Recent Reading

Since starting to blog, I’ve posted a total of five book reviews. Over that same time period, I’ve probably read at least 200 books. So maybe I’d do better to write less-comprehensive but more frequent reviews–maybe not even “reviews,” exactly, but rather notes on recent reading. Here’s an initial batch…

1)Adelsverein–The Gathering, by Celia Hayes. (The author blogs as Sgt Mom and is an occasional commenter at Chicago Boyz)

This novel, which I mentioned a couple of months ago, is based on some real but not-very-well-known history. In the 1840s, a group of socially conscious German noblemen conceived the notion of establishing a colony of German farmers and craftsmen in Texas. Over five years, the association dispatched more than thirty-six chartered ships, carrying over 7,000 immigrants, to the ports of Galveston and Indianola. The Gathering tells the story of this enterprise through the eyes of one family. I thought it was very good.

Here is the Steinmetz family, leaving home on their way to Bremen, where they will meet the ship that is to carry them to America:

At a turning in the road, Hansi’s cart halted, and Vati said, “What can be the matter already; did one of the horses lose a shoe?”

But ahead of them, Hansi was standing and lifting Anna in his arms.

“Look,” he called to them all. “Look back, for that is the very last that we wil see of our our old home!”

Magda’s breath caught in her throat. She turned in the seat, as Hansi said, and looked back at the huddle of roofs around the church spire, like a little ship afloat in a sea of golden fields. All they knew, all that was dear and familiar, lay small in the distance behind their two laden carts. Really, she would slap Hansi if that started Mutti crying again. Even Vati looked sobered; once around the bend of the road, trees would hide Albeck from their sight, as if it had never been a part of them or they of it.

The Gathering is the first book of a trilogy; I look forward to reading the other two in the series.

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Even Russian Admirals Have to Take on Odd Jobs to Make Ends Meet

A recent post at Strategypage.com tells a sordid tale of double dealing.

“Russian police caught a group of naval officers (including at least two admirals) trying to smuggle 30 anti-submarine missiles and 200 bombs to China.”

The idea was to mislabel currently used weapons as obsolete, and then sell them to China so Beijing could reverse-engineer the technology. This news article gives us some more details.

It would seem that the Russians have been uncovering various criminal plots in their military with astonishing regularity over the past few years. While they have always struggled with corruption and graft, it would appear that things have really taken off.

“Over 400 Russian military officers were convicted of criminal offenses in 2008, army prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky reports in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper (Rus). The offending officers included 76 base commanders, and around 300 were senior staff, including 20 generals.”

The Russian military took it on the chin after the fall of the USSR in the early 1990’s. The economy was in turmoil, and funding for the troops was pretty much non-existent. Stories of how the armed forces were crumbling, such as how army bases would go dark because the electric bill wasn’t paid, were legion.

But that was supposed to be all in the past, as Russian oil and natural gas sales to an energy starved Europe revitalized the ruble and brought the good times back. Those who think that the recent US economic turmoil is forcing Russian generals to turn to crime as a desperate measure to stave off starvation should consider that the internal investigations to root out corruption started well before our own recession. And, as this op-ed from the UK Telegraph explains, Russia certainly had so much cash as late as October of 2008 that they offered a huge bailout loan to Iceland. A recent post at Strategypage.com reinforces the impression that the Russian government is going to keep spending money on the military, no matter how bad the global economic downturn.

This is probably the barely visible signs of a massive bureaucratic conflict that is raging between entrenched officers in the military, and the government at large. This essay mentions in passing that Putin has been trying to forcibly retire officers who are left over from an antiquated mobilization system, but the generals are refusing to go.

“The Army officer corps has stalemated the massive Defense Ministry reforms. This has delayed the forced retirement of thousands of senior officers. The officer corps wants to retain the 19th century “mobilization army” system. This requires conscription of most of the male population, and maintaining those men in reserve units (which are commanded by thousands of well paid senior officers). Russian leader Vladimir Putin sees this system as unworkable. Too many young men evade the draft and the country cannot afford to equip up to a hundred reserve divisions. Moreover, Russian nuclear weapons protect the country from invasion, and what the country needs is a smaller armed forces manned by professionals. But the officer corps is having none of it, and are digging in their heels, and calling in political favors.”

