Bound as One by an Oath

Marriage as a Covenant A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing Marriage, Developed from the Perspective of Malachi Gordon Paul Hugenberger, E.J. Brill, 1994.  414pp., indices, footnotes.

Is marriage a covenant?  What is a covenant?  Does it matter?  Gordon Hugenberger answers these questions and much more in his book.

My church’s adult class was studying Deuteronomy.  We got to chapter 24 when my pastor, who was leading the class, mentioned the interpretation of v. 1-4 given by his seminary professor, Gordon Hugenberger.  In his Ph.D dissertation Hugenberger advances the view that Deut. 24:1-4 should be interpreted as meaning the proscribed palingamy to the former spouse is to stop any financial gain by by the first husband.  This interpretation intrigued me.  I later asked if there was a civilian version of Hugenberger’s dissertation.  There is not, but my pastor was kind enough to lend me his copy of Hugenberer’s dissertation, complete with sticky note marking the interpretation in question.

People who know Hey, Randy know that I don’t always do things as expected.  I was not going to only read the section marked; I started at the beginning of the book and read it all, including the footnotes.  There are a lot of footnotes, this is a dissertation after all.  I left the sticky note in place.  It would later come in handy.

Hugenberer deals primarily with Mal. 2:14-16.  I think that he deals well with that passage.  I really like his interpretation of v. 15.  He relates it to Gen. 2:23, arguing correctly, I believe, that Adam’s statement is the oath/sign of his marriage covenant to Eve.   I think that the author has proven his thesis that marriage is a covenant between husband and wife.

This book is heavy reading.  It leans much upon the original languages.  This puts the general reader at a disadvantage.  However, the book is of great value in that it covers all the biblical evidence for marriage covenants and addresses many objections to this idea that have been raised by other scholars.  There are a lot of objections with which to deal.  This is dissertation after all.

While answering the objections of others is requisite for academic writers, it does add to the overall mass of the book.  If you don’t like academic writing, don’t pick up this book.  If you can tolerate academic writing you will learn a great deal.

Not all the objections raised are mere academic pettifogging.  The issue of the oath/sign is a good example of a serious objection answered by Hugenberger.  It does not take much study of biblical covenants to see that one of their characteristics is an oath.  This oath sometimes takes the form of a physical sign.  This oath/sign is always closely connected to the covenant.  It is so closely connected to the covenant that it’s violation is regarded as a violation of the covenant itself.  We see this in the new covenant instituted by Jesus.  The oath/sign is the Lord’s Supper.  What is the oath/sign of the marriage covenant?  It is Hugenberger’s opinion that the oath/sign of the marriage covenant is the sexual union.  Once this act occurs the covenant is ratified.   He cites Jacob’s marriage to Leah when he was really expecting to marry Rachel.  Once morning arrived and Jacob discovered it was Leah it was too late.  The covenant had been made and ratified.  Jacob was married.

I enjoyed the challenge of reading this book.  If I had not read it I might not have added palingamy, hypocorism, henydiadys, idolect, and about twenty other words to my vocabulary.  I think I may have been cured of my allergy to academic writing.  Is this a good thing?

But what of Dt. 24:1-4?  Alas, not so good.  It is at the very point of my interest that I find the book to be the most disappointing.   This is where the sticky note proved its worth:  it made it easy for me to find again and reread that passage.  While the interpretation offered by Hugenberger may be correct, his case is based entirely upon extra-biblical literature.  Citing the work of R. Westbrook who originated this interpretation, Hugenberger tries to make his case based upon the Code of Hammurabi where such prohibitions are in place.

I learned a lot about covenants and marriage covenants in particular by reading this book.  This justifies the effort of reading academic prose.  I recommend the book to all brave and persevering souls.  Just keep your dictionary at hand; this is a dissertation after all.

The Taxpayers Have too Much Money

It is the case that various states in America are broke.  Mine, New York, is too.  We should write our elected officials and protest.  How can my state be broke?  I don’t understand this.  The state gets most of its money by taxing.  It does, however, get some through more direct methods of theft: confiscation of unclaimed bottle refunds and unused gift cards.  How come there is never enough? Did we run out of taxpayers?  Or gift cards?

We may have run out of bottle refunds to steal.  The state recently extended the bottle deposit requirements to many other types of containers. This will enable the state to steal even more.  It won’t reduce taxes.  That is impossible.

