Genocide and Torture: Two Sides of Silence

I am reading a book titled "Silence" by John Biguenet.  The book leads me through the pop culture, history and meaning of silence.  Until March of this year, many of us spent hours in the uninterrupted noise of airports. The only relief from the announcements and crowds is in the airport lounges for business class passengers.  They have silence at a considerable cost.

Some of us seek silence through meditation practice and by inhabiting quiet spaces.  Biguenet tells us the history of silent reading. Then he introduces us to the Unspeakable. 

The Holocaust survivor Theodor Adorno said in 1949 that after the Holocaust no one should write poetry. The Holocaust and other genocides silence millions.  The Armenian Genocide silenced more than million voice. The Holocaust silenced six million. The starvation of millions in Ukraine by Stalin, the Stalinist purges, and millions killed by Mao and Pol Pot followed by slaughter in Rwanda and Yugoslavia forced silence by death.

Biguenet then says torture is the opposite of genocide. A person tortured chooses to be silent. The torture is supposed to break that silence through agony.

Genocide survivors write and speak to give voice to the millions who were silenced. Those who are tortured choose silence at a great cost, possibly at the cost of their lives. 

Both genocide and torture are horrible, but for opposite reasons from the perspective of silence. 

Silence is part of a series of books called Object Lessons. Short books about specific things like Phone Booths, Drones, Silence, The Wheelchair, The High Heel, Traffic and fifty other titles.  My next book is about The Bookshelf.

"If It Ain't Rainin' We Ain't Trainin'" NYC Version

On the Queensborough Bridge Today, Yesterday was a Tropical Storm

Yesterday and today I walked from Manhattan to Queens and back on the Queensborough bridge. Today was beautiful weather. Yesterday was a tropical storm with sheets of rain blowing across the walkway from the north. 

As I walked through the rain wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I thought about First Sergeant Rich Francke, who was one of the people along with Jeremy Houck who helped me make the transition from civilian life back to the military in 2007.  One of Francke's mottos was, "If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin'." 

As I walked up the ramp onto the span getting soaked at a rate that felt like it could be measured in gallons per minute, I straightened my shoulders and imagined myself marching with field gear in the woods in a driving rain and thought 'at least I won't be sleeping in this.'  

The walkway has both a bike lane and a pedestrian lane. There was no one else walking, but there was a steady flow of bicyclists. Most of them were on electric bikes wrapped in raincoats. They were food delivery riders looking very miserable.  After I turned back toward Manhattan,  saw one slow, wobbly bicyclist on a regular bike. She was pedaling slowly and crying heading for Queens. She clearly did not think riding in the rain was an adventure.

Today there were more walkers, but not a lot.  I passed maybe 30 pedestrians in each direction on the 7500-foot-long bridge.  

There were many more bicyclists. Easily hundreds passed me.  One was wearing an Ironman bike jersey. He saw my Ironman hat and we waved.  A third of the bicyclists today were delivery riders, but there were also serious riders and tourists.  

 Completed in 1909, The 59th Street Bridge (now the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge) was the subject of a song by Simon and Garfunkel that most people know as "Feelin' Groovy." Billy Joel's video for the song "Your Only Human (Second Wind)" was filmed primarily on the bridge.  The bridge has been part of more than a dozen movies from 1932 to 2018, most recently in "Avengers: Infinity Wars."

Reading "The Death of Expertise" on a Train: And meeting an idiot

Yesterday I was on a train from Philadelphia to Lancaster. I was near the end of the last car with a half dozen other people in the car. I was reading the book "The Death of Expertise" for a discussion a week from Sunday.

Halfway through the 75-minute trip, a guy in his 50s who was from Lancaster walked toward the end of the car. As he walked past me he could see me wearing a mask. He was not wearing one. He stopped and said "The Amish lived here for hundreds of years without wearing masks....." I stood and told him to get the fuck away from me that I did not need his idiocy or his germs. He left.

I defended expertise. It was fun.

The book is about people with arrogance, untroubled by any actual learning, who believe themselves experts in anything. I know I am going to like this book.