Throughout the week Thomas Doherty, author of Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, has been discussing a variety of books associated with the politics of the time.
Here are some clips and trailers from the films. All the quotes are taken from Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939:
Blockade(1938)
Starring Henry Fonda and directed by Walter Wanger, the film depicted the Spanish Civil War. “Blockade was received by friend and foe alike as a brief in defense of the Soviet-backed loyalists. On that Catholics and the communists agreed.”
Olympia (1938)
“Riefensthahl was Nazism’s second most photogenic face. More than that though, she was a brilliant motion picture artist in thrall to a ruthless dictator, a match that inspired a special measure of loathing from the artists in the Popular Front….Being the one Nazi filmmaker who was not a second-rater, who was as good, or better, than the Jews purged from Ufa, she intrigued, tantalized, and unnerved. ‘The gal has charm to burn,’ gushed gossip monger Hedda Hopper, who was smitten with the lady. ‘As pretty as a swastika, snarled syndicated columnist Walter Winchell, who was not.”
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)
“For the typical moviegoer in 1939, more eye-and-ear opening than the plot or the politics of Confessions of a Nazi Spy was the visual drapery and sonic atmosphere. The insignia, salutes, and catchphrases of Nazism—huge swastikas, giant portraits of Hitler, and throngs of rabid Americans in Nazi garb shouting ‘Sieg heil!’…the free-wheeling operation of Nazi military men and espionage agents in New York conjured an elaborate fifth column crisscrossing America, a cancer eating away at the body politic.”
The Mortal Storm (1940)
“The Mortal Storm reviewed the history of the period between 1933 and 1939 that had been overlooked by the Hollywood cinema produced between 1933 and 1939….The word that is still unspoken in The Mortal Storm is ‘Jew,’ but by 1940 only the dimmest moviegoer would have failed to read the signs….Professor Roth identifies himself as ‘non-Arayan’ and what kind of non-Aryan is made clear when his wife visits him in a concentration camp and a ‘J’ adorns his sleeve.”
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
“Set in a counterfactual fantasy world removed from history but not from the fascination with cinematic legacy of Nazism, it is a Nazi-obsessed movie about other Nazi-obsessed movies, an affectionate homage to the many hours of cinematic pleasures the Nazis have given moviegoers. The intoxication with the iconography of the the Third Reich is unblushing and obsessive.”
In the interview Alamar also talked about how decisions in general are made by sports teams and how he had to convince decision-makers on the Thunder that analytics is an effective tool for assessing players. (For more on the book, here is an excerpt from Sports Analytics)
This week our featured book is The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet by Lawrence J. Friedman. Today, we have an interview from 1958, in which Fromm talks to Mike Wallace about his views on materialism and society. We hope you’ve enjoyed our Erich Fromm-themed content this week, and we hope you remember to enter our Book Giveaway for a chance to win a FREE copy of The Lives of Erich Fromm.
While recognizing that a variety of familial structures (single parents, etc.) Wilcox cites various studies which reveal that on average children fare better when raised by their biological parents. Wilcox focuses on how mothers and fathers each model different behavior for their children:
From the CHSC site: What is American Drink? Is it warmed-over traditional British beverages, such as tea, ale, hard cider, syllabubs, toddies? Or is it versions of ethnic beverages brought by successive waves of immigrants – lager and pilsner, sangria, tequila, bubble tea? Or is it the fiercely marketed creations of America’s beverage industry – Kentucky Bourbon, Kool-Aid, Snapple, Coors, Coca-Cola? Why do Americans drink the beverages that we do?
In the following interview with The Street, Howard Marks, author of The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, discusses some of his insights about investing. Marks points to the complexity of the stock market and the importance of second-level thinking. He argues that there are inefficiencies in the stock market and it is important to focus on the value of an investment rather than its potential growth.
In the following interview with Fronteras, Robert J. Durán, author of Gang Life in Two Cities: An Insider’s Journey, talks about his new book as well as his experiences interviewing members of Latino gangs in Denver, Colorado and Ogden, Utah.
In the interview, Durán also describes his life as a member of a gang while also looking at larger issues, including the societal conditions that lead people to join gangs and the role of persistent racism in American society.