It is entirely the fault of the taxpayers!  If these people were not so parsimonious, the state would not have this problem.  How can people be so cheap? Don’t they know that without a generous tax levy the state cannot supply those state defined vital services we don’t need or want but could get elsewhere for a lot less if we did?

This deplorable state of affairs cannot continue.  Something must be done!  But what?  Surely you cannot expect the state to retrench.  That is intolerable.  The employment situation is terrible now.  What would it be if the state (perish the thought) were to reduce the number of state employees?  Bureaucratic jobs are not arboreal fruit, you know.

Just think of the poor elected official who must face his constituency with the news that there will be fewer patronage jobs in the district.  You can’t expect incumbents to get re-elected on that platform!  Have you no respect for the office?

I suggest to all my readers that they immediately contact their elected person and demand a large, a very large, a really really very very large, tax increase on those stingy taxpayers.  Halfway measures will not do.  If we are to finance the state and end unemployment, nothing less than a giant tax increase will do.

How big?  Anything under 99 and 44 one-hundredths per cent is pure nonsense.  Most people would not even understand the necessity of such an increase, but the Enlightened Ones do.  They understand that the schools are not cheap to run.  It takes big bucks to turn the consistently poor product.  If there is to be a well maintained standard of mediocrity, there must be funds to pay for it.  It is well known that you can’t buy something overpriced unless you pay too much.  In government run education paying too much is not enough.

This tax increase would also pay for the future borrowing the state needs.  Unless we keeping paying interest on the loans we will never repay, we will not be able to borrow more.  Then how would we be able to spend all that tax money?

If something is not quickly done, the state will be forced into the printing business.  The federal government can print all the money it needs, but this method of finance is not allow to the states.  The feds hate competition.  But they are getting some.  The state of California has issued promissory notes to some state employees in lieu of the federally issued notes promising to pay in more of the notes that promise to pay.  I don’t know how California is getting away with this, but New York may follow.

Taxpayers of the world unite!  It will make collection easier.

Flush: the Happy Sound

The toilet broke in the main bathroom.  In America this is not a good.  We do have a spare (this is America, after all) in the power room, so total disaster was averted.  But getting the toilet fixed is not so simple.

I traced the problem to the flushing valve.  The valve design is a somewhat complex affair.  The manufacturer, American Standard, calls the valve the flushing tower.  Indeed, there is a poppet that is a cylinder.  When the lever is pulled the poppet is lifted off the seat, and the valve opens followed by the cylinder being lifted off its seat.  This allows all the water in the tank to quickly go into the bowl.  This is necessary because of the Federal regulations requiring all new toilets to use multiple attempts at flushing. This is to save water.  American Standard must not of gotten the notice since the toilet usually works the first time.   The problem is the internal poppet is connected to the cylinder  via a pair of claw-like clips.  The plastic where the clip are mounted is thin, and a clip broke off.

I put in the toilet about two years ago.  It replaced the one I bought to replace one of the two the previous home owner installed.  The first new toilet was an improvement, but it proved to clog up too often.  So off to the store to again buy a new toilet.  I bought the final one based upon the size of the trap way.  The trap way is the curved path the effluent takes as it travels toward the sewer pipe.  You can see that it is a real convoluted path if you look at the side of most toilets.  I have a lot of experience in industrial hydraulics, but I have no idea why the trap way is so tortuous.

I installed the new new toilet and put the old new toilet in the basement.  I was going  to use it to replace the power room toilet which was the same model as the old old toilet that was in the bathroom.

To find the repair part I went back to the local big box home improvement store where I think I remember buying the new new toilet.  They did not have the part because it was the wrong store.

I then went to the other store.  It was the right place, but they did not have the replacement part.  They did suggest two local giant size plumbing distributors.  I knew where one was.  It was not an American Standard dealer.

This is an example of what one of my former coworkers called “the fifty-fifty-ninety-nine-one rule”.  Whenever there is a choice between two options, ninety-nine times out of one hundred you will pick the wrong one.  While this is not technically correct, it does sound a lot better than the much more accurate 98.25 to one and three fourth rule.

Although it was not an American Standard dealer, the first giant local plumbing distributor did suggest I visit the American Standard web site.  I did.

The site was of no help on ordering the part, but it did give me the address of the other local large distributor.  It turns out that the second distributor is right across the street from the first local large distributor.  The second distributor is located in the rear of a really large building and is not readily visible from the street.

