The US is attempting to restore the endangered population.
Elfriede Scholz, sister of novelist Erich Maria Remarque, was beheaded for "undermining the war effort" by refusing to renounce her brother.
Her brother was a refugee in the United States due to his anti-war and anti-Nazi views. She was an outspoken anti-Nazi in her own right.
The Stars and Stripes, December 16, 1943:
She also notes that the RAF lost 29 returning Lancaster bombers in landings in fog on this day, the worst RAF accident loss of the war.
The U-73 was sunk by the U.S. Navy off of Oran, Algeria.
Crash of FM1, Bu# 46789, on flight deck of USS Manila Bay, December 16, 1943.
The Trump/Russia connection is a constantly smoldering event. Nobody ever seems to really examine if there's a fire, but somebody should.
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My father was very close to his three siblings, one of whom is still living. He was particularly close to that sibling, his brother. They spoke by phone nearly every day when my uncle, who was a fireman, was not working.
My mother was close to most of her siblings. They were a feisty bunch in general, and they argued amongst themselves, but they were close. Like all such relationships, some were closer than others. My mother was particularly close to her youngest sibling, one of her four brothers (she had three sisters as well), and he was very close to her. A very long-lived family as a rule, her sisters have passed, but three of her brothers are living.
I'm an only child.
That was not my parent's desire. They simply had a very hard time having children, and they were not young when they married, really. Indeed, in the common understanding of the time, while they'd be regarded as "young" today, but only barely so, at the time of their marriage, at the time, they would have been regarded as middle-aged. Certainly my mother would have been, she being three years older than my father. They were married five years at the time of my birth, and she was 37 years old. My birth was it, she'd never have another child. Indeed, in retrospect, while was a remarkably fit person her entire life, my birth took a lot out of her in other ways and a significant psycho-medical decline would set in with in thirteen years of that event.
When you grow up as an only child, you constantly hear how "lucky" you are. That's the point of the post. You really aren't.
People like to imagine that only children are "spoiled", but at least in my case that wasn't true. The concept of being spoiled even has a name, Only Child Syndrome, but research has shown it's largely a myth. My parents probably made a dedicated effort to keep that from happening to me. What you are, however, is deprived in some very significant ways, all of which have to do with the close bonds that form between siblings being absent.
If you grow up an only child, you miss out on ever having that close relationship that can only come through a blood bond. Siblings never escape their siblings, even under extreme stress. This is not true of any other relationship whatsoever, although a real, not an American Civil Religion, marriage does that in another fashion.
And having siblings teaches you things that lacking them does not, and which can never be made up for.
Growing up as a child, my closest friends were my parents. Having no siblings to distract me, if I wanted to interact with somebody close to me, my parents filled that role. In most houses, you see children play various sorts of games with each other. I'd certainly do that with friends, but there was no playing board games or card games with my siblings. I've never developed an affinity for card games, although both of my parents were good at them, and my father taught them to me. For board games, however, my father was the go to. It wasn't until I was an adult that I appreciated that most children, if they wanted to play a board game, would do it with a sibling.
Moreover, if adults are your playmates, you enter the adult world very quickly. And not only that, you enter the adult world of your parents. Either genetically or through environment, I obtained my parent's love of history very rapidly. Not only that, however, but I entered it at an adult level quite quickly. When I went from grade school to junior high at 7th Grade, at which time I was 12 years old, I remember being glad that the library had such adult books. One of the first I checked out was Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far. The sight of a short 12-year-old lugging up the massive tome to the library desk caused the librarian to nearly reject checking it out to me, and she warned me that it was a book for adults. I was stunned. I was reading adult books at home already, almost all the history tomes. I loved A Bridge Too Far.
This made me, I suppose, "bookish" and it gave people the illusion that I'm "smart". My father and mother were both extremely intelligent, likely both geniuses actually, but I'm not as smart as either one of them by a long measure. I'm just well-read, really. And being an only child makes you a loner in significant ways, as you do so much all by yourself that other people simply do not.
