The Contours of Catastrophe: The Villain II

The Contours of Catastrophe: The Villain II

 

Good Guys Wear Masks, Too
The mask is not, of course, solely a furnishing of villains; good guys need them too–for them anonymity allows them to function free of social entanglement. In Pixar’s The Incredibles (itself a melange of reference, meta reference, and meta-meta reference), while capes may be a point of contention,  the mask is obligatory and ubiquitous. Mrs. Parr (whose marital status is an essential point of conflict, a fulcrum between the quotidian and the spectacular, as is post-super weight gain), when cutting the family loose as superheros, gives the mask over to her daughter like a royal scepter with a speech about the preciousness of her anonymity.

The Lone Ranger wore a mask, so essential to the story as to be invisible, possibly more so than Silver, the William Tell Overture–certainly not Tanto. So much so that Clayton Moore (the actor who played the original TV Lone Ranger) refused to part with his when signing autographs at car shows or presiding over the openings of shopping malls. Litigation ensued; ultimately stripped of his mask Moore opted for a pair of Foster Grant sunglasses.


Zorro, Robin, Green Lantern, et al. While for good guys the mask is a component of the secret identity they guard so jealously, in the case of villains, the need for a disguise is more self-evident.

There are of course more elaborate disguises–such a Captain America’s striped cowl, or Batman’s–which include a pair of quasi-skeumorphic ears–or Spiderman’s total coverage. As noted in the prior installment, while a mask’s capacity to disguise seems to exceed its surface area, in Superman’s case it suffices to remove articles of clothing to disguise himself! Suspension of disbelief or confirmation bias?

The Everyday Villian
And there are famous non-disguised villains throughout history, among them Benedict Arnold, John Wilkes Booth (who, though largely uncostumed, did have the long moustache of Snidely’s ilk, and of course, Lee Harvey Oswald.

As a disguised but still “regular guy”-bad guy, the bank robber is an exception, for a number of reasons: the fact that they might like to repeat the act, the ubiquity of electronic surveillance and eyewitnesses, and the likelihood that they won’t stray as far. Their disguises are nevertheless quotidian: a simple hardware store-balaclava will suffice. Or sunglasses. A surgical mask. The classic nylons. Or, almost nothing at all. Oh–in a pinch, a simple plastic bag will suffice.

The balaclava--de riguer for TV and real bank robbers alike...

The Villain Denuded
Dillinger (and other infamous “career” thiefs like Clyde Barrows) and Patty Hearst are exceptions to the necessity of disguise. In the case of the former, their notoriety had a sort of terrorist and cause célèbre effect–plenty of either cowed or supportive eyewitnesses and little in the way of electronic surveillance of course. In the case of the latter, evidence of a kidnapping victim’s co-optation may have been seen to lend some additional legitimacy to the SLA’s rather muddled cause .

(Wikimedia Commons)

 

The Identi-kit and (The) Unabom(ber)
For an older set, the broadest exposure we might get in a concentrated amount of time was a gallery of wanted posters in a post office. A great many of these would be only sketches–where a photograph wasn’t available, a sketch from verbal descriptions would be made. And when an official artist wasn’t available, the “Identi-kit” might have been employed. Before computer software versions of basically the sqme thing, the Identi-kit was a combinatorial system for constructing images based on a finite series of facial features–a more everyday version of the “props of evil” combinations cited above.

One of the classic (and, hung in a post office, a bit meta-) suspects to be presented via sketch was the Unabom(ber). Though it’d be his writing style that ultimately led to his conclusive ID and capture, the sketch is a classic, combining a number of quotidian Bad Guy elements cited above for bank robbers, particularly the hoodie and the sunglasses.


The Luddite and the Internet Wunderkammer
In a “final” irony, the U.S. Marshals auctioned off part of the evidence hoard online (including not only the manuscript of the manifesto, but most germane, a set of aviator-style sunglasses and a hoodie), and posted a Flickr set of the lots. At least from a spin perspective, the irony is deliberate:

We will use the technology that Kaczynski railed against in his
various manifestos to sell artifacts of his life. The proceeds will go
to his victims and, in a very small way, offset some of the hardships
they have suffered.

The photos have an evidentiary (with the requisite ruler–labeled “FBI” even) aspect that lends them a a curatorial beauty; virtually anything presented in this way is oddly engaging. The patina of time, the folds and wrinkles of use, the everyday presented without shadows or secrets gives even the most mundane objects a curious beauty.

 

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The Contours of Catastrophe:   The Villain I

The Contours of Catastrophe: The Villain I

Top hat, frock coat, pale skin, and a long curled moustache. His posture is hunched and he rubs his hands together (antes-hoc plotting) or palms are together, fingers pointing skyward (post-hoc plan success, a sort of malevolent namaste).