I went to the second distributor.  The man behind the counter showed me a poster with all the American Standard flushing valves and asked if I had one of these.  I said “No, I have this one” showing him the picture of the valve in the literature that came with the toilet.  He replied, “Oh, you have one of those.”  This was not a good sign.

It seems that American Standard has been having a lot of trouble with “those”.  The man said the they were out of those, but if I called American Standard they would send me one free.  He gave me their number.

It was Saturday; American Standard was closed.

On Monday I called and chose the right selection.  It directed me to the web site.

I called again.  This time I chose the ‘if you are a distributor” selection.  I got a real person.  She took my information and said the new part would arrive in 7-10 days.

After 14 days I called again.

Again using the “if you are a distributor selection”, I got another real person who told me that they were out of stock.  It would be another 7-10 days.

After 14 days I called again.  Again using the “if you…” selection, I got another real person who told me that they would send me one as soon as the shipment they received had cleared their inspection process.

A few days later a package arrived.  It was from American Standard.  Rejoice!  It was only part of what I needed.  The first real person said that she would send me the tank to bowl seal kit.  That is what arrived, not the flushing valve.

While all this is going on, the original old toilet in the power room started doing what it does best: not working.  It was constantly clogging.  Time to change it.  I went down to the nearest big box do it yourself store and bought the bolt kit and a wax seal ring.

I had brought from work a tool to cut off the bolts holding the toilet to the drain flange.  I took apart to old toilet and carried it to the garage to await garbage day.  I had mounted the old new toilet and then encountered my first problem:  the old water supply line was too short–by a quarter of an inch.

Back to the local big box.

After a little over a month from the time the main toilet failed a box arrived from American Standard.  Yes, it was the part in question.  Apparently it was no longer out of stock and had passed inspection.  The new part did not look like the old part, but it fit.

The installation of the new valve was not very difficult.  The valve was held in place to the tank with a huge plastic nut.  The only tool I had to turn the nut was a pair of 16 inch pliers.  They were left over from my days as an auto mechanic.  I used them to remove oil filters.  The pliers never failed.  They still haven’t.

It has been said that the sweetest sound heard by parents of young children is the sound of a toilet flushing.  That is certainly the happy sound in my house.

Breathing Regulations

In an effort to combat the increase in global warming, the Obama administration has today announced that it will be issuing regulations on breathing.  Since it is well known that humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, administration officials decided to act quickly before more damage was done to the environment.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been given the task of formulating the necessary regulations.  While still in draft form, the proposed regulations call for each citizen to be given a quota of daily breaths.  It is still being debated among the regulators whether to allow the existence of a secondary market for unused breaths.

The DHS technical division is working with major government contractors to develop personal breath monitors to enable the department’s enforcement division to adequately ensure that no one is using too much oxygen.  The ideal design will not only monitor the number of breaths but will also gauge and record the actual oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide emission.  A global positioning system will be incorporated to facilitate the tracking of breathing patterns.   A proposed feature of the device will be the will be the breath noise analyzer.  This feature will enable department officials to ensure that all citizens are using proper breathing techniques.  Small monitors will record the sound of each breath and ambient noise to help establish a data base for compliance assurance.  The information collected will be kept confidential.

Department officials have stated that they envision voluntary compliance and have no plans to use the built-in breath stop function.  “Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear,” said a department spokesman at a press conference announcing the regulations.  When asked if the president would be fitted for such a device, the questioner was assured that the devices were harmless.  He was then taken to another part of the building for a demonstration.

Two Dozen is too Much

I do not watch a lot of television.  I find most of the programming to be wretched, except for the news.  I find it vacuous.  The only television I enjoy is the Red Green Show.  It is now off the air in my area.  It was a comedy (some say documentary) about the stupid thing middle aged men do.  Being a middle aged man who works with a lot of middle aged men in a shop well equipped with industrial grade power tools, I think the show could be rightly classified as a training film.  The show is Canadian, produced in Hamilton, Ontario.  This makes it not just weird but Canadian weird.  You know, like their football.

I also watch Doctor Who.  This is a British produced show.  It is about a man who, with his comely female sidekick, travels in an old police call box through time and space.  The show takes place all over the universe, but it is mostly about saving the cities of London and New York from destruction by characters in bad costumes.  The show’s usual tag line is the title character introducing himself as “the Doctor.”  The standard response is “Who?”  Recently, the mold was broken when the reply was “What?”  If I am ever introduced to the guy, I will answer with “Why?”.

