Teenager Escapes The Holocaust; Joins the US Army; Returns to Europe to Bring Nazis to Justice

 

Since 2016, I have read a lot of books and articles about The Holocaust, visited nine Nazi death camps and many Holocaust memorials. Last year I met Nina Wolff at a history of science conference in Brussels. She was doing research for another book and told me a book she wrote about her father's escape from the Holocaust followed by service in the U.S. Army during World War II.  But the first thing we talked about was Axl Rose.  That story is here. 

Someday You Will Understand: My Father's Private World War II is the story of Walter Wolff, Nina's father. He and his family escaped Nazi Germany, Belgium and France and made a harrowing journey on a terrible cargo ship finally getting to America in late 1940.  Walter was 17 years old when he arrived in America. 

In 1943 Walter enlisted in the U.S. Army. His fluency in four languages and competence in more eventually led him to Military Intelligence.  He became one of the "Ritchie Boys" named for Fort Ritchie, Maryland where multi-lingual men were trained for intelligence service in the war.  

By the time Walter finished his training the war was near its end. He arrived in Europe during the negotiation of the final surrender of Nazi Germany. In the rubble of post-war Europe Walter helped to find Nazis among prisoners of war and in the population of Germany and Austria. He also helped Jews in DP (Displaced Persons) camps organizing delivery of hundreds of packages of life-saving supplies from America.

At the end of his tour he was able to find and recover many of the possessions his family left behind in Belgium during their escape.  The story is told primarily in the hundreds of brilliant, witty letters Walter sent to his family in America.  Walter gave those letters to Nina near the end of his life. 

After reading so much about the millions of lives erased and crushed by the Holocaust, it made me happy to read about a teenage boy who eluded the Nazis across Europe, escaped to America, and then went back Europe before his 21st birthday to help bring the Nazis to justice.  

In grand histories, the defeat of the Nazis can seem like the work of great leaders: Presidents, Prime Ministers, Admirals and Generals.  But at the very tip of the spears thrown by great leaders are teenagers, careless of danger, risking their lives for a great cause. 

Walter volunteered for war at a time when the outcome was anything but certain after a series of harrowing escapes from death including sharing a crater with a dud bomb.  He joined the Army and went back to the countries who wanted him dead. He was one in spirit with teenage RAF Spitfire pilots who defended Britain during the Blitz; with teenage soldiers who stormed the beaches at Normandy, with resistance fighters across Europe and the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto who fought back against the Nazis in a hopeless battle.

Old people get us into wars.Young people like Walter win them. 

Thomas Jefferson: The First Draft of History

 

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence

In 1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of a new history of the world. In that document, later revised by the Continental Congress, Jefferson called for the abolition of slavery. Here is the first draft. 

Jefferson's call for the end of slavery did not survive the revisions by the delegates, but it was clear to Jefferson and many, if not enough, of the founders that the end of slavery was necessary to truly throw off tyranny.  

Last year I read  Jon Meacham's biography of Jefferson. If you are interested in the life of the second President, Meacham's biography is excellent.  It includes this cheeky quote from our 35th President:

In a famous toast at a White House dinner in honor of 49 Nobel Prize winners, President John F. Kennedy said, 

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” 

I wrote more about Meacham's biography here.

Reading about Jefferson was part of trying to understand how the country began and how we got to the place we are now in on the 247th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

I also read First Principles by Thomas Ricks about what the founders learned  from Ancient Greek and Roman cultures about government and how they used it to shape America. 

David McCullough's amazing book 1776 was also part of my reading about Jefferson and the founders.  It could be a novel it is so fast paced. It is the best history book I have read in a long time. 

When a friend asked what five people in all of history I would want to have dinner with, Jefferson was on the list.

The cultural critic Neil Postman wrote about the effect the American founders have had on world culture since 1776.  There is a long quote from the book in this post about the symbols of revolution in the late 20th Century.  When the Soviet empire fell apart, the words of the Declaration of Independence were heard across Eastern Europe.

As we approach the 250th  anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I am hoping the spirit and brilliance of the founders can hold us together despite so many millions of Americans clamoring for tyranny.  One Nation Under God, for as long as we can keep it.

