The Logic of Yoo (Notes)

Notes:

Torture=31
             (usage in all of Shakespeare’s works)
Techniques≠Tortures
             (see below)
Number of techniques usually needed to bring detainee to “baseline dependent state”=3
            (1, nudity; 2, sleep deprivation, with shackling & diaper; 3, dietary manipulation)
Number of times a detainee may be “walled” in a single session=1-30
Cramped confinement=18 hours/day
Confinement in “small box”=2 hours/day
Etymology of “torture”=Latin tortūra (twisting)
Length of Alec Guinness’s confinement in a small box
             in Bridge On the River Kwai=31 seconds (movie time)
Number of Academy Awards=7
Texas police convicted of “water torture”=4
Number of “24” episodes=24
Angle of repose=45
            (degree of backwards inclination while bound in stress position)
Earning a degree from Yale in 1992=John C. Yoo
            (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, USDOJ)
Earning a degree from Yale in 1993=Johnathan Coulton
             (performer of “Code Monkey” & folk acoustic version of “Baby Got Back”)
Location of Donald Rumsfeld alumni portrait=Yankee Doodle Tavern, Princeton
             (next to Brooke Shields)
Harvard’s founding purpose=train Puritan ministers
Fate of Harvard’s first professor=fired for beating his students
“Code Monkey have long walk back to cubicle/he sit down pretend to work/Code Monkey not
thinking so straight/Code Monkey not feeling so great.”
Gross US receipts for Legally Blonde=$968,689
           (week of 9 Sept. 2001-17 Sept. 2001)
Alternate Titles=Blonde et légale (France) Cutie Blonde (Japan)
Among tortures committed by Japanese in WWII, cited by IMTFE=water treatment
Among tortures committed by Americans in Philippines, cited by JAG=water treatment
Why FDR vacationed in Warm Springs, GA=water treatment
Euphemism=0
            (usage in all of Shakespeare’s works)
Alaska sable=skunk fur
           (OED regarding euphemism)
Other euphemisms=facial hold, insult slap, attention grasp, abdominal slap, wall-standing
More euphemisms=“there is no evidence in literature or experience that sleep deprivation
             exacerbates any harmful effects of the waterboard”
Periods between interrogation sessions=1 hr.-24hrs.
Number of waterboarding sessions permitted per 24 hours=2
Zubaydah=83
              (number of incidents of waterboarding)
Average age children learn to swim in US=6
Average annual salary of adjunct Professor of French Literature=$23,532
Tenure of John C. Yoo in Office of Legal Counsel=2 yrs.
Duration of “Monkey Code” video=3:49
Average charge for original term paper w/citations=$800-$1200
Number of illegal Wars of Aggression=∞
Number of illegal Preventive Wars=0
Number of Dick’s Drive-ins in the greater Seattle area=5
“Code Monkey very simple man/with big warm fuzzy secret heart/
            Code Monkey like you. Code Monkey like you.”

“The Logic of Yoo (Notes)” first appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Fall 2011.