Pie and Coffee 
Weapons of Mass Destruction
On last night’s Jeopardy!, the $1600 answer in the category “Rage Against the Machine” (all about people raging against machines, not about the band) was:
In a 1980 antiwar protest, these priest brothers, Daniel & Philip, attacked missile warheads at a G.E. plant.
Contestant Roy, a building inspector from Rancho Cucamonga, California, correctly, albeit ungrammatically, questioned, “What is Berrigan?”
Author’s note: This is an essay I wrote in 1996 for the late Dr. Peter Fay’s class, Hum 9a, at Caltech; transcribed with corrections in 2001. [Editor's note: Hiroshima is the subject of a chapter in David Griffith's A Good War Is Hard to Find, which we've been discussing here. Here are more of Griffith's reflections on the subject.]
I come from Taiwan, or Takasago, as one would call it back in the days of colonization under the Empire of Japan before the end of World War 2. Taiwanese people who are of my grandmother’s generation were educated to be Japanese; for example, the late pastor of my church, like many Taiwanese who were drafted by the Imperial Armed Forces at that time, was to be one of the kamikaze, the suicide pilots who were crashing their fighters into the carriers of the Allies. People of that age often talk to us about the times of the Japanese occupation and the Pacific War. Although they resented the unnecessary War they had to fight and complain about the occasional cruelty of the Japanese, they described the Japanese rule as a period of order and stability, in which even during the extreme of hardship near the end of the War, rarely did riots arise and corruption of the administration were unusual. It seemed that everyone in the neighborhood cooperated to remain organized for the War. I always wonder how this kind of disciplined behavior was attained.
After reading John Hersey’s Hiroshima, I think I know a bit more about the way of the Japanese. Although the emblem of the Japanese Empire is the glorious chrysanthemum signifying the Royal Family, common people refer to themselves as sakura, the cherry blossoms, which bloom brilliantly in the spring for a very short time, usually only a few days, and then fall to the ground. A respectful Japanese is one that suffers tragically, or even sacrifices oneself, for the cause of the greater organization (e.g., the Empire, or, as is observed in the modern, post-War society Japan, the kaisha, the Japanese idea of the “firm”), just like the sakura flowers. Any performance less than this is considered a shame in the Japanese mind.
The (UK) House of Commons defence select committee took evidence yesterday from Bruce Kent who quoted the Pope about His Holiness’s objection against nuclear weapons, according to BBC’s Today in Parliament. Sadly, the evidence has not been transcribed on the web (yet), but readers can take a look at the report in the Guardian.
Recently there has been some discussion about scientists who are religious here, after Mike “outed” the secret Caltech-alumni organizing principle behind this blog. I have also recently read Richard Hamming’s depressing macho-macho speech on research. It is then perhaps opportune that, this Saturday, I went to the National Theatre to see Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo (in a version by David Hare). Read the rest of this entry »
About twenty people gathered at the Federal Building last night in South Bend, Indiana, to repent and pray on the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.
Another, more secular, vigil was held in South Bend earlier in the day.
The group, most wearing black, held signs reading “From Nagasaki to Lebanon / Mourn the Dead.”
Pictured: Mike Schorsch. Photo by Mike Benedetti. More photos.
The event was sponsored by the South Bend Catholic Worker and the Catholic Peace Fellowship. It began with the reading of a meditation, reprinted below.
(The South Bend Tribune covered this event. Last year when the Worcester Telegram & Gazette saw fit to cover a similar event in Massachusetts, they saw fit to “balance” the coverage by interviewing a WWII-era man with a poor understanding of the facts. The Tribune, to its credit, did not do this.)
A recent report, The ethics of modern warfare, produced by a joint committee of the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, recommended that the United Kingdom should not replace the Trident missile system.
Plowshares: Boing Boing mentions a Plowshares action by Greg Boertje-Obed, Carl Kabat, and Michael Walli. They hammered on a silo and spread their blood about while dressed as clowns.
If I could Update my comment on Boing Boing, it would read:
. . . hammering on a missile silo is meant to be
purelya symbolic act.
The interplay of symbolism and practicality is what makes these sorts of actions tricky to write about.
Tom Lewis points out that this is the third time Carl Kabat has tried to sabotage a missile while dressed as a clown.
Mike: I met Carl Kabat once, for ten seconds.
Scott: You’re doing pretty good—I met him once for ten minutes!
…
Claire: I think I met Carl Kabat once. He’s always in jail.
Read the rest of this entry »
Today we had glorious weather here in these isles. Her Majesty graced Oxford with a visit. But for the more politically-inclined, yesterday’s local-election results were announced, with the Greens taking a new seat in the Oxford City Council, up from 7 to 8 out of 48 seats, holding the balance of power in a hung council. Good results elsewhere as well.
Nick Anthis of The Scientific Activist (who broke the George Deutsch dropout story earlier this year) invited Michael Stebbins, Director of Biology Policy at the Federation of American Scientists, author of the new book Sex, Drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted to speak in Oxford today on the topic “Biosecurity policy and the scientific community: new challenges in an age of terrorism”. He gave us a lot of Beltway insider stuff (especially after his talk when I bought him a drink at the University Club), and said that whatever craziness goes on in the USA will eventually come across the Atlantic unless we do something about it.
Further on the topic of the “fifty-first state”, Sir Gareth of Wolfson College just published a report on UK–USA research collaboration. To balance the Anglosphericity, here is a link to the “Investing in European Research” website.
This Saturday (29th April) will be the Remembrance Day for All Victims of Chemical Warfare. The IUPAC has a project for raising awareness of the Chemical Weapons Convention, reports the current issue of Chemistry International. Observant readers will notice that a link to the WMD awareness programme already appears on the sidebar here at Pie and Coffee. Last November, Democracy Now! (also sidebar-worthy) and George Monbiot at the Guardian both reported the use of white phosphorus in Iraq. Also see an earlier post here: “Botox: Cosmetic or Chemical Weapon?”
On Saturday 25 February 2006, a few of my friends and I joined about 50 others at St John’s College, Oxford, for the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament conference ‘Trident Replacement? What does theology say?’. One new development: WMD Awareness Programme. If the gentle readers read one website because of this report, it should be this. Read the rest of this entry »
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