“In my case, a third person just led to too much wisdom I hadn’t earned. And I like the first person–just a guy blasting through with the little he knows.”
“A bomb has been hidden, somewhere within this exhibition, set to explode at a time known to the artist alone. While it is not my intention to kill anyone, that risk does exist. I apologize in advance for any injuries, fatalities, damage or other inconvenience that my work, will cause. In this matter I have no choice, being as much a victim of the course of Art History and contemporary politics as those who are hurt in the process. I take consolation in the fact that chance will be entirely responsible for the final statistics.”
Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodileshas taken over my inner world for the last few days. The book is mostly beyond my description, at least right now. It consists of thirteen stories from the point of view of a small boy in a small Galician town, focusing on the fantastical world created by his father — or created by himself in attempting to describe or, perhaps, explain his father.
I’ve never read Schulz before, but I’ve heard the name, I think. It’s kind of been around on the periphery. He’s probably more famous now for his biography, particularly his death, than his writing. This from Wikipedia:
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, as a Jew he was forced to live in the ghetto of Drohobycz, but he was temporarily protected by Felix Landau, a Gestapo officer who admired his drawings. During the last weeks of his life, Schulz painted a mural in Landau’s home in Drohobycz, in the style with which he is identified. Shortly after completing the work, Schulz was bringing home a loaf of bread when he was shot and killed by a German officer, Karl Günther, a rival of his protector (Landau had killed Günther’s “personal Jew,” a dentist). Over the years his mural was covered with paint and forgotten.
Anyway, I heard a day or two ago that he also had a book of erotica out there, devoted to the subject of the voluntary humiliation of men before women. And, of course, I went into a frenzy trying to track down images. The best single source I found is here. I can’t read most of it, but all of the images on this page are tagged “The Booke of idolatry”.
he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,”not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he’ll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he’s been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…”
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn’t eat, he
wouldn’t touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn’t go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn’t work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat–I’d had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
“you can make it,” I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn’t want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he’s better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,”look, look
at this!”
but they don’t understand, they say something like,”you
say you’ve been influenced by Celine?”
“no,” I hold the cat up,”by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!”
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed he knows…
it’s then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.
I tried to stay awake for The Hurt Locker over the weekend, and mostly failed. In large part it was the character of Will James that lost it for me. He’s a renegade . . . but he gets the job done. He’s a stone cold killer . . . protecting and avenging the innocent. I kept thinking that the screenwriter had probably seen Lethal Weapon 3 and decided, hey, this’d make a pretty good war movie. In fact, they even seem to have lifted some of LW3’s lines: “I’m too old for this shit.”
On top of that, I kept wondering how in the hell this thing has gotten a reputation for realism? I get that the standards for authenticity aren’t real high in Hollywood, but I was having trouble not laughing out loud for the entire second half. Nor does it seem I’m alone in that assessment. Brian Mockenhaupt in the The Atlantic, Kate Hoit in The Huffington Post, and Michael Kamber in the New York Times have all rightfully beat the shit out of the movie for being silly.
What got on my nerves the most, though, was the Iraqi sidekick kid. He existed for no purpose that I could see other than to prove to us that James had a heart. That underneath all the bluster he cared for these poor Iraqis, that he wasn’t there to kill them but to save them. And I knew the minute the kid showed up that he was gonna be dead, and he was gonna be dead by the hands of insurgents, not Americans.
Could have been just me, but I found that as gross an example of turning reality on its head as I’ve seen since Rambo. Those million or so dead Iraqi civilians are ours to own. Not on of ‘em would be dead if we hadn’t started that illegal clusterfuck. Putting the only identified civilian casualty in the flick on the insurgents makes for feel-good Hollywood horseshit, sure, but it’s ugly, cheap, and stupid. That’s not to say that individual soldiers haven’t protected Iraqis, but that kind of Hollywood reductionism to good-guy, protective Americans and bad-guy, murderous insurgents is ahistorical, and borderline jingoistic.
Even worse, as symbols go, it’s as subtle as a sledgehammer. It’s just bad writing. The Iraqi insurgents sacrificing their youth to create body bombs? That’s the kind of horribly over-determined shit that should only exist in made-for-television movies and Hannah Montana episodes.
Anyway, not much of a fan. For a more considered post on the film’s failures, see The Valve.
Another commenter, 1st Lt L diablo, also proposes the following:
And never let them in your casa. Even if they have a warrant; make them break the door down (a former LEO told me that; I’m not kidding).
