What is Paramilitary?

I do not watch much reality TV.  I find most of it to be patronizing of either the subjects or the viewers.  I also find much of it to be a facade at best and mostly just a charade, even among the shows that I have enjoyed--mostly ones about real, useful survival skills.  For example, we know that Bear Grylls is a survival expert, but we all also know he didn't always spend the night out in the woods while filming his survival shows, so there was some facade.  I also enjoy watching Deadliest Catch--probably has something to do with my affinity for eating crab--and am certain that a good deal of the personal story lines are a charade meant to catch the interest of people who think watching Survivor is about reality.  I like it because I find it interesting to glean a few facts about commercial crab fishing, and because I accept the charade as an act or entertainment.  During the current season of Deadliest Catch a new "pre-show" has been introduced where the captains and some crew members give "inside" information about their jobs.  In this pre-show--Deadliest Catch--The Bait--there is a segment where the boat captains talk to a "captain" from some other organization.  Last night it was a fire department captain from Seattle.  During his introduction of his job he called the fire department a "paramilitary organization", which set off a bunch of bells and whistles in my brain.

A paramilitary organization is not only organized along recognizable rank structures that one expects to see in a military organizations, but as the prefix "para" indicates, the activities of the organization would parallel those of the military.  Webster defines paramilitary as "forces working along with, or in place of, regularl military organization."  Last time I checked, fire departments do not fit that definition, while most military organizations do contain fire departments of their own because fire is a real threat for military organizations, a civilian fire department is not part of or in place of the military organization.  As a matter of fact, neither are police departments.  For my two cents, we throw around words like paramilitary all too often without concern for what is really meant.  Simply having organized rank structures and command structures does not make an organization paramilitary.  Every corporation has a command structure--most people know who their boss is, who their bosses boss is, and so forth. 

We do not need to call our fire departments and police departments paramilitary organizations, we need to avoid using such language purposely.  Using the word paramilitary signals an intent on the part of the organization being referenced as acting as a military force.  I am pretty certain that maintaining the public good of safe communities is not a military activity--as we have limited greatly the use of military force through law so that only national guard units and only under order of state governments can operate in any state and when operating in these states the national guard takes on civic duty and ceases to engage in a military function--beyond the nature of the organization's command structure. 

Writing Well Revisited

Occasionally I believe that my colleagues at GCC and I are overly concerned about how well our students write and speak.  I am quite certain that most of my students believe that I am obsessed with grammar and style--which my own mentors and former instructors would laugh out loud about every day of the week, twice on Sunday.  If you follow my blog, or listen to some of my conversations regarding the quality of communication, you know that most academics think communication is a pretty important issue.  Academics believe it is important for a number of reasons and we discuss communication in terms of quality and content.  I was not surprised then to see an academic in his blog about how to give a five minute commencement speech made communicating one of his five numbered points to make in the speech.  Here is an excerpt from his comments:

The Lesson?  No matter what you end up doing, honing your ability to communicate clearly is invaluable.  I'm not talking about PowerPoint, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook or whatever eventually replaces them:  I'm talking about words and prose and poetry and the capacity to express complicated and nuanced ideas in clear, well-organized language.

Here's the bad news: although some of you do this well, most of you still can't despite spending four years in college.  I don't mean to be cruel, but it's true.  I've been teaching for thirty years at some pretty snooty universities, and the quality of the average student's writing at places like Harvard or Stanford or even the University of Chicago is still pretty poor.

He goes on in his blog to say that this problem is fixable.  For my two cents, the author of these words is on target.  I can write about 5-6 pages in an hour.  To make these 5-6 pages clear and cogent will take me an additional two hours.  I write in 5-6 hour sessions, 3-4 hours of which is devoted to proofreading and editing what I have written in the first half of the session.  I have to end this blog now, as I need some time to work over a few pages of writing.  

p.s.  after writing, I checked my blog stats.  Second most viewed post during the past week was my post from over two years ago about academic vs. public writing. 

