Magnetars and Pulsars

Earthdate 2004-04-23's issue of the journal Science (typically requires subscription or pay-per-view) has a special section on pulsars, which is chock full of interesting information.  There are eight parts to the series, but we'll only consider three of those articles here — scroll down or click on the following index:

Magnetars and Pulsars
→  The Pulsar Menagerie
→  The Physics of Neutron Stars
→  Crushed by Magnetism
→  References

Labels: astronomy, pulsars

The Pulsar Menagerie

Scores of extrasolar planetary bodies have been discovered over the past dozen years or so, but it somehow had escaped my notice anyway that the very first such planetary system beyond our own to be discovered orbits round a pulsar.  As Robert Irion points out in his piece “The Pulsar Menagerie” in Science's pulsar special: ¹  “Indeed, more than 100 other planets are now known, although PSR B1257+12 is still the only burned-out corpse of a dead star known to have a planetary system.  […]  The masses and relative positions of the three planets are ‘shockingly similar to our inner solar system.’”  Shades of Arthur C. Clarke's most poignant short story “The Star”!

Impearls has featured several articles recently discussing the testing of Einstein's general relativity (here, here, and here), and it's worth mentioning in this context the pair of neutron stars (one pulsing, one not) orbiting round each other known as the “Hulse-Taylor binary” (PSR B1913+16), discovered in 1974.  “[T]he team showed that the two bodies inexorably spiral together, at exactly the rate predicted by Einstein 60 years earlier.  Gravitational waves carry away the lost orbital energy.  ‘It's indirect, like showing that radio waves exist because you know the radio transmitter uses power,’ Hulse says.  ‘But it was the first evidence for the existence of gravitational waves.’”

Just earlier this year came the sequel:

The latest stunner was anticipated for years: two pulsars deadlocked in a tight orbit.  The new system, detected by the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia and announced in January, will likely provide even more stringent tests of general relativity than the Hulse-Taylor binary (Science, 9 January, p. 153).

Already, astrophysicists are mystified by the energetic interplay between the neutron stars.  Intense winds from the faster rotating pulsar create a tear-shaped shock wave around the slower pulsar.  Teams are probing this process as one pulsar dips behind the other, every 2.4 hours.

In one interpretation of the data, the fast pulsar is churning out 100,000 to 1 million times more charged gas than expected from the seething region above its surface, says theorist Jonathan Arons of UC Berkeley.  “The physics is not quite incredible, but it's close,” he says.

Labels: astronomy, pulsars

The Physics of Neutron Stars

Continuing review of the Science series on pulsars, in the article “The Physics of Neutron Stars,” J. M. Lattimer and M. Prakash reveal some of the mind-boggling physics employed by neutron stars (the physical core of pulsars). ²

Neutron stars may exhibit conditions and phenomena not observed elsewhere, such as hyperon-dominated matter, deconfined quark matter, superfluidity and superconductivity with critical temperatures near 10¹⁰ kelvin, opaqueness to neutrinos, and magnetic fields in excess of 10¹³ Gauss.  […]

The term “neutron star” as generally used today refers to a star with a mass M on the order of 1.5 solar masses (M_[Sun]), a radius R of ∼12 km, and a central density n_c as high as 5 to 10 times the nuclear equilibrium density n₀ ≅ 0.16 fm⁻³ of neutrons and protons found in laboratory nuclei.  A neutron star is thus one of the densest forms of matter in the observable universe.  Although neutrons dominate the nucleonic component of neutron stars, some protons (and enough electrons and muons to neutralize the matter) exist.  At supranuclear densities, exotica such as strangeness-bearing baryons, condensed mesons (pion or kaon), or even deconfined quarks may appear.  Fermions, whether in the form of hadrons or deconfined quarks, are expected to also exhibit superfluidity and/or superconductivity.

Neutron stars encompass “normal” stars, with hadronic matter exteriors in which the surface pressure and baryon density vanish (the interior may contain any or a combination of exotic particles permitted by the physics of strong interactions), and “strange quark matter” (SQM) stars.  An SQM star could have either a bare quark-matter surface with vanishing pressure but a large, supranuclear density, or a thin layer of normal matter supported by Coulomb forces above the quark surface.  The name “SQM star” originates from the conjecture that quark matter with up, down, and strange quarks (the charm, bottom, and top quarks are too massive to appear inside neutron stars) might have a greater binding energy per baryon at zero pressure than iron nuclei have.  If true, such matter is the ultimate ground state of matter.  Normal matter is then metastable, and compressed to sufficiently high density, it would spontaneously convert to deconfined quark matter.  Unlike normal stars, SQM stars are self-bound, not requiring gravity to hold them together.  It is generally assumed that pulsars and other observed neutron stars are normal neutron stars.  If SQM stars have a bare quark surface, calculations suggest that photon emission from SQM stars occurs primarily in the energy range 30 keV < E < 500 keV.

After a discussion of how neutron stars form (fascinating, with an illuminating diagram), Lattimer and Prakash go on to discuss a proto-neutron star's possible collapse into a black hole.

The proto-neutron star, in some cases, might not survive its early evolution, collapsing instead into a black hole.  This could occur in two different ways.  First, proto-neutron stars accrete mass that has fallen through the shock.  This accretion terminates when the shock lifts off, but not before the star's mass has exceeded its maximum mass.  It would then collapse and its neutrino signal would abruptly cease.  If this does not occur, a second mode of black hole creation is possible.  A proto-neutron star's maximum mass is enhanced relative to a cold star by its extra leptons and thermal energy.  Therefore, following accretion, the proto-neutron star could have a mass below its maximum mass, but still greater than that of a cold star.  If so, collapse to a black hole would occur on a diffusion time of 10 to 20 s, longer than in the first case.  Perhaps such a scenario could explain the enigma of SN 1987A.  The 10-s duration of the neutrino signal confirmed the birth and early survival of a proto-neutron star, yet there is no evidence that a neutron star exists in this supernova's remnant.  The remnant's observed luminosity is fully accounted for by radioactivity in the ejected matter, meaning that any contribution from magnetic dipole radiation, expected from a rotating magnetized neutron star, is very small.  Either there is presently no neutron star, or its spin rate or magnetic field is substantially smaller than those of typical pulsars.  A delayed collapse scenario could account for these observations.

Lattimer and Prakash proceed to discuss neutron stars' internal structure and composition (also including an illuminating diagram).

A neutron star has five major regions: the inner and outer cores, the crust, the envelope, and the atmosphere.  The atmosphere and envelope contain a negligible amount of mass, but the atmosphere plays an important role in shaping the emergent photon spectrum, and the envelope crucially influences the transport and release of thermal energy from the star's surface.  The crust, extending about 1 to 2 km below the surface, primarily contains nuclei.  The dominant nuclei in the crust vary with density, and range from ⁵⁶Fe for matter with densities less than about 10⁶ g cm⁻³ to nuclei with A ∼ 200 but x ∼ (0.1 to 0.2) near the core-crust interface at n ≈ n₀⁄3.  Such extremely neutron-rich nuclei are not observed in the laboratory, but rare-isotope accelerators hope to create some of them.

Within the crust, at densities above the neutron drip density 4 × 10¹¹ g cm⁻³ where the neutron chemical potential (the energy required to remove a neutron from the filled sea of degenerate fermions) is zero, neutrons leak out of nuclei.  At the highest densities in the crust, more of the matter resides in the neutron fluid than in nuclei.  At the core-crust interface, nuclei are so closely packed that they are almost touching.  At somewhat lower densities, the nuclear lattice can turn insideout and form a lattice of voids, which is eventually squeezed out at densities near n₀.  If so, beginning at about 0.1 n₀, there could be a continuous change of the dimensionality of matter from three-dimensional (3D) nuclei (meatballs), to 2D cylindrical nuclei (spaghetti), to 1D slabs of nuclei interlaid with planar voids (lasagna), to 2D cylindrical voids (ziti), to 3D voids (ravioli, or Swiss cheese) before an eventual transition to uniform nucleonic matter (sauce).  This series of transitions is known as the nuclear pasta.

For temperatures less than 0.1 MeV, the neutron fluid in the crust probably forms a ¹S₀ superfluid.  Such a superfluid would alter the specific heat and the neutrino emissivities of the crust, thereby affecting how neutron stars cool.  The superfluid would also form a reservoir of angular momentum that, being loosely coupled to the crust, could cause pulsar glitch phenomena.

The core constitutes up to 99% of the mass of the star.  The outer core consists of a soup of nucleons, electrons, and muons.  The neutrons could form a ³P₂ superfluid and the protons a ¹S₀ superconductor within the outer core.  In the inner core, exotic particles such as strangeness-bearing hyperons and/or Bose condensates (pions or kaons) may become abundant.  It is possible that a transition to a mixed phase of hadronic and deconfined quark matter develops, even if strange quark matter is not the ultimate ground state of matter.  Delineating the phase structure of dense cold quark matter has yielded novel states of matter, including color-superconducting phases with and without condensed mesons.

Lattimer and Prakash end their review with a discussion of future prospects in neutron star and pulsar physics.

A new generation of neutrino observatories also hold great potential for studies of proto-neutron star evolution and neutron star structure.  Neutrino observations of supernovae, validated by the serendipitous observations of SN 1987A, which yielded about 20 neutrinos, should detect thousands of neutrinos from a galactic supernova.  This could yield neutron star binding energies to a few percent accuracy and provide estimates of their masses, radii, and interior compositions, as well as details of neutrino opacities in dense matter.  Neutrino fluxes from proto-neutron stars with and without exotica (hyperons, Bose condensates, and quarks) have been investigated […].

Gravitational radiation is expected from asymmetric spinning compact objects, from mergers involving neutron stars and black holes, and from gravitational-collapse supernovae.  Depending on the internal viscous forces in rotating neutron stars, gravitational radiation could drive an instability in r-modes of nonradial pulsations to grow on a time scale of tens of seconds.  Mergers can be observed to great distances.  Detectors due to begin operation over the next decade, including LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), VIRGO (Italian-French Laser Interferometer Collaboration), GEO600 (British-German Cooperation for Gravity Wave Experiment), and TAMA (Japanese Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Project), could see up to hundreds of mergers per year.  Binary mergers can yield important information, including the masses and mass-to-radius ratios of the binary's components and possibly details of their inspiraling orbits.

Labels: astronomy, pulsars

Crushed by Magnetism

Perhaps the oddest pulsar phenomena which Science's pulsar series delves into is that of those entities known as “magnetars.”  As Robert Irion writes in his piece “Crushed by Magnetism”: ³

Some of the strangest mutations in space create superenergetic but short-lived cousins of pulsars, called magnetars.  Like a pulsar, a magnetar is a neutron star forged at the center of a supernova when a massive star explodes.  But something odd happens during a magnetar's birth.  An unknown process — perhaps ultrafast rotation within the dying star's collapsing core — endows each magnetar with a crushing magnetic field.  This magnetism, up to 1000 times more intense than that of a typical pulsar, is the strongest known in space.

As the magnetic forces subside, they rupture the brittle crust of the neutron star and drive fierce bursts of gamma rays and x-rays.  But the pyrotechnics takes a toll.  The magnetism acts as a brake, grinding each magnetar to a near-halt within thousands of years and short-circuiting its spin power.  In contrast, an ordinary pulsar can sweep the galaxy with rotation-powered beams of radio waves for millions of years.

Astrophysicists have found just 11 magnetars, but their brief lives and sporadic tantrums point to a far larger population that we can't see.  “There probably are hundreds of thousands of these dead relics, undetected and undetectable, now spinning in our galaxy,” says x-ray astronomer Chryssa Kouveliotou of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama.  Indeed, some proponents think the objects might not be mutants at all but common offspring of supernovas.  “It's quite possible that a majority of neutron stars are magnetars rather than radio pulsars,” says astrophysicist Robert Duncan of the University of Texas, Austin.

It was theoreticians who first came up with the concept of neutron stars possessed of magnetic fields of stupendous magnitude.

Duncan and fellow theorist Christopher Thompson of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics in Toronto, Ontario, have swayed skeptics before.  They first calculated that powerful magnetic fields could lace through newborn neutron stars in 1987, when Duncan was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and Thompson was a graduate student.  But their solution for the strengths of such fields — 10¹⁵ gauss — was so startling that they weren't sure what to make of it for several years.

For perspective, Earth's global magnetic field is about 0.6 gauss.  Magnetic resonance imagers for medical scans attain 10,000 gauss.  Radio pulsars cluster around 10¹² gauss, a deduction based on magnetism's gradual braking effect on their spins.  Such fields are impressive, but a radio pulsar's main power comes from its rotation, not its magnetism.  The magnetic fields act as conveyor belts to carry radiation spawned as the neutron star slows down and sheds rotational energy.  No one expected the fields to soar much higher.

But Thompson and Duncan realized that ultrastrong fields could explain some mysteries.  Notably, astrophysicists were puzzled by soft gamma repeaters (SGRs).  These unidentified objects emitted erratic flares of soft gamma rays — a notch above the most piercing x-rays — then fell quiet.  In 1979, an SGR in a neighboring galaxy unleashed a giant flare that packed as much energy into its first 0.2 seconds as the sun produces in 10,000 years.  The source was close to the remains of a recent supernova.  However, the flare ebbed and flowed just once every 8 seconds as it gradually subsided, seemingly far too slow to come from a pulsar.

The theorists postulated that the bursts arose from a slow-spinning neutron star that had spun breathtakingly fast at birth.  Astrophysicists Adam Burrows of the University of Arizona in Tucson and James Lattimer of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, had shown that during a neutron star's first 10 seconds of existence, its hot nuclear fluid would convect about 100 times every second.  If the neutron star whirled between 100 and 1000 times each second during those birth pangs, Thompson and Duncan calculated, it would spark a furious dynamo — a self-sustaining generator of an intense magnetic field, 10¹⁵ gauss and beyond.

Once magnetism suffuses the dense superfluid of a neutron star, it's tough to disperse.  Still, the magnetic fields and the electric currents that support them try to shift into patterns that are less taut with pent-up energy.  “The magnetic field is strongly wound up in a tight spiral inside the star,” Thompson explains.  “It is the progressive unwinding of the field that drives the [SGR] flares.”  Each shift strains the solid crust of the neutron star.  At a critical point the crust snaps, creating faults that may span a kilometer.  Once the surface cracks, the magnetic fields above it whip into new positions as well.  The violent motions blast particles along the magnetic fields, triggering gamma rays and x-rays.

Duncan and Thompson published this scenario in 1992, discarding their initial “burstar” term for the more descriptive “magnetar.”  Three years later, they noted that the magnetic fields should confine a burst's energy in a fireball lasting a few minutes, exactly the pattern observed.

After initial skepticism from the physics community, Irion notes, “observations won the day.”

First, a team led by Kouveliotou used NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite to measure pulsations once every 7.47 seconds in an SGR with frequent outbursts.  The periodic fluctuations were visible only during bright bursts; at other times the SGR did not emit ordinary pulsarlike beams.  The object's rotational “clock” was slowing down by an astonishing 0.26 seconds per century — an effect that could result only from the strong drag of a magnetic field around 10¹⁵ gauss.

Then on 27 August 1998 [Earthdate 1998-08-27], a wave of gamma rays and x-rays more intense than the 1979 flare swept through the solar system.  The source was an SGR across the Milky Way.  Despite the distance, the radiation was powerful enough to affect radio transmissions on Earth by strongly ionizing the upper atmosphere.  Slow, 5.16-second pulsations modulated the flare.  Kouveliotou's team also studied it with RXTE to show that the SGR's spin decelerated at a magnetar-like clip.

With those findings, magnetars passed into mainstream science.  Peers honored the work last year when Duncan, Thompson, and Kouveliotou jointly received the 2003 Bruno Rossi Prize, the top research award from the AAS High-Energy Astrophysics Division.

Since establishment of magnetars on a firm basis, observational studies have extended the classes of phenomena that magnetars have been invoked to explain.

In recent years, astronomers have broadened the magnetar family.  Most now agree that objects called anomalous x-ray pulsars (AXPs), which pulsate slowly in x-rays but not in radio waves, are another flavor of magnetar.  Astronomer Victoria Kaspi of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and her colleagues have shown that AXPs can spew impulsive bursts, although not quite as vehemently as SGRs.

Curiously, the 11 known SGRs and AXPs all spin at nearly the same rate: between 5 and 12 seconds for each rotation.  Magnetic fields stifle a young magnetar's spin so severely that its rotation stutters from a few milliseconds down to a few seconds within centuries — such a brief interval that astronomers would have to get lucky to see a furiously spinning magnetar.  “And if they were active for more than a few thousand years, we'd expect to see some with periods of tens of seconds, but we don't,” says astronomer Peter Woods of MSFC.  “So it appears to be a very short life cycle when they are x-ray bright.”

Two new studies to appear in the Astrophysical Journal suggest that magnetars are more common than their measly statistics indicate.  In one report, astronomers led by Woods describe an AXP that flickered intensely for 4 hours in June 2002, then just as quickly faded.  Similar outbursts elsewhere in the galaxy might go undetected by current instruments, says Woods, because telescopes that monitor the whole sky aren't yet sensitive enough.  In another study, astronomers led by Alaa Ibrahim of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, exposed a “transient” magnetar.  The object was too faint to attract attention throughout the 1990s, but it suddenly grew 100 times brighter in early 2003.

In their quiet states, these misbehaving magnetars bear some resemblance to faint sources of x-rays in supernova remnants, called central compact objects.  They also look similar to another mysterious class of bodies called dim isolated neutron stars.  Kaspi, a collaborator on both studies, agrees that the magnetar family tree may include some of these branches.  “Dim isolated neutron stars could be dead magnetars with some residual heat,” she says.  “I think the numbers are consistent with half the neutron star population being born as magnetars.”  But better counts — and a firmer handle on the strengths of magnetic fields — are needed before anyone accepts that logic.

Fascinating theoretical work has continued as well.

On the theoretical side, several groups are probing possible links between magnetars and gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the most energetic explosions in the cosmos.  Many astrophysicists now think the most viable triggers of long-duration GRBs, lasting seconds to minutes, are powerful supernovas that create newborn black holes.  However, a magnetically dominated wind from a new magnetar makes more sense as a coherent driving force, says astrophysicist Maxim Lyutikov of McGill University.  “The dissipation of magnetic energy can be very efficient,” he notes.  In contrast, blasts of matter from close to a black hole might lose too much energy within violent shocks.

In related work, modeling by Hubble postdoctoral fellow Todd Thompson of the University of California, Berkeley, shows that a brand-new magnetar will sling matter into space along stiff magnetic “spokes” at nearly the speed of light.  This outpouring of mass expels so much momentum that if the magnetar spins 1000 times per second at birth, it takes merely 10 seconds to slam the brakes down to about 300 spins per second.  That deceleration releases a whopping 90% of the object's energy.  Thompson thinks all that energy can propel a hyperenergetic supernova or, under the right conditions, a GRB.

The heaviest elements in nature could arise in this turbulent setting as well, Thompson adds.  Astrophysicists haven't yet identified a convincing site for the “r-process,” the creation of heavy atomic nuclei by rapid bombardment with a fierce wind of neutrons.  Ultrastrong magnetic fields might keep a hot bath of neutrons and protons close enough to a new magnetar to push element synthesis up the periodic table to uranium and beyond.

Duncan, advocate of all things magnetar, loves the idea.  “It's possible that all elements heavier than bismuth are synthesized in magnetar winds,” he says.  “If that's true, nuclear bombs and reactors are running on magnetar energy.”  Since supernovas supply the iron in our blood, it's only fair that magnetars get in on the action as well.

Labels: astronomy, magnetism, pulsars

References

¹ Robert Irion, “The Pulsar Menagerie,” Science, Vol. 304, Issue No. 5670 (Issue dated 2004-04-23), pp. 532-533 [DOI: 10.1126/science.304.5670.532].

² J. M. Lattimer and M. Prakash, “The Physics of Neutron Stars,” Science, Vol. 304, Issue No. 5670 (Issue dated 2004-04-23), pp. 536-542 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1090720].

³ Robert Irion, “Crushed by Magnetism,” Science, Vol. 304, Issue No. 5670 (Issue dated 2004-04-23), pp. 534-535 [DOI: 10.1126/science.304.5670.534].

Labels: astronomy, pulsars

Pompey and the Pirates

Note:  the so-called Gabinian Law, by which Pompey was granted extraordinary powers for dealing with piracy, was passed by the Roman popular assembly in the year 67 b.c.

Plutarch: ¹  The power of the pirates first started in Cilicia {i.e., modern Turkey adjacent to the northeasternmost corner of the Mediterranean Sea} from precarious and unnoticed beginnings, but gained arrogance and boldness in the Mithridatic War, when they manned the king’s crews.  Then while the Romans were clashing in civil war with one another about the gates of Rome, the seas lay unguarded and they were little by little enticed and led on no longer merely to fall upon those plying the seas, but even to ravage islands and seacoast towns.  And now even men of great wealth, of noble birth, of outstanding reputation for good sense, embarked on and shared in these freebooting adventures as if this occupation brought honor and distinction.  The pirates had anchorages and fortified beacon-towers in many places, and the fleets encountered there were fitted for their special task with excellent crews, skilled pilots, and swift, light vessels.  But the envy they aroused and their ostentation were even more irksome than the dread they caused.  Their ships had gilded flagmasts at the stern, purple hangings, and silvered oars, as if they reveled and gloried in their evildoing.  There was music and dancing and carousal along every shore, generals were kidnaped, and cities were captured and freed on payment of ransom, to the disgrace of the Roman Empire.  The pirate ships numbered over 1,000, and the cities taken by them, 400.  They attacked and pillaged sanctuaries previously inviolate and unentered….

Appian: ²  Thus, in a very short time, they increased in number to tens of thousands.  They dominated now not only the eastern waters, but the whole Mediterranean to the Pillars of Hercules.  They now even vanquished some of the Roman generals in naval engagements, and among others the praetor of Sicily on the Sicilian coast itself.  No sea could be navigated in safety, and land remained untilled for want of commercial intercourse.  The city of Rome felt this evil most keenly, her subjects being distressed and herself suffering grievously from hunger by reason of her populousness.  But it appeared to her to be a great and difficult task to destroy such large forces of seafaring men scattered everywhither on land and sea, with no heavy tackle to encumber their flight, sallying out from no particular country or visible places, having no property or anything to call their own, but only what they might chance to light upon.  Thus the unexampled nature of this war, which was subject to no laws and had nothing tangible or visible about it, caused perplexity and fear.  Murena had attacked them [84-83 b.c.], but accomplished nothing much, nor had Servilius Isauricus, who succeeded him [77-75 b.c.].  And now the pirates contemptuously assailed the very coasts of Italy, around Brundisium and Etruria, and seized and carried off some women of noble families who were traveling, and also two praetors with their very insignia of office.

Cicero: ³  Who sailed the seas without exposing himself to the risk either of death or of slavery, sailing as he did either in winter or when the sea was infested with pirates?  Who ever supposed that a war of such dimensions, so inglorious and so long-standing, so widespread and so extensive, could be brought to an end either by any number of generals in a single year or by single general in any number of years?  What province did you keep free from the pirates during those years?  What source of revenue was secure for you?  What ally did you protect?  To whom did your navy prove a defense?  How many islands do you suppose were deserted, how many of your allies’ cities either abandoned through fear or captured by the pirates?

But why do I remind you of events in distant places?  Time was, long since, when it was Rome’s particular boast that the wars she fought were far from home and that the outposts of her empire were defending the prosperity of her allies, not the homes of her own citizens.  Need I mention that the sea during those years was closed to our allies, when your own armies never made the crossing from Brundisium save in the depth of winter?  Need I lament the capture of envoys on their way to Rome from foreign countries, when ransom has been paid for the ambassadors of Rome?  Need I mention that the sea was unsafe for merchantmen, when twelve lictors fell into the hands of pirates?  Need I record the capture of the noble cities of Cnidus and Colophon and Samos and countless others, when you well know that your own harbors — and those, too, through which you draw the very breath of your life — have been in the hands of the pirates?  Are you indeed unaware that the famous port of Caieta [present-day Gaeta, c. 70 miles {115 km} southeast of Rome], when crowded with shipping, was plundered by the pirates under the eyes of a praetor, and that from Misenum the children of the very man [Marcus Antonius] who had previously waged war against the pirates were kidnaped by the pirates?  Why should I lament the reverse at Ostia {Rome’s own port}, that shameful blot upon our commonwealth, when almost before your own eyes the very fleet which had been entrusted to the command of a Roman consul was captured and destroyed by the pirates?

Appian: ⁴  When the Romans could no longer endure the damage and disgrace they made Gnaeus Pompey, who was then their man of greatest reputation, commander by law for three years, with absolute power over the whole sea within the Pillars of Hercules, and of the land for a distance of 400 stadia {perhaps 80 km or 50 miles ⁵} from the coast.  They sent letters to all kings, rulers, peoples, and cities, instructing them to aid Pompey in everything, and they gave him power to raise troops and collect money there.  And they furnished a large army from their own muster roll, and all the ships they had, and money to the amount of 6,000 Attic talents — so great and difficult did they consider the task of overcoming such great forces, dispersed over so wide a sea, hiding easily in so many coves, retreating quickly and darting out again unexpectedly.  Never did any man before Pompey set forth with such great authority conferred upon him by the Romans.  Presently he had an army of 120,000 foot and 4,000 horse, and 270 ships including hemiolii [these were swift vessels, lightly manned].  He had twenty-five assistants of senatorial rank, whom the Romans call legates, among whom he divided the sea, giving ships, cavalry, and infantry to each, and investing them with the insignia of praetors, in order that each one might have absolute authority over the part entrusted to him, while he, Pompey, like a king of kings, should move to and fro among them to see that they remained where they were stationed so that, while he was pursuing the pirates in one place, he should not be drawn to something else before his work was finished, but that there might be forces to encounter them everywhere and to prevent them from forming junctions with each other….

Thus were the commands of the praetors arranged for the purpose of attacking, defending, and guarding their respective assignments, so that each might catch the pirates put to flight by others, and not be drawn a long distance from their own stations by the pursuit, nor carried round and round as in a race, thus dragging out the task.  Pompey himself made a tour of the whole.  He first inspected the western stations, accomplishing the task in forty days, and passing through Rome on his return.  Thence he went to Brundisium, and proceeding from this place he occupied an equal time in visiting the eastern stations.  He astonished all by the rapidity of his movement, the magnitude of his preparations, and his formidable reputation, so that the pirates, who had expected to attack him first, or at least to show that the task he had undertaken against them was no easy one, became straightway alarmed, abandoned their assaults upon the towns they were besieging, and fled to their accustomed peaks and inlets.  Thus the sea was cleared by Pompey forthwith without a fight, and the pirates were everywhere subdued by the praetors at their several stations.

Pompey himself hastened to Cilicia with forces of various kinds and many engines, as he expected that there would be need of every kind of fighting and siege against their precipitous peaks; but he needed nothing.  His fame and preparations had produced a panic among the pirates, and they hoped that if they did not resist they might receive lenient treatment.  First, those who held Cragus and Anticragus, their largest citadels, surrendered themselves, and after them the mountaineers of Cilicia, and finally all, one after another.  They gave up at the same time a great quantity of arms, some completed, others in the workshops; also their ships, some still on the stocks, others already afloat; also brass and iron collected for building them, and sailcloth, rope, and timber of all kinds; and finally, a multitude of captives either held for ransom or chained to their tasks.  Pompey burned the timber, carried away the ships, and sent the captives back to their respective countries.  Many of them found there their own cenotaphs, for they were supposed to be dead.  Those pirates who had evidently fallen into this way of life not from wickedness, but from poverty consequent upon the war, Pompey settled in Mallus, Adana, and Epiphania, or any other uninhabited or thinly peopled town in Cilicia Trachea.  Some of them, too, he sent to Dymae in Achaea.

Thus the war against the pirates, which it was supposed would prove very difficult, was brought to an end by Pompey in a few days.  He took 71 ships by capture and 306 by surrender from the pirates, and about 120 of their cities, fortresses, and other places of rendezvous.  About 10,000 of the pirates were slain in battle.
 
 

¹ Plutarch, Life of Pompey, xxiv. 1-6.  Quoted from Roman Civilization Sourcebook, Volume I: The Republic, Edited with Notes by Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Harper Torchbooks: The Academy Library, Harper & Row, New York, 1966; p. 327.

² Appian, Roman History, xii. xiv. 93; from LCL.  Quoted from Roman Civilization Sourcebook, Volume I: The Republic, Edited with Notes by Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Harper Torchbooks: The Academy Library, Harper & Row, New York, 1966; p. 327-328.

³ Cicero, In Favor of the Manilian Law, xi. 31 − xii. 33; from LCL.  Quoted from Roman Civilization Sourcebook, Volume I: The Republic, Edited with Notes by Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Harper Torchbooks: The Academy Library, Harper & Row, New York, 1966; p. 328-329.

⁴ Appian, Roman History, xii. xiv. 94-96; from LCL.  Quoted from Roman Civilization Sourcebook, Volume I: The Republic, Edited with Notes by Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Harper Torchbooks: The Academy Library, Harper & Row, New York, 1966; p. 329-330.

⁵ 1 Greek stadium varied locally between 154 and 215 meters, according to this article:  “The Earth: Its Properties, Composition, and Structure: The figure and dimensions of the Earth: Determination of the Earth’s figure: a historical review,” Encyclopædia Britannica, CD 2002 Edition, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Notes within curly braces {} are by Impearls editor Michael McNeil.

Cartographic Vortices

f1 Excerpt: Olaus Magnus' Map of Scandinavia 1539

Earthdate 2004-05-06's issue of the journal Nature has a fascinating news item about the beautiful 1539 Scandinavia map created by Olaus Magnus, a Swedish priest, excerpted above.  Click on this link for the complete map (courtesy James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota).

Magnus's map, as with many antique maps, is illuminated with sea monsters and fabulous beasts, while amongst them, on the sea to the east and south of Iceland, swirl seemingly decorative vortices.  Now we learn that the eddies aren't decorative.  Tom Rossby, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, first noticed the resemblances between the swirls on Magnus's map and thermal images from Earth observation satellites.

As the Nature piece notes: ¹

The eddies are created where the Gulf Stream meets cold Arctic waters.  […]  Ancient mariners would have noticed these large-scale eddies, which pull on shipping vessels and have greener waters.

Accurate mariners' information must have made it to Magnus while he was composing the data for the map.

¹ Nature, Vol. 429, Issue No. 6987 (Issue dated 2004-05-06), p. 9.  Requires subscription or pay-per-view.

^f1 Olaus Magnus' Map of Scandinavia 1539, courtesy University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Library.

UPDATE:  2009-12-23 05:30 UT:  Changed image host for the map to Flickr.  Added caption.

Labels: eddies, Faroe Islands, Iceland, James Ford Bell Library, Olaus Magnus, Scandinavia, Tom Rossby, University of Minnesota, University of Rhode Island Kingston, vortices

Iraqi History, Cold War Incidents, and Leftist Propaganda

Leftist polemics with regard to the Iraq war and indeed just about any situation involving the United States exhibit a pervasive tendency to invoke decades-old historical incidents in order to bash America.  A recent example involving Iraqi history is typical, though many such arrive from much further back.  A correspondent on a leftist mailing list put it this way:

No discussion on the bragging rights of the U.S. “liberating” Iraqis from Hussein would be complete without discussion of the 1963 allegedly CIA coup that toppled Kassem and installed the Bathists in power, complete with a list of thousands of civilians to be killed as too “socialist” to live.  Ordinary civilians, doctors, teachers, etc., even pregnant women, it was said, were not spared.

Notice how quickly, within a few words, the conversation moves from meekly speaking of “allegedly” (alleged by whom left unsaid — the KGB?) to talk reeking of the certainty of guilt for that murderous fury — guilt not of Iraqis, naturally, but the United States!  Yes, let's discuss this historical event.

The parts of this essay follow below for normal scroll-downing convenience.  Following is the index:

Iraqi history, cold war incidents, and leftist propaganda
→  Iraqi history
→  Who supported Iraq?
→  Stupidity of the argument
→  The unmentionable elephant
→  The crowning irony
→  Update

Iraqi History

Consulting Encyclopædia Britannica (CD 1997) for context, first from Britannica's biography of 'Abd al-Karim Qasim, prime minister of Iraq (via a 1958 coup) prior to the Baathists:

In March 1959 Pan-Arab opponents of Qasim launched an open rebellion in Mosul.  The bulk of the army remained loyal, and the uprising was crushed with little difficulty; Qasim removed some 200 army officers of whose loyalty he could not be certain.  Among civilians he was forced to rely for support mostly upon communists, who were eager for a chance to strike at their right-wing opponents, the Pan-Arabs, and now pushed for a larger voice in the determination of government policy.  Qasim resisted their demands, and several months later purged communist elements from the police and the army.

Qasim's support as prime minister steadily narrowed.  By 1960 he had suspended organized political activity and repressed both right- and left-wing civilian and military elements when it seemed that they might compete with his authority.  His rule was supported only by the army, but in the spring of 1961 a rebellion broke out among the Kurds — an ethnic group acutely conscious of its cultural differences from the Arabs and to which Qasim had neglected to fulfill a promise for a measure of autonomy within the Iraqi state.  This Kurdish revolt undermined even Qasim's military support, as much of the army became tied down in a seemingly endless and fruitless attempt to put down the rebellion.  This situation, along with the discontent produced by repeated military purges, drew a number of officers into open resistance to the Qasim regime.  'Abd as-Salam 'Arif led dissident army elements in a coup in February 1963, which overthrew the government and killed Qasim himself.

Looking over this history, two points become clear.  This tale of Iraqi turbulence doesn't sound very different from Iraq's history for the subsequent four decades.  Moreover, Qasim in particular had alienated virtually all segments of Iraqi society by the time he was overthrown.  His major political opponent, whom he had previously purged, along with dissident army elements, fearful of his already wide-ranging purges throughout the military corps, got together and killed him.  There's manifestly nothing in this sorry story that requires any “assist” by the CIA.

Quoting further, from Britannica's article “Iraq, History of”:

Iraq was declared a republic and Islam the religion of the state; all executive and legislative powers were entrusted to the Sovereignty Council and the Cabinet.  It soon became clear, however, that power rested in Qasim's hands, supported by the army.

Conflicts among the officers developed, first between Qasim and 'Arif and then between Qasim and his supporters.  'Arif championed the Pan-Arab cause and advocated Iraq's union with the U.A.R.  Qasim rallied the forces against Arab unity — Kurds, communists, and others — and stressed Iraq's own identity and internal unity.  'Arif was dropped from power in October, but in 1959 Qasim's power was threatened by other factions.  He tried to divert public attention to foreign affairs by advancing Iraq's claim to Kuwait's sovereignty in June 1961.

Sound like any other caudillos you know?  Kuwait was never part of Iraq, by the way; as another article in Encyclopædia Britannica makes clear, foundation of the autonomous sheikdom of Kuwait dates back to 1756, while (unlike Iraq) it was never a part of the Turkish Empire.

This brought him into conflict not only with Britain and Kuwait but also with the other Arab countries.  He opened negotiations with the Iraq Petroleum Company to increase Iraq's royalties, but his extreme demands resulted in the breakdown of negotiations in 1961.  Public Law 80 was enacted to prohibit the granting of concessions to any foreign company and to transfer control over all matters connected with oil to an Iraq National Oil Company (INOC).

One can see why leftists love this guy.

By 1963 Qasim had become isolated internally as well as externally; the only great power with which he remained friendly was the Soviet Union.  When one faction of the army, in cooperation with one Arab nationalist group — the Iraqi regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'th (“Revivalist” or “Renaissance”) Party — started a rebellion in February 1963, the regime suddenly collapsed, and Qasim was executed.

Once again, not very much different from the forty years that followed in Iraq.  Notice the comment:  “… the only great power with which he remained friendly was the Soviet Union.”  Even after Qasim's overthrow, the Soviet Union would continue to be fast friends with Saddam Hussein's Iraq — plus getting additional road mileage out of blaming the U.S. for Qasim's overthrow to boot!

Who supported Iraq?

The pervasive leftist mantra that the U.S. was Iraq's major backer during the years before Saddam's Kuwait invasion (and therefore, they say, he shouldn't have been overthrown) is wildly off the mark.  It's not U.S.-built Iraqi equipment that coalition forces destroyed during the first and second Gulf Wars — it's Soviet, with a leavening of French and numerous other sources — before you get anywhere near down to a contribution as small as America's.  See the chart below (which one can also find here, thanks to The Command Post) for a breakdown of military aid to Iraq during the years 1973-1990; figures are from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).  Notice that the U.S. provided only 1% of Iraq's weaponry during this period, with American support trailing a long list of other countries: the Soviet Union (the vast majority of Iraqi arms came from the USSR), France, China, Czechoslovakia, Poland — and then the little guys: Brazil, Egypt, Romania, Denmark, and Libya — before you arrive at the U.S.'s contribution!

Even the extent to which the U.S. did support Saddam's Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war is not indicative of any deep connection.  As I recall what was going on during those years (yes, I was around back then), the general feeling was “a pox on both your houses” (Iran and Iraq), with the proviso that we should at least help Iraq to the extent of preventing Iran from overrunning the country, along with next door Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — which would have left radical Islamist Iran firmly in charge with the world's energy gonads in its hands.

Thus, some assistance, mainly intelligence, was given by the U.S. to Saddam's Iraq, but not much — and as a result Iraq did survive (barely) Iran's assault.  (And yes, Saddam originally started that war, but that's not when our aid to Iraq occurred, rather it was later on in the war when Iraq was on the ropes.)  As to why America felt it necessary to employ surrogates, however disreputable, in waging struggles abroad during those years — even under, as leftists liked to call him, “top-gun” president “Ronald Raygun” — see the historical topic Vietnam syndrome.  Grenada was more Reagan's speed, I'm afraid (but he did have the Soviet Union to contend with, and those were the times).

Stupidity of the Argument

Even if the United States had enthusiastically, substantively supported Saddam throughout his dictatorial regime, that still doesn't obscure the extraordinary stupidity of the entire line of argument which says that any subsequent change of policy is therefore both hypocritical (horror of horrors!) and, even more questionably, wrong!  Since the left seems too close to the issue to consider it rationally, let's use another example:  Suppose George W. Bush decided one fine day to adopt some policy that the left really likes — say, government guaranteed full employment for everyone.  Now I'm sure that wouldn't change the left's hatred of Bush, and everybody would try to obtain political advantage out of the controversy — but is anyone on that side seriously going to say, “No, we can't do it.  That would be a change of policy, and therefore hypocritical!”  Not likely.  No, the left only finds policy changes objectionable and therefore “hypocritical” when the new policy is one they don't like.

Or, look at World War II.  The western Europeans had been “supporting” Hitler for years, by allowing him to roam through Europe picking up pieces as he went — the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.  You remember:  “Peace in our time!”  But when Hitler actually invaded Poland (to whom Britain and France were allied), they declared war on him.  How very hypocritical of them!

Stalin's Soviet Union may provide an even more illuminating example for leftists.  Stalin collaborated with Hitler by making a friendship pact with him and helped out by taking responsibility for divvying up half of Poland (grabbing the Baltic states and a big chunk of Finland while he was at it).  Stalin naively trusted Hitler to such an extent that he ignored his own army's intelligence warnings that Hitler was preparing to attack him — and, as a result, the USSR's loses were phenomenal when Hitler launched the assault.  Nevertheless, despite the modern left's no doubt considering the change of policy “hypocritical,” the Soviets — or rather the peoples of that vast “prison of nations” known as the Soviet Union — fought back and repelled the German invader.  Thus, we see the left's whole line of argument here is basically absurd!

And for those who ask, “When did they (Saddam or Iraq) attack us?” — the answer is March 17, 1987 (Earthdate 1987-03-17), when one of Saddam's Iraqi (French made) Mirage jet fighters put two (French made) Exocet missiles into the U.S. destroyer the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 35 American sailors along with two lost at sea.

The Unmentionable Elephant

One other thing, an unmentionable elephant, must be discussed.  The left constantly attacks America via these old allegations of CIA involvement in virtually every disturbance round the world during those years, and certainly, while the CIA was involved in some such, it's always presented as if the U.S. were merely arrogantly, insanely meddling for meddling's sake, beating up on these poor, innocent locals who are only the victims.  The above bit of Iraqi history ought to make plain that many folk involved in this and other disturbances in countries round the world during this time were far from innocents themselves.

But way beyond that, there's a big beast lurking in the room that nobody (on the left anyway) ever mentions in this context: a little detail known as the Cold War.  For many decades, most of the latter half of the 20th century, an actual war — sometimes hot, sometimes waged by surrogates, sometimes cold — took place between two divergent world systems, with profound implications for human rights and happiness.  Now the far left, of course (allowing for schismatics), has typically considered the Soviet Union to be their baby (British Labour MP George Galloway, for instance, called the collapse of the USSR the worst day of his life).  The leftist "party line" has almost always followed the propaganda of the Soviets in promoting its “victim” status in the cold war, while excoriating the role of America.  (And no, don't tell me about all the objections schismatic groups like the SWP have had to Stalin; they still support his “resistance” to America.)

Calling the cold war America's fault, as the left likes to, is revisionist history, to say the least.  Even though mistakes certainly were made in America's conduct of the cold war (as indeed mistakes are made are in abundance in all wars), personally I'm quite happy that the Soviet Union fell, and the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons on both sides, fingers hanging over buttons, were relaxed from that terrifying standoff.  Clearly “better Red than dead” wasn't the only viable game in town.

Leaving the cold war totally out of the equation, as the left attempts to — while savagely attacking America's role (even though it only be an alleged role in many incidents freely utilized for this purpose, such as the Iraqi case we've been discussing) — amounts basically to lying, to use one of the left's favorite terms these days, about what actually occurred.  Nor is it “McCarthyist” to point out this truth.

The Crowning Irony

There is one final, grand irony about the left's incessant charges of American perfidy during the cold war.  Many of the cases most cited — and which really may have had CIA involvement, e.g., overthrow of Mosaddeq in Iran in 1953, or Arbenz in 1954 in Guatemala — occurred fifty years ago.  Simultaneous to this artificially generated hubbub over long-ago historic events, the leadership of the so-called “anti-war” movement — i.e., the leadership of ANSWER (the misnamed “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism”) and similar groups — are socialists: the very same leaders who are also the top cadres of, for example, the Workers World Party in the case of ANSWER, the Socialist Workers Party in the case of “anti-war” organizations in Britain.

These charges have been made not by right-wing zealots but by leftist observers themselves; see this fascinating expose, for example, by David Corn (Washington editor for the leftwing The Nation magazine), called “Behind the Placards: The odd and troubling origins of today's anti-war movement,” which clearly shows how the leadership of the WWP and ANSWER are largely one and the same.  Similar connections have been documented in Britain -- for example, this piece in the British paper The Guardian — where Jimmy Barnes, “veteran leftwing secretary of the trade union CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] movement,” reveals the links between the leadership of the British Socialist Workers Party and organizations like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Stop the War coalition.

David Corn, in the above expose, writes about the Workers World Party:

The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing private property.  It is a fan of Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, and it hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his country's “socialist system,” which, according to the party's newspaper, has kept North Korea “from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world.”  The WWP has campaigned against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.  A recent Workers World editorial declared [written before Saddam's deposition], “Iraq has done absolutely nothing wrong.”

“Anti-war” activists attending ANSWER et al.-sponsored events (even if they profess not to support the full socialist agenda of these radical Stalinist organizations) typically express no concern over the leadership of ANSWER and its allies.  The ANSWER folks are “great organizers” — they get the buses and banners to those occasions — who cares what their politics is!  The cause is what's important!

Come again?  Stalin is generally (by other than far leftists) acknowledged to have murdered tens of millions of people during the last century — everybody from millions of massacred, slightly well-off peasants; thousands shot in the head in his insane purges; who knows how many more (hundreds of thousands?) who died in the Siberian gulags — not to speak of the literally billions whom he and subsequent Soviet leaders threatened for decades with nuclear annihilation.  Most non far-leftist people would consider Stalin (and pretty much the whole coterie of Bolsheviks) pretty much on the same level as Hitler — two peas in a pod.  Let me ask you: if someone were to tell you he was going off to attend a Nazi-sponsored event — however laudable its expressed goal — would you think there's no moral taint to the occasion?

But the crowning irony is this: the mass of “anti-war activists” at these demonstrations revel in excoriating the United States, pointedly critiquing it for (rather understandable, I'd say, given the extreme peak of struggle during the cold war, but irregardless decades-old) covert interference in the internal affairs of unfriendly regimes, and support given to various authoritarian but “anti-communist” dictators — most of which occurred decades before the majority of the demonstrators were born.  Meanwhile, the demonstrators' leadership (ANSWER et al.) simultaneously supports and is helping in every way they can the very worst dictators and tin-pot Islamist Caliphate-builders around the world, today not decades ago — the worst starvers, enslavers, and torturers — and at the very time when America is finally trying to get out of the dictators propping-up game!

UPDATE:   2004-05-27 19:00 UT:  Joe Katzman at Winds of Change has linked to this piece, calling it “a historical timeline of sorts on Iraq post-WW2 — start here, and scroll down.  From the collapse of the monarchy, to the rise of the Ba'ath, to Iraq's status as a Soviet client state.  For good measure, Mike gets in a few hard kicks at attempts to blame the USA for Saddam.”

Robert A. Heinlein and Albert Einstein on Immortality

Noted science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein passed on 16 years ago today.  On this anniversary of his death it's worthy remembering a passage near the end of Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold, where after being returned thousands of years back into the past to arrive before the nuclear conflagration which started the whole story off, Hugh and Barbara Farnham stop by their old household…: ¹

The house was brightly lighted.

“Hugh!  Don't do it!”

“Why not?”

“This is my car.  This is the night!”

He stared at her for a long moment.  Then he said quietly, “I'm still going to reconnoiter.  You stay here.”

He was back in less than two minutes, jerked open the car door, collapsed onto the seat, let out a gasping sob.

Barbara said, “Darling!  Darling!”

“Oh, my God!”  He choked and caught his breath.  “She's in there!  Grace.  And so am I.”  He dropped his face to the steering wheel and sobbed.

“Hugh.”

“What?  Oh, my God!”

“Stop it, Hugh.  I started the engine while you were gone.  […]  Can you drive?”

He sobered down.  “I can drive.”  […]

As he made the turn a clock in the distance bonged the half hour; he glanced at his wrist watch, noted a one-minute difference.  […]  “I'm trying to estimate how far we can go in an hour.  An hour and some minutes.  Do you recall what time the first missile hit us?”

“I think you told me it was eleven-forty-seven.”

“That's my recollection, too.  I'm certain of it, I just wanted it confirmed.  But it all checks.  […]  [T]his looney old character rang the doorbell.  Me, I mean.  And I answered it.  Call it ten-twenty or a little after.  So we just heard half-past chime and my watch agrees.  We've got about seventy-five minutes to get as far from ground zero as possible.”

Barbara made no comment.  Moments later they passed the city limits; Hugh put the speed up from a careful forty-five to an exact sixty-five.

About ten minutes later she said, “Dear?  I'm sorry.  About Karen, I mean.  Not about anything else.”

“I'm not sorry about anything.  No, not about Karen.  Hearing her merry laugh again shook me up, yes.  But now I treasure it.  Barbara, for the first time in my life I have a conviction of immortality.  Karen is alive right now, back there behind us — and yet we saw her die.  So somehow, in some timeless sense, Karen is alive forever, somewhere.  Don't ask me to explain it, but that's how it is.”

“I've always known it, Hugh.  But I didn't dare say so.”

“Dare to say anything, damn it!  I told you that long ago.  So I no longer feel sorrow over Karen.”

Certain passages in Heinlein's books (a certain naivete about relativity) reveal that he wasn't much of an Einstein reader, but it turns out Albert Einstein said much the same thing, in a letter of condolence to the sister and son of his long-time closest friend, upon his death, four weeks before Einstein's own. ²  (Albert's anniversary of passing, by the way, occurred two weeks ago on April 18, 49 years ago.)

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me.  That means nothing.  People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Thus, rest in peace, Heinlein and Einstein; or rather, live where you are — in spacetime.
 
 

UPDATE:  2004-05-23 05:00 UT:  Jeff Soyer at Alphecca has linked to this piece, with the comment:  “By now, most of you know I'm a huge sci-fi reader.  And science reader.  So is Michael at Impearls with this remembrance [pointing here] from Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold on the anniversary of Heinlein's death.

“Naturally, Bill at the Heinlein Blog remembers, too.”  Bill's Heinlein Blog piece, well worth reading in its own right, points in turn to this essay at the Heinlein Society by J. Neil Schulman, which attempts to put Heinlein's work in perspective.
 
 

References

¹ Robert A. Heinlein, Farnham's Freehold, The New American Library, Signet Books, New York, 1964; pp. 246-247.

² Albert Einstein, in a letter of condolence to the sister and son of Michele Besso, Einstein's long-time closest friend, on his death, 4 weeks before Einstein's, 1955.

Timor and East Timor – A history

Joel at the superb Asia-Pacific oriented Far Outliers blog has posted several articles recently on Timor (an island a bit smaller than British Columbia's Vancouver Island, a fifth larger than Sicily, and half again the size of the state of Israel, just for comparison purposes), together with the new nation of East Timor (itself incorporating three-quarters the area of Israel, along with one-sixth its population) which occupies the island's eastern half — see, for instance, Joel's piece here.  This article, however, is particularly intriguing, linking to a book by the Australian National University called Out of the Ashes: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of East Timor, which it notes is “a collection of essays that examine the historical background to developments in East Timor and provide political analysis on the initial reconstruction stage in the country's transition to independence.”

Joel's Far Outliers' piece quotes extensively from Out of the Ashes' fascinating chapter on the historical background of Timor, within which one can find the above map illustrating the languages of Timor.  (Don't miss much other captivating stuff on that same Far Outliers' archive page.)

May Day

Today is May Day, May 1st.  People in America are often vaguely aware that other regions of the world, especially Europe and leftist-impressed parts, celebrate May Day as the occasion for a pro-labor holiday, the equivalent of the U.S.'s Labor Day held in the fall.  Few Americans, however, recall that this day actually commemorates events which occurred in the United States, in Chicago, on and after May 1, 118 years before this day.

Fifteen years ago, three years after the centenary, I posted the progenitor of this polemic on the Usenet (aka Newsgroups).  Rather than emphasizing the labor aspect of this day in history, it presents the historic May Day as an abject example of the dangers in application of the death penalty by society, with the certainty that innocents will be executed in error if capital punishment is employed to any significant degree.  I believe this subject is even more pertinent today than it was then.

---

While discussing how many (not whether) people have been executed in error, “let's remember,” as Studs Terkel put it in an essay on the May 1, 1986 [earthdate 1986-05-01], MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, “the one-hundredth anniversary of the Haymarket Tragedy, more often remembered as the Haymarket Riot.”  Terkel went on: ¹

On May 1, 1886, here in Chicago, a strike began against McCormick Harvester.  A number of workers were severely beaten up by the police.  Three days later, thousands gathered at the plant.  As the meeting was breaking up, uneventfully, somebody threw a bomb.  To this day, nobody knows who really did it.  Several policemen and civilians were killed.

In the hysteria that followed, four of the speakers at the rally were convicted and hanged.  Seven years later, the new governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors.  In an 18,000 word report, he condemned the trial — as a frameup!  Do you know what it was all about — Haymarket?  The fight for the eight-hour day!

For additional context concerning these events, we'll consult Encyclopædia Britannica: ²

Haymarket Riot (May 4, 1886), violent confrontation between police and labour protestors in Chicago that dramatized the labour movement's struggle for recognition in the U.S.  On May 3, six persons had been killed during police intervention in a strike at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company.  The protest meeting in Haymarket Square was announced by inflammatory leaflets but remained peaceful until a police contingent attempted to disperse it.  A dynamite bomb, thrown by a person never positively identified, killed seven policemen, whose companions opened fire.  Newspapers and police stimulated public hysteria; August Spies and seven other anarchist labour leaders were convicted of murder on the grounds that they had conspired with or aided an unknown murderer, with whom their connection was not demonstrated.  Spies and three others were hanged on November 11, 1887; another committed suicide, and the surviving three were pardoned in 1893 by the Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld.

One of those “inflammatory leaflets,” as Britannica put it, was visible during Terkel's presentation.  It read:

Just terrible, isn't it?  Now some will no doubt reply, “Damn anarchists, throwing bombs!  They obviously deserved it!”  I'd like to refer those people to the Britannica text:  “… an unknown murderer, with whom their connection was not demonstrated.”  Does society really want to convict and execute people in the heat of a public passion?  (I'm sure that if you were a speaker at a public rally, exercising your constitutional rights of free speech and assembly, and some stupid idiot or provocateur were to throw a bomb, and you were arrested for murder — you'd certainly want a speedy trial followed by quick execution, wouldn't you!)

Now, some may protest, “We don't mean to kill suspects that fast!  Plenty of safeguards would remain in place to prevent innocent folk from being caught up in the process!”  I'd like to point out that the executions in the above case, though occurring over a century ago with fewer safeguards, didn't take place until eighteen months after the bombing.  How fast is fast enough, but still slow enough not to execute innocents?

Answer:  zero speed is safest, because it can take a long time, sometimes forever, for the facts about a frameup or mistake to come out, but the slower the better, because it's no use apologizing to a corpse.  (Though corpses do have the distinct advantage of not complaining overly much about it afterwards — their relatives are a different matter.)  Many people really seem to believe the adage, “where there's smoke, there's fire.”  In my view, a comeback on this old saw (attributed to John F. Kennedy, I believe) is almost as likely to be true in a given case:  “Where there's smoke, you'll usually find someone running a smoke-making machine!”

In the frameup case we've been considering, it's nice that three of the men were still alive to receive the state's “apology” seven years later.  Too bad about the other four — oh yes, and the person driven to suicide.

No doubt, someone is now harrumphing, “Always safeguarding the rights of criminals.  What about the victims of today's killers!”  I'm very sympathetic to the rights and plight of the victims of crime.  My sister-in-law, in fact, a wonderful child only 14 years of age, was murdered years ago, and her killer, a robber, got off with a mere couple years in the hoosegow.  That's not right.

However, if an innocent person is executed by the state, that person is a victim, an entirely preventable victim, and we, society, are the murderer!  Nor can evidence in criminal trials ever be made perfect enough that fraud or mistakes can be ruled out in all cases.  After all, convictions in the U.S. occur to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt — not, say, beyond a shadow of a doubt — and even if the latter were to become the criterion in capital cases, errors and frameups could still occur.  Murder by society can be prevented, of course, by not executing people.

It may seem like a poor apology to an innocent imprisoned victim when such an error is discovered many years later, but if prisoners are kept alive and not executed, one can simply extricate them from jail, dust them off, and send them on their way to live out the remainder of their lives — which is a whole lot better than the alternative; as I say, apologies are no use to a corpse.

One of the most pernicious arguments used purportedly in support of capital punishment that I've seen, however, goes something like this:  “We've got to kill them quickly, otherwise those [commie, pinko, liberal: insert one or more] judges will just let them out again to murder some more!”

This is absurd.  It's already necessary to modify the criminal justice system to institute the desired quick executions.  Why not change the system, since one has to anyway, so that murderers simply can't get out to kill again?  The reply is that the first is politically feasible, while the second is politically impossible?  Nonsense — it, the latter, is already happening.  For a number of years now there has been a clear tendency towards mandatory sentences, restrictions on parole, more conservative judges, and so forth, which have the effect of reducing and greatly delaying the return of dangerous killers to the public.

Some however (weakly) argue, “They might kill while they're in prison.”  Come on, I seriously doubt many of the people now stacked up in the nation's maximum-security death rows, for instance, get many opportunities to kill anyone.  If they do, those prisons aren't doing their jobs.  And if people do have opportunities to murder while they're awaiting execution, how does one plan on preventing the numerous people that one would put on death row from killing?  Execute all prisoners the day they're arrested?

Some, finally, may cry, “A hundred years ago?  That's ancient history!  Nothing like that could happen today!”  They're probably correct; such an event quite likely couldn't happen today — precisely because of the severe constraints, delays, and multiple levels of appeal that accompany application of the capital penalty in the present day.  But it's those very restraints that many people would now have us dramatically relax!

As to whether a hundred years is “ancient” or not — I'm pleased to have lived for more than a third of a century myself.  That time doesn't seem very long at all.  My parents are now three-quarters of their way to a century.  People now living remember those days, 103 years ago — it's not that far removed from our time.  Some would have us bring those days back!

Why don't death penalty advocates tell the truth — that what they're really seeking is just blood for blood?  If the answer is the truth would be bad politics, that's likely correct, but the pro-capital punishment rationale typically propounded in public is really quite disingenuous.

T. S. Eliot's penetrating wit is apt here: ³

And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead; the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

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Advent of DNA evidence in the intervening years since this piece was posted dramatically reveals that I was being far too sanguine about how effective present day safeguards actually are in preventing false convictions, as this article a couple weeks back in the New York Times makes plain: ⁴  “Comprehensive study of 328 criminal cases over last 15 years in which convicted person was exonerated suggests there are thousands of innocent people in prison today.”

Beyond that, recent hints that executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh may have had connections with Islamic terrorism emphasizes the point that even when guilt has been established nearly to “beyond a shadow of a doubt” in a given case, it perhaps still doesn't make sense to destroy the most important repository of information and evidence about that case — that is, the brain of the criminal, e.g. Timothy McVeigh — even though it also preserves the mind of a mass murderer.  Note that I wouldn't make his time in prison comfortable.

¹ Studs Terkel essay, PBS MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, broadcast 1986-05-01.

² “Haymarket Riot,” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Chicago, 1974, Micropaedia, Vol. IV, p. 967.

³ T. S. Eliot, in “Little Gidding,” 1942.

⁴ Adam Liptak, “Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions,” The New York Times, Issue date 2004-04-19, Late Edition – Final, Section A, p. 15, Col. 4.

UPDATE:  2004-05-05 07:00 UT:  Joel at the intriguing Asia-Pacific oriented Far Outliers blog has linked to this piece.

Labels: death penalty, Haymarket massacre, labor movement, May Day