Seriously. Never even open the door for them; they can use any excuse to invent PC (Probable Cause) from sights, smells, noises they have access to once the door is open. Make them break it down.
I’ve never heard that one, but it also makes sense. The fact of the matter is that if they’re at your door, they’re looking for a reason to arrest somebody. And since it’s your house, it’ll probably be you. Not to be paranoid, but the less you give them to work with, the better.
When I started this firearms and self defense project I made a commitment to living by the four rules of gun safety and the five rules of concealed carry. Well, over the weekend, a commenter, Pat, offered this addition to the five rules of concealed carry, and I thought it needed posting.
#6: As soon as you encounter police, regardless of whether you used your firearm or not, exercise your right to silence, and request a lawyer. Immediately.
Like the rest of the Bill of Rights, there’s a reason the Fifth Amendment exists. You can never, ever help yourself by talking to the police. You can only hurt yourself.
Turns out that there was an album made in 1995 for Leonard Peltier that included music from Corrosion of Conformity, Rage Against the Machine, Superchunk, Mike Watt, and the Beastie Boys. Only problem being it was never released. However, one ex-Sony employee has decided to share it online. (Thanks RC.)
The site also has lots of good information on Leonard Peltier’s case, for those who aren’t familiar with it. There aren’t a whole lot of clearer cases of the federal government breaking its own laws in the interest of arbitrary repression.
So, I went up to my shooting spot a couple of days ago for my bi-weekly practice. It’s not a range, it’s pretty much just a pull-off in the Arapaho National Forest, and I usually go during the week, as it gets pretty crowded on the weekend. As usual, I was shooting reloads from Denver Bullets. I’ve been getting most of my practice ammunition from them, as I can’t consistently find what I need to practice on the store shelves.
I’ve also been having some problems with reliability in my 1911. Specifically, its not been going fully into battery the last couple of trips. Pretty much all other problems have disappeared as I’ve passed the break-in period.
But then, this last trip, it started happening with my Glock as well.
I’d been chalking the problems up to horror stories about 1911 reliability, but I’ve never had problems with the Glock. So, I began to pay more careful attention to the individual rounds that were getting stuck. I started to notice a pattern. And then I found the following round, which was impossible to miss.
None of the other rounds were quite that extreme, but every one that caused a problem was shorter. Though I’m through with buying reloads, especially from Denver Bullets, it is nice to know that my 1911 is probably pretty reliable. I still want to put at least 500 rounds through it without a failure before I even think about carrying it, and that’ll take awhile on my budget, but I’m a lot more confident now.
Thanks to James Rummel, who was kind enough to link to my thoughts about hollow points and to rephrase the question about what to use on his own site, I got all kinds of great hollow point recommendations for 9mm carry ammunition. They are:
I seem to remember that Ayoob did a bunch of research, and in 9mm the most consistent one-shot stops came with 115-grain +p hollowpoints, brand didn’t seem to matter much as long as it was a premium-grade bullet like Gold Dot, Golden Sabre, Winchester Ranger, etc.
And this, from James himself, who points out that you have to shoot what you carry to be effective. And he recommends shooting at least fifty rounds a month of the ammunition you’re carrying, every month for a year.
What are the most significant factors of using a firearm for self defense? Reliability and shot placement.
The gun has to go bang. Do you have enough money to shoot off at least 50 of your chosen self defense load at the range to make sure that the gun likes it? One jam during the test and it probably isn’t the best load for your gun.
Shot placement. How do you place your bullets where they will do the most good? Practice! Regular practice!
I usually told my students that they should shoot at least fifty of their defensive rounds at the range, and then do it again every month for a year until they know where the point of aim will be with the chosen loads.
How much does premium hollowpoints cost, anyway? Average is a little bit more than $1.00 per bang, but some of them are more than $3.00 a round!
What do I recommend?
Winchester Silvertips. They work, but are distinctly unremarkable. Lots and lots of more effective choices available. But the cost is reasonable.
Being new to this, I hadn’t even considered the difference in point of aim. My thinking was that I’d just rotate my carry ammunition every three months and do all my practice with cheap hardball. Obviously, I can’t do that. So, I’ll be following James’ advice to the letter, and shooting at least fifty rounds a month of what I’m carrying.
Which means I have to find affordable ammunition.
So, I did a quick cruise of the local big-box stores that sell ammunition and are close enough to my house to be convenient — since whatever I choose has to be available and in stock for awhile. I stopped by Outdoor World, Gander Mountain, Gart Sports, and Sportsman’s Warehouse.
The selection for all of them was still spotty, at best. And what was available ran at least two dollars a round, which is well out of my price range.
