Cigarettes for Breakfast, a new novel by Samuel Sulfur

Available Now on Amazon!

Sam Solvierro is a brilliant author and a broken man, conscripted by a messianic devil to bear witness to the end times. 

As society's institutions crumble, humanity surrenders its freedom to its machines in exchange for protection from its own destructive excesses. Sam is shown bits and pieces of the lives of a few influential people whose interconnected paths lead them towards a common but uncertain future, dragging the fate of the species behind them in tow.

This story transcends time, space, heaven, hell, dreams, and reality. As Sam begins to discover that they are all one and the same, his own life begins to change.

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Fear of Crime: An Introductory Survey

 

(Introduction) Crime, as a generally understood concept, involves any voluntary activity which violates a law. With that said, few are very fearful of parking tickets in the way others are fearful of robbery, rape, and murder. Therefore, a discussion of the relationship between fear and crime will, for practical purposes, center itself closer toward the violent end of the spectrum of possible criminal activity, rather than on the side of the more mundane, pedestrian forms of crime. Fear of crime, then, may more accurately be written as fear of violence. However, violence alone is not universally evocative of a fear response. Consider action movies, boxing matches, ball games, and even street fights, where crowds of people watch violence and cheer and gamble with little to no visible evidence of fear at all. The operative component of fear of violence is not of the violence itself, which in many contexts may amount to purely inconsequential spectacle, but rather fear of victimization.

Silent Below: A Cursory Review of Histories of U.S. Submarine Warfare in World War Two

Few subjects in history have garnered as much scholarly attention as the events of the second World War. Of these events, few are more fascinating than the subject of submarine warfare. At the outset, when writing about submarine warfare, there are many questions which might be addressed by historians. How did these awesome vessels come into service, and how did they develop in design and capability in the years leading up to the war? What role did submarines play in shaping the events of that war? How did the lessons of war contribute to the evolution of submarine warfare? How does service aboard a submarine differ from traditional naval service? This brief historiography will attempt to evaluate how these questions were answered by five different historians. Edward Beach tells his story of service on several ships, including the USS Trigger, the USS Seawolf, and the USS Wahoo. James DeRose explains how submarines changed the naval officer corps. Hughston Lowder chronicles the service of the infamous USS Batfish. Rear Admiral Corwin Mendenhall recounts his tours aboard the USS Sculpin and the USS Pintado. Finally, Gregory Mincho documents the tragic history of the USS Pampanito.

Review: Operation Mincemeat

Nazis are dumb. Like flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, and people who think chemtrails are a thing, there are just some people in this world who will stubbornly believe whatever they want to believe. Fortunately for the British, and for all of mankind, the Nazis proved just as gullible as pliable as any group of ethnic-supremacists hellbent on destroying and dominating the world order as any group that ever came before. Maybe the Nazis lost the war because German commanders were too scared of their petulant fuhrer to be honest with him when the chips were down. Maybe they lost because a virtually land-locked and blockaded nation full of fanatics couldn’t possibly defeat thirty million Russian soldiers while living on poverty rations. Or maybe, just maybe, they lost the war because of a handful of clever British spooks who realized early on that the biggest weakness in the Nazi regime was hubris and ego. That’s the premise of Ben MacIntyre’s Operation Mincemeat.

Review: Battle of Britain

Overy, Richard. The Battle of Britain: The Myth and The Reality. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. 177. Reviewed by Steven Harkness

The Battle of Britain was a contest between Germany and Britain for control of the skies over the English Channel in 1940. Adolph Hitler believed that Britain could be made to surrender swiftly, but his air campaign ultimately accomplished very little in terms of German success, and perhaps accomplished a great deal with respect to the ultimate defeat of the sprawling Nazi empire. Richard Overy says that this battle is still celebrated, though its actual impact on the war has been either overstated, or simply poorly understood in general. The battle did not end in a decisive defeat, but it did keep Britain in the war. Likewise, it is widely held, according to Overy, that the battle itself prevented a German invasion on the southern coasts. This also seems to be a historical misrepresentation of the consequences of the battle. These myths and misunderstandings permeate the history of World War II, and the purpose of Overy’s work is to assess the modern understanding of the war, and to dispel some of the rumors and fantasies concerning its significance.

Review: Ghost Army

Kneece, Jack. Ghost Army of World War II. Gretna: Pelican Publishing Co., 2001. 280. Reviewed by Steven Harkness



World War II famously glorified a certain kind of man. The leather-skinned, square-jawed, barrel-chested, all-American athlete, farmboy, or factory worker, as represented by the fatigued Gregory Pecks of the era to American audiences on stage and screen-- those caricatures became stock imagery, and a model of American manhood for the generation to come. Reflecting on the period, one does not as often conjure images of actors, fashion designers, and artists. However, one of the most courageous, clever, (and classified!) Army divisions of all time may well have been just such a group of men. To this reviewer’s knowledge, there still hasn’t been a movie made about them yet, so it is highly likely that general audiences will be wholly unfamiliar with the fighting twenty-third, the Ghost Army. By itself, that alone makes Jack Kneece’s 2001 history of one of America’s best kept secrets (and we don’t keep them well, you know) a rare treasure. But there are lots of other wonderful things to love about this book, nevertheless.

