Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris (1998)
Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis (2000)
by Ian Kershaw
[Also available as a single volume edition, but I read the two volume edition]
Sir Ian Kershaw (a prominent British historian and a long time expert in matters regarding Nazi Germany and Hitler) wrote this two volume history (later republished in a single volume abridged edition) in order to find a middle ground between the sensationalist tabloid style biographies written on the subject and the more scholarly, dry, and plodding analysis which often include minutae of detail with very little approachable content.
Kershaw also wanted to write about Hitler not as a single personality, the over-personalization, the all powerful dictator, found in the tabloid histories, where everything rides or dies on Hitler's words but portray him more in situ, showing more of the effect of the world around him had on Hitler as well as the other way around.
Kershaw's work does just this. It shows how Hitler took advantage of the political and social climate of the times, and even "rode the wave" at times. Hitler, portrayed by Kershaw, was no political astute and, it seemed, blundered into things. I'm sure that Dr. Kershaw would not like this oversimplification but Hitler was simply "at the right place, at the right time" in his analysis.
Indeed, Kershaw's Hitler is a buffoon. He's sort of an evil version of Steve Martin's character in The Jerk, or an evil Forrest Gump. Someone who is a blundered, shouting, maniac but seems to pop up at the most opportune moment and get propped up by industrial and cultural backers who think they can control him and who think Hitler will serve their purpose. Of course, in the end, it was totally the other way around. They served Hitler's purpose, but by the time they realized that, it was far far too late.
Kershaw, while a major academic character, writes very well. He writes fluidly and entertainingly. His language, while academic, is not dry. I have heard Dr. Kershaw speak in a lecture on Hitler given to the Open University and he is a lively and entertaining speaker. His writing is similar. However, he still uses very academic language and his sentences are thickly constructed with meaning, so it will take longer to get through his text than, say, a regular book.
The book does not totally focus on Hitler, and one can even say that this work is not so much a biography on Hitler but a history of the Third Reich with the focus on Hitler. Other events and people are discussed in depth; however, attention is always brought back to Hitler, the focus of the narrative is from his point of view or on Hitler himself. For instance, Rommel is mentioned but this book does not discuss the North African campaign, unless it is to illustrate something about Hitler's actions and reactions.
Kershaw wrote this to be a more accessible but yet fully academic discussion of Adolf Hitler. Kershaw is a serious historian and, as such, there is no discussion on the occult influences of the early Nazis nor any of the other more fanciful conspiracy theories which surround Adolf Hitler. He does spend some time on the possibility of Adolf Hitler's Jewish ancestry although Kershaw comes to the conclusion that this was most probably not true. In the end, Kershaw rules that the area of Germany in which Hitler's ancestors lived had excluded Jews in the mid 19th century so it would have been even more unlikely for one of Hitler's grandparents to have been Jewish.
Ian Kershaw's greatest contribution to Nazi Germany studies is the Working Towards The Fuhrer concept. Basically, Hitler didn't have to micromanage Germany because everyone around him, desperate to please him, ran off and did stuff that they thought Hitler wanted done. Kershaw came to this conclusion trying to explain why, given that Hitler was essentially a lazy dictator who did very little real "work" from day to day, got people to do so much stuff in his name. It also helps to explain the most horrible of his deeds, the Holocaust. Hitler did not need to go into elaboriate detail on paper or in speeches about exterminating the Jews, he just had to keep insinuating to Himmler and other goons how much he hated them. These satraps then ran off and, wanting to work toward the Fuhrer, do something to get in good with Hitler and please him, progressed to the mass murder of the Jews as well as millions of other "undesirables." Rather a case of "who will rid me of this turbulent priest!" with an equally ghastly outcome. Except that Hitler didn't feel bad at all afterwards.
There have been hundreds and hundreds of books written about the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. Some of these books have been written by giants in the field, famous historians and figures. But Ian Kershaw's Hitler is right up there at the top of the list. This work is simply required reading for anyone who claims to study Hitler or the Third Reich, either officially or as an "armchair historian" like me.
I'm certainly glad that the character of Deanna Troi in Star Trek the Next Generation was fleshed out and developed as time went on. Oh sure, she stayed the "ship's bike" and pretty much all male guest stars could count on a tumble with the Hellenic beauty, but she was really just unintentionally goofy at the beginning.
For instance, the Enterprise would find itself in some threatening situation, surrounded by Romulan warbirds or something, and Troi would bleat out:
"I sense stress..."
No shit, Sherlock! Yeah, she was about as interesting as paint drying in those days. I recently watched "First Contact" and Troi was seriously interesting and amusing (her drinking contest with Cocrane and the interaction with Riker afterwards are just wonderfully classic ).
Its rare that a character can be saved from the complete dross they started out as, but they did it with Troi. On the other hand, so did most of the males in the Alpha Quadrant!
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| Mandy c.2009 |
Mandy 2001-2013
Mandy the Cat hailed from Gentry, Arkansas. She started out as my girlfriend Val's cat and was about three months old when she adopted Val. Apparently, she lept up on Val's chest while Val was babysitting and slept there. Val took her home with her.