Luckily, another commenter, Ludwig, left a link to the invaluable AmmoEngine, where you can price ammunition from multiple sources. So, I cruised through that, and then headed over to Cheaper Than Dirt. I found Federal 9BPLE, one of the choices recommended, for an incredible fifty cents a round (actually, a little less). That’s almost half the price of Winchester Silvertips.
I’m gonna poke around some to see if there’s something I’m missing about this particular brand of ammunition. If not, I think I’ve found what I’ll be shooting. At twenty dollars for a box of fifty, I can shoot a hundred rounds of this a month, on top of Winchester hardball.
I’m doing that thing I do every year or so where I start tinkering with templates. If you stop by and it looks weird, just come back in five — it’ll probably be right back to where it was.
“And, of course, what Bolaño is doing is laughing at the idea of writers–writers of any nationality or galaxy–getting together to talk about literature. In Bolaño’s opinion–then and always–literature should inhabit books, not bars.”
“When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something.”
CNN firearms expert killed in African hunting trip. (Okay, maybe not, but he sure as hell would be if he ever tried to hunt lions or elephants with a .223 sporting rifle.)
I’m posting this mainly so I remember to watch it. Genocide scholar Adam Jones linked to it on Facebook recently — ah, Facebook friends — and recommended it as essential viewing for anyone interested in colonialism/imperialism and genocide.
Tim Barry’s got another song out from his new album 28th and Stonewall. The whole album’s fucking great. I’ve been listening to it in a never-ending loop for about a week now.
All the train hopping footage is real, as far as I can tell. Barry’s got a thing for it. This from Clamor Magazine:
Tim’s first train hopping experience was in 1993 with two friends, Naomi, who was also experiencing it for her first time and Ronny “Richmond” who was actually from Maryland. Ronny had been the experienced rider and had learned all that he knew about riding from his uncle. The ride was from Richmond, Virginia to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. Ronny had told Tim and Naomi to wait under a bridge while he went and talked to one of the rails. He found out the line that they needed and before he returned had already selected a boxcar for the ride. Tim loved it. After riding with others a few more times, learning the basics, and getting the feel for it, Tim began to ride on his own.
A streamline rider is typically equipped with only a bag filled with the essentials: food, water, and enough cash for about a week on the rails, which as you can imagine probably really wouldn’t be that much cash, considering you’re not paying for a ticket, and won’t be spending much time in the dining car. Tim uses his time on the trains to take himself out of his day-to-day life and allow for new perspectives. “Songs will just start popping up when I’m not in my normal [routine]. Everything starts coming together. I’ll write tons and tons of songs before I leave for trips, when I get home, and when I’m on them. It’s very rhythmic. There’s something about the click on the tracks. I find myself writing rhythms and lyrics.”
“Sometimes I feel at peace. Sometimes I feel real paranoid. It’s such a thought progression when you’re on a train. Sometimes I’m like, why the fuck am I on this? Or, this is the best thing in the world. Or, I just want to be home. I just watch. Watch the cotton fields pass. I think it was Duffy Littlejohn [author of Hopping Freight Trains in America] that said, ‘It’s the last red-blooded American frontier,’ and I back him on that.”
This is another post based on Massad Ayoob’s In the Gravest Extreme. It’s also one that I’m pretty sure others have written about far better than I, so I’ll scout around the internet in the immediate future for other writings on the subject and post them.
Pretty much all my life I’ve heard about the self defense courses provided by universities to college-age women. They’re often touted as a kind of feminist activism in and of themselves, or, at least, as a means of empowerment. The reasoning behind that line of thinking is sound, I think. Being able to defend one’s self is and should be empowering. The problem I have, however, especially after reading Ayoob, is that most of what is taught in these classes is useless or worse because women are taught to rely on a series of suggestions that are ridiculous on their face, and told to avoid the one thing that could actually be used to effectively provide self defense.
For instance, women are often told to carry an alert whistle, or other noise-making device. However, as Ayoob points out, the only effect loud noises usually have is to cause folks to shut their windows. I know when my neighbor’s car alarm goes off I just kind of get annoyed until it shuts up. Also, and perhaps more importantly, there is almost no chance that anyone who actually might have the means to help a victim will hear the whistle. Even if someone takes action, it will probably only be to call 911, and, as we all know, there will be plenty of lag time between the phone call and a police presence. Meaning that even if someone hears the whistle/siren and calls the police instead of sensibly ignoring it, that just means the police will find a fresh body and be better able to solve the victim’s murder. This will not be particularly helpful to said victim. Even worse advice comes when women are told to scream like hell. Most any person prone to violently assaulting others is not going to be scared by screaming. In fact, they’re going to expect it, and they’ll probably have some way of dealing with it, like punching the victim in the throat.
