When Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected as Governor of California, the ballot was full of over 100 candidates including a porn film star (who proposed taxing breast implants as a way of generating state revenue) and a porn magazine publisher (who had no campaign platform at all). The rest of the nation laughed. "Only in California," they said.
But it isn't just California anymore that has joke ballots. With the selection of Sarah Palin, John McCain has turned this year's presidential election into a farce. I thought it was a joke when I first heard about it. I really did. Unbelievable. An "average hockey mom" (her quote not mine) for VP. I guess you can't make stuff like this up it's so ridiculous.
Quite simply, Sarah Palin is unqualified for the job. She lacks experience. She lacks credentials. If she became president, we would be a laughing stock in the eyes of the world (far more than we already are with Bush). It's fine, I guess, for a hick state rife with corruption to elect an inexperienced hick as a governor, but it won't fly on the world stage.
Conservatives have their litmus tests for presidential candidates; first and foremost, a candidate has to be, like Sarah Palin, against abortion.
I too have my litmus test. A candidate must have the brains to believe in evolution. To not believe in this fundamental theory indicates a lack of knowledge of science and an unwillingness to look objectively at information. With regard to her views on evolution, Ms. Palin, the daughter of a science teacher, has said, "I'm not going to pretend I know how all this came to be." She has been open to the teaching of creationism in schools. To select someone this intellectually backward for the job of vice president is irresponsible. I note without comment that her stance on evolution is similar to that of our current president.
Then there is the issue of global warming. According to Sarah Palin, it isn't caused by humans.
Sarah Palin does not have the experience or knowledge base to do the job. She is even less qualified than the previously most embarrassing and ridiculed VP pick of my lifetime, Dan Quayle.
Even conservatives at the National Review find this choice an embarrassment. Republican Party diehards, though, are trying to make the claim that Ms. Palin is as experienced and ready as Barack Obama. Let's see now. Did Palin spend eight years in a state legislature? Has she been on any sort of national stage in an elected office? Did she spend time teaching consitutional law anywhere? Has she been vetted through a tough 18 month presidential campaign?
The argument is also made that because Palin has had "executive experience" as governor and mayor and Obama and Biden have not that she's actually better prepared than either Democrat; based on this "logic" she's better prepared than McCain as well. Maybe McCain and Palin should switch places.
This selection is uncannily like Bush's selecting Harriet Myers for a Supreme Court slot. Both Palin and Myers were chosen for reasons other than competence and qualifications. It's possible that like Myers, Palin will be so obviously over her head that she won't last.
The pundits say that McCain selected Sarah Palin for VP in an effort to attract women and to appease the Evangelicals. But Senator McCain has another responsibility besides trying to win the presidency for the Republican Party. He has a responsibility to this country to select someone who can actually do the job of being president should his health fail. In selecting Governor Palin, Senator McCain has failed this country miserably.
The pundits also say that McCain picked Sarah Palin in desperation. But this move was beyond desperate. McCain was going to lose no matter whom he picked. It's not the Republican's year and McCain is just not that attractive a candidate. He could have lost with some dignity. Instead he decided in his selection of his VP to make a mockery of the election process. Serious and responsible people do not do such things. McCain isn't going down swinging. He's going down while throwing a pie at the American public.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Mr. Serious
I'm the wrong person to judge large stadium rock star type events. I detest hoopla. I am the total opposite of hip. Whenever I see a crowd anywhere I run the other way.
Just last week, I was going to go to the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco. The lineup was sort of interesting. But the thought of seeing little dots of performers in the distance and wading through all of the people made me hesitate and started to look less and less appealing as time wore on.
A couple of days before Outside Lands, I went to see one of the performers on the roster, Nellie McKay, do a gig in Santa Cruz at a place that seats 200. It was nice. I was three rows away. The audience was sane. I thought "this is the way music ought to be performed" and I dumped my Outside Lands ticket happily the next day.
The last stadium size concert I think I went to was Paul Simon ages ago. It was alright, but nothing to write home about. Before that, it was Frank Zappa. I literally fell asleep.
So intrinsically, the idea of Barack Obama doing his Change, Change, Change thing in a stadium of 70,000 or so people holds no appeal. I wouldn't want to be there that's for certain. But when I try to look beyond myself, I have to say a lot of people wouldn't want to be at such an event.
It wasn't a good idea for Obama to move away from the convention hall last night to accept the nomination. There's something about the intimacy of a closed environment that heightens emotion and connection with an audience. Obama lost an opportunity to be up close and personal. Instead of being about his speech, the event took on a life of its own.
That all said, Obama did a decent job last night. He's never going to be a regular guy and every time he tries to act like one he looks like a stiff. Instead Obama came out as Mr. Serious and at times Mr. Angry. He was tight lipped. He didn't smile. He looked like a middleweight about to do battle in a championship event. I half expected him to be wearing a satin cape and boxing gloves. The overriding theme was that being in charge is serious business and he was going to take it seriously,
I don't know how the public responded to the Mr. Serious pose. Obama certainly didn't look like someone you would want over for dinner. But he established his cred as a guy from a modest background who is for the little guy and wants to help all of America achieve its hopes and dreams.
Obama didn't have to hit a home run last night. The American public is going to elect Barack Obama not because of the convention - which I thought went well - or his acceptance speech. They are going to elect him because McCain is old, cranky and unappealing. They are going to elect Obama because the Republicans have screwed up so badly for the last seven years that just about any candidate the Democrats would have put forth would win this thing.
Obama is a good speaker. He is smart. My hope is that, while inexperienced, he'll be a quick study and that he will find smart capable people to work with him and challenge him once he becomes president. If he feels he has to use the grave pose he showed last night to get the job done that's OK with me. I don't care what kind of pose he chooses just so long he moves this country in a better direction.
Just last week, I was going to go to the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco. The lineup was sort of interesting. But the thought of seeing little dots of performers in the distance and wading through all of the people made me hesitate and started to look less and less appealing as time wore on.
A couple of days before Outside Lands, I went to see one of the performers on the roster, Nellie McKay, do a gig in Santa Cruz at a place that seats 200. It was nice. I was three rows away. The audience was sane. I thought "this is the way music ought to be performed" and I dumped my Outside Lands ticket happily the next day.
The last stadium size concert I think I went to was Paul Simon ages ago. It was alright, but nothing to write home about. Before that, it was Frank Zappa. I literally fell asleep.
So intrinsically, the idea of Barack Obama doing his Change, Change, Change thing in a stadium of 70,000 or so people holds no appeal. I wouldn't want to be there that's for certain. But when I try to look beyond myself, I have to say a lot of people wouldn't want to be at such an event.
It wasn't a good idea for Obama to move away from the convention hall last night to accept the nomination. There's something about the intimacy of a closed environment that heightens emotion and connection with an audience. Obama lost an opportunity to be up close and personal. Instead of being about his speech, the event took on a life of its own.
That all said, Obama did a decent job last night. He's never going to be a regular guy and every time he tries to act like one he looks like a stiff. Instead Obama came out as Mr. Serious and at times Mr. Angry. He was tight lipped. He didn't smile. He looked like a middleweight about to do battle in a championship event. I half expected him to be wearing a satin cape and boxing gloves. The overriding theme was that being in charge is serious business and he was going to take it seriously,
I don't know how the public responded to the Mr. Serious pose. Obama certainly didn't look like someone you would want over for dinner. But he established his cred as a guy from a modest background who is for the little guy and wants to help all of America achieve its hopes and dreams.
Obama didn't have to hit a home run last night. The American public is going to elect Barack Obama not because of the convention - which I thought went well - or his acceptance speech. They are going to elect him because McCain is old, cranky and unappealing. They are going to elect Obama because the Republicans have screwed up so badly for the last seven years that just about any candidate the Democrats would have put forth would win this thing.
Obama is a good speaker. He is smart. My hope is that, while inexperienced, he'll be a quick study and that he will find smart capable people to work with him and challenge him once he becomes president. If he feels he has to use the grave pose he showed last night to get the job done that's OK with me. I don't care what kind of pose he chooses just so long he moves this country in a better direction.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Democratic Fatalism
One of the funnier things about watching the Democrats convene is that quite a few of them seem to be looking for signs that the Democrats are going to squander a perfectly good opportunity to win this year. According to these worriers, the convention is incoherent in its message. Hillary will bring us down in the end. Bill will bring us down in the end. Our keynote speaker was boring (Does anyone care?). The litany of complaints and worries is long.
I heard a lot of this kind of worrying when I was working for the Clinton campaign, too. The most ardent supporters of Clinton I worked with were downright depressing to be around. They were convinced that the Democrats would somehow lose. Why they soldiered on when they were so convinced their cause was doomed was beyond me.
I grew up with world class worriers. If you want to find people who are always on the lookout for the next disaster, you can do no better than to live around Holocaust survivors. I understand the mindset very well. I know I have a bit of that mindset myself (the acorn doesn't grow far from the tree). But I also feel that Holocaust survivors have a good reason to think that there is a disaster waiting around the corner. Their experiences justify their fears and sometimes outright paranoia. But Democrats? I don't get it.
I haven't seen a thing during this convention that makes me worry. Bill did his job. Hillary did her job. Kennedy amazingly did his job while cheating death. Even Biden and Kerry did well. About the only glitch I've seen so far has been the music, which has been dreadful and reached its absolute low point with the playing of "Addicted To Love" after Bill Clinton's speech. Someone ought to fire the musical director of the convention in a hurry. But who actually listens to music except for music heads like me?
Where does this strain of Democratic fatalism come from? I don't really know. All I know is I don't share it. Obama isn't a perfect candidate in a lot of ways. But neither is McCain. No one is. It doesn't matter that Obama has flaws. All that matters is that he has money and when he goes up against McCain in the daily news and in the debates he looks like the better candidate. Obama simply has to look better than the other guy and have the funds to pound out the ads to keep the public aware that he's better than the other guy. Can Obama and the Democrats do that? Duh.
