I seem to remember more events from our deportation in 1944-45 than from many of the subsequent years. But these memories are like still pictures to me rather than a continuous movie. It is probable that some things that I seem to remember are merely a reflection of what others have told me. I vaguely remember that between our triple-decker beds at the camp there was a little space that mother converted into a “home” consisting of a small stand with some belongings. There was a small container, which I now imagine to be of the size of a very small glass. Once my mother got hold of some butter, which filled this container. She asked us to decide whether to eat it all at once or make it last for a while. I was for saving it, and this made quite a story in our camp, the lager, because everybody knew that I was hungry all the time.

In the camp, I cried day and night, especially night, and my crying kept everybody awake. This I do not remember, but I had to listen to comments about this for many years by survivors from the lager. If they recognized me, they would tell me immediately about their predicaments due to my crying. Mother must have gone through additional suffering because of my crying. She must have felt sorry for me and for her fellow inmates, too. When I hear a child crying in a bus, on board an airplane during a long flight, or similar situations, I have great understanding for the child and its mother.

Excerpted from my father István Hargittai’s book Our Lives: Encounters of a Scientist posted here in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. My father was three years old when he was in the camp described above.

I’m a lot further from the action than DD, but I’m still surprised his confidence in the judgement and resolve of the Eurocracy in the coming confrontation with Syriza. Whatever you think about Greece, the failure of austerity in the Eurozone generally is patently obvious. It has already been admitted by the IMF (at least in its research, if not by its political leadership) and just last week by the ECB, with the shift to massive quantitative easing and the abandonment of the (supposedly unbreachable) ban on financing government deficits. That leaves the European Commission as the only horse still pulling the troika hard in the direction of austerity.

But the European Commission is almost as discredited as austerity. Apart from the appalling Olli Rehn, there’s the problem of Jean-Claude Juncker, who faced unprecedented resistance before getting elected, only to be exposed as complicit in tax avoidance/evasion on a scale that makes the dodges of Greek doctors look trivial. I just can’t see the IMF and ECB risking utter disaster in support of a policy they no longer believe in, at the behest of a shambles like the Commission.

That leaves the possibility that the German government will exert its (assumed) veto power more directly [I don’t understand the nature of this power, and would be happy to be enlightened]. My guess is that Merkel won’t be willing to take the risk of lumbering Germany with the responsibility of destroying Europe (again).

Early news reports seem to be pretty clear that Syriza has won the Greek elections, so I thought CT readers might be interested in the following note, which I sent to my professionals’ mailing list a few weeks ago. Since I wrote it, there has been a lot of rather contradictory comment on what the party’s negotiation strategy might actually be, but nevertheless, it certainly seems that the “ultimatum” approach to debt reduction is very much on the table, and in any case, a dogmatic refusal to continue with past agreements on structural measures would end up having the same effect.

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Prof. Henry Higgins: I could totlly teach you to talk good lol.
Eliza Doolittle: no way! I talk too bad!
HH: you would even be hot then haha.
ED: but I have a smudge on my face.
HH: inorite?
ED: it’s small but it like hides my whole face. it is a magic smudge.
HH: if you didn’t have a magic smudge you could be hot. jk you will prolly never get that smudge off. you will never be hotlol.
ED: please teach me to talk good even though I suck and stuff plz!
HH: I guess, god whatever

ED: some dudes think I’m hot!
HH: as if. they are just saying whatever to get into your pants. they can tell u still talk stupid.
ED: OMG u r so mean I am seriously crying now for real!
HH: you are way too emoshe. that’s why I can’t even deal with chicks sometimes. this is all about a bet I made with my bro. a brotimes bet. brotimes.
ED: I hate you! I am running away!

HH: you ran away to my mom’s house because you love me.
ED: no one ever said I was hot before until you said I looked barely tolerable. will u PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME PLEADE!
HH: OK I am like 70 u know.
ED: and I am like 25 and no one ever said that they had gotten used to seeing my face among other objects they saw during the day, like cabs and umbrellas! u r the 1! you saw thru the magic smudge! IT WAS MAGIC!
HH: yeah I’m pretty amazing. OK fine.
ED: I love u so much!
HH: I love me too.

finis

UPDATE: If I had been making fun of Shaw it would have said “Pygmalion: a Series of Text Messages,” wouldn’t it? What am I likeliest to have seen recently? The original London production with Julie Andrews? Possibly, just conceivably, the Audrey Hepburn/Rex Harrison movie? Let your imaginations run wild. Secondly, it has been brought to my attention that Mallory Ortberg thought of this first, which is too bad insofar as she is way funnier than me, but good insofar as she is both way funnier than me and a more dedicated, prolific writer, and I get to read the things she writes on the internet. So, it’s win-win! The only thing for me to do is keep training harder, like that montage in Rocky IV when Rocky is training in Siberia while Ivan Drago is being put through his paces in a futuristic Soviet lab, so it turns out Rocky is training in a more authentically Russian way than Drago, because he is in the snow carrying wood and buckets. IRONIC! The music for this is awesome, although it annoys John when it comes up on shuffle in iTunes. “What the f%*k? Oh this is one of your montages isn’t it. You know, the Thundercats theme song came on while I was with Violet at drum lessons yesterday.” Forget the haters!

