Hot 'Lanta

The Allman Brothers Band at their finest.  From the Fillmore East 1971 with the original lineup before the deaths of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley.  Saw them perform this a few months later at the same venue and it was electrifying.  Amazing how with two drummers they could play so tightly intertwined and let the music flow (compare for example John Bonham's drumming with Led Zeppelin which turned every song into a plodding stomp).   Duane and Dickie Betts on guitars match the drummers and Oakley contributes some fine bass.

Big Light

If you are curious about how to build a water-cooled 72,000 lumen LED flashlight and how much it would illuminate, you've come to the right place.  From Twisted Sifter:

The Sealed Train

(Lenin arrives at the Finland Station)

‘It was with a sense of awe that they turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland to Russia.’

- Winston Churchill

It is one of those moments on which history turns.  Tens of millions would die as a result in Russia, eastern Europe, China and elsewhere.  Hundreds of millions would be oppressed.  It is ironic that although Marxist theory is predicated on iron rules of history in which individuals are of little import, that development in Russia and for the rest of the world during the 20th century, would have taken a very different direction if the German government had not taken the decision to inject Vladimir Lenin into Russia.  It was one of two catastrophic decisions made by Germany in April 1917 (the other being declaring unrestricted submarine warfare leading to America's declaration of war), the consequences of which led to its defeat in two world wars (see April 1945: Germany's End), and unlike the submarine decision, it was also a disaster for humanity. 

Lenin's return and the Russian provisional government's reaction raises a fundamental question.  Under what circumstances should a democratic government resort to non-democratic means?  Without the presence of Lenin, it is very unlikely the Bolshevik Party would have seized power later in 1917.  As the historian Edward Crankshaw wrote in the October 1954 edition of The Atlantic:

The Bolshevik Party in crisis was nothing but Lenin's will and the men who were prepared to submit to it absolutely. If Lenin had resigned after his return to Russia in 1917 it would have lost its identity, swallowed up by the Mensheviks and the "Compromisers." Lenin would have formed another party, but too late to win for himself the government of Russia; there would have been no Soviet Union. On the other hand, had Lenin given in to the popular demand and allowed his most trusted colleagues to persuade him into compromise, he would have lost his own identity and Bolshevism would have lost its meaning; there would have been no Soviet Union.

Should the Kerensky government have arranged the killing of Lenin (and perhaps of Leon Trotsky), saving millions of lives?  The provisional government knew Lenin was plotting its overthrow, yet shied away from extreme measures.  So much depended on one man and his unshakeable will.

Anxiously watched events in Russia from his decade long Swiss exile during the early months of 1917, Lenin feared his moment might pass.  In February a revolution had overthrown the Czar and a provisional government was in place under Alexander Kerensky.  In today's political taxonomy the new government would be considered of the left, dominated by democratic socialists.  Lenin's party, the Bolsheviks, was explicitly not democratic, but was small, weak and leaderless, a relative nonentity.  Its leader was frustrated, separated from the events he had dreamt of by Russia's enemy Germany, with no way to reach his homeland in the midst of the fourth year of the great European war.

By 1917 each of the countries in the Great War was like a punch drunk boxer.  Exhausted but blindly staggering on, refusing to be knocked out.  With the war in stalemate, Germany was under great pressure.  The military High Command, with the approval of the Kaiser, was willing to role the dice in the case of both America and Russia, in a final attempt to win the war.  They needed Russia out of the war, allowing them to move millions of soldiers to the west to defeat Britain and France. They sensed the war weariness of the Russian people, the revolutionary chaos and the weakness of Kerensky's government.

At Zurich on April 8,  Lenin and his entourage entered the train provided by Germany.  Across Germany, then across the Baltic and through Sweden, entering Russia via Finland, which was then a part of Russia, and arriving at the Finland Station in Petrograd (St Petersburg) on April 16.   Lenin's objective was already set - overthrow of the provisional government and establishment of a Bolshevik dictatorship.   He smashed any thought of compromise within the Bolshevik ranks.  One observer summed up a speech Lenin gave two days after his arrival:

"He swept aside agrarian reforms, along with all the other policies of the Soviet. He demanded that the peasants should themselves organize and seize the land without any governmental interference. We don't need any parliamentary republic. We don't need any bourgeois democracy. We don't need any government except the Soviet of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies.'"

He was unswerving.  After a failed coup attempt in July, the Bolsheviks regrouped and succeeded in overthrowing the provisional government in October.  With armed soldiers they forcibly disbanded the first fully elected parliament in Russian history.  They triumphed in the Civil War that followed, with Lenin instituting the Red Terror, mass executions to instill terror in the populace.  As his Justice Minister explained, "Execution of the guilty is not enough, execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more".  As we now know from Solzhenitsyn and others, it was Lenin who created mass terror and the Gulag as Soviet institutions; Stalin merely expanded and perfected his predecessor's work.  Lenin's example was followed by every communist regime of the 20th century and was carefully observed as a model by the growing Nazi Party in Germany.

