Breaking News! .... Sort of!

After doing a certain section of my research paper that involved Erwin Rommel, I got curious and read more about him. There's so much I could go on about telling how awesome he is. So basically, thanks to this research paper, Erwin Rommel is my new hero. It's too bad we couldn't have had him on our side in WWII, not only was he a great man, but a great leader.

I also saw a Rommel shirt that I want to get. On it in German is says something like how the lives of his men are worth more to him than the world of a lunatic [Hitler].

FDR's Four Freedoms

A very fine speech, indeed. The link provided through the class blog also included audio player of it. I didn't listen to all of it since it was very long and I could read it faster to myself, he did a good job delivering it.

As for the thesis of his speech, he started out explaining how the US has never really been at much risk since its founding, but the Nazis and Japanese showed a real threat and we must come out of isolationism to protect ourselves. As he goes on, he explains that by coming out of isolationism, we'll protect ourselves and also get a boost in the economy, which was needed greatly before WWII. Lastly, when he was telling what the Four Freedoms were, we should enter the war to protect ourselves, boost the economy, and also protect the freedoms of speech and religion and freedom from want and fear, not only for ourselves, but for our allies.

His thesis did evolve as the speech went on, adding to it and making it stronger with each part of the speech.

What I do with the little break times I take between studying and finishing the research paper...

My brother got Dragon Age: Origins and we've both been playing. It's good that he got it as a late birthday present instead of me because that means I have to let him play and can't just hog the PS3. With having to share, I procrastinate a bit less and get more work done. Here's the awesomely epic CGI trailer for the game.

It's a little lonely here now

Wolfgang (aka: Wolfy), my old German shepard passed away on Wednesday. It's been quiet since then and only been adding to the stress of having finals and a research paper to finish. I don't know what else to say and I should probably get back to working on my paper.

Things to do...

4 freedoms QW

See if I did the QW with white rose/other readings

finish Lunn's

Find out what ch 4 analysis is and see if I have it DONE

research paper

video to go with it if I have time (found a good song for it!)

Print out San Pietro writing for Lunn



This is more of my way to see what I need to finish than a blog post.

Schindler's List

Okay, now I finally got around to doing it before I got distracted by something else. So I watched the movie and it was really good. The one part of our reading that came to mind the most during the movie was when Schindler was up on the hill watching the liquidation of the ghetto. The book said Schindler was most likely never up on that hill during that event. The reasoning was: if the SS are rounding up a lot of people as well as killing them, wouldn't they have a perimeter around the area to catch any possible escapes, therefore making it hard to Schindler to just ride past the security on a horse with a woman? Also, it said Schindler would most likely be in his apartment during the time because he kept getting in trouble with the SS or Gestapo and it wouldn't really be safe for him to go out.

Some parts of the reading I didn't really get, like ones that mentioned specific characters besides Schindler and Amon Goth because I never really caught a lot of their names in the movie so I couldn't tell if they were true or not. Also, I was reading Aaron's analysis and he had a good point too. He was a businessman first and a savior to them second. But then I think near the end was when he did lean a bit to the other way because he was using all of his money to keep his Jews safe and all the ammunition his factory made was faulty. I think that was his way of rebelling against the war since he didn't want what he made to be able to kill others.

Because I have nothing better to write at this moment...

Need to do scene analysis, but that will take time, so doing it late at night isn't the best idea if I want to make it good. Instead I decided to share a story (more like brag, actually) about a round on MW2 that I had that was awesome... For those who know what I'm talking about, we were playing domination on high rise and I was sniping at A. I got enough kills for a chopper gunner then a few more after it was gone.

When I ran out of ammo I killed a guy trying to take A with my trusty silenced USP + tactical knife and replaced my empty rifle with his LMG. Don't know what type it was since I rarely use them since I prefer assault rifles, mainly the ACR, because they're more accurate. So I then run around the map just mowing people down from the sides and behind until I run out of THAT ammo (and there was a lot of ammo in that gun when I got it). From there I trade it for a MP5K. Not my favorite SMG since I feel like it has too much recoil at times (if you haven't realized yet, I love accuracy and hate recoil).

