Tag Archives: Adolf Hitler

International news

This man embodied greatness

Nicholas Winton lived 106 years on this Earth.

And for part of that long and glorious life, he managed to do something so astonishing it boggles the mind. He saved the lives of 669 children from death at the hands of the Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01/europe/nicholas-winton-obituary/

Queen Elizabeth knighted Sir Nicholas in 2003 for the deed he performed during the late 1930s. He had been to Czechoslovakia and had seen the threat being posed to Jews throughout Europe. Many of them were children who were certain to die at the hands of the Nazi monsters.

He went home to Great Britain and set about to organize the systematic evacuation of those children. He saved their lives, giving them a chance to grow to adulthood and bring families of their own into this world.

His modesty was legendary. He hardly ever spoke about what he had done. “60 Minutes” profiled him a couple of years ago. And in the segment, the news show broadcast a reunion he had with dozens of the people he had saved. He sat among them at a gathering, not knowing these middle-aged individuals were children who owed their very lives to this humble stockbroker.

When they stood up — surrounding him — to recognize what he had done and to thank him publicly, this giant of humanity wept.

Sir Nicholas died today.

As British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “The world has lost a great man.”

Watch this video and you get a look at true, unvarnished greatness.

national news, political news

Welcome to politics, Dr. Carson

Ben Carson is a famed neurosurgeon.

He gave up that profession and now he’s taking on another one: politician.

He’s going to learn that politicians have to be as careful with their words as surgeons have to be with their scalpels. You say the wrong thing, you’re potentially finished as a candidate.

Carson is running for the Republican presidential nomination. This morning he showed up on “Fox News Sunday” and got grilled by host Chris Wallace for some things he said about the Obama administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/10/chris-wallace-ben-carson-fox-news-sunday_n_7252994.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

When a GOP candidate gets hammered by a Fox News host, well, the planet might be on the verge of spinning off its axis.

Wallace challenged Dr. Carson’s comparison of the Obama administration with the Nazi Third Reich.

Does he really mean that? Wallace asked.

Carson said during Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror, people didn’t challenge him. Wallace asserted immediately that people are challenging President Obama all the time.

How about ending any Hitler references? It is ridiculous and insulting in the extreme to equate modern political activity with anything that was done during the Third Reich’s dozen years of existence.

I happen to admire Dr. Carson’s work and the brilliance he exudes when talking about medical procedures and his hopes for cures to deadly brain diseases and disorders. That work is a long, long way from the political rough-and-tumble he’s entering.

Careless and overblown statements do have a way of lingering and biting the speaker of those words where he doesn’t want to be bitten.

International news

Iran nuke deal: good or bad for the world?

I’m going to withhold final judgment on the Iran nuclear deal for a little while as I try to wrap my arms around what President Obama calls “historic” and what his critics — to no one’s surprise — call an “appeasement.”

I remain hopeful that the framework, as I understand it, is going to cut off “pathways” for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, as the president said today.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/237747-obama-hails-historic-iran-nuke-deal

If I had one misgiving about the impending deal it is the end of the economic sanctions. The European Union is going to end the sanctions on Iran almost immediately, while the United States will lift them in accordance with verification that Iran is remaining faithful to the terms of the agreement.

The U.S. portion of the sanctions removal sounds reasonable and verifiable, to my understanding of what was hammered out over the course of several months.

There are lots of nuts and bolts to this deal. The Iranians are going to stop enriching uranium at some locations, will transfer capabilities from one nuclear plant to another and juggle all kinds of contingencies in accordance with what the bargaining nations agreed on.

The result, though, must ensure that Iran does not build a nuclear weapon.

The Israelis, of course, oppose the deal. They’ve said all along that no deal is better than virtually anything that was discussed publicly with regard to the negotiation.

Congressional Republicans are blasting the framework. One GOP lawmaker used the “appeasement” language, conjuring up memories of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s declaration that Europe had found “peace in our time” in negotiating with Adolf Hitler just before all hell broke loose in September 1939.

Let’s not go there.

Instead, the principals have until June to hammer the details out. Congress will get to weigh in.

Iran’s nuclear program appears headed in another direction — away from its construction of a nuclear bomb.

I’m left to wonder initially: What can be so wrong with that?