Attention conservation notice: A blogpost on the William Gibson book of the same name, with copious spoilers. At the very best, it presents a crudely simplified reading of one skein of the book, without any of the ambiguity and negative capability stuff that makes the novel fun. At worst, it’s both boring and completely wrong.

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I’m glad to have spread the gorey news regarding Daumier. Some commenters were evidently unfamiliar. Here’s a nice Flickr set if you just want to browse. But, for CT’s especially philosophically-minded and discerning readership, one from Daumier’s “Histoire Ancienne” series. (It also belongs in my collection of philosophers looking silly. This one is also good.)

I present: Socrates doing a soft cancan, to Aspasia’s discomfort. [click to continue…]

My department is working on a project for the department to try to get more systematic information about why undergrads become philosophy majors (and why students who might, don’t). As one component of that project, we’re planning to conduct two online surveys—one of current philosophy majors and another of students who recently took introductory-level philosophy classes. Obviously we’re particularly interested in why women and members of certain racial minorities become majors at lower rates than men and members of other racial groups. Thing is –being a philosophy department we are not over-endowed with expertise on how to frame or conduct surveys. We are going to enlist the help of experts but my colleague who is heading up the effort asked my department for initial suggestions of survey questions, and I thought, well, why not crowd-source it? Its entirely possible that other departments have already done this successfully, and it is quite likely that some of our readers will have useful suggestions of questions. So — suggest ahead.

While I’m on the subject of Honoré Daumier, let me just show a couple other items from the aforementioned whomping great volume. A pair of lithographs from the Caricatural Salon of 1840 (which I saved myself the trouble of scanning by finding here. Kind of interesting comparisons with some comics frames.)

Anyway, the first is “The Ascension of Christ. After the Original Painting By Brrdhkmann”:

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In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US, I am posting some photos I took at the MLK Memorial in DC when I visited there last Fall. There is no shortage of critical commentary about the memorial from when it was dedicated a few years ago. I wasn’t aware of these when I visited, which is probably a good thing as it would have tainted my visit, not necessarily justifiably as far as I’m concerned. (If you feel you must add your critical thoughts in the comments, I just ask that you try to be original.)

I admit that it wasn’t a particularly targeted visit on my part. I was in town for a conference and had an afternoon to roam the city. I had been walking for hours (winding my way back from the Thomas Sweet in Georgetown to the Mall) and found myself walking on Independence Ave SW when I spotted signs to the MLK Memorial. Once I saw the signs, I knew I wanted to see it.

I was lucky in the timing of my visit. It was early evening on a weekday, 9/11 to be precise. There was almost no one else around. This made a difference as I found the place perfect for contemplation. I entered from the northwest, which worked well as I appreciated walking through the rocks not knowing exactly what to expect.

After looking at MLK’s figure and taking in the scene of the Jefferson Memorial that is in the statue’s line of sight, I walked from quote to quote and reflected on each, especially given the Ferguson events still fresh in memory. I was able to do all of this almost in solitude. The early evening light added to the mood.

If you can, I recommend visiting early evening or perhaps early morning on a weekday when you may have the place mostly to yourself. Be sure to give yourself time, it wouldn’t have been the same had I felt rushed.

So Manspreading is a thing, hence a controversy. I don’t have a lot to add to this Jezebel post on the subject. Except I do! I did some important historical research by remembering that Honoré Daumier got there first with “The Omnibus”.

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Jon Chait has an interesting column about the origins of ‘waving the bloody shirt’, which means (if you are unfamiliar with the phrase) demagogically inflaming resentment about past wrongs. The utility of such flames consisting, in part, in the generation of a smokescreen obscuring present circumstances the speaker finds it inconvenient to address in a more reasonable manner.

Chait just read a book – The Bloody Shirt: Terror After the Civil War, by Stephen Budiansky – alleging we have it almost backwards. The bloody shirt that birthed a notion didn’t belong to some dead Union soldier. That is, ‘waving the bloody shirt’ wasn’t functionally a smear against post-Civil War Democrats, turning every debate about post-war issues into a re-commencement of old hostilities. Rather, [click to continue…]

We’re in the middle of packing up before a house move this week, and there’s a lot to do after accumulating junk for 15 years. Here’s a picture from 2009 in what will soon be the old house, of my son Alex sitting at the piano. Taken with my 1932 Rolleiflex “Old” Standard.

We took the kids to see Selma, and I think you should see it too. (I mean, my God: it’s got both Stephen Root and Wendell Pierce.) Its historical liberties notwithstanding, it’s a great piece of historical fiction. As a sometime practitioner of both history and historical fiction, let me explain why.

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