Research is showing that more and more travel planning is being done online.  Not only are official visitor sites like NDtourism.com being consulted, but also blogs like this one and traveler-review sites.  These days, people just post a status update for vacation suggestions and get inundated with ideas.

Photos can be one of the most compelling things in vacation planning and help answer a lot of questions.  How did the fairways look?  How big are the buttes?  Are the albino buffalo really white?  North Dakota Tourism hosts a flickr group called Legendary North Dakota Travel where visitors and North Dakotans have shared photos of attractions, events, scenery and wildlife.  Browse through nearly 400 photos, many with interesting facts tagged on them, like this recent photo of the ND Capitol Building by Randy Hoffman.

If you have photos of North Dakota, you’re invited to join the group and share your legendary stories.

There are so many fun ways to celebrate the holidays, including fabulous Christmas concerts.  The Blenders perform December 19 and 20 at the Belle Mehus Auditorium in Bismarck.  This group originally formed in Fargo and has toured throughout the United States, opening for such acts as Jay Leno, Howie Mandel and Chicago. 

Lorie Line’s 2009 holiday show promises to be her most intimate Christmas show ever, with Lorie and just five of her musicians on stage.  They make a stop December 19 at the Chester Fritz Auditorium in Grand Forks.

Check our calendar at NDtourism.com for more parades, concerts, events and festivals.

One of my neighbors has been tuning his snowmobiles and taking short zips down the street, anxiously waiting for trails in North Dakota to open.  While he’ll have to wait for just a bit more snow, there are lots of ways to get outside and have some winter fun.

Rheault Farm in Fargo is currently transformed into Santa Village.  It’s a 15-acre winter wonderland with daily activities and horse-drawn rides.

If you’re already wondering about the kids’ holiday break, consider a trip to Papa’s Polar Patch in Bismarck.  This is the same location known for fall-fun as Papa’s Pumpkin Patch.  In the winter, you can find snow caves, skating rink and sleigh rides.

Don’t hibernate this winter.  Indoors and out North Dakota has lots of ways to enjoy the season.  Check our events calendar for all the things to do.

I feel about a year late writing this blog post, for here-in, I will explain my blog title.

Just a few days ago, I added “6,078″.  The reason behind this is simple, if one types 6,078 into a calculator and turns it upside down, one gets “BLOG”.  I like calculator words.

“Mystical Chrome Wheels A-Turnin’” is a bit more difficult to explain.  I based this off of the name of my Zune – “Bismarck’s Mystical Chrome Wheel”.  “Bismarck” refering to the German statesman & to a lesser degree the ship named after him.  “Chrome Wheel” I got from the cover of a Jan & Dean CD that I got from the library.  (It was the wheel of the car of “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena”.  It also sounds space-y and futuristic.  Those types of things interest me.  “Mystical” I added just because it sounded cool.  It adds somewhat too.  If it was just “chrome wheel” it’s not as interesting.  “mystical” adds something… I hope. 

The “A-Turnin’” comes from the Bob Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.  This was the first song I learned to play on the guitar, which happened a few weeks before I got a blog.  The “A-Turnin’” is meant to reflect the “A-Changin’”.  It also goes better with wheels.  Wheels turn, they don’t change much. 

The title as a whole evokes the feeling of a long, mysterious road trip.  A continuing voyage in an attempt to find… something.  This is kind of a metaphor of life, it’s a voyage to gain something, whatever that something is to one person or the next.  Road trips are an integral part of any story, not to mention a hallmark of American history. 

Of course, I didn’t have most of this in mind when I named my blog, I just wanted a fancy name.  Though, I usually do find ways of reading different meanings into names that weren’t intended to have those meanings in the first place.  This is definitely an example of that.

Every major industrialized, free market democracy has a health care system that reflects national values and policies. For example, Canada’s universal system sometimes keeps people in line, but Canada has decided that they would rather keep people waiting in line than have some people get treatment immediately and some not at all. The UK believes that no one should have to pay a medical bill. The UK’s National Health Service has always stuck to the principle that health care is “Free at the point of service.” It is culturally normal for British women to give birth at home, whereas Japanese women most of the time give birth in the hospital and remain there for an average of 10 days after delivery.

The systems tend to follow general patterns, and the four major model arrangements are thus:

The Bismarck Model

This model is found in Germany, Japan, France, Belgium, and Switzerland among other countries. It’s named for Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor who invented the welfare state as part of the unification of Germany during the nineteenth century. The model will be somewhat familiar to Americans. In the Bismarck system, the health care providers as well as the payers are private. The system relies upon private health insurance plans, usually financed by both employers and employees through deductions in payroll. There’s a huge difference though, as compared to the American system. Bismarck insurance plans are non-profit. They cover everybody, and they are not taking a cut for themselves. Since the doctors and hospitals are mostly private, this is a multi-payer system with tight regulation of medical services and fees.