I'm not worried in the least. Obama will win in November. End of story. Other people can of course worry if they want.
I heard a lot of this kind of worrying when I was working for the Clinton campaign, too. The most ardent supporters of Clinton I worked with were downright depressing to be around. They were convinced that the Democrats would somehow lose. Why they soldiered on when they were so convinced their cause was doomed was beyond me.
I grew up with world class worriers. If you want to find people who are always on the lookout for the next disaster, you can do no better than to live around Holocaust survivors. I understand the mindset very well. I know I have a bit of that mindset myself (the acorn doesn't grow far from the tree). But I also feel that Holocaust survivors have a good reason to think that there is a disaster waiting around the corner. Their experiences justify their fears and sometimes outright paranoia. But Democrats? I don't get it.
I haven't seen a thing during this convention that makes me worry. Bill did his job. Hillary did her job. Kennedy amazingly did his job while cheating death. Even Biden and Kerry did well. About the only glitch I've seen so far has been the music, which has been dreadful and reached its absolute low point with the playing of "Addicted To Love" after Bill Clinton's speech. Someone ought to fire the musical director of the convention in a hurry. But who actually listens to music except for music heads like me?
Where does this strain of Democratic fatalism come from? I don't really know. All I know is I don't share it. Obama isn't a perfect candidate in a lot of ways. But neither is McCain. No one is. It doesn't matter that Obama has flaws. All that matters is that he has money and when he goes up against McCain in the daily news and in the debates he looks like the better candidate. Obama simply has to look better than the other guy and have the funds to pound out the ads to keep the public aware that he's better than the other guy. Can Obama and the Democrats do that? Duh.
I'm not worried in the least. Obama will win in November. End of story. Other people can of course worry if they want.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
My Girl Hillary Does The Job Right
One of the sillier narratives of the major news outlets is that somehow Democrats who were Clinton supporters are going to bolt the party and vote for McCain. These narratives usually include a stray quote or two from an angry Hillaryite. What the press is doing is manufacturing the appearance of major dissent to create a story that just isn't there. It's the equivalent of what the press does with global warming and the scientific community. They find some kooky scientist who says global warming doesn't exist to sell the phony story that there is dissent and controversy among scientists.
Clinton supporters can of course vent and rant. Part of the reason they are doing so is that the Obama campaign's attitude toward Hillaryites has been that youthful Asperger's kind of response you get from the internet generation: you lost, we won, get on board or go f*ck yourself. Social graces aren't the internet generation's long suit. Be that as it may, those Clinton ranters aren't going to act on their frustration in the voting booth. It isn't going to happen.
If you're a feminist, the chances of you voting for McCain are virtually nil. If you are a Democrat, the chances that you are going to bolt the party and vote for McCain because you're not sold on Obama are virtually nil. McCain is simply not a viable alternative for a Democrat on virtually every issue. From energy policy to foreign policy to the economy to woman's rights there is nothing appealing in McCain. Democrats aren't going to bolt. It's a non-issue.
The one good thing about this phony narrative is that it created interest in last night's convention speech by Hillary Clinton. She did a fine job. She left not a doubt that she and the entire Democratic Party support Obama. Obamaphiles could carp that she didn't mention Obama enough in her speech or retract all of the negative Obama statements she made during the campaign, but she wasn't speaking to Obamaphiles. They've already made up their minds to vote for Obama. And having her somehow show that she suddenly got Obama-fever and saw the error of her past ways would not have been a credible stance for her to present to her supporters.
The fact is that Clinton almost won. The ball didn't bounce right for her in a couple of key ways. It was just bad luck for Clinton and good luck for Obama that made the difference. Had Edwards not run from the beginning (and given that it was inevitable that his affair would become public knowledge during the campaign, he was stupid and delusional to run), Clinton would have fared better with the working class vote from the beginning. Had Michigan and Florida run their elections on their prescribed dates, she would have had two more undeniable major wins in her column.
Instead of the press covering the silly story of bolting Clinton supporters, it could just as easily have been covering the silly story of bolting Obama supporters if Clinton had been a little lucky. It just didn't happen.
She deserved her night. She deserved the right to talk about her historic campaign, her issues and her supporters. She did what she needed to do and she did it with style and grace. I was proud for her and the Democratic Party last night. Maybe now the press can get down to some real news.
Clinton supporters can of course vent and rant. Part of the reason they are doing so is that the Obama campaign's attitude toward Hillaryites has been that youthful Asperger's kind of response you get from the internet generation: you lost, we won, get on board or go f*ck yourself. Social graces aren't the internet generation's long suit. Be that as it may, those Clinton ranters aren't going to act on their frustration in the voting booth. It isn't going to happen.
If you're a feminist, the chances of you voting for McCain are virtually nil. If you are a Democrat, the chances that you are going to bolt the party and vote for McCain because you're not sold on Obama are virtually nil. McCain is simply not a viable alternative for a Democrat on virtually every issue. From energy policy to foreign policy to the economy to woman's rights there is nothing appealing in McCain. Democrats aren't going to bolt. It's a non-issue.
The one good thing about this phony narrative is that it created interest in last night's convention speech by Hillary Clinton. She did a fine job. She left not a doubt that she and the entire Democratic Party support Obama. Obamaphiles could carp that she didn't mention Obama enough in her speech or retract all of the negative Obama statements she made during the campaign, but she wasn't speaking to Obamaphiles. They've already made up their minds to vote for Obama. And having her somehow show that she suddenly got Obama-fever and saw the error of her past ways would not have been a credible stance for her to present to her supporters.
The fact is that Clinton almost won. The ball didn't bounce right for her in a couple of key ways. It was just bad luck for Clinton and good luck for Obama that made the difference. Had Edwards not run from the beginning (and given that it was inevitable that his affair would become public knowledge during the campaign, he was stupid and delusional to run), Clinton would have fared better with the working class vote from the beginning. Had Michigan and Florida run their elections on their prescribed dates, she would have had two more undeniable major wins in her column.
Instead of the press covering the silly story of bolting Clinton supporters, it could just as easily have been covering the silly story of bolting Obama supporters if Clinton had been a little lucky. It just didn't happen.
She deserved her night. She deserved the right to talk about her historic campaign, her issues and her supporters. She did what she needed to do and she did it with style and grace. I was proud for her and the Democratic Party last night. Maybe now the press can get down to some real news.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Redemption
Several years ago I went to interview Senator Harry Reid for an article that was never published (happens all of the time). Before the interview I had some time to kill, so I watched the Senate do its work from the gallery. Hardly anyone was present on the Senate floor and the gallery was empty. The issue under discussion was immigration. Senator Kennedy stood up and held the floor for five minutes, giving a rousing speech. I was amazed. Even though there was no audience, he came forth bellowing with full energy. He acted like he owned the place. And in a way he did.
After my interview of Harry Reid, I took the little underground train that connects the Senate offices to the Senate floor. In my little train car, there were two young twenty something women with big smiles, tiny waists and 38 inch breasts. I asked who they worked for. Senator Kennedy of course.
I wasn't going to watch the convention last night, but my sweetie wanted to see Michelle Obama, so I did. She's not very sanguine that the Democrats can win this thing. I'd call her cautiously optimistic with a dash of fatalism. I'm more than sanguine. I'd bet my car on it.
Last night was a good night to be a Democrat. There was emotion and optimism on display. The Democrat's last convention with Kerry was a rather rag tag ill conceived affair from the get go. This one on the other hand started out with a bang.
There was Michelle Obama, articulate, intelligent and lovely. And of course there was that cute moment with the Obama kids that could tug at anyone's heart strings. But for seven minutes, there was the amazing Ted Kennedy, several months removed from having a hole cut in his head, holding sway over thousands in the convention center and millions more on TV.
I've watched Ted Kennedy over his entire political career. His beginnings were far from the stuff of greatness. His resume was thin and seedy, having been expelled from Harvard for cheating. He was in essence a spoiled brat who never grew up, but who had golden connections. Had he not had those connections in 1969, he might well have been put behind bars.
But something happened to Ted Kennedy as he got older. Sure there was still the skirt chasing, but he seemed to find his role in American politics. He found a voice. He learned how to give a rousing speech. From seedy beginnings, he transformed himself into a true statesman.
Watching Ted Kennedy last night was a marvel. When he promised to be present at Obama's inauguration, I just nodded my head. He looked superhuman up there on the podium. If he says he can cheat death for a least another half year, I for one am not going to doubt him. Talk about emotion. My lord.
After my interview of Harry Reid, I took the little underground train that connects the Senate offices to the Senate floor. In my little train car, there were two young twenty something women with big smiles, tiny waists and 38 inch breasts. I asked who they worked for. Senator Kennedy of course.
I wasn't going to watch the convention last night, but my sweetie wanted to see Michelle Obama, so I did. She's not very sanguine that the Democrats can win this thing. I'd call her cautiously optimistic with a dash of fatalism. I'm more than sanguine. I'd bet my car on it.
Last night was a good night to be a Democrat. There was emotion and optimism on display. The Democrat's last convention with Kerry was a rather rag tag ill conceived affair from the get go. This one on the other hand started out with a bang.
There was Michelle Obama, articulate, intelligent and lovely. And of course there was that cute moment with the Obama kids that could tug at anyone's heart strings. But for seven minutes, there was the amazing Ted Kennedy, several months removed from having a hole cut in his head, holding sway over thousands in the convention center and millions more on TV.
I've watched Ted Kennedy over his entire political career. His beginnings were far from the stuff of greatness. His resume was thin and seedy, having been expelled from Harvard for cheating. He was in essence a spoiled brat who never grew up, but who had golden connections. Had he not had those connections in 1969, he might well have been put behind bars.
But something happened to Ted Kennedy as he got older. Sure there was still the skirt chasing, but he seemed to find his role in American politics. He found a voice. He learned how to give a rousing speech. From seedy beginnings, he transformed himself into a true statesman.