Anyway, get a many 2 or 3 kills with that then run out of ammo (it was low when I got it). So up to this point I have fought my way from A, around B, was near the building for C for a few seconds, and fought my way back to A. When I get to A I'm out of MP5K ammo and my USP is out of ammo too, so I trade it for an M4, get maybe one kill with it then someone finally gets me from behind and the game ends a few seconds after! I was doing so well to only be taken out at the last moment of the game.

The end result was 35 kills, 1 death. By far, that was my best kill to death ratio in a game ever. I could have used the nuke and I have it unlocked, but I decided not to use it because it'd be a waste of a slot because it's not very often I do that well. The following games after that were 38/2 and 54/12. Today was a very good day for me. Usually my max is 20 kills and maybe 5 to 10 deaths. Either I'm lucky, I was up against noobs, my clan works extremely well as a team (which it does), or I've just gotten extremely good after not playing the game for almost a week (I was playing Assassin's Creed II and beat it, awesome game).

Let's hope this continues tomorrow...

And I'm trying one of those knife classes! The ones where people run around only using tactical knife and throwing knifes with marathon, lightweight, and commando. So far I had one good game with that (5 kill streak) and all others weren't that great. Perhaps I'll stick to my assault class (ACR and M1014) and sniper (WA2000 with thermal scope and heartbeat sensor). My stealth class has barely been touched since I got the ACR and M1014.

He's all better now!

Wolfy made an excellent recovery! He can now walk on his own, get up on his own and is eating again. He didn't eat much when he couldn't move and now he's eating non-stop. He must've been really hungry. Ok, well now he's having a -little0 trouble sitting down, but it's cold and he has arthritis so it's understandable. Especially with snow coming tonight. I used to love snow, but now... eh, not so much. It's a lot colder here in Michigan than in Massachusetts and I don't know where I can go for snowboarding. Without snowboarding, there's not much that interests me about it anymore since I hate shoveling it. Anyway... got to remember to do Schindler scene analysis, probably have that in this weekend.

Good news and bad news

Good news: Got Assassin's Creed II as a late birthday present. I'm about half way through right now. I'm happy getting a new game that I can't beat in one sitting. Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2 were short. So far it's better than the first game in almost every way, except I'm disappointed with the graphics. Ever since that one video for AC2 that looked so good it almost seemed like it was real people a couple times I expected uber graphics and cutscenes that looked like that. Either way, great game.

Bad new: My dog is dying. He's about 11 or 12, big German Shepard. His legs are weak and he can barely walk (3 out of 4 hurt him and his hips have bad arthritis). He was 125 pounds and is now 80. He's not eating his food and I have to lift him up since it hurts for him to stand and if I'm not there to lift him he'll soil himself trying to get up so he can go to the bathroom. The vet gave him painkillers and something to help with his arthritis, but if that doesn't help enough he may not last the week, on his own or getting the shot. All he does is sleep and he won't eat so I'm worried. I hope he'll be able to pull through this...

On a side note, I need to watch Schindler still and finish reading about it now that I have my laptop back. It's a PDF file on my laptop so I wasn't able to get to it during the break.

Laptop broken and now fixed

For some reason, a few days ago my laptop and AC adaptor stopped working simultaneously. So I called Dell and they sent someone out to fix it (just got it fixed about an hour ago). My mom was being all crazy and demanding that the girl on the phone send a new laptop, with a lot of unpleasant yelling about how she lives in another country which had nothing to do with laptop. After apologizing to the poor girl, I was informed there would be a repairman that can be sent in a few days. I think having my same laptop with new parts inside it in a few days beats having a new one a few weeks later. So I had a good experience with Dell's customer service and it gave me something to write about since I'm falling behind on my blogs! It's a win-win situation.

In other news, I need to finalize what I plan on doing for my research paper. I've been interested in Rommel and Stauffenberg (tried to assassinate Hitler) lately and want to research them.

Night

Professor Stewart likes to always quote Elie Wiesel's quote that's about bearing witness. I don't remember if that was in his speech, but I noticed something else that I thought was important in the speech. It was about being heroic during a terrible experience. Wiesel said it was heroic to share bread, to have faith, to be human. When reading Night, I remember him saying how his trip there alone changed him. He felt different over-night. He ended up keeping quiet and looking out for himself instead of trying to help others, and if I remember right, he said he normally would've done something about it. I can understand being in that situation can change people drastically, from being a person to being treated like an animal. I remember there being a friend of the family who would give up a bit of his rations to help Wiesel stay healthy. Wiesel must've really thought he was a hero, especially when he'd say he wasn't that hungry. Chances are he was extremely hungry because they didn't get much food (not enough to feed me, at least). I think it's those who wouldn't let the Nazi treatment change them are the people he considered heroes.