The Beveridge Model

The model is named after William Beveridge, a social reformer who worked to create Britain’s National Health Service.  In the Beveridge model, health care is provided by the government, as well paid for by the government through taxes. You can think of medical treatment like a public service, such as the Fire Department or the Department of Parks and Recreation. There are no medical bills for the patient. Most all hospitals and clinics are owned by the government. Some doctors are government employees and some are private doctors that collect their fees from the government. These systems have low per-capita costs because the government, as the sole payer, controls what doctors can and can’t do. Once again, patients receive zero bills.

The National Health Insurance Model

This system has elements of both the above stated models. In the NHI model, doctors and hospitals are completely private entities, but the only payer is a government-run insurance program that everyone pays into. The national insurance plan collects monthly premiums from citizens and then pays all the medical fees. This type of system tends to be much cheaper and simpler than American-style private insurance. There’s no need for marketing, no need for underwriting offices to deny peoples’ claims, and no profit. The NHI system controls costs by negotiating for lower prices, since they are the only payer. However, they can also limit the services they will pay for and make patients wait to be treated in order to save costs. Canada is the best example of an NHI system. Canadians have a proud sense of national community and the system satisfies this.

The Out-Of-Pocket Model

Only about 40 of the world’s 200 countries have actual established health care payment systems. The other countries are essentially too poor, or not developed enough to provide organized care of any kind. The system works on a fairly basic rule: If you are rich and can afford to pay for medical treatment, you’ll get treatment. If you are poor and can’t afford it, you stay sick or die. If you’re a rich guy with money it’s pretty feasible to find a doctor, but people in the rural regions of India, Africa, China, and South America can easily go their entire lives without seeing a doctor. The closest they will get to treatment will be a village healer perhaps, who’s home-made remedies may or may not be effective. But the hallmark trait of the system is that the patient pays his or her own way, with no insurance plan and no help from the government. Generally it’s the worlds poorest countries that have high out-of pocket expenses. According to the World Health Organization 91% of total health spending in Cambodia is out-of-pocket, 85% in India, and 73% in Egypt. The United States has more than 45 million uninsured citizens, with 17% of health care expenses paid out-of-pocket.

These models should be fairly easy for Americans to understand because we have little pieces of all of them in our jumbled, confusing, expensive, and inefficient health care system. T.R Reid in his book, The Healing of America, points out the following comparisons:

• For most working people under 65, we’re Germany, France, or Japan. Using something like the Bismarck model, we pay our health insurance with our employer, and share the cost of the premiums.  The insurer pays most of the expenses, with the patient paying a co-pay or percentage.
• For Native Americans, military personnel, and veterans, we’re Britain. The VA and the Pentagon’s Tri-Star system use doctors who are employed by the government and work in government hospitals and clinics.  The U.S government pays for everything and Americans in these systems never get a medical bill.
• For those over 65, we’re Canada. The U.S Medicare system is essentially a NHI program. It has near universal participation and very low administrative costs. We pay taxes to fund it and the government can then pay the bills. Interesting fact: Americans with end-stage renal failure are also covered by Medicare, regardless their age.
• For the more than 45 million uninsured American citizens, we’re Cambodia, Burkina Faso, or rural India. These Americans can only get medical treatment if they can pay the bill for it out-of-pocket at the time of treatment, become sick enough to be admitted to the ER at a public hospital, or if they get to a charity clinic.

If there’s one thing that America is, it’s unique. We have so many different types of systems for separate classes of people, and rely heavily on for-profit private insurance plans to pay the bills. All the other major free market democracies have decided that one system works for everybody because its cheaper, fairer, and simpler. Alone stands the mighty U.S.A. With its disorganized and confusing display of providers and payers, we don’t fit into any of the standard working models.

Reid T.R, The Healing of America, Penguin Press

Not only is Thanksgiving one of the biggest travel weekends of the year, it’s also one of the biggest retail weekends.  You can’t turn on the radio or TV, or open a newspaper without hearing about sales, deals and doorbusters.  How can a visitor connect with the shopping options in North Dakota?  The best way is through the convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) in major cities.  North Dakota Tourism links to all CVBs and Chambers on the official travel website, but to make it one-click easier – here are the major cities.  Don’t forget to check out travel specials and packages!

• Bismarck-Mandan
• Dickinson
• Fargo
• Grand Forks
• Jamestown
• Minot
• Williston

La pereza de ayer la he cambiado por la hiperactividad de hoy, he aprovechado el día soleado que ha salido y temprano en la mañana me he ido a correr, tengo que adelgazar los 8 kilos que he cogido desde que llegué a Berlín hace casi 7 meses, kilos ganados de una forma nada despreciable, se los debo a los bretzeln, a los spritzkuchen y todos los kuchen (dulces) habidos y por haber, a las wurst, a los kebabs, a la cerveza y sobre todo, a las tostadas con nutella de por las mañanas.  No me arrepiento de esos kilos de más pues disfruté mucho ganándolos, pero ahora me empiezan a molestar cuando veo que toda mi ropa de invierno del año pasado prácticamente no me entra. Así que al principio por una cuestión más de que economía que de salud y estética, decidí que tenía que terminar con el hábito más largo que he tenido desde que llegué a esta ciudad: la de comer de todo a todas horas. Espero mantenerme firme, aunque a veces en un ataque de dictador quisiera mandar a cerrar todas las panaderías, dulcerías y similares de la ciudad. 