 

national news, political news

Terrorists compared to American patriots

You shouldn’t have gone there, Dr. Ben Carson.

No sir. You should not have compared the Islamic State terrorists — the monstrous demons who behead people in public — to the brave warriors who fought against British tyranny to create the United States of America.

That’s what you did, Doc, when you said: “They got the wrong philosophy, but they’re willing to die for what they believe, while we are busily giving away every belief and every value for the sake of political correctness.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ben-carson-likens-islamic-state-to-american-patriots/ar-AA8dMf7

That statement might have stood on its own, Dr. Carson, but you had prefaced it by saying American revolutionary patriots also were willing to die for their cause.

Perhaps a better comparison, Doc, would have been that kamikaze pilots flying for the Japanese Empire were willing to “die for their beliefs” as they flew their aircraft into American warships during World War II.

What you’ve done, sir, is juxtapose a cherished American ideal — the fight for liberty, freedom and individual dignity — with monstrous acts, crimes against humanity.

I understand, Dr.Carson, that you are pondering a run for the presidency in 2016. Conservatives adore your ideology and they hang on your words. I appreciate as well your intelligence and obvious brilliance as a leading neurosurgeon and medical scholar.

But just as that goofy Texas congressman, Randy Weber, erred in comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler in a tweet — for which he later sort of apologized — you have mixed two radically different examples of why people lay down their lives for causes in which they believe.

 

 

military news, national news, political news

Apology accepted, congressman; now promise: never again

Congressman Randy Weber has done the right thing by apologizing for a hideous reference to Adolf Hitler while criticizing President Obama’s absence from the unity rally in Paris.

The Republican who represents Southeast Texas in the House of Representatives had sent out a tweet that noted Hitler had gone to Paris in 1940 “for the wrong reasons” but Obama couldn’t go this past week “for the right reasons.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congressman-randy-weber-apologizes-tweet-comparing-president-obama/story?id=28200320

It was a ghastly reference that has no bearing on anything other than to morph the president of the United States into some kind of comparison with the 20th century’s most despicable despot.

Oh, but Weber said that wasn’t his intention. He intended only to use the Hitler reference to illustrate the evil that lurks in today’s world.

OK, whatever.

I’m glad Weber apologized to “all those offended by my tweet.” Yep. That would be me, among many others.

His explanation of what he intended, though, seems a bit dubious.

It’s my hope that he and others who are inclined to toss Adolf Hitler’s name around to make some political points will cease doing so … forever.

Uncategorized

One degree of separation from Churchill

Winston Churchill was without question one of the 20th century’s greatest statesmen/warriors.

He led Great Britain through its “darkest hour,” the Blitzkrieg launched by the Nazi air force during the Battle of Britain. PBS, as it does so well, is chronicling Churchill’s life in a three-part series shown on KACV-TV, Amarillo’s public television station. The second installment airs Sunday at 7.

It tells of the Battle of Britain and how Churchill rallied the Brits to ultimate victory over the Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler.

http://www.pbs.org/churchill/

But I want to digress a bit and declare with this post that I have one degree of separation from the great British leader, which is to say a member of my family actually had a close encounter with him. I think that means I’m one degree separated from Churchill.

What the heck, if it doesn’t mean such a thing, well, it should.

My late father, Pete Kanelis, served in the Navy during World War II. Most of his combat duty occurred in the Mediterranean Sea, during the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy. When he wasn’t manning an anti-aircraft gun on the deck of the ship to which he was assigned, Dad performed a number of boatswain’s mate duties.

One of them was to stand guard, along with a British marine, outside a conference room where Churchill was meeting with the Allied commander of naval forces in the Med. Dad’s guard duty was captured in a photograph published in the London Daily Mail. The picture was interesting in this regard: The Brit stood about 6-foot-4 inches tall, while Dad topped out at about 5-foot-9.

As Dad told the story, the two of them snapped to attention as the meeting broke up. Churchill came out of the conference room, chatted up the British marine, then turned to Dad, patted him on the head and said, “Well done, Yank.”

I’ve looked for many years for film footage of that event, thinking that some newsreel photographer had a camera rolling. Alas, it’s not to be.

My father, though, had a brush with one of the world’s most heroic leaders — and for that I am so very proud.