The Perils of [Insert Damsel’s Name Here]
This is the villain, Snidely Whiplash edition. While we know him from Rocky and Bullwinkle, he’s a meta-child of numerous 19th and 20th century archetypes of villainy, paticularly In silent film. Snidely’s objectives appear to be more tactical and without broad ambitions: Nell Fenwick serves as a pawn to thwart the Dudley Do-Right’sdoing-right, Dudley’s benevolence is predicated on thwarting Whiplash’s efforts. Feedback ensues, and Nell’s adoration is maintained; in Jungian terms they’re a coniunctio oppositorum.

Snidely’s most infamous act consists of tying Nell to railroad tracks with enormous quantities of rope (really, just binding Nell in a cocoon of rope and laying her across the tracks), thus bringing a modicum of suspense to the story.


This post-industrial damsel in distress trope appears to have beginnings in a silent film called “The Perils of Pauline”. In a pre-industrial iteration of that trope, Pauline is tied to a log which is conveyed toward an enormous rotating saw (a variation of this appears most recently in Sherlock Holmes, where Sherlock rescues an erstwhile flame from conveyance to a band saw used for sectioning pigs). That’s merely the 20th century cinematic record; earlier versions appeared on stage and in printed fiction.

The Perils of Pauline

 

The Villain’s Wardrobe
The Moustache
The moustache is one key variable in the evil equation (though the value can be 0–take Blofeld again). Moustache >1 is most important when we’re depicting a villain of yore–contemporary bad guys completely unencumbered by past convention don’t rely on them to telegraph their villainy.

A few villains and their facial hair: (from left) Gangs of New York, Boris Badenov, V for Vendetta

The Hat
Snidely accompanies the frock coat and cape with a top hat–this version of the ensemble often includes a cane. In “Coming Out Party”, Snidely and Dudley trade hats and their roles come with the objects rather than inherent ethical motives–Dudley engages in villainous acts and Snidely works to thwart him (go to 12:52 if you prefer not to tolerate the whole thing; if you’ve read this far, I do recommend the Dudley Do-Right episode).

In the case of “Spy vs. Spy”, the morphological congruence is part of the joke, as only colors of their hats and coats (in this case, there’s no moral linkage between the “black hat” and the “white hat”) distinguish them. Indeed, even their actions (which is of necessity partial, the comic panel acts like a telescope with a narrow view) are undistinguished morally. The near-ubiquitousness of objects like the bomb only reinforces the repetitiveness of their relationship. They’re another instance of the coniunctio oppositorum.

The Monocle
Originally more of a symbol of wealth or sophistication (Monopoly, Charlie McCarthy, Mr. Peanut), once it’s common use as an essential eyepiece faded, it became a more niche item to be employed by a certain flavor of villain.

The monocle is so ubiquitous a trapping that a Homestar Runner (I carpooled with Strong Bad for a while, BTW) macro-Bad Guy goes by the name of “Baron Darin Diamonocle”. In fact he carries another character as a pet a la Blofeld.

The Mask
The mask is an essential accoutrement of a certain sort of villain. As a disguise disguise seems to have magical properties; the mere addition of the mask to an otherwise unaltered character seems to have a capacity to conceal far exceeding its surface area.

The mouth-mask is another variation sported by numerous cultural bad guys, and probably one of the oldest in the villainy wardrobe. My most recent exposure is G.I. Joe’s Cobra Commander (the face mask/goggles/helmet combo is a Cobra standard of course).

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Forever Overhead: GPS and Everyphone

Forever Overhead: GPS and Everyphone

 

KAL 007
In 1983, Soviet fighters detected and shot down a large jet they may have believed was a US RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft–it wasn’t; it was Korean Airlines flight 007–all 269 passengers and crew were killed,including an American Congressman. As well as the RC-135 that was in the air that night, a number of carrier-launched reconnaissance aircraft had been overflying Soviet installations on the Kurile Islands for months as part of the naval component of the notorious NATO operation ABLE ARCHER 83. In Presidential lore, Reagan’s emotional reaction is said to have led to the declassification of GPS in 1983. Ostensibly, he believed that access to these positioning data could be prevent the sort of straying that led to the KAL 007 incident. This sort of emotional response and its ramifications might seem a bit far-fetched, but given his Reagan’s reaction to the TV movie “The Day After” might be less surprising (let’s not forget his zealous pursuit of comprehensive arms control):

Edmund Morris, Reagan’s official biographer, said the film left Reagan “dazed” and produced the only admission he could find in Reagan’s papers that he was “greatly depressed.” Four days later, he said, Reagan was “still fighting off the depression caused by The Day After. (David Hoffman, The Dead Hand p. 91)

The trajectory of KAL 007 into Soviet airspace (CIA)

 

Incidentally, KAL 007 is hardly the only accidental shoot down of a commercial aircraft to have geopolitical significance. Indeed, less than five years later the USS Vicennes would shoot down Iran Air flight 655 (while in Iran’s territorial waters; the plane was also over Iranian territory).

