Sunday 25 June 2023

The Law of Fear




In War, We're Tough and Able;
Quite Inde-fa-tig-able.

Between Our Quests, 
We sequin vests and 
impersonate Clark Gable

It's a Busy Life in Camelot :
I Have to Push The Pram a Lot.



efficiency (n.)
1590s, "power to accomplish something," from Latin efficientia "efficient power; efficiency; influence" (from efficientem; see efficient) + -cy. 

In mechanics, "ratio of useful Work done to energy expended," from 1858. 

Attested by 1951 as short for efficiency apartment (itself from 1917).

also from 1590s


Trends of efficiency

-cy 
abstract noun suffix of quality or rank, from Latin -cia, -tia, from Greek -kia, -tia, from abstract ending -ia (see -ia) + stem ending -c- or -t-. 

The native correspondents are -ship, -hood.

efficient (adj.)
late 14c., "making, producing immediate effect, active, effective," from Old French efficient and directly from Latin efficientem (nominative efficiens) "effective, efficient, producing, active," present participle of efficere "work out, accomplish," from assimilated form of ex "out" (see ex-) + facere "to do" (from PIE root *dhe- "to set, put"). Meaning "productive, skilled" is from 1787. 

Related: Efficiently.

inefficiency (n.)
1749; see in- (1) "not, opposite of" + efficiency (n.).







Mutiny on The Bounty (1936)




Sound The “Trumpets! Let The Chariots be made ready — for We shall be avenged a thousand fold upon These Dogs of Israel!”

— Rameses The Great

Captain Bligh :
You are not eating, Mr. Young.

Mr. Young :
With your permission, I'm not hungry, sir.

Captain Bligh :
Permission Denied. 
We'll not have Food wasted.
Eat Your Supper.

Mr. Young :
Aye, sir.

Captain Bligh :
Not a very sociable group tonight.


Mr. Christian :
As a matter of fact, sir, I was about to 
make a remark when you spoke.


Captain Bligh :
You're pardoned.
Something troubling you, Mr. Christian?

Mr. Christian :
No, sir. It's nothing. I just...
Well, I don't feel my cheeriest after
watching a man take a severe lashing.

Captain Bligh :
Pass Mr. Young the potatoes, please.
You've witnessed Punishment before, surely.
Go ahead, speak your mind.

Mr. Christian :
Well, sir, since you ask, it's...
It's The Question of Degree that troubles me.
You see, if one flogs a man half to Death 
for a minor infraction, then how does 
one punish him for a serious offense?

Captain Bligh :
'Minor infraction', you said?

Mr. Christian :
Yes. I think that two cheeses, sir...

Captain Bligh :
Plus the word "Thief" applied to His Captain.
But you still feel, though, that 
stopping the men's grog 
was sufficient Punishment?
Well, I agree with you.


Mr. Christian :
You agree?

Captain Bligh :
Eat it up. Excellent stew.
If We were concerned with 
only the one case, certainly.

Mr. Christian :
Well, I don't know...

Captain Bligh :
Hear Me. You will, all of you, no doubt
Command Your Own Ships some day.
Let us suppose that your vessel is running in heavy seas.
The shrouds are covered with ice. A gale is blowing.
It becomes necessary, in your opinion, to order a seaman aloft.

He realizes, of course, that if 
his fingers slip from the icy shrouds
for a split second, he'll perish immediately.
Now, this is a typical seaman, a half-witted, 
wife-beating, habitual drunkard.

His whole life is spent Evading and Defying Authority.
Tell me, sir -- What is it that makes this man go aloft?

Mr. Christian :
I think, depending on the man, 
sir, any number of things.

Captain Bligh :
You can put it in one word. Fear.
Fear of What You'll DO to him.

Fear of Punishment so vivid in his mind that 
he fears it even more than sudden Death.
Now don't mistake me -- I'm not advising 
Cruelty or Brutality with no Purpose.

My Point is that Cruelty with Purpose
is not Cruelty. It's Efficiency.

But a man will never disobey you once 
he's watched his mate's backbone laid bare.
He'll remember those white ribs staring at him,
he'll see the flesh jump and hear the whistle of the whip
for the rest of his life.

Mr. Christian :
Well, perhaps you're right, sir.
I'd be careful of that cheese if I were you, sir.
It has a peculiar smell.
I think it's a bit tainted.
But then, of course, it's a question 
of individual taste.
It's damn good port.


******



Captain Bligh :

What I have to say 

to you is The Result of 

considerable reflection.

