If This Isn't Nice, What Is? (Much) Expanded Second Edition: The Graduation Speeches and Other Words to Live By --Kurt Vonnegut Book 23 of 2022

 This short book is exactly what the subtitle promises in the inimitable style of Kurt Vonnegut.  The title quote is also the theme of the book:

“My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?

So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, "If this isn't nice, what is?”

Vonnegut puts being kind at the center of a good life: 

“There’s only one rule I know of—Goddam it, you’ve got to be kind.”

But he is quite aware that for most people, hate motivates:

“It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. If you want to feel ten feet tall and as though you could run a hundred miles without stopping, hate beats pure cocaine any day. Hitler resurrected a beaten, bankrupt, half-starved nation with hatred and nothing more. Imagine that.”

Vonnegut loved growing up in Indiana, the schools he attended and the teachers he had:

“A show of hands, please: How many of you have had a teacher at any stage of your education, from the first grade until this day in May, who made you happier to be alive, prouder to be alive, than you had previously believed possible? Good! Now say the name of that teacher to someone sitting or standing near you. All done? Thank you, and drive home safely, and God bless you all.”

In his many books and articles he fulfilled what is my favorite quote from the book:

“The function of the artist is to make people like life better than before.”

For the rest of us, art is good for our souls:

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories.”

First 22 books of 2022:

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. 

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

To Have a Good Life, Keep Making New Friends

In 2011 I trained with these aircraft fuelers for three weeks. I thought I was going to Afghanistan with them. I didn't.  They did. They cut the deployment list and I did not go, but we trained together, sharing the happiness and hardships of Army life.   

I recently talked to my uncle David who is in his mid-80s. He is very successful: an engineer who started his own company and sold it for more than $10 million when he retired.  In the 45 minutes we talked he would mention friends and colleagues who were in ill health, who recently died, or who were limiting their activity due to their age.  

He is part of successful graduating class at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), has life-long friends and colleagues, and his friends, like him, are rich.  

David does not have friends half his age, or less.  Making friends requires having time to give or simply waste, and it requires equality. Over the past two decades, I have worked with, trained with, volunteered with, and just spent time with people who are half my age. I have made new friends during those years because we were doing the same tasks, with the same goal and we were peers.

My last job was at a museum and library of the history of science.  Non-profits tend to have a staff that is either just starting their careers or near retirement.  Since I worked in communications, many of my colleagues were in their 20s and 30s.  I was a writer who managed a program, so we were always peers on projects.  Because we were peers, there was always  a potential to make friendships.  Since my retirement, several of my former co-workers have been in book groups I was in. 

During the pandemic, a former colleague who got a big promotion was talking about the next step after Director of the Library. We laughed and laughed and decided to form the World Conquest Book Club, because it was one short step from Director of the Library to Ruler of the World!

Some of my co-workers became fellow protestors since 2016. I also made friends among my protest group participants.  We stand together in all weather, we face hecklers together and celebrate victories.

When I re-enlisted in the Army at age 54, I was an enlisted man. I made sergeant pretty quickly, but I was working and training with junior sergeants and enlisted men.  Some were half my age, some were a third.  The Army always has "hurry up and wait time" so we could talk and among a large group, find the people who we wanted to be friends with.  

And now volunteering with Razom, I am meeting many people I like, and a few who I really connect with. Most of the volunteers are in their 20s and 30s and Ukrainian. While we are making medical kits, as with serving in the army, we are all equal, doing a hot, dirty job, that really gives us the satisfaction of knowing we are helping soldiers in a noble cause.  

None of my life has a plan. I wasn't sure if I would have kids: I have six to nine depending on how you count.  I was sure I was done with the Army at age 27.  Then I wasn't. All of my childhood I wanted to be a truck driver and a soldier.  I achieved those life goals by age 19 then started on new ones.  

All of my life, I was a worker or manager of a small team, whether in white or blue collar jobs.  I made enough money to have all those kids and a nice life, but not to be rich.  When the opportunity to volunteer came up, I could go there and be just another pair of hands.  So this year, I could go to a New Jersey warehouse as a volunteer and simply be that pair of hands. And make new friends. 

Since I retired in 2015, I have been to many new places, done things I had never done before, and made new friends. The kind of people willing to stand in the rain and sleet to protest injustice; people with jobs and kids who make combat medical kits to help the soldiers fighting the invasion of their country; people who read, reflect and want to talk about the books that move them, and people who know the thrill of climbing a three-mile hill, then flying back down at either side of 50 miles per hour: these are my people.

