It was in June 1935, amid the gloom of the Great Depression, that a failed stockbroker and reformed lush named Bill Wilson founded the organization after meeting God in a hospital room. He codified his method in the 12 steps, the rules at the heart of AA. Entirely lacking in medical training, Wilson created the steps by cribbing ideas from religion and philosophy, then massaging them into a pithy list with a structure inspired by the Bible.
The 200-word instruction set has since become the cornerstone of addiction treatment in this country, where an estimated 23 million people grapple with severe alcohol or drug abuse—more than twice the number of Americans afflicted with cancer. Some 1.2 million people belong to one of AA’s 55,000 meeting groups in the US, while countless others embark on the steps at one of the nation’s 11,000 professional treatment centers. Anyone who seeks help in curbing a drug or alcohol problem is bound to encounter Wilson’s system on the road to recovery.
It’s all quite an achievement for a onetime broken-down drunk. And Wilson’s success is even more impressive when you consider that AA and its steps have become ubiquitous despite the fact that no one is quite sure how—or, for that matter, how well—they work. The organization is notoriously difficult to study, thanks to its insistence on anonymity and its fluid membership. And AA’s method, which requires “surrender” to a vaguely defined “higher power,” involves the kind of spiritual revelations that neuroscientists have only begun to explore.
As some of y’all might have guessed, I really went through the wringer on this piece. I spent months attending AA meetings, then reeled off ten drafts before the finished product was ready for Wired‘s august pages. (Three or four drafts is the norm.) The big challenge was getting a handle on the question of efficacy, which has never really been resolved due to AA’s curious organizational principles. And needless to say, the pro and con sides are extremely passionate about their takes on AA; for lots of people, AA is either an life-saving miracle or an insidious cult.
There was a ton of great material left on the cutting-room floor, so I’ll be writing several AA-related posts over the coming days. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the Wired story or AA in general, please leave ’em in comments and they’ll be answered pronto.
Those of you who follow Microkhan’s microblog know that the situation near headquarters was beyond hectic yesterday—not just because we had the kid on our hands, but also due to our physical proximity to a senseless tragedy. A police pursuit of two robbery suspects ended with a massive collision about 50 feet from our front door, and the death of an elderly nun. As of this writing, the suspects have yet to be caught, though not for lack of beefy detectives peering into our basement for hours on end.
Such fatalities have become alarmingly common in New York, to the point that we think the cops should just let the bad guys go unless lives are at stake. We fail to see how two knucklehead teenage bandits were worth the risk, even if they were armed. When you’re dumb enough to be robbing college kids at 9 a.m., you’re bound to get caught sooner rather than later.
The statistics seem to back up our newfound loathing for police chases in dense urban settings. This 1997 survey contains a data point that supports the widespread notion that 40 percent of police chases end in crashes. And perhaps more alarmingly, the vast majority of chases don’t end with a resolution that can be characterized as a law-enforcement triumph:
In a nationwide study of police chases by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the most frequent ways a pursuit ended was when a suspect gave up; there was a collision; or the suspect got away.
“What is telling about these statistics is that 72 percent of all pursuits end because of a reason that is almost completely out of the hands of the police,” wrote the study’s authors, Cynthia Lum and George Fachner.
All that said, it must be hard for cops to resist the urge to give chase. We all grew up with dreams of doing this. But New York’s streets and avenues aren’t closed sets, alas.
We’ve been doing our best to work up a healthy antipathy toward Algeria, whose national team we face tomorrow in a must-win World Cup match. As big fans of The Battle of Algiers and longtime observers of the country’s ruinous civil war, our hearts go out to the Algerian generations that have endured so much bloodshed. How can we credibly hate on a nation that has suffered to the Nth degree? (Also, they make some pretty decent wine.)
To get us in the sporting mood, then, we’ve dug deep into Algeria’s post-revolutionary history. As it turns out, the place was once a hotbed of Soviet-style anti-Americanism, under the successive far-left regimes of Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediene (above). Time labeled the nation “The Cuba of Africa”, and Algeria’s state-controlled media went to great lengths to brand America as something akin to The Great Satan:
One weekly newspaper showed a picture of beaming Chinese girls from a Chinese film next to a scene from an American film on life in a nudist colony. It commented:
“On one side, humanity in its beauty; on the other, a world of mediocity, vulgarity and stupidity.”
So when our men take the pitch tomorrow, do not think of the ensuing 90-plus minutes as a mere sporting contest. Think of it as our chance for revenge against a nation that once considered us a pack of decadent imperialist curs. If that thought doesn’t get you shouting “U-S-A!” at the top of your lungs every time Jozy Altidore touches the ball, nothing will.