Después de correr durante casi 1 hora me duché y cogí la bici rumbo a Rosenthaler Platz para encontrarme con Thaty, mi amiga brasileña que conocí nada más llegar mientras iba a la Volkshochschule a aprender alemán. Hace 2 semanas que no nos vemos, todo un récord pues solemos vernos con bastante frecuencia, pero desde que yo no voy a la escuela se hace más difícil. Decidimos entrar a la cafetería del Circus, el Hostel donde hace años cuando vine por primera vez a Berlín me hospedé, buenos tiempos aquellos, buenos recuerdos también. Nunca más he vuelto a entrar, y eso que paso por aquí casi a diario.

Los domingos tienen un buen desayuno en la cafetería, un buffet bien surtidito por sólo 5 euros, mucho mejor que muchos brunch de la ciudad que alcanzan los 8 y 9 euros.

Conversamos, nos ponemos al día después de tantos días sin vernos, se siente bien cuando te das cuenta de que has encontrado personas importantes en este nuevo viaje, personas que hacen que Berlín sea más excitante, pero también más cálido, menos gris y con más color. Mi amiga me cuenta de lo peculiares que le parecen los hombres alemanes, sus costumbres, lo diferente que son respecto a los hombres brasileños cuando les gusta una mujer e intentan conquistarla. Pero esto será otro capítulo…

Salimos a la terraza a tomar el sol y beber café, necesito la cafeína, llevo días sin tomar café con cafeína y mi cuerpo lo siente, estoy con un sueño perenne.

Tras la charla bajamos hasta Oranienburgerstr. donde Thaty ha quedado con una nueva Tandem Partner que va a conocer. Yo sigo en la bici rumbo a Tiergarten, me apetece aprovechar el día y pasear por ahí, perderme un poco por zonas por las que no paso regularmente.  

Bordeo el Reichstagufer, un camino que hay junto al río Spree, paso cerca de la Haus der Kulturen der Welt, paro, hago algunas fotos, sigo y paso frente al Schloss Bellevue -donde vive Angela Merkel- y luego me acerco hasta la Siegessäule, la columna de la victoria que conmemora la victoria de Prusia sobre los daneses en 1864. Justo a uno de los lados de la rotonda se encuentra el monumento a Bismarck, he pasado por aquí algunas veces pero nunca me he parado a mirarlo, así que aprovecho hoy para verlo con calma. Me impacta la figura de un hombre que lleva un orbe sobre su espalda, hay un gran dramatismo en su postura, en su rostro. Continuo mi camino por la Altonaerstr. para ver los edificios del Hansaviertel, un barrio que fue construido a finales de los años ‘50 por importantes arquitectos del momento como Walter Gropius, Oscar Niemayer o Alvar Aalto.

Paseo junto a los edificios muy detenidamente, fijándome en cada detalle, adoro la arquitectura, y el proyecto que se creó aquí en 1957 fue todo un ejemplo de arquitectura racionalista y funcional, en el que se da prioridad al confort, a las necesidades de habitabilidad del espacio, se aprovecha la luz al máximo y a pesar de ser edificios predomina la horizontalidad, los ventanales, las plantas poco compartimentadas. 

Vuelvo a coger la bici y esta vez me aventuro hacia Charlottenburg, un barrio al que voy bien poco. Tengo que confesar que Berlín oeste me gusta poco, no encuentro el Berlín que a mí me gusta en esta parte de la ciudad, podría ser cualquier barrio en cualquier ciudad, pero no “mi Berlín”. Llego a la Ernst-Reuter Platz y subo por la Otto-Suhr-Allee, y confirmo mis sospechas, no me gusta el barrio, me parece muy impersonal, con poco encanto, pero sigo hasta la Luisenplatz y por primera vez que yo recuerde paso por delante del Schloss Charlottenburg, uno de los palacios que los Hohenzollern tenían en Berlín. Ahora se pierde un poco la perspectiva de la fachada desde la calle pues han montado unas casetas para el tradicional mercadillo de Navidad de todos los años. Parece mentira, estamos a mediados de noviembre y ya hay mercadillos de Navidad, y aún falta más de un mes, con este tipo de cosas las fechas como estas dejan de ser algo especial.

Bajo luego hasta la Ku’damm, hace tiempo que no vengo por aquí de hecho esta semana quiero hacer algún paseo por la zona para explorarla más a fondo, pero de día. Ahora ya es noche cerrada y tras casi 4 horas pedaleando por la ciudad empiezo a tener ganas de volver a casa.

The media loves narratives, so strap in and get ready for the ride. Election Day 2009, featuring gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, fell almost a year after Barack Obama’s election. The media will sense that the ’09 elections could serve as a convenient backdrop for assessing the president’s tenure, a sort of “referendum” on his policies. This is a shortsighted move.

