Skiing Things Right - Norway During Pandemic

 Norway Was a Pandemic Success. Then It Spent Two Years Studying Its Failures.

Lovely.

Emotions And Ukraine War

A conversation between my friend and me about the Ukraine situation. 

Polish Friend: I'm not in favour of Putin, but I'm also not in favour of Ukraine. I just hope that we, Poland, will not get involved.

Me: Well I think you are going to be [involved] as things stand now. You will fight on behalf of Ukraine, If you ever get involved.

PF: I really hope we won't.

Me: You won't like what I am going to tell you. But I anticipated that the war (not "special military operation") will proceed and involve NATO. I sold stocks anticipating it. Note that this is not my wish. But what I think will happen. My money is at stake!!

PF: Is that supposed to be a joke?

Me: Why do you ask that?

PF: Because it is ridiculous.

Me: What is ridiculous?

PF: Should I bet that India and Bangladesh go to war??

This conversation was illuminating to me. Note that my friend asked me whether she should bet and not whether she should wish for a war between India and Bangladesh. Meaning, she understood that I was betting and not hoping for a war. And she still thinks that a bet is offensive. A bet is the result of analysis, not what we hope will happen. The belief that a logic thought is no different from a desire is striking. 

An emotional person doesn't get the difference between what we wish and what we think will likely happen and hence conflates the two. Just as they don't understand the concept of cause and effect. They often think that the cause is the result of the effect.

Strange.

Additional reading 

Acknowledging the Limits of Sanctions: Very nice article

Imaginative Zelensky

I had a wild thought. What if zelensky is in cahoots with Putin? What if he is no different now from Lukashenko, except that zelensky is acting the part of a patriot. 

Why could this be true? Ukraine knows 

1. It cannot win against mighty Russia

2. It cannot really count on USA, NATO, EU to help much, I mean they won't join the war against Russia. 

He and Putin could have forged a wartime "friendship" to fake an Ukrainian resistance that would ultimately give in. Zelensky will be called a hero. Putin will reward him quietly and substantially when the time comes. Say, $50 million deposited in a numbered account with Zelensky as the beneficiary, nobody will be the wiser. 

Everyone is happy.

Putin's Character And The Ukraine War

I was thinking. Why did Putin claim he wasn't going to invade when he did exactly that few days later. I figured out an answer

In his mind, Ukraine was always part of Russia. Invasion is about an action to take over what is not yours.

Ukraine was his anyway. So it wasn't an "invasion". 

Here is an article on Bill Barr: Bill Barr wants to be remembered as a truth teller? That’s a clown show.

• https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a44c8b24-9707-11ec-bcb9-65f2c5c7f961?shareToken=b62e2ad97a4531b99cb7233ba9b44aa6
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/russia-ukraine-conflict-top-10-war-myths-newsguard?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other Putin's lies are so similar to Trump's.
  

This is a lovely article: https://nyti.ms/3tYGlWF.

This article is original and different. The rest have largely portrayed a surreal depiction of how the West brought Russia to its knees. Too much focus on the process (sanctions) and desire (want Putin to withdraw) without an evidence of the end result (is Russia withdrawing) makes all the essays drab

Additional reading:

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/21/ukraine-invasion-putin-goals-what-expect/?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas
• https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2020/11/trumps-character.html
  
• U.N. court orders Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine, in a largely symbolic ruling: "If one of the conflict parties is “ignoring basic principles of law, there’s a question about the utility of invoking the law vis-a-vis that party when you don’t have a strong enforcement power,” said Yuval Shany, an international law expert at Hebrew University in Jerusalem."
• Watching Russia’s military failures is exhilarating. But a cornered Putin is dangerous.
  
• The Making of Vladimir Putin: Very nice
  
• Putin Knows What He’s Doing With Ukraine’s Refugees. This Is the World’s Big Test.
  
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/05/putin-indiscriminate-bombing-ukraine-plain-bad-strategy/
  
• Why Tracking Putin’s Wealth Is So Difficult
  
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/09/understanding-vladimir-putin-the-man-who-fooled-the-world?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other: long nice article
  
• If Putin isn’t stopped in Ukraine, the Baltics are likely next
  
• https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/af9decea-c00e-11ec-8413-422ef6319ad0?shareToken=eb4daee564fc6ee59c2b908241604fbb
  
• Banning Russian Tennis Players Won’t Stop the War. So Why Is Wimbledon Doing It?
  
• Putin Used Conspiracy Theories Before. Now He Seems to Believe Them.
  
• www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-strategic-logic-of-russia-war-on-ukraine-putin-leverage-western-europe-invasion-peace-negotiations-sanctions-weaken-russia-11650917047: nice article
  
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/26/russias-war-in-ukraine-threatens-to-spill-over-in-dangerous-new-phase?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
  
• https://www.rt.com/russia/554166-international-law-military-operation-ukraine/: From Russia with Love
  
• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/01/what-is-to-be-done-lenin-west-wont-win-in-ukraine-without-taking-risks?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
  
• How Russia’s grim demographics could thwart Putin’s global ambitions
  
• https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ca1ad6ea-d2d4-11ec-9d8b-0826aa666f4f?shareToken=8d647745a2741da86aef419884a921a3: very nice
  
• New Evidence Shows How Russian Soldiers Executed Men in Bucha: Gory
  
• https://wsj-article-webview-generator-prod.sc.onservo.com/webview/SB10602110242320993953804588549711285607342?adobe_mc=TS%3D1653059585%7CMCMID%3D20218715617449547338714924480703942152%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%40AdobeOrg&wsj_native_webview=androidphone
  
• Putin Rules Russia Like an Asylum
  
• Russia Is a Potemkin Superpower: Very nice when reading it 3 months after it was written. 
  