A Beautiful Mind Lost to Mankind

If you had not already heard or read today, John Nash died in a automobile crash today.  I must confess that Nash was much brighter than I--no duh you are all saying right now--so I do not understand and have not studied a lot of Nash's work.  Nash's Equilibrium is, for my two cents, one of the best means of understanding suboptimal outcomes as the choice for both actors in a prisoner's dilemma. 

or you can let the cinema explain the equilibrium to you:

General Officers and Physical Fitness

Perusing Tom Ricks blog on the Foreign Policy website this morning.  Came across an interesting statement from Winston Churchill to the Secretary of State for War in 1941.

“Is it really true that a seven-mile cross-country run is enforced upon all in this division, from generals to privates? . . . It looks to me rather excessive. A colonel or general ought not to exhaust himself in trying to compete with young boys running across country seven miles at a time. The duty of officers is no doubt to keep themselves fit, but still more to think for their men, and to take decisions affecting their safety or comfort. Who is the general of this division, and does he run the seven miles himself? If so, he may be more use for football that war. Could Napoleon have run seven miles across country at Austerlitz? Perhaps it was the other fellow he made run. In my experience, based on many years’ observation, officers with high athletic qualifications are not usually successful in the higher ranks.”

I'm guessing by Winston Churchill's standard I would physically make a great general today as I am carrying about 25 pounds more now than I should be carrying (and this is the fact only because I shed about 30 pounds in the last year).  For my own two cents I believe the general officers should be mental, moral, and physical examples for the troops they lead.  I also believe that it is the second of my three components "moral" that represents the greater failing today of general officers--caveat offered here:  of the general officers we read about in the news and we all know that the news is looking for stuff to grab readers attention so that we will also see the advertisments.  While the "moral" component appears as the biggest lack, I must say that nearly all of the senior officers whom I have had the pleasure to know during my life were men of strong moral character, physically fit, and mentally sharp.  Maybe Churchill was wrong in his reasoning on this particular item.

Friday Fun

I was reading my mentors blog this morning.  He mentioned a list of books that "Literally all White Men Own."  The list is 79 books.  From this list, here are the one's I actually own--and have read, as I do not count it as owned until I have read it or am reading it (the numbers are from the list):

6. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

11. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

13. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

14. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

15. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. John Adams, David McCullough

33. The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman

38. The Road, Cormac McCarthy

41. The Rainmaker, John Grisham

42. Patriot Games, Tom Clancy

43. Dragon, Clive Cussler

44. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond

47. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, John le Carre

48. Rising Sun, Michael Crichton

64. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

74. The Call of the Wild, Jack London

77. The Civil War: A Narrative, Shelby Foote

17 out of 79, five of the top 20, only one of the top 10.  For my two cents I thought a few things about this list.  First, shouldn't The Lord of The Rings count as three books (at least two, as the first publication was a two book set).  Second, I must not be a very good white man to have only read 17 of these 79 books that literally every white man owns.  Finally, what does it say about white men that the Bible is not on the list?

Seymour Hersh, The bin Laden Lie?

I am, like a number of people, reading the Seymour Hersh piece about how the Obama administration and the SEALs have lied to us about what really happened regarding the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011.  I will, just like anyone else who cares about truth, now have to review what I know, what people I know know, and what others have written that they know.  But a few things stick out about this claim that call me to respond.

One, is it possible that the Pakistanis knew nothing about the raid before it happened?  Yes, it is possible, but I find it doubtful that at no time did anyone involved in the U.S. mission engage in any contact with any agent or member of the Pakistani government.  Though we should remember that the U.S. government was involved in drone strikes inside Pakistan that were not approved firsthand by the Pakistani government, and overtly frowned upon by the Pakistani government.  The Pakistani government is populated by a number of people, who in my humble opinion, are like politicians in most places--that is to say, self-interested, slightly seedy, and usually not to be trusted further than the average five year old could throw them (ok, I admit it, I am just slightly cynical about politicians).  Letting any Pakistani official into the inner circle of those vetted for the mission would have been tremendously stupid on the part of our government agents.  Note, that while cynical about politicians, I do not consider most government employees and politicians to be stupid, just untrustworthy and self-interested.

