November
2016
By Douglas Kent 911
Irene Drive, Mesquite, TX 75149
Email: diplomacyworld@yahoo.com or dougray30@yahoo.com
On the web at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/. Also be sure to visit the official Diplomacy
World website which can be found at http://www.diplomacyworld.net.
All Eternal Sunshine readers are encouraged to join the free Eternal Sunshine Yahoo group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eternal_sunshine_diplomacy/info
to stay up-to-date on any subzine news or errata. If you don’t like the sign-up process just
send me an email and I will send you an invite which cuts through the red tape. You should also join the Eternal Sunshine
Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/270968112943024/
Check out my eBay store at http://stores.ebay.com/dougsrarebooksandmore
My book “It’s Their House; I’m Just a Guest” is
available in softcover and Kindle from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501090968/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Welcome
to the latest issue of Eternal Sunshine, as we continue to run down to a
fold. Kendo is over, leaving three games
to finish. See you in December!
XENOGOGIC: A Journal of dip&DIP
November, 2016
SPECIAL PRE-THANKSGIVING ISSUE:
TURKEY AND ALL THE TRIMMINGS
By Larry Peery
It seems that lately I spend more time thinking
about the hobby’s past and the world’s future than ever. It used to be just the
opposite. But news of the recent passing of Fred Davis, Jr., one of the hobby’s
early archivists, again brought to mind the peerinial
question, “What am I going to do with all this stuff?” Apparently I’m not the
only one thinking about such things. Looking for an answer, I did an Ask search
on the question “How are Archives Organized?” I actually found some good sources for some helpful ideas. Now
the challenge is to put them to work. Stay posted.
One who did was the woman (!) in charge of one of the world’s oldest libraries
located at the University of Al Qarawiyyin in Fez,
Morocco. With little help from outsiders and confronted with a myriad of
problems, some of which dated back to the ninth-century opening of the library.
She’s taken a falling apart building, put it in shape, and put its thousand
year old collection into the modern digital world. You can learn more about
her, the library and its work with a Google search, on Wiki, or Facebook. It’s
inspiring enough to get me shuffling those pesky boxes that have been sitting
for the last ten years in this garage and in others for generations before.
The memories of the Youngstown IV Demo Game that DW ran not-so-long-ago came
back to me when I saw a story in a Korean newspaper entitled, “70% of textbooks
in international schools still show East Sea as Sea of Japan.” Given the
willingness of Korea, Japan and China to argue and fight over a few rocks in
their common waters, I guess that’s not a big surprise. Among 49 international
institutions in (south) Korea, 16 schools used textbooks listing the name “Sea
of Japan,” and 10 schools adopted textbooks that used both names. No word on
how many schools have torn the relevant maps out of their textbooks as recently
happened in one Hong Kong book store in dealing with a dictionary’s pages on
Taiwan!
Just for the record, according to the (south) Korean Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, “East Sea” has been used in Korea for more than 2000 years in various
references such as “History of the Three Kingdoms,” (1145), the monument of
King Gwanggaeto (4l4) and “Map of Eight Provinces of
Korea” (1416-1684). “Sea of Japan” was first used in 1602 by Mateo Ricci, an
Italian (Jesuit) priest. Also, Japan’s various historical records, such as
“Simplified Map of Japan’s Peeriphery” (1809) and
“New World Map” (1844), referred to the area as the “Sea of Joseon
(Korea).”
Still, there is hope. A recent survey of a thousand high school aged female
students in Korea, Japan and China revealed that only 132% of them could name
the last three leaders of their own countries, but 94% of them could correctly
identify the three top K-Pop singers in their country.
I mentioned how the University of Al Qarawiyyin was digitalizing portions of its collection and
making them available to research scholars online. Closer at home and as part
of the centennial commemoration of the United States’ entry into the Great War,
the Library of Congress has recently placed online the diaries, notebooks
(paper, I presume) and address books of John J. Pershing, commander-in-chief of
the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, and the diaries of George S.