• https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b16b152e-e355-11ec-8bdd-c253e043f5f0?shareToken=144ba9eaf04454046bae1a72704e845c: Should Putin be assassinated?
  
• Three Paths Toward an Endgame for Putin’s War
  
• https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2022/11/18/how-putins-war-is-causing-global-instability?giftId=7a1ef58b-4daf-4e64-9d9a-2d128b7d19a4
  

India And Scandinavia

The difference between an advanced country and a third world country is that the former is rule bound while the latter is negotiation bound. For example in countries like India and Pakistan, things get done based on who knows who. A typical example is how FATF recommendations are implemented in Pakistan. Knee-jerk actions are taken by the government just before FATF meeting is to take place instead of planned regular actions in the true spirit of eliminating terrorism and terror financing.

In countries like New Zealand, Sweden things are rule bound largely. Rules are clear and implemented well with little deviation.

What about Saudi (KSA)? Which group does it belong to? It is rule bound. Is it hence an advanced country? Not really. An advanced country has another attribute, it's relatively free. The list of things that are illegal will be minimal. Saudi obviously doesn't fit into this category. While every country has a dominant religion (Hinduism in India, Christianity in Italy, Judaism in Israel for example), when the judicial laws are derived from religious considerations rather than from civil ones, we end up having a state that is not free. When we try to drive the answer to a problem from religious texts rather than from rational considerations, we end up traveling a suboptimal path to mediocrity. Religion, like lingerie, should be limited to the bedroom. It should not be bandied about in public.

Here is a question to the reader: If Shariat law were to be implemented in Norway, how will Norway be after 10 years? On top of the world (I don't mean geographically)? Replace Shariat law with any other religious law and combine it with religious fervor - the result would be the same. 

The same thing would happen if the guiding book were to be any other religious treatise.

If we surrender reason to obey what's mentioned in a book, we do it because we are mentally weak (we don't have reasoning ability) or we are emotionally weak (we find it easier to fast for a month or donate our hair or make a trip to Vaishnodevi or Jerusalem or Mecca) than work rationally towards the problem.

It's interesting to see how the advanced country which gives so much freedom to its people also effectively implements rules. 

And it's sad to see third world countries, on the other hand, curb freedom and are haphazard in implementing rules. Pakistan is a good example, to a smaller extent so is India.

What is China? It's again like Saudi.- Very little freedom given and no democracy. India is heading towards what Pakistan and China are instead of towards Scandinavia and UK.

What is the route like to go from being a third world country to ask advanced country?

How does India get to become like Scandinavia? 

Good questions.

Religion / Faith / Networking (RFN) aren't alternatives to good processes. Where they are treated to be substitutes for processes, we are well on our way to becoming a third world country. The more we remove RFN from our nation, the faster we head towards New Zealand.

Additional reading:

https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/the-country-s-problem-is-its-romance-with-informality-11619366101367.html Excellent 

Justice Metrics

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/justice-system-at-breaking-point-warns-judge-anthony-lowe-frustrated-by-delays-20v2kpnh9

I am surprised that a judge feels awful that there justice is getting delayed. It's quite difficult to feel empathy for your customer when you are a service provider. The judge is amazing.

What would be the statistics for India? Who is worried about the crores of cases pending in various courts in India for years, (sometimes more than 10 years)?

How i wish that justice was not delayed?

Sikh Girl And Mountbatten

I read this article today.

This is awful. Lahore is in Punjab. Pak occupied Punjab should have been part of Indian Punjab. We (India) should write to UK to meditate and get Pak occupied Punjab back to India and thus undo the holy mess (Britain's) Mountbatten did at the time of partition. Inshallah. All Punjabis belong to India. Its a shame how Pak is treating Punjabis."

Just trying to imitate Imran Khan.

Additional reading

• Imran Khan: The World Can’t Ignore Kashmir. We Are All in Danger.
• https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2019/08/love-thy-neighbors-wife.html

Cartoon Took A Left Turn At Albuquerque And Misses Greenland

My conversations with a friend from UK about a leading politician (not from UK).

My friend was visibly upset the politician trying to buy an island from a friendly country and when the letter refused, the politician cancelled a state visit. My reply to my friend:

You are judging him from "a normal person's point of view" - which suggests that 

1. you ought not bid for something that's definitely not for sale

2. You don't behave boorishly by cancelling a visit just because someone isn't interested in selling what you want to buy.

But then Trump is all about POSTURING. 

A. That he is a self made billionaire (he likely inherited billions which has squandered away to a billion). He has gone to enormous extremes to ensure that his tax returns aren't available to Congress (similar to your house of Commons/Lords i guess) 

B. That he doesn't like illegal aliens (aka immigrants) to be in USA but then his companies, golf courses / resorts employ such illegals in plenty.

