Winston Churchill

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This book by Victor L. Albjerg is a part of the “Twaynes Rulers and Statesmen of the World Series.” I’ve always thought I should learn more about Churchill, so I went to the library and looked at the selection. This book was by far the smallest, and it was an excellent choice. It is full of fascinating and well-written information.

I knew little about the childhood and earlier manhood of Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill before reading this book. He began to earn the name “young man in a hurry” by being born six weeks premature. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill was said to believe there was no respectable future for his son. Winston was called a “problem child” who had the lowest academic status of all his classmates. His behavior earned him frequent beatings. He was sent to two women to try to straighten him out, but the only distinction he earned with them was to be called “the naughtiest boy in the school.”

Winston as a youngster was given little if any support by his parents. His mother gave him no attention until he became a handsome and promising army officer. His father was immersed in politics, and is said to have only spoke with him father to son three or four times. However, Winston “…never ceased to admire his father and hoped some day to sit in the House of Commons with him…” He did have a remarkable relationship with a stooped and obese woman, Mrs. Everest, who was his nurse. He maintained contact with her throughout her life and kept a photo of her in his study. “Loyalty and devotion to his friends were significant characteristics of Sir Winston Churchill.” Continue reading →

Fair Income Tax Rates

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The primary campaign strategy of President Obama to secure his re-election was to advocate that wealthy (successful) people should pay higher taxes. I assume that resonated because many assumed that the government having more money would provide them more benefits. That discounts the continuous television ads pointing out that Mr. Romney is a Capitalist, that he did not believe it was the place of government to provide free birth control, and the government should pay for Big Bird episodes. (And, yes, I’m oversimplifying.)

So here we are in the midst of a government-created economic crisis about whether the primary objective of Congress is to raise taxes on those who have been successful, to cut spending, or to do nothing and see what might happen next. My bet, and I make that bet without judging whether it is the best approach, is that our highly paid government officials will do whatever they think is best for their political careers.

Government officials from areas where Democrats dominate will hold out for tax increases on the wealthy and will not risk suggesting reform of entitlement programs that they know are economically unsustainable.  Republicans will feebly demand some sort of spending and entitlement reform. The country will continue to be awarded with a lack of leadership from the President and Congressional leaders. I predict President Obama will continue to campaign that everything is the fault of Republican leaders going back to George W. Bush. I also predict that he will be heartily awarded with applause for that meaningless rhetoric. Continue reading →

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

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The expression is often used to  describe the quandry of being faced with two unacceptable choices. The Phrase Finder, one of my favorite sources for explanations of meaning and origin of expressions, says that the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything (CANOE) tried unconvincingly to say it originated with something to do with ship maintenance. More logical is that it came from Greek mythology when Homer’s Odyssey refers to Odysseus being caught between the six-headed monster Scylla and Charybdis, a whirlpool. (Note that the word “Blue” was added when Cab Calloway recorded the song in 1931.)

Alex & Me

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Reviewed by Kathy London

alex&meThis book by Irene M. Pepperberg is recommended to anyone who thinks science is dull. As Stephen Jay Gould wrote “science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy human enterprise, not the work of robots.” Irene Pepperberg’s book is subtitled “How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence – and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process.”

It describes a passionate researcher producing ground-breaking science against considerable odds.

While she has published many scientific papers, this short book is personal, an autobiography centered on her work with the Grey Parrot Alex. Pepperberg writes in an easily-read style.

I have one quibble: the first chapter of the book deals with the aftermath of Alex’s death. This may not make sense until you’ve read the rest of the book. I suggest you start at Chapter 2. Continue reading →

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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I have often considered the arguments for and against President Harry Truman’s decision to authorize the use of atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities. There is no doubt the decision resulted in a horrible outcome for countless innocent people (not an uncommon outcome in World War II). Tens of thousands of Japanese of all ages were killed in the two atomic-blasts. There are arguments that the Japanese were just about ready to surrender anyway, but there is no doubt they surrendered soon after the two bombs were detonated.

