Mick Hartley

Small town New England

Photographer Jack Delano in 1940/41:

November 1940. "The main square in Colchester, Connecticut."

August 1941. "A street corner in Burlington, Vermont."

August 1941. "General store in Hinesburg, Vermont."
[Photos: Shorpy/Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration]

A decade of institutional error

Martin Peretz - Holding Obama Accountable for Syria. And why Trump’s military pullout represents not a new direction in foreign affairs but a coarse coda to a decade of institutional error:

The central fact behind the withdrawal has been often stated but never explained. There were between 2,000 and 4,000 non-combat-assigned troops in the region, so why yank them out now? And that’s exactly the point. No matter the proximate cause behind Trump’s decision—the conversation with Erdogan, an isolationist sop to his base, an impulse move—keeping or leaving the troops made absolutely no difference in the bigger scheme.

It made no difference for a simple reason. The chips had already fallen between 2009 and 2015, when the Obama administration executed its post-Bush pivot toward Iran and its regional proxy, Syria, and away from America’s allies in the region for 30 years: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. This is the situation Trump inherited, and Trump is not a fixer, he’s a canary in the coal mine. As with “build the wall” and “drain the swamp,” his slogan about Syria—“It’s yours, I’m leaving”—isn’t a pivot, it’s an epitaph. He doesn’t know how to fix our crises, and he doesn’t care. His only purpose is reactionary: to call the crises what they are and point a finger at the people who made them this way.  [...]

Assad, to whom we have given a complete victory, persists in his despotic vocation: maybe the first genocidal killer in half a century that America has chosen to forget committed genocide. And Russia, a threat at home and abroad, gains proxies up to the Mediterranean. We won’t fix this situation, one we created, by railing against the finger-pointer in the White House. We’ll only fix it by looking at what we did wrong in the first place and, from that lesson, taking a wholly different approach: treating the ayatollah, Assad, and Putin as our main regional adversaries—a bloc of hostile actors that we need, calmly and firmly, to maneuver against.

I Put a Spell On You

OK I've done this one before, but that was a different performance, and with Screamin' Jay Hawkins each performance was a new experience:

What's clear is that underneath all the hoodoo he had an incredible voice, but it's more of an operatic than a blues or soul voice. In fact that was his original aim: to be a Paul Robeson-style opera singer. The story goes that "I Put a Spell on You" was intended as a grand melodramatic ballad, but at the recording session everyone was so drunk, especially Hawkins, that it ended up as a wild series of guttural shrieks and moans - and went on to be a hit. Hawkins had passed out and couldn't remember a thing; he had to relearn the words from the recording.

The song came out in 1956, when people were less concerned about "reinforcing racial stereotypes". I doubt Screamin' Jay would have been bothered either way. Here was a man for whom the borders of propriety and good taste were only there to be crossed. A few years later he put his grunts and moans to different use with a song that could have been forced out by no one else: Constipation Blues.

Got a pain down inside
Won't be denied
Yeah, every time I try
I can't be satisfied
Let it go!
WOAH, UMMH
Let it, let it go!
OH!
WAAAAOOOH!
This pain down inside
Just won't let me be satisfied
Let it go!
 
SPLASH!!! SPSHHH....
Feel, ah, I-I feel alright
Yes ah, I'm beginning to feel alright
SPLASH!!! Shpsh...
Yeah
I tell ya, everything's gonna be alright
SPLASH!
Flush

Apparently he performed the song with a toilet onstage a couple of times. No YouTube of that, unfortunately, but there is this extraordinary duet with Serge Gainsbourg. After six minutes of building tension, Hawkins has to stand up to let it all go in a grand climactic moment, urged on by a sympathetic Gainsbourg - "ah, il a fait caca." One of the defining moments of 20th Century culture.

At his death in France in 2000 it was estimated that he'd left behind about 55 children with various women - a figure that had to be revised upward upon subsequent investigation.

