Kubrick and Asperger

Are you familiar with the theory that Stanley Kubrick suffered from a highly functional form of autism called Asperger Syndrome? Here's a snip from an autism website:

People with Asperger's Syndrome usually have normal or above normal IQs. Asperger's can be described as an inability to understand how to interact socially.

Frederic Raphael would likely dispute that Stanley Kubrick had an IQ bigger than his IQ, but Kubrick does hold the Guinness Book World Record for the most number of retakes for a movie at 127. Try to judge for yourself if Stanley Kubrick was a highly functional autistic while watching this documentary. Vivian Kubrick offers the commentary track. She was seventeen when she made this behind the scenes look at the making of The Shining, during which her dad broke the record while directing Shelley Duvall.

Here's more from the InterWebs on AS

Asperger syndrome is one of five Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) and it is increasingly being referred to as an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Asperger syndrome is characterized by deficiencies in social and communication skills. It is considered to be part of the autistic spectrum and is differentiated from other Autism Spectrum Disorders in that early development is normal and there is no language delay. It is possible for people with Aspergers syndrome to have learning disabilities concurrently with Asperger syndrome. Asperger's syndrome is often not identified in early childhood, and many individuals do not receive diagnosis until after puberty or when they are adults. In most cases, they are aware of their differences and recognize when they need support to maintain an independent life. There are instances where adults do not realize that they have Asperger syndrome personalities until they are having difficulties with relationships and/or attending relationship counseling. Recognition of the very literal and logical thought processes that are symptomatic of Asperger syndrome can be a tremendous help to both partners in a close/family relationship.

Aspergers syndrome is sometimes viewed as a syndrome with both advantages and disadvantages, and notable adults with Asperger's syndrome or autism have achieved success in their fields. Prominent Aspergers syndrome-diagnosed individuals include Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon Smith, electropop rocker Gary Numan, Vines frontman Craig Nicholls, and Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon. Some Aspergers syndrome researchers speculate that well-known figures, including Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Glenn Gould, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Stanley Kubrick, had Asperger syndrome because they showed some Aspergers syndrome-related tendencies or behaviors, such as intense interest in one subject, or social problems. Einstein's brain was investigated after his death. Einstein did not start talking until he was three and he frequently repeated sentences obsessively up to the age of seven. As an adult his lectures were notoriously confusing.

Abnormalities in the Sylvian fissure of Einstein's brain could possibly be associated with autism. I also read a biography of Walt Disney and the descriptions of his mercurial character at work, where he fired animators for minor slights, and his poor ability to judge people contrasted with his vast imagination and brilliant insight and creativity suggest Asperger as well. There is a lively debate going on in the InterWebs around these post-mortem diagnosis of famous people who may have suffered from autism. Names like Emily Dickinson, H. P. Lovecraft, Syd Barret, Andy Warhol, Greta Garbo and Paul Cezzane are mentioned as possible "aspies."

Kubrick Bio - Part the Second

Here is a snip from the Stanley Kubrick entry on the All Movie Guide web site:

In 1940 Stanley Kubrick's father Jack, a physician, sent the twelve year old Stanley to Pasadena, California to stay with his uncle Martin Perveler. Stanley was considered intelligent despite poor grades at school and Jack hoped that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as tool for for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.

Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.

In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and The Seafarers (1952)), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1953) in California.

Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents.

More Kubrick documentary shorts from his early days: Flying Padre for RKO

The Seafarers produced for the SIU seafarers union, in three parts:

Meet Napoleon Podcast

For the benefit of the Napoleon curious I have posted this sixty-eight minute podcast of a conversation between two history buffs. The podcast introduces us to the genius of Napoleon, whose story captured the imagination of another genius, Stanley Kubrick, immediately after Kubrick had created the most imaginative film of the Sixties, 2001: A Space Odyssey. You can jump to the four minute mark to get to the meat of the discussion. Depending upon web traffic the file may take a while to completely upload before it is ready to play.

The Four Million Year Jump Cut

TimeOut magazine in London recently asked several big name movie directors to pick a favorite Stanley Kubrick picture. Here is a snip from the article.

