It Was 20 Years Ago Today… My Personal Experience of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Twenty years ago today, an event occurred that would have a lasting impact on me both personally and professionally:  The Berlin Wall came down.  No, I am not Eastern European, nor was I a reporter covering this; I was just another 9-year-old sitting on the floor in my parent’s living room one evening while they watched the evening news.  Looking back, I have to wonder what my parents were thinking at that earth-shattering moment.  My parents were both military brats who grew up during the Cold War.  My maternal Grandfather was actually stationed in Germany at the time the Wall went up, and as Mom recounts it, was gone for several days without coming home during that particular crisis.  For my Parents, this must have been an unbelievable experience, the Berlin Wall; symbol of the Cold War in all its overwhelming tyranny was coming down without a shot being fired.

As a 9-year-old, I admit my full understanding of the significance of the events I was witnessing was rather limited.  Having grown up in the wide-open suburbs of Southern California, the thought of a gigantic wall totally bisecting a major city seemed a bit ludicrous to me.  Being an inquisitive child, I began to bombard my mother with all manner of questions.  “Why had there been a wall in the first place?”  “Why were the Soviets in Germany?”  And many other similar questions.  My Mother, longsuffering soul that she was, laid out for her son the basic outline of the sad and sordid history of the 20^th Century across Europe, explaining about the Second World War, Nazism and the eventual Cold War that arose from the Allied occupation.

Such explanations might have been enough for some “normal” children, but being an admitted “freak” I wanted to know more.  I read numerous books on the subject, passing a summer in High School reading William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich just for the heck of it.  Everything I read took me back further and further from the erection of the wall in August 1961.  I read about the war, and then about the Third Reich, and then about the Weimar Republic.  Finally I got to the First World War and had to admit that I was hooked.  There is something about the narratives of trench warfare on the Western Front, in all their starkly macabre horror, that grasp a hold on one’s imagination and refuse to let it go.

Hence, upon my graduation from High School, I chose to become a history major, and upon my graduation from college, chose to go on, and study history in Graduate School.  My chosen field is Modern Germany and while the time period which I seek to study (I haven’t written my Dissertation yet, so much of this is still in the future tense) is considerably earlier than the rising of the Wall, (I want to focus on the Weimar Republic) I nonetheless freely admit that my interest in the study of history, was inspired by witnessing history in the making as a child.

Further Reading:  German Chancellor Angela Merkel thanks former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for his key reforms that made the fall of the wall possible. (AP)

And Once Again, The World Asks Why

Yesterday, at approximately 12:30 local time, a gunman opened fire at a graduation ceremony at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas.  In the end 12 people were killed, and another 31 reported wounded.  The attacker, a Major Nidal Malik Hassan, was a psychologist on the base specializing in Combat trauma.  He had recently received his deployment orders and was reported to have been vehemently opposed to his posting to Iraq.

Yes, I know, It’s Friday, traditionally today is a day in which the humorous takes precidence here, but it seemed somewhat crass to speak of jokes in the shadow of yet another atrocity such as this.

Having come of age with the Columbine High School Massacre, the story here seems all too familiar to me.  A loner, alienated from his peers and facing a situation he does not want to confront, picks up a gun and seeks to exit this life in a gruesomely violent fashion.  From what preliminary reports show, it would appear Major Hassan got exactly what he wanted, with a local police officer, Officer Kimberly Munley, finally bringing his reign of terror to an end, while being shot in the process.  (For the record, Officer Munley is reported in stable condition at a local hospital, the staff of The Loadstone Rock wishes her a speedy and uncomplicated recovery)

And yet there is something strikingly perverse about this whole situation.  Yes, these are soldiers, many of whom had just come home from putting their lives on the line abroad, and others who faced that soon.  But to paraphrase President Obama, as awful as it is to recieve word of losing American soldiers in combat, it is all the more awful to lose them here at home, where ostensibly, they ought to be safe.  Furthermore, Major Hassan was a psychologist who treated men coming back from combat for PTSD, how utterly disgusting it is to see a man whose life had been devoted to putting men back together, turn to destroying the very men he had been working to save.