Its consequences 

will be twofold.


Firstly, Our Journey 

will be shortened, which 

I know is a consideration 

that cannot distress you.


And secondly, upon its 

successful conclusion, not one 

of you in later years will 

look back without 

a surge of pride.


We shall go with the winds 

to Jamaica by way 

of Cape Horn.


Adams :

You'll kill us all.


Captain Bligh :

What did you say, Adams?


Adams :

We tried the Horn before.

It was almost the end of us.


Captain Bligh :

Damn You, man. 

Don't You Bloody Cross Me.

Mr. Cole, take This Man below,

and tomorrow we will assemble to 

watch him receive Punishment for

Cowardice and Insubordination.

Mr. Cole, Take him below, sir!


And Mr. Fryer, give him

the makings.


Lt. Fryer

Sir.


Captain Bligh :

Now, We set out to 

circumnavigate The Globe

and By God We Shall Do it, to 

The Greater Glory of Us-All.

Is that understood?

Thank you.


Now you may dismiss.


******


Captain Bligh :

Enter.



Fletcher Christian :

Can I have a word with you?


Captain Bligh :

I'm busy. Is it important?


Fletcher Christian :

I Think, yes.


Captain Bligh :

Be brief.


Fletcher Christian :

William, Your Decision

to go round The Horn...


Captain Bligh :

"William"? Not "sir"? 

Not "Captain"? "William"?


Fletcher Christian :

I Don't Think The Men 

will have it.


Captain Bligh :

Oh, The Men won't have it?

Are They in Charge 

of The Bounty?


Fletcher Christian :

They might be, if you insist.


Captain Bligh :

Repeat that, please.

The Men "might be" in charge?

What are you threatening me with?


Fletcher Christian :

It's not a Threat. 

It's a Warning.


Captain Bligh :

There are rumblings, are there?


Fletcher Christian :

No. There is Fear.


Captain Bligh :

Around The Horn 

is the easiest way, 

the better way, and 

That is How 

We Will Go.

Anything more?


Fletcher Christian :

Don't put Adams 

to The Lash.


Captain Bligh :

He was insubordinate.

Cowardly and insubordinate.

He frightened the men.


I did not put that 

Fear there. He did.


So he will be lashed, and 

We will go round The Horn.


Are you frightened to go round The Horn, Mr. Christian? 


Are you a coward too, sir?


CHAPTER V
“Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to Razumihin’s to ask for work, to ask him to get me lessons or something...” Raskolnikov thought, “but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons... hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I earn? That’s not what I want now. It’s really absurd for me to go to Razumihin....”

The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister significance in this apparently ordinary action.

“Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by means of Razumihin alone?” he asked himself in perplexity.

