Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 15

A Real Political Gambit

I was amused by the recent hullabaloo over whether athletes have a right to comment on controversial issues. There was something uniquely American about the controversy, for we are the rare nation that pretends that jocks must check their political leanings at the door. This concept must sound bizarre to the soccer fans of Brazil, where Corinthians and its star player, Sócrates, were instrumental in ending the country’s military dictatorship in the eighties.

As this (paywalled) 1989 article points out, Sócrates organized Corinthians’ supporters into a pro-democracy movement by leveraging his own athletic value:

Much was at stake in the 1982 club elections, and the opposing sides knew it…Sócrates, a lanky, bearded medical doctor, captain of Brazil’s 1982 World Cup team, and the Corinthians star player, issued a stern ultimatum: He would retire from soccer if “Order and Truth” won.

Sócrates’ gambit worked that time, but his results two years later were disappointing—perhaps because his new threat lacked a severe edge:

Corinthian Democracy reached its peak at the April 1984 free-election rally

in Sâo Paulo. The rally was held just a few days before the scheduled Congressional vote on the constitutional amendment to re-establish free elections in the nation. Sócrates, speaking before some 500,000 people, pledged that, if the amendment passed, he would refuse a million-dollar offer to play in Italy and stay in Brazil to participate in the rebuilding of democracy. His gesture was criticized as demagogic, but it was absolutely consistent with the spirit of Corinthian Democracy.

As things turned out, the free-election amendment did not pass.

More on Sócrates’ political career here. Disagree with his mildly extortionate methods if you like, but you must give him credit for risking everything for a righteous cause.

(Image via In Bed with Maradona)

The Mystery of Throatboxing

Throat singing is considered something of a female pursuit in Inuit culture, but Nelson Tagoona has no qualms about incorporating the artform’s esophagus-expanding techniques into his beatboxing. Check out the above clip, then move onto this related performance, which took place this summer in front of one of Microkhan’s favorite architectural curiosities.

Tougher Than His Rep

The common narrative about the end of the Cold War is that the Soviet Union’s decline began to inevitably steepen on the day that Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency. His peanut-farming predecessor, the conventional wisdom goes, was too soft to strike fear into the heart of the Kremlin, as evidenced by the Soviets willingness to invade Afghanistan in 1979.

The truth, of course, is always more complex than any brief story can convey. While Jimmy Carter may not have been quite the verbal swordsman that Reagan was, his defense policy was far more aggressive than most folks realize—certainly aggressive enough to antagonize the KGB and is rising-star chief, Yuri Andropov. East German spymaster Markus Wolf made this clear when recounting a February 1980 conversation he had with the future Soviet premier:

We began discussing the East-West conflict. I had never before seen Andropov so somber and dejected. He described a gloomy scenario in which a nuclear war might be a real threat. His sober analysis came to the conclusion that the US government was striving with all means available to establish nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. He cited statements of President Carter, his adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and of Pentagon spokesmen, all of which included the assertion that under certain circumstances a nuclear first-strike against the Soviet Union and its allies would be justified….

Carter’s presidency had created great concern in the Kremlin, because he had presented a defense budget of more than $157 billion, which he invested in the MX and Trident missiles and nuclear submarines. One of the top Soviet nuclear strategists confided to me that the resources of our alliance were not sufficient to match this.

See? And you thought Carter only flexed his muscles when dealing with killer rabbits.

(Image via Iconic Photos)

The Greatest Love of All

The recent passing of uber-successful businessman Rev. Sun Myung Moon brought to mind a long-ago possession that I dearly, dearly wish I hadn’t lost during one of my I-95 moves: a poster advertising a 1997 Unification Church mass wedding at Washington D.C.’s RFK Stadium. The poster was particularly fantastic not because of the bizarre event it touted, but rather because it prominently featured a photograph of Whitney Houston in mid-croon. And why would that be? Because the talented-yet-troubled singer had agreed to headline the ceremony, allegedly in exchange for at least $1 million.

Houston, however, failed to make good on her commitment, as recounted in this excellent account of the day’s festivities:

Houston, who was supposed to collect about $1 million for a 45-minute concert, sent word two hours before her scheduled appearance that she was ill, according to festival organizers.

“Her band is here; her publicist is here,” said an exasperated Lavonia Perryman, a publicist for the event.

Organizers waited until after the fireworks show that concluded the program to tell the crowd that Houston wasn’t coming.

Clearly someone close to Houston convinced her that the potential damage to her reputation (and, by extension, future earning power) wasn’t worth the million or so bucks. But why did that organizational revelation not occur until the eleventh hour? Houston surely had a vast coterie of managers, publicists, and consultants on staff whose express purpose was to foresee such problems. The breakdown of her decision-making apparatus was pretty stunning.

I often think of Houston’s near-miss with the Moonies when I hear of an egregious mistake by a supposedly well-oiled machine—for example, the Qwikster debacle. Amazing how a gathering of very large and attentive brains still has the capacity to make horrendously shortsighted mistakes.