And then there is the question of the attacker’s religion.  It sickens me to even bring this up, but Major Hassan was a Muslim.  As such the Army and the FBI are already (and quite understandably) searching his background to see if this really was a violent breakdown a la Columbine, or whether this was something far more sinister.  It is a sickening thing where a part of me hopes that this was the act of a deranged fool, and not an act of terrorism, because already it has produced endless grist for the mills of those whose daily bread is a mixture of paranoia and hatred.

Nevertheless, whatever of  the motives of the shooter, (who took the coward’s exit, depriving us of even an answer) our deepest sympathies go out to the families of the slain.  May they know comfort in the hour of their loss and may they be bound up in the arms of a loving deity, who will give them peace in this time of awful torment.

***UPDATE***

The death toll has risen to 13 (one of the injured has died in the hospital) and the shooter, Major Hassan, is still alive, in stable condition.  An Army spokesperson has stated that as soon as he is physically able he will be interrogated.

Election 2009 Post-Mortem : Reading the Tea-Leaves

Off-year elections are, by nature exceptions to the rule.  Voter turnout tends to be lower, contests tend to be more local, and with the lack of coat-tails from national candidates and national campaigns, the outcomes can defy the standard predictions or trends of on-year elections.  Hence, one ought to remember the late Tip O’Neill’s maxim that in the end “all politics is local” while interpreting  the results of last night’s elections, and be careful, lest we mistake the statistical exception for the rule.

Virginia – Governor’s Race

Republican Robert McDonald wiped the floor with Democrat Creigh Deeds, beating him 58.7% to 41.3% with 99% of precincts reporting, a margin of more than 200,000 votes.  While the defeat of a Democratic candidate in a state that went blue last November appears ominous for the Obama Administration, it is notable that McDonald ran his campaign from the center, portraying himself as a moderate reformer.  Deeds, on the other hand, ran a lackluster campaign in which he kept the White House at arms-length for much of the campaign, and as such alienated various groups (most notably the youth vote) that propelled Obama to victory in that state a year ago.

New Jersey – Governor’s Race

Another clear defeat for the Democrats, Incumbent Governor John Corzine was defeated by Republican challenger Chris Christie 48.9% to 44.5% with 99% of precincts reporting.  Christie won by a margin of slightly more than 100,000 votes.  It is fair to say that Corzine’s defeat is a setback for the Obama Administration as the President campaigned heavily alongside Governor Corzine this year.  Two issues stand out in this race:  1st, Corzine’s term in the Governor’s office had been marred by scandal and corruption, making him understandably unpopular in the eyes of the New Jersey electorate.  Regardless of President Obama’s popularity, a candidate with negatives as high as Corzine faced an uphill battle no matter what.  Second, this Governor’s race was an actual, credible three-way race for much of the campaign.  While Independent candidate Christopher Daggett only polled 5.7% in the final tally, his campaign polled much higher throughout previous months and served as an interesting spoiler.

New York House District 23

If any race this election was going to give us a taste of things to come on a national scale, this was the likely one.  The race to replace Representative John McHugh, (R) who had retired to become the Army Secretary in the Obama Administration, took place in a district in upstate New York which had predictably sent Republicans to the House for nearly 150 years.  Unwisely deciding not to hold a primary, the local Republican leaders chose Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava as their candidate.  Scozzafava, a noted moderate with left-leaning opinions on Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage proved anathema for the more conservative elements in the district, which rallied behind Conservative Party Doug Hoffmann.  These defections, coupled with national-level interference by groups such as FreedomWorks, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who weighed in to support Hoffmann lead Scozzafava to drop out of the race and support the Democratic candidate Bill Owens.  Owens ended up defeating Hoffmann with 49% to 45% with 91% of the precincts reporting.