My opinions have been mostly shaped by considering the American and other Allied soldiers in troop ships staging for the invasion of Japan. Those soldiers did not focus on the horror of people being incinerated in Japanese cities or dying of radiation sickness. They instead celebrated that they would no longer have to participate in an invasion that would result in the death or dismemberment of invading soldiers, perhaps including them personally, and millions of Japanese.

My interest in the subject was rekindled by reading and reviewing the book “Unbroken:  A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” by Laura Hillenbrand. The book was selected by the Northern Colorado Common Read (NCCR) for this year. The book is the story of Louis Zamperini. He finished seventh in the 5000 meters at the Berlin Olympics and soon was a bombardier in planes on raids over Japanese targets in the Pacific. He was one of three men who survived a plane crash into the ocean, and he and another man survived for 47 days on a rubber raft before being captured by the Japanese. He suffered brutal conditions and treatment for years.

The book documents numerous instances where the Japanese applied a “kill-all” policy that “…held that camp commanders could not, under any circumstances, allow Allied forces to recapture POWs. If Allied advances made this a possibility, POWs were to be executed.” “An order was issued to all POW camp commanders that “…decisive measures must be taken without returning a single POW.” A clarification said that all POWs at risk of being taken by Allied forces should be “…destroyed individually or in groups…with mass bombings, poisonous smoke, drowning, decapitation (or by whatever method needed to) not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not leave any traces.” The book gives several examples of how the “kill-all” policy was used by the Japanese when Allied forces threatened an area where there were Allied prisoners. (See the “kill-all” order listing of instances where the policy was used by the Japanese on page 464 in the Index of the book.)

Much has been written that the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved many thousands of Allied soldiers and countless millions of Japanese civilians. An article titled “How the Atomic Bomb Saved 4,000,000 Lives describes declassified documents that were plans for the invasion code named “Operation Downfall.” The invasion was to be in two parts. Operation Olympic would send fourteen divisions to  invade Kyushu and Operation Coronet would send twenty-two divisions would invade the main island after massive bombardment. It is interesting that some of the comments about the article (some of course dispute the need to drop the bombs) say that it grossly underestimates the number of casualties.

The book “Unbroken” focuses on the many thousands of Allied prisoners who were to be murdered a few days after the bombs were dropped. The bombs (and the devastation preceding them from fire bombings with conventional weapons) assured the Japanese surrender and forestalled the mass murders of prisoners.

Prisoners freed from the POW camps on trains that passed what had been the city of Hiroshima were astonished at the level of destruction. “Virtually every POW believed the destruction of this city had saved them from execution.” One prisoner who had been on the Bataan Death March observed, in part, “…there was nothing. Nothing! It was beautiful. I realized this was what had ended the war. It meant we didn’t have to go hungry any longer, or go without medical treatment. I was so insensitive anyone else’s human needs and suffering. I know it’s not right to say it was beautiful, because it really wasn’t. But I believed the end probably justified the means.”

I ask all who vilify President Truman’s decision what they would have wanted him to do if they had been a prisoner of the Japanese and facing the “kill-all” policy when the bombs were dropped. Is that an unfair question? I don’t think so.

As always, I’m willing to listen to voices of reason to tell me what I’ve missed. However, you will have much to overcome if you disagree with me. The horror created by the atomic bombs detonating over Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant that many thousands of soldiers did not have to die or suffer terrible wounds in the invasion of Japan. Allied soldiers also did not have to kill Japanese civilians, including women and children, who were being prepared for the invasion armed with sharpened sticks. Tough choice, but I go with what Truman decided.

Origin of Dime

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A grandson and I were discussing the origin of the names for coins, and “quarter” was obvious, since that coin is a fourth of a dollar. “Nickel” is a bit less obvious, but it is named for one of the metals used in the composition of the coin. We wondered where “dime” might have originated, and I said something to the effect that it probably comes from a French word, or something equally boring. Good guess! The “disme” was a coin struck in 1792, and that name came from an obsolete French word for “tenth.” Apparently colonists didn’t enjoy talking in obsolete French when making their purchases, and “disme” morphed into “dime.”