On the website for the book Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food, Jon Krampner includes some links to various songs about peanut butter and peanuts. We could hardly resist posting a video here as well, so here’s “Peanut Butter,” by The Marathons. The song is great and the video documents the process of making peanut butter.
Here’s Krampner’s description:
This classic hit from 1961, almost a note-for-note copy of the version by the Olympics. It features a video from the Georgia Peanut Commission that shows the life cycle of peanut butter from the field to the factory. The standard peanut butter song. Recommended viewing and listening.
In the following video, Duggan explains some of the ideas that shaped Strategic Intuition, including how innovation really happens in business and other fields and how that matches with what modern neuroscience tells us about how creative ideas form in the human mind.
Jonathan Kahn, author of Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age, is a frequent speaker at the Tarrytown meetings, an annual meeting of the Center for Genetics and Society in which scientists and others discuss the ways in which new human biotechnologies and related emerging technologies should support rather than undermine social justice, human rights, ecological integrity, democratic governance, and the common good.
In the following remarks from the 2010 meeting, Kahn discusses some of the troubling aspects our increasing faith in genetics as explanation for a variety of social and political problems in addition to scientific ones. He also expresses concern about how biotechnology is affecting academia by making the study of genetics and science research a cash cow for universities. Kahn’s talk, like his book, reveals the ways in which science is not necessarily a “value-neutral” pursuit but has many unanticipated consequences that need to be thought about carefully by society:
Today, we are taking a look back at some of Judith Butler’s earlier work, particularly her revolutionary thinking in gender theory. She became a rising academic star following the publication of her famous Gender Trouble, in 1990. In the video we are featuring today, Butler gives a concise and understandable explanation of the ideas from Gender Trouble and her other works in gender theory.
In The Dissent Papers, Hannah Gurman explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. During America’s reign as a dominant world power, U.S. presidents and senior foreign policy officials largely ignored or rejected their diplomats’ reports, memos, and telegrams, especially when they challenged key policies relating to the Cold War, China, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The Dissent Papers recovers these diplomats’ invaluable perspective and their commitment to the transformative power of diplomatic writing.
As part of the Euroscience Open Forum 2012, held recently in Dublin, Herve This, whose book The Science of the Oven is now out in paperback, was on a panel to discuss Science and the Future of Cuisine.
Herve This was joined by President Obama’s Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, and Mark Post (Maastricht University) who has developed a process for growing meat in vitro. Here’s the video of the panel:
In the interview, Betts discussed how his approach to national security has changed since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. While he saw himself as “hawkish” on military and national security issues during the Cold War, he feels recent, overly aggressive policies have been misguided and costly. Betts argues that the threat of terrorism, while serious, does not approach the magnitude of what the United States was confronting during the Cold War. Thus efforts such as the war against Iraq have been counterproductive.
Richard Betts also responded to questions about a variety of other current issues, including Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, which he supports as the “least bad alternative” in a difficult situation; Iran, which he recognizes as a serious threat but where the policy of sanctions and deterrence must be followed rather than “preventive war.” He also discusses U.S. options in North Korea and Syria.
Betts views preventing terrorists from getting the nuclear bomb as the most crucial issue confronting the United States. However, he also argues that the U.S. must work very hard to build a stronger relationship with China to prevent a Cold War-like situation from developing.
In 2007, blogger Justine Ezarik uploaded a video on YouTube, titled 300-page iPhone bill. (see video at the end of this post)
Following the first month of service after the iPhone’s introduction in 2007, Justine shocked viewers with the story of her “first AT&T” bill, which was indeed 300 pages and delivered in a box. The video shows nothing but Justine leafing through all those pages, accompanied by relaxation music. “Use e-billing. Save a forest” her video encourages at the end. It shortly went viral and has so far been viewed by 3,236,083 people around the globe, gaining “iJustine” international attention and what appears to be quite a lucrative career in online media.
iJustine’s YouTube video is not only the first instance of someone making a lasting career out of an over-sized telephone bill,it also tellingly connects two corporations who often are seen as fierce competitors: Apple and Google (which had acquired YouTube in 2006). The competition between these two companies over the smartphone market and beyond might very well determine what future media entertainment will look like. Even more to the point, iJustine’s video has put a spotlight on an object no serious media scholar so far would have shown any interest in. What, if anything, could be learned by looking at a smartphone bill?
