Ratlines

Ratlines: a series of rope steps by which men aloft reach the yards.

— The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea

In the old navy, ratlines (pronounced "rattlin's") referred to rope ladders attached to the masts. When a sailing ship began to sink, those ladders would offer the only safety to sailors who'd missed the lifeboats, so ratlines came to mean a "means of escape.”

In today's military, ratlines refer to an enemy's means of escape—particularly clandestine escape. Ratlines in this sense were used by combatants during the Iraq War, the Yemeni Civil War, the Somali Civil War and the War in Afghanistan.

But by far the most infamous ratlines were those used by members of the SS at the close of World War II.

The SS called their ratlines Klosterrouten ("cloister routes"), because sympathetic Catholic clergy ran them. They allowed SS to escape the Fatherland through Italy, Spain and Switzerland, then sail under fake names to safe havens in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The Nazi ratlines were organized as early as 1943 by a Croatian priest and an Austrian bishop, with the blessing of Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, and the acquiescent blessing of Pope Pius XII. Without voicing despair, these men foresaw Germany's fall and hoped to set up Nazi governments in exile.

The ratlines helped as many as 300 SS escape, including Josef Mengele ("the angel of death"), Klaus Barbie ("the butcher of Lyon") and Adolf Eichmann ("the architect of the Holocaust"). Ironically, forged papers allowed many SS to pass themselves off as Holocaust survivors. 

Hans-Ulrich Rudel (who became a top advisor to Argentine President Juan Perón) openly praised the Catholic church for operating the ratlines in a speech in 1970. 

"One may view Catholicism as one wishes," he said, "but what the church, especially certain towering personalities within the church, undertook in the years after the war to save the best of our nation must never be forgotten. 

"With its immense resources, the church helped many of us go overseas in quiet and secrecy, thus counteracting the demented victors' mad craving for revenge and retribution."

POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of retribution, the world's only Nazi-hunter, Brooklyn-born Efraim Zuroff, is still on the trail today, even though living Nazis are few. In four decades of detective work, he has tracked down over 3,000 of them in 20 countries. "The passage of time does not diminish the guilt of the killers," he told The Guardian this month.

God's Jury

When did you stop beating your wife?

— Unknown

True to the tenets of capitalism, anti-racism consultants are cashing in.

One New York-based consultancy, Pollyanna, charges $1,750 per hour to curriculum-wash, starting the process with a 360-degree review of a school’s faculty.

You know something's wrong when the $1,750-an-hour consultants turn into inquisitors.

During the 360, the Pollyanna's consultants ask faculty, for instance, to answer the question, "Do we talk about diversity and equity and inclusion too much at our school?"

This is an example of the infamous loaded question.

The loaded question seeks to change a person's mind by stealth. To answer it, the person must accept what the questioner merely presumes.

The favorite interrogation device of detectives, journalists, salespeople, extremists and witch hunters, the loaded question contains the seeds of the answerer's downfall:

"So where did you hide the gun?"

"Why are you content to bow to Iran?"

"Do you want a one- or two-year contract?"

"Why do you endorse the murder of unborn babies?"

"Why didn't you give up heresy when you knew it was sinful?"

Interrogators during the Inquisition were aware how unfair the loaded question was, but that didn't stop its use. They even encouraged widespread use of the loaded question in the handbook Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches).

According to philosophers, the loaded question (plurium interrogationum) is a trick question, a fallacy always to be avoided. 

It's a trick because the loaded question contains one or more question-begging presuppositions; for example, "So have you stopped grooming pretty eighth grade girls?" You can't answer the question without either lying or accepting statements you would deny.

The loaded question also lets the interrogator slip claims into his rhetoric without needing to prove them, or acknowledge their falsehood when unproven; for example, "Why does the media hate all conservatives?"

Like a loaded gun, a loaded question is a dangerous thing. 

In the hands of inquisitors, it's terrifying.

Chump Change

Only stupid people don't change their minds.

— Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Kathleen Kingsbury, Opinion editor of The New York Times, announced this week she is canceling the term "Op-Ed."

"The first Op-Ed page in The New York Times greeted the world on Sept. 21, 1970," she writes. "It was so named because it appeared opposite the editorial page."

For 50 years, the Op-Ed has let writers "from outside the walls of The Times" speak their minds, she explains. Since its inception, tens of thousands of Op-Eds have run in The Times, and this odd-sounding name for an outsider's contribution has grown storied.

"But it’s time to change the name," Kingsbury writes. "It is a relic of an older age and an older print newspaper design. So now, at age 50, the designation will be retired."

So what will "Op-Eds" be called?

“Guest Essays."

OMG. At the risk of seeming stupid, what the hell is Kingsbury thinking?

Does "Op-Ed" trigger her gerontophobia? And what has she got against anachronisms, anyway? We use them all the time. 

Inbox. Dashboard. Brand. Logo. Icon. Cliché. Blueprint. Horsepower. Icebox. Gaslight. Rewind. Typecast. Ditto. Above board. Hot off the press. Cut and paste. Pull out all the stops. Glove compartment. Kodak moment. Lock, stock and barrel.

Sure, anachronisms are fossils, but they satisfy us perfectly well. When we say, "What a doozy," do we worry no one drives a Duesenberg any more? We do not. And if you do worry, maybe you should start calling the morning "paper" the morning "electron mass," and the "front page" the "upper screen."

How ironic that Kingsbury has chosen to cancel "Op-Ed" right now because, in her words, "the geography of the public square is being contested" (italics mine). Watch out, Times readers! The rabble is gathering to cancel anachronisms!

Worse yet, what's up with "Guest Essay?" Could you possibly ask for a name more jejune, juvenile and barren? It sounds like something you'd leave the manager at a Marriott when checking out.