Shekhar Kapur (‘Elizabeth’) on ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)(Sci-fi epic loved by stoners and intellectuals alike): ‘Forty years on and we are still trying to comprehend its visual and poetic philosophy – what more can you ask from a film? Just for sheer achievement in the art and technology of cinema, “2001” remains a defining movie for me. It is certainly the film that made me fall in love with cinema and want to become a director. Visually, it was one of the most compelling of its time, setting standards in visual effects that have yet to be bettered. Most people now associate “The Blue Danube” waltz with that amazing cut from the broken bone defying gravity as it sails up in slow motion to the space ship floating in space: a cut that not only leaves the audience to imagine the entire history of human development, but also is one of the best uses of classical music in film that I have ever seen. It still takes my breath away.’

Wonder what Kubrick would make of the YouTubian mashup I posted below? I loved it. I think I found a clip for the Kubrick Napoleon project. While we're on the subject of 2001, check out the new widget in the sidebar. It gives you the "Cliff Notes" to what has been a seemingly imponderable movie to many. I will admit that it takes repeated showings for the story of 2001 to sink in, but it is worth the challenge. It certainly did what Kubrick set out to do, which was to lift the science fiction movie out of a critical genre ghetto. The picture was a masterpiece of film making technique and Kubrick deservedly won his first Oscar for the work of his special effects team.

Kubrick's Archive in the Raw

Here is a snip from an article written by the archivist who prepared material for the current touring exhibition of Stanley Kubrick's archive:

During my time spent on the Stanley Kubrick Estate, I went through more than 1000 boxes, searched former offices and other rooms, cellars, attics, two Portakabins, and the dusty storeroom of a workshop in order to collect memorabilia, photographs, objects, scripts, books and paperwork for the exhibition. I opened boxes that had not been opened for 20 or more years, read letters, scripts, books, magazines, brochures and publicity material, watched all kind of video cassettes and listened to countless audio reels.

Picture of the day. The idea of boxes and boxes stacked all over the place is not how I had imagined Kubrick would have organized his records. I guess he never found a system he was happy with. Apparently, once Kubrick shelved a project he just packed up all the files and put them away and moved on to the next one without looking back. I wonder if he ever did put away the Napoleon project? What treasures are left to be uncovered in the archives?

Documentary Cookbook Preface

In researching the Kubrick Napoleon project I came across this manifesto for a new movement in documentary film making. I believe in it strongly enough to try and stick to its precepts in making the Kubrick Napoleon documentary. The manifesto is in two parts. I have posted the prefatory material below.

Documentary Cookbook

*** DRAFT 02/20/02
The Center for New Documentary
Graduate School Of Journalism
University Of California, Berkeley
Introduction

The Center For New Documentary was established in the fall of 2000 to explore, test, and promote new ways of producing good quality long form television documentaries at very low cost. We opened our doors (one door, actually) in response to a rising chorus of frustration over the skyrocketing cost of mainstream documentary production, and an ever deepening exasperation with fundraising. We sensed that enormous talent and energy were being wasted in stalled production and grant writing. As a way to help break the logjam, we invited several filmmakers to experiment with very inexpensive production, and to tell us what they found.

We are not trying to make all documentaries cheaply. We do see the new little cameras as "ball point pens of television" but we have no interest in abandoning 50 years of hard won documentary craft. We are looking for those few stories and production methods that naturally lend themselves to the very low cost production with high-quality. Without compromising journalistic integrity or style, can some films be done for a fifth, a tenth, or even a hundredth of the prevailing cost? Can some of public television possibly approach the cost of public radio? Can we make a living at it? Will there be any pleasure in it? In an increasingly stagnant, market-constrained TV landscape, can low-cost production boast its own craft and virtuosity? Can it co-exist in tandem with high cost traditional (archive/witness/observational/narrated/series-driven) documentary? What strong, journalistically sound, adventuresome films for prime time television can be made by a grown up with a DVCam and Final Cut Pro? Is the whole idea self-destructive?

In practical terms, we invited three filmmakers, Peter Nicks, Lourdes Portillo, and Albert Maysles, to see what films could be well made for $100,000 per hour---about one-fifth the going rate for prime time documentaries. The obvious question is "Where do you get $100,000?" More on that later, but finding 100K is certainly easier than finding half a million, and we see the 100K target as only a first step in really drastic reductions for some films.