He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic thought came into his head.
“Hm... to Razumihin’s,” he said all at once, calmly, as though he had reached a final determination. “I shall go to Razumihin’s of course, but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It will be over and everything will begin afresh....”
And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.
“After It,” he shouted, jumping up from the seat, “but is It really going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?” He left the seat, and went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards, but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing; in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all this had for a month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at random.
His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round, he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted summer villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through the fence, he saw in the distance smartly dressed women on the verandahs and balconies, and children running in the gardens. The flowers especially caught his attention; he gazed at them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by luxurious carriages and by men and women on horseback; he watched them with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had vanished from his sight. Once he stood still and counted his money; he found he had thirty copecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must have given forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs yesterday,” he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he soon forgot with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket. He recalled it on passing an eating-house or tavern, and felt that he was hungry.... Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep.
In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.
Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his childhood in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven years old, walking into the country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he remembered it; indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than he had done in memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not even a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his father. There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse, hideous hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horrible-looking figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to cling close to his father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the tavern the road became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black. It was a winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a stone church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass two or three times a year with his father and mother, when a service was held in memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and whom he had never seen. On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it in the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the old-fashioned, unadorned ikons and the old priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother’s grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of his younger brother who had died at six months old. He did not remember him at all, but he had been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited the graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself and to bow down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he was walking with his father past the tavern on the way to the graveyard; he was holding his father’s hand and looking with dread at the tavern. A peculiar circumstance attracted his attention: there seemed to be some kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts, all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those big carts usually drawn by heavy cart-horses and laden with casks of wine or other heavy goods. He always liked looking at those great cart-horses, with their long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along a perfect mountain with no appearance of effort, as though it were easier going with a load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in a rut. And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of shouting, singing and the balalaïka, and from the tavern a number of big and very drunken peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over their shoulders.
“Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young thick-necked peasant with a fleshy face red as a carrot. “I’ll take you all, get in!”
But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in the crowd.
“Take us all with a beast like that!”
“Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart?”
“And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!”
“Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again, leaping first into the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. “The bay has gone with Matvey,” he shouted from the cart—“and this brute, mates, is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She’s just eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll gallop!” and he picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to flog the little mare.
“Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed. “D’you hear, she’ll gallop!”
“Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years!”
“She’ll jog along!”
“Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready!”
“All right! Give it to her!”
They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and making jokes. Six men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat, rosy-cheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded headdress and thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing. The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at a gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips ready to help Mikolka. With the cry of “now,” the mare tugged with all her might, but far from galloping, could scarcely move forward; she struggled with her legs, gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three whips which were showered upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed the mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop.
“Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man in the crowd whose appetite was aroused.
“Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw you all. I’ll beat her to death!” And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself with fury.
“Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they doing? Father, they are beating the poor horse!”
“Come along, come along!” said his father. “They are drunken and foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!” and he tried to draw him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling.
“Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to that. I’ll do for her!”
“What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?” shouted an old man in the crowd.
“Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a cartload,” said another.
“You’ll kill her,” shouted the third.
“Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose. Get in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!...”
All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the mare, roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that trying to kick!
Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her about the ribs. One ran each side.
“Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried Mikolka.
“Give us a song, mates,” shouted someone in the cart and everyone in the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The woman went on cracking nuts and laughing.
... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more.
“I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a long, thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an effort brandished it over the mare.
“He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him. “He’ll kill her!”
“It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with a swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud.
“Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?” shouted voices in the crowd.
And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but lurched forward and tugged forward with all her force, tugged first on one side and then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft was raised again and fell upon her a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow.
“She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd.
“She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end of her,” said an admiring spectator in the crowd.
“Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a third.
“I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed frantically; he threw down the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked up an iron crowbar. “Look out,” he shouted, and with all his might he dealt a stunning blow at the poor mare. The blow fell; the mare staggered, sank back, tried to pull, but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on the ground like a log.
“Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside himself, out of the cart. Several young men, also flushed with drink, seized anything they could come across—whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began dealing random blows with the crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died.
“You butchered her,” someone shouted in the crowd.
“Why wouldn’t she gallop then?”
“My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes, brandishing the bar in his hands. He stood as though regretting that he had nothing more to beat.
“No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,” many voices were shouting in the crowd.
But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming, through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head and kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.... Then he jumped up and flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka. At that instant his father, who had been running after him, snatched him up and carried him out of the crowd.
“Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said to him.
“Father! Why did they... kill... the poor horse!” he sobbed, but his voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest.
“They are drunk.... They are brutal... it’s not our business!” said his father. He put his arms round his father but he felt choked, choked. He tried to draw a breath, to cry out—and woke up.
He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with perspiration, and stood up in terror.
“Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sitting down under a tree and drawing deep breaths. “But what is it? Is it some fever coming on? Such a hideous dream!”
He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in his soul. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands.
“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it be?”
He was shaking like a leaf as he said this.
“But why am I going on like this?” he continued, sitting up again, as it were in profound amazement. “I knew that I could never bring myself to it, so what have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday, yesterday, when I went to make that... experiment, yesterday I realised completely that I could never bear to do it.... Why am I going over it again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came down the stairs yesterday, I said myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile... the very thought of it made me feel sick and filled me with horror.
“No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted that there is no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last month is clear as day, true as arithmetic.... My God! Anyway I couldn’t bring myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Why, why then am I still...?”
He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though surprised at finding himself in this place, and went towards the bridge. He was pale, his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he seemed suddenly to breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful burden that had so long been weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense of relief and peace in his soul. “Lord,” he prayed, “show me my path—I renounce that accursed... dream of mine.”
Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the Neva, at the glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he was not conscious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had been forming for a month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom, freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!
Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him during those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was superstitiously impressed by one circumstance, which, though in itself not very exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the predestined turning-point of his fate. He could never understand and explain to himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would have been more convenient for him to go home by the shortest and most direct way, he had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much so. It is true that it happened to him dozens of times to return home without noticing what streets he passed through. But why, he was always asking himself, why had such an important, such a decisive and at the same time such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay Market (where he had moreover no reason to go) at the very hour, the very minute of his life when he was just in the very mood and in the very circumstances in which that meeting was able to exert the gravest and most decisive influence on his whole destiny? As though it had been lying in wait for him on purpose!
It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay Market. At the tables and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, all the market people were closing their establishments or clearing away and packing up their wares and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers and costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the taverns in the dirty and stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov particularly liked this place and the neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aimlessly in the streets. Here his rags did not attract contemptuous attention, and one could walk about in any attire without scandalising people. At the corner of an alley a huckster and his wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread, cotton handkerchiefs, etc. They, too, had got up to go home, but were lingering in conversation with a friend, who had just come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as everyone called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his watch and make his experiment.... He already knew all about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too. She was a single woman of about thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid, submissive and almost idiotic. She was a complete slave and went in fear and trembling of her sister, who made her work day and night, and even beat her. She was standing with a bundle before the huckster and his wife, listening earnestly and doubtfully. They were talking of something with special warmth. The moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome by a strange sensation as it were of intense astonishment, though there was nothing astonishing about this meeting.
“You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the huckster was saying aloud. “Come round to-morrow about seven. They will be here too.”
“To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as though unable to make up her mind.
“Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona Ivanovna,” gabbled the huckster’s wife, a lively little woman. “I look at you, you are like some little babe. And she is not your own sister either—nothing but a step-sister and what a hand she keeps over you!”
“But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,” her husband interrupted; “that’s my advice, but come round to us without asking. It will be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may have a notion.”
“Am I to come?”
“About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be here. You will be able to decide for yourself.”
“And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife.
“All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering, and she began slowly moving away.
Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He passed softly, unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His first amazement was followed by a thrill of horror, like a shiver running down his spine. He had learnt, he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only companion, would be away from home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old woman would be left alone.
He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in like a man condemned to death. He thought of nothing and was incapable of thinking; but he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably decided.
Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable opportunity, he could not reckon on a more certain step towards the success of the plan than that which had just presented itself. In any case, it would have been difficult to find out beforehand and with certainty, with greater exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries and investigations, that next day at a certain time an old woman, on whose life an attempt was contemplated, would be at home and entirely alone.