Watching Ted Kennedy last night was a marvel. When he promised to be present at Obama's inauguration, I just nodded my head. He looked superhuman up there on the podium. If he says he can cheat death for a least another half year, I for one am not going to doubt him. Talk about emotion. My lord.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Looking Beyond The Election
I still believe that this year's presidential race ended before it began. Polls, shmolls. My view is that the Republicans are such damaged goods right now that the Democrats could almost put up a cigar store Indian for its presidential candidate and win. I was very interested in the Democratic primary. Watching Obama build up a lead in the middle of the race was exciting even though I wasn't a supporter. For much of the race, I was very engaged and read about every nit-picking detail. It was fun, just plain wonderful political theater.
But this race between Obama and McCain is an afterthought. Snooze.
So it goes with VP choices. Obama could have helped himself politically by choosing Clinton. While my view is that Obama will win no matter who he has as a VP, you'd think he'd want to make sure he was in the victory column come November and pick someone who would give him a percentage point or two edge. Instead, he chose someone who will not help him election-wise at all, Joseph Biden. Snooze.
My reaction to all of this is almost identical to my reaction to Bill Clinton in 1992. I supported him, but my support was wan. I liked Jerry Brown better. Clinton just wasn't my cup of tea. When Clinton picked Al Gore, I wasn't very impressed. Al Gore wasn't my cup of tea either. In a lot of ways - pompous, self-satisfied, more than a bit of a blowhard - Joseph Biden is the second coming of Al Gore.
I warmed up to Bill Clinton over the years he was president. My hope is that I'll do the same with Obama. For me, the choice of Biden isn't an election-minded decision. How on Earth can a blowhard Washington insider from a tiny state help Obama win this election? Rather, in making Biden as his VP choice, Obama is probably looking beyond the election; he wants someone he can work with well. Apparently, Biden is someone whom he feels he can trust and can offer both wisdom and knowledge.
I expect that Joseph Biden will play a significant and positive role in the upcoming Obama presidency. Unlike Obama, he does have a good deal of Washington experience. Unlike Obama, he seems to get along with a wide range of people on a personal basis. My guess is that he'll be the one in the back rooms doing the necessary work that Obama seems to not posses the skill set to do.
I am looking forward to moving beyond these seven years of awful leadership. We really do have nowhere to go but up. I'll keep my fingers crossed that Obama can and will lead effectively.
But this race between Obama and McCain is an afterthought. Snooze.
So it goes with VP choices. Obama could have helped himself politically by choosing Clinton. While my view is that Obama will win no matter who he has as a VP, you'd think he'd want to make sure he was in the victory column come November and pick someone who would give him a percentage point or two edge. Instead, he chose someone who will not help him election-wise at all, Joseph Biden. Snooze.
My reaction to all of this is almost identical to my reaction to Bill Clinton in 1992. I supported him, but my support was wan. I liked Jerry Brown better. Clinton just wasn't my cup of tea. When Clinton picked Al Gore, I wasn't very impressed. Al Gore wasn't my cup of tea either. In a lot of ways - pompous, self-satisfied, more than a bit of a blowhard - Joseph Biden is the second coming of Al Gore.
I warmed up to Bill Clinton over the years he was president. My hope is that I'll do the same with Obama. For me, the choice of Biden isn't an election-minded decision. How on Earth can a blowhard Washington insider from a tiny state help Obama win this election? Rather, in making Biden as his VP choice, Obama is probably looking beyond the election; he wants someone he can work with well. Apparently, Biden is someone whom he feels he can trust and can offer both wisdom and knowledge.
I expect that Joseph Biden will play a significant and positive role in the upcoming Obama presidency. Unlike Obama, he does have a good deal of Washington experience. Unlike Obama, he seems to get along with a wide range of people on a personal basis. My guess is that he'll be the one in the back rooms doing the necessary work that Obama seems to not posses the skill set to do.
I am looking forward to moving beyond these seven years of awful leadership. We really do have nowhere to go but up. I'll keep my fingers crossed that Obama can and will lead effectively.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Tales From The Old Country and Beyond, Part 21
A Taste of Freedom
When I was in high school, I went out a couple of times with a girl who, like my parents, was the child of Jewish immigrants. I liked her quite a bit, but then word got around that small overheated world of immigrants in Milwaukee that we might be an item and I wasn't happy to be part of their gossip. Then I found out that the girl's father had proposed to my mother back in Germany when my mother was all of seventeen. That was just too weird for me. The romance, which barely started, was over.
My mother said to me once that she loved her time in Germany. It was her first taste of freedom in six years. Her family had its own home. Her father had a successful business. She wanted for nothing. My mother, a teenager, went to the Jewish gymnasium and like always she loved school. She was also chased after by Jewish boys. She was tall by Jewish immigrant standards with long curly red hair. I'm sure she cut quite a figure and I think we still have a gold Jewish star that one of those boys made by hand for her as a birthday gift. She was proposed to at least twice, once as noted above and once by a Jewish American soldier who kept bothering her parents to the point that they thought he was a bit of a stalker.
In both cases, the ardor was completely unrequited. She had no interest in either man and thought they were crazy for asking. But she was definitely interested in boys. She'd try to play the role of sophisticate, smoking cigarettes in cafes in the city while she hung out with other Jewish teens. There was one boy she was particularly interested in when she was 16; he was 21 or so. She was not shy about showing her interest, but was rebuffed. "You still have your mother's milk on your lips," he said to her.
There were dances during evenings in the summer in the English Garden. My grandfather would attend these dances to keep a watchful eye on the boys and also to keep the gentile men from trying their luck with any of the Jewish girls. There were soccer matches to watch whenever the Munich Jewish immigrant team went up against gentile club teams from various cities in Germany. Apparently this Jewish team was actually quite good and there was a memorable match with the Munich city team which was one of the better teams in Germany. By coincidence, one of the stars of the Jewish team was a friend of my father from his hometown of Ludmir.* I'm sure my father attended these games. My mother and father might have crossed paths.
Then there were funny incidents as a result of Jews from America trying to help. For instance, a staple in American Jewish homes at the time was Rubinstein's canned salmon. At considerable effort and expense, crate upon crate of the stuff was sent to the Jewish DP camps in Germany. The European Jews looked at the cans in bewilderment. "What is this? Fish in a can? What kind of garbage can this be?" The DP residents summarily threw it all out.
Jews weren't the only immigrants in Munich. There were displaced person's camps all around town representing different nationalities of Eastern Europe. What was both ironic and dangerous is the reason these non-Jews were displaced from places like the Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania was because they were Nazi sympathizers unwanted in their own countries.
Every once in a while, these Nazi sympathizers would let their anti-Semitism erupt, beating up Jewish adults and children in public places. Worse yet, they would try to infiltrate the Jewish DP camps in the night. In response, DP camps like the one where my mother lived organized their own internal police force trained by the US and UNRA. The police were trained to patrol and ward off attacks. US agents showed them such details as to how to kill intruders with blows that wouldn't show. At least one intruding Ukrainian was killed this way, driven out of the DP camp, and dropped off on a street in the middle of Munich.
Through it all was the knowledge on the part of everyone that this stay in Germany was temporary. Up until 1948, there was really nowhere to go. My mother caused my grandfather no end of worry by protesting with many other Jews in front of the English embassy in Munich for England's banning of Jewish immigration to Palestine. He was worried that she would be arrested, making immigration of his family to the US much more difficult.
My grandmother was steadfast in her refusal to go to Israel even after 1948. My grandfather wasn't going to win this battle. He then argued that, since it was proving difficult to get to the US, they should stay in Germany. He had a successful business and there were opportunities for even more money to be made. My grandmother thought that this was an even crazier idea than going to Israel. "I'm not going to live the rest of my life with these murderers," she said.
Sometime around 1948, word came that General Eisenhower was going to visit my mother's DP camp. The excitement level was tremendous. Maybe this would be an opportunity for my grandfather to find a way to get to the US. If perhaps he could get a letter or a good word from the great general, then doors could finally open. I'm sure other prominent people from the DP camp were thinking the same thing.
But the visit from Eisenhower was simply a politically motivated photo opportunity. He had come to one of the few DP camps that weren't thoroughly depressing to deflect criticism that Jewish immigrants were being mistreated. No one at the DP camp could get close to Eisenhower, much less arrange for a letter to be written supporting their immigration.
I'll get both of my parents to the US next time.
*There's a sad yet funny story about this soccer star, whose name was Sheeah, and who I met many times when I was a kid. In Germany, there were some known advantages if you were under 16 when you came as a displaced person. You received schooling, a stipend and even got a little allotment of candy every month. Sheeah was 23 when he came to Germany, but said he was 15 to get his schooling, candy and whatnot. So far so good. When he came to Ellis Island in 1949, he decided to pull this same trick again even though he was 27. But there was no stipend, candy or schooling this time. Worse yet, this deception on his part bit him in the butt many years later. A poor man with a nothing of a sewing shop in Skokie, his claim for Social Security was rejected when he turned his true age of 65. According to his citizenship papers, he was only 53. He constantly bemoaned his bad decision making at Ellis Island. "I'll be dead before I get a chance at ever getting this money," he would say. He was right.
When I was in high school, I went out a couple of times with a girl who, like my parents, was the child of Jewish immigrants. I liked her quite a bit, but then word got around that small overheated world of immigrants in Milwaukee that we might be an item and I wasn't happy to be part of their gossip. Then I found out that the girl's father had proposed to my mother back in Germany when my mother was all of seventeen. That was just too weird for me. The romance, which barely started, was over.
My mother said to me once that she loved her time in Germany. It was her first taste of freedom in six years. Her family had its own home. Her father had a successful business. She wanted for nothing. My mother, a teenager, went to the Jewish gymnasium and like always she loved school. She was also chased after by Jewish boys. She was tall by Jewish immigrant standards with long curly red hair. I'm sure she cut quite a figure and I think we still have a gold Jewish star that one of those boys made by hand for her as a birthday gift. She was proposed to at least twice, once as noted above and once by a Jewish American soldier who kept bothering her parents to the point that they thought he was a bit of a stalker.
