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[ by Charles Cameron — or if not, a single sentence paragraph about politics that Levi-Strauss would have loved to diagram, plus Yikes ]
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Orin Kerr, writing in WaPo today for the Volokh Conspiracy, in a piece titled If I understand the history correctly… wrote:

If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy.

Yikes.

**

I’ve provided the full text of the piece so you’ll get the links Prof. Kerr included.

What interests me here, though, is the elegant concision of the piece, with its four parallels and various antitheses or oppositions.

Consider:

It begins with a frame:

If I understand the history correctly,

It then offers its prime example of an errant politician:

in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair

followed by its reversal, as the antagonist takes on the protagonist’s role:

by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair

followed by a third exemplar of political purity, his ascent to power aborted under parallel circumstances:

who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair,

and a fourth, parallel both by succession and similarity of (alleged) conduct:

which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy.

— with the frame closing on the one-word paragraph:

Yikes.

**

Between the careful formality of “If I understand the history correctly” and the squeal of “Yikes” we see the distance this recital of, yes, historical events has taken our good professor: from mind to emotion, observation to morality, head to heart.

Bravo!

And the (non-partisan) moral of this story is?

[by Charles Cameron — hunh? ]
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The Mufti that #Morsi himself appointed is to be made to agree his death warrant? This is Shakespearean in scope of morbid tragedy. #Egypt

— Rana Kabbani (@RanaKabbani54) May 16, 2015

Among those sentenced to death by Egypt is Emad Shahin. Took class w/ him at Georgetown on authoritarianism in Egypt. Dispassionate scholar.

— Arif Rafiq (@ArifCRafiq) May 16, 2015

**

The Mufti must sign the death warrant of the man who appointed him. The professor who worked on authoritarianism in Egypt is sentenced to death by Egyptian authoritarianism. Strange loops indeed, Dr Hofstadter!

Dr Shahin has responded: Statement by Prof. Emad Shahin on his death sentence:

In another travesty of justice, an Egyptian court today issued a mass death sentence against more than 120 defendants in two cases known as the “Grand Espionage” and “Prisons Break.” I was falsely charged in the first case and I received the death sentence pending referral to the mufti. I repeat my absolute rejection of the charges against me and note that I am hardly the only victim of injustice in this case. Furthermore, I condemn the sham trials engulfing Egypt since July 2013 where wholesale death sentences on flimsy or no evidence have been the mark of the current military regime.

[rang by Lynn C. Rees]

Elite mouthpiece Charlie Rose once asked former Singapore Prime Minister Lee “Harry” Kuan Yew which of the many, many, many, many world leaders he’d met in his long, long, long, long career he most admired. Lee chose Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Chinese Communist Party Deng Syauping. Lee especially admired Deng for his world-historic “adaptability”.

Flashback: 1978. Deng makes Deng’s first state visit to Singapore. Deng is flummoxed by Singapore’s prosperity (Deng’s briefings were inadequate). Deng asks Lee how Lee made Singapore prosperous. Lee tells Deng how Singapore climbed the food chain: First, attract foreign direct investment with cheap labor. Second, become subcontractors. Second, became contractors. Third, become competitors. Fourth, learn as you go. Veteran Marxist Deng muses aloud: Singapore’s created an egalitarian society using capitalism. Lee happily seconds Deng’s thought. Deng flies back to China. Deng applies the Lee model to China. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Appian records:

10. It is said that at one of their meetings in the gymnasium Scipio and Hannibal had a conversation on the subject of generalship, in the presence of a number of bystanders, and that Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest general, to which the latter replied, “Alexander of Macedonia.”
To this Scipio assented since he also yielded the first place to Alexander. Then he asked Hannibal whom he placed next, and he replied, “Pyrrhus of Epirus,” because he considered boldness the first qualification of a general; “for it would not be possible,” he said, “to find two kings more enterprising than these.”

Scipio was rather nettled by this, but nevertheless he asked Hannibal to whom he would give the third place, expecting that at least the third would be assigned to him; but Hannibal replied, “To myself; for when I was a young man I conquered Spain and crossed the Alps with an army, the first after Hercules. I invaded Italy and struck terror into all of you, laid waste 400 of your towns, and often put your city in extreme peril, all this time receiving neither money nor reinforcements from Carthage.”

As Scipio saw that he was likely to prolong his self-laudation he said, laughing, “Where would you place yourself, Hannibal, if you had not been defeated by me?” Hannibal, now perceiving his jealousy, replied, “In that case I should have put myself before Alexander.” Thus Hannibal continued his self-laudation, but flattered Scipio in a delicate manner by suggesting that he had conquered one who was the superior of Alexander.

Like the great Carthaginian (as framed in Appian’s fable) but with greater circumspection, Lee gives Lee a hearty backslap for the ages here by promoting Deng to virtual Leeness, making Deng almost a Lee Kuan Yew, Jr. Deng is great for”adaptibility”. Translation: Deng is great for “adaptibility” because he adapted by following Lee, who’s also great for “adaptibility”. Deng is great because Lee is great. While Deng did great things, Lee claims, also circumspectly, a greater priority: Lee’s been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

There is merit here. If Lee’s memory was as accurate as it was convenient, Lee was one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century. Deng Syauping stepped out of the way of one fifth of humanity’s rise from absolute poverty to genteel poverty. For that, Deng is one of the most adequate leaders of the twentieth century. If Lee helped Deng rise to adequacy, he deserves his adequate share of significance.

