Nice Nazi?

Nice Nazi

8/18/17

For those who do not pay attention to history let me clue you in.

The Nazi organization in Germany in the 1930’s and all through World War II was not nice.

You could not be a member of the Nazi party and operate with compassion, empathy or niceness towards your fellow man, or woman.

Those misguided idiots who fly the Nazi banner under the freedom of expression laws in America are taking advantage of these laws to vent their hatred towards groups of people who they regard as “others”.

Let me educate you all under 65 as to what it meant for those populations in Europe in the 1930’s.

First of all, no one could have any ancestors who were Jewish. This put you on a low social scale and made your life fraught with worry that anyone could denounce you.

Those undesirable groups were very clearly outlined.

Gypsies were considered undesirable. They went to the concentration camps.

Gays were made to wear a lavender triangle on their outer clothing.

Anyone in a mental hospital such as Down syndrome children, polio victims, or anyone with a handicap was quietly disposed of.

The Communist party was outlawed, priests were imprisoned, and teen college girls were sent to the guillotine for handing out antigovernment flyers.

Those were just the peripheral problems that the Nazi party sought a solution for. Women were brainwashed to become brood mares for the Reich, young blond and blue eyed teen boys were conscripted into the Hitler Youth and trained for war.

Glider airports and soaring clubs were set up right after WWI to train pilots and not go against the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty. Those 130 thousand young men could step right into a trainer plane with an engine and become strafing and bomber pilots.

The best known and publicized persecution of course was of the Jewish population of all Germany and then the rest of Europe. The loss of millions of lives seems not to make a dent in the new Nazi followers ‘thinking, so we have to think that a Neo Nazi in America agrees that it is a good thing to murder Jews, Gypsies, gays, and the mentally handicapped.

How can there be a “nice” person who follows Hitler?

Foggy

I used to live in fog. It was called marriage. Now that the state of matrimonial slavery is behind, I can appreciate the physical fog of the Bay Area, and wish I was living there again.

Heat dissipates fog, as can a fresh wind off the ocean, but the fog in the mind only gets worse as we age. So far that fog is at a minimum, and I see through it most days.

Fog can also be generated by human beings when they get elected, so we have to be aware.

Egypt

Secrets of the Dead

8/01/17

The television program Secrets of the Dead explored the life of King Tut and why his tomb had gone undiscovered for so long.

All the other kings’ and queens’ tombs had been stripped of their valuables eons ago, but Tut remained with all his gold.

The answer was in the weather. Evidently there had been a break-in early on, and the grave robbers caught and executed, with the tomb re sealed.

Very soon after, the valley was subjected to a flash flood, and the immediate drying of the sediment made it as hard as concrete, so discouraged any exploration.

Years went by and this young ruler was forgotten, especially since his successor had his name removed from all the public walls and monuments.

It is wonderful what a thirst for power will do to rulers, and how they strive to preserve their version of history. We only know how King Tut died from the high tech ex rays of his bones, which showed that he was run over by a war chariot, and suffered massive internal damage. His heart and stomach did not get preserved in the canopic jars so that we could see the state of the tissues.

This destruction of the internal organs played into the belief that he was doomed in the afterlife, because he had no heart to weigh on the balance of judgment.

He was supposed to be buried in the great pyramids, as they were built for the pharaohs to insure their happy life after death. The religion at the time required this, but since the grave robbers got to the spoils early on, we have no evidence that providing goods for the use of a deceased person would be any benefit.

Now, the religion of the ancient Egyptians has been buried along with the mummies, and no one gives a great smiling Emoji poop.

Women’s Rights

The Gilded Hour, by Sara Donati

7/24/17

Set in the late 1880’s, this book deals with the touchy subject of abortion.

Since it was illegal to abort a pregnancy or even to permit women information on contraception, women who were pregnant tended to do horrendous things to their bodies.

These actions included douching with lye soap, carbolic acid, rubbing alcohol, gin, quinine, and bleach.

The very poor would try self-induced abortions with wires, long handled spoons, rubber tubing, metal probes, or whale bone stays from old corsets.

Those women with money would buy questionable potions to drink including arsenic.

If women could not be controlled by tying them down with multiple pregnancies, men would often resort to declaring them insane and lock them up in “sanitariums”.

This was a favorite trick of men who married women with money and minds of their own.

Skipping ahead to the present and witnessing the disgraceful behavior of men outside Kentucky’s last abortion clinic we see the same religious zealots trying to dictate women’s lives and choices.

Who are these religious nuts that claim only they have the right to determine if a woman can choose to not have an unwanted pregnancy?

