don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the nazi party

Writing for Gizmodo’s Paleofuture, blogger and correspondent Matt Novak gives us a crucial reminder that too few realised the nature of the ascendant Third Reich’s National Socialist Workers’ Party (and perhaps of that minority, too many were either complicit or silent) when as early as 1933, they had opened their first concentration camps nor as late as 1939 when a Nazi rally was held in Madison Square Garden.
This trans-Atlantic acceptance (which surely translated to diminishing concerns elsewhere as well) was due at least in part to US media moguls and public-relations agents, including Edward L Bernays (previously) who we see receiving retainers as foreign agents to push spin and propaganda similar to, adjusted for inflation, to the fees we are catching wind of today—as testament to how under-valued democracy and freedom is. Change is gradual and we can too easily become inured to it, especially when boundaries are trampled on and such behaviour is normalised by the media and given enough of a narrative that the safest among us are the most precarious and under threat.

story of the week

If you haven’t already done so, do yourself a favour and make reading the blog of educator, writer and presenter, Seth Godin a part of your daily practise and digest.
His succinct words of advice reminds that what’s vital, important and true can be communicated lucidly and in a way that is accessible to all and sundry. We can all use this sort of gentle reminder to get our lives in order and to help keep things in perspective. Whatever one’s journey, lasting change for the better requires tremendous effort but the outcome will make one cringe for having settled for less and not improving sooner.  The particular link above directs one to the most viewed and shared post from the week but any place you start I can virtually guarantee you’ll like where you wind up.

money laundering

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has recently raised alarm over the safety of its agents and intermediaries due to the potential for currency seized during drug raids to be covered with deadly chemicals and has been soliciting for contracts to decontaminate fiat tender.  Despite the lack of scientific backing for the dangers, the DEA is vigorously pursuing this initiative and has even expressed an unwillingness to risk counting the cash before sending it off to the cleaners.

cantril’s ladder

Princeton psychology professor Hadley Cantril (*1906 - †1969) made significant contributions to the field, looking into the applications in polling and propaganda and was in a way responsible for making political allegiance a contemporary defining trait—or at least a topic of discussion and amplification.
Studying in Münchin and Berlin in the 1930s and examining the panic that the 1938 Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds as a radio drama caused, Cantril devoted his work into public opinion research, building on the work of George Gallop. Working through the seemingly paradoxical results he was discovering—particularly among the American polis—Cantril developed a gauge for self-anchoring, a cognitive bias (previously) that affect decision-making by relying too heavily on initial information at the cost of ignoring subsequent results, which is perniciously difficult to avoid.