Would you have ordered a bullet for Lenin?

Scorecard

For the Trump administration.

1.  Syria.  Should have sought Congressional approval before strike.  No imminent threat to U.S.  On substance, I am against intervention as these tend not to go well in the Mideast.  In this specific instance there is a reasonable argument in favor of action, though it does not carry day with me.

2.  Justice Gorsuch.  Terrific nominee.  At least as good as Scalia on 4th and 5th Amendment rights for individuals and may be better standing up to oppressive government agencies.  Much better than Progressive nominees who favor big government over the little guy.

3.  Healthcare.  Glad Ryan/Trump proposal got nowhere.  Let's see if this bunch can actually come up with something better before Obamacare collapses on its own.

4.  Russia.  Hopelessly confused about the narrative.  Administration and Democrats both look bad.  As a practical matter looks like worries that Trump will be in Putin's pocket are groundless at this point.

5.  Trump.  Remains unpredictable and impulsive (not good traits).  Still can't stand to listen to him.  Wish he'd stop that twitter stuff.

6.  White House.  Glad Bannon out at NSC, but worried that Kushner and Ivanka are Democrats Lite.  Given lack of Trump ideology this may be problem.  On the other hand, implacable Democratic opposition may close off this avenue for them.

7.  Appointments.  They need to move much faster on getting rid of Democrat appointees in the agencies.

Summary; Administration still erratic, GOP Congressional leadership mostly incompetent (though McConnell handled filibuster well) and Democratic Party, along with its media affiliates, insane.  Who knows where this is going?

Something New On Opening Day Once Again

Last year I attended Opening Day for the Arizona Diamondbacks.  In anticipation of our move to the state, this year I decided to watch on TV the D-backs first game.   Turned out to be pretty good.

For the second straight year, the D-back opener featured something happening for the first time in the history of baseball.  In 2016 it was Trevor Story of the Colorado Rockies becoming the first rookie to hit two home runs on opening day.  Yesterday Madison Baumgarner of the San Francisco Giants became the first pitcher to hit two home runs on opening day.  And quite the homers they were - with exit velocities of 112 mph, the hardest hit balls by a pitcher since StatCast was deployed on opening day in 2015.  The performance was a continuation of the Giants hurler's batting skills as he'd hit 12 taters in the prior three seasons.

Baumgarner threw a perfect game into the sixth inning and left after seven, having given himself the lead with his second homer and fanning 11 D-backs.

The Arizona team picked up a run in the 8th to tie the game and then inserted 40-year old reliever Fernando Rodney to pitch the 9th.  In a nightmare debut with his new team, Rodney gave up two hits and two walks along with the run to give the Giants a lead but managed to get out of the inning leaving the bases loaded.

The Giants, who fell out of contention last season because of a terrible bullpen, signed closer Mark Melancon to fill the role this year.  Entering the game in the bottom of the ninth, Melancon got two quick outs and then gave up a double and three singles to lose the save and the game 6-5.

The D-backs are in a rebuilding stage in the wake of the club's downfall under the management team of Dave Stewart and Tony LaRussa but for now they are 1-0 and leading the NL West!

Making (No) Sense Of It All

Perhaps more true than we would like.

Sooner or later there's a pattern.
Sooner or later everything falls into place.
If I didn't believe that I wouldn't want to wake up tomorrow morning and see the sun rise.

Every crime has its own pattern of logic.
Everything has its own order.
If we cannot find that order, it is not because it doesn't exist, but because we have incorrectly examined some vital piece of evidence.

Let us examine the evidence.

Number 1: In the past 6 months, there have been 345 homicides committed in the city.  The victims have ranged variously in age, sex, social status and color.

Number 2: In none of these homicides, have we been able to find a motive.

Number 3:  Consequently, all 345 homicides remain unsolved.

So much for the evidence.

A subtle pattern begins to emerge.  What is this pattern?  What is it that these 345 homicides have in common?

They have in common 3 things:
A.  They have nothing in common.
B.  They have no motive, and
C.  They remain unsolved. 

From the off-Broadway play and 1971 film, Little Murders, written by Jules Feiffer and directed by actor Alan Arkin.  Murders takes place in a dystopian urban setting where random violence is the new norm and order is falling apart.

The clip below contains the monologue quoted above, given by Lt. Patience (played by Arkin).  He first appears at 1:25 and the monologue begins at 3:15.  Following Arkin's outburst there is a bizarrely compelling and still relevant monologue from Vincent Gardenia.   I saw the film when it was first released.  It left you feeling very uneasy.  It still does.