One of the difficulties of power and wealth, is that it becomes more difficult to trust people--are they with you just to be near power and money? And, of course, if you have great possessions, to some extent those possessions have you. A couple with three houses and three cars has a lot of laundry to do and fenders to wash.  And they don't have time to just be another pair of hands in a warehouse in New Jersey trying to make a small difference and meeting the kind of people who strive for a better world.

Of course, keeping old friends is important too.  I just got back from traveling in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway with my roommate from 1979 in Cold War, West Germany.  I am looking forward to my 50th high school reunion in October. Like ancient people, I think friendship very important to living a good life--indispensable.  And listening to other people close to or in the eighth decade of life, making friends throughout our lives is a big part of a good life.  

PanzerMuseum East Gift Shop

The Gift Shop at Panzermuseum East, Slagelse, Denmark, is crowded with uniforms, gas masks, models, spent brass, radio equipment, flags and more.

 

Museums, like their creators, have personalities. Panzermuseum East in Slagelse, Denmark, is neat with immaculately restored guns and vehicles and displays.  And it is very crowded.  Tanks, trucks, guns, armored vehicles, tank engines, radios, field hospitals, field kitchens, missiles, missile launchers, helicopters, a transport plane, and decontamination equipment crowd the buildings and the area around the buildings.  

I wrote about the museum two weeks ago.

The neat, organized, crowded feel of the museum displays carries over into the amazing gift shop near the entrance. In the photo above, are full uniforms, jackets, spent cartridges from every kind of gun: rifles to howitzers.  The snack bar table is atop 55-gallon oil drums.  

Near the entrance, by a window is a display of dozens of scale model tanks and armored vehicles, soldiers and toy helmets.  

There are hundreds of scale models of planes, ships, tanks and trucks from World War II to present day equipment.

Even landing craft....

Along with the models are racks of uniforms.

Spent cartridges up to 105mm cannon ammo. Radios, field mess kits, cases and other gear. 

Gifts and toys.....

Even toy guns!!!!!

Maria, who runs the gift shop, said  they sell nine of these Soviet era replica gas masks each week to kids who want these masks!! 

Hundreds of packs and pouches.....

Lots of belts......

And uniforms.......

A long rack of dress and fatigue uniforms and hats from various armies and eras.

Flags and canteens....

Hats....

Top Gun gear....

Flight suits......

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss. Book 22 of 2022

I listened to Barry Strauss on a history podcast and wanted to read this book.  History for me is contingency constrained by geography grabbed by the right leader.  Or screwed up by the wrong leader.  

The story of the Battle of Actium is a huge victory for Octavian and his brilliant admiral Agrippa against Marc Antony and Cleopatra.  On paper the power couple of the Roman Empire had every advantage. Yet Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, keeping the center of Roman power in Rome in the hands of Octavian and the emperors who followed for almost half a millennia.  

Strauss explains the lack of direct sources to document the battle then uses what sources he has to show Antony's mistakes and how Agrippa took advantage of every weakness in Antony's plans.

This is a book for a history of Rome fan. It is superbly documented and as a History of Rome nerd, I found it delightful. 

First 21 books of 2022:

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua 

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Back to Packing Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs) for Ukraine

 

#RazomforUkraine volunteers at the end of the day Saturday.

We set a new record of 3,063 IFAKS made and shipped in one day.

After a month in Europe I returned to volunteering with #RazomforUkraine putting together Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs) for soldiers and emergency medical teams in Ukraine.  On Saturday we set a new record of 3,063 IFAKs in one day.  I started volunteering in late March.  Since shortly after the Russian invasion began, Razom has shipped more than 71,000 IFAKs to Ukraine. 

From the moment I entered the building I was reconnecting with people I really enjoy working with. 

Olena and Yuliia

Sergiy with the sign marking the new record

I plan to be back two days next week and as often as I can until I travel again. 

In April and May I wrote about how much I like volunteering with Razom and about some of my fellow volunteers. 

A post about Sergiy Blednov

How much I like working at Razom

Talking about musicals and life while we work

A volunteer flying to Ukraine on February 24

Making jokes while packing IFAKs

Tank Museum Designed as a Warning: Panzer Museum East, Denmark

Most military museums, particularly tank museums, display the best and most lethal weapons of their country. Part of the intent of these museums is to say,

"Look at the awesome firepower our soldiers had." 