Water Buffaloes: Army and Flintstones at Conflicting Conferences

A protester talking to Gabe Gutierrez of NBC News outside the Marriott Philadelphia

This morning I was at a protest at the Marriott Hotel between City Hall and the Convention Center in Philadelphia.  The entrance was surrounded fencing to keep the protesters away.  The Moms for Liberty conference we were protesting was not the only event at the hotel this weekend.   

In adjoining ballrooms with just a partition separating them in some cases, The Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs is holding its annual meeting.  Somehow the 650 Moms for Liberty attendees and the 400 FJMC conference goers got booked at the same time. The FJMC was not pleased. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a feature article today about the conferences booked together with opposing politics.  Here is the article.

A Moms for Liberty chapter recently apologized for quoting Hitler in a newsletter. That story is here. The FJMC has Holocaust survivors among its members.  

Late this morning I was at the fence near the entrance and saw Dave (above) and asked about his shirt.  I asked him if he had ever drank from an Army water buffalo. The trailers that haul water for soldiers to war zones. 

Dave said he never drank from a water buffalo, his shirt was for the Water Buffalo Lodge from the Flintstones.

 

Dave and I laughed about the conference planners and the hotel booking these two groups on the same weekend in the same conference space and not seeing a problem.  these two groups, we agreed, are as different as Army water buffaloes and the Water Buffalo Lodge.

Dave was very good natured about the security hassles in and out of the hotel. "These meetings can be kind of dull," he said. "It's much more exciting with cops around the entrance and protesters chanting every day."   

 

Protesting an Anti-Abortion Rally on Independence Mall

 

On June 24 on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, a Catholic Group celebrated the one-year anniversary of their victory in overturning Roe v. Wade. Every week since the decision, Republican legislatures across the country have made abortion more difficult or illegal.  

I joined the group protesting the rally. 

During the protest, I talked to some of the people at the anti-abortion rally who came over to our protest.  The first guy I talked to was a Augustinian monk who was handing out literature.  

He asked why I was in favor of abortion. I told him that growing up in a Catholic town made me pro-choice before abortion was legal. I remembered the Catholic boys and their elaborate plans to seduce girls. When they were successful, the girls became sluts. And if a girl got pregnant she either had an illegal abortion or went into seclusion to have the baby and give it up for adoption.  

The monk agreed it was very sad that men are supposed to be in charge of everything in life, and yet women are supposed to be responsible for male virtue.

Next I talked to two 16-year-old boys from a Catholic school who were at the rally.  They asked why I was pro-abortion. I told them the same thing. Both believed that Hookup culture was the cause of abortions. They did not seem to know that married women have abortions because they don't want more children. 

The taller one, Nick, asked if I did not think the country would be better if we all obeyed the Ten Commandments. I asked him if he wanted compliance to be compelled.  Did he want something like Sharia Law? Who did he imagine would enforce the ten commandments.  When Moses came down the mountain the commandments were supposed to be voluntary--God's people obeying God's law.  

And then I could remind them that when Moses showed up, 3,000 children of Israel were hooking up around a golden calf.  

When I can, I like to talk with the other side.  Maybe it made some difference. 

Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond: Honoring Confederate War Dead without Flags and Racism

Pyramid honoring Confederate dead 

Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va.

On this Memorial Day Weekend, my 51st as a soldier and veteran, I went to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, with my daughter Lauren. 

The cemetery is in a beautiful location overlooking the James River just where the falls end and the river becomes Navigable.  

The graves in this sprawling 135-acre cemetery opened in 1847. Thousands of people are interred on the rolling hills north of the James River. At the north end of the cemetery on a hillside is Confederate Avenue.  This section of the cemetery includes the pyramid built just after the war to honor the confederate dead and the graves of thousands of confederate soldiers.  

As we approached the pyramid, I was delighted to see no statues of leaders of the rebellion, no confederate flags.  For me, April  12, 1861, and January 6, 2021, are the worst days in American history: worse than December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001, because on those days the murderous enemy was an enemy outside the country.

This cemetery quietly honors the service of the thousands and thousands who died for their country without glorifying the cause they fought for.  

An entire section of the cemetery has tombstones with death dates at the beginning of July, 1863. Thousands of Virginians died at Gettysburg, most of all on July 3 when Richmond-born Major General George Pickett led the ill-fated Picketts Charge that sealed the defeat of Confederate Army at the most historic battle of the Civil War.  