Last November’s “change mandate” will be a millstone around the White House’s neck for several days. As the pundits and commentators discuss the administration’s progress on important issues, they will inevitably come up disappointed with the pace and tenor of the president’s policies. On many fronts, President Obama is perceived as moving too slow, or not at all.

Foreign policy has been particularly hard for liberals and media buzzards to swallow. Guantanamo Bay will likely be open a year after the president vowed to close it within that timeframe. U.S. troops are still in Iraq and leaving slowly. The administration has not reversed several Bush administration policies on detainees. Afghanistan is likely to see more boots on the ground soon.

The domestic front poses many challenges as well. The economy, saved from freefall by the stimulus package, is still anemic. Job losses have slowed, and the third quarter saw encouraging numbers, but Treasury Secretary Geithner admits the recovery is “choppy.” Efforts to beef up financial regulations have met obstacles.

To the media, who fell hard and fast for Obama, this is all disappointing. The public is disillusioned, too. But to people who realize that governing is a messy business, that the world is a complex place, and that the perfect should never be the enemy of the good, it makes sense.

The president has begun the long work of fulfilling his vision for change under unenviable circumstances. This president’s congressional Democrats, elected in 2006 and 2008 by winning in conservative districts, are far more conservative and wily than their predecessors. This reality, coupled with a total lack of good-faith bipartisan effort from Republicans, has made passing sweeping legislation difficult.

The country’s condition at the end of the Bush era must also be recalled. As Bush exited, ¬thousands of families had lost their loved ones in war, millions of people were without jobs, and foreclosure had seized homes across America. The nation was a shambles.

And yet here we are, madly weaving narratives. A media narrative is something like a Hollywood synopsis: “country meets president, country falls in love with president, country falls out of love with president.” Narratives are convenient storylines for journalists. If a story can be put in a box, it’s easier to talk or write about.

With a narrative woven around the president’s struggles and setbacks, yesterday’s election results are now much easier to parse and comment on. They fit into the narrative of a candidate whose rhetoric doesn’t match his governance, or a country that’s fallen out of love with their Commander-in-Chief, or an All-American favorite: the comeback (Republican Party).

Two truths must now be retold. First: as Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible. To pass a stimulus package, certain things were dropped, and to succeed in Afghanistan, more troops may have to go. To get to 60 votes in the Senate, the public option on health care might have to be modified.

These seem like unsatisfactory compromises or disappointments to many. But the prospect of doing a little good instead of a lot should never kill needed progress. The late Senator Ted Kennedy believed this, and recognized a crucial truth: there are too many workers without health care, too many parents without jobs, and too many children breathing dirty air for our leaders to be inflexible. With so many problems facing the people of the nation, stubbornness is a sin.

The media could remind the public of this, but they won’t. Instead, they will spend time talking about who lost, who won, and what points were scored. They will take complex issues and throw them in narrative prison cells to rot. The coming mindless chatter and idle speculation is why so many people hate the media.

Luckily, the media is not God. Their power to influence public perceptions is matched by reality’s power to affect daily lives. If the stimulus works, if jobs come back, if health care reform brings down costs and helps businesses, then the political circuses won’t matter. Nothing talks like results.

The president and his advisers probably realize this. They have constructed a political strategy that maximizes the president’s strengths, like fundraising and oratory, in order to keep his and the party’s numbers up. But Rahm Emanuel and Company also recognize that although you have to take some hits now, the fruits of good policy will ripen in time for 2012, if not 2010.

President Obama is a figure skater. He’s unflappable, deftly twirling above the madness below. On the outside, he makes it look easy. On the inside, his mind might be working overtime to throw his next triple axel, or it might be focusing on how the crowd is reacting. Let’s hope it’s the former. Let’s hope, as a veteran of Chicago politics, Obama remembers the late Richard J. Daley’s admonition: good government is good politics.

Often what used to be called ‘diplomatic history’ is filled with details of intent that, while important, are usually boring, such as did so-and-so intend such-and-such a note to be offensive to some other country. On occasion though these convoluted issues of intent are engrossing and legitimately important. The one that has struck me recently is the contested issue of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen candidacy for the throne of Spain and the infamous “Ems Telegram” of 1870, leading to the Franco-Prussian War. The issue was this. The Spanish throne had been vacant for some time, and, although it is unclear for how long the idea had been brewing, Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was offered the throne in June 1840. A relative of the Prussian ruling house in Spain being unacceptable to France, the foreign minister, the duc de Gramont, delivered a belligerent address to the legislative body on 6 July that seemed premised on the notion that the other powers would help in quashing these Prussian pretensions. The candidacy was withdrawn on 12 July. Yet in France what was a considerable diplomatic victory was either not recognized as such or was not thought enough by Gramont and Napoleon III. Count Benedetti, the French ambassador to Prussia, was at Bad Ems at the same time as King Wilhelm I, who was himself privately opposed to the candidacy and to creating an unnecessary stir with France. Gramont pushed Benedetti to extract from the King his renunciation of the candidacy in the name of the Kingdom of Prussia and to promise that it would not be attempted again. This was too much for Wilhelm to swallow, but his response was still polite and left a considerable door open for negotiation.