This cancellation of Copenhagen trip is posturing. "I will take back my goodwill" if you don't give me what i want ( corleone godfather style).

He is indulging in his predilection for embarrassing people. I think we should understand his behavior for it is.

He is NOT a clumsy moron who doesnt know which of a horse and a cart comes first.

An earlier reply to my friend on the subject of the rationale for the intended purchase:

You make it sound that he is doing it for the sake of America (as in his "America first" initiative).
If I understand him well his patriotic fervor is as high as your interest in african tribal dance.
He has got 5 years more, assuming he gets reelected. He has to get much into his (and his family's /and those he in cahoots with) pockets during this time. And Greenland is a way to help HIMSELF.

When you said he wants to use Greenland against Russia and China, you assumed he represented America In his bid for purchase. Of course America will pay for it if the deal ever transpires. It's supposed to cost about a trillion dollars (based on how much alaska cost in the 1800s).
But the real reason for the purchase is to fill his own pockets. Anything America gains will just be a byproduct.

#MeToo Got Molested - Rape Is Not About Consent

This is a very nice article.

https://medium.com/@jtomaszewski/fact-checking-the-metoo-sexual-harassment-allegations-how-many-of-them-are-true-and-fair-e7d89a7f1452

The author clearly is a thinker and not driven by as much by emotions.

What perhaps he doesn't appreciate is that understanding of events, including the accusation of rape, is driven by emotions in some people - the feelers. How such a feeler feels about the event is what determines what he thinks happened. In case of a rape, a feeling of extreme mental discomfort post coitus leads to the belief that rape happened. And the fact, that it was consensual during the act, could be found to be irrelevant in a feeler.
Conversely the feeling of well being post a rape leads to positive feelings towards the rapist (read https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/09/stockholm-syndrome.html).

A very similar thing is echoed by a woman: "Rachel (a pseudonym) reeled off a list of unhappy encounters with would-be romantic partners: sex consented to out of a misguided sense of politeness, extreme acts requested and occasionally allowed, degrading insults as things unfolded — and regrets later. “It’s not like I was being forced into anything or that I feel unsafe, but it’s not … good. And I don’t like how I feel afterwards.” " from Consent is not enough. We need a new sexual ethic.. The title of the article is leading. From Washington Post.

Asking a feeler to look only at facts unemotionally is like asking someone like the author of this blog post to avoid facts and logic and just feel about the event or feel for the person who just joined the #metoo.

The expectation is fine and dandy. But is it sensible?

Addional reading:

1. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/09/christene-blasey-ford-and-brett.html
2. https://scroll.in/article/897796/wheres-the-proof-and-7-other-frequently-asked-questions-about-metoo-and-their-answers
3. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/4/5/17157240/me-too-movement-sexual-harassment-aziz-ansari-accusation
4. https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/university/how-to-disprove-or-prove-sexual-assault-without-physical-evidence/
5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-sexually-assaulted-heres-why-i-dont-remember-many-of-the-details/2018/09/21/8ce0088c-bdab-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html
6. When We Consent, We Shouldn’t Feel Terrible After, Right?
   
7. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/sexual-assault-plot-device-twist-liar-una/544340/
   

Stockholm Syndrome

I have always been interested, morbidly so, in rapes, extra marital affairs, sex, criminal behavior etc. 

Recently a friend Y from Europe told me about an incident from her life. She had been raped couple of years back while on a trip to Africa with her boyfriend M. Apparently there were 5 men A, B, C, D, E. It was a gangrape. And that she had enjoyed it.

As I showed interest, she went on to tell me all. For hours, over few days we spoke only on this topic. Neither of us was getting bored in the process.

What happened was something like this:

She and her boyfriend visited a certain country in Africa. They visited many places, had a good time. Finally they landed at the city where the events unfolded. They had booked separate hotel rooms for the two of them since they weren't married and since local custom demanded that unmarried couples not stay in the same room.

The incident happened over two days. The first day she and her boyfriend were at a bar along with many other people, local and foreign. My friend is a very attractive woman and she was wearing a dress that would raise hundreds of eyebrows. Her boyfriend had earlier cautioned her against such dress. But my friend wouldn't listen. This caused a good amount of rift between the two of them. 

Later in the night most patrons had left the bar. Only my friend, her boyfriend and two locals A, B remained. The locals made disparaging remarks about my friend Y. Soon they were hurling insults at each other. A and B also tried to physically assault Y. Her boyfriend M stepped in. And then Y and M retired to their respective rooms. My friend was irritated with M. She ended up being frustrated. When I asked her about it, she told me that she was ovulating at that time and wanted to look feminine and had insisted on wearing a particular dress much against the wishes of M.

The next day, the arguments between Y and M continued. My friend refused to relent. She wore a daring dress. She insisted that there was nothing wrong in her wanting to look feminine.

Later at night when Y was alone sleeping in her room she woke up with a start. And found 5 men A, B, C, D, E in her room. A and B were the same two men from the previous night in the bar, now joined by three more.