GPS Goes Public
This isn’t the beginning of GPS’s story, but it is a seminal point in public access to the network. The Defense Department’s NAVSTAR GPS program began in 1973, and the first satellite was launched in 1978he though the system was made public in 1983, it was not completed until 1993-995 (the network comprises–among other Earthbound parts of the system–24 1-ton satellites, though the original number was 11, then 18; the full 18 were up in 1985–these were the Block I set, the full 24 were part of the Block II program). There’s significant nuance to the dates, generation and number of the satellites that I’m glossing over here on my way to the point; the Wikipedia article is actually quite comprehensive .

Everyphone
Initially, GPS receivers were restricted to auto-bound or handheld devices used by more serious trekkers, eventually a more commodity-level rental car add-on, and now a normal component of the typical smartphone.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the iPhone was storing the phone’s location data and even sending it periodically to Apple. Note that these were not actually GPS data but locations derived from cell towers and wi-fi hotspots. Apple’s response was that the data were anonymous and used to optimize services based on these data. One problem was the length of time the data were being stored (a year) and the fact that the file was unencrypted. This was addressed soon after by an iPhone firmware update; now the information is only stored for a week (this is, incidentally, not unique to the iPhone–Android captures these data as well). There was at least one successful case of the issue being taken to court in Korea.

This exposure was made by Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden. Somewhat balancing the Foucauldian power relationship, they released an application that would allow users to see these data on a visual map. To be honest, making lemonade until the firmware update I quite enjoyed looking at the data as a sort of Situationist memory device.

Personal trajectory

I also managed to get to... well, see for yourself

The first image hews clearly to the freeways of the Bay Area. Closer zooming gives you a clear enough matrix of locations that you could perhaps trace the streets of San Francisco without the underlaid map. Which reminds me not only of the previously-mentioned North Korea image but also the signature left by a number of cabs trawling the streets of SF via Stamen’s old Cabspotting webapp (good gravy, that was 2006!):

cabspotting.org

 

Panopticon 2.0
(as in Web 2.0–as in the user-contributed content sense)
I was meaning here to invoke check-ins on Facebook and the like via location-aware mobile devices. Looking up Foursquare, I find out they’re not without a sense of humor (or perhaps–unlike the 90s when I was apparently cleverer–the obvious)–I’ve now realized not so clever or cynical, as it was my own confused Googling. Still:

An amusing accident...

 

Crowdflow.net produced a wonderful visualization of the movement of 880 iPhones in Europe this April (submitted willingly of course!) I find it oddly similar–when not in motion–to the satellite image of North vs. South Korea at night posted in a prior Forever Overhead:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI7yQnRy7QQ[/youtube]

And of course more conventionally, GPS data have been used for years to track the movements of criminals via anklets and other penal jewelry. The Atlantic has a wonderful article on this contemporary Panopticon.

Reagan’s original statement on KAL 007:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTumUgLLyL0[/youtube]

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South Sudan Joins the Community of “Nations”

South Sudan Joins the Community of “Nations”

States, Counties, Nations, and Nation-states

Though the term “nation” is being bandied about liberally, the point is not really that South Sudan is a nation now but that it’s a sovereign State distinct from the Republic of Sudan. There are of course few places where a unified ethnic, religious, or linguistic (etc.) entity is enclosed by a single border, so it’s more a matter of degree in a post-Westphalian world. South Sudan (composed largely of black Christians vs Sudan’s Arab Muslim population) is, for instance, closer to the “nation” end of that spectrum than Afghanistan–to be rudimentary, this at least partly motivated the 21 years of Sudan’s *last* civil war. There are of course always fractal strata of nuance that cause the definition to drift the deeper you go.

It’s useful to reserve the term especially when we consider the presence or absence of “nationalism” as a threat or obstacle to a unified State (rather prominent in the case of Afghanistan, for instance).

Nation Branding

Despite this railing against what may seem a mere semantic (in the pejorative sense) issue, I do find some of the “Nation Branding” material engaging (the term is cute too). This article on the naming of what became the Republic of South Sudan is interesting:

In fact, another suggestion most Southern Sudaneses don’t like either is ‘Southern Sudan’. They discard it because the name raises fears that this name would also confuse people, as many people would think that ‘Southern Sudan’ is the Southern region within Sudan, and not a different country.

But while there are ones who oppose the ‘Sudan’ word, there are others who don’t want to lose it. The latter consider their region to be the real ‘Sudan’, while the Northern part, which has become arabized and islamized, is not. They unpolish semantics to substantiate it. ‘Sudan’, they say, etymologically means in Arabic ‘land of the black people’, which is how fairer-skinned Arabs called the lands of conquered black tribes under their power. So this would justify that the name ‘Sudan’ makes more sense in the blacks-populated South than in the Arab-occupied North.