We’re still on the hook with Microkhan Jr., at least until the early afternoon. We’ll try to check back in then, as we don’t want a long-gestating post on Algeria’s legacy of anti-Americanism to go to waste. In the meantime, we present you with two data points involving public health in Mongolia. The video above should be self-explanatory—the nation’s capital has some serious air-quality issues. Beyond that, according to the very first line of this 1993 paper, traditional Mongolian medicine presents a rather unusual remedy for children suffering from breathing problems:
Genghis Khan in the 13th century was probably brought up imbibing his mother’s early morning urine as a remedy for his childhood episodes of acute respiratory infections.
It probably speaks volumes about our thought process that our initial reaction to this sentence was not outright disgust, but rather puzzlement over what early morning urine has to offer versus, say, mid-afternoon urine. When we have time, we’ll have to thumb through some Medieval Mongolian medical texts to discover the answer.
So much for our grand plans to start this momentous week on the right foot. Microkhan Jr.’s sitter canceled on us last minute, and unlike our Mongolian forebear, we don’t have a legion of fur-clad handmaidens waiting in the wings to take over childcare duties. And so we must dedicate our morning to tackling a brutal Wired deadline, as well as to locating some Thomas the Train training toothpaste before the home situation reaches something akin to DEFCON 2.
But fear not, we’ll be back soonest, and with some killer material—extras related to our long-promised Wired story on addiction, which will hit The Tubes this week. (Judging by the deluge of love/hate mail we’ve received so far, we take it the dead-tree version is already on newsstands.) In the meantime, check out the cut above, our favorite from The Enchantress.
Despite our general abhorrence of slasher flicks and Eli Roth-style “torture porn,” we do have a soft spot for macabre statues. Hyungkoo Lee’s series of cartoon skeletons, for example, still ranks as one of the finest exhibits we’ve ever seen in New York. And we’re similarly enthralled by the work of Jessica Joslin, who incorporates animal bones and skulls into her steampunk-inflected works.
Adding to Ms. Joslin’s appeal is her slightly kooky tilt, captured splendidly in this profile in Britain’s Bizarre:
She thinks working with human bones would be cheesy – the art would be overwhelmed by the controversy of her using such grisly materials – but her own bones could be an exception. “I’d like my own remains to become part of a metal structure. I’d leave instructions on how to assemble it with my bones after my death.”
Joslin wouldn’t be the first contemporary artist to get all creative with human bones, however—François Robert got there first.
Once again, a fresh track has led us to discover a gem from distant shores. In this case, Gonjasufi’s haunting “Sheep” inspired us to seek out its source material, “Yeh Hawa Yeh Fiza” from the 1983 Bollywood classic Sadma. To our great delight, the singer is one of our all-time favorites, Asha “The Enchantress” Bhosle, whose ethereal voice we’ve long imagined on the soundtrack for the Now the Hell Will Start movie. The music doesn’t entirely jibe with the scenery, which seems inspired by the beach-party flicks of Annette Funicello, but we love the random burned-out Western hippie who makes a surprise appearance around the 2:22 mark. A bit too much bhang, good sir?
In response to the previous post regarding a biker gang’s seemingly childish obsession with stealing their rivals’ sew-on patches, a few sharp readers pointed out that this game was once the essence of warfare. One, in particular, mentioned the following:
I’m definitely no Civil War expert, but I believe more medals were awarded during the Civil War for capturing or saving flags than for any other reason.
We’re no Civil War experts, either—we always defer to more learned scholars of the conflict—but we decided to take a stab at determining the veracity of our dear reader’s claim. As it turns out, he’s absolutely correct, at least in terms of Medals of Honor:
Out of 1,520 Medal of Honor actions during the Civil War, 467 were given to men who either defended the flag of their side or captured a flag of the Confederate. Some “seized the colors” from fallen comrades and with them rallied their comrades still standing. Others struck out to the foremost part of the line and proved their “soldier-like qualities” by returning with the flag of the enemy…
Bringing the flag bearer down, everyone knew, was the most effective way of dismantling an attack. Not only did the loss of a color-bearer demoralize a regiment, it created confusion by leaving in question exactly where the point of attack lay. Both officers and enlisted men relied on the flying colors to define the position of the regiment and its progress. As a regiment advanced, they followed the flag. The command “rally ’round the flag” was used not simply to inspire patriotism, but to prevent a rout. Many color-bearers fell. Very few held the job throughout the war.
