War and Peace

This is Bad

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As almost everyone knows, the Navajo Code Talkers were a group of WWII Marines who provided secure communications by the simple expedient of transmitting and receiving orders in their own language. This procedure was much faster than conventional encryption / decryption methods, and the Navajo language was apparently so little-known and so complex that the Japanese were never able to read such messages.

Someone at the Department of Defense (or more likely some set of someones) apparently interpreted President Trump’s executive order on DEI as meaning that it would be improper to refer to the Navajo Code Talkers as…Navajos, and at least 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers have been removed from DoD websites.

There have been many other questionable deletions made on counter-DEI grounds, such as the deletion of items about Ira Hayes of Iwo Jima fame.  The Navajo Code Talkers deletions I find particularly bad because their being Navajo–specifically, being speakers of the Navajo language–was an inherent enabler of the work that they did.  To refer to their accomplishments without reference to their language (and hence, their tribal background) would be as silly as banning a post on codemakers and codebreakers of the more conventional sort from disclosing that many of them had mathematical or linguistic backgrounds.

I don’t know if this is malicious compliance, or arrant stupidity, or just robotic bureaucratic behavior, but I think it is really, really bad.  It reminds me of the Left’s destruction of statues.  It’s harmful to the country and also harmful to the political future of Republicans/MAGA. It’s not at all consistent with an intelligent narrative of American patriotism and identity.

Video Review: A French Village (rerun)

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The Paris-based writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry said (on X)  that he “casually mentioned to an educated American that the Vichy Regime was voted into power by a left-majority Assembly and most of its political personnel was left-wing, while the Free French were overwhelmingly right-wing reactionaries, and he was totally stunned. I thought I was stating the obvious.”

The mention of Vichy reminded me of this series, set in the (fictional) French town of Villeneuve during the years of the German occupation and afterwards, which ran on French TV from 2009-2017.  It is simply outstanding–one of the best television series I have ever seen.

Daniel Larcher is a physician who also serves as deputy mayor, a largely honorary position. When the regular mayor disappears after the German invasion, Daniel finds himself mayor for real. His wife Hortense, a selfish and emotionally-shallow woman, is the opposite of helpful to Daniel in his efforts to protect the people of Villaneuve from the worst effects of the occupation while still carrying on his medical practice. Daniel’s immediate superior in his role as mayor is Deputy Prefect Servier, a bureaucrat mainly concerned about his career and about ensuring that everything is done according to proper legal form.

The program is ‘about’ the intersection of ultimate things…the darkest evil, the most stellar heroism….with the ‘dailyness’ of ordinary life, and about the human dilemmas that exist at this intersection. Should Daniel have taken the job of mayor in the first place?…When is it allowable to collaborate with evil, to at least some degree, in the hope of minimizing the damage? Which people will go along, which will resist, which will take advantage? When is violent resistance…for example, the killing by the emerging Resistance of a more or less random German officer…justified, when it will lead to violent retaliation such as the taking and execution of hostages?

Arthur Koestler has written about ‘the tragic and the trivial planes’ of life. As explained by his friend, the writer and fighter pilot Richard Hillary:

“K has a theory for this. He believes there are two planes of existence which he calls vie tragique and vie triviale. Usually we move on the trivial plane, but occasionally in moments of elation or danger, we find ourselves transferred to the plane of the vie tragique, with its non-commonsense, cosmic perspective. When we are on the trivial plane, the realities of the other appear as nonsenseas overstrung nerves and so on. When we live on the tragic plane, the realities of the other are shallow, frivolous, frivolous, trifling. But in exceptional circumstances, for instance if someone has to live through a long stretch of time in physical danger, one is placed, as it were, on the intersection line of the two planes; a curious situation which is a kind of tightrope-walking on one’s nerves…I think he is right.”

In this series, the Tragic and the Trivial planes co-exist…day-to-day life intermingles with world-historical events. And the smallness of the stage…the confinement of the action to a single small village….works well dramatically, for the same reason that (as I have argued previously) stories set on shipboard can be very effective.

Some of the other characters in the series:

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Worthwhile Reading and Watching

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Rearming warships at sea. In an intensive conflict, missiles can be expended very quickly. And reloading presently requires a trip back to a base, requiring weeks or months.  Reload-at-sea is challenging but development is being pursued.

It could make a major difference in ship/fleet effectiveness..it’s good that this is now being pursued, but…couldn’t this work have been started 10 years ago and now be operationally deployed or at least ready to go?

The electric air taxi company Joby Aviation has received FAA approval for a flight school to train pilots for its own aircraft and those of other companies.  See also plans for air taxi service in the UAE.

Why the symbolic professions tend to be highly unrepresentative of the societies that they purportedly serve.

David Brooks asserts that Ivy League admissions broke America. Here’s a transcript.  He doesn’t seem to even consider the possibility that elite-schools-as-a-gateway to key positions in a society is a really bad idea, as Peter Drucker argued 50+ years ago.

Alexander Hamilton tried to warn us about people like Obama, out of office and ‘wandering among the people like discontented ghosts.’

Real science:  Hacksawing your hypothesis.

There’s a report that OpenAI’s new model reacted to the threat of being shut down and replaced by a new model by copying itself into the new model.  Reminded me of the story Burning Bright in the collection of SF stories that I reviewed here.

Interesting comments at the X link for the story..not totally clear to what extent the model’s actions are reflective of truly emergent behavior versus ‘nudging’ in that direction.

Nice views of the restored Notre Dame cathedral, featuring the stained glass windows.

December 7, 1941

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Today marks the anniversary of Imperial Japan’s attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.  The late and very great blogger Neptunus Lex (Captain Carroll LeFon, USN) wrote about entering Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Constellation, when returning from his first cruise in 1987.

Thiel on the Election and the Triumph of the Counter-Elites

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Bari Weiss interviews Peter Thiel.  There’s a two-hour video and, below it, an edited transcript.