The real damage that these classes do, however, is to teach relatively peaceful folks that they can effectively stop a threat from a person twice their size, hellbent on doing them damage or killing them, without weapons. I’ve got nothing against martial arts at all. If you like it, do it. But the fact of the matter is that if a one-hundred-pound person trained in martial arts goes up against a two-hundred-pound person with no training, outside of the movies, that one-hundred pound person is likely to get their head handed to them.
I’ve never been much of a fighter, never boxed nor taken up martial arts of any kind, but I’ve known my share of pretty good fighters. And I’ve known several untrained street fighters who couldn’t count on their fingers and toes the number of serious martial artists they stomped into a puddle for fun. The fact of the matter is that folks who are inclined to visiting violence on other folks for shits and grins are often very good at it. And there’s nothing to say that they couldn’t also be just as trained in boxing or some other martial art as anyone else.
And, with that in mind, it’s worth remembering that what one gets out of college self defense courses is not anything that could be remotely described as serious martial arts training. One of the primary self defense training enterprises offered at colleges, Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) Systems, describes themselves as providing “the basics of hands-on defense training,” and I’d say that’s even pushing credibility. Here’s a promotional video:
I love the instructor’s line that “we’re teaching them that if they’re in a parking lot by theirselves they know they can hold their head high and they can walk and not have to worry about anything because they can defend theirselves.” That’s borderline criminally negligent, if not just delusional. Obviously, you should fight like hell if attacked, and there’s nothing wrong with practicing that, but to suggest that a couple of minutes of wrestling with somebody in a padded suit — followed by a whole bunch of time watching others wrestle with a guy in a padded suit — is remotely adequate to deal with a violent attack is absurd.
The fact is, in Ayoob’s words, “guns are the only weapons that put a physically small or weak person at parity with a powerful, very possibly armed, criminal.” And many women’s self defense organizations outside of universities include firearms as part of the overall package. The Women’s Self-Defense Institute actually recommends reading the exact Ayoob book on which I’m basing this post, and Arming Women Against Rape & Endangerment (AWARE) offers firearms courses.
The classes taught in universities are not self defense, they’re theater. They may be very useful theater for all kinds of psychological or political reasons, but if you rely on them for practical self defense, you will more than likely get killed. If a woman is seriously worried about rape or murder, and I think the statistics bear out that it makes sense to be worried, self defense with firearms has to be on the table.
Use of a weapon, and especially a firearm, is statistically a woman’s best means of resistance, greatly enhancing her odds of escaping both rape and injury, compared to any other strategy of physical or verbal resistance. This conclusion is drawn from four types of information.
First, a 1989 study (Furby, Journal of Interpersonal Violence) found that both male and female survey respondents judged a gun to be the most effective means that a potential rape victim could use to fend off the assault. Rape “experts” considered it a close second, after eye-gouging.
Second, raw data from the 1979-1985 installments of the Justice Department’s annual National Crime Victim Survey show that when a woman resists a stranger rape with a gun, the probability of completion was 0.1 percent and of victim injury 0.0 percent, compared to 31 percent and 40 percent, respectively, for all stranger rapes (Kleck, Social Problems, 1990).
Third, a recent paper (Southwick, Journal of Criminal Justice, 2000) analyzed victim resistance to violent crimes generally, with robbery, aggravated assault and rape considered together. Women who resisted with a gun were 2.5 times more likely to escape without injury than those who did not resist and 4 times more likely to escape uninjured than those who resisted with any means other than a gun. Similarly, their property losses in a robbery were reduced more than six-fold and almost three-fold, respectively, compared to the other categories of resistance strategy.
Fourth, we have two studies in the last 20 years that directly address the outcomes of women who resist attempted rape with a weapon. (Lizotte, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1986; Kleck, Social Problems, 1990.) The former concludes, “Further, women who resist rape with a gun or knife dramatically decrease their probability of completion.” (Lizotte did not analyze victim injuries apart from the rape itself.) The latter concludes that “resistance with a gun or knife is the most effective form of resistance for preventing completion of a rape”; this is accomplished “without creating any significant additional risk of other injury.”
The best conclusion from available scientific data, then, is when avoidance of rape has failed and one must choose between being raped and resisting, a woman’s best option is to resist with a gun in her hands.