Two, Hersh is an old hand at news scoops and expose journalism.  Remember he won a Pulitzer for his coverage of My Lai.  Hersh knows that while some latitude is given to "anonymous government official" as a source, that the lack of any supporting sources and evidence makes his source lack a great deal of credibility.  Now, this one is where I am willing to give some leeway and need to go back and review my own information and other potential "sources" regarding this event.

Three, I do take umbrage with Hersh for a statement he makes in his expose published in the London Review of Books:

"Pasha and Kayani were responsible for ensuring that Pakistan’s army and air defence command would not track or engage with the US helicopters used on the mission."

Apparently Hersh has never heard of the use of electronic counter-measures.  Maybe he is unaware that an aerial surveilance aircraft flying over Afghanistan could direct aircraft around Pakistani aircraft and active radar signals.  Maybe Hersh is unaware of the ability of the Nightstalkers to fly nap of the earth (below radar coverage).  So, thinking that we must have had help from the inside to keep our aircraft from being spotted is just plain wrong.

For my two cents, I will keep looking, thinking, digging.  I will probably even comment more in future blogs regarding what I find, what I determine from analysis of known knowns and known unknowns.  In the end, however, most conspiracy theories are just that, conspiracy theories and not real expose of government/politician malfeasance.

Hang 'em High, Send 'em to the Dogs, or just blast them away

In case you did not hear it, read it, etc. Kim Jong Un had another execution show a few days ago.  This time the execution featured the DPRK Defense Chief--who had the temerity to fall asleep at a late night dinner and even more brass to argue with Kim Jong Un in a defense council meeting.  What is curious about this particular execution is the means--anti-aircraft gun.

I have been a student of politically motivated violence for a little over 20 years now.  As such I have developed a slightly off-kilter fascination with the number/unique ways in which human beings have chosen to be destructive of the material world, the natural world, and particularly of each other.  Though I remain unsurprised by the darkness of humanity, considering it to be a normal outcome of the fallen state of mankind since the disastrous ending in the Garden of Eden, I am still intrigued on occasion by the means employed for destructive ends.

The Kim family that runs the DPRK is describable as a feudal family stuck in the mentality of the 1400s controlling a semi-modern country, or a extreme form of traditional Korean Confucianism wedded to 1930s Stalinism plus a form of insanity (hats off to RM for that last one).  Kim Jong Un, the current leader, is no stranger to variation in how to execute those he disfavors (remember the uncle sent to the dogs) and has now added a new way to do executions.  Simply utilizing a firing squad with battle rifles, or machine guns was not good enough.  Nope, you need to use one of these:

Yes, you are looking at a ZPU-4, which fires a 14.5 mm round (from quad barrels each capable of firing 600 rounds per minute.  Good discussion of the weapon and method of this execution is available in a piece found in Human Rights North Korea Insider (HRNKInsider) by Greg Scarlatoiu (Committee for Human Rights in North Korea) and Joseph Bermudez Jr. (AllSource Analysis, Inc.).  You can read their piece here.  The first image below is a .50 caliber round commonly used in large sniper rifles and in the M2 heavy machine gun (Ma Deuce is still going strong).  The second is the 14.5x114mm round used in the ZPU-4.
 

 

Just think about the destructiveness of one single .50 caliber round, then multiply this by the use of six quad barrel 14.5x114mm machine guns.  For my two cents, this incident just reaffirms my decision to place Kim Jong Un along side his father and grandfather in the category of human beings simply referred to as:  Bastards.