One part I did sort of like was how Wiesel recalled himself and other prisoners running from barrack to barrack grabbing clothes and stuff while naked. He said if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation they would've been laughing because they looked so funny. It's good to see that there was just a little bit that they could look back on a laugh about. I'm not exactly sure if he actually found it funny looking back on it, but that's how I interpreted it. Or maybe I just want to think that he found it funny, so that there can still be a shred of happiness hidden in there somewhere so the prisoners had at least something to laugh about.

The Long-lost "Five Finger" Quickwrite!!!

*cue dramatic music*

This thing was so lost and forgotten that even Indiana Jones wouldn't have been able to find it! Anyway, it takes place during the times when everyone gathered in the basements during the bombing raids in The Book Thief.

When arriving in the cold basement, you could feel the staleness of the air. It wasn't frequented much before now, so there never was any way for fresh air to make it down here. It was crowded too, which didn't help at all. It got stuffy real quick. Parents were hugging their crying children to try to calm them down, some of the adults were shaking in nervousness, and others just sat down against the wall. Sitting looked like a good idea since there wasn't much to really much reason to stand. When sitting down against the wall I finally realized just how cold it was. The rough, freezing wall felt uncomfortable on my skin, so I tried to keep my hands and arms away from it. Without thinking, I let my hands rest on the ground to my sides, but that too wasn't a very good idea either. The ground was also cold and covered in dust and dirt. I know this is a basement, but couldn't it have been cleaned out at some point if the owners knew that this would be a shelter?

Anyway, at this point I was so busy trying to make myself comfortable that I had blocked out the noise and the movement of the cramped people. I did notice one thing though. It was quiet. For some reason, the noise had just stopped and you couldn't hear anyone talking. After listening carefully, a voice of a young girl appeared in the small noiseless void of the basement. She was reading from a book. The words had a calming effect and everyone had finally stopped panicking; I even forgot about my attempts to try to make myself more comfortable. Everything seemed to vanish and all that was left were the words that seemed to float above the crowd then distribute themselves among the people for all to enjoy.

The smell, the stuffiness of the air, and the cold floor didn't matter anymore. Most people probably even forgot about the fact that there could be an air-raid. Suddenly, there was an abrupt interuption. The sirens gave the signal that it was safe to return back to our homes. I'm sure a couple people almost wanted there to be another warning so they could listen more to the story, but when you think about it, it'd be better to listen to the story when our lives aren't possibly in danger.

Modern Warfare 2 online

Don't have much to talk about really, so I thought I'd share a story of three of my favorite kills online so far, two using the throwing knife.

The first: I was shooting a guy and he breaks open a glass window and jumps out to try to get away from me. I sprint and follow him and jump out the window too. While going to jump out the window, I prepare my throwing knife and as I jump I throw it at him while I'm still in the air and get him in the back as he's running.

The second: I'm following two guys with my stealthy character, so I never showed up on their radars. I aim my throwing knife up and throw it. The knife flies over the first guy's head and hits the guy in front of him on the way down. As the knife is in the air, I run over to the guy in the back and use my combat knife and get him in the back. I ended up getting both guys almost simultaneously.

The third (which happened a few hours ago): I snuck up on a guy and knifed him in the back and saw another guy coming around the corner, so I prepared my throwing knife and threw it. Or at least I thought I did. The guy I knifed had dropped a grenade, so when I thought I grabbed the knife, I picked up the grenade. When I threw it, it bounced off the guy's head and blew up above his head, killing him, his partner next to him, and nearly me (I was on the edge of the blast radius and took serious damage).

Been falling behind on blogs, but I have good reasoning... sorta!

My reason (not "excuse," I hate that word) is that I got Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, both of which are very excellent games. Uncharted is about fortune hunters that are after a mythilogical artifact that is involved with Marco Polo's trips and Modern Warfare 2 is a sequel to COD4: Modern Warfare and is another epic war game set in modern times. I won't go much into the games when it comes to story, but both are epic and have pretty good online play.