Pickett is entombed at the top of the hill in the same area.

We live in a country where confederate flags wave from public buildings and pickup trucks and until recently American military bases were named after confederate leaders.  America failed to erase the confederate cause and symbols from public life after the Civil War.  The result was another hundred years of racist laws in the Jim Crow South.  

Germany did a much better job after World War II. They outlawed Nazi flags and symbols. Students and soldiers in Germany visit Nazi death camps to learn how bad the Nazis were.  

There is a German Military Cemetery in Normandy. More than 20,000 German soldiers are buried there. Each has a simple marker with name, rank and unit.  There is one statue of an ordinary soldier and no flags.  The cemetery honors the service and sacrifice of the soldiers, not the cause. I cried when I visited there in 2017 thinking how different America might have been if the confederate cause was suppressed after the Civil War. 

Soldiers under any flag can do their duty honorably.  My favorite memoir by an ordinary soldier is about a 17-year-old who enlisted in the German Army in 1941 and served the entire war on the Eastern Front.

Just down the hill from Pickett's grave and west of the graves of confederate soldiers is a memorial to the cadets of John Marshall High School. Each of the markers has the names of cadets and their graduation year.  The majority of those named were killed during World War II. Those who lost their lives in other wars have the war noted next to their names.  

Throughout my service in four different enlistments, when I was on active duty, the majority of the soldiers I served with were from southern and inland western states.  In the spring of 1980 when I had just returned from three years as a tank commander in West Germany, I read an article that said almost half of the men graduating from Baylor University that year were in ROTC programs and beginning active service.  Of the 1,400 graduates of Harvard University that year, two were joining the military.  

I was happy to see American flags waving in the cemetery honoring service of soldiers during the past century.  

 

Hannah Arendt Center Summer Social: Preview of Fall Conference on Friendship and Politics

This week I went to the Summer Social at the Hannah Arendt Center on the campus of Bard College.  The campus is set in rolling wooded hills on the east bank of the Hudson River between Albany and New York City. I arrived just after a short downpour so the weather was cool and cloudy. Tables had been set up for dinner outside, but the wet tables meant the event was indoors.

Christine Gonzalez Stanton, 

Executive Director, Hannah Arendt Center

As soon as I entered the large old dwelling that houses the HAC I was greeted by Christine Gonzalez Stanton, Executive Director of the HAC and the kind of enthusiastic person every organization would love to have in charge of operations.  She signed me up for the book raffle and pointed me toward the appetizers and drinks in the kitchen. 

As soon as I entered the kitchen I met Ken Landauer in person.  We had been in one of the smaller Zoom groups discussing Hannah Arendt's lectures on Kant.  Ken makes zero-waste furniture in a nearby town.  The website of his company FN Furniture lists Ken as "Chairperson" of the business noted for making things to sit on. In person he is even more dryly funny as he is on Zoom.

Ken Landauer in one of his chairs

I have been a member of the HAC for several years and attended three annual conferences in person. Since 2018, I have joined weekly meetings of the Virtual Reading Group of the HAC.  As many as 200 people participate in these 90-minute calls on Friday afternoons year-round with seasonal breaks.  At the the Summer Social and the Annual Conference I have met many people who were only faces on Zoom.  

The VRG format is a 20-30 minute introduction of the reading followed by a discussion. The discussion leader is the Founder and Academic Director of the HAC Roger Berkowitz.  I sometimes stay on line for the discussions, but I always listen to Roger's introductions of the reading.  Here is a short clip of Roger welcoming us to the social:

After the introduction, we walked through the woods up a small hill to the Bard College Cemetery. Hannah Arendt and her husband Heinrich Blucher are buried there and have small markers next to each other.  

Hannah Arendt's grave in the Bard College Cemetery. 

We all placed stones on Arendt's grave. As with so many things in Arendt's life and work, her death was controversial. She wanted to be cremated, not a usual practice in 1975 for Jews. Her wishes were carried despite resistance from a relative. Her ashes are interred in the Bard Cemetery.  

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After the walk to the cemetery, we went to the library. Arendt's personal library is in a special collection in the Bard Library.  Four scholars connected to the Bard and the HAC made short presentations about their work.  

Jana Mader, with some of the books 

from Arendt's library.