Our main concern is not with beginning filmmakers, students, or neighborhood filmmakers, but with journeyman documentary makers who already know the ropes, and are trying reach a large television audience. (The Center's work is not part of the regular graduate studies curriculum at the School of Journalism. Likewise, we are not skilled at shepherding photojournalists into television magazine work or breaking news; that is being well handled by Dick Halstead and others at the "Platypus" workshops, www.digitaljournalist.com. Likewise, international digital journalism is being well considered by the Pew International Journalism Program www.pewfellowships.org).

By now, virtually everyone working in documentary in this country has brushed up against DV production, and many producers have embraced it exclusively. But despite the emergence of a robust folk culture surrounding digital non-fiction, we still see little evidence of filmmakers aggressively searching out stories, styles, and techniques which naturally fit the new tools. Most of the work seems aimed and squeezing blood from the turnip, by digitally making the same sorts of traditional films with the same methods for less money.

Many cost saving devices are already in play. Most of it is not rocket science, but rather a cagey sort of "preventive production," as described below. It turns out that the technical advantages of DV are not as much of a cost lever as personnel time or rights costs. Story choice seems to make the greatest difference, followed by extreme schedule efficiency, and extreme technical discipline. Then comes a nearly dogmatic avoidance of archive footage, archive music, and travel. Everyone gets paid professional rates, and cost savings are achieved by adjusting methods and schedules, not day rates. We look for generally non-technical "evergreen" devices that will long outlast changes in hardware and software.

The Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Gerbode Foundation stepped forward to fund our first round of work. The Rockefeller Foundation supports the development and distribution of a "Documentary Cookbook." Our first project, "The Wolf" by Peter Nicks, was completed for $100,000, and has been acquired by ABC Nightline for broadcast over two nights this spring, where it will probably be seen by 2,000,000 people. It's a good start.

Following is some of what we've learned. Please send your experiences, suggestions, lessons, tips, lists of what to do, etc, to dvtv@berkeley.edu. Please do not send proposals; that will come later.

The Problem

It had become clear by the early 1990s that most available documentary money, especially in pubic television, was going to a shrinking and increasingly risk-free pool of veteran producers making increasingly risk-free documentaries. These were more often than not earnest, predictable, and sometimes brilliant programs about dead people. For reasons involving public policy, the commercialization of public television, corporate consolidation in commercial television, partisan congressional politics, and the rising costs of production, new voices and new forms could emerge only with great difficulty. Even well established documentary makers could seldom explore new ground.

The average cost of a prime time documentary television hour had risen to around $500,000, of which a large portion generally had to come from the advertising budgets of ratings-hungry corporate underwriters. As the funding and underwriting stakes rose, idiosyncratic "one-off" programs and unpredictable forms like cinema verite all but vanished from public television, except for work within ITVS and POV. Long form was dead at the networks. HBO soldiered on, and together with MTV has become generally more accepting of idiosyncratic fare.

The cost of traditional production rose, due largely to 16mm film costs (before the wholesale transition to video), skyrocketing archive footage and music costs, travel costs, and long production and post-production schedules often made even longer by delay in executive sign off.

As independent producers, we knew even by the early �90s that a good one-hour prime time idea pretty well condemned us to raising half a million dollars, and that it would take five years of fundraising---work for which we had no talent, no training, and less than no interest. Small, experienced independent production houses and producers of on-offs were particularly hard hit, and the pipeline became increasingly clogged with unfunded and partially funded $500K projects. Henry Hampton took ten years to fully fund Eyes on the Prize. Cadillac Desert required 307 separate funding applications, and for Sing Faster: The Stagehands Ring Cycle, Jon Else prepared and submitted 137 separate grant applications over nine years. Who does not have a seed-funded, embryonic, or half-grown single program or mini-series festering on the shelf?

In a trend that has accelerated ever since the ratings success of The Civil War, public television especially embraced huge, market-friendly series projects while generally consigning single programs to the dustbin. We came to live in a world of exemplary but chillingly expensive series and mini-series like Africans in America, Frontline, The American Experience, and New York. But not every idea was a series idea, and not every one-off fit into an established strand.