In both cases, the ardor was completely unrequited. She had no interest in either man and thought they were crazy for asking. But she was definitely interested in boys. She'd try to play the role of sophisticate, smoking cigarettes in cafes in the city while she hung out with other Jewish teens. There was one boy she was particularly interested in when she was 16; he was 21 or so. She was not shy about showing her interest, but was rebuffed. "You still have your mother's milk on your lips," he said to her.
There were dances during evenings in the summer in the English Garden. My grandfather would attend these dances to keep a watchful eye on the boys and also to keep the gentile men from trying their luck with any of the Jewish girls. There were soccer matches to watch whenever the Munich Jewish immigrant team went up against gentile club teams from various cities in Germany. Apparently this Jewish team was actually quite good and there was a memorable match with the Munich city team which was one of the better teams in Germany. By coincidence, one of the stars of the Jewish team was a friend of my father from his hometown of Ludmir.* I'm sure my father attended these games. My mother and father might have crossed paths.
Then there were funny incidents as a result of Jews from America trying to help. For instance, a staple in American Jewish homes at the time was Rubinstein's canned salmon. At considerable effort and expense, crate upon crate of the stuff was sent to the Jewish DP camps in Germany. The European Jews looked at the cans in bewilderment. "What is this? Fish in a can? What kind of garbage can this be?" The DP residents summarily threw it all out.
Jews weren't the only immigrants in Munich. There were displaced person's camps all around town representing different nationalities of Eastern Europe. What was both ironic and dangerous is the reason these non-Jews were displaced from places like the Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania was because they were Nazi sympathizers unwanted in their own countries.
Every once in a while, these Nazi sympathizers would let their anti-Semitism erupt, beating up Jewish adults and children in public places. Worse yet, they would try to infiltrate the Jewish DP camps in the night. In response, DP camps like the one where my mother lived organized their own internal police force trained by the US and UNRA. The police were trained to patrol and ward off attacks. US agents showed them such details as to how to kill intruders with blows that wouldn't show. At least one intruding Ukrainian was killed this way, driven out of the DP camp, and dropped off on a street in the middle of Munich.
Through it all was the knowledge on the part of everyone that this stay in Germany was temporary. Up until 1948, there was really nowhere to go. My mother caused my grandfather no end of worry by protesting with many other Jews in front of the English embassy in Munich for England's banning of Jewish immigration to Palestine. He was worried that she would be arrested, making immigration of his family to the US much more difficult.
My grandmother was steadfast in her refusal to go to Israel even after 1948. My grandfather wasn't going to win this battle. He then argued that, since it was proving difficult to get to the US, they should stay in Germany. He had a successful business and there were opportunities for even more money to be made. My grandmother thought that this was an even crazier idea than going to Israel. "I'm not going to live the rest of my life with these murderers," she said.
Sometime around 1948, word came that General Eisenhower was going to visit my mother's DP camp. The excitement level was tremendous. Maybe this would be an opportunity for my grandfather to find a way to get to the US. If perhaps he could get a letter or a good word from the great general, then doors could finally open. I'm sure other prominent people from the DP camp were thinking the same thing.
But the visit from Eisenhower was simply a politically motivated photo opportunity. He had come to one of the few DP camps that weren't thoroughly depressing to deflect criticism that Jewish immigrants were being mistreated. No one at the DP camp could get close to Eisenhower, much less arrange for a letter to be written supporting their immigration.
I'll get both of my parents to the US next time.
*There's a sad yet funny story about this soccer star, whose name was Sheeah, and who I met many times when I was a kid. In Germany, there were some known advantages if you were under 16 when you came as a displaced person. You received schooling, a stipend and even got a little allotment of candy every month. Sheeah was 23 when he came to Germany, but said he was 15 to get his schooling, candy and whatnot. So far so good. When he came to Ellis Island in 1949, he decided to pull this same trick again even though he was 27. But there was no stipend, candy or schooling this time. Worse yet, this deception on his part bit him in the butt many years later. A poor man with a nothing of a sewing shop in Skokie, his claim for Social Security was rejected when he turned his true age of 65. According to his citizenship papers, he was only 53. He constantly bemoaned his bad decision making at Ellis Island. "I'll be dead before I get a chance at ever getting this money," he would say. He was right.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Best Colleges 2009
I note that US News just came out with its silly college rankings. Forbes also decided to get into this lucrative and dishonest game of ranking colleges last month. I still haven't figured out how to make money from my ranking service, rankyourcollege.com, but I note that I have managed to keep Forbes at bay and still own the fourth most popular college ranking service in the world according to Google. Yay for number four!
Like US News, I feel compelled to write a yearly press release stating my findings. It's posted on my college ranking web site, but I include it here for completeness.
Press Release August 21, 2008
College Ranking Service Annual Announcement 2008
For the eighth straight year, the College Ranking
Service (CRS, rankyourcollege.com), has found that
prestige in colleges and universities correlates with
the size of endowment. The richest schools are the
most prestigious.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found no
difference between the prestige of Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, MIT, Caltech, and Stanford. They are all
incredibly prestigious and wealthy. In fact, they are
so wealthy that the CRS wonders why anyone continues
to donate money to them. They don’t need your money
folks. They have billions upon billions of dollars. By
continuing to solicit money from you, they are just
being greedy.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found no
difference between the prestige of Northwestern,
Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, Penn and about a dozen or so
universities that aren’t quite as wealthy as Harvard
et al. While they don’t have endowments in the 10 plus
billion range, they do have endowments in the 5
billion dollar range. They too are wealthy enough.
They don’t need your money either.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found no
correlation between the prestige of a university and
the quality of its education.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found that
state universities continue to be squeezed by state
governments. They will never be as prestigious as the
universities above because they don’t have their
wealth. But they are the engines that provide this
country with its educated workforce. Without Harvard
et al., this country would still do well. Without UCLA
et al., this country would be in real trouble. The CRS
suggests that you take the money that you would
normally give to your prestigious and already wealthy
alma mater (if you perhaps went to one of those
schools) and give it to your state university instead.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found that
US News' college ranking:
1) Tries to make quantitative distinctions
between universities on the basis of statistically insignificant
differences;
2) Jiggles its methodology every year to
make sure the rankings change in order to generate
public interest.
Note: This press release means my weekly family history post gets pushed to tomorrow. Sorrrry.
Like US News, I feel compelled to write a yearly press release stating my findings. It's posted on my college ranking web site, but I include it here for completeness.
Press Release August 21, 2008
College Ranking Service Annual Announcement 2008
For the eighth straight year, the College Ranking
Service (CRS, rankyourcollege.com), has found that
prestige in colleges and universities correlates with
the size of endowment. The richest schools are the
most prestigious.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found no
difference between the prestige of Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, MIT, Caltech, and Stanford. They are all
incredibly prestigious and wealthy. In fact, they are
so wealthy that the CRS wonders why anyone continues
to donate money to them. They don’t need your money
folks. They have billions upon billions of dollars. By
continuing to solicit money from you, they are just
being greedy.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found no
difference between the prestige of Northwestern,
Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, Penn and about a dozen or so
universities that aren’t quite as wealthy as Harvard
et al. While they don’t have endowments in the 10 plus
billion range, they do have endowments in the 5
billion dollar range. They too are wealthy enough.
They don’t need your money either.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found no
correlation between the prestige of a university and
the quality of its education.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found that
state universities continue to be squeezed by state
governments. They will never be as prestigious as the
universities above because they don’t have their
wealth. But they are the engines that provide this
country with its educated workforce. Without Harvard
et al., this country would still do well. Without UCLA
et al., this country would be in real trouble. The CRS
suggests that you take the money that you would
normally give to your prestigious and already wealthy
alma mater (if you perhaps went to one of those
schools) and give it to your state university instead.
For the eighth straight year, the CRS has found that
US News' college ranking:
1) Tries to make quantitative distinctions
between universities on the basis of statistically insignificant
differences;
2) Jiggles its methodology every year to
make sure the rankings change in order to generate
public interest.
Note: This press release means my weekly family history post gets pushed to tomorrow. Sorrrry.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The VP Thing
The news is that Barack Obama will choose his VP in the next couple of days and it won't be Hillary Clinton. If that's true, it's a shame. She's the only candidate he could pick who would have a positive impact on those pesky blue collar voters who have been heretofore Obama resistant. She has also turned out to be a solid and tireless campaigner. I think that Obama will win regardless, but my view is that he'd have a bigger win with Hillary Clinton on the ticket.
It would be the right thing to do both politically and historically. We'd be able to break through two barriers, gender and race, at the same time. Why not?
If it doesn't happen, I think the answer is the obvious one. The Clintons are powerful people. They can help him in the election with Hillary as VP, but when the dust settles he'd have to work with Hillary and Bill Clinton in the White House. I don't think Obama has the stomach for it.
I hope he does. If he shies away from the challenge of working with the Clintons that says something about Obama that's less than flattering: he needs to be constantly stroked and avoids conflict whenever possible. If he is shy about the Clintons, with whom he is in almost perfect agreement politically, how on Earth is he going to be up to the challenge of dealing with true adversaries?
I note that Kennedy and Johnson were not exactly the best of buddies in 1960 and that LBJ had a lot of similarities to Bill Clinton in terms of personality and character. Kennedy had the cajones to choose Johnson anyway.
Of course, I'm still voting for and supporting Obama regardless.
The good news is at least Obama isn't running character attack ads like McCain. He isn't standing on an offshore oil platform imploring us to drill now, either, making the absurd remarks of McCain: "He says it (expanded offshore drilling) won't solve our problem and that it's, quote, not real. He's wrong and the American people know it." The Straight Talk Express is speaking with a forked tongue on a regular basis as of late.