Uncharted is a mix of a shooting game and platformer since there's a lot of climbing involved. Those who play it may feel like there's a bit of an Indiana Jones feel to it since there's treasure to be found and there's Nazis (except they're always dead Nazis who have been lying there for 60+ years)! As for Modern Warfare 2, I feel like explaining what it's about, besides being an FPS, would ruin the story a bit.

Ok.... I'll talk about one part, and it's a spoiler, so continue reading at your own risk if you want to play the game without having any knowledge of what will happen in the game!!!











Ok... this should be a safe distance... Anyway, in the game, there is a part where you play as a deep CIA agent trying to get close to a terrorist. Part of gaining his trust involves join him on a mission to go massacre hundreds of innocent civilians at an airport. This got the game a toooooon of bad press before it was released, with people claiming it will cause little kids to think its good to be a terrorists and so on. I don't want to go into a huge debate, but M-rated games = 17+, not little kids. Parents need to keep their kids away from these games.

Continuing on... This scene was by far the most distrubing in the game, as people are trying to squeeze through tight security points as they get mowed down by machine gun fire and some try to drag their dying friends and family or crawl away from the bloodshed. The good thing though is that the game warns you ahead of time. When you put the game in for the first time, it warns you of disturbing content that may offend people and give you an option to block it. If you decide not to, you get to the mission, and can't take it, the game gives you a back-up option that allows you to skip the mission and continue to the next one. This is the only mission that has this disturbing content (or at least I think so, nothing else seemed to really stick out).

As for "why is this in the game?" it's because it's crucial to the story. The tension between the US and Russia are high after the end of COD4, almost like a new cold war, and this part was the spark that started the fire. At the end of the mission, your character is killed by the terrorist and left at the scene of the massacre, pointing the blame on the US since all the Russian people there were killed and all they found was a dead US agent. This starts a huge war where Russia basically Blitzkriegs the US, ruins the capitol, and we desperately fight to hold our ground. The war doesn't fully end and there are a few things left open that could easily be used to make a Modern Warefare 3 in a few years from now.

Anyway, it's a good game, but if you have a weak stomache and want to play it, you can always skip the massacre and get straight to fighting terrorists and invading commies. It's almost like Red Dawn.... sorta (I think... never saw the movie, only heard about it).

My WWII video is finally up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JfzDZhvS8k

Today's Guest: Sidney Bolkosky

In class today, we were visted by Sideny Bolkosky, who has done a lot of research and interviews involving the Holocaust. I feel as if I have learned not exactly facts and statistics of the Holocaust, but about the experience as he recalled parts of the interviews he had done in the past. He mentioned how the trains were just terrible with all the dying, hungry, and thirsty people all crammed into a limited area with no form of restroom. The people he had talked to said there is no ways words can describe it. He said in multiple interviews, it was described as something like if the seas were made of ink and the sky was paper, there would not be enough ink and paper to describe how horrible it was.

The description of how horrible it was agreed with what was mentioned in our reading from Night. I know it's a horrible topic, but after reading that part and hearing Bolkosky talk about the interviews I think I really want to read Night. I know the Holocaust is real, but the inhumanity is so unreal. The Jews were being slaughtered like animals, but even killing animals in such a manner is still horrible! I think since it seems to unreal, it makes me more curious to find out more to make it seem like less of a mystery.

One point Bolkosky brought up was the people who took care of the payments for the trains. They knew there were a ton of Jews being taken to camps and they were all one-way, but they didn't know the details of what was going on, and they were called desk killers (or murders, forgot what he called them). I'm a little unsure on it. If they didn't know what was going on, how can they be guilty? I know if I had a job like that, I'd feel extremely uneasy about it but I would do it so I don't get fired and don't have money to support my family. I think if they knew about what was going on and they continued to do so anyway, then maybe they should get some punishment, but I don't think the average worker should be punished. I think it is the leaders of the company, who probably had a much better idea of what was going on and agreed with help the Nazis, that should get in the most trouble. This is sort of like the "Exile or Mercy" argument we had earlier. Also, just what I think would be what I would have done, if I was forced to help the Nazis, I'd make it hard for them on purpose. Make them fill a ton of forms, jack up the prices, etc. to get myself more money and make them get tired of it and do the work themselves and stop my involvement. I know that may seem almost cruel, but it might work to get out of having to be involved with it without saying "no" and getting killed or having them take over the company. I'd feel guilty, but I'm not cut out for business. I never want to run a company, even less so if something like this was going on.