A friend of ours is a fan of the show 24, so my wife, daughter, and I watched two episodes.  The show is about a FBI agent who saves America from miscreants.  The show is full of shootings, car crashes, and daring do on the part of the Jack Bauer (spelling?), the lead character.  The two episodes I sort of watched (I had my back to the television. I was playing a computer game and only listening.  I only turned around to catch some of the exciting action.) had the White House invaded and seized by what appeared to be Congolese commandos.  They entered the building though a secret tunnel that was not there.  This explains why the Secret Service was caught off guard. (1) (One of the commandos was a geeky guy with a laptop computer he used to hack into the White House’s security system.  The guy reminded me of Harold on Red Green.  Bauer reminds me why I don’t watch television.)

After lots of antiseptic killings, the hero rescues the President and shoots the lead bad guy.  Bauer, however, is in deep trouble:  he violated department rules (not filing the paperwork for the previous episodes?) and is now on his way to the lockup.  But he talks his way to release.  This is good because there are more bad guys  as well as a Quisling government employee to shoot.  (How do you think the commandos found the non-existent tunnel?  I think it is because they could not find work on another show.)  What the show lacks in reality it makes up for in ammunition use.

The show is in serial form.  The last episode ended with the FBI looking for Bauer (His release was canceled. Not filing paperwork is a serious offense.  It could lead to an ammunition budget short fall.) and Bauer looking for the rest of the bad actors.  Bauer uses his cell phone to call those looking for him and tells them that there are others about who need shooting.  Even super heroes can not do it all themselves.  Stay tuned!

The advent of the cell phone has caused a real problem in the super hero business: the disappearance of phone booths.  This lack of phone booths explains why Bauer never donned his costume, mask, and cape.  The writers of the show really need to address this matter after they delete the trite, silly, and stupid.  Until they do I will keep reading comic books–but not too much.

(1) Hey Randy! has learned from confidential uninformed sources close to retirement that the Secret Service, embarrassed by their failure to find the non-existent tunnel and enraged that the FBI is getting all the television exposure, has requested  187.35 million dollars to be added to the fiscal year 2010-2011 budget to install a new sump pump in the White house basement.  “This will greatly enhance security on Air Force One,” said a spokesman for the Service.  Other security measures being considered are painting the Rose Garden mauve.

Update!

I watched a third episode of 24.  This one had hero Jack using a front end loader to overturn a modular building.  The bad guy inside the overturned building had to climb out of the window to have the fight with Jack.  Just before he died, the killer, who had murdered both a key government witness and a Senator and set up Jack to take the blame, reveals that the weapons of mass bemusement the FBI has been searching for are all ready in the country. This was all made possible by Jack’s wacky female confident and soon to be not former FBI agent in her illegal transfer of FBI data to Jack via an unbreakable, hyper-encrypted, unintelligible, scrambled, encoded, stirred-but-not-shaken cipher utilizing as yet undeveloped, philosophically impossible quadstate logic over the zero point energy channel.  Fortunately, a visitor to FBI headquarters, the wacky female confident’s husband,  was able to break through the protective safety seal and unbake the cake.  It took only a little less time than it would to chew a bug.  It cannot get much better, but there is next week.

Well, It Could Be

Family of Secrets, Russ Baker, Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2009.  494pp.

It seems that the family of our 41st and 43rd presidents has been quietly busy for a long time.  Well at least for three generations.  This book is the convoluted, tangled, and byzantine story of the Bush family machinations and intrigues.  The tale begins with Prescott Bush, continues through George H.W. (Poppy) Bush and ends with George W. (W.) Bush.  Along the tortuous path odd alibis,  business deals involving assorted miscreants, international intrigues, and hints of what happens to presidents  and newsmen who resist the powers that be.

Baker reveals the oddities of the three generation of Bushes that have had such influence in American and world politics.  Baker shows that the Bushes are really different from the rest of us.  They are elites who have little in common with the hoi polloi. All three men were Yale graduates and members of its elite and secret Skull and Bones Society.  All had high government positions.  All were members of that nebulous group politically connected elites.

This is all well known.  Here the book just restates the obvious.  Yes, Yale, Skull and Bones, snobby preparatory schools and a long history of political connections. So?  The real story, which Baker does tell is the one that cannot be confirmed.  It is the tale of the connections, the deal, the plot.  This fills the book.  It is also all based on rumor and incomplete evidence.