In my case, this was amplified at age 13 when my mother became profoundly ill. Then it was me and my father, and from that point on, really, I was an adult. And for a lot of things, I was an adult with nobody to turn to. My father was my closest friend, although I certainly had other friends, but the problems you take to your siblings, I bore, like I am sure all only children do, by myself.
I still largely do.
This makes for a rough existence in a lot of ways. As an adult, I really didn't have anyone to go to advice to. I mostly made my own decisions, and started doing that at about age 13. A lot of those decision, made only in the context of my own experience, were wrong. Being insecure about the state of existence itself due to my mother's condition and due to a childhood asthma condition, I valued security way over that which other people do, which ironically ends up making you potentially insecure in certain fundamental ways. My post high school academic career can probably be defined by that. I studied geology first, and then law, not because of a deep love of the topic, but because they seemed to offer secure occupations.
My father died when I was in my 30s. My mother when I was much older, I think in my early 50s. With them both gone, there is no connection like that. My wife was great during my mother's illness, particularly since they did not get along, but the strain of that did not help in our relationship and continues to have a lasting impact. I can't go to siblings like she does with family problems, and her being the one I'm closest to on earth means that I'm uniquely vulnerable there in a way, frankly, that she is not. My connection with things, basically, is razor-thin.
I note all of this for a simple reason.
Being a teenager without siblings proved to be difficult. As a young adult, out in the world like young men are, I didn't notice it at all, but once my parents started their final descent, the lack of a sibling was agonizing. As I've aged now into my 60s, I feel imperiled by it. I wish I had a brother to talk to, like my father did, or like my mother did.
I don't understand why married couples forego children, and in a lot of ways I feel that people who don't have kids never really become adults. Those having children, however, shouldn't have a single child. It's not fair to the child.
The 112th Cavalry, which had been dismounted, landed at Arawe in the opening battle of the New Britain Campaign, Operation Cartwheel.
The 112th Cavalry was a cavalry regiment of the Texas National Guard. They had at first been retained along the boarder with Mexico until Mexican attitudes towards the war could be ascertained. They were deployed to the Pacific without horses and would never recover their mounts.
Australian forces took Lakona on New Guinea.
Three German officers and a collaborator were tried for war crimes by the Soviet Union. Abwehr Captain Wilhelm Langheld, SS Lieutenant Hans Ritz, Corporal Reinhard Retzlaff of the Secret Field Police, and Mikhail Bulanov of Kharkov were found guilty on December 18 and hanged the next day in what some inaccurately regard as the first war crimes trial.
The Soviets had, in fact, already conducted at least one. Unlike the prior ones, however, this one, whose results were basically foreordained, was photographed by the Soviets.
Famous musician Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller died of pneumonia at age 39 while traveling on the Los Angeles to Chicago Super Chief train.
Sometimes, the headlines are rather similar to what we read today. Aliens smuggled into U.S. "wholesale". Mass shooting. Others are thankfully firmly cemented in the past.
And some are just weird.
And then things stay the same in other ways:
Fascists Black Shirt Commandant General of the Blackshirts, Cpt. Cesare Maria De Vecchi, arrived in Mogadishu to take office as the colonial governor of Italian Somaliland, which would require military expeditions into its more remote regions.
He had started out in life as a lawyer before his fascist role. After the Italian surrender in 1943, he had allowed German troops into areas under his command, but nonetheless was condemned to death by the Social Republic. He went into hiding and died of natural causes in 1959, having been briefly involved in the post war neo fascist movement.
William Butler Yeats delivered his Nobel address.
Turkey and Hungary entered into a treaty of friendship.
A patent was applied for in the UK for the pioneering Celestion electric speaker for radios.
I thought I was the only one who used this repeat headline, but apparently not.
Anyhow, interesting article.
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The French Committee of National Liberation granted French citizenship to Algerians classified as "Moslem elites", those being the ability to fluently read and write French. It was expected that this would enfranchise between 20,000 to 30,000 Algerians.