We complained that Ken Burns got all the money (not noticing that his passions for serial American history correlate almost exactly with funders' desires). We became a culture of complaint, with journeyman filmmakers frustrated at moving beyond traditional forms, and young professionals frustrated at trying to launch new projects. The important role of television documentary in vigorous civil dialogue, in collective memory, education, entertainment, and public policy formation was not well served. Over the years, a great pool of young documentary talent became increasingly unhinged from prime time television.

The aggregate level of support for long form documentaries at the networks, PBS, cable, foundations, and endowments, has not increased significantly, nor is it likely to. As producers scramble to get anything made---anything---these funding imperatives erode the traditional fire wall between non-fiction television and the marketplace, and journalistic standards begin to erode. Despite rare exceptions like The Farmer's Wife and the heroic efforts at ITVS, POV, HBO, and a few foundations, idiosyncratic one-offs are off the table.

The new Juggernauts

Some production institutions have chosen to attack the problem of escalating cost with brute force, by designing ever-larger documentary projects as "product lines" intended for a market-driven television system. These typically include the films themselves, web sites, interactive enhancement, outreach programs, and curriculum materials, as well as companion books, videos, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and CDs sold via on-air advertising. Many public television venues are, in fact, now demanding that proposals come through the door not as films, but as "projects" with web sites, outreach, and educational materials. Even the cheapest documentary can now easily balloon into an expensive multi-layered project. Cable channels appear more flexible, and somewhat less demanding.

Many producers now find themselves in a surreal vortex where the longer a project takes to fund, the more it costs, and the more it costs, the longer it takes to fund, and the longer it takes, the more it costs� ad infinitum. The more films cost, the less risk the funders can stand; at $1,000,000 per hour, who can dare risk a ratings misfire? Some half-funded Juggernauts have been inching their way through the system for years.

Hamster Wheel

Then, there were those of us who scampered to make as many corporate videos, TV commercials, airline tech reports, depositions and wedding videos as we could, trying desperately to save a few hundred thousand dollars for MY BIG FILM. We should live so long.

A few good, cheap, fast films

We are interested in the exact opposite approach: drastically limiting cost in order to get more documentaries made more quickly. We want to break the queue by lowering the entry fee, not raising it. It is the television equivalent of watercolor instead of oil paint, mimeograph instead of linotype, garage bands instead of stadium rock, guerrillas instead of armies. The aim is to find methods and stories that are so naturally inexpensive that they can slip below the radar of financing. It worked in the �60s.

We were first inspired by public radio, seeing the refreshing power of programs like the early "This American Life," "Lost & Found Sound" and "Soundprint." There were glimmers of real possibility in late 90s with The Cruise, Salt Men Of Tibet, digital work by Ricky Leacock, experiments at Frontline, Nightline, and the National Film Board Of Canada, and the narrative productions of Jon Jost and the Dogma '95 group. And on the un-cool sidelines, a shadow world of very fast very cheap and sometimes very good corporate production had also taken hold.

An old truism in Hollywood is, "Cheap, fast, good� Pick any two." Clearly with the right methods, some small percentage of documentaries can be cheap, fast, and good. In the bargain, as we found with "The Wolf," there is the prospect of retaining true independence by avoiding early funding from any specific broadcaster, and thus being able to offer the finished documentary to all possible broadcasters.

Part 1 will follow in a future post.

Picture of the day. I could make a rude joke about the real reason Napoleon stuck his hand in his clothes but if the current governor of New York had been a French politician instead of a Dick Tracy square-jawed type he could have survived the discovery of his sessions with prostitutes from the Emperor's Club with mere public scorn and cries of hipocracy and not calls for his resignation and impeachment. Or maybe he should have been a US senator from Louisiana. Lagnappe. Click the link below to hear about the Napoleon who fascinated me as a tot in the 1960s.