She was lying on her back. A was holding her legs. B was holding her wrists. The others C, D, E were around her. The 5 men were old, ugly and mean. My friend told me that the men proceeded with the activities with a calm, patience and seriousness that was eerie. They were like experienced surgeons in the Operating Theater.

It was as though they had practiced rape often. The first man A insisted that my friend look at his face constantly. She physically resisted them with all her strength while being raped by A. But they were 5 of them. She pleaded with them. It was about 20 minutes since the men had begun assaulting her. 
But the men had come to hunt. It was likely premeditated. They weren't going to go away without getting what they wanted. 

Reaching the end of her strength, she yelled at them using profane expressions. She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side.
The first man A then slapped her. He pulled her chin up and made her look at him. He wanted her to make continuous eye connect with him.

At this point my friend's resolve weakened completely. Her expression changed. A and B interpreted her expression correctly.  They released her hands. Y lifted her hands up and smiled at the men. 

She had decided at this time to surrender unconditionally to them. She simultaneously felt emotionally close to these men, as though they were her husbands instead of her rapists.

Then, she continued with her story, she had sex with them with gay abandon and that it was the best sex of her life.

When we discussed further, she told me that she felt closer to the 5 men maybe because they had insulted her boyfriend, maybe because they admired her sexy dress - which (dress) had been the cause of serious rift between her and her boyfriend. Maybe hence the 5 men had become her allies instead of being hated by her.

After the men left what she felt was deep satisfaction, pride, fear, guilt, joy, sadness.

After the event she never called the police, didn't inform her embassy, didn't tell M, nor her parents. To this day only a handful of people know about this. She said she didn't call the police because she wanted to avoid the hassles of a lengthy and perhaps inefficient legal process one could expect in a third world country. But I guessed she didn't find it right to lodge a complaint when she consented to it halfway through.

She feels awful about what happened. And yet even today she would want to have her baby fathered by A but brought up by M. See the conflict?

My friend is an open person and she didn't obfuscate any part of the story. She asked me only one question; Why did she give in to the men and get ready to join them instead of fighting with them till the end or even passing out. This was nagging her. And me too.

I made a list of pertinent things:

1. Sleeping in different rooms
2. Argument with boyfriend about dress. Ovulation makes a woman daring in her behavior. The fact that A and B had been deeply attracted to her the previous night prior to the fight made an impact on her.
3. Points above made Y weak, vulnerable, unable to resist or fight for long
4. Usually women come online for virtual sex or  to flirt after a serious argument with their partner.
5. Staring at A's eyes and being needed by them intently added to it.
6. Their calm and patience made her comfortable. They were alpha males and she was attracted to them. That A and B, from the previous night, were among the five men enhanced her experience. I guess the men  bet among themselves that the victim would consent before each gangrape incident was completed.
7. That she hated being assaulted by the 5 men became irrelevant. 
8. Y wanted to be satisfied and to satisfy them. Hence she gave up her fight.

Points 1-4 above had weakened her S2. Her S1 took over causing her to surrender. Points 5-8 facilitated her to enjoy the night that had earlier begun as a nightmare. The 5 men, especially A and B were experts who turned a helpless victim into a willing participant.
Once she gave in, the enjoyment followed. The turning point was her decision to surrender.

My question to my friend was: The decision to surrender was made by S1. How can she take responsibility for it and feel guilt? 

She is still not fully convinced. But it has brought her closer to understanding the things that were crucial and things that were irrelevant.

I can't but help wonder how it would have been if I were in her place. Makes me also wonder about those 5 men. What kind of a game were they playing? It is quite likely that the hotel staff and the local police were in cahoots with the 5 men, if not they were part of the 5 man team.

The question that arises is: is it so easy to make a rape victim participate eagerly in the act? Do the bullet points mentioned above suggest a recipe for it? Troubling.


Additional Reading:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome - The bullet points in this article seem very relevant.
2. How to Sell Your Rape Story
3. From the novel Media Justice by Dennis Carstens: "The last time she met Doyle like this, having not eaten anything since breakfast, after four glasses of wine, Doyle was starting to look pretty good to her. Fortunately, her rational brain was still working and she managed to get out of there and home unsullied."
4. https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/
5. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-teenager-held-for-false-claim-that-12-israelis-raped-her-in-cyprus-6dq3x07s7
6. The 22-Year-Old Force Behind Egypt’s Growing #MeToo Movement
   

Rommel And Canaris (and Guderian) - Rose Among The Nazis (WW II)

World War 2:

Roses:

1. Canaris
2. Erwin Rommel
3. Heinz Wilheim Guderian: 

The Dirty ones:

1. Adolf  Eichmann
2. Joseph Goebbels
3. Reinhard Heydrich
4. Heinrich Himmler
5. SS Women

Additional reading:

1. http://auschwitz.dk/
2. http://ww2gravestone.com/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton%27s_speech_to_the_Third_Army
4. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2015/05/eichmann-simon-wiesenthal.html

Adolf Eichmann, Simon Wiesenthal, Josef Mengele, Christian Wirth

Quotes, reproduced without permission, from a book by Alan Levy: "Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File" (Protagonist is Simon Wiesenthal) - the quotes are about Adolf Eichmann, unless otherwise mentioned.