If we remove from the book the gossip and the already known , what do we have?  Only the it could be, but we are not sure if it is.  This is not much.

The famous Air National Guard letters disparaging W’s service are an example.  Baker implies that the letters were a deliberate trap set by Bush family operatives to exact revenge on Dan Rather and to deflect criticism of W’s suspect Guard service.  Bakers adverts to the fact that the woman who delivered the copies of the letters to a known Bush hater was later found by Baker to be living in a new house in a new subdivision and to have a new car in the drive way.  The woman would not talk to Baker.  This is curious, but it is evidence of nothing.

Baker also points to the speed with which internet bloggers attacked the letters, pointing to the obvious flaws.  This is interesting but not convincing.  CBS was certainly stupid, but there is little in all this to link any Bush or one of their operatives to this.  It is more likely a case of rushing to air the story.  CBS had learned that a major newspaper also had copies of the letters and was planning to soon publish.  Not wanting to be scooped, CBS ignored the pleas of producer Mary Mapes for more time to evaluate the letters and aired the story.

The book is full of such theories about business deals, political ploys, other nefarious doings.  It is to be expected.  Politics is well known for its intrigues.  At least Baker hits both sides of the aisle: Lyndon Johnson does not come out too well.  No one comes out too well, especially the media.  Baker repeatedly points out missed opportunities by reporters to follow leads, to ask serious questions, and to go beyond the press release.   Baker acknowledges the risks in such writing.  If they took down CBS News and Dan Rather, what would they do to him?

This fear is much like Baker’s speculation that John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King could not have been killed by a “lone nut’ because that theory is too neat.  Great reading, but where is the proof?  So far, Baker is alive, well, and ignored.  This is as it should be.

Just the Way They Like It

The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, Daniel Estulin, TrineDay, 2007.  340pp. , index, endnotes.

In conspiracy theory circles the Bilderberg Group is always an object of much discussion.  Founded in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the group has met annually ever since.  The meetings are always held in a five star hotel in a small city of the main road.  Security is extreme.  On film I saw on YouTube said the group always meets in “five star accommodations amid ten star security.”  The meeting are private; attendance is by invitation only.  The location is revealed only a week before the meeting.  The meeting gets very little coverage in the mainstream media.

Estulin states that his purpose is to “tear the mask off the Bilderberg group.”  He succeeds somewhat, but, even as he admits, there is still much to learn.  The Bilderbergers do everything in their power to keep it that way.  Estulin points out that there is never an  official statement issued, discussions and presentations are not recorded or transcribed, and note taking by participants, while not forbidden, is discouraged.  The code of silence is honored.

Much of what Estulin writes is available from  other sources (e.g., YouTube, where there is a lot of video).  But the book does give us a summary of the discussions of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 meetings.  There are copious photographs of the attendees, some documents reproduced, and lists of the participants.

Estulin’s sources are the real issue.  It is the nature of the matter that verification is difficult.  How do we check behind Estulin?  How do we check behind anyone who writes about such groups?  There would be no conspiracy if this were all done in the open.

But this leads to the question, “Why is this done in secrecy?”  The official answer from the group is to allow the participants to speak freely without fear of attribution.  Estulin asks why can’t we know what the attendees say; they all are leader of giant corporation, principal journalists, government officials, and university administrators; people who all affect our lives.

Estulin’s book is not just limited to discussion of the Bilderberg Group.  He spends considerable time discussing the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral commission.  Both of these groups are prominent in conspiracy theory.  Here too he does not reveal anything that is not already known by those who are interested in finding out, but for those who are just beginning to look into this matter it will be helpful.

Estulin spends several chapters discussing his intrigues in tracking the conspiracy.  He relates how he was detained for questioning by airport security.  Nothing came of it when he insisted that they either charge him with a crime or let him go.  He was released.  In another chapter, he tells of getting a cryptic postcard that lead him  to a meeting with a acquaintance of poor repute.  Suspicious of the matter Estulin retains his own security force of ex KGB agents.  They arm him with a pistol, apparently not concerned with any violation of local gun laws.  The meeting never takes place. Another intrigue is his almost walking into an empty elevator shaft after meeting with a contact.

The book is filled with photographs of attendees during breaks in the sessions.  While interesting, most of the 51 pages of photograph are collages of attendees talking to each other as they stroll about the grounds between sessions.  There is even a photo of David Rockefeller eating alone.