First was Jana Mader, Lecturer in the Humanities at Bard. She will present at the HAC fall conference on the friendship between Arendt and the poet W.H. Auden.  Arendt credits Auden with teaching her English and helping to edit the works she wrote in English. The poet Robert Lowell was also a friend of Arendt. Mader put books with inscriptions to greetings to her by the poets on display. 

Born in Germany, Mader teaches literature at Bard and is a writer and artist.  She just had a book published that made me wish (again) that I could read German fluently. Her book Natur und Nation cooperatively analyzes 19th century literature inspired by the Hudson River with texts inspired by the Rhine River. In October her curated walks to women's history in New York City will be published, this one in English.

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Next Nicholas Dunn spoke about Hannah Arendt's lectures and writing about Emmauel Kant.  He talked about a conference he is hosting on June 20 with the author of the book Hannah Arendt's Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, Ronald Beiner.  

Nicholas Dunn, postdoctoral fellow at HAC

Dunn talked about the way unique Arendt looked at Kant's thought and some of the response to her views.  Dunn is the Klemens von Klemperer Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. He will also teach courses in the Departments of Philosophy and Political Studies and for the Bard Prison Initiative. 

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Jana Bacevic is a visiting scholar at the HAC. She led a conference at the HAC earlier this month on the Social Life of the Mind.  She explained Arendt's reading of and view of the The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System by Milovan Dilas, a Yugoslav intellectual. As with the Kant volume, Arendt had a unique perspective on Dilas and his work.  Dilas was jailed when the book was published in 1958 because he sent it to western countries for review.  Foreign Affairs magazine published a one-paragraph review of the book in 1958 that said: 

The manuscript of this book was sent abroad for publication and the author is now in prison as a consequence. It is important both for the quality of its thought and for the fact that it is a root-and-branch criticism of Communism, including Titoism, from within the Party itself. Since he was formerly one of the ranking Party leaders in Jugoslavia, his picture of the Communist monopoly of power is particularly telling, and the indictment is made with a typically Montenegrin lack of restraint. 

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Thomas Bartscherer, the Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in Humanities, was the final speaker.  He announced that his volume in the series Hannah Arendt--Complete Works. Critical Edition will be published this year. He was so happy about the firm publication date that he had the audience chant a call and response of 

"When?"  
"This year!"

He told us each volume of the critical edition includes images of works in Arendt's library that she used for reference in her works.  Underlines, notes, starred items, are all included in the published book along with the text itself. His volume is on Arendt's The Life of the Mind, her last and uncompleted work. She died on the week she was to begin the third volume on judgement.   

Bartscherer talked about some of the complexities of finding and compiling annotations.  Arendt had five copies of Aristotles Nichomachean Ethics: two in Greek, two in English, one in German. She made notes and underlined passages in all of them, on different passages in each book.

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After the library we went back to the HAC building and ate dinner together, a buffet meal set up in the kitchen.  During the dinner I met more people who read and admire Hannah Arendt.  I am very much looking forward to returning for the conference on Friendship and Politics in the fall and possibly the event on Kants lectures next month.  

Men and Women Under 23 are 80% of the US Military: Many Do Great Things, Some Screw Up

Me at 23: The Oldest I Ever Felt*

The news is full of the 21-year-old airman Jack Teixeira, the intelligence specialist who is behind the most recent major leak of classified information.  Many of the comments I have heard question how someone so young can get access to so much classified information.  As if his age was the problem.

In all of military history, young people, much younger people than Teixeira, have had enormous life and death responsibilities. As a former sergeant and leader in the Army, I believe the problem in this case was supervisory. I have friends who are leaders in hospitals, museums, and in small and corporate businesses. Anyone hiring people with access to sensitive information check the social media profiles of their prospective and current employees.  Teixeira's leaders failed him; he is still guilty of treason. 

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber

In World War II, the Eight Air Force, the bomber command, lost more men than the Marines lost in the entire war in the Pacific. The men in the bombers that flew over German territory had a 50% chance of being alive at the end of 25 missions. That 50/50 chance of being alive is how the Army Air Force set 25 as the number of missions for bomber crews.