Woke this morning to the stinging lash;
Every man rise from the ash

Each betrayal begins with trust;
Every man returns to dust

The Law of Christian

 


You remarkable pig
You can Thank 
whatever 
Pig-God you Pray to 
that you haven't 
turned 
Me into a Murderer.









Mates, there's only one thing missing : Captain Bligh.


Oh, yes. I'd give a leg or two
if he could see us now.
Eating away to our heart's content
without a care in the world.


Yeah, I like him better 
where he is.
I like him going away 
in his little boat,
with the hot sun 
beating down
on his hot 
little head.


Well, God grant 
him a dry mouth —
Do You remember when 
he bid us goodbye,
all blown-up like 
a toad?
"I'll never leave you, 
Mr. Christian. Not ever
No matter where you go,
I'll always be at 
your shoulder, with 
a rope in Me-Hand."


Of course, he's a man of 
His Word, is Captain Bligh.


So perhaps we ought 
to set him a plate.
"Why, hello there. 
Captain Bligh, sir.
Sit down, sir. Sit down.
Here have a bird wing or two.
And kindly explain why 
you ain't here."

Christian :
There's no doubt about it --
Nobody's glad 
to see A Captain
who comes Home 
without His Ship.


You know, I'd give 
a stick of tabaccy to 
see his ruddy report.
Those Admiralty Lords 
will look at him like 
he was a piece of 
rotten biscuit.

Christian :
I'm afraid your laughter is unwarranted, gentlemen.
Captain Bligh will be acquitted.
He'll be given another ship.
A larger cat-o'-nine-tails to run it with.


You're forgetting 
there's mates of ours
went along with Bligh, sir.
They'll tell what the old pig did.
And they'll tell how he was out
to execute all of us, one by one.

Christian :
Sure. Your Friends are under 
The Shadow of arraignment 
themselves for Mutiny,
if Bligh chooses to charge that 
They Failed to Rally 
to His Calls,or to 
Protect him properly.
Why should they 
invite His Anger?


They won't be given any choice, sir.
They'll be asked questions, 
and The Facts will speak 
for themselves, right?

Christian :
The bare facts alone 
will not indict Bligh.
It's The Privilege of 
every Captain to decide 
when An Emergency warrants the 
reduction of water rations.
Who can deny there 
was an emergency?
The Bounty carried breadfruit.
Vital to the Economic Life
of The British Empire.
Do you suppose it'll 
be acceptable that 
Bligh should return after 
a two-year voyage with 
His Ship laden with dead plants?