For me, McCain's recent oil platform stunt is right up there with Bush's "mission accomplished" stunt after Saddam was deposed and perhaps more akin to Dukakis looking like a fool riding in a tank for a campaign ad back in 1988. Who thinks up these things? More importantly, why do candidates feel compelled to make fools of themselves in this way?
Part of the reason, though, that Obama hasn't attacked is that such tactics don't work well on Republican presidential candidates. For some reason, we have set up this tableau that says that the Democrat has to play the role of the do gooder and the Republican is the Dirty Harry break the rules kind of guy.
We know that McCain was an absolute skunk with his first wife and lied about it in his autobiography. We know that he was involved in the Saving and Loan scandals of the 1980s. But somehow these faults don't seem to stick. Instead we focus on what Obama inhaled back when he was a teenager. It is a double standard. I think its origins lie in the type of people preferred by each party. As I noted a while back, Democrats tend to prefer presidential candidates who act like Tom Hanks and Jimmy Stewart, skinny, civic duty kind of guys. Republicans tend to go for Clint Eastwood/John Wayne rugged individual types.
The problem with this though is that usually the Tom Hanks guy ends up being the second coming of Mr. Rogers and the Clint Eastwood guy ends up being the second coming of Barney Fife. We haven't done well in our picks for presidential candidates most years for either party. Appearances can be deceiving I guess.
*Oh, as for the "discovery" of Bigfoot I mentioned on Monday, it was a... cough, cough... hoax! Sigh.
It would be the right thing to do both politically and historically. We'd be able to break through two barriers, gender and race, at the same time. Why not?
If it doesn't happen, I think the answer is the obvious one. The Clintons are powerful people. They can help him in the election with Hillary as VP, but when the dust settles he'd have to work with Hillary and Bill Clinton in the White House. I don't think Obama has the stomach for it.
I hope he does. If he shies away from the challenge of working with the Clintons that says something about Obama that's less than flattering: he needs to be constantly stroked and avoids conflict whenever possible. If he is shy about the Clintons, with whom he is in almost perfect agreement politically, how on Earth is he going to be up to the challenge of dealing with true adversaries?
I note that Kennedy and Johnson were not exactly the best of buddies in 1960 and that LBJ had a lot of similarities to Bill Clinton in terms of personality and character. Kennedy had the cajones to choose Johnson anyway.
Of course, I'm still voting for and supporting Obama regardless.
The good news is at least Obama isn't running character attack ads like McCain. He isn't standing on an offshore oil platform imploring us to drill now, either, making the absurd remarks of McCain: "He says it (expanded offshore drilling) won't solve our problem and that it's, quote, not real. He's wrong and the American people know it." The Straight Talk Express is speaking with a forked tongue on a regular basis as of late.
For me, McCain's recent oil platform stunt is right up there with Bush's "mission accomplished" stunt after Saddam was deposed and perhaps more akin to Dukakis looking like a fool riding in a tank for a campaign ad back in 1988. Who thinks up these things? More importantly, why do candidates feel compelled to make fools of themselves in this way?
Part of the reason, though, that Obama hasn't attacked is that such tactics don't work well on Republican presidential candidates. For some reason, we have set up this tableau that says that the Democrat has to play the role of the do gooder and the Republican is the Dirty Harry break the rules kind of guy.
We know that McCain was an absolute skunk with his first wife and lied about it in his autobiography. We know that he was involved in the Saving and Loan scandals of the 1980s. But somehow these faults don't seem to stick. Instead we focus on what Obama inhaled back when he was a teenager. It is a double standard. I think its origins lie in the type of people preferred by each party. As I noted a while back, Democrats tend to prefer presidential candidates who act like Tom Hanks and Jimmy Stewart, skinny, civic duty kind of guys. Republicans tend to go for Clint Eastwood/John Wayne rugged individual types.
The problem with this though is that usually the Tom Hanks guy ends up being the second coming of Mr. Rogers and the Clint Eastwood guy ends up being the second coming of Barney Fife. We haven't done well in our picks for presidential candidates most years for either party. Appearances can be deceiving I guess.
*Oh, as for the "discovery" of Bigfoot I mentioned on Monday, it was a... cough, cough... hoax! Sigh.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Manufacturing News, Part II
A couple of years ago, I was listening to AM radio in the car waiting for a baseball game to come on when I heard a man talk about a conspiracy by the powers that be to join Canada, the US, and Mexico together into one nation. The man's name was James Corsi. Someone mentioned that he had a Ph.D. from Harvard. What they didn't have to mention was that Mr. Corsi was obviously a total whack job.
Mr. Corsi recently published a slanderous book that isn't being read much (more on that later), but is getting a lot of press. It's called Obama Nation. According to Mr. Corsi, Barack Obama - someone who voted for the Bush/Cheney energy bill, voted for wiretapping to fight terrorism, lauded the Supreme Court's decision to knock down handgun restrictions in Washington, DC, and who has been beholden to the nuclear power industry as well as ethanol manufacturers - is a radical leftist. Ha. Ha. Ha.
All kinds of kooks with Ph.D.s write books. They are ignored because...they are so nutty. Obama Nation by Corsi has - through bulk purchases by far right wing nut jobs and groups - managed to stay atop bestseller lists. Scientologists have done the same thing to promote the illusion that L. Ron Hubbard's books are widely read.
If there is a story worth media attention in Corsi's book, it's how bestseller lists can be easily manipulated. The legitimate news certainly is not in the content of the book nor is it in the wide readership of the book. The content is drivel. There is no wide readership.
Yet the press has been all over this book and its contents. They've made the publication of Obama Nation into a major media event.
Like the Bigfoot "news" item I mentioned yesterday, the press is simply manufacturing news when there is none. Every year 30,000 or so book titles are published with barcodes. All but 100 or so are ignored by the press. This one should have been ignored, too. But it makes for juicy entertainment. For the press, it doesn't matter if the book's contents are true. It doesn't matter that the book isn't being read. All that matters is that there is a titillating story to report, facts be damned.
By widely reporting on this book and giving Dr. Corsi major media venues to promote his kooky ideas, the press is promoting slander and distortions. Yes, of course Dr. Corsi can speak and write whatever he wants. That doesn't mean anyone has to pay attention. When the press pays attention to nonsense like this in order to attract audiences hungry for gossip they are being irresponsible, plain and simple. When will this kind of miserable reporting stop? When people stop listening and demand that journalists behave in a professional way. That of course isn't going to happen.
Mr. Corsi recently published a slanderous book that isn't being read much (more on that later), but is getting a lot of press. It's called Obama Nation. According to Mr. Corsi, Barack Obama - someone who voted for the Bush/Cheney energy bill, voted for wiretapping to fight terrorism, lauded the Supreme Court's decision to knock down handgun restrictions in Washington, DC, and who has been beholden to the nuclear power industry as well as ethanol manufacturers - is a radical leftist. Ha. Ha. Ha.
All kinds of kooks with Ph.D.s write books. They are ignored because...they are so nutty. Obama Nation by Corsi has - through bulk purchases by far right wing nut jobs and groups - managed to stay atop bestseller lists. Scientologists have done the same thing to promote the illusion that L. Ron Hubbard's books are widely read.
If there is a story worth media attention in Corsi's book, it's how bestseller lists can be easily manipulated. The legitimate news certainly is not in the content of the book nor is it in the wide readership of the book. The content is drivel. There is no wide readership.
Yet the press has been all over this book and its contents. They've made the publication of Obama Nation into a major media event.
Like the Bigfoot "news" item I mentioned yesterday, the press is simply manufacturing news when there is none. Every year 30,000 or so book titles are published with barcodes. All but 100 or so are ignored by the press. This one should have been ignored, too. But it makes for juicy entertainment. For the press, it doesn't matter if the book's contents are true. It doesn't matter that the book isn't being read. All that matters is that there is a titillating story to report, facts be damned.
By widely reporting on this book and giving Dr. Corsi major media venues to promote his kooky ideas, the press is promoting slander and distortions. Yes, of course Dr. Corsi can speak and write whatever he wants. That doesn't mean anyone has to pay attention. When the press pays attention to nonsense like this in order to attract audiences hungry for gossip they are being irresponsible, plain and simple. When will this kind of miserable reporting stop? When people stop listening and demand that journalists behave in a professional way. That of course isn't going to happen.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Manufacturing News, Part I
Last week in my town, a couple of yokels came all the way from somewhere in Georgia to "prove" that Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, aka Yeti, aka Big Narishkite (OK, I made that last one up and you have to know Yiddish to get the joke), exists. Except that according to these yokels, the hairy monster isn't in the Pacific Northwest. He's moved to the mountains of Georgia. I guess the price of real estate out here made him vacate or maybe he's a Republican and all of our green types got to him. Who knows?
At any rate, at a hotel in Palo Alto they presented their evidence which mostly consisted of human and possum DNA. Possums do exist in Georgia. So do humans although if these two yahoos are examples of typical Georgians, intelligent human life is rare.
There is a word for all of this: hoax. The hoax of Bigfoot goes back to 1958 when a man in northwest California, Ray Wallace, tromped around the woods with 16" long wooden foot-shaped planks. The "footprints" were discovered by someone who worked for Wallace, reported in a local newspaper, and the name Bigfoot was born. When Ray Wallace died in 2002, his son confessed to the prank: "The reality is, Bigfoot just died."
Why these two Georgia yokels came to a Palo Alto hotel to tell their phony story is unknown to me. Maybe it's because the hotel is a bit of a white elephant. The hotel was built in a 1960s Las Vegas style by the husband of the late singer Dinah Shore. It was such a gaudy monstrosity that Dinah Shore cried the first time she saw it. She divorced her husband shortly thereafter. Perhaps white elephants and fictional hairy mountain beasts have something in common.
The bottom line is that a couple of nut jobs went to California and made a laughable presentation about finding a hairy beast in the Georgian woods. If the press was responsible, this presentation should have been ignored.