Mandy went through a lot of movement in her life, including a move from Arkansas to Oregon in 2009. Mandy was somewhat fierce and could be wild at times (especially in her younger years when she would run around crazy at night and climb into high inaccessible places) but after Tikki, all other cats seem tame by comparison. She was a very loud cat and loved to yowl at night. She also loved to eat, something that caused her a few medical problems in her time.
I first met Mandy in late 2001 when I observed her trying to get out of a bedroom with a door ajar. There was a ferret living with her in the house and, after pawing at the door and not being able to figure it out, the ferret literally shoved Mandy out of the way and opened the door to get out. It was sort of a defining moment of Mandy's personality and abilities. And she never did learn how to paw open doors.
Mandy was a very loyal cat, sleeping on Val's head at night and very attached to her daddy (me). She grew very large later in life and at one point had to be put on a diet. On the other hand, her bulk came in handy when she would throw herself on a string to capture it!
Her first years were spent around the ferret and a Doberman and I always thought that Mandy identified as a dog. She didn't know she was a cat.
We've been told that Mandy had a very expressive cat face and I think
the veterinarian we took her to wanted to cat-nap her! :-)
One interesting bit of trivia - having lived in Arkansas for almost ten years, living through extraordinary violent
Midwest thunderstorms, Mandy was never afraid on Fourth-of-July night with all the fireworks. Even in Oregon, she would run to the window to look out, probably thinking the commotion was another big thunderstorm.
In the latter part of her life, Mandy was on a pure wet-food diet because of her weight. Dry food is okay for cats, but contains a lot of grains they don't really need. If your cat is overweight, try to avoid feeding them dry food.
Mandy was released to the universe after a long fight with cat leukemia in 2013.
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| Tikki in 1980 |
Tikki 1978 - 1996
Yes, that is correct, Tikki lived to 18 years old. Tikki was a feral cat from the hills around Sheridan, Oregon. She was loud, she was fierce, she took a long time to domesticate and tame to a level where she could be kept as a pet! Although my mom went and got her after Sampson died, I like to believe that she was very much my cat and we were very close. Tikki was named after the Kipling character Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and she certainly lived up to the ferocity and combativeness of her namesake.
Being feral, Tikki was a high difficulty cat. She would scratch and bite and when she did, she meant it. Seeing other cats through the window would send her into a boiling ear-shattering rage in which she would throw herself against the window to attack. I once got in the way of one of these rages and was severely scratched. After that attack though, Tikki glued herself to me as if to show she was sorry as she was in the middle of a berserker rage when it happened.
Tikki was very loud. One of her sobriquets (and she had many) was Tikki the Wawool, named after a catlike creature in a 1970s Star Trek comic. The Wawool's yowling was so loud and bizarre that it would literally drive people insane. Tikki's yowling was similar. My sister's fiance was tasked with feeding Tikki when we were out on vacation one day. He had to enter the lair of the beast, alone, unarmed, and leave food. Somehow, he survived and escaped with his life. It was his initiation test and to this day he still remembers the horror!
Actually, Tikki was a very loving and loyal cat, to me and my mother. She would sleep in bed with me, usually at my feet and was very cuddly with those she adopted as her cat slaves. But she never could hold back her attacks as she had never learned to 'play', anytime she fought a toy or a stuffed mouse, it was for real. She's been the most aggressive cat I have ever seen while playing with cat toys. She knew the proper attacks and would always do the 'neck snap' maneuver on any string or cat toy she could find the neck on. Having been raised a feral, once her nails were out, she had to draw blood. She was like a Klingon cat!
Tikki had a calico type coat with a huge prominent black spot on her back. I could swear that the black spot got larger in the winter and smaller in the summer but I probably was just imagining it.
I wasn't home when her end came. I hear that she just got more and more frail, more and more sick until she finally died. She was buried under a tree in Forest Grove, Oregon on a farm my mother lived on. Perhaps, on nights of the full moon, the yipping of the coyotes is answered by the loud warbling full-throated yowl of a cat who has no fear of anything, certainly not a pack of coyotes!
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| Sampson in 1978 |
Sampson the Cat: 1968 - 1978
Sampson and I grew up together! Really, I was born in 1968 and Sampson joined the family in the same year. I am not sure where he came from and I, sadly, have few memories of him. I'm not even sure how he died. One day I came home from school and found out that my mother had taken him to the vet. He died soon after. Apparently, he had had a heart attack and was being kept alive on drugs but my mother decided to let him go and they put him to sleep.
Sampson is in one of my earliest childhood memories though. I was bathing in the tub and Sampson leaped in with me. He was cat-knee deep in water and just froze. I'll never forget the look on his face. Something like "I can't believe I just did that..." In one terrific move, he leaped back out of the tub and ran off, to dry himself and hide in embarrassment.
Sampson was an outdoor cat for the first years of his life and another story I've been told about him is the day he leaped through the window with a bird in his mouth as a gift for my mother. My mom has a phobia about birds (especially dead ones), so of course she screamed bloody murder. Sampson, grabbing the bird, leaping back out through the window.