When I visited the Deutsche Panzermuseum, one hundred years of German innovation and technology was clearly on display. The Armored Corps Museum at Latrun, Israel, displays tanks Israel fought with right up to the Merkava (chariot) developed and built in Israel. 

So I was quite surprised when I toured the many exhibits of Panzermuseum East in Denmark. All of the exhibits are of Cold War Soviet weapons and equipment.  The museum was designed and built as a warning to what could have happened to Denmark if the Soviet Union had invaded.  Their official intent: 

At Panzermuseum East we tell the story of the Cold War and our focus since its inception has been to show visitors from around the world what would have been seen on the streets and in the air if the Warsaw Pact, led by Russia, (The Soviet Union), had attacked Denmark during the tense and heated period leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We also document what would have happened if nuclear weapons had been used, and the terrible consequences of this, namely that there would have been a total Ragnarok throughout Europe, with millions of dead and destroyed.

The collection is several buildings crowded with Soviet tanks, trucks, missiles, guns, motorcycles, radar stations, ambulances, field kitchens, and other equipment. 

BMP armored personnel carrier 

T-72 M1

T-55 AM2

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum has been tagging displayed vehicles, like the BMP and T-72, that are being used by the Russian invaders of Ukraine.

Here is what the head of the museum says about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

Regarding the horrific and heinous attack on Ukraine. 

Ukraine is being brutally attacked right now, with a lot of material that the Panzer Museum East has on display, which the heroic Ukrainians are also using to defend themselves. Unfortunately, the brutal superpower also has far more modern equipment than the Ukrainians, so it's an unequal battle. That is why it is so important that we all support and help the Ukrainians in their fantastic fight for freedom and democracy. 

On 28 February, Tank Museum East asked the Danish army for a donation of 1,200 boxes of field rations for the brave soldiers of Ukraine. If they are donated, we will immediately drive to one of the major border crossings between Poland and Ukraine and hand them over to all those who enter Ukraine to fight for freedom and democracy and a happy future. Right now, as you read this, what I myself was terribly and cruelly afraid of when I was young is becoming a harsh reality. I myself, together with my wife, visited Chernobyl and experienced Kyiv, and we had only positive experiences and great respect for the people in their struggle to build a healthy democracy and live as free people. 

Out of my pacifist ideology and to point out that war and enmity can and will never lead to anything good for humanity, I have founded my very own private tank museum East. That is why spreading the word about history is so important, even if it seems that at the moment no one cares about the atrocities of the past. Of course I have deep contempt for the cruel and blunt attack on Ukraine.

Best regards 

Owner of the Panzermuseum East 

Allan Pedersen and staff

BMP armored personnel carrier

PRAGA M53/59 "Lizard" with 30mm anti-aircraft guns

Tank transporter flatbed truck with a T-72 tank on the end of its bed.

A Brave Woman in Trumplandia

 

This morning I was riding east from Lancaster toward New Holland borough, one of the towns that ring the city of Lancaster.  As I rode I passed several political signs, all of them were for Doug Mastriano, the Army officer who brought busloads of Pennsylvanians to Washington DC on January 6, 2020, to overthrow the government.

Then I saw the sign above.  I first thought 'Oh, they have a 2024 sign.'  Then I wondered why it had a hyphen.  Then I saw the "years in prison." I turned around to take a picture of the sign.  When I did, the woman who put the sign in the middle of her front yard on the south side of Pennsylvania Route 23, walked up and introduced herself.

Tracy is a smiling, blue-eyed, pretty woman in her mid-thirties.  She was trimming the shrubs next to her house when I pulled up. I asked her about the sign. She said, "I can't just stay quiet."  

Tracy said she knew it would cause trouble, but she thought it was important to stand up and say what is right.  She has one child, a 13-year-old son.  She knows her family and the house could be targets for insults or egging or something worse.  

She said that a lot of people honk. Some wave and cheer, some make their disagreement well known.  Three miles west of her house is The Worship Center, a prosperity gospel church of the kind that are the most likely to believe Trump was chosen by God to make America a Christian nation. Lots of true believers pass by Tracy's home.  

I love meeting people who are truly brave and are willing to stand up for what they believe in a very public way. I have met people who are true heroes and I met another hero today. 

--------

(I would not post a picture of Tracy or her home. Whatever trouble she brings on herself, I did not want to add to it.)