Better than with dead men, sir.

Christian :
You're forgetting The Traditional Answer, Mills :
Mission comes Firstand 
Lives of Men second.

Well, it's all the one to us now.
Let them make Captain Bligh
King of China if they want to.
We can forget him, Thank God.
And I move we start 
forgetting him right now --
Bligh, Guilty, or Bligh, Not Guilty,
it makes no difference 
to our lovely little island.
And if it did, we could 
write out papers telling our side 
of the story, seal them in bottles and 
send them floating on the sea.

Hey, That's a Thought.
One of them might even bob along
and reach England ahead of Bligh.
That'd put a spike in his coffin.

Christian :
We can make certain that 
his coffin is spiked.

What do you mean, sir?

Christian :
By returning to England ourselves.


Well, what the holy hell for?

You're not serious, Mr. Christian.

It's a joke he'll be after 
having, that's all.

Well, it was a joke to 
spoil me dinner.

Hold it, hold it -- Mr. Christian is 
Meaning what he says, I'm afraid.

Christian :
Yes, I am, Mills.

Then I've got a better idea, sir.
Why don't we hang each other
from the yardarms in the morning?
It'll save us a trip!

Yes.

Christian :
Listen to Me for one moment, gentlemen, please --
I put it to you that we shall never 
find contentment on this island.


Sir, it sounds like you've 
gone Out of Your Mind.
There's no chance for people 
like us to go back to England,
give Bligh a bad name and 
walk free men ourselves.
And anyone who thinks otherwise
 hasn't got the sense that 
God gave geese!

Christian :
You're right, Mills.
We may all very well be hanged.
But Decency is worth fighting for.
You can't live without it.
And hiding here, shivering 
like convicts, when we've a just case 
to present to the courts,
is just another way of Dying.
And a far less bearable one.

I didn't know until 
this moment, what 
the rightful course to pursue was.
But I know it now.
Will You Trust Me?

Look, supposing Bligh's 
been picked up already.
Supposing he's been 
Tried and Acquitted
by the time we get there.
Let it Be So.
Our court martial will be 
Bligh's court martial over again.
Our jeopardy will be Bligh's' jeopardy as well.
And our acquittal will be Bligh's defeat.
It'll mean no more Captain William Bligh
or any like him in His Majesty's Service.
We need only persuade 
The British People
of something they 
already knowthat 
Inhumanity is its 
poorest servant.
Gentlemen, I beg you : 
Help me to carry 
that word back to England.



That's a big Thought for 
People Like Us.
Do you mind if we take 
the night to talk about it?


Christian :
Certainly.

Saturday 24 June 2023

DEATH





The Babysitter




Oppenheimer
Do You remember Klaus Fuchs 
at Los Alamos….?

Mrs. Kitty Oppenheimer
The Babysitter..?




Gamesters






“Almost all the best novelists include big set pieces in their novels, and Fleming was no exception. Casinos and gambling provide the ultimate in heightened atmosphere, visual drama, tension, conflict and the see-saw of emotions. That apparently staid Victorian Anthony Trollope gives us a fine gambling scene in the first Palliser novel, Can you Forgive her? when Burgo Fitzgerald loses everything in a desperate game of roulette, and the even staider George Eliot whips up a colourful frenzy in a casino in Baden-Baden, at the beginning of Daniel Deronda. And Thomas Hardy has two men playing dice at night by the light of glow-worms on Egdon Heath, in The Return of the Native. 

Fleming’s best-known gambling scene is probably in Casino Royale, and it is very good, but that in Moonraker is perhaps even better

Sir Hugo Drax, pillar of the British establishment, knighted for services to his country, potential saviour of its land and citizens, is revealed early on in the book to have a character flaw, other than a nasty temper :

There’s only one thing …’ M. tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. 

What’s that, sir?’ asked Bond … 

Sir Hugo Drax cheats at cards.’ 

And so the scene is set for the great Bridge game, in which James discovers how Drax is cheating and exposes him, winning himself £15,000 in the process – perhaps £150,000 in today’s money. 

The Game takes place at Blades, the archetypal St James’s gambling club, of which Fleming gives both a good potted history and a magnificent description. 

The food and wine are superlative, the club servants impeccable. The scene, in which the room and its tables gradually fill up and the games commence, with a pall of cigar and cigarette smoke hanging under the shaded lamps, is one of Fleming’s best pieces of writing. We can taste the food, smell the cigars, hear the chink of ice and the click of the freshly opened packs of cards. 