"At the time, Eichmann impressed his superiors only with his diligence in doing whatever was asked of him. Though one of his colleagues described him as a most colorless creature - the typical subordinate: pedantic, punctilious [and] devoid of any thorough knowledge."

"It was here [Palais Rothschild in Austria] that he [Eichmann] discovered his two true talents: he could organize ruthlessly and he could negotiate from a position of strength, real or illusory."

"'Anger got the better off me' Eichmann recalled in 1960. 'I lost my control, which very seldom happened. I don't know what got into me. I let myself go and slapped him in the face. It wasn't the kind of also that hurt, I'm sure of that. I haven't got that much muscle. But I never concealed that incident. Later on, when I was a commandant, I spoke of it in in the presence of my subordinate officers AND Dr. Lowenherz - and begged his pardon. I did that deliberately... because on the department I ran layer, I did not tolerate physical violence. That was why I apologized in uniform and in the presence of my staff.' Nothing is more important to a desk murderer than clean hands."

How feminine... [my comment]

"One of the Eichmann family's good friends, who had not been a Nazi, simply refused to believe the accusations against 'that oafish lackluster Adolf who never spoke up and often seemed to get stupidly stuck on one idea'. Wiesenthal said later 'The man didn't realize how well he'd characterized Eichmann - how right he was and how wrong'."

"Eichmann could have been a communist taking orders from Stalin or a Mafioso from his godfather. In every dictatorship, the appeal to such people is the same: 'Let the Führer think for you'."

Eichmann was a J (as in MBTI). Germans are (or were) largely J's. Is it possible that normal people can become murderers if their duties involved murder? is there a potential criminal lurking in SJ's? I had earlier thought that J's, especially TJ's were not capable of dastardly acts. I wonder... Was Eichmann T or an F?

I would assume Eichmann had a strong Mars and a strong Saturn (indicated by J) and poor Venus (an inability to decide what's good for him - no independent goals or vision). Looking at his horoscope (taking date of birth data from Wiki), his Mars and Saturn are both strong. Mercury is debilitated but in its own constellation. Surprisingly though, so is his Venus and Moon. Now, how come his Venus is strong? :( 

While he was found guilty and hanged to death in Israel, I can't help but wonder... Was he guilty? He did his job (exterminating Jews) as a duty. Just as the two soldiers in the Tom Cruise movie A Few Good Men were found to be guilty of conduct unbecoming a Marine and dishonorably discharged for having only executed a Code Red (=kill) ordered by the Camp Commander. The senior of the two soldiers explains at the end of the movie to the junior person as to why they were dishonorably discharged: Marines were supposed to protect the weak. Carrying out orders to kill the weak was wrong. Hmmm. Difficult to integrate duty and morality when the two are out of sync.

Another person the book describes is Josef Mengele, the Angel Of Death in Auschwitz, formally the chief medical officer of the extermination camp. Quotes from the book about him:

"He was a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Munich who had studied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, but embraced the racist rubbish of Alfred Rosenburg, Hitler's philosopher."

"In front of the Auschwitz crematorium he was once heard to say 'Here the Jews enter through the door and leave through the chimney.'"

His remark seems more like that of a tourist guide who extols someone else's virtue. (I doubt whether he designed the crematorium. - That the statement is in extremely poor taste is not worth mentioning.)

"Pedaling blithely along, the doctor in his early thirties seemed seemed immune to the dirt, dust and grease of the misery around him - none of which was [was, not were!!] permitted to smudge his attire...He might be humming or whistling a melody - maybe Mozart, sometimes Wagner, but invariably with perfect pitch, for there was much that was musical about this man..."

"He liked cryptic dialogues  in which he understood the subtle nuances, but the other person didn't. "

Was he an N (iNtuitive as in MBTI)? This guy prided himself on his work while Eichmann did his work conscientiously and ably. How come both have strong Venus? It is worth noting that Mengele had strong Mars and Venus and a debilitated Saturn. Is weakness of Saturn more important than the strength of Venus in this case? Incidentally, Saturn and Rahu are in the 8th from Moon which point to a different conclusion about his marriage.

"Of the millions he met in the eternal chill before the chimneys of Birkenau (Auschwitz), Dr Mengele reserved a special welcome for those who had not been created in "God's image", for they were laboratory animals for his diabolical pseudo-scientific experiments."

This man was different from Eichmann. He was more akin to Hitler.

"In the Auschwitz memoir appropriately titled Anus Mundi, Polish survivor, Wieslaw Kielar characterizes the anthropologist Dr Mengele, who was also camp doctor as 'an exceedingly elegant and good looking SS officer who, thanks to his attractive appearance and his good manners, conveyed the expression of a gentle and cultured man who had nothing to do with selection, phenol and Zyklon-B. What he was like in reality was something we were to learn soon enough.'"

"As a matter of fact, Dr Josef Mengele was no evil mastermind, no ancient dybbuk, no devil incarnate but a dumb intellectual, a dilettante, a dabbler who used human beings as his guinea pigs. Though better educated and endowed, he was as much a loser in life as Eichmann or Stangl, a bungler whose failures bred failures, aborted starts and abrupt ends that, almost without design, carved a trail of blunders and false clues leading only to Simon Wiesenthal's greatest postwar disappointment. Even Mengele's drowning in three or four feet of water - which cost the world and Wiesenthal a chance to confront him in court - was banal and stumbling, as befits the man's mediocrity."