But the press isn't responsible. It's not in the information business. It's in the entertainment business. For some reason, the public is fascinated with the idea that hairy, human-like monsters exist somewhere. Journalists need to capture the public's attention anyway they can. So the press dutifully reported this silliness. The press conference was covered by everyone imaginable including the NY Times.
It's silly. But it's more than that. We are engaged in a war where over 4000 US citizens have died. We have Russia invading another country. We have a tanking economy. We have many important pieces of news every day, news that if it's reported in a professional way by the press will allow for an informed citizenry.
Instead, newspapers last week were filled with "news" about fictional hairy beasts in mountains. Given that the press focuses on garbage like this, it's no wonder that we have such a massively uninformed public.
At any rate, at a hotel in Palo Alto they presented their evidence which mostly consisted of human and possum DNA. Possums do exist in Georgia. So do humans although if these two yahoos are examples of typical Georgians, intelligent human life is rare.
There is a word for all of this: hoax. The hoax of Bigfoot goes back to 1958 when a man in northwest California, Ray Wallace, tromped around the woods with 16" long wooden foot-shaped planks. The "footprints" were discovered by someone who worked for Wallace, reported in a local newspaper, and the name Bigfoot was born. When Ray Wallace died in 2002, his son confessed to the prank: "The reality is, Bigfoot just died."
Why these two Georgia yokels came to a Palo Alto hotel to tell their phony story is unknown to me. Maybe it's because the hotel is a bit of a white elephant. The hotel was built in a 1960s Las Vegas style by the husband of the late singer Dinah Shore. It was such a gaudy monstrosity that Dinah Shore cried the first time she saw it. She divorced her husband shortly thereafter. Perhaps white elephants and fictional hairy mountain beasts have something in common.
The bottom line is that a couple of nut jobs went to California and made a laughable presentation about finding a hairy beast in the Georgian woods. If the press was responsible, this presentation should have been ignored.
But the press isn't responsible. It's not in the information business. It's in the entertainment business. For some reason, the public is fascinated with the idea that hairy, human-like monsters exist somewhere. Journalists need to capture the public's attention anyway they can. So the press dutifully reported this silliness. The press conference was covered by everyone imaginable including the NY Times.
It's silly. But it's more than that. We are engaged in a war where over 4000 US citizens have died. We have Russia invading another country. We have a tanking economy. We have many important pieces of news every day, news that if it's reported in a professional way by the press will allow for an informed citizenry.
Instead, newspapers last week were filled with "news" about fictional hairy beasts in mountains. Given that the press focuses on garbage like this, it's no wonder that we have such a massively uninformed public.
Friday, August 15, 2008
On Vacation
For those looking for my Old Country and Beyond post today, I'm on vacation for the week.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Tales From The Old Country and Beyond, Part 20
No Rashomon
We'll leave my mom and dad in Germany for a week longer. Yesterday I went to see a documentary at the Jewish Film Festival, Saved by Deportation: An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews. The movie interviewed about a half dozen people who, like my mother's family, were saved because Stalin deported them to work camps in Siberia. About 260,000 Polish Jews were saved this way. Only 40,000 or so of about 3,000,000 Jews who stayed in Poland managed to survive. The Nazi annihilation of the Jewish population of Poland was nearly complete by the end of the war. If the war had gone on a year longer, there would have been virtually none left to murder.
As the title of the documentary states, survival by deportation into Siberia is largely an unknown odyssey although I know it well. It's not the narrative of choice about Jewish survival in WWII. Rather, narratives in literature and movies almost always focus on those that survived the concentration camps, fought with the Partizans, or hid in basements, barns and in the woods even though the number who survived by these means was not very large. Maybe the reason for this is that it makes a simpler and more compelling story. I really don't know why.
I'm not usually a visually oriented person, but the assembled archival Russian footage of the gulags and the war was fascinating. The movie briefly mentioned deportation of Jews and Poles in cattle cars to the Ural city of Kotlass and then on beyond the Arctic Circle to the mining gulag of Vorkuta. My mother mentioned her cattle car ride to Kotlass several times to me, but then her narrative seems to conflict with facts. She said they were sent from Kotlass to a gulag near the Bering Strait. Kotlass and Vorkuta are nowhere near there. My mother's sense of geography was never a strong suit.
But that's where the conflicts end. The stories told by these people were so similar to the ones told by my parents that I could easily imagine my parents being interviewed for this movie. It's cliche in examining stories and oral histories to refer to the Japanese movie Rashomon where different observers have different views of the same event. But there was no Rashomon effect here.
Everyone told the same narrative. The key points were mentioned time and time again and they were exactly the same as the key points my parents used to relate. The kindness of the Siberian people; the generosity of the Uzbekhis and Kazakhs, giving food and housing when they had so little of their own; the absence of anti-Semitism until these survivors returned to Poland after the war where they were once again fearful for their lives. Watching this movie brought me back to my childhood days sitting in the kitchen with my parents and asking them questions. I felt transported.
My father was not a reliable narrator when it came to details. He always liked to tweak stories and make them different with every telling. Sometimes I would wonder if he made most of his life story during WWII up out of whole cloth. But movies like this and books I've read indicate that while he cheated on details, the major aspects of his life that he related must have been true.
In contrast, my mother was simply a horrible story teller. It just wasn't in her to relate her life in a dramatic way. Everything would get jumbled up when she told a story. There would be no arc. It was hard to follow the thread. Regardless, the major facts of her life all ring true and are collaborated in this movie and elsewhere.
Movies like this won't be made for much longer. In another decade or so, all of the survivors will be gone. While looking at these ancient faces on the screen, part of me was in wonder that, unlike my parents, these people are still alive. May they live until 120.
We'll leave my mom and dad in Germany for a week longer. Yesterday I went to see a documentary at the Jewish Film Festival, Saved by Deportation: An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews. The movie interviewed about a half dozen people who, like my mother's family, were saved because Stalin deported them to work camps in Siberia. About 260,000 Polish Jews were saved this way. Only 40,000 or so of about 3,000,000 Jews who stayed in Poland managed to survive. The Nazi annihilation of the Jewish population of Poland was nearly complete by the end of the war. If the war had gone on a year longer, there would have been virtually none left to murder.
As the title of the documentary states, survival by deportation into Siberia is largely an unknown odyssey although I know it well. It's not the narrative of choice about Jewish survival in WWII. Rather, narratives in literature and movies almost always focus on those that survived the concentration camps, fought with the Partizans, or hid in basements, barns and in the woods even though the number who survived by these means was not very large. Maybe the reason for this is that it makes a simpler and more compelling story. I really don't know why.
I'm not usually a visually oriented person, but the assembled archival Russian footage of the gulags and the war was fascinating. The movie briefly mentioned deportation of Jews and Poles in cattle cars to the Ural city of Kotlass and then on beyond the Arctic Circle to the mining gulag of Vorkuta. My mother mentioned her cattle car ride to Kotlass several times to me, but then her narrative seems to conflict with facts. She said they were sent from Kotlass to a gulag near the Bering Strait. Kotlass and Vorkuta are nowhere near there. My mother's sense of geography was never a strong suit.
But that's where the conflicts end. The stories told by these people were so similar to the ones told by my parents that I could easily imagine my parents being interviewed for this movie. It's cliche in examining stories and oral histories to refer to the Japanese movie Rashomon where different observers have different views of the same event. But there was no Rashomon effect here.
Everyone told the same narrative. The key points were mentioned time and time again and they were exactly the same as the key points my parents used to relate. The kindness of the Siberian people; the generosity of the Uzbekhis and Kazakhs, giving food and housing when they had so little of their own; the absence of anti-Semitism until these survivors returned to Poland after the war where they were once again fearful for their lives. Watching this movie brought me back to my childhood days sitting in the kitchen with my parents and asking them questions. I felt transported.
My father was not a reliable narrator when it came to details. He always liked to tweak stories and make them different with every telling. Sometimes I would wonder if he made most of his life story during WWII up out of whole cloth. But movies like this and books I've read indicate that while he cheated on details, the major aspects of his life that he related must have been true.
In contrast, my mother was simply a horrible story teller. It just wasn't in her to relate her life in a dramatic way. Everything would get jumbled up when she told a story. There would be no arc. It was hard to follow the thread. Regardless, the major facts of her life all ring true and are collaborated in this movie and elsewhere.
Movies like this won't be made for much longer. In another decade or so, all of the survivors will be gone. While looking at these ancient faces on the screen, part of me was in wonder that, unlike my parents, these people are still alive. May they live until 120.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
On Dumb Luck
In addition to writing a boatload of songs for commercial radio that I would never sing myself in a million years because they are way, way too cheesy, I've been making records of music I like for four years now. My first album is, in my estimation, pretty lousy, but some people still listen to it. It has a raw sound if you like that sort of thing. The second one was my first attempt at self-production and it has some big problems as well. By the time I got to album number three, I had worked out most of the kinks. It's pretty damn good.
What never happened with any of my first three albums was any kind of extensive press. The first had a song that was heard on NPR's Car Talk and another song that got a one line thumbs up in the Village Voice (with the title spelled wrong). The second had a couple of nice quotes in some major city alternative weeklies. The third, which came out during the collapse of the record industry and its associated press, received not a word in any printed page although it did receive some nice mention in some ezines.
But the fourth one, which was originally scheduled to come out this coming January seems to be a different thing altogether. I sent a tune from the CD to an international music mag with a circulation of over 100,000 and three days later I got an email saying they wanted to include it in their October issue's CD sampler. Today, I received notice that three fairly large circulation newspapers want to review the CD and I only began promoting the album this week. As a result of this attention, I've decided to push up the release on iTunes to November with the release of the physical CD still in January.
No, I'm not going to suddenly become a music star. I'll still be an obscure musician making music for fun. But recognition is always nice and I have to ask the question why this CD and not the others? Is it that much better that the last one? I don't think so. It's more consistent in style, yes, but I can't say it's better in quality overall.