Student Engagement

A few days ago Mark Bauerlein had an oped published that has a few people (well more than a few) engaged/enraged (read it here).  How engaged with students is a faculty member supposed to be outside of the classroom?  How much of the lack of engagement is the fault of faculty?  How much is the fault of students?  Bauerlein definitely falls on the side of lack of engagement as the fault of students, after all he is the guy who wrote a piece called "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30).

I am pretty sure that digital ghettos exist in our culture.  People exist who place themselves in these digital ghettos and do not engage with much of our society physically or in meaningful ways.  I am also pretty certain that more people under the age of 40 place themselves in these ghettos.  What I am not certain of to any great extent is whether people over the age of 40 are just as likely to place themselves in their own forms of ghettos and be just as disengaged from society as those who place themselves in the digital ghettos.  Anecdotal evidence exists in my life to make me worry about a number of students I have had in classes or as advisees placing themselves in said ghettos.  These students are not all bad students in the classroom, but I do feel they are cheating themselves of some of the great opportunities for learning and growing that exist in a liberal arts college.  Does my anecdata make me worry about the entire generation?  No more so that I worry about the crap my own generation has perpetrated on mankind or the follies of prior generations as well.  My generation did not invent atomic weapons, or for that matter weapons in general.  TNT did not make war less likely, either.

Back to the original point, student engagement appears to be at an all time low.  My academic mentor from grad work (shout out to SS) states in his blog his own anecdotal evidence of high student engagement in some settings and low engagement in others (interesting that I was one of his students in a setting of low engagement--mea culpa).  I was, however, always engaged in class, often running my mouth before running my brain.  So what does it mean that student engagement is low?  Are we talking simply about students coming to my office hours, or students not being part of discussions in the classroom?

For my two cents, engagement is particularly low in the area of visiting me during office hours.  Also in the area of simply stopping me in the hallway or on campus to discuss those areas in which I have some expertise.  To be certain, how available am I on campus outside of office hours and classroom time--during certain times of the year, not much--I have two sons who play two sports per year each, I am a board member and officer for a local youth sports organization, etc., which means I have time commitments away from the college.  On the other hand, I am also the advisor to two student organizations, department chair, and advisor to a fraternity all of which make me more available than not to students.  I also recognize that my office hours might just coincide with students time in other classes and life activities.  Engagement is not particularly low in the classroom.  The fact is the bad students, who are not engaged in the classroom stick out in my memories precisely because they are anomalies.

The current under 35 crowd has issues to overcome.  Guess what, do did the under 35 crowd when I was in the crowd.  Students need to be more engaged.  I needed to be more engaged as a student.  Students do not need to make themselves into computer zombies (too tired and strung out from hours of digital gaming, communicating, etc.).  When I was a student we needed to get a few more hours of sleep and be ready for class too.  Be engaged as a student, be engaged for life.  If you are in the electronic ghettos, drag yourself out and be more human.  If you think you are better than those who are in the ghetto, think again, you are most likely just different.

FAL-ing Again

Proof positive that just about anyone with a small toolkit, a few hundred dollars, and the desire to do it can make a firearm:  I just finished refurbishing my collection of FALs.  I had one that double-tapped when I pulled the trigger--which is upsetting to your fellow shooters at a range where automatic fire is not allowed, and potentially illegal if you do not have proper license for automatic weapons, and somewhat disconcerting when the gun is only supposed to go bang, not bang-bang, when you pull the trigger. But pretty cool, in all honesty, particularly when you look at the target and see two holes within .25 inches of one another when you pulled the trigger once.  But, hey, the ATF would not approve, so I took the firearm apart and replaced the hammer, trigger, sear with a set manufactured legally in the U.S. 

You really can take this:





                  
and turn it into something useful, fun, just plain cool. Hardest part is refinishing the metal and seating the barrel.  Of course, you do have to get proper head spacing gauges, and a few other necessary tools to do it right.  And, of course, when you are replacing the HTS, always install the hammer facing the right direction.

For my two cents, still the coolest battle rifle ever made: