Monthly Archives: December 2015

Iranian Hostage Crisis

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A review of a book about the crisis precedes this posting, and there are some recent developments. A New York Times article describes how Americans taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 have been granted compensation. A recent spending bill gives each of the 53 hostages or their estates up to $4.4 million, although there are still apparently some legal hurdles to be overcome. Legal claims had previously been blocked in the courts, but a decision to force a Paris-based bank BNP Paribas to pay a $9 billion penalty for sanction violations suddenly made money available for the hostages and other victims of state-sponsored terrorism. “Congress was also motivated by many members anger over the Iran nuclear accord.”

There are 37 of the original 52 hostages still alive who will be eligible for full payments. “Spouses and children are authorized to receive a lump payment of as much as $600,000.” An additional $2.8 billion will aid victims of the September 11, 2001 attack and their family members.

Beyond the current information of the compensation for hostages there is information in the review of the book about the crisis that haunts me. Iran is dominated by radical mullahs with no interest in the future of the world. They believe millions who die in a holy war will be ushered into paradise. Nuclear deterrence means nothing to them, because a nuclear holocaust “merely” results in more martyrs. The good news is that Iran released the hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President. They were worried about what actions he might take, with indicates they were more pragmatic than their strict religious beliefs indicated.

Guests of the Ayatollah

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guests-of-the-ayatollahThe subtitle of this book by Mark Bowden is “The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam,” and I think a better subtitle would have been “The Iranian Hostage Crisis.” This book was recommended to me by a Great Nephew who is studying to be a high school history teacher, and it is a very worthwhile book. I was worried when I saw it is well over 600 pages and decided I could probably skim some of it. I asked myself something to the effect, “After all, how could the lengthy hostage situation have interesting information for several hundred pages?” I was wrong. I found myself reading the details each time I thought of skimming. There is very little information in the book that isn’t interesting, and I learned why someone beginning a career as a history teacher would recommend it to person who has given himself the title of “amateur historian.”

The book begins with a description of Iranian students who had become more interested in the revolutionary politics of opposing the United States than in university studies. They began planning a siege of the American embassy in Tehran, and many of them expected to die. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the hated Shah of Iran, had been a staunch ally to the U.S. against Soviet expansionism. He had been put in power by a CIA-funded coup that had been masterminded by Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore’s grandson that overthrew the elected government in 1953. The shah had to flee to the United States when the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers landed at the Tehran airport, revolution swept the country, and the United States became the “Great Satan.” “The prosperous middle and upper classes of Iran prayed that they weren’t going to be abandoned to the bearded clerics, but they were in the minority. To the great stirred mass of Iranians, afire with the dream of a perfect Islamic society, the U.S. embassy was a threat…What plots were being hatched by the devils coming and going from its gates. Why was no one stopping them?”

A dozen young Islamist activists who named themselves, “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line” to differentiate themselves from those they thought were not completely loyal to the Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, planned to take advantage of a large planned demonstration against the embassy. The students knew Khomeini had a stake in preserving the provisional government, and they feared he might order them to not carry out the assault. That was probably the most brilliant part of their plan.  The activists planning the assault decided they would not harm the Americans. They expected to have some attackers killed, and decided they would pass the bodies of any martyrs killed by the Marines out to the crowd. Continue reading →

The Proof of the Pudding

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The Phrase Finder explains that the longer version “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” makes more sense and that the often quoted “proof is in the pudding” makes no sense. The meaning is that “To fully test something you need to experience it yourself.” The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations dates it to the 14th century. The first written example located was dated 1605 and was “All the proof of a pudding is in the eating.” It is speculated that “pudding” in the original usage was actually what we would call sausage today.

Electric Cars Spur Demand for Coal Power

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The Washington Post published an interesting article about Rotterdam, Netherlands needing to build three new coal-fired power plants to recharge the electric vehicles as gasoline and diesel powered vehicles are being banned. The electric cars bought with generous tax incentives “…jostle for space at charging stations.” The article mentions that one recharge takes as much electricity as used by the average refrigerator in a month and a half. Coal provided 29 percent of the country’s electricity in 2014, and forecasts are that number won’t change by 2030. Efforts to ban coal generators have fallen to the cheap price of coal.