Kingsbury claims she's cancelling "Op-Ed" because it's "clubby newspaper jargon."

"In an era of distrust in the media, I believe institutions better serve their audiences with direct, clear language. We don’t like jargon in our articles; we don’t want it above them, either."

But would you call these "Guest Essays?"

"I asked Mandela if, when he was walking away from confinement for the last time, he felt hatred. He said, "I did, but I knew that if I continued to hate them as I drove away from the gate, they would still have me.' Our world is awash in 'us' versus 'them' thinking. Nelson Mandela’s life remains a rebuke to that kind of thinking."

— Bill Clinton, from a 2018 Op-Ed in News24

"The Mole in the Oval image is not as crazy a theory as it was a year or two ago. The president clearly has something to hide. While Trump is not an 'agent' of the Russian Federation, it seems at this point beyond argument that the president personally fears Russian President Vladimir Putin for reasons that can only suggest the existence of compromising information."

— Tom Nichols, from a 2019 Op-Ed in USA Today

"Americans are not good at talking about death. But we need to be prepared for when, not if, illness will strike. The coronavirus is accelerating this need. Our collective silence about death, suffering and mortality places a tremendous burden on the people we love. We should not be discussing our loved one’s wishes for the first time when they are in an ICU bed, voiceless and pinned in place by machines and tubes."

— Sunita Puri, from a 2020 Op-Ed in The New York Times

"Despite what my Republican colleagues may claim, the reality is that when you take into account federal income taxes, payroll taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and property taxes, we have an extremely unfair tax system that allows billionaires to pay a lower effective tax rate than many workers. That must change. We need a progressive tax system based on the ability to pay, not a regressive tax system that rewards the wealthy and the well-connected."

— Bernie Sanders, from a 2021 Op-Ed in CNN Business

In my book, these aren't "Guest Essays." They're impassioned critiques, heartfelt lines in the sand. They'd blow any Marriot manager's mind—as they're meant to blow ours.

They're Op-Eds.

To her credit, I suppose, Kingsbury believes in her "Guest Essay" label sincerely, because she's focus-grouped it. "Readers immediately grasped this term during research sessions and intuitively understood what it said about the relationship between the writer and The Times," she writes.

I'd only remind her New Coke focus-group tested well, too, and it caused Coke-aggedon.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity," Einstein said. "And I'm not sure about the former."

Stay tuned (another anachronism) for Op-Edggedon.

The Good Old Days

To realize how fumbled the current vaccine rollout is, we can look back to 1947, when a single case of smallpox in New York City led to the vaccination of six million people in less than a month.

— Marc Siegel

As of today, Americans have received 231 million jabs. We're bungling our way through the pandemic.

When blowhards like Marc Siegel insist America can't manage its way out of a paper bag—that we can't do anything like we did in "the good old days"—my blood pressure surges.

Does he think we were always "exceptional" during past crises? That our execution was always flawless?

We weren't. It wasn't. 

Consider only one crisis.

During World War II, over 52,000 Americans died in aerial combat; another 26,000 died in training accidents. 

Training accidents. These dead never saw a German or Japanese target.

It's no surprise. 

We hired companies like GM and Packard—which had never produced a single airplane—to rush-ship planes by the tens of thousands, planes that were rife with design flaws; and then asked men who'd never been in an airplane to fly them. 

With the massive and hurried increase in aircraft production came a commensurate increase in crashes. America lost 23,000 planes in aerial combat; 42,000 in training accidents.

Anxious airmen in training gave the clunky B-24—the most-produced of American bombers—the dreary nickname the “flying coffin.”

So much for exceptional. 

So much for flawless.

We've always bungled through.

And will again.

Travesty

This disease controls my life.

— Dietrich Hectors

As depicted in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's new documentary "Hemingway," a wartime concussion—one of five he suffered in his time—left the writer with a little-discussed condition: tinnitus. 

Even the documentary fails to discuss it. Hemingway's chronic tinnitus gets one mention in six hours of narration.

Debilitating tinnitus—not just “ringing in the ears,” but buzzing, hissing, whistling, swooshing, and clicking in the ears—afflicts 20 million Americans, according to the CDC.

Who pays attention? 

Almost no one.

But tinnitus, "the perception of sound when no actual external noise is present," drives millions of Americans to despair and leads some sufferers to suicide, even though medical researchers deny a causal connection.

Last month, Texas Roadhouse CEO Kent Taylor killed himself after Covid-19 left him with tinnitus. 

In recent years, tinnitus has led many other distinguished people to end their own lives, including rock musician Craig Gill, management consultant Robert McIndoe, graphic designer Rick Tharp, and industrial engineer Dietrich Hectors (who left a heart-wrenching "farewell letter" on Facebook).

I wouldn't suggest Hemingway's 1961 suicide stemmed from his chronic tinnitus. 

The writer suffered from a mountain of other maladies, including traumatic brain injury, hemochromatosis, and alcoholism. Medically speaking, he was an unmitigated mess. 

But tinnitus could only have worsened his torment.

According to the American Tinnitus Association, when you consider lost earnings, lost productivity, and medical outlays, tinnitus costs the nation $26 billion a year. Yet tinnitus goes unrecognized by Medicare and Medicaid, and federal funds for basic research are paltry—stifling innovation and the chance of a cure.

Last year, the feds spent only $400 million on hearing-related research. In contrast, it just spent $500 million on Covid-19 relief in St. Louis—alone.

How so atrocious an affliction can remain ignored is a travesty.

NOTE: If you suffer chronic "ringing in the ears," contact the American Tinnitus Association for help.