We somehow doubt that the grizzled members of the Outlaws MC are aware of this fact, nor the lengthy history of battlefield symbol seizure that stretches back to Imperial Rome (at least). But all contests require tangible symbols in order to invest them with the appropriate meaning. Civilized contests, such as athletic tournaments, create symbols that are held and awarded by independent bodies. Less civilized contests, like those involving warring biker gangs, must settle for thievery.
If you’ve ever been curious about the day-to-day operations of outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs), the recent federal racketeering indictment against the Outlaws is an absolute goldmine. The lengthy document lays out exactly how a multi-chapter “one percenter” organization generates revenue, enforces discipline, and has a raucous (albeit morally objectionable) good time.
What struck us most, however, was the Outlaws’ strange obsession with a seemingly childish game: Seizing the sew-on patches of their enemies. A case in point:
On or about June 22, 2005, defendant JOSEPH ALLMAN and four other Outlaws members struck Diablos MC member H.T. with their vehicle as the victim was riding his motorcycle near Ossipee, New Hampshire. As a result of the attack, H.T. wrecked his motorcycle and was rendered unconscious. ALLMAN and another Outlaws member removed H.T.’s Diablos MC vest and left the victim on the side of the road.
On or about October 5, 2009, and on or about October 9, 2009, while at the Petersburg Outlaws clubhouse, ALLMAN described an attack that he and other Outlaws members had executed in 2005, where they struck a Diablos MC member with their vehicle, causing him to wreck his motorcycle and suffer serious injury. As a result, ALLMAN acquired a Diablos MC patch.
As far as we can tell from the indictment, the patches from these seized vests were either ritualistically burned (if the Outlaws really didn’t like you), or kept as trophies (if the Outlaws just thought your gang was a bunch of sissies not worth their time). Whatever the case, we have to say this factoid makes us fear OMGs a bit less. Grown men obsessing over the talismanic powers of sew-on patches? We grew out of that phase back in the third grade, when we finally tired of having this on our knapsack.
That said, gotta love the Outlaws’ nicknames. We would be reluctant to tangle with 50-year-old men who go by Torch or Rebar.
Our adopted home state may have a progressive reputation, owing chiefly to its principal city’s joie de vivre, but it’s also been woefully behind the times on certain political matters. The notorious Rockefeller drug laws, for example, are just now being scrapped, though vestiges seem certain to remain. And over three decades later than most of its neighbors, New York is finally within striking distance of adopting no-fault divorce.
This is a positive, as it means an end to the charade that couples must go through in order to split—telling lies to judges about abandonment or adultery, just so they can get on with their lives. But opponents insist that no-fault will turn the Empire State into a place where marital vows are treated no more seriously than scratch-off lottery tickets. Do the naysayers have a point? The historical data says no:
The data broadly indicate that divorce law reform led to an immediate spike in the divorce rate that dissipates over time. After a decade, no effect can be discerned. This basic insight is robust to a range of alternative interpretations of divorce laws. Further, it is consistent with census data on the ever-divorced population. More puzzling, certain estimates suggest that the divorce rate declined over the ensuing period.
This is exactly the sort of trend we would expect is drugs were legalized, by the way: There would be an initial spike in usage, followed by a steady decline as the experimental phase ends and people wise up to the downsides of the previously forbidden fruit. Over the long term, our species is surprisingly adept at figuring out which behaviors yield benefits, and which can only lead to ruin.
To our tremendous relief, the 65-day blockade of Manipur appears to be over, thereby allowing much-needed food and medicine to flow into the Indian state. (Microkhan’s backgrounder on the crisis can be found here.) Now, perhaps, the local government can focus on what strikes us a problem of only slightly lesser importance: the long decline in the quality of Manipur’s storied arm-wrestling team, which the Koklata Telegraph attributes to official neglect:
Manipur Armwrestling Association secretary K. Sharatchandra Singh today said the popularity of arm-wrestling in Manipur had nosedived since the eighties for lack of state patronage.
Manipur, he said, had produced her first world champion in 1986 as S. Victoria Devi won the title in the 45kg category, while Th. Rajen Singh in 55kg and N. Sarat Singh in the 60kg category were also crowned champions in that meet held in Calcutta.
In the following year’s edition in London, S. Victoria Devi repeated her feat in the 45kg category and Ch. Hemabati Devi claimed the 45kg world champion’s title in 1988 in Sweden.
“Then for almost 20 years there was a long lull as the state government stopped financial assistance. This hit the state arm-wrestlers hard and dampened their spirit. The men even failed in the national arena,” he said.