This had occurred on 13 July. The King’s secretary Heinrich Abeken wrote a summary of the incident and sent it to Bismarck in Berlin with permission to release it to the press. As the story goes, Bismarck, with Roon and Moltke at the time and distraught over the seeming collapse of his French policy now that war seemed to be averted, was revivified by the telegram, whereupon he edited it, reducing the King’s conciliatory phrases and making the whole affair seem much more insulting to the French and also to Germans than it had actually been. It was then sent to the press and spread to foreign embassies, arousing German opinion against the seemingly importunate Benedetti and France and the French against an outright Prussian insult. France declared war on the 19th.

With this background we can better assess the issue of diplomatic intent. In this case it revolves around what role Bismarck had in the candidacy issue and, if he did have one, what his intentions were for it. It is a particularly interesting but also vexing problem, as based on the same evidence different historians have made entirely different explanations. The reason I find this troublesome is because these explanations are not assertions of opinion or interpretation, where one would expect to find often contradictory views, but rather are explanations of what, in the authors view, did or did not happen in a factual sense.

The issue starts with Bismarck himself, who at the time distanced himself from the Hohenzollern candidacy but not long after, and especially later in life, sought to fully stake his claim as the man who welded Germany together by stating that he had engineered the entire dispute with a view to defeating France and drawing the south German states into the North German Confederation.*1  As with any memoirs or recollections by historical actors, one has to be careful in taking Bismarck at his word. One historian who does not believe him is the indefatigable A.J.P. Taylor, who argues in his biography of Bismarck and in The Struggle for Mastery in Europe that there is no evidence that Bismarck worked for a war with France that summer, that if he had intended this fiasco to erupt into war he would have been at Ems with the King, and that overall his behaviour was ‘…improvised and is only consistent with the explanation that the crisis took him by surprise.’ This is demonstrated by the fact that when the Ems telegram arrived he was also working on a plan to present an ultimatum to France hoping to provoke a war.*2

Taylor, although a tremendous historian of insight rarely read in most works on international history, was also given to exaggeration and near fabrication in some of his works. Other historians have taken the exact opposite approach. William Carr argues that Bismarck, who claimed he had heard nothing about the candidacy issue until July, was well aware of it since February and sought a definite advantage by it.*3  Otto Pflanze, in his excellent first volume of Bismarck and the Development of Germany, states that Bismarck was directly involved in the candidature (while maintaining a facade of non-involvement)  which was a policy meant to set Prussia on a collision course with France, either to provoke a war or a diplomatic victory for Prussia. Part of his explanation for his certainty is is thoughtful yet still questionable: how could Bismarck, perhaps the greatest foreign policy practitioner of the century, who had handled prior crises with such aplomb, have allowed this situation to develop to the point where, as Taylor argues, he would be surprised and forced to improvise.*4  This is a compelling point, as it is somewhat hard to believe that Bismarck would, first, not be aware of the candidacy and, second, not once aware be totally alive to the explosive potential it would have on relations with France. At the same time, it does play too much into the myth of Bismarckian infallibility. Certainly he was a genius of diplomacy, but that is not to say that he could make mistakes, however unlikely they might be.

So what was Bismarck’s role in the candidature and what were his plans for France in the spring of 1870? Unclear, and likely to remain that way, although there seems to be evidence of Bismarck’s hand in the whole affair. Regardless, even supposing he was directly involved, what his intention was is entirely unclear. Pflanze’s explanation again seems the best. Most likely he had every possibility in mind. Bismarck’s goal remained fixed, but there were many roads to it. He was always careful to, whenever possible, keep as many roads open as possible, following the most dangerous one only as a last choice. Therefore that spring he likely intended to humiliate France, with war being one option.

But as to the issue of whether the candidacy crisis came as a surprise or whether it was one of Bismarck’s well laid plans, I suppose we must refer to the name of this blog and imagine that someone must be inventing at least part of their story.

B.E.L.

*1 William Carr, The Origins of the Wars of German Unification. Longman, 1991, 180.

*2 A.J.P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman. Hamish Hamilton, 1955, 115; The Struggle for Mastery in Europe. Oxford, 1954, 205 n. 2.

*3 Carr, 180.

*4 Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Vol. I: 1815-1871. Princeton, 1990, 446-462.

A new journal on the history of antisemitism has just appeared, featuring a stellar advisory board of scholars, and purporting to be philosemitic and pro-Israel. It is part of their intellectual mission to distinguish antisemitism from “prejudice” or “racism, ” but also to attack the theory of “totalitarianism” that would equate Nazi and Soviet forms of terror. Clemens Heni, one of their authors and a founding member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East,  in his blog “The Prague Declaration, Trivialization of the Holocaust, and Antisemitism,” argues that the moral equivalence of Stalinist and Hitlerian murder denies the uniqueness of the Holocaust; indeed that habit is taken to be a mini-form of Holocaust denial! As if Stalin had not had his own plans for the Jews, embodied in the Doctor’s Plot and cut short only by his death in 1953. (For details on Soviet treatment of Jews during the second world war, see Niall Ferguson’s War of the World.)