Mike Armando, one time guitarist with Hawkins, left a long comment (top "highlighted comment") on YouTube here about his time with the band. It's worth a read. His conclusion:

All I can say Screamin' Jay Hawkins always looked out for his band members. He always paid us good. He never once beat the band out of any money. He was the greatest and also the craziest but crazy as he was he had a loving heart for everyone. His music still lives on.

I Put a Spell On You was also, of course, recorded by Nina Simone. 

And Alan Price did a fine version.

Turkish chateaux

Hundreds of faux chateaux being built in Turkey’s northern Bolu province for wealthy Arab buyers are standing empty after the construction company went bust:

Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage -- hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.

Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.

The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry -- a key sector -- as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.

According to the Turkish Hürriyet Daily News the project was not popular with locals, who felt that the style was not in keeping with local architectural tradition. I think they may have a point.

The Jew-hating virus

Writer and feminist Phyllis Chesler was interviewed by Meghan Murphy, a young and radical Canadian feminist, a few weeks ago. She was pleased with the way the interview had gone, and, as she says, went back "on a whim" to check on the response. Oh dear.

But then I started reading the Comments. Around sixty-five percent by my count were about something I’d said in passing at two different times and for a total time of less than one minute on the podcast.

I had said that I’d been “accused” of being too “positive about Israel” (although I said nothing further about Israel) and that I’d noted a “rise in ethnic bigotry towards the Jewish people in general, and among some feminists too.”

Thus, I spent less than one minute on these two points, over and against fifty-four minutes of an intense, feminist conversation. It is important to note that the audience here is primarily a feminist one. However, only twenty-seven percent of these comments were about feminist and gender issues; and 6% praised (or critiqued) the conversation. Some defended my right to speak, no matter what I had to say.

But the loudest, most vocal, and most vicious comments spouted blood libels about Jews and Israel. One must assume that such Judeophobic poisoned propaganda has fully infiltrated the feminist discourse.

She prints a selection. For example:

I don’t think you understand the scale of what Israel and more specifically the zionists have done, are doing and plan to do. It is very very serious and they are very serious rogue state, as bad as the US and worse, because they are responsible for 911 and a very fake war of terror. (Again, I am not shooting from the hip. I’ve studied this since its inception.) The hatred for Israel also goes back to historic animosity for Jews because they have been and still are usurers who are stealing people’s lives through debt slavery, and because they are tribal supremacists – very well funded networks of them are. Until we recognize that, until we understand the reasons behind the expulsions (abusive usury), until the Jews themselves recognize this (some do) and look at their group’s behavior, the world will be stuck in a tribal world largely created by Jews. This is some of the root of the animosity.

She lost me at Israel. Women who read Feminist Current do their research. She is a shill for Israel. I respect Judaism as a religion, but Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, killing American sailors, and Israel and the neocons in the Bush administration did 9/11.

And so on.

It is possible that in my case, my reputation precedes me and Jew- and Israel-haters lie in wait to pounce wherever I may appear. But it is just as likely that the Jew-hating virus has spread and maddened people everywhere, including those who are literate, educated, and have time to read and comment online.

Thus, in our time, one is not allowed to speak about either Islam or Israel unless one is prepared to praise Islam and to condemn Israel. These two forms of speech are highly permissible online.

For a further insight into the state of some modern feminist thought, check out Women's March leader Linda Sarsour, in a speech she made last month:

You know what I feel like I got cheated out of? Nobody told me that my beloved Prophet Muhammad was an activist. He was a human rights activist. […]

We don't need a workers' rights movement or an environmental justice movement. We don't even need a Black Lives Matter movement, because our religion has taught us that black lives mattered way before there was ever a hashtag, or a movement, or people protesting outside on these streets. Our religion has always been an anti-racist, feminist, and empowering religion. I don't need people in the West, or people in Europe, or people in the United States of America to teach me what feminism is.