I am not able to agree with the opinion expressed in the para above. 

"There [in the camp] he came into his own - found expression for his talents, so that what had been potential became actual. Intelligent but hardly an intellectual giant, Mengele found expression and recognition in Auschwitz beyond his talent. The all important Auschwitz dimension was added to ... create a uniquely intense version of the Auschwitz self as the physician-killer-researcher.... In Auschwitz, Mengele was 'the right man at the right place at the right time.' His energies no less than his ambition were galvanized by this Auschwitz synchronization of all his faculties."

"[As per Dr Martina Puzina, a University of Lemburg anthropologist] 'He [Mengele] believed you could create a new super race as though you were breeding horses. He thought it was possible to gain absolute control over a whole race. Man is so infinitely complex that that kind of strict control over such a vast population could never exist. He was a racist and a Nazi. He was ambitious up to the point of being completely inhuman. He was mad about genetic engineering.... In the end he would have killed his own mother if it would have helped him.'"

"If gypsies were his fetish, twins were his forte. 'Scientists,' Mengele once gloated 'have always been able to study twins after they have been born together. But only in the Third Reich can Science examine twins who died together.' Sometimes he would even dissect them while still alive."

It is usually thought that psychopaths or criminals who are "unfeeling" are of Thinking (as in MBTI) type because Feelers would be empathetic. Mengele is an example to disprove that notion perhaps. Being "F" is not sufficient for a person to be decent. Just as being J, as I realized, is not sufficient for a person to be decent.

"A letter of recommendation from the SS garrison commander at Auschwitz: Dr Mengele has been here since 30 May 1943. Dr Mengele has an open, honorable firm character. He is absolutely trustworthy, upright and direct. His mental and bodily hygiene is outstanding. His appearance indicates no weakness of character, no inclinations or addictions. His intellectual and physical predispositions can be designated as excellent. In his function as camp physician at Concentration Camp at Auschwitz, he applied his knowledge practically and theoretically while fighting grave epidemics. He seized every every opportunity, even under difficult circumstances, to improve both his theoretical and practical knowledge. He uses his spare time to search for further opportunities and unused anthropological materials."

I am amazed by this recommendation. Was it written by Mengene himself? Could his nature be so skilfully masked and reputation cleaned? Wonderful. A classic case of strong Venus (and Mars) and a weak Saturn.

"Simon Wiesenthal points out that this is a very common paradox: 'From Eichmann and Stangl on down, ninety percent of my 'clients' were - sometimes before the war and certainly after the war - solid family man and women, devoted to their children, loyal to their relatives, hardworking, taxpaying good citizens and good neighbours who did their duty, tended to their gardens and seldom made trouble for anyone. But when they put on under uniform, they became something else: monsters, sadists, torturers, killers, desk murderers. The minute they took off the uniform they became model citizens again."

"'The trouble with Eichmann' writes Hannah Arendt, 'was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.' And Stangl, says Gitta Sereny, had an infinite capacity to manipulate and repress his own moral scruples which, she insists, unquestionably existed."

"'In countries where the church is a controlling or dominating factor,' said the La Vista report, 'the Vatican has brought pressure to bear which has resulted in the foreign missions of those Latin American countries taking an attitude almost favoring the entry into their country of former Nazi and former fascist or other political groups, so long as they are anti-communist.' LA Vista added that 'the justification of the Vatican for its participation in this illegal traffic is simply the propagation of the faith.'"

The Catholics and Muslim institutions are primarily feelers (not thinkers) - power hungry.

"During her stay in Düsseldorf, Theresa Stangl visited her husband several times a week. 'What was strange,' she says 'was that often he would hardly talk to me. He'd sit opposite me at the table... But he'd chat with the guards, not with me. He'd talk to them about their leaves, their outings, places he knew, had been to. It hurt me and sometimes I'd say, ' Don't you want to talk to me?' Of course he didn't. To talk about his work from 1940-43 would have been to confess his infidelity to her values and upset the delicate equilibrium of his relationship with her and his family. She, more than he, had long looked the other way. His way crimes were like a mistress that everybody knows the head of the house has, but to openly acknowledge her existence would disturb the harmony of Sunday dinner. So it is perhaps fitting that the only time Stangl ever acknowledged his guilt, in private or in public, was to another woman, Gotta Sereny on Sunday, 27 June 1971, the day before he died."

"Sereny comes to this conclusion: 'I do not believe that all men are equal, for what we are above all things, is individual and different. But individuality and difference are not only due to the talents we happen to be born with. They depend as much on the extent to which we are allowed to expand in freedom... A moral monster, I believe, is not born, bit is produced by interference with this growth."

"Unlike Eichmann, however, he [John Demjanjuk, Ford Motor Co mechanic], denied everything, including, that he, Ivan Nicolaivich Demjanjuk, born 3 Apr 1920, in Duboimachariwzi in the Ukraine, was the same person as 'the other Ivan', whose name he (and later, others) said was Marchenko. But Demjanjuk performed the ultimate abstraction when he told the  US Marshals escorting him to Israel: 'If I was in Treblinka, then I was just a small cog. There was a war on, and there was no choice but to follow orders. But I was never in Treblinka.'" Wonder how his Venus is...