This also abandoned a prior requirement that those obtaining French citizenship abandon Islam.
This would have been a huge move had it come in the 30s, but now, it would prove to be too little, too late.
The Germans raided Nantua, France, in reprisal for resistance activities.
Allied aircraft raided Luftwaffe airfields near Athens at Eleusis, Kalamaki and Tatoi, as well as the harbor facilities at Piraeus in the heaviest raid on Greece to date.
Sarah Sundin's blog, reports that:
Today in World War II History—December 14, 1943: US Army Air Force decides to stop using camouflage paint on planes, with the exception of night fighters and transports, to increase speed and range.
The Red Army took Cherkasy.
John Harvey Kellogg, creator of cornflakes (1878) and founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium ain Battle Creek, Michigan, died at age 91.
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A 5.3 magnitude earthquake killed over 300 people in Columbia and Ecuador.
Congressional pages took advantage of a Washingon D.C. snowfall.
October 25, 2023
Mike Johnson, who supported Trump's bogus claim to have won the election, has been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives
November 8, 2023
November 8, 2023
Hamas v. Israel War
U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib was censured for her "river to the sea" comment. Tlaib is of Palestinian extraction and has a vocal critic of Israel.
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman claimed n a television interview that Palestinian protests in the US were due to Palestinian infiltration of the U.S. government.
November 14, 2023
Eight Republicans voted with Democrats against a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the border crisis. The vote was 209 to 201, showing how extreme the GOP is, but also that the far right lacks complete control over the Republican members.
November 15, 2023
The House passed a stop gap spending resolution yesterday to avoid a government shutdown, but the GOP was forced to rely upon Democratic votes in order to pass it. That should be normal, of course, but with the current Republican makeup it is not.
Johnson is proving not to be a slave to his far right, which in turn will either result in his being removed liked McCarthy or perhaps start off a return to more normal behavior.
November 16, 2023
The Senate also passed the spending bill.
December 1, 2023
George Santos has been expelled from Congress.
December 2, 2023
Following up on this, the expulsion of Santos is real progress as by doing in the GOP is potentially cutting into its three vote margin in the House, and did it anyway. It shows, at long last, that there are some standards which cannot be breached.
December 6, 2023
Getting a jump on behaving like a Soviet court in the early USSR, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and a subcommittee chairman on the House Administration Committee announced Tuesday that they would be investigating any "cooperation" between Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis and the former House Jan. 6 committee.
Because, after all, it would be awful if the Dear Leader's behavior were to have come fully to light, as that would demonstrate independence of thought and loyalty to the truth. We can't have that.
Cont:
Kevin McCarthy, who was complicit in Trump's recovery from his brief fall from Republican grace, and who rode Trump's favor into a brief Speakership, shall resign from Congress at the end of this month. In so doing, he stated: “I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways". This will reduce the GOP majority in the House down to a single seat, at least temporarily.
December 14, 2023
The House is going to have a totally pointless impeachment inquiry regarding Joe Biden based on his son Hunter's conduct and baseless allegations that Hunter's business dealings involve his father.
Some assert that this is revenge dictated by "one day dictator" hopeful Donald Trump, whose own children certainly were active under his name during his presidency. Trading on a famous parent's name certainly isn't illegal, and is frankly nearly inevitable. Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Theodore Roosevelt Jr certainly didn't become well known independently. Of course, the baseless allegations here are that Biden was somehow involved in Hunter Biden's activities.
Whether Donald Trump ordered this or not, the level of delusion in the GOP side of the House of Representatives is sufficient to have likely brought this about independently. Ironically, it's now come to light that the individual who will head this sorry affair, James Comer, has a complicated set of financial arrangements not unlike that of Hunter Biden, although he's not being accused of illegal activities.
At any rate, there are not enough votes right now to impeach Biden, and this is yet another example of the House of Representatives, under GOP control, doing something political that will do nothing whatsoever other than to distract.
All the Republicans voted for the measure, all the Democrats voted against it.
The long ago days under Kevin McCarthy already look better.
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