A leading feminist campaigner draws her inspiration from Islam, and from the Prophet Muhammad. At which point we quietly tiptoe away....

Murmurations

Starlings in Israel:

Starlings swarm before landing to sleep near the southern Israeli city of Rahat on January 22, 2018. [Photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty]

A murmuration of starlings, photographed near the southern Israeli city of Rahat on February 4, 2018. [Photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty]

Starlings perform their traditional dance before landing to sleep near the southern Israeli city of Rahat, in the Negev desert, on January 22, 2018. [Photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty]

A picture taken on January 22, 2018, shows starlings flocking together near Rahat. [Photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty]

A murmuration of starlings is seen across the sky near the Israeli village of Beit Kama on January 16, 2018. [Photo: Amir Cohen / Reuters]

Seagulls and water

Walthamstow Wetlands, and the upper Lea by Tottenham Marshes:

 

Erdoğan's paranoid style

The assassination of Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, in an Ankara art gallery on December 19 2016, was chiefly memorable - as I wrote at the time - for the excellent quality of the photographs. In particular, this dramatic image of killer Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş standing over the body of his victim:

The picture, by Burhan Ozbilici, was voted World Press Photo of the Year.

The killer was shot dead by Turkish police. He'd shouted "Allahu Akbar. We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad. Do not forget Aleppo, do not forget Syria" and "We die in Aleppo, you die here". Clearly - you'd have thought - he was motivated by a desire for revenge against the Russian military involvement in the killings in Aleppo, and the slaughter of Muslims by infidels. The attack was praised by ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliated accounts on social media.

For Turkish president Recep Erdoğan, though, this was yet another plot against him. With his trademark paranoid style, any event can be twisted and turned into a conspiracy, usually involving arch-enemy Fethullah Gülen. Thus 28 defendants now find themselves charged with roles in the assassination, in a trial which opened yesterday:

Turkish prosecutors concluded that a network led by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen was behind Karlov's slaying and the attack was meant to derail warming ties between Turkey and Russia.

They have charged 16 of the defendants, including Gulen, with "violating the constitutional order," ''membership in a terror organization" and "premeditated murder with the intention of causing terror." Prosecutors are seeking life prison sentences for those convicted.

Twelve others face maximum 15-year terms on charges of membership in a terror group.

Gulen, who has lived in the United States since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup or the Russian diplomat's assassination.

Other defendants include former police officers, the photo exhibit's organizer, a former Turkish intelligence agent and a former Turkish newspaper columnist who also now lives in the United States....

Fourteen of the defendants appeared in court on Tuesday, while four others were connected to the courtroom by a video link from separate prisons. Gulen and several others are being tried in absentia.

Six of the defendants, including ex-police officers who attended the same police academy as the gunman, gave testimony Tuesday. They denied links to Gulen.

A court in April issued arrest warrants for Gulen and seven other people in connection with the killing. Turkey is seeking Gulen's extradition from the United States.

Paint it pink

Markfield Park, South Tottenham:

Transforming Samjiyon County

As we've seen, one of Supreme Commander Kim Jong-un's main current preoccupations is to develop and promote the Wonsan-Kalma Shore Tourist Zone in North Korea's Samjiyon County, thereby earning some desperately needed foreign currency. He even featured it in his 2019 New Year's address:

The whole Party, the entire army and all the people should turn out to transform Samjiyon County into a model of modern mountainous city, an ideal socialist village, and complete on the highest possible level the construction projects that would represent the present era, including the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area and other new tourist areas. It is important to steadily improve architectural designing and construction methods, and ensure domestic production and better quality of finishing materials, so as to build all the architectural structures magnificently and in our own style and provide our people with a cultured, happy life. With the national-level construction projects underway on an extensive scale, we should build up the capacity of producing cement and other building materials as planned.

[The address is long, and stupendously dull...

