Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 65

Making a Mint Off Evil

The case against former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré appears to be as damning as they come. Like many of the twentieth century's great monsters, Habré was fairly assiduous about documenting his regime's brutality; according to this essential dossier, he received over 1,200 personal memos regarding the torture of dissidents, many of whom were eventually murdered and buried in mass graves. Habré was also not shy about committing atrocities against Chad's ethnic minorities, who suffered...

The Father of Boom

During my guest stint over at Ta-Nehisi's place last week, a commenter reminded me of my all-time favorite Otto von Bismarck quote: "Politics is the art of the possible." The unsmiling German statesman may have meant that all successful negotiations must end in compromise, but I'd like to think he also had faith in politics' ability to tease out technological innovation. Politicians are useless without the means to communicate with the masses, of course, and so they must constantly be on the ...

The Yank Who Helped Save the South

Amputations accounted for roughly three-quarters of all battlefield surgeries during the Civil War, which meant that artificial limbs were much in demand after the bitter conflict's end. Captain Ahab-style wooden stumps were an easy fix, but they tended to severely curtail a man's productivity. Fortunately for the shattered nation, then, a Massachusetts linguistics professor named George B. Jewett enjoyed dabbling in prosthetics whenever he had a spare moment. His great innovation, patented j...

And So the Khan Returneth

Thanks for putting up with the spotty posting last week, as I struggled to keep up with the hectic sked over at Ta-Nehisi Coates' realm. Did my best to cross-post when I could, but I'll admit to lazing out a bit—which is why you're getting Bad Movie Friday on a Monday. (All the background on the dreadful Michael Dudikoff vehicle Cyberjack, aka Virtual Assassin, available here.)

Fear not, I'm on the blogging case—and now without the royal "we" for good, having recently become convinced that...

Jerks and Great Art

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Growing up, Jack London was high atop my personal literary pantheon. The first time I read "To Build a Fire", it absolutely rocked my world—I mean, who knew you could have a story in which the protagonist's death-by-freezing could be portrayed in such a sweet manner? (That closing vision of "the old-timer on Sulphur Creek" still slays me to this day.) While it may be a stretch to say that I became a writer because of London, I certainly remember thinking t...

Rastafarians and Quakers

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)

I'm usually averse to attending egghead confabs, but I'd certainly make an exception for the upcoming Inaugural Rastafari Studies Conference, which will mark a half-century since the publication of the first academic treatise on the religion. Like all young faiths that manage to outlive their founders' generations, Rastafari is now grappling with important questions regarding its future course. For instance, how does a messianic religion deal with...

Splitsville Gets Smaller

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)

I had to engage in a bit of uproarious guffawing upon reading this brain-dead take on New York's long-awaited shift to no-fault divorce. The writer pleads for Governor David Patterson to veto the bill, using that tried-and-true "won't somebody please think of the children!" logic lampooned so memorably on The Simpsons. Yet she conveniently ignores two key facts. First, as I recently discussed on Microkhan, there is zero evidence of a correlation between...

Super Croat

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)

I know y'all spend a lot of time talking about superheroes, given Ta-Nehisi's lifelong predilection for Spider-Man, Batman, and various members of the Marvel mutant universe. As a former comic-book nerd myself, who hopes that his cherry copy of Uncanny X-Men #266 (first Gambit appearance!) will someday fund his son's education, let me add to the conversation by turning your attention toward an all-time favorite site: The International Catalogue of...

The Lives of Brian Cathcart

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)

In response to Ta-Nehisi's introductory post yesterday, a treasured commenter brought up the idea of doing a non-fiction recommendation thread this week. As fate would have it, I've long been planning to use this space to champion a few of my favorite off-the-radar non-fiction gems. Let me now start doing so in such a way that y'all will hopefully be inspired to join in the exercise.

Late in my own narrative non-fiction yarn, Now the Hell Will Start, I make ...

The Suicide Conundrum

(Cross-posted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Sorry to start this gorgeous summer day on an exceedingly somber note, but it's time to talk suicide.

I've written a lot about this topic, primarily from a public-health angle. Despite all we've learned about human psychology over the past several decades, we seem unable to make much of a dent in America's overall suicide rate, which has remained remarkably stable over the past half-century. In fact, the rate of suicide attempts seems to have gone up over...