He'll Beat Aufidius' Head Below His Knee

And tread upon his neck...

And that's his mother talking!  Coriolanus is a marvelous film adaptation of the Shakespeare play of the same name.  This production was helmed by first time director Ralph Fiennes and is my favorite film based on Shakespeare since Kenneth Branagh's Henry V.  I'd heard of the play before but never read it or seen it performed.  Like others of his plays, this one holds the people of Rome - that malodorous mob of ignorant, fickle curs - in very low regard.  Of course the cynical, backstabbing tribunes of Rome come in for yet another drubbing.  On the plus side, this is a world where television news anchors deliver headlines and analysis in iambic pentameter.  In addition to Fiennes Coriolanus features excellent performances by Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, and Vanessa Redgrave.  I commend it to you.

Sensible Guidance

Against a horrible crime...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken some well-earned knocks over the last ten years for goofy plans, media blunders, and agencies gone wild.

Their recent Human Trafficking Awareness Video for First Responders, an element of the agency's Blue Campaign, is a horse of another color.  Sensible, straight-forward, and well produced, it offers simple advice to first responders - primarily meaning police, fire, and emergency medical personnel - who may encounter victims of trafficking.  It is a nice piece of civic-minded work.

I like this short video (there are others) and related materials for the Blue Campaign so much I forwarded it on to my team, my peers, and members of my professional association.  We may convince ourselves that it cannot happen in our company or at its vendors, so let's just watch it and say we might just encounter it in the homes of the well to do, on the streets of our cities, or in the fields where our meals are grown.  And by knowing a little about the pernicious practice we might recognize it and do something about it.

For Your Consideration

Notorious angry atheist Jerry Coyne opines on Alvin Plantiga...

In a post at his Why Evolution Is True blog Professor Coyne is discussing the theology proposed by notorious Christian theologian, philosopher, and apologist Alvin Plantiga.  Coyne is called out by detractors in his comments section and elsewhere for lack of philosophical rigor, but in the course of his post a statement rung a few bell for me.

"Theology is not an honest attempt to find the truth, but a post facto rationalization of what the theologian already believes."

I've long pondered the question of where the dividing line between faith and the lack of it occurs.  It appears to me the binary bit is an emotional commitment to a faith.  If you have the emotional spark then religious faith, your preferred brand of theology, comfort with the utterances of those in your chosen faith community all make sense.  Without the spark all the traditions, bible stories, theologizing, and apologetics fail to resonate; the traditional arguments for God simply are not compelling.  (I lack experience with faith's that value orthopraxy over orthodoxy so this may or may not apply to those as well.)

What say you?

A Nasty Little Story

Skillfully wrought...

Roman Polanski's new movie Carnage is based upon the Tony Award-winning comedy God of Carnage written by French playwright Yasmina Reza.

It takes a bitterly cynical thrill in piercing, lifting, then shredding the characters' hypocritical veneers to expose the racism, sexism, classism, and marital discord that suppurates beneath.

Powerful performances by Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet, and John C. Reilly only make the ever more vicious excoriations all the more painful.

Carnage reminds me of the similarly self-indulgent Six Degrees of Separation in that it passes as deep only to people too wrapped up in their hip urban sensibility to realize they are the characters being viciously lampooned.

Not everyone shares my dim regard for Carnage.  I passed on a chance to attend the play at the Guthrie last year because I feared it would be exactly as unpleasant as the movie turned out to be.  For some reason I entertained some hope the movie would be as engaging as it is well done.  Oh well.  When my friend asked if we could leave before it ended I was happy to go.

An Existential Threat?

To the Republic and its Citizens?

While engaging in a LinkedIn discussion at the Workplace Violence group John Byrnes invited us to visit his Aggression Management blog to review a recent post highlighting the difference between probability and predictability in workplace violence cases.

His post used the recently interrupted alleged plot by Amine El Khilifi to carry out a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol as an example for his concerns.  My initial response reads as follows:

I respectfully submit that the current Washington DC case is a poor example for your method (or any other) of aggression management. It sounds very much like most other domestic terrorism cases since 9/11 in which the alleged conspiracy was encouraged and supported by a confidential informant working under the direct control of the FBI or other agency to make certain the case contains all the elements necessary for a federal prosecution. What does your system of threat management (or anyone else's) have to say about persons who encourage others to commit unlawful violent activity for the purpose of criminal prosecution?

In his reply John issued a challenge to my perspective.  After further reflection, I wrote:

Rather than missing your point, I regret I did not make my point strongly enough.

What does your program do to detect (if not mitigate) the contribution of “Complicit Tacticians” (whether genuine or embedded by the FBI) as a potential terrorist moves through his stages of aggression?

As for your challenge “Are you prepared to absolutely guarantee that all future Islamic Radical Converts (Lone Wolves) will only approach FBI informants?” I submit that a potential terrorist who is promised cash, collaborators, guns, bombs, and missiles by FBI confidential informants is, by definition, anything but a “lone wolf.” What’s more, while the DOJ and the FBI are careful to craft cases which are resistant to the defense of entrapment, I question the wisdom and ethics of having a CI contribute to the alleged perpetrator’s ideation, encouragement to deadly action, and refinement of the plan, deliberately serving as a “Complicit Tactician,” if I understand your parlance correctly. Law enforcement plays a dangerous and potentially deadly game when it participates in terrorist conspiracies in order to prosecute them.

To that end I’ll issue a counter-challenge. Are federal law enforcement officials prepared to absolutely guarantee that a conspirator encouraged and equipped by a confidential informant will never shake his handler and engage in a murderous act which might never have seen the light of day but for the contributions made by investigators?

In closing, I added:

Finally, on closer inspection, I take issue with your opening statement:

“The greatest threat to our Nation and its Citizens is the perpetrator of murder/suicide, whether a ‘Lone Wolf’ terrorist or simply the individual who shoots his estranged wife at a local supermarket then walks out to the parking lot and kills himself; a phenomenon that we are seeing on the rise in every community.”

By what measure is lone wolf terrorism or intimate partner workplace violence an existential threat to the republic or its citizens? And by what measure do you claim that acts of either type are on the rise in every community?

UPDATE: John responded at the LinkedIn group in part:

"You ask the question, 'By what measure is lone wolf terrorism or intimate partner workplace violence an existential threat to the republic or its citizens?' I have not stated, nor suggested, that lone wolves are an existential threat to our republic. I have stated that among human aggressors, the perpetrator of murder/suicide is the most lethal."

I suppose I could have read his statement that way...maybe I'm getting too twitchy on this topic.  John responded to my other points directly at his blog.  I'm going to reflect further on this.