Midterm Evaluation

Through all the uncertainty I have when writing, I think I've done pretty well. I got the third highest grade on a quiz, and I'm assuming my literary analysis of Max went well. Therefore, if I am doing well the class must be doing a good job at teaching the class since reading/writing is not my strongest area. I've noticed my writing is in sort of a transition state between high school and college writing. College writing seems to be a bit more of informal writing, but still having important information and meaning. It almost flows easily, but when I did my analysis it still had some aspects of high school writing. I think I'll get it down by the time I leave this class.

There's not much that I can think of that I still need to learn or want to learn because it doesn't interest me as much as other subjects (no offense, but if it was for a science class, the list could go on and on). I suppose one thing would be how to strengthen my writing skills and vocabulary and having a mastery of grammer. At least that way I would sound like I'm good at reading/writing.

(If I think of something else to add to this, I'll edit this later)

WWII in Italy?!

That video we watched in the WWII and cinema class about that battle in Italy (San Pietro, I think it was) got me thinking. Most of the time, fighting in Italy is overlooked by current media and you only see fighting in France, Germany, and Japan in most movies, books, and video games. I know the video was real footage, but at the same time, it didn't feel real. The landscape was so unfamiliar compared to what I'm used to seeing when I see battlefields of WWII, and it being in black and white didn't help at all (I think that's mainly due to my generation). Did anyone else get the same feeling of it almost seeming unreal?

I also have another question, that maybe fellow classmates might have an answer to. In the footage, they showed battle and soldiers dying and it was being described as an intense battle, but how come it didn't look very intense? Was it because the camera-men couldn't make their way into the very front lines? That the ones who did died and their footage destroyed? Or was it that movies like Saving Private Ryan give me huge expectations on the intesity of battle? I'm sort of thinking it could be a combination of all three.

Exams...

What more must I say? They're the reason I've fallen behind on my blogs. Also, once I get free time, I like to spend my time playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which is a veeeeery long game, yet very awesome. I guess I could start talking about that, but I may reveal spoilers to the plot for those who wish to play or most people just won't care for it much. Either way, been working on my analysis for Comp, I may post that when it is complete.

A little bit of fun with Oblivion

Found this video on youtube. It's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but it's a modified version of the game. It's just awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3LIeZyYXHo

Purely for entertainment purposes.

Valkyria Chronicles

Sort of random, but I thought I'd point it out. For PS3 there is a game called Valkyria Chronicles (just recently made into an anime series) that takes place in a fictional Europe during the "Second Europan War," (wonder what war that could be!). Basically the Allies are the Federation and the Axis is known as the Empire. Though with a slight fantasy setting to it, it actually has some deepness and covers a lot of issues that are also present in "The Book Thief" and many other stories that take place during this time period. Though not in fictional version of Germany, it takes place in Gallia, a fictional country, that if located on a map, I believe may be Belgium or one of those close by ones. The point is, it takes place during what is basically the Blitzkrieg.

In the game, you control squad seven of the militia and drive back the Imperial army and win the war (remember, totally fictional). While it may ask the typical questions of "why must we fight?" or "is war really worth all this death?" it also covers themes of racism. The Darcsens, a race of dark haired (almost navy blue, in my opinion) are the Jews by proxy (if I messed up the use of the word "proxy," let me know. Been wanting to add that to my vocabulary). They are the ones who have taken the blame for almost everything in this fictional Europe, not just in Germany. Like during our WWII era, they were hunted and killed or when captured, taken to camps. This is pre-gas chamber though, since they're all work camps. The main character's father, who we never meet, was a war hero from the first Europan War, and his best friend, who died, was a Darcsen. After his friend's death, the main character's father adopted his friend's daughter (anyone reminded of Hans?). Throughout the game, the girl faces racism, but stubbornly stands up for herself and questions why people can say such mean things about her when they clearly know nothing about her people, only what they've been told. I don't want to spoil anything, but the barrier of racism is finally overcome, but at a great costs.