To quote my own blog of 1/25/15, “When theocracies rule, women’s rights are total crap. (See Islam in Saudi Arabia)

When we see the rise of fundamentalist religions we also see the diminishing rights of women.

Having eight children is a crime against the environment. Having the right to determine one won’s life course is freedom.

Evidently many of the religious zealots of today have misconstrued the law of the land and think that they have a lock on what their imaginary deity wants for the world.

When these diametrically opposed ideas clash, there is bound to be violence, which is detrimental to the young.

Christians of all stripes- Grow up and stop sticking your noses into things that do not concern you.

Pickups

Pickups

7/23/17

I was pondering on writing about pickup sales in America and why they are so popular. Then a link from my daughter started off a train of thought that led me back to the late 1950’s and how we dealt with the problem of family and automobiles.

In 1959 my husband and infant daughter had a financial crisis. We could not afford to pay for a convertible and a new baby.

The solution was to sell the car. We found a buyer upstairs in our landlady who wanted something stylish.

We negotiated a deal where we got her 1951 Ford sedan, $1500 in cash and six months free rent.

Our 1957 Baby Blue and white ragtop Chevy convertible was getting about five miles to the gallon and her Ford needed a new engine.

We managed to get the Ford fixed by renting a block and tackle on a tripod and pulled the engine out for replacing it with a new short block.

This was done on the front driveway in a Bay Area city that has now become one of the more undesirable neighborhoods.

In those days airline electricians got paid about $5 dollars per hour and the rent for a one bedroom apartment was $85 per month.

We fixed the engine, and then took off traveling to Yosemite after Labor Day, and Mexico to San Phillipe which was so primitive in accommodations that we came back to the border to Calexico for a $5 per night motel room with noisy air conditioner.

Since we were children of farmers and knew how to fix almost anything, we thought nothing of maintaining our own cars and household machines. We could have justified a pickup, but buying new vehicles did not happen for some years.

Now the news articles state that big pickups are all the rage with men in suburbia, and electric cars have the negative factor of sparse charging outlets.

My question is why do men who live in cities and suburbia need huge gas guzzling pickups?

I watch the traffic while waiting for the bus, and most new looking pickups have nothing in the bed of the truck. They are not hauling tools, lawn mowers or building supplies.

Building contractors need heavy duty trucks and they are usually muddy around the wheels.

Those who take care of lawns have a pickup hauling a trailer full of leaf blowers, mowers and gardening tools.

A plumber usually has a panel truck or a specially built vehicle with signage.

The ego pickup is shiny from the Sunday morning ritual of washing it and polishing the hubcaps.

Why do these customers of the Ford 150 buy impractical vehicles?

The advertising is one factor. A man’s ego is so stroked by having a huge machine at his disposal that economy does not enter the picture.

The Ford Company may be making a profit on their big pickups, but that can be dangerous.

The auto companies need to diversify and phase out the gas guzzlers, but the frail egos of men who need to prove their masculinity by driving a huge machine will delay this process.

Glioblastoma

What if…

7/20/17

`With the news that Senator McCain has an aggressive brain tumor must strike terror into the hearts of the Republican party.

The doctors say that even with the most up to date and cutting edge treatment the average life span will be 14 months.

Of course he is going to die, the question is as with all of us, is when?

The boobs running our country had better pay attention, as even heroes die.

Their only problem now is thinking up how they can blame the Democrats for this new development.

I had remarked to a friend a few days ago about this matter. I wondered what the GOP would do if McCain died.

The answer would be that they would have one less stalwart member and have to look around to see if they could limp along without a member that would go along with insane policies and selfish motivations.

They probably could given the mood of the people who want to tear apart our government.

Words

Rhymes with ump

7/7/17

Since words are being used as weapons in the political arena, I wondered if I could write a few sentences that did not include swear words, but indicated humor and satire.

Remember the spelling exercise in grade school where a word was given and then used in a sentence?

Here are some samples that can be used to define a public figure but never is too scandalous.

Maybe he fell out of his crib as a baby and got a big bump on his head.

Chumps are all around waiting to be taken advantage of as they see their freedoms crump(le).

Many people are down in the dumps on account of this last election.

We could say that Melanie is not a frump, but quite the opposite in her Barbie Doll style.

Half of our country is acting like a grump, but tries to hump along as usual.

Jumping through hoops of tangled prose is especially difficult.

One side has to take some lumps, but not to like it.

The rise of mumps will probably take place once millions lose health care.

We would like to pump up the economy.

We are told to keep quiet and take our thumps. Some thump back instead.

You have a bump on your rump.

A sump is something to keep the water from rising, but will do no good when the water destroys a golf course owned by Rhymes with Ump!

There- I never said anything harmful here or mentioned anyone by title or last name, but you get the picture.