Maine Same-Sex Marriage Referendum

Maine voters chose to overturn the legislation legalizing same-sex marriage by a margin of 53%-47%.  This is a serious setback for the same-sex marriage movement, as it is the first defeat they’ve suffered in New England, which, outside of Iowa, has been the only region of the country to consistently favor legalization.  It is notable also in the fact that, when taken to a referendum, legalization of same-sex marriage is now 0-31, having failed each time it has been brought up to a vote.

In context

So what does all this mean?  Heck if I know.  The defeats of Democratic candidates for the Gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey might suggest a Republican resurgence, but these are state races, and deal as much with local issues and the intricacies of each state’s byzantine political culture as it does with affairs on the national level.  Furthermore, between Deeds’ weak campaign and Corzine’s negatives, one could argue that they were effectively low-hanging fruit prime for harvesting.  The New York House race is also a freakish incident.  While the strong showing of Doug Hoffman certainly shows the robust strength and potential of the Tea Party Movement and their national allies, it is notable that the only real victory scored here was the removal of a moderate from the running, they still lost the seat.  Should the race in NY-23 prove the pattern for the Congressional Races in 2010, it’s effects on both the composition and size of the Republican Congressional delegations ought to be interesting to watch.  Finally the outcome of the Maine referendum is truly more of the same.  The activists battle for marriage equality will not be won at the ballot box any time soon.

Mormon Muffins? Oh, good grief, here we go again.

So Chad Hardy, (he of the shirtless Missionary calendar) is back in the news these days with yet another serving of Mormon cheesecake.  This time, instead of featuring bare-chested return missionaries as the objects of carnal desire to decorate his calendars, he has hit upon a time-honored strategy, bikini-clad Mormon women.  Clearly Mr. Hardy is attention starved.  His last foray into religious titillation earned him an excommunication and the revocation of his BYU degree for his trouble, one wonders what he hopes to gain  this time?

Now, as a firm believer in the First Amendment, I accept Mr. Hardy’s rights to put whatever he wants on his calendars, regardless of how distasteful I may find them, after all, I don’t have to buy one.  But that said, to argue that these calendars are anything but a crassly exploitative exercise in sensationalism, mixed with a fair amount of carnality and religious scandal is to be naive.  Mr. Hardy knows that his photos will ruffle some feathers, cause no end of cases of the vapors in Relief Society, and generally send ripples 0f outrage throughout the communities of the Saints.  Obviously this is by design, Mr. Hardy, by his own admission had long been disconnected from the church community at the time of his excommunication, and his actions resemble nothing so much as a bored teenager attempting to get attention through acting up and getting a rise out of the powers that be.  As such, his posturing is both predictable and unimpressive.  If you please Mr. Hardy, go and find some other way to amuse yourself, these stunts are frankly tiresome.

What is truly disappointing in both this case, as well as the prior return missionary calendar, has been the willingness, if not eagerness of members of the church to go along with this crap.  While the participants in this mess the first time around might be excused for naivete (though one wonders what they thought the pictures were being taken for) there is no excuse this time around, Mr. Hardy’s motivations are well-known, he is creating a pin-up calendar, and in volunteering to appear in it, the sisters in question have volunteered to be pin-ups, they know what they’re getting themselves in to.

Now, some might justifiably ask, what the big deal here is, after all these women are not wearing any less clothing than one would likely see on a public beach.  And this is essentially true, such publications as this fall into the hazy demimonde that is not yet quite soft porn, but still bears a degree a taste of the illicit nonetheless. So, what is the actual problem?  In essence, such publications as Mr. Hardy’s reduce the person depicted therein to little more than their physical appearance.  In the end, all that matters is the flesh, to the detriment of the spirit, the character and real nature of the man or woman in question.  They have reduced themselves to little more than the fleshy outer garment, they have objectified themselves, placing the primary emphasis of their identity on their physical appearance, than on their innate person-hood.

Furthermore, and certainly more seriously, the individuals depicted on those calendars who have been endowed have made sacred covenants regarding personal conduct and public modesty, covenants that seem to have been lightly discarded under the current circumstances.  In the eternal perspective, the transitory glory of such notorious fame might seem folly indeed.

