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Chamber of Propaganda Horrors
Tourists visiting Spanish cities like Córdoba, Toledo and Sevilla have the option of whiling away an hour or so at a ‘Museum of the Inquisition’, sometimes known as a ‘Gallery of Torture’. For around three euros, visitors can view an exotic range of devices used to impale, immolate, strangle and dismember human beings in the […]
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Night for Day or Day for Night in the Heart of Darkness
“I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air” — Lord Byron, “Darkness”, 1816 Overheard in a coffee shop: A woman and a man […]
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The Priesthood of Expertise
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked, 1935 In The Death of Expertise, national security expert Tom Nichols warns that knowledge is under attack by an ill-informed public determined to replace […]
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The Oppenheimer Imperative: Normalising Atomic Terror
The atomic bomb created the conditions of contingent catastrophe, forever placing the world on the precipice of existential doom. But in doing so, it created a philosophy of acceptable cruelty, worthy extinction, legitimate extermination. The scenarios for such programs of existential realisation proved endless. Entire departments, schools of thought, and think tanks were dedicated to […]
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The Atomic Genie Escapes
1945: Alamagordo Never have scientists so fervently prayed. Slumping against a wooden post, Robert Oppenheimer reminds himself not to weaken: “I must remain conscious!” The countdown proceeds: “five . . . . four . . . . three . . . two . . . ” Afraid it may electrocute him, the normally unflappable Sam […]
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The Movie and the Moment
The ground-breaking movie Oppenheimer, despite its unsympathetic protagonist, packs a powerful anti-nuclear punch that makes it hard, if not impossible, to sleep after watching the film. For this reason alone, the movie should be shown on the floor of Congress and in the White House as required viewing by all in DC bent on spending […]
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Trinity’s Shadow
I sit here in the silence of the awakening dawn’s stillness stunned by the realization that I exist. I wonder why. It is my birthday. The first rays of the rising sun bleed crimson over the eastern hills as I imagine my birth. The house and my family sleep. Someday I will die and I […]
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