To appreciate the course of The Game, what exactly it is that both Drax and Bond do, and to understand the outcome fully, it is helpful to know Bridge well. But I do not, and I can still follow what is going on and feel the mounting tension as Drax gets bolder and bolder, before suddenly realising what is happening. 

Many a Bond action scene and unlikely escape from almost certain death set the pulses racing, but this quiet, brilliant scenario is the finest thing Fleming ever wrote.

Tuesday 20 June 2023

Dummy Papers






“ . . . Millions and millions of dollars were poured into that exercise -- a lot of people were involved in it -- and it never went through any Air Force procurement. Now, The Cleared-Individual -- the man in the team -- in the procurement offices, made papers that covered up this gap. There were papers in The Files but they had never been worked on -- they were simple dummy papers in the files. 

Now, we could do things like that with no trouble at all. The U-2 was started like that. That's how the U2 got off the ground. Ostensibly, purchased by the Air Force, but not paid for by the Air Force, and so on. So, when I say that this team was quite effective, it was very effective, very strong, handled a lot of money, worked all over the world, thousands of people were involved. I know, one time, when I was speaking to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at that time General Lemnitzer, he said, "You know, I've known of two or three units in the Army that were supporting CIA. But you're talking about quite a few. How many were there?" Well, at that time, there were 605. Well General Lemnitzer had no idea. It's amazing--heres the top man in the military and he had no idea that we were supporting that many CIA units. Not military units--they were phony military units. They were operating with military people but they were controlled entirely, they were financed by the CIA. Six hundred and five of them. And I'm sure that from my day it increased; I know it didn't decrease. So, people don't understand the size and the nature of this clandestine activity that is designed for clandestine operations all over the world. And it goes back, again, to things we've spoken of earlier, that that activity must be under somebody's control. There is no law for the control of covert operations other than at the National Security Council level. And if the National Security Council does not sign the directives, issue the directives, for covert operations, then nobody does. And that's when it becomes a shambles as we saw in the Contra affair and in other things. But when the National Security Council steps in and directs it and holds that control, then things are run properly. And we've seen that during the last decade theres been quite a few aberrations where they were talking about Iran or Latin America or even part of the Vietnam War itself. In fact, it was in the Vietnam War where the thing really began to come apart--it just outgrew itself and the leadership role disintegrated. And we see the worst of it in the Iran-Contra affair.

 Ratcliffe: Following on that you write about Dulles being able to "move them up and deeper into their cover jobs"--would this be a function of them being there longer than the people who would be promoted to something else in time?

 Prouty: Yes. When we put them in, they might be somebody's assistant. And they've been there for three years and the man that was above them, who was probably a political appointee, leaves and they might move this man up there. Or when a newer political appointee comes, he has no knowledge that this man is really from CIA. He's just a strong person in his office and he gives him a broader role. Sometimes these people (chuckling) were working-- well, one man I know was in FAA and we needed his work to help us with FAA as a focal point there. He'd been there so long the FEA had him in a very big, very responsible job, and you might say 90% of his work was regular FAA work. A very strong individual. Well, that meant that when we needed him to help us with some of our activities on the covert side of things, he was in a much better position to handle this than he had been originally. This happened with quite a few of them. That's why I say in the case of Frank Hand, he had been in the Defense Department so long that he was able to handle really major operations that weren't even visualized at the time he was assigned. All this carries over into many other things. I pointed out that the Office of Special Operations under General Erskine had the responsibility for the National Security Agency as well as CIA contacts and the State Department, and so on. Well, as we filled up these positions, some of them became dominant in some those organizations, such as NSA. Early people in this program have created quite a career for themselves in other work. For instance, a young man in this system was Major Haig. Major Al Haig. He went up through the system. He was working as a deputy to the Army's cleared Focal Point Officer for Agency support matters who was the General Counsel in the Army, a man named Joe Califano--a very prominent lawyer today. When the General Counsel of the Army was moved up into the office of Secretary of Defense later--in McNamara's office--he carried with him this then-Lieutenant Colonel Al Haig up to the office of Secretary of Defense. And during the Johnson Administration when they moved to the White House, Califano and Haig moved to the White House. Then during the Nixon time, Haig with all his experience in the White House worked with Kissinger. And you can see that it was this attachment through the covert side which gave Haig his ability to do an awful lot of things that people didn't understand, because he had this whole team behind him. To be even more up-to-date, there was a Major Secord in our system. And Major Secord is the same General Secord you've been reading about in the Iran-Contra business. A lot of these people worked right up into the White House. And there were these same assigned people even at the White House level that really were working on this CIA covert work rather than the jobs that they seemed to hold, that the public understood was the job that they were working for. It's a much more effective system than people have thought it was. . . . Ratcliffe: You describe what seems to be a very enlightening day --an event in 1960 or 1961 when you briefed "the Chairman of the JCS on a matter that had come up involving the CIA and the military." [p.257] As you described it:

 The chairman was General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, and his commandant was General David M. Shoup. They were close friends and had known each other for years. When the primary subject of the briefing had ended General Lemnitzer asked me about the Army cover unit that was involved in the operation. I explained what its role was and more or less added that this was a rather routine matter. Then he said, "Prouty, if this is routine, yet General Shoup and I have never heard of it before, can you tell me in round numbers how many Army units there are that exist as `cover` for the CIA?" I replied that to my knowledge at that time there were about 605 such units, some real, some mixed, and some that were simply telephone drops. When he heard that he turned to General Shoup and said, "You know, I realized that we provided cover for the Agency from time to time; but I never knew that we had anywhere near so many permanent cover units and that they existed all over the world."

 I then asked General Lemnitzer if I might ask him a question. He said I could. "General", I said, "during all of my military career I have done one thing or another at the direction of a senior officer. In all those years and in all of those circumstances I have always believed that someone, either at the level of the officer who told me to do what I was doing or further up the chain of command, knew why I was doing what I had been directed to do and that he knew what the reason for doing it was. Now I am speaking to the senior military officer in the armed forces and I have just found out that some things I have been doing for years in support of the CIA have not been known and that they have been done, most likely, in response to other authority. Is this correct?"

 This started a friendly, informal, and most enlightening conversation, more or less to the effect that where the CIA was concerned there were a lot of things no one seemed to know. [p.258]

 Can you recount more of the details of this enlightening conversation for us?

 Prouty: Well, you know I referred to it earlier. It astounded me, that day. I assumed that there were a lot things that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not aware of every day in the Air Force, in the Navy, and in the CIA. But I had never expected such a blanket answer, that he didn't know, and that General Shoup didn't. Now, what we were talking about was rather specific. At the time of the rebellion in Indonesia when the CIA supported tens of thousands of troops with aircraft, and ships, submarines, and everything else, in an attempt to overthrow the government of Sukarno, we needed rifles pretty quick to support these rebels and I called out to Okinawa and found out that the Army didn't have enough rifles for what we wanted. We wanted about 42,000 rifles and they had about 28,000. But that he said he thought he could get--General Lemnitzer was a Commander at that time in Okinawa. So he was right up close to this thing. He said that he'd have somebody call the Marine Corps and see what he could get from them. Well, it just happened that General Shoup was the head of the Marine unit at Okinawa and he said, sure, he could provide the extra 14,000. So without delay, we had 4-engine aircraft--C-54's- -flown by Air America crews but under military cover--appeared to be military aircraft--come into Okinawa, pick up these 42,000 rifles, prepared for air drop in Indonesia. They'd fly down to the Philippines and then down to another base we had and then over into Indonesia and drop these rifles. Well of course, we replaced those rifles. The General didn't know where they were going, we just borrowed them, and the unit that borrowed them was military and the call had come from the Pentagon. There was no problem with supplying the rifles. So years later, we replaced them. Well then when I told him about that in the Pentagon, he said he never knew where those rifles went and General Shoup said, "you know, Lem, when you asked me for 14,000 rifles, I thought you wanted them and, of course, being a good Marine, I gave you 14,000 rifles." He said, "you owe me 14,000." They were sitting there kidding but they never knew they went to Indonesia. You see, they never knew they were part of a covert operation going into Indonesia. Well, this is true of a lot of things that go on. We kept the books in the Pentagon. We covered that. We got reimbursement for it. That part of it was all right. And that's what kept it from being a problem because as long as General Lemnitzer's forces got the 28,000 rifles back and Shoup got the 14,000 back for the total of 42,000, they didn't complain to anybody. They had their full strength of rifles. That's the magic of reimbursement. Well, his kind of thing, on an established basis--the units are there--when I said there are 605 units, those are operating units- -now, some of them may only be telephone drops, because that's their function, they don't need a whole lot of people, they're just handling supplies, or something like that. But put this in present terms. When Colonel North believed that he had been ordered to take 2,008 Toe missiles and deliver them to Iran--see?--there has to be some way that the supply system can let those go. You can't just drive down there with a truck to San Antonio at the warehouse, and say, "I want 2,008 missiles." You have to have authority. And 2,008 Toe missiles--I don't know what one of them costs, but it's an awful lot of money, and somebody had to prepare the paperwork for the authorization to let the supply officer release those. And I'm sure they went to a cover unit that North was using for that purpose. But it appears from what we've heard from this that, unlike the way we used to run the cover operations, when these things got to Iran, these characters sold them them for money. In fact, they sold them for almost four times the listed value of these things. And this is the problem Congress has been having--is what happened to the money after they got there. And you can see how the system developed. You see, originally, we developed it on this one-for-one basis. Another thing is we never used this kind of supply, to deliver grenades to the Contras and charge them $9.00 a grenade or whatever it was. We just delivered the grenades. It was part of a Government program. And the CIA would reimburse the Defense Department. Everything came out even. We didn't "sell" anything. 