Finally there is the question of example-setting to be considered here.  Neither the “return missionaries” last year, nor the “Mormon housewives” this year lived in a vacuum. They live in Wards, with young men and women, who are currently learning the values and virtues of modesty, while dealing with a world which grows increasingly crass and wicked.  What does one suppose those youth think when on the one hand they are constantly encouraged to “live the standards” while on the other they can see Brother so-and-so, or Sister so-and-so publicly and shamelessly flouting those standards.  It ought to be remembered hypocrisy does not end with our own fate, it expands to affect the fates and decisions of many others.

Now, I fully expect that some will dismiss these remarks as my being “puritanical,” paranoid, or perhaps secretly jealous, (because, as anyone who knows me would attest, no one in their right mind would want to see me shirtless.)  So be it.  But the reduction of any man or woman to nothing more than their earthly carcass is a pathetic sight, and the issue is doubly so in the case of those enlightened with a true knowledge of their own divine nature.

If President Obama is a Nazi, then I’m a Burlesque Dancer

We’ve all seen them.  President Obama with that ridiculous mustache that didn’t even look flattering on Hitler, President Obama in a Nazi uniform, giving the Seig Heil, or President Obama on a background of Swastikas.  It is perhaps the most bizarre of any possible criticisms of the current Administration, that the President of the United States is actually a Nazi, and that the Obama Administration somehow heralds the coming of a “Fourth Reich.”  One must wonder at the mental disconnect involved in portraying President Obama as a Nazi.  No, seriously, think about it for a moment – an African-American Nazi.  A Nazi of mixed race, with a White mother and an African father.

To make such arguments, one must display not only a failure to understand even the most basic outline of Nazi racial theory, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what a Nazi is.  To be a Nazi, is to be more than merely a particularly loathsome form of fascist.  To accept Nazism is to accept the idea of the inherent racial superiority of the “Aryans” (people of Nordic, Germanic or Anglo-Saxon descent with blonde hair and blue eyes) and their ultimate destiny to rule over all other races, particularly those considered Untermenschen (sub-humans) which would include those of African descent.  Furthermore, those born of mixed-racial unions, (derogatorily called Mischlinge by the Nazis) were considered particularly abhorrent to the Nazis, for the implicit “pollution” they represented to the supposedly “pure” Aryan gene pool.  With these facts in mind, it should be absolutely clear why it would be impossible for President Obama to be a Nazi, even if becoming such was the fondest desire of his heart.  In fact, if I really need to spell it out for you further, please stop reading now, I probably can’t help you.

I wonder sometimes what the real Nazis would think about such ridiculous claims.  No, I’m not talking about skinheads, or the folks hiding in compounds, or the guys who bring their swastika flags to the nearest cross burning, I mean the real Nazis, the truly despicable men who these fools blindly emulate.  I can see Himmler staring blankly at the signs, failing to understand the argument at all due to his absolute lack of a sense of irony.  Goering on the other hand, who had quite the sense of humor, I see falling into fits of laughter interrupted in the end only by either a heart attack or a stroke.  And finally, what of the old monster himself?  The idea of a mixed-race American Fuehrer would have driven Hitler into hysterics; I can see him entering into a screaming tirade that would have lasted hours, ending only when the ragged Austrian Corporal finally collapsed into a sobbing tantrum.

Now you don’t have to like President Obama, you can even hate him if you want to, it’s a free country.  But calling him a Nazi when it is patently impossible for him to be one is beyond ridiculous, it’s just plain stupid.  Beyond the clear and petty insult to President Obama himself, and his parents, there is the perniciously reductive strategy here of boiling Nazism down to a meaningless symbol of negativity.  While I can hardly deny that Nazism = bad, to leave it at that makes a parody of the magnitude of the crimes of the Third Reich.  When we can compare the regime that was directly responsible for the deaths of millions through a system of planned, industrialized genocide, to a government that is attempting to implement universal health care, we have not added depth or context to the present debate, we have merely cheapened and disrespected the sufferings and losses of those who were the victims of Hitler’s murder machine.   Say what you will about the President, but he is no Nazi, and those who wave around those ridiculous signs, ought to be the first to be grateful for that.