Conferences are Soooooo Much Better in Person. Zoom and Hybrid are a Different Event.

La Maison de la Chimie, Paris

At the beginning of June, I went to a Science and Diplomacy conference hosted by La Maison de la Chimie, Paris. I have written about the conference and some of the people I met there. 

In addition to listening to some fascinating presentations, the conference itself was like a demonstration of what is lost when conferences are on line or hybrid.  I may sound like a kid talking about his favorite parts of school, but it is really true that, for me, the best parts of the two-day conference were the lunches, the dinner, the coffee breaks, and the hallway.  

I really liked hearing Matthew Adamson talk about uranium mining as part of his presentation on Cold War weapons and resources.  During the break after his talk, we spoke about how resource maps influence industry, and how maps affect military strategy.

During lunch the next day, Adamson and I talked about his career path from grad student in Indiana and Paris, then professor in Budapest. Across from me was Fintan Hoey, a professor of history at Franklin University Switzerland. He is from Ireland, studies the modern of Japan particularly during the Cold War.  His best stories were about working in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland and learning the language of his region. 

I turned to my right at the same lunch and talked to Maritza Gomez about her presentation on an attempt by equatorial countries to claim their sovereign territory extended into space, at least as far as the orbits of geosynchronous satellites. She told me about her life in California, then studying in Germany and continuing her studies in Mexico.

Another hallway conversation was with John Krige. He spoke as part of the public panel on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the effects of Europe stopping all collaboration with Russian scientists just four days after the Russia started the war. Krige's presentation was clear and stark that the war will cause pain across Europe and the world. 

At the conference dinner I sat across from Nestor Herran, a professor of the history of science at The Sorbonne in Paris. We talked about his research in Cold War nuclear technology in Britain and elsewhere.  I told him I was a Cold War airman on a crew that did live-fire static test of Minuteman missiles and later a tank commander on the East-West German border, so had two different "ground-level" perspectives on the Cold War and the nuclear threat.  

After a while, Nestor said, "I am 50 years old and this is the first time I have had a long conversation with a career soldier."  We talked about how much the military is separate from the larger culture in countries with voluntary service and who serves in the military.  I could tell him I had not met a lot of historians of science in uniform.  

Apparently, I am very good at dinner because one of the conference organizers, Charlotte Abney Saloman, invited me to join her and her mom, who was visiting Paris, for dinner the evening the conference ended. 

I'm sure I will have to use Zoom in the future for book groups or other events where meeting in person is not possible.  But this conference showed me why people get together for conferences.  Zoom has no hallways, coffee breaks, or shared meals. 

                  

Medical Electronics Technician Travels the World, Retires to Denmark Boat Dock

The dock at Tues Naes, Denmark

The guesthouse where Cliff and I stayed in Tues Naes, had a washer-dryer, but the dryer wasn't working. We decided to drive to a laundromat, but then Cliff remembered a notice on the bulletin board of the boat dock where we had walked the day before. 

We went there and asked the Jan, the dock manager. When we only needed a dryer, he told us just to go ahead and use it, and offered us coffee. No charge for either. 

When the clothes were dry, I thanked Jan. He asked where we were from.  We started talking about travel. He had been all over the world as a technician for Varian, a medical electronics company. He told us about going to Benghazi, Libya, and sitting at the airport shaking on the night he left, hoping he would get out alive.

Of all the places he had been in the world, the place he went the most in the final years of his career was the place he liked the least:  Las Vegas.  He is a tall, lean, strong man with a very calm affect, but he became animated talking about Las Vegas.

"They set up a training program in Vegas," he said. "Then they made it permanent. Every few months I would have to go there. I would spend a week or a month. I worked 10 or 12 hours a day. After work, I would get food from a local Italian restaurant and eat in my room."

He was not interested in clubs or shows or casinos. "We were building equipment to cure cancer," he said. "The company would hand cards to all the employees so they could eat steak and lobster in the casinos and get less healthy." 

"Las Vegas takes water from everywhere," he said. "It's unnatural. It should not exist." 

Then a little ferry swung up to the dock. It had seats for eight passengers and a small outboard motor.  Jan said he had to do some work. We thanked him again and took the dry clothes back to the guesthouse.  

Cliff and I were laughing on the way back about Jan's description of Las Vegas.  Jan never actually said he liked Las Vegas more than Benghazi. It was clear he would never go to either again.