Patton, a tank commander in World War I and a U.S. Army general in World War
II. No word on whether Patton’s role in the “Bonus Army Massacre” of 1934. Next
run, and running into 2019, the Library of Congress will open a major
exhibition, “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I.” See
it!
Speaking of misnamed spaces, fighting over worthless territories, misleading
textbooks and flawed heroes, ninety-four year old Henry Kissinger, whose career
I have been tracking since his day as a Nixon advisor, took center stage on
October 18 on 84 different venues on two continents as part of a simulcast
annual China Town Hall meeting sponsored by the National Committee on
U.S.-China Relations. One report headlined it as, “UNH students get master
class in diplomacy from Henry Kissinger.” As I watched the proceedings I kept
thinking of that old cliché “History is written by the winners,” and my mind
began to wonder to the question of who said it first: Napoleon, Churchill,
William Benjamin, or Dan Brown? One thing I do know, it wasn’t Henry Kissinger.
Like most of you, I’m sure. I’m sick and tired (more sick than tired according
to my doctor) of this election campaign. I just want it to end. Well, not
quite. Trump said during the last (Thank God!” debate that he wouldn’t
necessarily accept the results of the election UNLESS he won. To that I would
respond, “I won’t accept them if you DO win!” In all the verbiage and
vitriol spawned by the campaign I did come across one item I would commend to
any Diplomate. It is “Trump’s bullsh*t: Why his
supporters don’t care that he’s lying.” By Jeff Hancock, a
professor at Stanford (who apparently hasn’t run into Condi Rice) where he
studies deception and technology. You can read it for yourself online in
the Money section of CNN, October 17, 2016. Read it once and think about its
implications for the election that will be settled (I hope.) in just a few
days. Then reread it again and view it through the eyes of a Diplomate playing
Diplomacy. How do you conduct your diplomacy? How do you negotiate with others?
Do you give it your best effort to win or do you see it as “just another game,”
like Donald?
So much for the academic side of things as Thanksgiving approaches. Hopefully,
by the time the holiday rolls around, we can enjoy it and not have to undertake
a task like the one that faced Art Buchwald when he tried to explain America’s
national holiday to the French by explaining how a country like ours could
elect a leader like him?
Moving on to something even more bellicose I offer you some pre-Thanksgiving
dinner substitutes for parades and football, although I have to confess that
like millions of other kids I will be watching the Macy Parade this year to see
if MetLife does what the Red Baron couldn’t do?
TURKISH FLEET CONSTANTINOPLE – AEGEAN, GREEK FLEET SALAMIS NAVAL BASE – AEGEAN
“Greece complains to NATO over Turkish submarines in Aegean” was the headline
on 8 October, 2016. In its complaint, Greek authorities noted that the activity
of the Turkish submarines in the Aegean (waters near Lemnos, Samothrace, Chios,
Lesbos, Rhodes, Karpathos, Kastellorizo and the
waters north of Crete were mentioned) came as officials in Ankara questioned
the Treaty of Lausanne, the pact that defined the borders between Greece and
modern Turkey following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Taken
together, the presence of Turkish submarines in Greek territorial waters and
the disputing of territorial borders point to an “escalation” of tensions and
to possible “instability” in the region, Greek authorities said in their
complaint.
US FLEET BLACK SEA – BAKALAVA, RUSSIAN FLEET SEVASTAPOL – BLACK SEA
“Where have I heard this before?”, you may be asking yourself, but unless
you’re a WWI or US Navy buff you might not even be aware of the fact that the
US Navy did have a Black Sea Fleet once-upon-a-time. You can learn more about
that in America’s Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution,
1919 – 1923 by Robert Shenk. That book was
published in 2012. More recently the Navy Times, on June 10, discussed some
encounters between the US Navy and Russian naval forces in the Black Sea. Then,
shortly afterwards, Strategic Culture ran a story “NATO form Allied Fleet Black
Sea Plans Fraught with Great Risks.” Not sure if that’s disinformation or not,
but I suspect it is. From June to September rumors spread that in fact NATO was
planning on some kind of permanent presence in the Black Sea, perhaps as part
of a quid pro quo to keep the Rumanians happy. Then, in September, Fox News
(admittedly not the best source for reliable news but they had the story first
((I wonder who leaked it?)) reported “Russian jet flies dangerously close (10
feet?!?) to US Navy spy plane over Black Sea. They
didn’t mention Russia has been bringing down US spy planes since I was a baby.