It seems to me that this is a case of “Use it or lose it”. The officers facing forced retirement, looking at their remaining decades spent as poor pensioners clipping coupons for dog food, realize that they only have a limited time to use their positions to cash in. Sell military technology to the Chinese and become a traitor to The Motherland? As long as a big pile of cash is on the table, then sign them up!

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

Youth Wingers?

From a Telegraph story [h/t Instapundit]:

The biggest display of public disaffection with Mr Putin prompted a violent response in Moscow. Pro Kremlin youth wingers brutally beat some protestors, while others were detained, including Eduard Limonov, a prominent Kremlin critic and leader of the outlawed National Bolshevik Party.[emp added]

What the hell are “youth wingers”? How does that even make sense? You have right and left wingers because they represents opposite sides of a spectrum. Does “youth wingers” imply a division between young and old?

More likely they just couldn’t figure out whether to call the bullies “left” or “right”. 

DEFIANCE–Brief Review

Went to see Defiance a couple of days ago. This is the story (based on real events) of a group of Jews in Nazi-occupied Byelorussia who obtained weapons, moved deep into the forest, and established a community there, sometimes joining with Russian partisans for raids on German troops and on local collaborators.

This post (via a comment by Eric at Bookworm) indicates that many “official” reviewers did not like this movie very much, and cites an absolutely bizarre passage in a review published by CNN:

It’s a remarkable story, one that should have inspired a more exciting and original movie than this sluggish compendium of earnest debates and hackneyed battle scenes.

The timing is unfortunate. For a story that has gone neglected for the best part of 60 years, this is hardly the ideal week to be extolling heroic Jewish resistance fighters. Ari Folman’s angst-laden nonfiction animated film, “Waltz With Bashir,” is altogether more relevant.

Zwick’s Hollywood liberal credentials are not in doubt, but his films have a surprisingly gung-ho undercurrent (they include such martial adventures as “The Last Samurai,” “Glory,” “The Siege,” “Legends of the Fall” and “Courage Under Fire”).

So, films are now supposed to be assessed based on the “Hollywood liberal credentials” of their directors? And the past heroism of Jews fighting their would-be murderers must only be portrayed and celebrated when Jews are not currently fighting other would be murderers?

Americans must no longer allow their opinions on movies, or on anything else, to be mediated by the court scribes of the old media. For movies as for books, reviews by “nonprofessionals” posted on blogs and on sites like Amazon are generally much more enlightening than those by the “professionals.”

Defiance will not go down as one of the great movies of all time, but it holds your interest and it tells a story that ought to be better known. Go and see it if you have a chance.

Freon?

The Russian Navy has had another horrible accident aboard a submarine.  Some 20 sailors have died and many others were “poisoned”.  It is very difficult from the article to tell why.  From the article:

The deaths were caused by a Freon gas leak that occurred when the fire-control system was activated yesterday, according to a preliminary investigation by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, Vesti reported, citing Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Prosecutor’s investigative committee.

Huh?  I don’t know a lot about submarine construction, but I do know a lot about “Freon”.  Freon is a trade name used by the DuPont corporation for refrigerants.  There are many different types of refrigerants, and “Freon” doesn’t describe which one.  Most refrigerants that are commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning applications are non flammable and very low in toxicity.  I can see how people in the sub would suffer greatly if a large refrigerant leak occurred, as there is only so far refrigerant can go in such a small space.  But you would think a modern sub would have some sort of way to replace their air with stored oxygen.

Lastly, modern refrigerants operate under pressure, and are closed systems.  How did a faulty fire control system rupture a refrigerant line? 

It may be a poor translation of an article originally in Russian (too bad I don’t have it or Tatyana or John Jay could take a look at it) or just the Russian news service providing scarce details provided them by the Russian Navy.  Any way you slice it, the article makes little to no sense.

I feel for the families of the Russian sailors and wish them the best.  I also hope that the Russian navy starts to maintain their sub fleet a little better so I don’t have to keep reading about their sailors losing their lives.