I don't remember much about his behavior or whether he meowed a lot. But I can tell you one creepy thing. After he died, I had a reoccurring dream in which I was playing chase with him in the upstairs of this old creepy house we lived in. Running to catch him, arms outstretched, he'd vanish right before I could catch him.
(I wrote this geeky article on an anime forum awhile back. Reposting it here on my own blog just cuz...)
Hello fellow UY fans! I've been an anime watcher for years and years and years but only started watching Urusei Yatsura during this last year. It's amazing! I've seen gifs/pics of the characters around and always wondered what all the fuss was about. Now I know! I also know where most the gags seen in later anime came from... and what certain really bad anime like Trouble Chocolate were trying to rip off.
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT: I'm just going to go ahead and talk openly about events in two episodes of anime (Ah My Goddess "Everyone has a Destiny" and UY #157 "I love Darling's Sincerity") so if you think you want to watch either some day and haven't, and don't want any spoilers whatsoever, turn back now!
Anyway, I was watching "I love Darling's Sincerity" (ep #157) and it struck me as very similar to the Ah My Goddess anime episode "Ah! Everyone Has a Destiny!" No, I'm not saying they ripped off UY but the stories are very similar. In AMG, Keiichi Morisoto comes across a "shinentai" of a young girl, a ghost reminant, who wanted to date his grandfather but couldn't because she died before he could come back to her. Keiichi makes it up to her by being nice to her and taking her for a motorbike ride.
In UY 157, a similar thing happens when a sickly girl spies Ataru Moroboshi from her hospital window every day and falls for him (not knowing he's the biggest lecher this side of... anywhere!) "Darling's Sincerity" is one of those rare episodes of UY which are done "straight" and its very poignant and sad. Still has some humor in it, as when Nozomi (the ill girl) keeps asking her mother who this strange boy she likes is, and the mother keeps ignoring her because she knows all about Ataru!
The similarities in the shows made me compare the two. I often think deeply on things, usually trivial things that have little or no bearing to anything in real life... :-) I was thinking of how simular it was that Ataru and Keiichi approached the situation. Now, for anyone unfamiliar with Keiichi Morisato of AMG fame, he's a total goodie. He's the epitome of the Lawful Good, goodie-two-shoe, clean-cut, never a bad word or bad thought character that you'll ever come across. You could not get more opposite of Ataru in almost any way. Keiichi is so saintly that half the time i watch him, I can't stand the perfect little jerk! lol.
This made me think of C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors. In one of his books, he wrote on how he considered it "better" or more moral when someone who has lots of problems does their best to be good and righteous (or honorable or nice or whatever you think of as "good") than when someone who already is like that behaves that way. Even if the flawed person fails, CS Lewis considers their effort as more praiseworthy than the goodie who just is that way automatically.
Considering this, this is why I made that subject line the way I did. In "Everyone has a Destiny", of course Keiichi is going to be nice to the ghost girl. He can be no other way. Of course he's going to be kind, considerate, still worried how it will effect Belldandy... etc. Its just how he is, he could run the whole episode on autopilot. There's no _effort_ on his behalf to do the right thing (something I think CS Lewis would point out as the difference). There's no effort for Keiichi to be the knight in shining armor and see this poor girl's spirit to the afterlife.
Meanwhile, Our Ataru has a few more challenges. And he's given more challenges than Keiichi as well! Nozomi's a ghost, which takes him a moment to get over, but he's okay with that. She's kind of cute and he can live with it. But it turns out she knitted him a scarf and mittens... and a woolen hat. He.. um... after Sakura smacks him around some and reminds him of how he's doing a good thing for this poor girl's spirit, he can wear them, even in the hottest part of summer.
Then Nozomi pulls out a sweater... she died at Christmas time. By this time, you're pretty sure Ataru is just going to either throw in the towel or have to be poked the whole way by Sakura. However, Ataru puts the sweater on, even when it turns out its not finished! Then he happily plays along with the whole situation! He gets into it so much that he even begins to flip Lum's jealousy meter and the lightning begins to build. At another point, Sakura asks him if he's hot in all that winter gear and Ataru hisses to her that, of course, he's dying, but he's making a very bold face on it. The day goes on, they go for rides and watch fireworks. In the end, Nozomi's spirit moves on, happy, able to go on. Ataru walks off in melancholy, keeping the sweater and accessories on even after Sakura reminds him he can take them off now.
That is why Ataru wins over Keiichi Morisato in my book. Keiichi never really had an obstacle while Ataru really did. Also, Ataru is one of us. He's a young man, he's a person. He lusts after as many girls as he possibly can. He doesn't want to be inconvenienced. He doesn't want to wear hot clothes in summer. He doesn't necessarily want to drop everything to help some ghost girl that just happened to get a crush on him. But he does. He does the right thing and, in the end, I think he's glad that he did.
Ataru had to work at doing the "right thing," its not really an automatic part of his nature. That's why my applause is for Ataru and not Keiichi in this situation. He had to rise above himself to do it, challenge himself to be better.
