Frederic Erk

Posts Tagged ‘War’

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The Time Machine

In Uncategorized on July 16, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Vladimir Kutz in 1957, The Stakhanov Runner

Vladimir Kutz in 1957, The Stakhanov Runner

Of all sports, there is a king. And it is running. Nothing compares to running. The dramatic of running is that it is a reminder of our deepest past, as the first hominid wrestled with balance in order to free the hands.

Running is an art in itself. To the Japanese it was considered to be part of the Art of War. To the Greek it was speed, which mattered, and only the need for longer distance for gambling purpose resulted in designing the oval of the running stadium. To the Zulu tribes it was an essential part of strategy, which led to the defeat of the British at Isandhlwana. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Emperor’s New Mind

In Uncategorized on June 27, 2009 at 1:28 pm

Statistics is the stuff of legends. Statistically, what were the chances of David taking on Goliath successfully? Statistically, what are the chances of a man in love to understand the true nature of the love of a woman? With statistics, there would be no history of Greece, no Thermophiles or Alexander. Julian the Apostate would be Emperor of Rome and perhaps the history of Europe would have been different.

Statistics is the stuff of Legends, because everything becomes possible with statistics. There is no 100% or 0%, but fractions of eternity and infinity. Chances I have to become rich before 40? Chances I have to marry the woman I love? Hmm, definitely worth looking for a looking glass, but possible, it is.

And from statistics have spun a world of possibilities like Athena has spun from the mind of Zeus. Fully armed and battle-ready possibilities. With statistics Sarkozy is the President of France, who is enjoying a popular support. 12% is some kind of support. This sounds so Russian. When is a Russian really drunk? Perhaps a new branch of statistics should investigate this. Is it a matter of lateral support like American soldiers on parade ground? Is it a genetic genius to roll with Earth magnetic field?

Are you sure you want to know?

Are you sure you want to know?

Statistics rule, because like the Oracle of Delphi there are an infinite possibilities of interpreting statistics. Goebbels was a Genius of Statistics. He could prove that by 1945 Germany was really on the verge of total victory. It is better than “Not One Step Backward!”, it is “A Giant Leap Backward”. Retreat becomes tactical shortening of front lines. A lost city is but an opportunity for encirclement. Mass bombing is but a proof the enemy is desperate. Russians talking in the Reichstag? But opportunity to practice foreign language skills.

What would be the world wide web without statistics? Every time I am connecting on my blog, I am subjected to a lecture in statistics. The slow growing number of readers has about the energetic impulse of a geriatric cure for impotence. Without search engines focusing on pornographic content I would enjoy the popularity of a website dedicated to … Let me think? What is the absolute less popular issue worldwide? Religion, you must be kidding. Science, not now that Michael Jackson is gone. So perhaps a Congress of Urology in A Coruna? With a slogan like “Exploring the Vast Ocean of Research” which is a nice image for people dealing with piss.

Many attempts have been made to apply statistics to military science. Missing In Action. Killed in Action. I wonder what it means to be missing in Un-Action. Or killed when nothing happens. To the dead one, it hardly matters. But for Stalin, it mattered. Any Russian soldier MIA would be a deserter. Lots of deserters, then. Americans hate MIA, it sounds so bad on AAR (After Action Report, or more commonly called Post Coitus Crisis). Many armies leave cemeteries after their departure. The great defeat of Roman Legions near Constantinople left hundreds of thousands of skeletons, men and horses, for dozens of years, gently contributing to soil fertility.

Statistics of death are essential to American war doctrine. With the publication of the Pentagon papers in the early seventies, nuclear deterrence became nuclear stock exchange. Soviet lose 100 Millions, we Americans lose less, statistically speaking. Statistics are the Nemesys of American doctrine ever since Mao Ze Tung simply replied to General MacArthur nuclear threat, with a So we lose a million or two.

Now that nuclear submarines are tracking Taliban fighters in river beds, perhaps even in drinking water, statistics of war in Afghanistan are all about building schools for girls, 650 according to United Nations, while only one has been planned meaning that the old school is gone to make room for a new one. Since the war in Vietnam body count is essential to fueling statistics. About every VC or Victor Charlie, or Charlie killed was a General, or at least a Colonel. Calculations had been made for how many ammunition had to be used to kill a single VC. Let’s say more than for the whole battle of Normandy?

Statistics are nice for our modern societies, too. It is another application to a more intimate war. Unemployment, bank loans, profitability, productivity, stupidity. Reading the French unemployment statistics is lecture in creative writing. Think about Alexandre Dumas on Amphetamines. President Sarkozy is of course the Saviour. And as every Saviour, he needs a Cross, which is Madame Carla Bruni Sarkozy. Aramis, Athos and Porthos? All Ministers. Perhaps a good role for Rachida Dati as Milady de Winter? At least she earns the distinction of Putana, statistically speaking.

Statistics for environment? I am sure that Russians would welcome one or two days with less cold next winter. Earth is heating up. Now that China is discovering the pleasure of SUV and family sedans, we are of course pedaling on electric bicycles manufactured in China. Call it as you like, but there is something like heat exchange in economy, which is so much like our Gulf Stream and thermocline.

Statistics for pleasure? Any MacDonald’s is but a factory of statistics. How much sugar to make the meat more palatable? How much cholesterol and estrogens to keep our blood charged and balls useless? Ask a manager about the standard deviation in distance to vomiting. Their restrooms are strategically located.

Condom manufacturers are surfing on the wave of statistics. Seven Year Itch? Penis size is frantically monitored and super computers design shapes of the future. No need for Alien Resurrection, Durex has it all. From the largest African size to medium European, and the smaller military kit liberally distributed to soldiers. Perversion of the manufacturer? Or realistic analysis of combat readiness? Name it, Durex has the shape for it.