This book will be most useful to those beginning to sort through the various groups that meet in private.  Whether or not the Bilderberg group is a cabal will be denied by the group.  Until the group is examined by the mainstream media (unlikely, since the major media owners are often in attendance) the discussion of the group will remain entirely within conspiracy theory circles.  This is just the way the Bilderbergers like it.

Behind the Bank

The Crimes of Patriots A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA, Jonathan Kwitny, W.W. Norton, 1987. 424 pgs, index.

How do banks begin?  For what purpose do banks exist?  Why use an obscure bank?  These question are seldom asked by most bank customers.  We tend to assume that all banks are much the same.  It is only a matter of convenience as to which bank to use.  There is a  lot more to banking than we know.  There is the operations of banks that we see, but beneath the surface there is in some banks operation that you are not allowed to see.

The Nugun Hand Bank was one such operation.  Founded in Australia by Frank Nugan, an Australian, and Michael Hand, an American, the bank was curious from its inception.  Kwitny, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, traces, what he can, of the banks origins, operations, demise, and aftermath.

The bank, it seems (no one knows for sure) was designed to enable people to evade taxes, evade currency export restrictions, and to launder money.  Almost all the bank’s operation outside of Australia were illegal.  Record keeping of deposits and loans often consisted only of a slip of paper kept in a file drawer.  The morning after Nugan’s 1980 suicide, the key officers of the bank went through the files and destroyed and carted off large quantities of records.  They didn’t need to hurry:  the police did not bother to show up at the offices until several days later.  This is just the beginning of a series of bungled attempts to investigate the bank.  There would be two more

Kwitny raises many questions regarding the bank:  Why were so many retired high ranking U.S. military officers involved as officers of the bank, yet they all claim no knowledge of the illegalities?  Why was the bank able to operate for so long and in so many countries without government authorities taking notice?  Why did so many depositors fail to file claims to try to recover some of their money?  What was the relationship of the bank with the Australian Intelligence and Security Organization?

These are all intriguing questions, but Kwitny does not answer them, at least not directly.  He hints at money laundering–the bank had a branch in the Golden Triangle are of Thailand–but doesn’t give the proof that shows the bank was actually helping the narcotics trade (although it is difficult to see why this branch existed, illegally under Thai law, if it was not to move around drug money.)  Kwitny also tries to implicate the CIA, saying the bank was a conduit for CIA funds.

The issue of the retired military officers is quite odd.  Were these men that naive?  Didn’t they investigate the bank and its principals before joining?  Why were they so willing to lend their names and prestige to this nascent operation?  Many of these men tried to lie their way out of any responsibility but changed their story when they were confronted with documents and, in one instance, a tape recording of a company meeting.

The bank was a magnet for former (?) intelligence operatives.  One especially colorful character was an expatriate American who operated a sleazy restaurant and bar in Sydney’s red light district.  There is nothing unusual about this until it is pointed out that the place is frequented by most visiting U.S. elected and appointed officials.  As Kwitny notes, no one goes the for the food.

The Nugun Hand Bank is a dead issue.  Nugun is dead–this was reconfirmed by an exhumation!–and Michael Hand has disappeared.  From my one internet search, it seems that Hand is still missing.  This may be the way everyone wants the situation to remain.

The book concludes with an after word by Earl Yates, USN (ret.)  Yates was President of Nugan Hand in the U.S.; the operation was nothing but a mail drop near Washington, DC.

I found the story interesting, but the unanswered questions are a major weakness in the book.  The book’s strength is to alert us to the sub rosa world of international banking.

Science’s Most Hated Man

The Velikovsky Affair, 1966, 1978, Alfred de Grazia, ed. available on line free

There is in all the branches of science no name more despised than that of Emmanuel Velikovsky.  Velikovsky’s problem was he was not one of the establishment scientists.  Velikovsky was an outsider, a man who trespassed upon the sacred land of the specialist, an intruder in the temple of Scientism.  For these transgressions he will always be reviled, derogated, and dismissed as a crank.  His successes will never be properly acknowledged.

Velikovsky’s big heresy was to express a view of the cosmos that was not the establishment’s received wisdom of uniformitarianism.  It was Veikovsky’s view that ancient upheavals, worldwide in scope, affected the solar system and earth in particular and that these upheavals caused permanent, radical changes.