Friday Humor 10/30/09 Part 2: The Glories of Technology

It’s happened to all of us, we’re humming along, inputting some sort of project into the computer, when all of the sudden, up pops a window…  oh crap.  It really never matters what the thing says, it all means the same thing to most of us:  Doom.  Here are a few examples from the latest release of Microsoft 7.  (Not really, but they’re funny anyway)

Friday Humor 10/30/09 Part 1: Hell and Chemistry

As someone who has taken, and nearly failed (never been so happy to get a D- in my entire academic career) Chemistry, the connection between the former and the latter is quite clear, yet this joke, passed on to me by Abaddon, is nonetheless, quite funny.

The following is an actual question given on a  University  of Arizona  chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time.. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely.. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Death of the UC? Protests, Pagentry and the Ruin of the Rising Generation

Today at the UCR clock tower, promptly at the chiming of 1 there was a “die-in” in which numerous students donned their academic attire (caps, gowns, etc) and with an appropriate swoon, mimicked a dramatic death.  Maudlin as such an act might seem, it stands in protest of a very real “death,” that of affordable higher education in the State of California.  I would mourn the UC system’s passing, were it not for the fact, that like any debtor, I happen to owe the deceased a fair sum of money.  Fortunately for the UC, I have the security of knowing that it’s estate will be most thorough in making sure all outstanding debts are paid in full.

The so-called “death” of the UC system has been anything but sudden.  It has been a slow, malingering disorder, that began with the actions of a former Governor, the late and (at least by me) unlamented Ronald Reagan. St. Ronnie, as I will derisively refer to the 40th President of the United States, saw the protest movements of the 1960’s as evidence that UC students did not appreciate the world-class education that they were basically receiving for free, and thus began the time-honored tradition of “student fees” thus beginning, in a single stroke, the impoverishment by-1,000-fee-hikes of the UC student body, while all the while fulfilling the agenda of his shadowy cabal of authoritarian advisers, who dreamed of a libertarian paradise with no public education, and the return to a “natural order” of masters and serfs.  As one who would naturally be categorized in the latter category, you can imagine my immense gratitude to Mr. Reagan for my considerable student debt, in the event of my untimely death, I wonder whether or not I might be able to bequeath it to his estate?

Nevertheless, St. Ronnie is long dead, and is thus only tangentially responsible for the actions that will take place on November 18th and  which have inspired today’s “die-in.”  On that date, the amoral robber barons who style themselves the “Regents” of this University system will meet, and in a fashion dating back to St. Ronnie himself, will vote to once again balance their budget on the backs of those least able to afford it, passing a fee increase of 34%, translating to a raise in tuition of approximately $1,300 per student.  I speak of this as a foregone conclusion for  the Regents answer to no one but Governor Schwarzenegger, and considering his track record with education (he hacked more than $600 Million from the state’s contribution to the UC in order to help plug his own Budget Deficit) my cynicism about their willingness to yield to popular pressure in this matter may be excused.

While I sympathize with those who took it upon themselves to imitate corpses at the tower mall this afternoon, I have to wonder how much actual good such actions really accomplish.  Sure, they draw attention to a cause, but how much of said attention can actually be translated into real world leverage against the Regents?  Sadly, probably not much.  We have learned the lessons about the theatricality of protest from our forebears in the 1960’s, but the key lessons about organization, and use of civil disobedience as leverage against the powers that be seem to be sadly lacking.  In place of sustained, organized and militant actions that seriously disrupt the ability of the administration to ignore taking our concerns into account, we settle for the “grand gesture” which is surely poetic and provides an emotional release, but precious little else.

In the case of the actions of today, Our professors will feel a burst of nostalgia, remembering their “glory days” of activism, the protesters themselves will get the feeling that they are “actually doing something” and the administration can feel good about itself because unlike their predecessors no dogs or fire hoses were set upon the protesters.  In essence, everyone can feel good about themselves, and the status quo remains unchanged.