March 7, 1799

A snip from Chapter 18 of the Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne which documents the siege of Jaffa during Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. Napoleon's army secured the city of Jaffa on 7 March, 1799 and after a two day deliberation over the fate of his Muslim prisoners he decided to slaughter over twenty five hundred troops who had previously sworn an oath never to take arms against the French after they were released by Napoleon after the battle of El Arish.

Arrival at Jaffa--The siege--Beauharnais and Croisier--Four thousand prisoners--Scarcity of provisions--Councils of war--Dreadful necessity--The massacre...

On arriving before Jaffa, where there were already some troops, the first person. I met was Adjutant-General Gresieux, with whom I was well acquainted. I wished him good-day, and offered him my hand. "Good God! What are you about?" said he, repulsing me with a very abrupt gesture; "you may have the plague. People do not touch each other here!" I mentioned the circumstance to Bonaparte, who said, "If he be afraid of the plague, he will die of it." Shortly after, at St. Jean d'Acre, he was attacked by that malady, and soon sank under it. On the 4th of March we commenced the siege of Jaffa. That paltry place, which, to round a sentence, was pompously styled the ancient Joppa, held out only to the 6th of March, when it was taken by storm, and given up to pillage. The massacre was horrible. General Bonaparte sent his aides de camp Beauharnais and Croisier to appease the fury of the soldiers as much as possible, and to report to him what was passing. They learned that a considerable part of the garrison had retired into some vast buildings, a sort of caravanserai, which formed a large enclosed court. Beauharnais and Croisier, who were distinguished by wearing the 'aide de camp' scarf on their arms, proceeded to that place. The Arnauts and Albanians, of whom these refugees were almost entirely composed, cried from the windows that they were willing to surrender upon an assurance that they would be exempted from the massacre to which the town was doomed; if not, they threatened to fire on the 'aides de camp', and to defend themselves to the last extremity. The two officers thought that they ought to accede to the proposition, notwithstanding the decree of death which had been pronounced against the whole garrison, in consequence of the town being token by storm. They brought them to our camp in two divisions, one consisting of about 2500 men, the other of about 1600.

I was walking with General Bonaparte, in front of his tent, when he beheld this mass of men approaching, and before he even saw his 'aides de camp' he said to me, in a tone of profound sorrow, "What do they wish me to do with these men? Have I food for them?--ships to convey them to Egypt or France? Why, in the devil's name, have they served me thus?" After their arrival, and the explanations which the General-in-Chief demanded and listened to with anger, Eugene and Croisier received the most severe reprimand for their conduct. But the deed was done. Four thousand men were there. It was necessary to decide upon their fate. The two aides de camp observed that they had found themselves alone in the midst of numerous enemies, and that he had directed them to restrain the carnage. "Yes, doubtless," replied the General-in-Chief, with great warmth, "as to women, children, and old men--all the peaceable inhabitants; but not with respect to armed soldiers. It was your duty to die rather than bring these unfortunate creatures to me. What do you want me to do with them?" These words were pronounced in the most angry tone. The prisoners were then ordered to sit down, and were placed, without any order, in front of the tents, their hands tied behind their backs. A sombre determination was depicted on their countenances. We gave them a little biscuit and bread, squeezed out of the already scanty supply for the army.

