Random Thinking

Happy New Year to everyone. Here’s the Google Maps street image of Times Square. It will look very different tonight!

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Michel gave Beth and me a new DVD for Christmas and thankfully it wasn’t season 3 of Murder She Wrote. Much better, she gave us season 2 of Hogan’s Heroes. Beth had been exposed to this show a number of years ago when it was on Nick at Night. In fact, she loved it so much that when they took it off the air she wrote a letter to the network asking for them to bring it back.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it is the stupidest concept for a program ever written with the possible exception of a mother reincarnating as a car. The show is a comedy that takes place in a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany. But these prisoners are not typical prisoners as they have a network of tunnels running throughout and outside the camp. But they don’t use them to escape, instead using them to sabotage the Nazi war effort and help Allied pilots shot down over Germany to escape back to England.

Stupid? Absolutely! But the show is brilliant and funny. Beth hasn’t been able to stop watching it since we watched the first episode together the other night. Although some people may be offended by treating the subject of Nazis in a comedic fashion, you only have to think back to Mel Brooks and The Producers. As Brooks once said, “[I]f you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can’t win.”

But best of all is that almost every Nazi in the show is portrayed by someone who is Jewish and almost all of them either fled Nazi Germany or survived the concentration camps. Werner Klemperer, Colonel Klink, fled the Nazis in 1933 and served in the US Army during World War 2. John Banner, Sergeant Schultz, was in a concentration camp until 1938 when he was able to leave Germany. The rest of his family died in the extermination camps. Howard Caine, the Gestapo officer Major Hochstetter, was born in Tennessee and raised in New York City. Robert Clary, the Frenchman Corporal LeBeau, survived Buchenwald although many members of his family did not. But best of all was Leon Askin, General Burkhalter. Askin was a cabaret performer in Vienna and was forced to flee to France and then to the US in 1940. Askin served in the US Army during the war. His parents died in the Treblinka death camp. In 1994, he returned to Vienna where he resumed his cabaret work after being away from it for 54 years. He died two years ago, at the age of 97, having outlived the Nazi regime that wished to destroy him by 60 years.

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you now
You got someone to blame
You say…

One love
One life
When it’s one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don’t care for it

Did I disappoint you
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it’s…

Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We’re one, but we’re not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One…

Have you come here for forgiveness
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much
More than a lot
You gave me nothing
Now it’s all I got
We’re one
But we’re not the same
Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can’t be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

One…life

One

From the album, Achtung Baby, 1992

—————

Bono: “It is a song about coming together, but it’s not the old hippie idea of ‘Let’s all live together.’ It is, in fact, the opposite. It’s saying, We are one, but we’re not the same. It’s not saying we even want to get along, but that we have to get along together in this world if it is to survive. It’s a reminder that we have no choice.”

The older man in the video is Bono’s father.

My mother gave me this painting recently. It had been painted by my grandfather (my father’s father) almost 100 years ago. Otto Paul (his real name was Adolph but he never liked the name so he made everyone call him Otto) was born in the US. His parents had moved here from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in the late 1860’s. I always loved this picture and I’m glad that I can display it in my living room. It is something from the family that I will be able to pass onto Beth.

Blood and Thunder
by Hampton Sides

It’s hard to come up with enough superlatives to describe this book. Hampton Sides has written a book about the life of Kit Carson and the period of American history that Carson lived in that can only be described as perfect. Sides tells us not just the story of Kit Carson but also the many other fascinating characters who shaped the history of the Southwest. He keeps the story moving by concentrating on the key events of the 1840s and 1860s that led to the US conquering the West from Mexico and the battles that eventually led to the decline of the Native population.

Kit Carson is an amazing character. He was a trapper, guide, scout, explorer, soldier, husband, and father and Sides gives us glimpses into every one of these aspects of Carson’s life. The first half of the book covers the early years of Carson’s life leading us to the Mexican-American War. The campaigns during the war in New Mexico and California are both covered in some detail. The defeat of Mexico led to the US seizing New Mexico and California and with it the problems of dealing with the Native Americans who lived there, especially the Navajos. For many years, the Navajos had fought with the settlers in New Mexico. Although the Mexican settlements such as Santa Fe and Taos were outside of the Navajo nation, the Mexicans attacked Navajos to sell them as slaves and Navajos attacked and killed Mexicans, stealing their sheep and crops.

The second half of the book deals with Kit Carson the soldier and the battles of the Civil War as Confederate Texans invaded New Mexico and the Najavos took advantage of this period to increase their attacks on Americans. This eventually led to a determination to solve the Navajo “problem” once and for all. Sides tells us of the good and bad intentions on both sides of the conflicts with the Navajos and how ultimately even the best intentions proved fatal to the Native Americans. The overall effect is to give us a much deeper understanding of the time and place that Sides discusses. I have to admit that I approached this book with few expectations because the history of the West had never been of much interest to me but Sides quickly pulled me into the story. I can heartily recommend it to anyone.

Tags: books, review, southwest, Kit Carson, Navajos

And here’s Beth showing off her new outfit.

Here’s a picture of Mikey on Christmas Eve waiting for Santa to visit.

Mikey and I have been watching the Rugrats Christmas episode on TV. Cablevision has it as a choice in their Free On Demand feature. This particular episode has Angelica tricking Phil and Lil into giving up their favorite toys to get a toy for their sibling. So Phil gives up his Reptar doll to get crayons for Lil and Lil gives up her coloring book to get a Reptar space helmet for Phil. Does this sound familiar? Beth recognized it immediately. The O. Henry story is one of my favorite Christmas stories. The story reminds us that Christmas really has nothing to do with gifts at all. It has everything to do with love.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Over at Ramblings of the Bearded One, we find out that Santa has been released by the federal government after being arrested for illegally entering the US last December 25th.

We recently received a note from Beth’s High School detailing her recent absences. At the bottom of the page was a list of codes used by the report such S=Susp, C=Cut, etc. Notice the one that is circled in the excerpt above. R=ETard??? I’m sorry but there is no way you are going to convince me that is an accident. Someone thought they were being funny when they set up this code list. You can be sure that we will be complaining to the school when we meet with the assistant principal this week.

Update: We spoke with the Assistant Principal about the code and he was shocked. No one had noticed it before but he assured us that they would be talking to their computer services provider to get it changed. (ETard stands for Excused Tardy.)