Review: Japan, 1941

Hotta, Eri. Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy. New York: Vintage Books, 2013. Reviewed by Steven Harkness

 

In the due course of educating the successions of generations, western historians tend to focus more emphatically on their own backyards, neglecting, as a consequence, the nuance and intricacy of other nations’ roles in those histories, especially in the evolving narratives surrounding a major conflict. Students, by way of this tendency, often arrive after many years of extensive and deliberative effort, at skewed, distorted, and asymmetrical understandings of their various studies. America’s point of view in the great scheme of things was only a small part of a much bigger puzzle. To unmuddy these waters, one must try to grasp at the many concurrent histories of other participating nations. It is useful, when evaluating the wisdom and motivates of the American government during the period, to also understand the rise and fall of French and British colonialism, of Germany’s age-old rivalry with its European neighbors and it’s own expansionist aims in Africa and Asia, of the Soviet revolution which threw off the Russian monarchy and gathered the slavic nations together into a competitive bloc, and lastly, of the peculiar Japanese interest in displaying the fruits of its decades-long modernization period by way of resistance to western influence in the Chinese civil war and in the Pacific theater in general. For this last journey, Eri Hotta proves a worthy guide.

Review: In the Garden of Beasts

Larson, Erik. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. New York: Broadway Books, 2011, 448. Reviewed by Steven Harkness

In the 1930s, Adolph Hitler succeeded in eliminating political opposition, consolidating power under a violent regime, extracting Germany from the hated Treaty of Versailles, rearming the military, acquiring control of the press and other cultural institutions, annexing Austria, occupying Czechoslovakia, and invading Poland. While the west looked in mixed disbelief through most of these developments, it was the last move that catalysed the worst military struggle in all of human history. Due to Hitler’s stranglehold on the German press, and a general unwillingness on the part of American leadership to take seriously the occasional reports of brutal violence against Jews being directed from Berlin, Americans luxuriated in their own isolationist ignorance and tended to their own domestic crises accompanying the Great Depression. In the midst of these years, a single American ambassador and his family had the dubious privilege of helplessly watching the German government cannibalize itself. His name was William Dodd, and his story is delivered in a masterful and compelling dramatic novel by Erik Larson in The Garden of Beasts.

Cyber Bully: the Self-Perpetuating Cycle

The internet has evolved into a cradle-to-grave platform for social abuse. From the exploitation of small children by sexual deviants, to the pervasive bullying of students, to the radicalization and recruitment of young adults, to the global networks of hate groups and terrorist organizations which receive them, the digital age has failed to achieve the utopian ideals of enlightenment, social justice, and civility. Bullies, of all ages, races, and creeds, flock to the web to find easy targets to victimize, and to locate organizations of like-minded individuals to lend legitimacy and validity to their toxic worldviews. The net also provides them anonymity, and the tools to protect their identities from their victims, from the communities where they live, and from law enforcement agencies who would hold them accountable. And for many groups, the internet offers opportunities to finance those malevolent agendas. What all of these hate groups and bullies have in common is the desire to make someone else’s life miserable, and to use the web to help them do it. This paper will examine a small sample of existing research on the many varied forms of cyber-related abuse.

Research and Technical Writing Guide for the Humanities, Introductory Level

Interns from Louisiana State University and Centenary college shadowed a number of tours given by Nita Cole at the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum during February of 2019. The museum draws tourists and travelers moving through the region, and also hosts educational tours given to student groups from the local community. Visitors find themselves strolling around a large, round path beset on all sides by bright and colorful dioramas which feature scenes from the region’s cultural, agricultural, and industrial heritage. Others attend scavenger hunts, plays, and special exhibits by local artists.

The Curator, Ms. Nita Cole, possesses an inexhaustible reservoir of knowledge which she shares with great enthusiasm. At each stop in the tour, she recalls countless personal anecdotes and memories of the craftsmen who contributed the works and props and artifacts, as well concise histories of the business interests being depicted. Her role as curator allows her to present the many facets of the region’s rich heritage with charm and reverence. But her role as a conversationalist humanizes the exhibits by drawing the audience into a kind of interactive nostalgia, making them travelers of time as well as space.

The New Flying University: Education Outside the Classroom

[Dramatic Opening: For Public Presentation Only!]

Speaker: [softly] “What follows, briefly, is a work of fiction. Do not be alarmed.

[Loudly] “Attention faculty and fellow students! If I may have your attention please. In lue of the scheduled presentation, I have some rather grave news. What I have to say may alarm you, so I ask that you please remain calm and hold your questions. Today, at XX:YYam, our time, a Chinese submarine fired upon the USS John C Stennis as it was conducting routine training exercises near the South China Sea. The captain of the aircraft carrier, following defensive procedures, returned fire by dropping a series of depth charges, destroying the attacking vessel. China has publicly denied responsibility, calling the Stennis’s response unprovoked and declaring a state of war against the US. Our president has responded with a 140 character declaration of war and is presently convening an emergency joint-session of the House and Senate to ask Congress to authorize the use of military force.

“Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has also declared a state of emergency. He has instructed the mayors to begin placing each city under martial law: Due to safety concerns, all forms of mass assembly have been prohibited; mandatory curfews are being implemented; emergency banking protocols are being activated; and grocery stores are being secured by law-enforcement personnel. All campuses, statewide, are being placed under the supervision of the Louisiana National Guard. All classes are hereby suspended until further notice, and the faculty are being furloughed. All able-bodied citizens of military age are being asked to volunteer for active-duty.

The Origins of Fascism and Contemporary Implications.