  

When a Plan (or a Bone) Breaks, My Mind is Alive with 'What's Next?"

Yesterday, I checked in for a flight from Paris to Rome, started my train trip to the airport, and got a message saying the flight was cancelled. "No further information is available at this time."  

I got off the train at the next stop and mapped a trip to Gare de Lyon the station where trains leave Paris toward the Alps and Italy.  I checked several possibilities, then made reservations for what I hope is the most reliable option.  

It's not that I want my plans to fall apart, but when it happens, I feel and odd kind of joy.  Once plans are made, travel is passive. Sit on the plane or train until the destination.  But when plans fall apart, I can go into action.  My mind races with possibilities.  I look at weather, news reports, and feel exhilarated when a new plan comes together.   In this case, staying in Paris would get me to Turin, Italy, by noon, and Rome by 8pm.  I got a cheap hotel near the train station and left Paris at 6:46am.  

Part of my happiness when I redo broken plans is experience. I have done this a lot, so I know what to expect. But I still have to deal with the situation as it is. It's like broken bones in that way. Each broken bone hurts like Hell, but by the 40th broken bone, I knew how the recovery would go and was excited about the surgery--it makes the healing process faster.  

Part of it is also something I looked for in all of my kids and in soldiers I was in charge of: How would they respond to injury? Two of my kids got angry when they got hurt. They wanted to get back in the game or the race.  The other four wanted to heal up and re-evaluate.  

I am now on a train to Turin. I got an email from Air France this morning offering me a different flight. It was a connecting flight through Luxembourg. With all the flight cancellations, that option would give me two more chances to have a flight not take off, and possibly be in Luxembourg looking for a way to get to Rome through Switzerland.  

Profound Moments from Visiting Countries for the First Time

 

The sky at 1am in Bodo, Norway.

On this trip I traveled to  or through eight countries. Three are my favorite destinations in the world: France, Germany and Italy. Two I just passed through: Turkey and Sweden. Three I visited for the first time: Denmark, Norway and the Vatican. In each of the countries I was in for the first time, I had an experience that only being in that place could give me. 

In Bodo, Norway, I was above the Arctic Circle.  At 1am, when the sun is due north in the northern hemisphere during Daylight Savings Time, I was walking around Bodo. I took the picture above of the cloudy sky with the sun shining in from due north.  I have known this to be true since I first understood Earth's orbit, but seeing it made me irrationally happy.  The sun really was visible due north!  

In Denmark my friend Cliff and I visited Panzer Museum East southwest of Copenhagen.  On the way to Denmark a few days before, we visited Deutsches PanzerMuseum north of Hannover.  That museum, like most military museum, celebrates the weapons of that country. The museum in Denmark does not. The collection of hundreds of tanks, trucks, armored vehicles, missiles, aircraft, cannon, medical equipment, engines, radar systems and other equipment is Soviet-made. 

The museum is designed to be a warning: If the Soviets had invaded Western Europe, these vehicles would have been attacking our country. In a chilling update of the collection, the vehicles that Putin's Russia is using to invade Ukraine are tagged in the display. Nowhere in the museum is any vehicle or equipment ever used by the Army of Denmark.

Also in Denmark, I learned about very different burial practices common in both Denmark and Germany.  Headstones and burial plots are rented for 25 or 50 years.  Then someone gets the space.  I wrote about that here.

The third country I visited was the Vatican.  Like Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, it is a city state, a member of the United Nations with its own government, but the size of a city.  Over the past fifteen hundred years the Vatican has had vastly different levels of power. Its current status as an independent state was granted by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1931.  

Before visiting the Vatican, I read a lot about the Catholic Church in Germany. Before and during the trip I was The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler  by David I. Kertzer.  The book is based on Vatican archives opened in 2020 that detail long-hidden history of Pope XII with Hitler and Mussolini.  

I took a train to the Vatican and rode a bike to  St. Peters Square. I walked into the vast plaza and was overwhelmed with sadness.  'To keep this you let all the Jews die,' was what I thought as I walked looking up at the statues and the fountain. Everything about the place screamed temporal power. This was a place of riches and political influence.  

I left and went back to Rome, which was another revelation for me. No amount of reading or maps prepared me for how small the area was that encompassed the Palatine Hill, the Colosseum, the Capital, markets, baths, temples, circuses, all in a relatively small space.  

Travel to a new place is its own reward.