Each plane had six enlisted men and four officers. The average age of the enlisted men was 19. The four officers averaged 22 years of age, led by the pilot who was a first lieutenant or captain either side of 25 years old. Whatever age these men began their 25 missions, half of them would be killed, wounded, or captured before they had another birthday.  

Each of the ten men in the crew had life-and-death responsibility for the rest of the crew and for other airmen in the planes in their squadron. Most of them were the around the same age as Teixeira when they flew. Half of them were the same age as Teixeira when they died.  

The military puts great responsibility in the hands of men and women who are 21 years old. They should review security procedures, but the military has to trust young people.

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*By the time I was 21 years old, I was blinded in a missile explosion and recovering my eyesight. The next year I went to armor training and was a tank commander before my 23rd birthday.  

A few months after my 23rd birthday, I was in Colorado packing to go to the East-West border in Germany with 1st Battalion-70th Armor. I read a story in the "Army Times" newspaper that said 80 percent of the Army was less than 23 years old. In 1976 I thought, 'I am older than dirt. Most of the Army is younger than me.'   

Even now as I approach my 70th birthday, that day in September 1976 was the oldest I ever felt.

When the Flight Goes Wrong, Data is All That Matters

 

Since 2017 I have flown overseas every year to every continent except Australia: almost 20 trips total. I have flown many airlines. In addition to the trans-Atlantic flights, I have flown short, regional trips within the Americas, Europe and Asia.  

My main criteria for picking flights is price.  But after I get a list of cheap fares, I eliminate the airlines that have a weak or non-existent back office.  In the 1990s when e-commerce was new, many companies had a "sneaker net."  They had several systems that were not integrated and had to pass paper or messages between ticketing, scheduling, etc. 

This is how to pick an airline.

I have heard people complain that airlines are annoying when they send regular texts reminding you about seat choice or luggage limits or baggage rules. But those same people are ready to sing Hallelujah! when their flight is delayed, changed or cancelled and they get instant notification with options for rescheduling.  

For me, United Airlines is the best in this regard. I have flown American and Delta and they also have excellent apps and notifications. When a United flight got cancelled, my phone lit up with options. I flew TAP, the Portuguese national airlines,  for the last time last fall when I had a flight cancelled.  The long story about dealing with an airline that has a sneaker net is here. 

Since I travel with no checked luggage, I can check in on line for  most flights and walk straight to security. I also have TSA PreCheck and Global Entry, so there is no security reason to keep me from automated check in even for overseas flights.  With United, I have checked in on line for flights in the US, Brazil and Europe. 

I recently flew Norse Atlantic airlines. They have no app; their website seems to  allow check in, but then tells me I can't check in on line; they are not integrated with TSA Pre; they have no automated check in at major airports in America or Europe, so travelers like me with no checked luggage stand for an hour in line with people who have five suitcases on baggage carts.

On a recent Norse flight, I got in contact with a customer service rep on email. I told her how long I had been waiting, that I got to the airport three hours early and I did not want to miss my flight. She suggested going ahead of others in the line.  I told her I would not do that and suggested they send more people to check in to take care of customers. She could do nothing because they did not have the systems in place. 

All Americans saw what happens to an airline with outdated computer systems in the 21st century when a huge winter storm cancelled thousands of flights.  All airlines had some flights cancelled. Southwest had half the cancellations of all the airlines combined. Every Wednesday morning I have breakfast with a retired air traffic controller. He knew the Southwest disaster was data management.

I worked for two multi-national companies in the 1990s that switched from paper to fully integrated electronic systems. The switch was long, painful and expensive, but the difference was profound for customers and managers. From manufacturing to delivery there was real time information for every step.  

For all the traveling I do, I do not find travel easy even when everything goes well.  So while price is my main criteria for picking a flight, I will not fly with an airline that has a lame app and any problems with data management. 

I recently flew with Spirit Airlines. I loved it for the old-fashioned reasons of nice people, on-time performance and easy boarding. But if anything had gone wrong, they had an app that would have me on my way as soon as possible.  And all for $74 round-trip. 

 

 

Friend Gets Top Job: He Now Knows He Is An HMFIC

 

Mike McCoy, Interim Editor-in-Chief

Chemical and Engineering News

Today I ran into a friend I have known and worked with since the 1990s at a conference in Indianapolis.  As we talked I found out he had recently been named Editor-in-Chief of Chemical and Engineering News magazine.  In his self-effacing way he told me that his promotion was because so many other high-level editors left recently. But he is and always has been a leader able to manage and get great results from a staff of creative people--one of the more difficult management gigs there is.