Am I perhaps being a bit too cynical here?  Perhaps.  I certainly don’t want to devalue either the right of those who chose to protest, nor the bravery of those who participated today, or those who will participate at next month’s Regents meeting.  But this all seems to me to be a little like an eloquent speech given by the condemned from the scaffold.  It may be rousing, moving, even awe-inspiring, but in the end, the lever is pulled, the trap-door releases and the end result is essentially the same as if one had kept silent.  I’m not advising that on November 18th that mobs descend on UCLA to lynch the Regents, but if we are going to participate in an act of defiance, let it be something more forceful than just an  eloquent piece of street theatre to set as our epitaph.  For in reality, what is being buried this year isn’t the UC system, but its student body.

College as High School Redux?

As I was limping back to work from French Class this morning, I chanced to overhear a rather amusing conversation between two strangers heading in my same direction. I freely admit , in the words of the immortal Samwise Gamgee, that I was “dropping eaves” but considering the volume at which the conversation was carried, I would have been hard pressed to ignore it at any rate.

The details of the conversation are of little importance, and even if I could remember them, I would not recount them here, as I am sure, volume aside, the persons in question, volume of their conversation notwithstanding, did not intend for such things to become public record. However the general topic of their conversation was of interest to me, because it revealed a world that has been rather alien to my experience in higher education, the complications and travails of intimate relations within a peer-group.

In the interests of full disclosure, I got married in my sophomore year to my childhood sweetheart, and have therefore gone through the majority of my undergraduate education (as well as my current graduate studies) as that bizarre and awkward anomaly at most universities: The married student. Hence, the complexities of how best to approach “that girl” in lab, etc… have never really played a role in my college life. Which brings me to my bizarre observation of the day: For some of my fellow students, College appears to strongly resemble certain aspects of High School. Yes, I realize that there is no dress code, we actually pay to sit through these classes, and that the strictures around controlled substances and sexual activity are far looser than anything at most High Schools, but it’s interesting how the relationship dynamics seem to remain at a level that I recognized as being basically unchanged from adolescence: Approaching the object of desire, opening a relationship, and determining the nature of said relationship (physically/emotionally, etc…).

Married life is obviously not free of complication. Yet, at the very least, I don’t have to worry about approaching a relative stranger in hope of a connection of one form or another, I already know who’s taking me home, and that’s just fine. As I overheard this conversation however, it became truly clear to me the reason why one often loses one’s single friends when one weds: both sides simply no longer live in the same world. Many of the concerns that weigh most heavily on the single, no longer apply to the married, and the complexities of marriage are equally inapplicable to the single and unattached. (Coming home to a stressed out spouse and an active toddler is probably not a tangential concern, much less a primary one to a young man on the prowl.)

And yet we both still inhabit the same space. It’s like a bizarre form of High School, with some students still retaining a semblance of their adolescent traits, while others (including myself) are slowly transforming into our parents. Weird huh?

Getting Away From it All — Poles of Inaccessibility

Aside from the above being a nifty map, it illustrates an interesting phenomenon in modern society, the question of accessibility. At home I have stowed away in a footlocker somewhere a map that belonged to my great-great uncle, dated from 1941. A world map by National Geographic, it included a detail that would seem bizarre today, a graphic which detailed how much of the earth’s surface was well known, mostly explored, or barely explored. In a day in which I can use Google Earth to look at rock outcroppings in the Rub al-Khali, such ideas seem a bit antiquated, after all, everything is nearby, isn’t it?

The map above proves that such an idea truly just isn’t so. The brightest places on said map are those closest to a major urban center, while the dark places show regions that are more remote, some of which remain a 20-day journey on foot to reach. The article is here, and is fascinating reading.

All of this brings to mind a somewhat separate, yet related topic, the idea of “poles of inaccessibility. These are, on land the regions furthest from the coastline, and therefore the nearest port. However there is also an oceanic pole of inaccessibility, the point farthest from the nearest piece of land. Proof positive that despite our massive expansion over the face of the Earth, there remain plenty of places off the beaten path.