"'The trouble with Eichmann' writes Hannah Arendt, 'was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.' And Stangl, says Gitta Sereny, had an infinite capacity to manipulate and repress his own moral scruples which, she insists, unquestionably existed."

The book also talks about Raoul Wallenburg, who apparently was a gentile Swede and whose contribution to the Jewish cause is indicated to have been great.

Shown below are recent photos (shot by a friend of mine) of old houses in the southern part of Poland where I understand Jews used to live around 1944 until they escaped or the Gestapo took them away .

Additional reading:

1. Auschwitz extermination camp (Near Krakow)
2. Treblinka extermination camp (North east of Warsaw, Lublin)
3. Riga concentration camp (Latvia)
4. Dachau concentration camp (Southern Germany)
5. http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2015/04/best-of-world-war-ilse-koch.html
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Wirth

No Paper, Please

I read this article today. I was reminded of my own thoughts when I was 14 or 15 (back when there was no credit card / ATM card. I used to wonder why we all needed to carry cash around. Why couldn't we have some kind of a personal ID that would indicate the amount of cash we had? If I wanted to give you some money, I could say give it to Bozo. Voilaa if the money could be "paid", cashless, from my ID to yours, we would never need to have paper notes, metal coins.

I have had a strong dislike for physical things and preferred "soft" copies / electronic alternatives. Even now I have almost completely stopped reading hard copy books or newspapers. What a waste of paper!

I remember the times when we were to travel to our home town 2000km away. My father would go to the railway booking office and stand in line for a few hours. There would be immense crowd. God help you if you had to change your travel date or cancel your ticket. If you were in city A, you could not book a ticket to travel from city B to city C. And now all these are thing of the past. 

In late 1980's if you had to call a number in the US and if you didn't have a telephone (India's teledensity was 1%, meaning 1 telephone per 100 people, you had to go to the post office, fill in a form and give it to the person there. When your turn came, the person would dial the number you had mentioned in the form and transfer the call to one of the telephones for public use in the post office and you took the call on that phone. And then would start the loud "HELLO, HELLO. I am speaking, HELLO HELLO". If you wanted a fixed line telephone, there was no mobile phone then, you had to book a phone and it would take about 7 to 8 years for your turn to come and get the phone installed.

Now the teledensity is 50%+. Almost everyone has a phone. You can call anywhere from a park. But the "HELLO, HELLO. I am speaking, HELLO HELLO" continues. Network and signal quality are not so good.

Coming back to the cashless system, while I had idly imagined such a mechanism decades back, it seems to be a reality in Sweden.

Bofors And Telenor

I was reading this post (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/india-corruption-telecoms-idUSL3E7FF0MC20110415?pageNumber=2) today about the government's case against the accused in the 2G telecom scam.

Certain telecom companies were awarded licenses at a low cost on a first come first served basis by the then telecom minister and there is an alleged kickback to the minister who is allegedly not related to the chief minister of one of the states.

Now this case, if the past is anything to go by, will drag on for years by which time the train will be buried six feed under. And like in the ISRO scandal (http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/02/spend-more-time-undoing-than-doing.html), we will end up canceling the contract where other perhaps innocent parties would be affected.

If this keeps happening, investors would lose their trust in India. The need of the hour is to enable a speedy completion of the case and better still is to prevent such scams from occurring in the first place. 

Where are the quality checks and audits? How come such scams against private sector are fewer in number? Sure we do have cases where a company in the non-government sector (example: Few months back an employee of Citibank used investor's money to invest in the stock market) also gets cheated. But how often does it happen? 

How come we find that that the deals in government sector are more prone to scams? Where is effective governance in the government sector?

The primary issue is not that we make mistakes. The issue is that we don't fix the issues fast. I have seen youngsters saying that a RCA (Root cause analysis) cannot be done while in the middle of a project because they are busy with the delivery to customer. As a friend used to say this is akin to say you cannot fill in petrol in your car because you are already too late.

I can barely tolerate youngsters saying such things. What do you do when an entire government functions this way? 

What is the point in doing an audit years later when the whole thing will only be of academic interest?

Additional reading:

• http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/02/gender-and-caste.html
• http://calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/01/bofors-bees-and-winning-hbr.html
• http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/04/turbulent-priest.html

Veiled Look

France has outlawed wearing Burka (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8442993/First-arrests-made-hours-after-French-Burka-ban-comes-into-force.html). Sure enough there will be a furore about it.

Now the questions is:

Is this a basic right that a person has? To dress as he wills? To cover his face as he wills? Is France violating a person's rights?

Where is the line between personal right and state decrees/rule/ordnance?

Does a person have right to carry a knife as Sikh men do? Inside aircrafts also?

Does a person have a right to cover her face? Even at an immigration counter in an airport?

Does a person have a right to smoke a cigarette? Even in public, in a non smoking zone?

There is a whole bunch of things we can do in the privacy of our homes. We could drive a car on the left side inside the house (while everyone drives on the right side on the highways). 