I first met Mike when he was named the managing editor of Chemical Market Reporter in the late 1990s. That magazine was, at the time, one of five global weekly chemical news magazines. It began as the Oil, Paint & Drug Reporter in the 1870s. Mike managed 20 columnists who covered various markets when many chemical companies still had offices in or around New York City.  

Mike was young and his staff was younger, mostly recent grads of journalism school. They wanted a journalism job in New York. Many of them worked for a year, wrote 50 columns and moved on the other magazines in the chemical news area or business press.  Mike and I talked about staff turn over and management. Half the staff went to new jobs in an average year, but Mike could remain calm dealing with constantly hiring and anticipating the loss of his best writers. His magazine had the lowest pay in the chemical industry, so he knew he was training writers for better-paying jobs.

Years later he moved to C&EN managing the business office located then in New Jersey, now in NYC.  He managed a very stable staff of writers there for more than a decade. Now he has the top job in the Washington-based magazine, at least for a while.  

Mike and his staff gave me a going away party when I went to Iraq 2009. I brought Army field rations so some of the food could be real Army cuisine.  

Since I have known Mike for so long and only in leadership jobs, I was surprised that I told him only today with this new job that he is an HMFIC (Head MF In Charge, the Army generic term for anyone in charge at any level.)

Congratulations Mike--Interim Editor-in-Chief and lifelong HMFIC.

A Visit to the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library

In the middle of Indianapolis is a lovely little museum devoted to the life and works of a brilliant and crazy author of more than a dozen novels and a dozen more works of non-fiction, plays and short-story collections: The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

Among the displays in the museum is a shelf of books with Vonnegut novels published in many, many languages around the globe.  With novels set all over the world including a million years in the future (Galapagos), Vonnegut is very much a man from Indiana. He loved Indiana and expressed that love all of his long life. 

And this darkly funny man could also include his Indiana roots in messages from a coming Armageddon.

The third floor of the museum is devoted to Vonnegut's most famous work, Slaughterhouse Five.

This strange novel is in part the story of Vonnegut's survival of one of the terrible fire bombings during World War II. He was a prisoner of war in an underground slaughterhouse in Dresden which is how he survived a five-day raid in which 150,000 people died. 

Vonnegut was captured in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge.

Later in life his face became well-known as one of America's great artists.

For me, Vonnegut is one of the great examples of people who transformed the pain of war into art.  

At the end of his life he admired Jesus deeply and openly at the same time he was a noted atheist. He said that being kind was the greatest thing a person could do with their lives.  

Contradiction?  Life has a lot of contradictions. I am so glad Kurt Vonnegut shared his contradictions with the world. 

  

Big Conspiracy Theories in a Small Town

 

I was in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, today. A small town north of Lancaster. I wanted coffee and saw there were three coffee shops near the center of town. I went to Café 58 which my son Nigel suggested by looking at Google maps. 

Within a few minutes the name would change in my mind to Café [Area] 51. It was raining when I walked to the cafe. A sticker on the door said Veteran Owned business. In mid-state Pennsylvania, that was most likely to mean an Iraq/Afghanistan veteran who thinks Fox News is too liberal. 

Inside, the cafe was dark paneled, dimly lit and there was only one customer.  The owner was in his 50s. His customer at the bar was in his early 60s. I waited while they watched a video together. From several feet away, I could only tell that the video had a talking dog and a lot of yelling. 

After they watched the video, they took turns bemoaning the need for more laughter in the world; the owner turned toward me asked what I would like. I said a latte to go. He asked what flavor I wanted. I said none. He said, “Well, you want a cappuccino. A latte with no flavor is a cappuccino. I make such a good cappuccino you’ll think you are in Italy.” He said this with the air of a man of vast experience talking to a rube.

For a moment I thought about saying I spent a week in Rome last summer, so I can make the comparison, but decided against speaking. The owner and the customer started talking about someone famous they both knew. I did not catch the name, but it was a conservative activist. Then they said something about 9-11 conspiracies.  