Statistics are truly leading the world to a brighter future. Psychiatrists rely on statistics, now that Church has made it clear that there would be no miracle. Presidents and deputies love statistics, even if they should investigate on the probability of ridicule leading the world. For scientists, statistics are essential, and they would copyright them, if they could. Between failure and success, love and hate, there is infinite number of probable outcomes. Statistics are lifting mood, as long as you don’t have to work on them.

Statistics are a wonderful invitation to a world before the Sin. Not Abel and Cain, but the Sin of Einstein dreaming, something like Doctor Bloodmoney. With statistics we have a survival probability of 13% for the next one hundred years. Sarkozy is parading with mere 12%, so there is a margin for hope.

With statistics we shape women as the future of man, an extrapolation of Playboy and Hustler. The finger of God is not directed at his Son in the Sixtine Chapel of Rome. Oh no! That finger is the Photoshop marvel, which transforms Monsters in Women. Down with Gargoyles and Hieronymus Bosch mutations! Now we have Angelina Jolie. She is the ultimate Durex Invention: the Great Spermicide. Chances of surviving Her?

So what are the statistics that you have read this story to the end? Hmm. Another nice thing about stats is that there are no negative ones. As we say now in France, there is no recession, but negative growth. Next time I see Madame Carla Bruni Sarkozy I will have negative erection, too. Probability: 100%.

FREDERIC W. ERK

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Lili Marleen (film)

In Uncategorized on June 21, 2009 at 9:45 pm

Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed Hanna Schygulla after The Marriage of Maria Braun (die Ehe von Maria Braun) in this ambitious fiction about a song, a woman and a man. Lili of the Lamplight (Lili vom Lampschein) is a sentimental song of 1916 as Germany was well into the inferno of Verdun. It celebrates the love of a woman for a man, and is profoundly moving as it explores the theme of love and death in time of war.

Willie (Hanna Schygulla) is about to return to Switzerland with her lover when she learns that she must stay in Germany on the eve of war. Back to München, she finds a job as singer in a cabaret and reintroduces Lili of the Lamplight, without success. Soon Germany is at war and hard pressed, and a soldier is asking Belgrade radio to play that tune for his comrades. It is an instant success as about every soldier, German, Russian, American or British will listen to that tune every day.

German Evita Peron?

German Evita Peron?

Willie soon becomes immensely popular in war-torn Germany when she receives news from her lover, the Jewish pianist who had left her to return to Switzerland. He is involved in some Jewish underground activities, returns to Germany to see her and is eventually captured by the Gestapo.

Meanwhile Willie is willing to find the proof of concentration camps and provides the Jewish resistance with a film roll. The Gestapo is hot on her heels and she is about to get killed when the Resistance is playing its trump card by asking her to sing Lili Marlene in spite of the recent decision by Nazi authorities to forbid that ‘defeatist’ song.

The homosexuality of Fassbinder is obvious in this opus, as everything from acting to casting is so biased with the idea of sentimentality and a touch of Visconti. While Marriage of Maria Braun was a wonderful exploration of woman’s love and weak fundaments for German reconstruction, Lili Marlene is only a colorful book of splendid images and a mélange of grotesque situations.

Hanna Schygulla is not convincing in her role, as nobody could expect a woman to fall in love with a man like Mendelsohn. He is the perfect jerk asking her to smile while leaving her in Nazi Germany, so that abandoning her is perhaps less tough for him. His has the sexual power of Woody Allen in erection at 85. No really, the casting is mediocre. Mel Ferrer is again playing his role of upper class total prick.

Much emphasis is put on battle scenes while the song is broadcasted on all the battlefields. And the idea is working at first, because men do listen to women in such circumstances. Nevertheless the process is a bit overdone and dripping with sentimentalism.

Visually impressive with a flurry of reds and blue light effects, the future trademark of the Das Boot masterpiece of Bavaria studios, the movie is failing to convince, perhaps because we are used to that subject. The recent Black Book by Paul Verhoeven explores a similar story, and yet is more convincing as the main character is behaving like a real woman, and not like a decerebrated doll.

With a subject comparable to Visconti’s The Damned Fassbinder wanted to illustrate the monstrosity of Nazi Germany within the scope of a popular singer career. The integration of a thriller story with Jewish background is largely contributing to disrupt the narrative flow. Perhaps the flaw of the movie is its very subject, because a song is only a song, that is a moment of forgiveness and peace in a world at war. Nothing more, nothing less.

Frederic W. Erk

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Afghanistan: O Brother Where Are Thou?

In Uncategorized on April 16, 2009 at 9:16 am

From the days of old war became art in the same manner that lords became lords of war. War was fought for most precious resource: food, water, women, and then as societies began to evolve, so war evolved too, and battles were fought for honor and prestige, for commerce and gold.

Eventually dawned a time of low-intensity conflicts with their definition as obscure as the intellectual understanding of low and intensity being applied to what humans consider an art, that is war. But lessons from the past endure, and from the days of Sparta’s Strategos where young athletes competed with wooden figures in sand boxes, there is a time for today’s strategists to understand that no war can be fought without a deep understanding of the enemy.

However brilliant and well armoured the armies are, they are but the arm of the Strategos. Know Thy Enemy is the most important lesson of the Art of War. And to know your enemy you must not only respect it, but feel the ground where he stands, breathe the same foul air of intimate fear and expectations, and understand how nature and terrain have shaped his visions. Read the rest of this entry »