The book is a series of essays by Velikovsky supporters and one essay by Velikovsky.  While the book does tell of Velikovsky’s  many correct scientific predictions, the real story is in the revelation of the details of the scientific establishment’s treatment of Veikovsky:  it can’t be true because it was not discovered or predicted here by one of us.  It is the story of the seekers of truth rejecting truth because they are jealous of the one who found it.

The book reveals more than a little personal animosity by supposedly dispassionate scientists.  Velikovsky’s first book, Worlds in Collision, was given a hatchet job treatment by many of its establishment reviewers.  The reviews seem to have focused on denial rather than on evaluation of the evidence and reasoning.  This is not unusual; the establishment has a long history of using this tactic against mavericks.  However, more than one critic was embarrassed when they were forced to admit that they criticized the book without actually first reading it.  The old boy net in action.

This treatment backfired on the establishment.  The storm of criticism cause a great public curiosity about the book.  Sales exploded.   Velikovsky’s next book, Ages in Chaos, was ignored by the critics.  You can’t say scientists are not able to learn.

This is the real lesson of the book.  I do not have the expertise to evaluate Velikovsky’s as yet unproven claims, but it does not take a genius to see the injustice in Velilovsky’s treatment at the hands of “the impartial” scientific community.  Interlopers, beware.

It is important to realize that Velikovsky made his predictions without the aid research grants; expensive, exotic equipment; or even with any academic help.  This proved to be a real source of embarrassment to those who would later be Velikovsky’s critics.  The evidence Velikovsky marshals was available to all, but was ignored.  Velikovsky made his theories based upon ancient literary sources ignored by the professionals.  This all the more enraged the establishment .  This use of ancient sources has revealed a deep seated bigotry in the science establishment.  After all, what do those primitive people know?

Other critics dismiss Velikovsky’s success by saying that he made so many guesses that he was bound to  be right some of the time.  Those critics do not point to any Velikovsky failures.  Neither do the critics have much success with their own guessing.

Read the book and you just may love science’s most hated man.

The House Always Wins

The Money and the Power   The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America 1947-2000, Sally Denton and Roger Morris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.  479 pages, index, end notes.

“Don’t run for public office.  We own the politicians.”  Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel to one of his men.  This is really the story of Las Vegas.  Politicians owned by the casino operators.  This fact enabled the little dusty town on the road from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City to become the center of much of America.  Known for its gambling, Las Vegas’ influence is felt through the country.  Little stands in the way of Las Vegas;  whatever Vegas wants, Vegas gets.

The book is a history of the city, but it is really a collection of portraits of its operators, the men who founded the now massive gambling empires and the politicians that were paid to help and protect them.  It is an amazing collection:  immigrant eastern European Jews, Italians, Irishmen, an eccentric millionaire industrialist, and a French Basque.  The CIA would also use the city and its casinos for its own purposes.

The authors cut through much of the mystique of the city.  It was not all Italian Mafioso in flashy suits and gaudy jewellery that started the empires.  It was a couple of Jewish thugs.  It all began with the Bugs and Meyer gang.  The first hotel/casino was built by Siegel and Lansky.  It eventually cost Siegel his life once it was found out that Siegel was skimming money from the construction funds, but the hotel and casino were a success, if not initially, that inspired many to follow.  It seemed that it is impossible to loose money in Las Vegas unless you make a bet.

Siegel’s murder was an aberration, at least in the early days.  The Syndicate  (the authors’ preferred term, and probably a better one considering the multi-ethnic character of the hoodlums in control) declared that Las Vegas would be an open city to all comers.  There would be no turf battles.  This caused the rapid growth of the “gaming industry.”  Murders would come soon.

Initially the funding for the casinos came mostly from drug and prohibition alcohol sales.  Later more legitimate funding would come from such diverse places as the Mormon Church and the the Teamsters’ pension fund.  The diversity of funding ensured the appearance of legitimacy.  It also ensured that a lot of people would be well paid for their services.

The casinos were very successful.  They ensured their continued success by copious contributions to elected officials.  This is the most amazing thing revealed in the book.  Political corruption is not new, but the extent of the corruption spawned by the success of the casinos is enormous.  It is to be expected that the casinos would pay off those directly affecting the casinos, but the money also went to presidential candidates and congressmen.  This effort was repaid in the stymieing of congressional and Justice Department investigations into Las Vegas gambling.  The house always wins.