A century ago, the nations of the world were at each other’s throats. Though peace and normalcy eventually regained a footing for a time, less than two decades would pass before the whole thing collapsed again into violent chaos. The first World War provided the conditions in which ideology metastasized into intolerance which, in turn, was institutionalized in the Second World War. In the present day, the hallmarks of that age-old intolerance are not only visible, but loudly ascendant. The trappings of any coherent or structured ideology, on the other hand, seem conspicuously absent. Anger, Fear, Paranoia, and Prejudice are not the sound basis of any rational philosophy of government, but history routinely demonstrates their unmatched utility in the toolboxes of tyrants looking for popular sanction in pursuit of absolute power.

Religion, Education, and the Species

Primacy and the Subordination of Man: Among all the various flavors of Christian teaching across the many cultures and languages which have embraced it, great differentiation is to be found, from nation to nation, city to city, and church to church, in the specific beliefs which adherents possess. This differentiation results from generational alterations to inherited forms, which themselves were more of the same, caused by innovative interpretations, incomplete inherited forms, omission in subsequent transmission of those forms, and structural changes related to language, region, dialect, usage, etc. Taken together, these many forms are like the proverbial coat of many colors, representing a rich living tapestry of concepts and traditions which provide insight into each contributor’s growth, understanding, disposition, and cultural outlook. Most of these forms are complementary, some are contradictory, but in hierarchical terms, they all share at least one common unifying principle: Primacy. It is a useful signpost for those who accept as gospel the suggestion that all roads lead to God, but it is indeed a stumbling block for those who do not so readily agree.

Review: The Black Side of Shreveport, by Willie Burton

Burton, Willie. The Black Side of Shreveport. Shreveport: Southern University of Louisiana, 1983, 159. Reviewed by Steven Harkness.

With the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln set a race of people free from the indignity of slavery. With the Union victory over the Confederate states, the government promised reform via Reconstruction. With the contentious election of Rutherford B. Hayes though, the political will to carry those reforms forward in earnest fell subordinate to the need for compromise and continuity. Within a generation, the cause of the black citizen passed from pipe dream to political controversy to conflagration to compromise to catharsis. The white man would not help, and would not keep his promises, and could not be counted on for meaningful change. All truth existed on a continuum, and this truth was more true in the south than in the north, more true in the cotton belt than in many other southern areas, and perhaps nowhere at all more true than in Shreveport and its outlying provinces. Here, far from the reaches of the withdrawn and distracted federal government, the black man was in many ways truly alone once more, a defenseless object of scorn and contempt, powerless against the wrath of a defeated society of vengeful monsters. That anyone could survive in such an environment, against such odds, let alone grow, thrive, and prosper, is a miracle which no competent hand in history will ever fully elucidate. The black men and women of this old confederate farm town, however, have routinely demonstrated this miracle again and again over the years, proving over and over the capacity of the human spirit to overcome adversity.

Review: Legendary Locals of Shreveport, by Gary Joiner and Andrew Prime

Joiner, Gary and John Andrew Prime. Legendary Locals of Shreveport. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2016, 126. Reviewed by Steven Harkness.

The most important criticism of Gary Joiner’s who’s-who of Shreveport history is that he isn’t in it. Joiner’s local street-cred as a man of letters is perhaps unmatched in the community. He has authored, co-authored, edited, introduced, collaborated, and consulted dozens of titles. His efforts to preserve and present the region’s cultural history are such that his own role in its development becomes inextricable from any study of the subject. Dr. Joiner has participated in legal contests and radio broadcasts and has aided and advanced the cause of thousands of students, researchers, and curious souls just trying to place themselves in the scheme of things. Gary Joiner is nearly ninety-seven years old and still lectures in the morning!

Review: Shreveport: The Beginnings, by Holice H. Henrici

Henrici, Holice H. Shreveport: The Beginnings. Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1985, 89. Reviewed by Steven Harkness.

When one speaks of “the founders,” one often speaks with reverence and idealized gratitude, as if speaking of noble and worthy men whose steadfast examples of virtue and ethics are the very stuff upon which the roads were laid and the schools were built. It is as though their lives transcend the individual human experience and become models for the conduct and development of the community as a whole. Their words and deeds become mythologized into symbols and philosophies of cohesion and cultural identity. Shreveport was not founded by such men, however. Shreveport was greedy, vicious, and corrupt from day one. To get a taste the ruthless depravity with which a handful of men set about staking out their own claims on the American Dream, it is necessary to look no further than Shreveport: The Beginnings, by Holice H. Henrici,

In broad form, the book tells the related stories of about a half-dozen or so major personalities involved in the city’s early history, men like Dr. Joseph Paxton who studied the matter of clearing the Great Raft and colonizing the town, Captain Henry Miller Shreve, who designed the system of doing so and commanded the effort, Jehiel Brooks, who negotiated the removal of the Caddo Indians, and Larkin Edwards, Angus Mcneil, John Sewall, Sturgis Sprague, Bushrod Jenkins, Samuel and William Beckett, and James Cane, who were among the city’s principal investors. The book makes use of over 100 scholarly sources, including letters, articles, and the historical works of other scholars, including those found in the Louisiana State University Archives. There are a few illustrations, and an index. The chapters are basically organized in a linear fashion, beginning with the Raft, proceeding to the Indian Treaty, and then to the settlers and their initial experiences.