Concerned readers can offer financial assistance via the MAA’s website. We reckon it shouldn’t take more than a few thousand dollars to set up the state’s arm wrestlers with some vintage Neil Lewis training machines.
The ship above, the gargantuan M/V Dole Chile, was recently found to be carrying $2 million worth of cocaine into Delaware’s main port. The drugs were stashed in the ventilation system of a container loaded with bananas, which the ship delivers weekly to the Port of Wilmington. All in all, a nice little catch for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, whose officers routinely inspect fruit shipments for evidence of invasive insects.
But the seizure also underscores the utter futility of interdiction strategies. As noted on the ship’s specs page, the M/V Dole Chile carries 2,000 TEU containers when fully loaded. According to this detailed 2006 study, an inspection team can X-ray 20 such containers per hour. Assuming that inspectors have roughly half a work day to clear a ship, then, less than 5 percent of the M/V Dole Chile‘s cargo gets scanned during any one visit.
More importantly, it’s not clear that a $2 million shipment of cocaine, which consists of just 26 two-and-a-half pound bricks, can reliably be detected via X-rays that are taken and interpreted in a three-minute span. That means such contraband can only be discovered through hand inspections. And the RAND study asserts that a five-person customs team can only conduct one search per day.
Given that the Port of Wilmington alone handles a new vessel every day, any drug lord worth his salt would have to like his long-term odds—especially since there’s no risk to human assets. Is it any wonder they can afford such first-class personal zoos?
While researching the economic feasibility of a Bering Strait tunnel, we came across this recent dispatch from the Edmonton Journal. In addition to alerting us to the manner in which the residents of Little Diomede were used as Cold War pawns, the article made us aware of the callow manner in which the Russian coal industry tends to treat its laborers. Case in point:
On a cold January day in 1998, nearly 1,000 residents of the Russian coal-mining town of Pyramiden were surprised by the arrival of a ship. Representatives from Arctikugol Trust, owner of the mine, told everyone to get on board and leave everything behind but their basic belongings. In less than 48 hours, Pyramiden was a ghost town.
The sudden abandonment of Pyramiden created quite the obscure post-Soviet tourist destination, though—one roughly on par with the ravaged city of Agdam. Check out some contemporary photos and eyewitness accounts of the desolation here and here.
Also, slightly related: Little Diomede has a school. And it has Hawaiian shirt day.
We’ve been lassoed into some emergency parenting today, and Microkhan Jr. is tugging on the hem of our deel as we type these very words. So let us just quickly share with you two things that bring much gladness to our collective heart: the above Donny Hathaway gem, an Afro-Cuban spin on “The Ghetto,” and the following account of the childhood bond that Genghis Khan (née Temujin) forged with his pal Jamukha:
When they first became bond-brothers, Temujin was ten years old. They were playing “knuckle-bones” on the ice of the Onan River, and Jamukha gave Temujin a playing-piece made of roebuck-bone. In return Temujin gave him a “knuckle-bone” piece with molten bronze poured into it, and they became bond-brothers. Afterwards, when spring came and when they were both shooting with their little wooden bows, Jamukha gave Temujin a bone arrow-head with perforated calf’s-horns stuck on to it, that whistled as it went through the air, and Temujin in return gave him an arrow-head with a top of cypress-wood. That is the story of how they twice became bond-brothers.
Alas, as was so often the case in Medieval Mongolia, things didn’t end well. The two men ended up bitter rivals for supremacy, and Genghis Khan eventually executed his vanquished foe. However, remembering their childhood alliance, the ersatzerstwhile Temujin granted Jamukha’s request for a bloodless death. Instead of being put to the sword, Jamukha had his back broken by Genghis Khan’s royal guards. Such treatment apparently passed for tenderness back in the day.
The man to the right is Pradeep Sharma, once renowned as one of Mumbai’s top “encounter specialists”—that is, a cop whose not-so-secret mission is to assassinate underworld figures. Though these killings are said to take place during chases or confrontations gone awry, the Indian public knows full well that they are usually the product of planned hits. And many people have long supported this extrajudicial approach to crimefighting, given their lack of faith in the justice system’s ability to control certain gangland factions.
One of our favorite cop-show cliches is the one about the streetwise detective who’s consigned to desk duty after committing some grievous procedural sin. The implication is that doing paperwork is significantly less useful than pounding the pavement, not to mention less manly. “Pencil pusher,” after all, is invariably an insult, is it not?
One of the most controversial aspects of AA’s history is the role that psychedelics may have played in Bill Wilson’s creative process. As I discuss in 
To our tremendous relief, the 65-day blockade of Manipur 