The whole country should render active ideological and spiritual, material and technical assistance to coal mines, and the state should take stringent steps to provide in a responsible manner facilities and materials needed for coal production and good living conditions for coal miners.

A greater development should be achieved in establishing the Juche orientation in the metallurgical and chemical industries, the two pillars in economic construction.

The metallurgical industry should lower production cost to the minimum by perfecting the scientific and technological aspects of the Juche-oriented iron- and steel-making processes and ensuring their normal operation, and work out and implement an operations plan for providing them with full amounts of iron ore, refractories and ferro-alloys to meet their increased production capacity.

The chemical industry should step up the building of the phosphatic fertilizer factory and the establishment of the C1 chemical industry, develop the glauberite and synthetic fibre industries and convert the existing equipment and technical processes into energy-saving and labour-saving ones. This year a nationwide effort should be made to run the chemical fertilizer factories at full capacity and boost production at the February 8 Vinalon Complex.....

And so on...and on. The populace have, nevertheless, been instructed to "fully acquaint themselves" with it all in their spare time.]

According to the Daily NK, the new building work in Samjiyon County is seen as an excellent opportunity to promote the idolization of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Amongst other details, the roof shapes should echo the immortal Kimsungilia and Kimjongilia flowers, which have mythic resonance in the Kim cult:

Samjiyeon County is being developed as a tourist site together with Wonsan in Kangwon Province. The authorities claim that because the area is the “hometown of the Great General [Kim Jong Il],” it is an ideal location for the state to promote Kim Jong Un’s Paektu bloodline and the regime. Kim Jong Un has expressed continued interest in the area (visiting three times last year) and has continued to check up on the progress of development....

The regime has consequently mobilized construction brigades in the area. Provincial shock troop units (with brigades consisting of around 2,000 personnel each, as well as municipal and county organizations, and companies consisting of 100 people each) are participating in the construction. Up to 80% of the 30,000 residents in Samjiyon County are thought to be involved in the construction projects.

Each shock troop unit mobilized in the construction projects has been working continuously in the blistering cold over periods stretching from one to three months. Deaths and injuries due to these conditions have continued to occur and some have had to return to their home provinces.

Kim Jong Un ordered the reconstruction and expansion of apartments in Samjiyon County to be completed by October 10, 2020 (the day commemorating the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea). The speed at which the construction is progressing has led to concerns ranging from construction accidents to structural issues.

“There may be problems relating to the safety of the apartments due to poor workmanship. The construction workers have sold construction materials (steel poles, cement, wood, etc.) to buy food to eat, so there’s likely issues with the quality of concrete being used in the buildings,” a separate source in Ryanggang Province reported.

“The walls are also in poor condition because heating hasn’t been applied properly in the buildings. The basics of sound construction aren’t being followed, so there are places in the apartments that have started to crack. There are apartment buildings currently undergoing safety checks, which has forced construction to stop in some cases.”

The issue of construction worker safety is also a major concern. A total of 67 workers from Nampo were killed or severely injured in March 2018 when a 15-ton truck they were riding in overturned near Pochon on its way to Samjiyon County.

Many workers have died after being hit by flying debris from dynamite blasts, and such incidents largely occur due to the lack of safety precautions taken by the authorities. Sources in South Hwanghae Province reported that a female worker in her early twenties who ran away from her shock troop brigade was found dead on the side of a road.

Workers suffer from immense hardships due to the long hours demanded by construction managers. They typically work from 8 am to 7 pm with a 30-minute lunch break, but many are also required to work until 1 am to 2 am after their one-hour dinner break.

“When they’re exhausted, the workers fall and hurt themselves and their managers scold them for not paying attention,” said a separate source in Ryanggang Province

“I heard that many people ran away from the work teams but ended up wandering around for 5-6 months before reaching home.”

The tourists they'll be hoping to lure here will, in the main, be Chinese. But the message from all this should be clear enough...Don't go there!