Monday 19 June 2023

Honour



We are The New 
Power-Generation

We’re gonna 
Change The World. :
The only thang that’s 
in Our Way 
is you

Your old-fashioned Music,
Your old Ideas
We’re sick & tired ‘a
You, Tellin’ Us
What to Do.



pussyfoot (v.)
also pussy-foot, 1903, "tread softly," from pussy (n.1) + foot (n.). As a noun from 1911, "a detective," American English, from the nickname of U.S. Government Indian Affairs agent W.E. Johnson (1862-1945), in charge of suppressing liquor traffic on Indian reservations in Oklahoma, who was noted for his stealthy tactics

Related: Pussyfooting; pussy-footed (1893).

also from 1903

Trends of pussyfoot

Entries linking to pussyfoot

foot (n.)
"terminal part of the leg of a vertebrate animal," Old English fot "foot," from Proto-Germanic *fōts (source also of Old Frisian fot, Old Saxon fot, Old Norse fotr, Danish fod, Swedish fot, Dutch voet, Old High German fuoz, German Fuß, Gothic fotus "foot"), from PIE root *ped- "foot." Plural form feet is an instance of i-mutation.

The linear measure was in Old English (the exact length has varied over time), this being considered the length of a man's foot; a unit of measure used widely and anciently. In this sense the plural is often foot. 

The current inch and foot are implied from measurements in 12c. English churches (Flinders Petrie, "Inductive Metrology"), but the most usual length of a "foot" in medieval England was the foot of 13.2 inches common throughout the ancient Mediterranean. 

The Anglo-Saxon foot apparently was between the two. 

All three correspond to units used by the Romans, and possibly all three lengths were picked up by the Anglo-Saxons from the Romano-Britons. 

"That the Saxon units should descend to mediæval times is most probable, as the Normans were a ruling, and not a working, class." 

— Flinders Petrie, 1877

The medieval Paul's Foot (late 14c.) was a measuring standard cut into the base of a column at the old St. Paul's cathedral in London. 

The metrical foot (late Old English, translating Latin pes, Greek pous in the same sense) is commonly taken to represent one rise and one fall of a foot: keeping time according to some, dancing according to others.
In Middle English also "a person" (c. 1200), hence non-foot "nobody." Meaning "bottom or lowest part of anything eminent or upright" is from c. 1200. Of a bed, grave, etc., from c. 1300. On foot "by walking" is from c. 1300. To get off on the wrong foot is from 1905 (the right foot is by 1907); to put one's best foot foremost first recorded 1849 (Shakespeare has the better foot before, 1596); Middle English had evil-foot (adv.) "through mischance, unluckily." To put one's foot in (one's) mouth "say something stupid" is attested by 1942; the expression put (one's) foot in something "make a mess of it" is from 1823. To have one foot in the grave "be near death" is from 1844. Colloquial exclamation my foot! expressing "contemptuous contradiction" [OED] is attested by 1923, probably euphemistic for my ass in the same sense, which dates to 1796 (also see eyewash).

pussy (n.1)
"cat," by 1690s, a diminutive of puss (n.1), also used of a rabbit (1715). 

As a term of endearment for a girl or woman, from 1580s (also used of effeminate men), and applied childishly to anything soft and furry. 



‘To Play Pussy’ was World War II RAF slang for "take advantage of cloud cover, jumping from cloud to cloud to shadow a potential victim or avoid recognition." — 

Sky-Stalking.