what makes a Nazi?
inability to respect
rights of fellow men

The evil characteristic that makes a Nazi a Nazi is his utter inability to understand and therefore to respect the qualities or the rights of his fellow men. His only method of dealing with his neighbor is first to delude him with lies, then to attack him treacherously, then beat him down and step on him, and then either kill him or enslave him.

Address at Ottawa, Canada on August 25, 1943 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He went on to say:

We spend our energies and our resources and the very lives of our sons and daughters because a band of gangsters in the community of Nations declines to recognize the fundamentals of decent, human conduct.

And he closed with:

Some day, in the distant future perhaps—but some day, it is certain—all of them will remember with the Master, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Above all else, FDR was very astute in his study of his fellow man and his fellow Americans.

Something tells me that if he were alive today he would not be too surprised of the rise of the Right wing.

Not too surprised but maybe a little hurt that those feelings could survive.

As he said in the middle of this speech, “I am everlastingly angry only at those who assert vociferously that the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter are nonsense because they are unattainable. If those people had lived a century and a half ago they would have sneered and said that the Declaration of Independence was utter piffle.”

little bites of air
covered with a sugar glaze
oh those krispy kremes

Strategically placed by the checkout at The WalMart, a half dozen box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts fell into my cart and wound up at home this past weekend.

Like time passing.

Like sands in the hour glass.

Like the rise and fall of the tide.

Here today and gone tomorrow.

Just a memory, where they really year.

One bite and an explosion of sweet in your mouth.

Second bite and maybe the sense of flecks of glaze on your tongue and the hint of something fluffy beyond the sweet.

Third bite and 4th bite and its gone.

Was it ever there?

If it was for the glaze on my fingertips I would have doubts.

Just little bites of air, covered in a sugar glaze.

Oh those Krispy Kremes.

Total pleasure and I can rationalize any guilt.

more interesting
use limitations than
overcome struggle

I’m not a good cook. Not that I don’t have my moments—like anyone who has spent thirty years happily cooking, I have absorbed something along the way. And in its casual way, it pays off—God knows I eat well enough. However, if our criterion for goodness is whether I possess anything like a genuinely well-rounded repertoire of dishes I consistently prepare well, then my credentials are nothing much to boast about. Quite honestly, this has never bothered me much at all.

It’s my experience that truly good cooks are born. I was not born to be one, and I don’t like being trained, especially if the result is going to be mere competency. I’ve generally found life a lot more interesting learning to use my limitations than struggling to overcome them.

For example, since I have little patience in getting things just right, I tend to avoid dishes that require a calculated perfection. I’m a compulsive fiddler, so I steer clear of foods that must be set up to run and then left to cook strictly on their own. And since I can’t abide following someone else’s directions, I rarely prepare anything that I can’t get a good mental fix on before I start.

Thoughts for Thanksgiving.

I am making pies.

Blueberry and pumpkin.

I will craft them out of flour and lard and water and fruit or pie mix.

I will follow the example of my Mom by I will craft them my way.

As Anthony Bourdain once said, “Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman — not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen — though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying.”

get wrinkles and fat
freedom comes with that, lightness …
life becomes more fun

For someone who has long been the face of anti-ageing products, she’s decidedly pro-ageing herself.

“You know, you get wrinkles and you get fat and you lose a kind of beauty – that is true,” she says. “But they never talk about the freedom that comes with that. More than freedom, a lightness. When you’re young, you have so many things to prove. You have to prove that you are intelligent, that you’re financially independent, that you’re a good parent. There are so many obligations. And when you’re old, you’re not proving yourself any more. I don’t know if I’m that intelligent or not. I am who I am. You start to say, if I don’t do what I want to do now, I will never do it. And life becomes more fun.”

From the article, ‘Isabella Rossellini: ‘People never talk about the freedom, the lightness, that comes with ageing’ by Guy Lodge, Observer film columnist and the chief UK film critic for Variety.

I have long been at home with what I look like.

As Mr. Churchill said to his barber, “A man with limited means as I do cannot spend time worrying about a STYLE. Just cut it.”

However there are other things I am aware of as I age.

The other day the my wife and I were walking the path around a local park and I looked at the all the work out equipment that had been placed along the walk way.

Chinning bars, parallels bars, sit up benches, push up bars … you name it, it was there.

I tried them all.

Jumped up on the parallel bars and … hung there.

Jumped up to the chinning bar and … hung there, too.

Sat on the sit up bench and looked at how I would have to arrange my body, said nope and got up.

It was a bleak performance.

Then I found the step up bar.

It had high steps around a pole and you were supposed to put your hands on the pole for balance … and step up.

And I did it.

Felt so good, I did it again.

Felt so good I called out to my wife, “I can do this one!”

A half dozen of so 8th grade boys were walking by and stopped to stare.

“Go for it Gramps!” one yelled.

…

When you’re old, you’re not proving yourself any more.

I don’t know if I’m that intelligent or not.

I am who I am.

I say, if I don’t do what I want to do now, I will never do it.

And life has become more fun.

lost the genius of
independence, fit subjects
of cunning tyrants

Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them.

Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.

Abraham Lincoln in a speech at Edwardsville, Sept. 11, 1858.

Watching the clown shop assemble its crew I think that those who follow and approve of the clown show are accustomed to trample on the rights of those around them , and have lost the genius of their own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.

I feel they have familiarized themselves with the chains of bondage, and are preparing their own limbs to wear them.

Why am I reminded again of Mr. Lenin’s famous, “When it comes time to hang the western world … a capitalist will sell me the rope.”

Mr. Lincoln pointed this out in 1856.

No cell phones.

No facebook.

No internet.

Through the long trail of history, it is us who have consistently perverse and goofy and open to those cunning tyrants coming down the road.