       You can find the first issue at http://jsantisemitism.org/pdf/jsa_1-1.pdf. I have read Dr. Heni’s article,  “Antisemitism as a Specific Phenomenon,” who writes of the irrationality of antisemitism:  “No group of people but the Jews has ever been singled out and blamed even for opposite developments, such as both capitalism and communism, and being weak-willed but powerful enough to take over the planet.” (Heni took his degree in political science, and was for a year a post-doctoral researcher at YIISA (The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism. One of his two books is Salonfähig der Neuen Rechten–a sarcastic title indicating that the author is writing from somewhere on the Left.)

           It is my view that we are in the murky territory of the moderate men again. It depends on what we mean by rationalism and irrationalism. “Irrational” suggests to me that the theory of projection, advocated by social psychologists allied to moderate conservatism, is in play. (See my prior blog on Adorno’s harmonizing of Freud’s theory of incessant conflict, substituting in its place of constant struggle to achieve civilized behavior, a ”balance” between id, ego, and superego; the happy outcome would be ”genuine liberalism;” see that chapter in The Authoritarian Personality and http://clarespark.com/2009/08/25/t-w-adorno-and-his-funny-idea-of-genuine-liberalism/. In other words, what is presented as a bold new approach to the history of antisemitism is probably yet another defense of “moderate” statism, hence the outrage at equating Nazism and Stalinism. Nazism is usually hung on “the Right” or “fascist Republicans” by  Stalinists. But see R. Palme Dutte blaming social democrats in 1934, prior to the Popular Front.)

   Take the quote from Heni’s article, above, describing the “irrationality” of antisemitism for confusing capitalists and communists–a claim I have seen countless times elsewhere. Convinced antisemites had no trouble with this supposed cognitive dissonance: Gentlemanly organic conservatives understood that atheistic science-plagued modernity had bred lucre-loving capitalists, and then in reaction to their [typically “Jewish” capitalist greed and exploitation] communism raised its ugly head. The solution to the onset of a disenchanted modern world would be a Christianized capitalism. Look no further than Christian Socialism, Bismarck’s welfare state, the Fabians in Britain, Rerum Novarum ( the encyclical issued by Leo XIII in 1891)  or the social gospel movement in America, followed here by populism and progressivism. Hitler himself advocated a “third way” between capitalism and communism,* meanwhile opposing “Jewish Bolshevism” in the Soviet Union as a mere front for “finance capital” and not socialism at all. My point is that these mostly European movements were reacting against the displacement of an aristocratic elite by the new men—the moderns, whose elevation of hard science, hard work, novel financial instruments, and free markets threatened the property and lifestyles of the landowning class and  their employees, dependents, and allies. In Britain, Young England represented a coalition between aristocrats and the working class against the rising industrial bourgeoisie (see Disraeli’s Sybil, or The Two Nations for their outlook).

    So far I have mentioned as examples of rationality (as opposed to ostensible antisemitic irrationality) the Third Way of the moderate men. But think now of the benefits to Nazis and other antisemites if the Jews were either removed from their regions (as in Israel) or from their nations (as in the Third Reich): the expropriation of Jewish property and the elimination of Jewish rivals in business and the professions, or relief from the unpredictable chaos brought about by political and technical innovations in general, let alone the restless and “skeptical” Jewish mind that so frazzled Hitler and probably Stalin. Think especially of antisemitism as backlash against the emancipation of the Jews after the French Revolution, with all the reasons just mentioned.

*[From Hitler's Table Talk:] The English have to settle certain social problems which are ripe to be settled.  At present these problems can still be solved from above, in a reasonable manner.  I tremble for them if they don’t do it now.  For if it’s left to the people to take the initiative, the road is open to madness and destruction.  Men like Mosley would have had no difficulty in solving the problem, by finding a compromise between Conservatism and Socialism, by opening the road to the masses but without depriving the élite of their rights.  Class prejudices can’t be maintained in a socially advanced State like ours, in which the proletariat produces men of such superiority.  Every reasonably conducted organization is bound to favour the development of beings of worth.  It has been my wish that the educative organisations of the Party should enable the poorest child to lay claim to the highest functions, if he has enough talent.  The Party must see to it, on the other hand, that society is not compartmentalized so that everyone can quickly assert his gifts.  Otherwise discontent raises its head, and the Jew finds himself in just the right situation to exploit it.  It’s essential that a balance should be struck, in such a way that dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives may be abolished as well as Jewish and Bolshevik anarchists….(Jan. 27, 1942, p. 253).

 [Illustrated: Picasso’s La Dama de Azul, with the Pierrot mask as I read it]

File this under incompetent leaders of great states, right next to George W. Bush: 

The Paris of today that everyone dreams about was given to us in the 1860s and 70s by this man, Napoleon III, and his civil servant, Baron Haussmann.  His reign began in liberal democratic enthusiasm, progressed to despotism by way of coup d’état, and ended in dismal, utter, spectacular, and mind bogglingly stupid failure. 