I think the game talks about important subjects while at the same time is very fun to play. It's a mix of RTS (sort of), Shooter, and RPG. You may ask "how does that work?" It works quite well for such a wierd mix. Also, I wouldn't describe the game as having "graphics," more like art. Everything looks as if it was drawn very well, and has sound effects as words, as if it was a moving comic book. For anyone with a PS3, I recommend it, but better yet, you can download the demo for free with PSN and try it out first.

(and for anyone who cares, my PSN is Ryuken1106, if you want to add me online)

Exile or Mercy... PART 2!!!

After slight research, I found out that the old Nazi guards should be deported. During the Nuremberg Trials, there was a set of guidelines that would be used to help determine what was considered a war crime. They're quite easy to understand, and here is a link to it.
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm

Now, if you took the time to read them, you may notice one in particular that would apply to the Nazi concenration camp guards. More exactly, Principle IV.

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

Other sites have paraphrased it to "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my Superior's orders,' " which is what I'm sure many of the guards would use as a defense. A camp guard could say he feels uncomfortable having all these people being killed around him and ask for a different position, something like a cook or some form of office work in a different region that still would support the Nazi party in some way. I'm pretty sure a Nazi cook wouldn't get in trouble unless making food for soldiers ends up counting as "aiding in crimes against humanity."

In the end, I do feel a little bad for the old guards that didn't do anything besides guarding the enterance. But unless they have substantial proof of their innocence, then by law they are war criminals and will be treated as such. It is bad that the old guards have to have this happen to them so late in life, but it's better late than never. Now many familys who had survived or have relatives who were in concentration camps can feel better knowing that justice was served. Let this also be a warning to possible criminals out there... Mess with the law and it'll get you back, even if it's 60 years later!

Barbed wire = Crown of Thorns = Symbolism?

"Oh, yes, I definitly remember him. The sky was murky and deep like quicksand. There was a young man parceled up in barbed wire, like a giant crown of thorns. I untangled him and carried him out. High above the earth, we sank together, to our knees. It was just another day, 1918." (p.145)

In this exerpt of The Book Thief, Death is remember Johann Hermann, the son of the mayor who died in World War I. This may be a bit of a stretch, but one might possibly be able to say that this part was symbolic. The Crown of Thorns is what was placed on Jesus' head when he was to be crusified. As I'm sure many people know, he knew he would die and did so for everyone (religious or not, that's the way it goes).

So anyway, many soldiers died in WWI, so we can probably guess that a lot of soldiers almost half expected that they would die. Also, we don't know the exact details, but since it was 1918, the end of WWI, the battles might have been quite intense and Germany might have been doing a lot of last second recruitment to help defend their land. So there's a posibility that Johann went to war to defend his country and his people. He probably knew there was a chance he would die, and he went off to war for the sake of others (to protect his family and country). One could make the connection to say that Johann, along with many other soliders, were in a way Christ figures because of those two traits. That, I believe, is the reason why Zusak chose to describe the barbed wire as a crown of thorns.

"The Jew was filthy."

This is from page 209 when they're cleaning Max. Of course it could be taken very literally. He has gone a long time without bathing since he never had the chance and I don't think everyone showered daily back in early 40's Germany, especially the poor. But filthy is also one of the many words the Nazis would have used to describe not just him, but any Jew (even the ones that just got done bathing). It's unfortunate though that he did have to fulfil on of the descriptions that the Nazis gave the Jews, but at least it was in a literal way and that he wasn't filthy as a person. I had more to go on about that one sentence, but I read it late at night, so I've forgotten most of what I was planning on writing in 18 or so hours of sleep and college.

Another line that stuck out was "The Jewish rat, back in his hole,"(p. 215). In a way, he was like a rat since he was hiding in the basement, which I think would be a normal place for them to hide. I'm not saying that he is a rat, but it just happens to be the case (on that note, we can call Anne Frank a squirrel because she hides in the attic, nothing against her either, just pointing it out). It reminds me of a part from Inglourious Basterds. The high ranking SS officer had the nickname "the Jew Hunter" for his ability to find hidden ones so easily. He would go on to say that he respected them and considered rat to be a compliment. He said the life of a rat is tough, and even if they do nothing to bring forth dislike towards them, they're still greeted with a shoe or such when they walk in the door, where a squirrel would not receive as much (yet they still had to be jerks and take her away...). He said the only way they could survive is by hiding like a rat would, and that hiding helped them survive, and he respected the strength of their will to do so.