Incidents continue and sooner or later one of them with either the Russians or
Chinese is going to escalate beyond control.
RUSSIAN FLEET ST. PETERSBURG N.C. – BARENTS – NORWEGIAN – NORTH SEA – ENGLISH
CHANNEL – MID ATLANTIC OCEAN – WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN – TYRRHENIAN SEA – IONIAN
SEA – EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN – SYRIA.
In Diplomacy such a cruise would take from Spring 1902
until Fall 1907 in game time and several months in real time. Today it would
take about 3 weeks moving at 10 knots an hour over a distance of about 4900
miles. Refueling a coal-powered fleet in the early 1900s was not even, even if
coaling stops were available along the way. Today, support ships should keep
the fleet moving. Just in case the Russian carrier has a problem, as it has on
numerous occasions in the past, it will be accompanied by a tug boat.
The Russian fleet left its base in Murmansk/Severomorsk
(and from a Black Sea port as well) headed for its offshore base (the only one
it has outside Russia) in Tartus, Syria on 15
October. On the 21st of October it entered the English Channel under the
watchful eyes of NATO aircraft. The Russian flagship and pride of the Russian
Navy is the 43,000 ton carrier Admiral Kuznetsov (formerly known as Riga, Leonid Brezhnev and Tbilis) which uses a ski ramp launching system (it has no
catapults) for its 41 planes. The carrier was commissioned in
1990 and when it returns from this cruise it will enter dry-dock for
several years of repairs and a major overhaul.
The bottom line is simple: 1) There is nothing the aircraft on that carrier can
do that cannot be done more easily by ground-based aircraft already in Syria;
and 2) The fleet (e.g.) the carrier is being accompanied by a tug boat in case
it breaks down, much as the French for years had a tug boat escorting their
carrier, the Charles De Gaulle (Interesting the Charles De Gaulle is now in the
Eastern Mediterranean supporting NATO operations in Syria and Iraq.). Russia
wants to be respected or feared, or better yet both, and is willing to gamble
it can get a fleet to Syria and without embarrassment. We’ll see.
So far I’ve painted a pretty bleak picture of what’s going on in the world.
However, it’s even worse. Consider Turkey since this, after all, Thanksgiving.
I don’t know of anyone, especially in that area, who is celebrating. Do
you?
Lauren Said-Moorhouse, of CNN, reported on 13 August,
2016 in a story, “This is how many people Turkey has arrested since the failed
coup” that: 1) over 35,000 people have been detained and 17,000 arrested since
the 15 July coup attempt; 2) the state crackdown has also seen at least 81,000
fired or suspended; 3) 240 people and 40 coup plotters have died. She goes on
to lay out in detail not only the numbers but the kinds of people involved, but
Erdogan still isn’t satisfied and he won’t be until he gets his number one
target, a Turkish cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania.
Earlier I mentioned Turkey’s playing with the Treaty of Lausanne as well as the
Greek Navy. This is no surprise as a Reuters report on 19 October, 2016 made
clear, “Evoking Ottoman past, Erdogan vows to tackle Turkey’s enemies abroad.”
His love-hate-love relationship with Russian leader Putin is a typical example
of his style of diplomacy. It won’t get better. Like Assad, Erdogan is trapped
in a quagmire called the Caliphate. The irony is that a new Caliphate,
headquartered in Constantinople, is exactly what he hopes to create.