They were laughing. But it turns out they were not laughing at 9-11 conspiracies. I should have taken my better-than-Italy-cappuccino and left, but I said, "A lot of people believe 9-11 conspiracies."

Then I told them about seeing a report on CNN on the 5th anniversary of 9-11 that said 28% of Americans believe 9-11 was an inside job. After seeing the report, I went to a local coffee shop, repeated what I heard on TV and the owner of the shop said, “Yes. It was an inside job.” 

The customer at the bar now turned on his bar stool and was facing me, feet on the floor, leaning forward. Intent. The owner said that the corner of College and Main where his shop is located is a wormhole to alternate dimensions. Going along with the joke, but knowing this was going somewhere weird, I said one of my sons lives down the street and that’s why he moved here. 

Then the owner asked me if I remembered seeing Donald Rumsfeld on the TV the night before 9-11 saying 63 trillion dollars was missing from the U.S. treasury. Then he said that on 9-11 Building 7 collapsed just like the twin towers, but no airplane crashed into it. Building 7 was where all the records were stored of the missing 63 trillion dollars. (In 2019, the entire GDP of the US was 21 trillion dollars; 63 trillion is pretty much the GDP of the whole world.) 

After that, I found myself edging backward toward the door. The owner continued saying that the reason for 9-11 was to put the Patriot Act into law and take away our rights. He said 3,000 civilians being killed was a small price for that. After all, 50,000 soldiers died in the Vietnam War to expand government control over its citizens. 

I left at that point. I sipped the cappuccino. It wasn’t very good. I decided if I finished it, I would come under some kind of mind control, so I threw it away and went to one of the other coffee shops in Myerstown. 

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At some point in the conversation, I don’t remember at what point, the owner interjected that the Pentagon is five-sided and that makes it a pentagram. He said it with the intensity of someone who has the Truth.  

George Soros: Republicans Make Up Ridiculous Lies to Discredit a Great Man

 

George Soros, Holocaust survivor as a teenager

Last night I talked with a friend from the Army in the 1970s. He voted for Trump twice and will vote for him again. He is an Evangelical Christian and believes he supports Israel.

At one point in the conversation I was taking about how the biggest turning point in my life was when Nazis marches in Charlottesville and four days later the President said there were "fine people on both sides."

My friend than announced confidently that "George Soros worked with the Nazis against the Jews."

I was aghast.

I knew that Fox and all the right wing hate media beat up Soros every chance they had.This accusation was clearly something my friend had heard so often he could quote it like it was from a hate Bible.

I said, "George Soros is 92. He survived the deportation and murder of a half million Hungarian Jews. He was 15 years old when the war ended. He got to London at 17. Made a lot of money and helped bring down the Soviet empire. You sources of information are Jew haters and stupid."

We changed topics after that.

It is a sad joke that Evangelicals love Israel, but not Jews. Swallowing lies that are this stupid prove the point.

Putting the People You Love in Hell: Dante and Ser Brunetto

 

In Canto 15 of Inferno Dante speaks with his former mentor Ser Brunetto Latini.  His sin is not named, but it is sodomy.  He is in Hell for eternity for being homosexual.

Dante is respectful as he speaks and the conversation only ends when Latini must return to his torments. As I re-read Inferno this time, I am more aware of Dante as the author.  He chose to map his eternity on the science and theology current in the late 13th Century. But even with an orthodox eternity this is a world Dante creates.  

Every person he puts in Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven is up to him.  Dante had no way of knowing that the poem he wrote would be written about and read more than any other book except the Bible, but he could assume a very wide readership among Florentines and other Italians.  His is the first epic written in vernacular Italian, so his readership could be much wider than for books written in Latin.  

And all who read his book would know that Latini was homosexual.  Dante had to know many people who were homosexual, so why does he choose his mentor for the spokesperson of this level of Hell?  He shows respect in his imagined conversation, but how respectful is it to single out one you claim to love for eternal condemnation?

I went to a folk concert a long time ago. A woman came to the stage and said her first song would be about the guy who just broke up with her.  The song was very funny, and very clear about the man's faults; her use of shortcomings was brilliant.  She said before she sang "If you hurt a woman with an audience, everyone will know your name."  I heard Taylor Swift has sold millions in that genre.  

I understand better why Dante condemns his enemies, but Canto 15 makes me wonder why he chose his mentor for Hell.