“Earth Proved a Great Disappointment to Us”

Okay, almost got this ultra-parenting thing nailed down. Please allow me one more day to catch up on sleep and book-related work, and I’ll be back atcha in the morning—probably with some belated thoughts about the intersection between the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the organizational disaster that was Whitney Houston’s entourage. In the meantime, enjoy the intro to the 1975 TV series Star Maidens, which this incredibly thorough critique neatly summarizes as “hot German blondes in space.”

The Grand Emprette

Apologies for my failure to keep pace with this project in recent days, but I have an unassailable excuse for my absence: the Grand Empress has yielded us a seven-pound, nine-ounce Grand Emprette, who is currently rocking in her automated swing at the foot of my desk. Needless to say I’m dazed, albeit in a good way. Taking a 72-hour paternity leave to attend to the affairs of the royal household and the cohesion of the horde; see you back here after the holiday.

“A Boy Has Never Wept nor Dashed a Thousand Kim”

Even if Rutger Hauer had stopped making art before the turn of the millennium, he would still occupy a hallowed place in the Microkhan pantheon for his trailblazing work in Surviving the Game. Fortunately for us, the Dutch actor continued to hammer away at his craft in the early part of this century, including a turn as the lead in little-seen The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (above). The 22-minute film features a smorgasbord of surreal images to accompany Hauer’s reading of Dutch Schultz’s dying declaration, a masterpiece of accidental poetry. (Please note that the film has virtually nothing to do with William S. Burroughs’ infamous unproduced screenplay of the same name.)

Hauer’s throaty, slow-paced interpretation of the deluded rant probably bears almost no relation to Schultz’s actual delivery, which was likely woozily mumbled on account of his bullet wounds. But the narration works beautifully regardless—Hauer has a gift for making even the most nonsenical lines, like the one referenced in this post’s title, sound like pearls of Socratic wisdom.

The Power of Gorgor

A mammoth gold mine on Papua New Guinea’s Lihir Island is currently shut down due to a compensation dispute. There is, of course, nothing unusual about that situation, for conflicts between foreign mining companies and local interest are par for the course in the resources-extraction game. What makes the Lihir protest notable, however, is the means by which the island’s landowners made their displeasure known: By placing taboo markers from a ginger root plant, known locally as gorgor, around the site:

Under Melanesian custom, landowners on Lihir island have traditionally raised grievances with local miners through the traditional cultural practice of placing ginger plants, known as a gorgor, on the site, signalling that talks are needed.

“People in Papua New Guinea are good at making their feelings known, and if mining companies don’t take note of what they are concerned about it can lead to a disruption in operations,” said Annmaree O’Keeffe, acting director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy’s Melanesia Program.

I am impressed that the mining company in question, Australia’s Newcrest, had the cultural chops to recognize that such a seemingly insignificant gesture was a sign worth heeding. I have no doubt that many prominent firms would have simply ignored the plants, thereby leaving the landowners to contemplate more violent means of articulating their grievances.

The Flip Side of Red Dawn

Our eternal gratitude to whoever posted the full text of What to Do When the Russians Come, one of great artifacts of Cold War literature. The book assumes that the Wolverines did not, in fact, fend off the Soviet invasion, and so us poor subjugated Americans are left to make the best of a dreadful Stalinist situation. The authors’ advice, which tends toward the bizarrely practical, includes this fantastic tidbit about how to retain some basic creature comforts:

There usually comes a time in any Soviet occupation, usually in the early stages, when most people who own valuable furniture have to sell it off for food or fuel. You should look over your household effects in good time with a view to such an eventuality. Acquire a few more chairs than you need. Choose them in a style that will appeal to the taste of the new rich class of Communist bureaucrats: ornate, pretentious, with some claim to being heirlooms handed down from members of the French aristocracy (or whatever story seems plausible). The proceeds of such a sale may keep you going for weeks or months and may also give you a useful connection with members of the new elite.

Also, just because you are now living under the heel of Soviet oppression doesn’t give you an excuse to let your living quarters go totally to seed:

A good set of ladders (padlocked) will be useful as well as several sheets of glass. It is demoralizing to have to live in a house whose windows are broken or boarded up with plywood or cardboard, and being able to mend your smashed windows will give you a small psychological lift. On the other hand, it will not be advisable to paint the exterior of your house or lavish too much care and attention on it. See that it is sound-and-water-proof, but otherwise foster a discreet shabbiness. You won’t want your house to stand out. Begin to cultivate early the art of keeping a low profile.

On a personal note, this would be a tough pill to swallow:

If you are a political columnist or commentator, or have otherwise become known for ideas antipathetic to the Communist view, you will have little chance of remaining at liberty. Anyhow, you will have no future in journalism. If the offense you have committed is judged to be minor, you might be able to secure some sort of job in the bureaucracy. We would suggest that you acquire some appropriate skill such as bookkeeping.

A bookkeeper in the dictatorship of the proletariat—tough to imagine that might have been my fate if Yuri Andropov had sent his forces across the Bering Strait.

Phase Three

Plunging into the third and final draft of the book today. Please occupy yourselves by checking out this stupendous collection of secret-hideout illustrations from The Secret World of 007. The laboratory complex beneath Piz Gloria is a personal favorite, primarily for its impeccable collection of stolen art.