For those, like Trump, who think The Media is biased and out to get them I
suggest looking at the Arab news network Al Jazeera. A typical day’s (20
October 2016) coverage carried headlines like “Turkey: Army kills up to 200 YPG
fighters in Aleppo,” “Erdogan: We have a historical responsibility in Iraq,”
(sounds like somebody else I remember talking about the Sudetenland) AND “Why
does the battle for Mosul matter to Turkey?” For one thing, it doesn’t
seem to matter that Iraq says Turkish troops
involvement will breach their sovereignty. However, not
to worry. You’ll be safe in Ankara, if not Aleppo, as “Ankara bans
public gatherings due to ‘terror alert.’ “
Alright, enough negativism. Let’s get to the heart of
Thanksgiving. That means one thing, FOOD!
I love cookbooks and although I’ve given scores of them away in the past few
years, I still have 40 or so of my favorites that I can’t bear to part with.
One I don’t have but wish I did is American Cooking by Amelia Simmons. This is
the first known cookbook written by an American, published in Hartford, CT in
1796. Its full tile is: American Cookery, or the art of dressing viands, fish,
poultry, and vegetables, and the best modes of making pastes, puffs, pies,
tarts, puddings, custards, and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the
imperial plum to plain cake: Adapted to this country, and all grades of life.
Among the recipes are Pumpkin Pie, Cranberry Sauce with Turkey and Indian Pudding, Cheap Seed Cake, a Sick Bed Custard, and Soft
Cakes. It’s available on Amazon.com for from less than $6 to $35, depending on
age and condition. I suspect one of the only four copies of the first edition
known to exist would go for a bit more. FYI, newer editions include modern
cooking instructions, so don’t use that as excuse in a few weeks.
Do you understand what’s happening in the Near East? If you answered “Yes” to that
question then obviously you don’t because nobody, but nobody, understands
what’s going on there. Anyone who says that they do,
doesn’t. If you answered “No”, well, welcome to the real world.
How does Peeriblah explain and cope with problems
like Aleppo (to give just one example, one that may come to mean what Dachau
did to another generation)? Well, it may seem strange in this Age of Trumpisms but even during the worst days of the Cold War
people still had hope and a few even had “high hopes”, as this song explains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPTweZ2_fI
(1959 film with Frank Sinatra and Eddie Hodges)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Hopes_(Frank_Sinatra_song)
“High Hopes” is a popular song, first sung by Frank Sinatra, with music written
by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn (both long-time Sinatra
collaborators). It was introduced by Sinatra and child actor Eddie Hodges in
the 1959 movie “A Hole in the Head”, nominated for a Grammy and won an Oscar
for Best Original Song. Sinatra recorded a version with different lyrics that
was used as the theme song for John Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential Campaign.
Here’s the original Frank Sinatra lyrics to “High Hopes” (from Wiki and other
sources)
Next time your found, with your chin on the ground
There a lot to be learned, so look around
Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, can't
Move a rubber tree plant
But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time you’re gettin' low
'Stead of lettin' go
Just remember that ant
Oops there goes another rubber tree plant
When troubles call, and your back's to the wall
There a lot to be learned, that wall could fall
Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he'd punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin' that dam
'Cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time you’re feelin' bad
'stead of feelin' sad
Just remember that ram
Oops there goes a billion kilowatt dam
All problems just a toy balloon
They'll be bursted soon
They're just bound to go pop
Oops there goes another problem kerplop
There, feel better?
Instead of football or hitting the malls after your Thanksgiving Dinner, try
this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjv6nmF7wdk&list=PLyAbGOp_-WGXmgfawEBRe5s0uHDjwQWB0
I know I’ve put a lot on your plate to chew on this Thanksgiving, so to speak,
but take a moment to grab one branch of the turkey wishbone and share it with
someone you’re thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving.
Where in the World is Kendo Nagasaki?
Round 1