He was manipulated into provoking a war with Prussia, convinced he would win in a walkover.  Bismarck, Prussia’s leader, couldn’t have asked for a more pliable victim.  The military catastrophe is chronicled in the first part of Zola’s book, The Debacle.  thousands of desparately hungry, exhausted soldiers marching to and fro over the French landscape, despondent and demoralized as they realize that they are being led by a gang of complete idiots. 

Think of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 without the wild hilarity, and you’ll have a notion of what I’m reading now.  In the film, The Life of Émile Zola, there is a scene early on in which the general staff is incensed at Zola about this book – they are out to get him. 

After the disaster came the Paris Commune, with its murder, insurrection, and brutal suppression.  Then, as time heals all wounds, socialist, communist, and liberal came together across their political differences to slake their thirst for revenge (la revanche!)  against Germany.  Much to the consternation of some leftists, dreaming of international solidarity, the worker’s parties supported France’s lunge into WWI – the time to regain lost territory had come at last.  More lambs to the slaughter.

No Saúde, SA discutem-se as vantagens e desvantagens dos sistemas de saúde beveridgianos e dos bismarckianos. É um pouco como discutir o sexo dos anjos.

Dá um ar intelectual que se farta, mas apenas lança nuvens de fumo sobre o problema. Quer um monopólio de Estado na saúde ou não? Respondeu sim? É beveridgiano! Não se preocupe que isso passa com a idade, é como o acne.

Respondeu não? Vamos conversar…

Os sistemas bismarquianos baseiam-se em seguros sociais e respeitam a separação entre o financiamento e a prestação de serviços de saúde. O principal paradigma é, obviamente, o sistema de saúde alemão. Uma espécie de Mercedes Benz, quando comparado com o Trabant que é o NHS inglês.

Mas não temos de nos limitar na análise, há muitas outras possibilidades e combinações e permutas de possibilidades. Usemos a imaginação e a razão.

Analisemos os argumentos britesianos, a favor dos monopólios de Estado na saúde:

“As vantagens dos sistemas com SNS têm a ver com a universalidade da cobertura, a maior equidade de acesso, a maior capacidade de controlar o crescimento dos custos. Mas apresentam, pelo contrário, maior rigidez, menos capacidade de inovação, ineficiências microeconómicas e menor atenção às preferências individuais”.

Ora bem, todos os sistemas de saúde europeus, baseados nos seguros sociais, oferecem cobertura universal, equidade no acesso e capacidade de controlar o crescimento dos custos (através de negociações e acordos entre financiadores e prestadores). Assim sendo, sobram apenas as desvantagens.

Se só existissem duas possibilidades e eu tivesse de escolher… já adivinharam, guardem o Trabant, eu fico com o Mercedes.

Joaquim

      Además de un extraordinario novelista el portugués Eça de Queirós ejerció de periodista publicando numerosas crónicas desde sus destinos diplomáticos. Editorial Acantilado recopiló diversos trabajos que escribió desde Londres bajo el título “Cartas de Inglaterra“. Voy a resumir una de estas cartas por su enorme carga premonitoria. Escribe el portugués:

          “En Alemania, el motivo del furor antisemita es simplemente la creciente prosperidad de la colonia judía … que gracias a su actividad, a su constancia y a su disciplina, está haciendo una competencia que triunfa sobre la burguesía alemana. Las altas finanzas y el pequeño comercio están igualmente en sus manos. El judío es el que presta a los estados y a los príncipes, a él hipoteca sus tierras el pequeño propietario. En las profesiones liberales todo lo absorbe: es el abogado con más causas, y el médico con más clientela … Pero si la riqueza del judío le irrita, la ostentación que el judío hace de su riqueza le saca fuera de sí … El judío es el más fuerte, el judío triunfa. El deber del alemán sería ejercitar sus músculos, agudizar el ingenio, esforzarse, esmerarse también para ser el más fuerte. No lo hace así; en lugar de ello, se vuelve miserablemente, cobardemente, hacia el Gobierno, y pide, en grandes pliegos de papel, que al judío le sean retirados los derechos civiles, porque el judío es rico y porque el judío es fuerte … Alemania sufre y murmura. La prolongada crisis comercial, las malas cosechas, el exceso de impuestos, el pesado servicio militar, la decadencia industrial …. Para calmarlo y tenerlo ocupado, lo que mejor le iría al canciller Bismarck sería una guerra, pero no siempre se puede fabricar una guerra, y empieza a ser preocupante enfrentarse con una Francia bien preparada … Conque, a falta de una guerra, el príncipe Bismarck distrae la atención del alemán hambriento, dirigiéndola hacia el judío enriquecido …”

       Y Alemania tuvo sus dos guerras mundiales, que perdió,  y los judíos su Holocausto.

        El artículo de Eça de Queirós está firmado el día 7 de Enero de 1.881.

         Los pueblos están condenados a cumplir su destino, por muy estúpido que éste parezca; y ello aunque se vea venir y los intelectuales lo adviertan.

