[LINK] Nation as trauma

Over at Open Democracy, Rosemary Bechler interviews the psychoanalyst Jacqueline Rose, exploring her psychoanalytic arguments about Zionism. It's provocative even if you are skeptical about the argument.

[LINK] It's in the stars

Over at A Voyage to Arcturus, Jay Manifold takes note of the recent warming of Mars' climate and argues that the Sun, not greenhouse gas emissions, is responsible for global warming on Earth. While I think that the case is overstated--anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases clearly has a role--the idea that the Sun might be putting out more energy should be considered, if only because it will make the task of reversing global warming all the more difficult.

[LINK] Tonga on the brink

Jonathan Edelstein's post describing the incipient revolutionary situation in the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga is a good introduction to the challenges facing this island country now. Faced with glaring inequities in wealth, general strikes, and newly politicized and monetarized population, the Tongan monarchy is caught in a difficult position. Will it reform or will it die?

[LINK] "New Orleans is sinking/and I don't know how to swim"

From the Los Angeles Times:

Mayor Ray Nagin ordered an immediate mandatory evacuation today for all of New Orleans, a city sitting below sea level with 485,000 inhabitants, as Hurricane Katrina bore down with wind revved up to nearly 175 mph and a threat of a massive storm surge.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort including the Superdome arena.

"This is a once in a lifetime event," the mayor said. "The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly."

I wonder how viable this city is, even in the medium run, if global warming continues.

[NON BLOG] CFTAG Report

I met up with robertprior at the usual location on Yonge and Wellesley just before 1 o'clock. Just a week ago, he returned from six and a half weeks in China. His tales from his trip to this country, decidedly one on the rise, were fascinating. I look forward to the photos.

The second half of today's CFTAG concentrated on Traveller in specific and role-playing games in general. I ran some ideas for GMing pastrobertprior and got some very useful advice. Now, to execute it.

[LINK] Gays in the Canadian Military of the Second World War

I'd like to thank dsgood for forwarding to me a link of this insightful review of Paul Jackson's One of the Boys, a history of gay and bisexual men in wartime. Blaine Marchand, writing for Capital Xtra, describes Jackson's findings.

"When I spoke to gay veterans who fought in the war," Jackson told me recently, "I found the experiences they recounted did not jibe with the histories that have been written. So the formidable task in undertaking my study was to uncover references to homosexuality in military records. I decided I had to look in different places than other historians, some of whom tried to dissuade me from this task."

Jackson found that in military court martial records, "homosexual" was a term commonly used by legal, medical and administrative authorities. There were two interpretations of the term. It was applied to men who were effeminate, and who were seen as suffering gender inversion, and to men who were masculine and who were thought to be morally lax. Homosexuality was perceived as being destructive to the individual, to the military and to society.

When he started contacting gay veterans whose names were cited in these records, few of them would permit him to use their real names. Some had found their experiences traumatic. Others felt obliged to retain total discretion as they had married and raised children after the war. Only a handful were open about their gay experiences while in the military. These were men who had been upfront about their sexuality during the war and who either escaped detection or who had found a way to be accepted.

Interestingly, gay and bisexual men who were "straight-acting" seem to have suffered from more severe penalties at court-martial than those who were not, apparently on the grounds that the former had made a choice to behave immorally and were therefore a more subtle threat to the integrity of the service. Not, mind, that prosecutions for homosexual behaviour seem to have been popular in the first place, but the military police was dedicated to ensuring the purity of the Forces.

[LINK] Suzanne Somers, dramaturge?

Apparently she isn't a successful one at all. Reading the reviews of her latest project, one can't help but cringe at the thought of such a resounding, and public, failure.