Shots Fired, Souls Forgotten: Gun Crime in Shreveport

On the 9th of October, KSLA News 12 reported that “Police found 20 year old Que’Lexus Hunter and a 1-year old girl, each with a gunshot wound to the leg.” Neither the nation, the state, or the city ground to a halt in disbelief or protest or outrage. According to another source, “Detectives learned that shots were fired into the residence from outside of the home, hitting Hunter and her baby.” Toward the end of these articles, and countless dozens of others, if not hundreds just like it, the reporter will inform the public that any information they can provide to law enforcement regarding the crime or the perpetrators is appreciated. For Hunter, and hundreds just like her, and many hundreds more who were less fortunate, that is where the story ends. The assailants appear and disappear as suddenly, as if apparitions in some Hollywood movie, presumably to live on with naught but the guilt of their actions and a vague fear of punishment as consequence. The KLFY news station website reported on October 2nd that “Detectives arrested 17-year old Jereona Crosby and a 15 year old juvenile on warrants that charge each of them with second degree murder.” Their victim was a Tech Sergeant stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base, and the case remains under investigation. Children are not only the victims of the crime, but are also the perpetrators.

Demetrius Davis was shot and killed on the 1st of October; “Police say both men were involved in a fistfight in a front yard when one pulled out a handgun and shot Davis multiple times then took off running,”. [sic] In these instances the identity of the  assailants is ‘known,’ in the formal sense. However, in the general sense, gun violence in Shreveport has become so commonplace that the victims and their shooters obtain almost complete anonymity. Ask the next three people you see to name the last three people shot in their community. Observe the root of our failure in real time. 

Packaging the Pentathlete: Leadership, Language, and the Liberal Arts

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for me, and some good news for you…” said the raspy voice at the rostrum. “Somebody slipped me some bad whiskey last night, so I’m not gonna be able to make my speech.” (AUSA, 2004) That was Four-Star General and Army Chief of Staff Peter. J Schoomaker, addressing the Association of the United States Army in October of 2004. In an essay entitled “Regional Knowledge Systems,” (Siska/Hummel) Dr. Peter Siska refers to a term he attributes to Schoomaker. Siska uses the term “Pentathlete,” and credits the reference in the notes to Major Kareem P. Montague, who submitted an essay to the General Douglas MacArthur Military Leadership Writing Competition (and, incidentally, received second place). In this essay, Montague attributes the term to Schoomaker as well, asserting that Schoomaker first used the term in an interview with James Kitfield on 29 October, 2018. (Montague) This is true, and it is not true. Just three days prior to that interview with the National Journal correspondent, he had used the term a number of times in his speech to the AUSA. But Assistant Army Chief of Staff, General Dick Cody gave the speech. 

That little detail: it’s true and it’s not true. That just so happens to be a recurring theme in the exploration of this subject. The term Pentathlete means something very specific. And then it means something very specific to Schoomaker, and then something very specific to Montague, and then something very specific to Siska. What is interesting is to observe that all of them essentially believe that they understand, intuitively perhaps, exactly what the other means by the word. And yet they all clearly take away something completely different, as the following examination will try to demonstrate. 

Review: NATO and the United States: An Enduring Alliance

Kaplan, Lawrence. NATO and the United States: The Enduring Alliance (Boston: Twaine Publishers, 1988), 237 pages.

The only thing better suited to sell a book than talent is timing. For Lawrence Kaplan, of the Lyman L. Lemnitzer Center for NATO Studies at Kent State University, these two conditions collided in a perfectly-placed accretion of historical experience and perspective in 1988. His examination of The Enduring Alliance in no way anticipated the climactic fall of the Soviet Union, but was in fact the freshest and most authoritative account of NATO history in print when it collapsed. Did Kaplan have it wrong? Did he miss something? And how does the organization which emerged compare (or contrast) with the NATO Kaplan knew, let alone the one he envisioned? Better reasons than these to read his book include his very detailed narrative fluidity, which transports the reader into the sinews of decades of intricate diplomatic exchange whose causal nuances can not be translated into summary form; his staggering subject mastery of those different eras; and last but not least, his merciful brevity. It is for these reasons and many others that Kaplan’s work is to be reliably discovered in the bibliographic indices of all credible authors who followed in the discipline, to include House, Peterson, and Sloan.

The US NATO Debate: A Review

Magnus Peterson is at once a historian, a political scientist, and a sociologist. If he added to these the role of autobiographer, he would surely tabulate these former positions for the convenience of the reader. In a threadbare analysis of speeches and policy statements by NATO officials, the Obama Administration, Congress, and the so-called ‘media/think-tank environment’ concerning the role of American leadership during the period in NATO’s history as bookended by the Libyan War (2011) and the Ukrainian Crisis (2012), Peterson attempts to make the claim that there is (was) a debate being waged on this subject, though by his own admission, no one with whom he consulted on this matter seems to agree with him. What Peterson describes instead is a sort of soft dissonance in the views and statements originating from the three major headings under which he has organized his sources. Therefore, the truth, which may be summed up in just a half dozen words or so (there is and was no debate), would do a great disservice to Peterson’s efforts. If only he had added the subtitle: Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and dispensed with the cocktail-napkin forward in which he negates his own premise, his book might have been a best seller. At least he might have gotten the typical chapter-by-chapter recap which has been the protocol in this review series. Instead, it is necessary to provide a point-by-point refutation of his concept, methodology, and conclusion.

Permanent Alliance: The NATO Debate from Libya to Ukraine, A Review

Reviewed: Sloan, Stanley R. Permanent Alliance: NATO and the TransAtlantic Bargain from Truman to Obama. (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010) 317 pages.

When in 2016 the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, suggested walking away from NATO, perhaps it wasn’t Trump that was letting the nation down, but the nation failing itself. Historians will lament, whichever way the tide crashes, that at this moment America did not immediately halt in mid-mechination for a sober and conscious reflection on A) the merits and mandates of the NATO construct, B) the quids and quos of American hegemony within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and C) the present pulse of the nation’s sentimentality in matters of interventionism, collectivism, and so forth. For those frenzied, scrutinizing souls clawing in the dark for some comprehension of these and other critical concerns, sans any hope for a productive or even informative national discourse, there is refuge in Stanley Sloan’s professorial (and prophetic) exploration of these very themes.

Review: NATO, In Search of a Vision.

Reviewed: Aybet, Gulnar, and Rebecca M. Moore. Eds. NATO: In Search of a Vision, (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. 2010) 272 pages.

Helen Keller said that the most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but no vision. Gandhi said that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Somewhere in the continuum between these two ideological axioms, we struggle to understand one of the most critical and powerful socio-political-military institutions in all of human history. The North-Atlantic Treaty Organization is at once predicated upon the failed-concept of retaliation as deterrent, and bound by the inestimable limitations of human patience and understanding. As such, it would be dangerous if it lacked the viscosity which otherwise prevents it from being volatile. In practise, its potency at any given time is inversely proportional to its capacity for bureaucratic complexity. While it lords a hostile array of nuclear armaments over any and everyone it perceives as enemy, through most of its history it has operated with a perfect commitment not to use them. But with time, the mission begins to creep, as it always does. Like any good bureaucracy, its operatives yearn for organic growth, which creates a paradox. As NATO’s ambitious peace keeping and collaboration efforts proceed, ideally, those once marked in the enemy's column are gradually brought over into the allied camp, while other relationships with neutrals and collaborators evolve. All the while, the identity of the thing changes, and so too its concept of enemy, and of other. And so it casts a long diurnal shadow, in perpetual motion across the surface of the modern geopolitical sphere. As has been seen by all, the transition from the Communist to the Islamist front has not been seamless. Nor will be the coming procession from Islamism to Cyber war. But what then? And, perhaps more importantly, what else? To elucidate this foggy subject, dozens of professors and officials from around the world have collaborated in this thrifty, if dated, volume; each attempting to carve out a unique view of the implications of NATO expansion, opposition, cohesion, collaboration, innovation, and change. Together, they have assembled in narrow strokes a path of guideposts to aid the rest of us, supposedly the democratic bodies in being, to whom the mission of NATO is itself dedicated, however ambiguous its genuine allegiances may someday become.

Review: A Military History of the Cold War 1944-1962

House, Jonathan M. A Military History of the Cold War 1944-1962, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. 546 pages.


There is something kind of nefarious about NATO. But whatever that something is can be as elusive as the benevolently proverbial white rabbit himself. How does one (beholden and domestic to the modern western security apparatus) begin to articulate the faintest criticism or concern with an organization credited with “keeping the peace” (at least by its own self, that is) for nearly seventy years? Should such an argument even be made? Perhaps. But one must concede that such an argument must be a kind of tertiary one, neither mainstream or counter-cultural. It must be built upon a foundation which itself is laid upon bedrock. Such bedrock is rarely seen, jutting up at the sky and at Time itself, through the dense and deep sediment and topsoil that is the modern military historicity. Jonathan House offers just such a cornerstone work in this herculean survey of two of the most politicized, polarizing, and pivotal decades in all of global history, leading up to and through the day the whole world almost went away.

Cathedrals of Consumption: A review of the proposed federal budget for 2017

Reviewed: The President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget

When George Ritzer (2010) explored modernity in commercial settings, he observed what he dubbed “Cathedrals of Consumption,” or the massive super-structures like Disneyland and the Bellagio and Walmart, where the material needs and wants of entire communities are daily served by highly rationalized, but often curiously attractive and satisfying corporate labor and distribution systems. While Ritzer listed many kinds of these cathedrals, from franchises like Mcdonalds to cruise ships and casino-hotels, he neglected the mother-ship! For economic scope and scale, as well as mystery and methodology, neither Walt Disney, Sam Walton, nor Ray Kroc could hold a candle to the Federal Government of the United States! As evidence, consider budget for 2017, as submitted by President Barrack Obama. Here, almost all of Ritzer's principles converge in one spectacular display of fiscal-phantasmagoria! The setting is the imagination of the sitting chief executive; the consumer is the entire mass of indifferent American tax-payers, businesses, and institutions; and the qualities of “Rationalization, Enchantment, and Disenchantment” (p. 73) can be observed, by turns, in their fullest and most highly-evolved expressions.

Opposing the Oppositional Culture Theory and its Opposition

Reviewed: Downey, Douglas B., “Black/White Differences in School performance: The Oppositional Culture Explanation,” Annual Review of Sociology, (9 April, 2008)
Vol. 34:107-1-6.

In the twenty-first century, the terms majority and minority have become hyper-sensitive trigger words whose very utterance resonate deeply emotional and personal tones among all the octaves of society. It has become impossible to elude or evade the consequences and implications of inequality, whether the roots of it be structurally natural and organic or socially imposed and artificial. One of these consequences is the emerging tendency to view natural outcomes through the lens of conspiracy, assuming ill intentions and malevolent traditions are the principle causes of this adversity. Another consequence is the damaging influence of good intentions on the natural order. Douglas Downey's (2008) reproof of John Ogbu's Oppositional Culture Theory is an example of just such a consequence. Downey makes a common mistake assuming that “eliminating the black/white gap would go along way toward reducing racial stratification.” (p. 108) He fails to consider the implications of his target outcome, which belies the broader trending (and fallacious) instincts of modern scholars who themselves are tasked with solving complex social riddles without surrendering their objectivity. His examination is fascinating, and his careful handling of the delicate subject matter is certainly beyond reproach, but somewhere in the minutia he misses the central flaw in his own perception, ironically similar to the plank he observes in Ogbu's eye: he associates the neutral concept of change with the value-driven concept of improvement. And thus, at the end of his journey he winds up exactly where he expects to be, and so fails to advance any further, which in turn prevents him from comprehending the horrifying consequences which would follow a practical application of his solution.

Effort and Achievement: the Merits of Traditional Methodology

Educational achievement is an elusive concept. Everyone seems to agree that it is a valuable commodity and as such, more is better. From there, however, opinions and approaches are as divergent as can be. Do we want more people to graduate? Do we want higher test scores? To both, a resounding 'sure, why not.' but do we want more school? Do we want harder classes? From most quarters, a hushed and hesitant 'meh...' The easy answer is that we can have more of the first group at the expense of the second group, and common sense suggests that more of the second group will adversely affect the first group.

A functional relationship emerges like a brick wall for us to bang our heads against. Higher test scores and better rates of attrition would certainly follow if we made the classes easier and less frequent. Conversely, lower test scores and less graduates would seem to follow making the tests harder and the classes longer. The only real proven way to increase educational achievement is to reduce the class size. Standardized testing only measures progress, allowing educators to evaluate the existing institution. It plays no role in increasing achievement beyond that of a canary in coal-mine; it just indicates whether or not there is a deficiency in the first place. Increasing the "extended learning opportunities" is essentially just the equivalent of class reduction, in that more educators' time and space is applied to the perceived problem. And making the classes harder is just a surefire way to reduce achievement. (This is why senior and grad level classes are very small, compared to freshman classes)

Micro-consumerism and the looming cultural paradox

So we all understand money is fake, right? It's just paper with no intrinsic value beyond our ubiquitous acceptance of its role as currency. So what happens when our goods and services finally assume that same, immaterial quality that money possesses? Well strap in folks, because we are almost there, and the implications are terrifying (or foggy, at least).

Challenging the Assumptions: Application of Standardized Tests and Technology in Education

In Caddo parish, there are less than ten thousand educators serving over forty thousand students. (Goree, 2015) This ratio may seem high by proportion, but readers are reminded that the number includes teachers, their assistants, administrators, cafeteria and janitorial service, bus drivers, and numerous other support-roles provided by occupations which don't come to mind when thinking of education. In fact, according to one source, actual teachers only occupy about 2500, or a little over a quarter of the whole pie. This brings the literal teacher/student ratio to about 16:1 average. If the widely criticized achievement gap still exists after a certain period under these conditions, it becomes necessary to look beyond reducing class sizes for solutions. In so doing, educators should look to successful systems for new strategies, because differentiation is always occurring, but evolution requires adaption and replication of those successful strategies in order to function. However, educators should also be cautious of their own enthusiasm for new concepts and approaches, so that the critical focus remains upon student achievement and is not lost in theory and abstraction, while keeping grounded firmly in the practical.

Divergent Institutions: Kinship and Education

The overt trends towards liberalization in modern American democracy have drawn the ire of religious groups and conservative politicians in recent years as our post-industrial society drifts further and further away from its agrarian traditions and into a more secularized bureaucracy. These groups are often vocal advocates of specific religious or cultural norms, but quite often they are just individuals who mourn the relentless marginalization of roles and responsibilities which used to belong to the institution of kinship. Though sociologist Jonathan Turner (2008) has suggested that “...historically, the more fundamental relationships among [sociological] institutions has... remained the same,” the evolution of the relationship between education and kinship, as social institutions go, could not have been more divergent. The difference between the roles of kinship in education, then and now, is pronounced. Turner's own work reinforces this assertion.

Legitimacy and Polity: The Bilderberg Group

Welcome to the world's most high-profile low-profile global management social club! This prestigious and controversial conglomerate of investors and policy makers convenes in a different city every year. Attendance is invitation only, and the guest-list is a who's who of international (and multinational) executives from every sociological center. The annual guest list includes heads of state and/or their representatives, C.E.O.s, bankers and finance ministers, former generals and intelligence operatives, Ivy-League professors, top-tier media and news officials, economists...literally the global community's thin, golden, flaky upper-crust. As such, it is a Grand Council Assembly of polity, law, education, and economy (and one assumes at least a plurality of these attendants are in some way religious). But ironically, the single public face of this sprawling web of consolidated elitism is a minimalist website, www.bilderbergmeetings.org , which features no imagery or branding at all and very few words. Add to this absence of transparency the fact that the meetings and guest lists are announced only a few days in advance, journalists and reporters are not invited, and the governments of the host countries provide full security for this event, and the absurd claim that the organization itself and the meetings they conduct do not produce policies, and its easy to see how this has become one of the most controversial groups in human history.

Bayou Economy: An Exploration of Bayou-Generated and Bayou-Sustaining Industries

To those who have not drifted lazily along a glistening mud-bank, sprawled across the flat-bottom keel of a Jon-boat beneath a magnificent canopy of reaching Cypress boughs, illuminated by the fiery oranges and blinding-whites of fractals of shattered light piercing through long-needled Pines, the value of the Louisiana bayou cannot be explained in articulable terms. Likewise, the magnitude of its contribution to the health and prosperity of the state and its inhabitants cannot be measured in dollars or in miles, for neither abstraction can readily accommodate the scale necessary to describe the bountiful abundance which has, so silently, and for so long, sheltered and nourished and sustained its inhabitants.

Tenants of the Hermitage: Louisiana's transition from Whig Republican to Confederate Democrat during the Jacksonian Era.

     

According to the Library of Congress, “the history of the New York Stock Exchange begins with the signing of the Buttonwood agreement by twenty-four New York Stock holders and Merchants on May 17, 1792.”1 Presently, and consistently throughout the nation's history, that city remains one of the world's most potent economic powerhouses. Arguably, this success is largely to be attributed, in some fair measure, to the success of the Exchange. What is perhaps less known is that throughout much of American History Louisiana was New York's most persistent competitor for national economic dominance. Specifically, the city of New Orleans, for all its diversity and charm, was the most able rival, and the longest standing. At the time of this writing, however, the economic disparity between the two cities is striking. The population of the city of New York is twice that of the state of Louisiana, which itself holds, in total, more than ten times the present population of New Orleans.2 This gulf can be explained in many ways, but the roots of the matter must be traced all the way back to a very early period, when either city could have confidently asserted its rightful claim to an inevitably prosperous future.

The Mystery of Vanishing Dissent

The Mystery of Vanishing Dissent, Vol I. Chapter 1: Hubris

On 16 January, 2016, the Louisiana State University of Shreveport hosted a symposium honoring participants in a top-secret and unprecedented international air strike against the forces of Saddam Hussein in 1991. Present were pilots and technicians who had been stationed operated in Barksdale Air Force Base, as well as scholars, photographers, journalists, and family members.

Today I observed a modern marvel of supreme superficiality. A meager convention of portly, aged men, mostly wasps, gathered in a self-congratulatory "symposium" to celebrate their achievements (as stated) in a small college theater. The men, dozens of them, were predominantly air force retirees who wore green shirts to designate their role in the opening volleys of an historic exercise in global air assault, 16 January, 1991, against 35 of 39 targets in Iraq, then ruled by Saddam Hussein.

Three Steps Forward: Why Russia is Winning the Cold War

In October of 1961,[1] Russia took a significant lead in the Cold War. In the long shadows of descending arctic winter, Khrushchev dropped the bomb to end all bombs. It was the Tsar Bomba, the King of Bombs[2], a ringing designation that persists through decades of foggy history like the first rays of light in the east at dawn, piercing the air and the night and signifying diurnal change, but only dimly so. It was the most powerful explosion in all of human history, and one hopes it will remain so for many years to come, but it killed exactly zero people. To many earnest scholars, the event is little more than a footnote in history. To many it was a terrifying but shallow display, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. In the grand scheme of the Cold War, it signified only a blustery show of strength made in desperation by a despotic regime clinging to a failed philosophy. No hill was gained, no flag was planted, and no hand was forced. In that sense, some historians treat the fifty mega-ton thermo-nuclear explosion[3] over Mityushika Bay[4] as a hastily produced and gratuitously expensive act of propaganda. So far as the last few generations have thought it through, consensus seems to be that the outcome of the bomb was the historic Partial Test Ban Treaty,[5] and aside from the novelty of the bomb itself, the bomb is not often discussed as having had a meaningful or lasting impact on the broader course of events. However, when one tugs on this one historical thread hard enough to pull it lose, the constructed tapestry of Cold War historicity begins to unravel. It is the contention of this historian that the significance of Tsar Bomba, in the “greater scheme of things,” has been long neglected by an endless succession of worthy scholars.

One Day in the LIfe of Ivan Deenisovich: A Review

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. trans. H. T. Willets, New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2005, 182 pages.

The greatest conflict within human nature is the struggle for compromise between the needs of the individual and the needs of the community. Science and education are no sure hedge against a perilous loss of balance between the two, but the willing capacity for empathy, called humanity, has long been regarded as the key ingredient to stability and decency. When those characteristics are absent in either man or nation, neither may continue to exist with surety. Against the greatest adversity, all beliefs and convictions are tested. The question emerges, does the man live in the community? Or does the community live in the man? One novel way to explore such a question is to spend One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, where all the pretenses of comfort and civilization have been ripped away with extreme prejudice, leaving only hopeless, desperate, and broken wretches, gun-shy, hungry, and cold. It is the story of a man among such men in whom all the noblest virtues still abide, though the hearts of so many men have frozen around him. When everything else is taken away, what is left but the man? Indeed, it is perhaps only then that the community can be truly seen.

US Policy Towards the Muslim World: A Review

Kidwai, Salim. US Policy Towards the Muslim World: Focus on the 9/11 Period. Washington D.C.: University Press of America, 2010, 309 pages.

Two major challenges which confront Americans in the twenty-first century are the failure to understand the causes and conditions which led to the U.S. entrenchment in the modern Middle Eastern conflagration of endless conflict, and the failure to consider how the rest of the world perceives this involvement. Saleem Kidwai has compiled a series of fourteen essays written by professors at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, which attempt to explain the roots of US foreign policy in the region, as well as the various and highly varied relationships between the U.S and such states as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and India. These authors attempt to trace the historicity of these relationships to their origins in twentieth century war and trade, define the successes, failures, and mistakes of successive American administrations, and offer suggestions intended to aid U.S. policy makers in future decisions about diplomatic objectives in the region. As a side effect, the book is highly informative and very enjoyable to lay-readers and students of the subject, but there are some significant drawbacks to purchasing this edition.

Donald Hickey and the War of 1812

The nation’s foremost authority on the War of 1812, Donald Hickory, gave a lecture to a select gathering of scholars and students of history at Louisiana State University of Shreveport in March 2015. He discussed the causes, course, and consequences of that often overlooked conflict, and presented a thoughtful and well-studied argument that the event deserved as much attention from modern audiences as a historical milestone in America’s birth story as does Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and the storming of Normandy. He swiftly guided the audience through a dazzling array of cultural, political, and military legacies with which modern audiences are readily familiar, but might be surprised to learn how little they knew about. The title of his presentation is “Legacy of the War, Forgotten Conflict: Why the War of 1812 Matters Today.”

The Real State of the Union

"Our music no longer has substance because substance no longer sells. Our TV screens sell us twisted perversions of ourselves. All of our models have been distorted, and all our optimism aborted. We struggle and endless struggle just to struggle to afford it."

We are broken. That's what I'll tell you that they won't. This isn't about politics or policy. It is about our culture, about who we have become and to whom we have surrendered. It isn't about China or Putin, or about ISIS or oil or even our proverbial "way of life" we hear the politicians convince themselves we are defending. It is about what J.K. Rowling called a casual vacancy. It is about an absence of values and bearing that hints at a full-scale reversal of all the spoils of the Great Enlightenment. It is about a permissiveness that has become pervasiveness. It is about decadence that has transcended the realm of decision into destiny. We have committed suicide at the level of collective consciousness. The flakes and gurus and mystics use to sell that stuff in the eighties and early nineties. We were all going to be of one mind and join hands as a species and all that bleeding heart bullshit we used to get stoned and tell ourselves. The TV used to tell us it was all going to work out. One need not channel surf very far anymore to understand that our TV has evolved a completely new outlook concerning the quality and condition of the human character, and we have completely accepted it, seemingly with little to no dissent whatsoever.

Doubt: A Review

Three themes in the movie Doubt are the contradictory roles of faith in modern society, the embattled credibility of the Catholic Church, and the generational rift between staunch conservatism and rebellious liberalism. Sister Aloysius combines inconclusive rumors with a handful of loosely circumstantial evidence to conclude the worst about Father Flynn, and her assumptions of his character are reinforced by the generally accepted associations of the priesthood with pedophilia. As a result, she hangs all of her personal objections to Father Flynn's less-than-orthodox style upon a negative appraisal of his character, and her suspicion of him becomes her own unshakable gospel.
Religious faith requires a belief in the impossible, and therefore, the irrational.

Chicago: A Review

Three main themes in the hit movie Chicago are the sexualization of women as a form of empowerment, the transformation of identity as a solution to practical needs, and the male domination of society. In the film, the main character Roxie Hart desires a life of self-determination that is more fulfilling than her modest, cookie cutter existence as a struggling housewife. She perceives an ersatz vision of this life in Velma Kelly, who wears scant clothing and dances and sings on stage for the entertainment of men. Early on, she holds an unrealistic view of Kelly's sense of empowerment as projected on stage, failing to comprehend that during Kelly's saucy and spirited first musical number, her life is actually crumbling.

In the Beginning...

If Plato, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein were challenged to conspire to create a "Universal Theory of Everything," encompassing the broad spectrum of natural and cosmic history, the realities of the present as they face mankind, and the obvious deductive trajectories of the ever elusive “future,” then these three old ghosts might return in just moments, very clear and calm, and having used most of their deliberative moment choosing which would speak, the winner would concisely report: “We are all going to die.”

EveryDay Stalinism: A Review

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism, Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930's. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 288 pages. Reviewed by Steven Harkness.

For every perceived error of communism, there is an obvious historical equivalent within western democracy. To truly understand this reality, however, one must search beyond the military histories, which deal in belligerent atrocity for land acquisition, beyond the political histories, which deal in intrigue-driven bloodthirsty power struggles, and beyond the religious histories, which impose fantasy and superstition on the natural relationships between cause and effect. To see the grand hypocrisy inherent in the ubiquitous twentieth century ideological feud that was the Cold War, one must stand on the streets of Smolensk, Kiev, Leningrad, and try to sleep in a crowded kitchen corner with no heat or food, and hear the endless confrontations between neighbors, families, local authorities, and even children, as the old wedge of utopian liberalism inspired some, and terrified others. For this, the modern student of history is well-served by Sheila FitzPatrick's Everyday Stalinism. Her thoughtful and in-depth approach to Ordinary Life In Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930's takes that elusive “street view” of the real outcomes of mankind's best and worst intentions, as measured by the only true sociological test of an idea, the people themselves. The result is a hauntingly familiar narrative of misguided optimism, nationalist bravado, and unintended consequences, that bridges the gap between the world's foremost revolutionary peoples, who happen to be still suffering the symptoms of each nation's most debilitating xenophobic ailment: mutual enmity, suspicion, and, in the worst of times, free-wheeling antagonism.

Empire of Ideas: A Review

Hart, Justin. Empire of Ideas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, 279 pages.

Reviewed by Steven Harkness

For general audiences, Empire of Ideas might seem like a tough sell. On the surface, it is the story of some boring old politicians creating dozens of obscure government offices whose mission statements were as vague as they were verbose. During the period examined, certainly more exciting stories were being written of young boys, ages 16 to 22, strapping into wooden gliders without props or lights, being hitched to English planes in the dark of night, to be towed across the English channel and released against large walls Hitler had constructed against just such wild impossibilities. For stories like this, the casual reader may be better suited with Stephen Ambrose's D-Day, June 6,1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. For “chutzpah”, Empire of Ideas might seem wanting. But for the passionate students of history, and for Cold War connoisseurs especially, Justin Hart's definitive exploration of US Public Diplomacy during the Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower administrations offers a clean, well polished, and razor sharp thrill-ride through the most mysterious and poorly understood annals of American History.