The title is actually something that Einstein said, but I think it is true. I have to take my hat off to Jodi Picoult for The Storyteller, a story of a young woman whose grandmother is a holocaust survivor, and she meets a man in his nineties, who claims to be a former S.S. officer, a Nazi. He wants Sage to kill him, but she gets in touch with the F.B.I. and Leo Stein, an agent specializing in this area, goes to visit her grandmother with her, because she is the only one who could possibly truly identify him, in case he was lying, for whatever reason. The grandmother, Minka, has never talked about the camps, ever, but tells her story, which is horrific.
There has never in history been anything as horribly strange as the holocaust. I know that people have been persecuted many times over, such as slavery, genocide in Africa, the twin towers, the native Americans, but I do not know if people realize that the Jews have never been given a public apology by Germany. And, I realize others have not had that either. I also hate it when Meher Baba followers try to make up pat answers, and claim that Meher Baba said this or that. I really do not care about that, or care to hear it. I do not like A Course in Miracles interpretation either.
When you really think, nothing is as insane as rounding up Jews and at first taking their homes away, and sending them to ghettos, and then putting strict rules on them, like not walking on the sidewalk, wearing yellow stars, and not going to school. Jewish children had to sew those Nazi symbols onto shirts, etc..
Then in the camps, it was starvation and murder. Only by luck or strength, some survived, and those who survived were never the same. It makes you want to cry when help finally came, the English, Russians or Americans, depending on which camp, the red cross.
I find that among some liberals, there is almost an anti-Semitism nouveau, and you may not agree or understand, and perhaps it is not only liberals, but some conservatives too, but people do not seem to care anymore. As I said before, there is no statute of limitation on murder, and any Nazi still alive, no matter how old, should have consequences. However, unlike Law and Order, this is not always the case. They are, if sent back to Europe, rarely contended with there, and we have not the jurisdiction to punish them on American soil.
It is difficult for me not to hate the Germans, although I am one quarter gentile German, I am also half Jewish. Anyone should find the holocaust despicable. Please note that any anti-Semitic remarks will be removed from my blog. Freedom of speech has limits, not legally, but in this type of forum.
The good is that ethnic cleansing was not successful completely, and the Jews are still viable and worship in temples, have lives in many countries. Still, the idea that you should blame a people for your economic or social problems, take everything they own and eliminate them, taking away every human right, is preposterous, and I cannot believe they got away with it, until the war ended, and they were found out, the people surviving rescued. I think Picoult did an amazing job of researching and accuracy, and she is a world class writer in my book now, and although I have always liked her books, The Storyteller is her very best work.
I am reading Jodi Picoult's 2013 bestseller, The Storyteller. I would like to tell you that my idea of a good time was kayaking, sky diving, and jet skiing, but I guess I am boring, because my idea of a good time, is a good book or a good movie and a glass of wine.
Even though the holocaust was sixty years ago, there is no statute of limitation on murder. When we extradite Nazis to Europe, often nothing is done with them. No consequences, but anyone who watches Cold Case, knows there should be..
Picoult's main character is Sage, a name I wish now, I had kept. My birth name is Leslie, but part of me will always be Sage as well. I dreamed that Mehera said that I was Leslie Sage. However, my parents named me Leslie, a popular name in the early sixties, like Christopher, my brother's name. Leslie and Christopher were the names of actor Michael Landon's kids.
A bad economy is never reason for genocide. So many excuses for Nazism, and for the apathy of the Germans and other Nazi countries in Europe, towards Jews, gypsies, and anyone they considered the enemies, six million.
Samuel Clemons said "don't change the names and places, change your own name." That he did. His pen name was and is Mark Twain.
He said write as though only you were going to read it. This makes it real and raw. Stephen King, a more generic but good writer, said "imagine who you would like to read this." Mark Twain spent seven years, and at least three, writing his books, each one. King said, "get done in three months."
I spent two years on 'American Boys.' Few people read my blog anymore, which makes me wonder why I wrote it. It was happier than my real life. I do not want your pity, your charity. I only wanted to tell the truth. I have to live in lies it seems, and can never escape them, even though I wish so much to, so much, I can barely breath sometimes.