Nationalism and the “Arab Spring”

The “nation” question has has some import when we consider the “Arab Spring”: national unity is one reason the stability of an emerging Egyptian state may have some legs–there’s more of an underlying nation there (not to mention infrastructure and institutions which don’t rely on the regime for their legitimacy) than, say, Libya. Though the site of an ancient civilization like Egypt, Libya lacks a unifying nationalism. Another example: Belgium is not a nation, though of course it is a State. Though ethnic/linguistic cohesion is not the only source of nationalism, it is interesting that Iran, for instance, is only 51% Persian.


Wilson’s promise of “self determination” has, indeed, had some tragic results.

#193

At the time of writing, the Republic of South Sudan has been recognized by 53 UN member states, Ban Ki-Moon’s written his op-ed and South Sudan is on the verge of being the 193rd member state. UPDATE: clearly the “time of writing” has past, there was the UNSC resolution, a General Assembly vote, and now South Sudan is the 193rd member of the United Nations.

While the country may not yet have an official capitol building, the world has another geopolitical metonym–Juba–akin to “Washington” or “Brussels”. E.g., “This week Juba decided to…”

While South Sudan’s may not yet have an official national stadium, they have already contested their first national soccer match.

Awkward!

Omar al-Bashir’s complicity in the secession and recognition of South Sudan was critical, and his presence at the independence ceremonies had some value. On the other hand, his complicity in civil war and atrocity is a bit of a problem: he’s been indicted for war crimes by the ICC, and there are plenty of other attendees who’d supported that indictment, or would simply rather not be photographed next to him or–even worse–shaking his hand. But his proximity to the new heads of state at these ceremonies is useful to both local parties, though for different reasons (perhaps “guilt by association” for one, the opposite for the other”)

South Sudanese officials are sensitive to these largely Western concerns and are choreographing a delicate diplomatic dance to avoid awkward encounters. (The Washington Times)

REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

 

The World’s Seating Chart
While there is some question regarding how and when they get their (physical) General Assembly seat–the hall is full (with 192 UN member States, another sovereign non-member observer–the Holy See–and a non-sovereign observer–Palestine); for a country that’s now independent after extremely significant tribulations, this is hyper-trivial.

A game of diplomatic musical chairs will be required because the hall of the General Assembly is full. The UN is looking at squeezing in another desk, but it could also mean moving the non-state entities The Holy See and the Palestinian observer group out of the hall. (CBC)

Incidentally, the seating arrangement is alphabetical by State name (they select their denomination–in this case they’ll choose between Republic of South Sudan and South Sudan), but the starting seat is chosen through an annual drawing. Currently Turkmenistan occupies the starting seat and Turkey the last.

From Civil War to International Armed Conflict
Out of 620,000 square kilometers area South Sudan has less than 100km of paved roads. Sudan has only 15% literacy, and its average life expectancy is 55 years. Public health and infrastructure are two sources of legitimacy–improving either by substantial degrees will take time to say the least.

Security is another source of legitimacy. Establishing formal borders between the two countries is going to be fraught, particularly over Abyei, the Blue Nile state and how to split South Kordofan. Sudan’s acknowledgement of South Sudan’s sovereignty came with the caveat as being “within the 1956 borders”: this tees off the Abyei and South Kordofan disputes as part and parcel of that acknowledgement, almost as fait accompli.

And South Kordofan is rich in oil–like Kirkuk in Iraq, the loss of which in a referendum (an this case, though, just part thereof rather than the subject itself). Instead of eliminating bloodshed, one subject of civil war becomes an issue of international dispute and combat. Like Sudan’s President Bashir, the recently “elected” governor of South Kordofan is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

USAID (2001)

Ironically, the state of Unity is not, for the most part, disputed, though its oil fields are.

Challenges Ahead
The UNSC has voted to send 7,000 peacekeepers to South Sudan to “support” the establishment of the border; thus the UNMISS replaces the outgoing UNMIS. On top of the 4,200 Abyei-bound. Ethiopian peacekeepers. In a sense, in gaining independence these border disputes graduate from civil war to Internationally Armed Conflict.

FP has a good summary of the challenges ahead.

Despite all these troubles, it’ll be interesting to watch the formation of a new country (there are plenty of new countries–but not with this level of recognition). Along with two civil wars, and millions dead, this formal secession is the result of a vote. The sound of newly-minted South Sudanese watching their flag being raised is compelling.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB6qIQu4bIo[/youtube]

National Logos
By the way, also via nation-branding.info we have this rather literal chart of various countries’ “logos”:

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Camouflage et Couture

Camouflage et Couture

BCBG Max Azria

 

Razzle Dazzle camouflage

 

BCBG Max Azria

 

…or:

(h/t my wife)

 

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