Lee is a frequent candidate for great authoritarian of the late twentieth century, the sort of man that, if they could be produced on demand, would euthanize democracy. That great authoritarians are not produced on demand continues to be a problem. Lee proved resiliently traditional in his attempts to solve the problem: Placeholder minion. Check. Dynastic succession. Check.

Whether history gives Lee as hearty a backslap as Lee (through Deng) gave Lee will depend upon whether Lee’s great authoritarianism continues to be great authoritarianism without its great authoritarian. Cárdenas’ “perfect dictatorship” endured 54 years. Stalin’s dead cat bounce reached 1991. Mau’s dead cat bounce carried a Deng, a Jyang, a Hu, and now a Syi. And those cabals had some component of rotation of elites built in. Lee’s die is cast with old school hereditary monarchy. His dynastic successor has an heir and two spares (three spares if Singapore doesn’t follow Salic Law). Time will tell if Lee Kuan Yew wins the genetic lottery now that he’s no longer around to play retired emperor.

[ by Charles Cameron — the color of green cards, the color of blood ]
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I was watching Revenge of the Green Dragons, since Scorsese produced, and had very little idea of what I was going to see — the film is an amalgam of Hong Kong action flick and New York City crime thriller, based on a New Yorker aticle about Chinatown gangs in the 1980s and 90s — but the opening titles were run under a brief voice-over account of Ellis Island, and included this shot of some early “green cards” —

followed by this one of Mahjong tiles, definitively green, and roughly equivalent to cards in western gameplay —

and this, showing the same tiles face-up —

by which point, the greenness, cardness and gameness had my full attention, and at which point I went back and started putting together a series of screencaps, like this one, showing a different but related form of green —

with a switch to red, green’s complementary color, and the violent theme of the movie —

and finally, the film’s title, in red against green.

I was beginning to like this film.

**

I thought of calling this post “Entertaining the heart’s eye” because it’s the emotions that respond to this sort of (formal) care in detail — the film maker is fully conscious of such things, but the viewer’s mind’s eye is preoccupied with narrative (content) and barely notices them. That’s skillful means, that’s the artistry of the medium, that’s how we’re subliminally engaged and move, that’s how it’s done.

And if narrative is of any interest, as I suggested recently it should be, in terms of trategy, then “how it’s done” — with an emphasis on form rather than content — is key.

Okay, I had my six screencaps and the tale I’ve just told, and I thought that would be enough, tgether they would make a fine Sunday surprise for ZP. And i thoughy, maybe I can sit back and watch the rest of the film without having to constantly stop and start for screencaps, always a somewhat tedious process.

**

But then, as the film proper got under way, there was this shot of —

a deceased gangster in the dumpster, for all the world as if it was in one of those viewing coffins used for more warmly appreciated mobsters —

but again featuring the film’s characteristic coloring, green, oozing the dark, dark red of blood.

**

I was enjoying the film a great deal now, and sat back an allowed myself to move through it as, what, “the speed of film”? But I was in for another shock. There’s a narrative within the narrative, you see, a story told by one brother to the other — and as with all such matrioshka “plays within a play” it is the key to the whole. The elder brother explains to his younger sibling the nature of reality, of strength:

When I was six, my father took me far into the forest and left me there. Without food, without water. First two days, I cry and I cry. Then, I started to understand the beauty of forest. How big it was. How small I was.

Soon I come to road, truck take me home. Neither father or mother say anything to me. Not a word.

I loved them even more after that, because they show me how strong I can be.

**

That tale is what the movie is all about, and it is told in forest green.

The city is left behind, and in otherworldly green Steven tells Sonny this tale as an act of brotherly love —

as they are approaching the glade where Sonny’s love, Tina —

before Sonny’s horrified and furious eyes — and strictly according to gang logic —

is to be executed, spilling that dark red once again into the green.

**

I have left out the “story” and given you the “geometry” here — see my recent post on the geometry of the Narcissus / Echo myth.

Fredric Dannen wrote the New Yorker article on which the film was based, published in 1992. It doesn’t contain the film’s “story within the story” — but it does mention the “forest” —

They circled around for a while and came across a dirt road. The road ran along the bottom of a ravine and cut through dense woods — an ideal spot for an execution.

And there’s a flash of brilliant red, too — the real-life Tina’s relatives had placed a red handkerchief in one of her pockets before her cremation:

According to Chinese custom, if a murder victim is iven something red to wear, the color will “stick to” the killer and he will be caught.

**

Read the New Yorker piece, see the film, and keep your eyes peeled for the red in the green.

[ by Charles Cameron — a stunning “DoubleQuote in the Wild” ]
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Caitlin‘s a colleague and digital friend, and I must confess I personally have very little to do with superheroes of any variety, but this DQ of Caitlin’s both captivated and shocked me — captivated me as a DoubleQuote in the Wild (its form), and shocked me with the gendered contrast it records (its content):

Everything you need to know about the way superheroes are marketed to boys vs girls in one gis result pairing: pic.twitter.com/7SiAHJikN5

— Caitlin Fitz Gerald (@caidid) March 7, 2015

Consider my mind blown, as we used to say.