On the first day of their arrival a council of war was held in the tent of the General-in-Chief, to determine what course should be pursued with respect to them the council deliberated a long time without coming to any decision. On the evening of the following day the daily reports of the generals of division came in. They spoke of nothing but the insufficiency of the rations, the complaints of the soldiers--of their murmurs and discontent at seeing their bread given to enemies who had been withdrawn from their vengeance, inasmuch as a decree of death; in conformity with the laws of war, had been passed on Jaffa. All these reports were alarming, and especially that of General Bon, in which no reserve was made. He spoke of nothing less than the fear of a revolt, which would be justified by the serious nature of the case. The council assembled again. All the generals of division were summoned to attend, and for several hours together they discussed, under separate questions, what measures might be adopted, with the most sincere desire to discover and execute one which would save the lives of these unfortunate prisoners. (1.) Should they be sent into Egypt? Could it be done? To do so; it would be necessary to send with them a numerous escort, which would too much weaken our little army in the enemy's country. How, besides, could they and the escort be supported till they reached Cairo, having no provisions to give them on setting out, and their route being through a hostile territory, which we had exhausted, which presented no fresh resources, and through which we, perhaps, might have to return. (2.) Should they be embarked? Where were the ships?--Where could they be found? All our telescopes, directed over the sea could not descry a single friendly sail Bonaparte, I affirm, would have regarded such an event as a real favour of fortune. It was, and--I am glad to have to say it, this sole idea, this sole hope, which made him brave, for three days, the murmurs of his army. But in vain was help looked for seaward. It did not come. (3.) Should the prisoners be set at liberty? They world then instantly proceed to St. Jean d'Acre to reinforce the pasha, or else, throwing themselves into the mountains of Nablous, would greatly annoy our rear and right-flank, and deal out death to us, as a recompense for the life we had given them. There could be no doubt of this. What is a Christian dog to a Turk? It would even have been a religious and meritorious act in the eye of the Prophet. (4.) Could they be incorporated, disarmed, with our soldiers in the ranks? Here again the question of food presented itself in all its force. Next came to be considered the danger of having such comrades while marching through an enemy's country. What might happen in the event of a battle before St. Jean d'Acre? Could we even tell what might occur during the march? And, finally, what must be done with them when under the ramparts of that town, if we should be able to take them there? The same embarrassments with respect to the questions of provisions and security would then recur with increased force. The third day arrived without its being possible, anxiously as it was desired, to come to any conclusion favourable to the preservation of these unfortunate men. The murmurs in the camp grew louder the evil went on increasing--remedy appeared impossible--the danger was real and imminent. The order for shooting the prisoners was given and executed on the 10th of March. We did not, as has been stated, separate the Egyptians from the other prisoners. There were no Egyptians. Many of the unfortunate creatures composing the smaller division, which was fired on close to the seacoast, at some distance from the other column, succeeded in swimming to some reefs of rocks out of the reach of musket-shot. The soldiers rested their muskets on the end, and, to induce the prisoners to return, employed the Egyptian signs of reconciliation in use in the country. They, came back; but as they advanced they were killed, and disappeared among the waves.

I confine myself to these details of this act of dreadful necessity, of which I was an eye-witness. Others, who, like myself, saw it, have fortunately spared me the recital of the sanguinary result. This atrocious scene, when I think of it, still makes me shudder, as it did on the day I beheld it; and I would wish it were possible for me to forget it, rather than be compelled to describe it. All the horrors imagination can conceive, relative to that day of blood, would fall short of the reality. I have related the truth, the whole truth. I was present at all the discussions, all the conferences, all the deliberations. I had not, as may be supposed, a deliberative voice; but I am bound to declare that the situation of the army, the scarcity of food, our small numerical strength, in the midst of a country where every individual was an enemy, would have induced me to vote in the affirmative of the proposition which was carried into effect, if I had a vote to give. It was necessary to be on the spot in order to understand the horrible necessity which existed.

War, unfortunately, presents too many occasions on which a law, immutable in all ages, and common to all nations, requires that private interests should be sacrificed to a great general interest, and that even humanity should be forgotten. It is for posterity to judge whether this terrible situation was that in which Bonaparte was placed. For my own part, I have a perfect conviction that he could not do otherwise than yield to the dire necessity of the case. It was the advice of the council, whose opinion was unanimous in favour of the execution, that governed him, Indeed I ought in truth to say, that he yielded only in the last extremity, and was one of those, perhaps, who beheld the massacre with the deepest pain. After the siege of Jaffe the plague began to exhibit itself with a little more virulence. We lost between seven and eight hundred, men by the contagion during the campaign of Syria'

A muslim account of the massacre describes Napoleon's men using their bayonets to kill the prisoners when they ran out of ammunition and looting and pillaging the city until the point of exhaustion two days later.

Picture of the day. Napoleon lost more men to disease than to the enemy during his siege of Jaffa. The shame and disgrace the Bush fils White House let the wounded veterans of his war suffer at the Walter Read medical center will be remembered long after his swan song this weekend to the Washington establishment, which in their clubby way was acknowledged with a standing ovation from the partisan crowd. Stephen Colbert gave Bush his proper send-off in 2006.