It costs about $20 to recharge a Tesla for a 250 mile range, which is cheaper than the cost of refueling with hydrocarbons. The Union of Concerned Scientists calculated that a gasoline powered car in Colorado that gets 34 miles to the gallon or more would be better for emissions than the average electric car. In New York, where hydroelectric is a major source of electricity, the gasoline powered car would have to get 112 miles per gallon to be equal.

The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a rebuttal article stating that their calculations show that driving an electric vehicle anywhere in the U.S. is a better choice. It states that over two-thirds of Americans “…live in areas where an average EV (electric vehicle) is better than the most efficient hybrid gasoline vehicle on the market. Based on today’s sales, the average EV in the U.S. has emissions equivalent to a gasoline car getting 68 MPG.”

It is interesting to see this issue being debated. It sometimes seems the people driving electric vehicles might not realize the electricity has to come from somewhere. For the people in the alternative energy conscious people of Rotterdam, about a third of that comes from coal now and into the foreseeable future.

America in the Cold War: A Reference Guide

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america-in-cold-warThis book by William T. Walker is exactly as advertised in the title. It has a very useful chronology of events in the front. The main body is contains “Clift Notes” versions of important events and has much to recommend it as a reference book. The Preface leads, “On Christmas night, December 25, 1991. George H.W. Bush addressed the American people to report the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and a new Commonwealth of Independent States and several new countries, including Russia, had been recognized immediately by the United States. On January 28, 1992, in his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress, Bush proclaimed the United States had won the Cold War.” The reality was that the remnants of the Cold War lingered in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. Historians began the debates about whether the Soviet Union collapsed because of internal corruptions and inefficiencies, whether American wealth and power had defeated them, or whether the Soviet Union was “…an artificial state that succumbed to the nationalist identities and ambitions of its own people.” The answer is undoubtedly a combination of all of those plus some other reasons. Regardless of the reason, it was a remarkable event.

A section titled “The Beginning: Allies Become Antagonists” is a good example of how the book presents complicated history briefly and precisely. It begins with the Americans providing Lend Lease to the Soviets as they reeled under the Nazi invasion. The alliance the World War II alliance with the Soviets began to fray before the Potsdam Conference. The Americans decided they had to step in to stop Communist advances in the later 1940s with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and the Soviets responded by blockading Berlin. All of that in less than two pages.

The Soviet government had been given full diplomatic recognition on November 17, 1933 under the FDR administration. The Soviets promised in return that they would “…abstain from conducting propaganda within the United States.” The Great Depression moved FDR further left, and several “…Americans were attracted to the Soviet experiment, entered the federal government, and provided secret information on American policies and interests to the Soviet Union.” By the end of World War II the Soviets had focused on establishing hegemony in Eastern Europe. Some historians blame the beginning of the Cold War on the use of the atomic bomb in Japan. Stalin decided the bombings were done to intimidate the Soviet Union. He pushed his scientists to build an atomic bomb to counter the American monopoly. Continue reading →

If Wishes Were Horses… and Merry Christmas

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christmas-wreath-mdThis was one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings:

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

According to wikipedia, it comes from a 16th century nursery rhyme and “is usually used to suggest that it is useless to wish and that better results will be achieved through action. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20004.” Who knew there was a Roud Folk Song Index?

An early version was recorded in Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, printed in 1605. “The modern rhyme was probably the combination of two of many versions and was collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.”

Here’s the whole rhyme:

If wishes were horses,
Beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches,
I’d wear one by my side,:
If Ifs and Ands were pots and pans,
There’d be no work for tinkers’ hands.

There are lots of these sorts of phrases:

If ‘if’ was a skiff we would all take a boat ride.
If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had any eggs.
If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass a-hoppin’.

I think people enjoy making them up. I’m reminded of one that goes like this:

If Ands and Buts were fruits and nuts
We’d all have a Merry Christmas.

Some versions use “candy and nuts” or “ifs and buts.” I saw it attributed by stackexchange and Phrase Finder bulletin board to Don Meredith (football player and commentator.)

Since the phrase has been used popularly of late – by John Boehner and Sheldon Cooper for example – a google search for the origin is rather overwhelmed by pop references. I’d rather do something else today.

So – Don Meredith- you get the credit!

Merry Christmas.