Hey all!

I hope everyone is doing well lately! It’s been quite a while since I’ve made a ‘real’ post on here, so it’s time!

Let’s see…It’s definitely getting colder around here. Just about a week and a half ago we were in the mid 80’s still, but now we’re lucky if we break the 40 degree mark. It’s amazing how FAST it cools off here. In Maine, it’s nice because it’s a gradual decline…here it’s not so gradual, haha. We don’t have a real ‘Fall’ season – it goes from Summer to dead in no time at all. But, I survived last Winter here, so we’ll get through this one too!

Work is going pretty well. We’re still not very busy, but that’s alright I guess. We’ve had one new person come up from tech school and another on his way from Japan in the next few weeks as far as I’m told. Our manning is pretty low at the moment and we still have people who are going to be leaving within the next couple of months – so it’s going to be interesting to see how we squeeze by.

The last couple weeks I’ve been on a HUGE health kick. I’ve had absolutely nothing but water every day to drink, I don’t snack at all throughout the day and when I eat a meal, it’s usually tiny just to get me by. I’m just finishing my first bottle of Xenadrine Ultra, and I just ordered a bottle of Hydroxycut to finish out my 45 day program. Since I got here to the base I gained about 15-20 pounds, and I’m determined to lose it by the time I visit back home at the end of December. It’s not really noticeable, I’m still a skinny bag of bones, but I definitely belong back in the 145-155 pound range.

I think on Sunday, the new person in my office and I are going to Bismarck for the afternoon. I want to swing by Buckle and check out what they have for clothes for the New Years Eve party. Speaking of New Years, Mike and I can’t wait! This year I’m dragging his ass out with me for the celebration. This will be my 3rd year celebrating it at retro, assuming I make it back in time – but I think I will.

Well, I think that’s about it for now! I was trying to get a new video blog up last weekend but had no motivation to finish it, so maybe that’s what I’ll work on Saturday…? Who knows right now, haha! Oh, and one last thing – my procedure went well last week – the stitches are all out and everything is good!

Have a great day!

The Minnesota crew, 2008

Tonight, we’re expecting a group of men from Minnesota to ring the doorbell at our house.  This is an annual voyage.  A manly type of event.  You see, it’s hunting season – undeniably one of the most popular times of the year in North Dakota.  My husband and his buddies load up the dogs and the gear and will be in pursuit of geese, sharptail and maybe even a walleye.  That’s the thing about North Dakota, it’s bountiful for many reasons and on a three-day adventure you can have three different pursuits.  I just read a column, written by Sam Cook of the Duluth News Tribute, which talked about the friendliness hunters find in North Dakota too.  Thanks Sam; be sure to visit again soon!

For information on public lands available to hunters (PLOTS) in North Dakota, seasons, licensing and regulations, visit the North Dakota Game and Fish Department website.  And most of all:  Good luck!

It’s a long weekend for our friends in Canada and we know some of them have traveled south to enjoy some shopping and fun!  North Dakota is the 10th most visited U.S. state by Canadians.  We have a lot of fun with our neighbors to the north, along with some friendly hockey and curling rivalry!  This post helps connect visitors to shopping and dining information in our biggest cities.  Remember, CVB and Chamber sites can give you detailed community information.  Happy Thanksgiving Canadians!  Bismarck-Mandan CVB • Dickinson CVB • Fargo-Moorhead CVB • Greater Grand Forks CVB • Minot CVB • Williston CVB

Louis si alzò, prese l’ultima birra dal frigo e bevve a canna, a piccoli sorsi, in piedi. No, non ci cascava. Che la sua mente si accanisse sul fronte delle astuzie domestiche era un segnale da non sottovalutare. Per la verità lo conosceva bene: era un segnale di disfatta. Progetti falliti, idee in ritirata, considerevole miseria mentale. Non era tanto quel suo pensare alle scarpe a preoccuparlo: può capitare a tutti di pensarci così, di sfuggita, senza farne un dramma. No, il problema era che riusciva a trarne piacere.

Louis trangugiò due sorsate. E poi le camicie: aveva pensato di sistemare anche quelle, non più di una settimana prima.

Insomma, era proprio la fine. Solo chi non sa più che diavolo fare si preoccupa di riorganizzare da cima a fondo l’armadio, non potendo mettersi a rassettare il mondo. Louis posò la bottiglia e andò a esaminare quel dannato giornale.  Perchè in fin dei conti era a causa di quegli omicidi se si trovava sull’orlo della catastrofe domestica, di un radicale riordinamento della casa. Non era Bismarck, no. Anzi, Bismarck gli dava da vivere senza creargli troppi problemi. Non era quello il punto.

Il punto erano quei maledetti omicidi. Due donne assassinate in due settimane, di cui tutto il paese parlava e alle quali lui non faceva altro che pensare, come se occuparsi di quei cadaveri fosse una sua esclusiva, quando invece non lo riguardavano affatto.

Fred Vargas,  Io sono il Tenebroso