Since I got far off track from where I became with that line, I'll try to sum it up. It was due to his situation that he was a rat. The Nazis may have called the Jew rats, but that was because they forced the Jewish people to become them and hide for their survival, much like a real rat. It was the time and place that caused them to bear such a terrible name. If anyone is to call a Jew a rat, they are obviously racist/anti-Semitic and should be ignored due to their closed-mindedness.

(This is a touchy subject and I walked a thin line on this one I believe, so if I have offended anyone, I apologize. I have nothing against Jews at all. My best friend in Massachusetts is Jewish, if that helps prove my point.)

Exile or Mercy

I read the article that the professor had posted about old Nazi guards living in the US. I'm pretty torn on the topic.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090917/NEWS05/90917065/?imw=Y

Half of me says "They're just old men, leave them be," while the other half is thinking "The bastard shot at the Jews? That jerk should be kicked out." I almost think it is all based on circumstances. One of my favorite phrases "It depends on the circumstances," would work well here. If the old man is really nice, and regrets having done what he did, or not taking action, give the guy a break; it must be hard on someone to remember terrible things from long ago and wishing they could take it back. On the other hand, the ones who were cruel, like that one lady who had stomped an old Jewish lady to death, she shouldn't be given an easy time.

I think deciding who can stay or not should really be decided on the person, not all of the old guards in general. In a way, deciding that all of the guards are bad without knowing them could count as discrimination, which in a way could make us almost as bad as what the Nazis were (assuming we don't go around killing them). This is a touchy subject, but it happened a long time ago and I think those who were not 100% into it or were uneasy with the whole thing should be given at least a little bit a mercy. Now as for the guards who did beat on Jews and other "sub-humans" and did feel strong hate for them... Go ahead and kick them out.

(Now I feel like a hypocrite for wanting to kick out the pure evil ones after saying we should give the rest of them who were semi-evil a little bit of mercy. Oh well.)

Churchill

"...we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender," Is a part from Winston Churhill's speech on June 4, 1940. The speech was given after the withdrawl of troops at Dunkirk. With the withdrawl of troops from France, England would be next in the Nazi's march across Europe. Churchill gave his speech to rally the people of England to fight for their home and to never surrender. The repetition of his words really shows how strongly he feels, as well as how he wants everyone else to feel. I'm sure his speech gave a strong morale boost to the soldiers, which would've made them fight harder for their home.


Also... while on the subject of Churchill and words, I think a nice little sample of Churchill's wit would be nice. (good chances are that these are paraphrased)

Lady Astor: "Mr. Churchill, you're drunk!"
Winston Churchill: "Yes, and you, Madam, are ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober."

"Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink." --Lady Astor to Winston Churchill "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it." -- His reply

Not only did he have the ability to rally a nation to fight on when it seemed as if all hope was lost, but he was also the master of come-backs! Something also tells me Churchill and Astor didn't get along very often.

The downside of technology.

I can't remember where I heard it exactly, but someone said that stuff like the internet and cell phones were made to make life easier, and make it so people have to work less so they can spend more time with their family. Now I truely understand why whoever said it says that it was wrong. I get home, first week of college over, no homework since I did it all, ready to relax and then I check my email. My chem teacher already sent us homework, and I have no clue how exactly to do it, so I'm going to end up spending a couple hours reading the chapter in my textbook then a few more doing these problems. If I'm lucky, the problems won't be too long. Reading a whole chapter from a chemistry textbook on the other hand will. Sure love surprises...

.....

Well, here it is. The first post on my blog which is needed for my composition class. I understand the concept of making this; to get ideas down and to enjoy writing. The only problem... I'm not really a fan of blogs. I don't really hate writing either. I actually like doing research papers if I'm able to pick any subject of my choosing. For this class, I think the professor said we had to do it on something involving WWII, which I'm fine with and might have done anyway.
I did a research paper about D-Day and Normandy my junior year in high school and think I might do it again since I feel like it could have been better. Now if my professor just happens to see this (which you probably will), I'd like to point out that I won't just pass in my old paper and that I plan on remaking it from the beginning, just having a slight advantage since I now know about it to begin with. Well, I guess I'll come and post on this if anything interesting comes to mind since I need two posts a week.