I've used a different approach in promoting this CD to the press, emailing people first and asking them listen to the tunes on the web before I send the CD. But I don't think that's the reason I'm getting this kind of positive response.
If if isn't quality and promotion style, then what is it? My response is that it's just plain dumb luck. The magazine where I sent that tune from the new CD probably had several hundred or more submissions for a free slot on their sampler CD (record labels pay probably on the order of 1000 to 2000 dollars for a song placement on the sampler). Probably a good thirty of those tunes were outstanding. For whatever reason, on the day decisions were made my particular tune was picked; a different day and a different mood on the part of the decision makers and I'm certain that another tune would have been picked instead of mine.
Why are newspapers suddenly interested so quickly and easily? I happen to think that it's dumb luck as well. After three albums worth of a lot of "no we're not interested" from newspapers, the yeses had to come eventually. Four times I guess is a charm.
Let's hear it for dumb luck. I hope you, dear reader, get your fair share, too.
What never happened with any of my first three albums was any kind of extensive press. The first had a song that was heard on NPR's Car Talk and another song that got a one line thumbs up in the Village Voice (with the title spelled wrong). The second had a couple of nice quotes in some major city alternative weeklies. The third, which came out during the collapse of the record industry and its associated press, received not a word in any printed page although it did receive some nice mention in some ezines.
But the fourth one, which was originally scheduled to come out this coming January seems to be a different thing altogether. I sent a tune from the CD to an international music mag with a circulation of over 100,000 and three days later I got an email saying they wanted to include it in their October issue's CD sampler. Today, I received notice that three fairly large circulation newspapers want to review the CD and I only began promoting the album this week. As a result of this attention, I've decided to push up the release on iTunes to November with the release of the physical CD still in January.
No, I'm not going to suddenly become a music star. I'll still be an obscure musician making music for fun. But recognition is always nice and I have to ask the question why this CD and not the others? Is it that much better that the last one? I don't think so. It's more consistent in style, yes, but I can't say it's better in quality overall.
I've used a different approach in promoting this CD to the press, emailing people first and asking them listen to the tunes on the web before I send the CD. But I don't think that's the reason I'm getting this kind of positive response.
If if isn't quality and promotion style, then what is it? My response is that it's just plain dumb luck. The magazine where I sent that tune from the new CD probably had several hundred or more submissions for a free slot on their sampler CD (record labels pay probably on the order of 1000 to 2000 dollars for a song placement on the sampler). Probably a good thirty of those tunes were outstanding. For whatever reason, on the day decisions were made my particular tune was picked; a different day and a different mood on the part of the decision makers and I'm certain that another tune would have been picked instead of mine.
Why are newspapers suddenly interested so quickly and easily? I happen to think that it's dumb luck as well. After three albums worth of a lot of "no we're not interested" from newspapers, the yeses had to come eventually. Four times I guess is a charm.
Let's hear it for dumb luck. I hope you, dear reader, get your fair share, too.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
What Obama Will Be Like As President
I am very confident that Barack Obama will win the presidency. He has too much money, has so far run a very good campaign and more importantly McCain has too much Bush baggage and too many wrinkles in this video age to win. Much of the news being generated right now about this election is just plain hot air. The race is over. It never even began.
The race isn't interesting in and of itself. But it does give insight into how Obama will govern. It's clear he isn't a progressive in the least. Obama is in essence the second coming of Bill Clinton politically. From energy policy to Middle East diplomacy he's a right down the middle pro-business Democrat who is quite happy to pander to the public with phony populist messages about NAFTA and windfall profits taxes on oil companies.
Like Clinton, he likes to talk about policy, although he avoids mention of it in his speeches. Like Clinton, he has a rather ugly and monstrous ego, but then again that's what you expect from anyone who runs for president.
Obama is very comfortable with changing stances when it suits him politically, from dropping his "uncle" the Reverend Wright like a hot potato to suddenly discovering the good in handguns and offshore oil exploration.
I'm comfortable with all of this. I wish you could elect a progressive in this country, but it just isn't possible. I wish Congress and the President weren't always in the pocket of big business, but I don't have a solution to this problem and neither does anyone else. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, is a compromise for liberals like me. He isn't much, but he's far better than what I would get with the Republicans.
When Bill Clinton came into office, he had a Democratic congressional majority which he quickly squandered due to ineptitude during his first two years. He really was a hick, smart, but a hick and a hayseed nonetheless. Obama, too, will probably come into the presidency with a congressional Democratic majority. I hope and expect that he'll do a little better with it. Yes, he is young and inexperienced, but he has at least spent some time in Washington.
Obama also has the advantage that he doesn't seem to generate the virulent hatred on the part of conservatives that Clinton did and still does. I never understood why, but Bill Clinton was a lightning rod for conservative anger. Conservatives may not like Obama, but they don't hate him.
That said, one on one Obama just doesn't have the pizzazz and warmth of Clinton. He comes across as a rather cold fish on a personal level although he's great as an arena-rock-star politician. Behind closed doors with other politicians I just don't think he has the pull to get people over to his side.
Symbolically, Obama is a politician to get excited about. He'll be our first black president. He'll be great at public speaking. My guess, though, is that in practical matters - the nitty gritty of politics - he'll come up a bit short. As a result, my expectation is that his ability to get sweeping changes passed will be negligible. Like Clinton, he'll be a nibbler, working mostly on small policy ideas. If nibbling is a kind of change we can believe in, then Obama's main campaign motto rings true.
The race isn't interesting in and of itself. But it does give insight into how Obama will govern. It's clear he isn't a progressive in the least. Obama is in essence the second coming of Bill Clinton politically. From energy policy to Middle East diplomacy he's a right down the middle pro-business Democrat who is quite happy to pander to the public with phony populist messages about NAFTA and windfall profits taxes on oil companies.
Like Clinton, he likes to talk about policy, although he avoids mention of it in his speeches. Like Clinton, he has a rather ugly and monstrous ego, but then again that's what you expect from anyone who runs for president.
Obama is very comfortable with changing stances when it suits him politically, from dropping his "uncle" the Reverend Wright like a hot potato to suddenly discovering the good in handguns and offshore oil exploration.
I'm comfortable with all of this. I wish you could elect a progressive in this country, but it just isn't possible. I wish Congress and the President weren't always in the pocket of big business, but I don't have a solution to this problem and neither does anyone else. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, is a compromise for liberals like me. He isn't much, but he's far better than what I would get with the Republicans.
When Bill Clinton came into office, he had a Democratic congressional majority which he quickly squandered due to ineptitude during his first two years. He really was a hick, smart, but a hick and a hayseed nonetheless. Obama, too, will probably come into the presidency with a congressional Democratic majority. I hope and expect that he'll do a little better with it. Yes, he is young and inexperienced, but he has at least spent some time in Washington.
Obama also has the advantage that he doesn't seem to generate the virulent hatred on the part of conservatives that Clinton did and still does. I never understood why, but Bill Clinton was a lightning rod for conservative anger. Conservatives may not like Obama, but they don't hate him.
That said, one on one Obama just doesn't have the pizzazz and warmth of Clinton. He comes across as a rather cold fish on a personal level although he's great as an arena-rock-star politician. Behind closed doors with other politicians I just don't think he has the pull to get people over to his side.
Symbolically, Obama is a politician to get excited about. He'll be our first black president. He'll be great at public speaking. My guess, though, is that in practical matters - the nitty gritty of politics - he'll come up a bit short. As a result, my expectation is that his ability to get sweeping changes passed will be negligible. Like Clinton, he'll be a nibbler, working mostly on small policy ideas. If nibbling is a kind of change we can believe in, then Obama's main campaign motto rings true.
Monday, August 04, 2008
My AAA A's
I went to a ballgame the other day in Oakland. My As are in a severe downward spiral and they were playing the lowly Royals. There I was watching two teams with negligible payrolls and negligible talent. I had great seats right behind home plate. The weather was delightful. The baseball however was dreary.
Kansas City brought forth a junk ball pitcher who has been lit up all year. Against the depleted As, however, his competition was mostly AAA players getting their time, however short, in the big leagues. My A's should be named the AAA's right now. It's very sad to see the absence of offensive talent.
For the As, the pitcher was someone they got in a recent trade with Chicago. He was a thrower not a pitcher. Maybe in a few years he'll learn how to spot his pitches and change speeds effectively, but right now he's very raw. Fortunately, Kansas City doesn't have any decent offense either.
The game reminded me of all of those games I used to see in Durham watching the AAA Tampa Bay farm team, the Bulls. The overall talent was a little higher, but like the Bulls games there were a couple of players on each team who you felt might grow up to be stars with enough seasoning. Hardly anyone, though, looked like a major leaguer. To the players' credit, everyone was trying hard.
There was one play that exemplified what the game was all about. An As player hit a high infield popup between the Royals' pitcher, third baseman, and catcher. No one called for the ball and it dropped between them, almost exactly in the middle of the triangle formed by the three players. The scorer called it a hit. Ha! This was something straight out of Little League.
I've been spoiled. Up until last year, the As had a long run where they were almost always in the hunt for a playoff spot. The conventional wisdom for the reason that this was so was because their GM, Billy Beane, is a baseball genius. I'm not buying. He's a good GM who had a lucky run. As they say in Sicily, the sun doesn't shine on a dog's ass all day long and it isn't shining on Billy Beane right now.
I won't be going to any playoff games this year. Just like last year, the A's season is essentially over and it's only early August. This calls for drastic measures. I need a team, a real team to attach myself to given that I am admittedly a fair weather fan.
Now let's see, I grew up in Milwaukee, right? Never mind that I have long forgotten about the Brewers because they haven't won in forever. Plus I never attached myself to them very much even when I lived in Milwaukee, having had my heart broken as a kid when the Braves left town (it's why - sob, sob - I can't fully attach myself to any team now; I'm - sob, sob - too scarred from my childhood loss). The Brewers are winning now is what matters. It's time to pull out my ancient Brewers cap from my collection, the one I last wore back in 1982 or so. Go Brew Crew! I love you guys!