But when it comes to being in public there is a restraint imposed by the state on various things from how much dress (not too little like walking in the nude) we ought to wear to other stuff like parking / tailgating / drinking / smoking etc.

The idea of a religion being an obstacle to implementing or overruling the laws of the state seems very strange. And inappropriate.
Of course, had a religious institution stood in the way of implementation of the third Reich's rules it would have been great. As an exception.

The reason being that the state's lawmakers (hopefully) look at reason to set what is appropriate. How often do religion's lawmakers look at reason to do the same thing?

The question that remains unanswered in my mind is:

What is that thing in Jews, Muslims and Catholics that make them rally together no matter which country a person resides in? How did these 3 religious forge such a strong bond?  The bond that these religions have engendered is at least as strong as the bond that a person has towards his country.

The thought that my religion is the best and people following other religions are barbarians/infidels is no different from Hitler's belief about Aryans vis-a-vis Jews and Slavs. I find the words "We are the chosen people" in whatever form amazing.


Additional reading:

• http://terrorism.about.com/od/causes/a/causes_terror.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_fanaticism
• http://www.mgr.org/terrorist.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_violence: Quote: "Some critics of religion such as Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer argue that all monotheistic religions are inherently violent. For example, Nelson-Pallmeyer writes that "Judaism, Christianity and Islam will continue to contribute to the destruction of the world until and unless each challenges violence in "sacred texts" and until each affirms nonviolent power of God". The reason attributed in point above is exactly what a friend of mine and her husband said as the cause for such fanaticism. Interesting.
• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071205072140AAAQ5cT: Look at the answer by Andrew.

Divorce Rate And Cultural Issues

Friends of mine from Europe can't digest the fact that many Indians get into an arranged marriage. 

They say that this "arranged marriage" where the spouse is identified by the family and where at the time of marriage the couple don't "love" each other cannot work. Especially the idea of having sex with a partner whom you don't know well enough is appalling, say my friends. And they assert vigorously that it can never work.

Well interesting thought. Now let's see the data.

The divorce rate in India is the lowest in the world at about 11 divorces out of 1000 marriages (http://www.divorcerate.org/divorce-rate-in-india.html) which works out to a divorce to marriage percentage of about 1%.

In the European Union (EU) on the other hand, the average number of divorces is 1.8 per 1000 residents and the average number of marriages is 5.1 per 1000 residents (http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art138fr.htm). This means that the divorce to marriage percentage is 1.8/5.1 = 35% for EU.

Now, Indian divorce per marriage rate is 1% and the same for EU is 35%. The data for EU is an order of magnitude higher. 

It is true that in India, many couples don't break up because of social reasons (divorces are not socially accepted) and hence the data for India should be interpreted carefully. Low divorce rates may NOT necessarily be indicative of things being honky dory.

So let's take another country which is like India where people face a similar (non-acceptance of divorce) issue. Let's take a catholic country like Poland. The catholic church is against divorce. And in Poland also, divorcees are not as socially accepted as married or "never married" people are.

And let's, for the sake of argument, assume that the issue of spouses sticking together despite breakdown because of "other" (social/religious) reasons are almost similar in extent in both Poland and India. My friend from Poland says this could be a decent assumption.

Let's take the data for Poland from the same link
(http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art138fr.htm).

The divorce per marriage data for Poland is (1.2/1000) / (5.1/1000) = 24%. 

Remember that the same for India is 1%.

Now the last point. What percentage of Indian marriages are "arranged"? Read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriage_in_India). 

An overwhelming majority of marriages in India are arranged as per wiki. And what percentage of EU or Polish marriages are arranged? I would say it's close to 0%.

So a comparison of figures for India and Poland can be taken to be equivalent to a comparison of arranged and non-arranged marriages.

We are talking 1% divorce/marriage rate in India and 24% in Poland.

What does it prove?

Couples may and do stay together in India despite the relationship between the spouses being very poor. But so is the case in Poland. And we have seen the data for Poland. Not knowing your partner before marriage, per se, has very little impact on the (de)stability of the marriage. 

This is something my friends in Europe would do well to reflect on. While it is painful for them to even think of such a (arranged) marriage, data proves that it does work. And maybe even better (remember 1% vs 24%).

When people ask me "But how can you ... with a person you dont know well?", I tell about the people that fall in love over the internet with persons they have not met in real life, perhaps never even seen their pictures. I am reminded of a lovely story
http://tnsf.ca/heartstrings/stories/true_nature.shtml.

While the statement "The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive." could be true, it is out of sync with the rest of the story (which is more about not judging a book to be unattractive because its cover is unattractive and hence contradicting the statement above. Would the man have loved the woman if she had scribbled junk in the margin of the book?). And can you imagine falling in love with a truly disgusting outfit?

Maybe love is not as much an accurate impersonal evaluation of the other person as it is about attributing to the other person all the good things that you imagined in an "anjaan" (unknown/imagined) lover and refusing to do any evaluation. Tolerating something that is unattractive is one thing.But loving something because it's unattractive is too disgusting to me.

Additional reading: http://vbala99.blogspot.in/2012/02/what-is-connect.html