Bush’s poll numbers, low since early summer, just keep on plummeting and might soon reach Carter-like proportions. Somehow, I don’t think calling the Iraq War the moral equivalent of WWII is going to stem the tide. Nor, I’ll hazard, will his making it easier for his corporate cronies to pollute at will. But hey, keep trying, guys. Update: Slate‘s Fred Kaplan blows further holes in the WWII analogy.
Category: WWII
The Sun is Burning.
I didn’t post here on the official anniversaries, but nevertheless: a moment of silence for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sixty years ago this week.
Destroyer of Worlds.
“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.” Have your perambulators and origami cranes at the ready…I missed this ten days ago amid the Half-Blood hullabaloo and drive south, but it’s very well-done: 20/20 Hindsight takes a trip in the Wayback Machine to blog the 60th anniversary of the Trinity Test in real-time.
Beam Him Up.
R.I.P. James “Scotty” Doohan 1920-2005. From the beaches at Normandy to the Enterprise engine room, he was a good man in a pinch.
Harry Potter and the Angry Rottweiler.
On the eve of the Half-Blood Prince, letters are unearthed in which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, decries the Harry Potter books. “It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.” Well, if the future pope could handle the Hitler Youth, I think most kids’ eternal souls should be able to weather the Harry Potter tomes just fine.
Finding Naziland.
“That’s why I’m doing it. Schindler’s bloody List, The Pianist…Oscars coming out their ass.” Kate Winslet bucks for an award (by way of Godwin’s Law) in a new clip from Extras, the forthcoming show by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant of The Office. (More clips here.)
Rehearsal for Reconstruction.
“The pattern of the South’s Reconstruction, more than the pattern of Japan’s, has anticipated occupations elsewhere — above all in Iraq, where some supporters of the old regime participate in a campaign of terror even as a long-oppressed and newly enfranchised group struggles to claim power. What are the lessons of our own self-reconstruction?” By way of The Late Adopter (who, darn it, beat me to the great “Fables of the Reconstruction” post-title), historian and Promise of the New South author Edward Ayers discusses the applicability of Reconstruction to current events.
Don’t Fault Yalta.
“Bush stopped short of accusing Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill of outright perfidy, but his words recalled those of hardcore FDR- and Truman-haters circa 1945…Bush’s cavalier invocations of history for political purposes are not surprising. But for an American president to dredge up ugly old canards about Yalta stretches the boundaries of decency and should draw reprimands (and not only from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.)” Slate‘s David Greenberg outlines Dubya’s recent mischaracterization of the Yalta conference. Well, Dubya doesn’t even seem to understand diplomacy now, so why would he understand it then?
Amorous Allies.
For his next project, Stephen Soderbergh is apparently looking to direct The Good German, a romantic thriller set in the last days of WWII, starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett (and based on a 2001 book by Joseph Kanon.) But will Nicky Katt play Hitler?
Papal Ascension.
Well, you may have missed it after all the hoopla surrounding the recent deaths of comedian Mitch Hedberg (who’s responsible for the only really funny experience I’ve ever had in a comedy club) and civil liberties pioneer Fred Korematsu, but apparently Pope John Paul II was called up to the Head Office over the weekend. Since it’s not being reported anywhere, really, I thought I should at least mention it.
At any rate, now the search for a successor begins in earnest, one that might well have considerable ramifications for US politics (although, unfortunately, a progressive pope seems unlikely.) Well, just don’t put the aardvark in charge, and let’s keep Lord Papal away from the chair, shall we?