I watched all of Revenge on Netflix. It reminded me of things in my life, minus wealth I cannot imagine. Nolan looked and acted exactly like my Alan, who died, and watching it, brought Alan back for a while.
But, I cannot live the lie of the rich. I cannot live the lie of the pious, the self-righteous. I know in my heart that I am hated, and that I will never have my due heritage. The native American, in a sense, though not really, banished to poverty, and no one cares. They, the well meaning, throw their scraps at me, which only insult me more deeply than ever, and I can no longer live a lie.
The characters in my novel represented real people, my children, other people's children, Alan, myself, and ultimately 'Jim,' but I fear I will never have a Jim. Really I do not fear it, but accept it.
If you read my book, you would know 'Jim.' But, as I said, no one, hardly but a few, ever read my blog anymore. Perhaps, Americans will read again. As another author so eloquently said, "I wrote my book, because I wanted to read it."
Yes, as the title states, I like to watch these shows on Netflix. Of course they are not all I watch, but what I prefer as of late. The reasons are a few. For one, many of The Twilight Zone episodes are pieces of famous great literature. Some have much meaning, such as, The Obsolete Man.
The meaning is what we are dealing with in the world today. Any state that does not value the work and right of human beings, whether they be a librarian, a nurse, or a teacher, has no real value, and is meaningless. In this case, where the individual is not valued, the state is what is obsolete. This kind of crazy thinking is also a theme in the famous Twilight Zone episode narrated by Rod Sterling as they all are, entitled, Eye of the Beholder, the one where a beautiful woman's face is in bandages, and the doctors and nurses take them off, and she is still beautiful, but she is considered a freak, while they are the ones who really are. Meanwhile the supreme leader is on the television, in the hospital hallway, where everyone, doctors and nurses smoke of course, as in the early sixties, even later, speaking about the 'rules of conformity.'
Aside from the deeper reasons, I enjoy seeing how things were in 1961, when most of these were made, and the year I was born. I have a fascination with how people dressed, behaved, acted, etc., during the time my parents were young. The women seem downright histrionic, and the men sure wore their pants high wasted, lol. Maybe that will come back, high wasted pants for men. I'm sure GQ has some male model in Italian pants like that, even now, the equivalent to Vogue, although the owner of Maxim, one of the richest men in Scotland, said "GQ is for men who like socks better than sex."
Speaking of Vogue, I was once in Barnes & Noble with a girlfriend, and I had a sprained ankle, so while I was sitting, I asked my girlfriend to bring me a magazine. It was Vogue. I said, "can't you bring me something more realistic like Lucky or Jane?" LOL.
Last night I watched the Twilight Zone version of Charles Beaumont's story, The Howling Man, about the devil locked up in a monastery in Germany where an American seeks refuge. He is in the guise of a man, and so David frees him, because he does not believe the head of the monk order. So, he spends his life trying to lock the devil back up.
It is also interesting because it is post WWI in the story. I would be interested in when, because it implies that the devil getting loose causes WWII. The monk says, "wherever there is persecution, I have seen him."
The Man in the Bottle is another interesting short story, which I read in one of my anthologies. However, when I researched, I could not find the author's name, of the original story. I know it was around the forties or fifties, because it is about a couple who own an antique store. They are very broke and unhappy. An old woman begs him to buy an old wine bottle worth nothing. He gives her a dollar for it when she starts to cry.
It turns out the bottle has a genie, that comes out when it falls. They get four wishes. He wishes for the glass to be fixed on the case. It is. He wishes for a million dollars. They give most of it away, because they are nice people, but then they get audited and have to pay the rest in taxes, and only have five remaining dollars.
The genie returns. He has two wishes left. He wishes to be a ruler of a country, who cannot be voted out of office, anywhere in the world. He is suddenly Hitler, at the end of the war, being brought a vial of sianide poison, but just before he kills himself, he wishes to be back to who he was, his last wish. His wish is granted. The rules are you can wish to change the wish, I suppose.
He and his wife are so happy to be in their little antique shop. They accidently break the case again and laugh. Then they sweep up the broken genie bottle and throw it away. Then it puts itself together in the garbage on the street.