Kansas City brought forth a junk ball pitcher who has been lit up all year. Against the depleted As, however, his competition was mostly AAA players getting their time, however short, in the big leagues. My A's should be named the AAA's right now. It's very sad to see the absence of offensive talent.
For the As, the pitcher was someone they got in a recent trade with Chicago. He was a thrower not a pitcher. Maybe in a few years he'll learn how to spot his pitches and change speeds effectively, but right now he's very raw. Fortunately, Kansas City doesn't have any decent offense either.
The game reminded me of all of those games I used to see in Durham watching the AAA Tampa Bay farm team, the Bulls. The overall talent was a little higher, but like the Bulls games there were a couple of players on each team who you felt might grow up to be stars with enough seasoning. Hardly anyone, though, looked like a major leaguer. To the players' credit, everyone was trying hard.
There was one play that exemplified what the game was all about. An As player hit a high infield popup between the Royals' pitcher, third baseman, and catcher. No one called for the ball and it dropped between them, almost exactly in the middle of the triangle formed by the three players. The scorer called it a hit. Ha! This was something straight out of Little League.
I've been spoiled. Up until last year, the As had a long run where they were almost always in the hunt for a playoff spot. The conventional wisdom for the reason that this was so was because their GM, Billy Beane, is a baseball genius. I'm not buying. He's a good GM who had a lucky run. As they say in Sicily, the sun doesn't shine on a dog's ass all day long and it isn't shining on Billy Beane right now.
I won't be going to any playoff games this year. Just like last year, the A's season is essentially over and it's only early August. This calls for drastic measures. I need a team, a real team to attach myself to given that I am admittedly a fair weather fan.
Now let's see, I grew up in Milwaukee, right? Never mind that I have long forgotten about the Brewers because they haven't won in forever. Plus I never attached myself to them very much even when I lived in Milwaukee, having had my heart broken as a kid when the Braves left town (it's why - sob, sob - I can't fully attach myself to any team now; I'm - sob, sob - too scarred from my childhood loss). The Brewers are winning now is what matters. It's time to pull out my ancient Brewers cap from my collection, the one I last wore back in 1982 or so. Go Brew Crew! I love you guys!
Friday, August 01, 2008
Tales From The Old Country and Beyond, Part 19
A Quiet Hero
Both my mother and father lived in Bavaria in Displaced Persons camps from 1945 to 1949. Maybe they saw each other in passing. No one will ever know. It was a very different life for each of them. My father was stuck in a depressing barracks for single men. He had a trade as a furniture maker that wasn't in high demand. His tools went mostly unused and he tried to make a living on the black market buying and selling watches and cigarettes. He wasn't particularly successful at it. Sales were never his thing.
Plus he wasn't particularly savvy when it came to trading for valuables. As an example, he bought a BMW motorcycle for what he thought was a steal of a deal, eight cartons of American cigarettes. On paper this did sound like a wonderful trade. But he forgot that motorcycles needed gasoline, a commodity that was very difficult to come by in Germany after the war. The motorcycle sat idle. One day, he paid a fortune for gas, took the BMW out for a spin and having no experience driving any motorized vehicle, much less a motorcycle, promptly dropped it. He was spooked, never rode it again, and quickly traded it to another naive survivor.
What little money my father saved he used to bribe officials to try and get permission to come to the US. My grandfather did this as well. My guess is that there were far more Jewish refugees bribing these officials than there were slots available for immigration. But my guess is also that if you didn't bribe someone, you had no chance at all.
My mother and her family were far more fortunate than my father. They had their own house, a nice little bungalow surrounded by other refugees in their bungalows. My father's unsuccessful attempts at black market trading contrasted with my grandfather's rapid rise from street trader to shop owner.
My grandfather became very wealthy very fast. He started out trading jewelry and whatever else of value he could find on the Ludwigsbrucke, a bridge near the center of town. In two short years, he had traded up to a store on a fashionable street where the Hilton Hotel now stands. He sold coffee and other high ticket consumable goods in large quantities and had his own diesel truck complete with a hired driver to import goods.
To what extent this import/export coffee/chocolate/tobacco/etc. business was a front for illegal trading, I don't know. What I do know is that my grandfather used his truck not only to transport luxury items but also to ship arms from the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia I believe) to a port outside of Rome, Italy for eventual transport to the Haganah in Israel. He would have the front of the trailer filled with arms and the back of the trailer filled with chicken incubators for import to Kibbutzim and Moshavim in Israel. That way, when the truck crossed borders, the guards would see only crate upon crate of incubators.
He made many shipments like this. He would use his own money, plus routinely, he would knock on doors in his DP camp asking for donations to buy more arms. Apparently, he was seldom refused.
Many years later, my grandfather - whose only vacations were infrequent trips to Israel to visit relatives - was in Tel Aviv on on the main drag waiting for a parade to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Israel. My mother had travelled with her parents on this trip. Whenever my mother took trips like this and left me with my father, I was always glum mostly because it meant I'd be eating nothing but cereal and peanut butter sandwiches on rye bread all week long, but that's another story.
As my mother and her parents waited for the parade to begin, someone shouted, "Teyvuh, is that you?" My grandfather turned his head to see a dignitary in a suit, someone who had been in the Haganah way back in his youth. It had been twenty years, but my grandfather was ageless and easily identifiable. I have pictures of him from his fifties through his eighties and he always looks the same. The two men hugged. "You shouldn't be on the street watching this, you should come with me," the dignitary said.
He took my mother and her parents to the official observation stand for the parade. The dignitary introduced my grandfather to the people in the stand. "Without this man, there would be no Israel," he said. I'm sure this was hyperbole. Nevertheless, I can well imagine the pride my mother felt at hearing these words.
My grandfather never talked about any of this to me. As far as I know, he never talked about it to anyone. I knew my grandfather pretty well. In his head, I'm sure he didn't think it was a big deal. It was just something that had to be done. He never liked to tell or listen to stories, never went to movies, and if he turned on the TV it was to watch the news. He was a man who chose his words carefully. Telling stories about his own personal heroism just didn't rate mention in his estimation.
Both my mother and father lived in Bavaria in Displaced Persons camps from 1945 to 1949. Maybe they saw each other in passing. No one will ever know. It was a very different life for each of them. My father was stuck in a depressing barracks for single men. He had a trade as a furniture maker that wasn't in high demand. His tools went mostly unused and he tried to make a living on the black market buying and selling watches and cigarettes. He wasn't particularly successful at it. Sales were never his thing.
Plus he wasn't particularly savvy when it came to trading for valuables. As an example, he bought a BMW motorcycle for what he thought was a steal of a deal, eight cartons of American cigarettes. On paper this did sound like a wonderful trade. But he forgot that motorcycles needed gasoline, a commodity that was very difficult to come by in Germany after the war. The motorcycle sat idle. One day, he paid a fortune for gas, took the BMW out for a spin and having no experience driving any motorized vehicle, much less a motorcycle, promptly dropped it. He was spooked, never rode it again, and quickly traded it to another naive survivor.
What little money my father saved he used to bribe officials to try and get permission to come to the US. My grandfather did this as well. My guess is that there were far more Jewish refugees bribing these officials than there were slots available for immigration. But my guess is also that if you didn't bribe someone, you had no chance at all.
My mother and her family were far more fortunate than my father. They had their own house, a nice little bungalow surrounded by other refugees in their bungalows. My father's unsuccessful attempts at black market trading contrasted with my grandfather's rapid rise from street trader to shop owner.
My grandfather became very wealthy very fast. He started out trading jewelry and whatever else of value he could find on the Ludwigsbrucke, a bridge near the center of town. In two short years, he had traded up to a store on a fashionable street where the Hilton Hotel now stands. He sold coffee and other high ticket consumable goods in large quantities and had his own diesel truck complete with a hired driver to import goods.
To what extent this import/export coffee/chocolate/tobacco/etc. business was a front for illegal trading, I don't know. What I do know is that my grandfather used his truck not only to transport luxury items but also to ship arms from the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia I believe) to a port outside of Rome, Italy for eventual transport to the Haganah in Israel. He would have the front of the trailer filled with arms and the back of the trailer filled with chicken incubators for import to Kibbutzim and Moshavim in Israel. That way, when the truck crossed borders, the guards would see only crate upon crate of incubators.
He made many shipments like this. He would use his own money, plus routinely, he would knock on doors in his DP camp asking for donations to buy more arms. Apparently, he was seldom refused.
Many years later, my grandfather - whose only vacations were infrequent trips to Israel to visit relatives - was in Tel Aviv on on the main drag waiting for a parade to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Israel. My mother had travelled with her parents on this trip. Whenever my mother took trips like this and left me with my father, I was always glum mostly because it meant I'd be eating nothing but cereal and peanut butter sandwiches on rye bread all week long, but that's another story.
As my mother and her parents waited for the parade to begin, someone shouted, "Teyvuh, is that you?" My grandfather turned his head to see a dignitary in a suit, someone who had been in the Haganah way back in his youth. It had been twenty years, but my grandfather was ageless and easily identifiable. I have pictures of him from his fifties through his eighties and he always looks the same. The two men hugged. "You shouldn't be on the street watching this, you should come with me," the dignitary said.
He took my mother and her parents to the official observation stand for the parade. The dignitary introduced my grandfather to the people in the stand. "Without this man, there would be no Israel," he said. I'm sure this was hyperbole. Nevertheless, I can well imagine the pride my mother felt at hearing these words.
My grandfather never talked about any of this to me. As far as I know, he never talked about it to anyone. I knew my grandfather pretty well. In his head, I'm sure he didn't think it was a big deal. It was just something that had to be done. He never liked to tell or listen to stories, never went to movies, and if he turned on the TV it was to watch the news. He was a man who chose his words carefully. Telling stories about his own personal heroism just didn't rate mention in his estimation.
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