Lyubov Sobol

Just heard about Lyubov Sobol 

Wow.

The Second World War by Winston S. Churchill (6 volumes): Volume II Their Finest Hour

 Day One (DDRD 1,151): December 26, 2020

So, it's Volume II time. 684 pages...but that doesn't include 14 text pages which precede the numbered page 1. So 699 then. Let's just call it 700, don't you think?

I actually got a little head start yesterday and read the introductory pages. Here's the best part:

Theme of the Volume

HOW THE BRITISH PEOPLE

HELD THE FORT

ALONE 

TILL THOSE WHO HITHERTO HAD 

BEEN HALF BLIND WERE

HALF READY

Which isn't entirely fair, in that it took years for Churchill to convince the British to act, but hey, it's still funny. (But not ha ha funny. Or maybe a bit ha ha funny, but mostly sad funny.)

ANYway...read to page 20.

You know, reading these words of Churchill, it's impossible for me not to think of the contrast between him and Trump. Churchill was everything that you would want to have in a leader in a time of crisis: confident, anxious to hear opposing views, dignified, and honorable. Trump is none of those things...which is why we're in the awful state we are currently in, I believe.

Day Two (DDRD 1,152): December 27, 2020

Read to page 41. Churchill mentions that he wrote something like 800 letters (well, I think they were all telegrams, so emails, really) to FDR, and that they had a close, amicable relationship. In fact, he speaks so highly of FDR that it made me interested in learning more about that president. And that is how it happens: fission.

Day Three (DDRD 1,153): December 28, 2020

Read to page 60. Dunkirk is coming up. Of course I had to order the movie from the library. And I was in luck, as it was already at my branch, so I can (and will) pick it up tomorrow. 

Day Four (DDRD 1,154): December 29, 2020

Read to page 80. Early on in Today's Twenty Churchill made reference to "a general named Rommel." So we weren't at the point when Rommel was a name to be reckoned with, I suppose. 

A little later on there was reference to a German Field Marshall whose name was Keitel. Which is an interesting little coincidence. This person was only referred to on pages 68 and 69. And I had already decided that after I finished today's reading, I was going to finish watching a movie I started watching last night: Ulysses' Gaze, starring 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁Harvey Keitel. Kinda funny, right?

ANYway...we're just about at Dunkirk in the narrative, and I just picked up Dunkirk from the library this afternoon, so I'll probably watch it tomorrow, which will be a nice fleshing out of what I'm reading.

Day Five (DDRD 1,155): December 30, 2020

Read to page 100. Almost at the end of The Battle of Dunkirk. Churchill's comments seem to indicate that there were somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 Allied soldiers evacuated, but Wikipedia says that there were actually 330,000 (HERE), and I think I'll take the Wikans' word on this one. One of the reasons that's particularly significant is that Churchill writes that he didn't expect to be able to get even 30% of his armies out during the Dunkirk evacuation. Imagine: he expected to lose (de facto) at least 200,000 men. Holy shit.

Here's a bit for Sir Winston that I found particularly astute, moving, poignant, and topical...from May 28th 1940:

"In these dark days the Prime Minister would be grateful if all his colleagues in the government, as well as important officials, would maintain a high morale in their circles; not minimizing the gravity of events, but showing confidence in our ability and inflexible resolve to continue the war till we have broken the will of the enemy to bring all Europe under his domination."

Wish we had somebody like that at the helm when the Coronavirus Pandemic hit...instead of a whiny, self-centered pussy like Trump. Just sayin', sir.

Day Six (DDRD 1,156): December 31, 2020

Read to page 121. Also watched about half (an hour's worth) of the Extra Features on the 2-disc version of Dunkirk (2017). It is really whetting my appetite for another viewing of the movie--which will be my third. It is really impressive to see how much work lies behind this movie. For one thing, Christopher Nolan didn't want to use CGI, so the vast majority of the movie is real: real ships in a real ocean, real vintage aircraft in a real sky, etcetera. All of realism also included the first landing of a (real) Spitfire on the beach at Dunkirk since the second world  war. Well that's something, isn't it? And the care which Nolan took with this movie...just incredible. One actor (not a famous one) told about how when he came out in his Allied soldier costume and met Nolan, Nolan told him that the laces of his boots were tied incorrectly, and showed him how it would have been done by a Brit in the 1940s. Yowza. There were also scenes of Nolan standing thigh deep in the ocean whilst filming, moving a mock up cockpit around with another guy using a giant metal contraption, etc. Talk about hands-on film-making.

There was also a bit when Historical Consultant Joshua Levine said that the Dunkirk Evacuation was the turning point of the war, and that if it hadn't been successful 300,000 English and 100,000 French soldiers would have been killed or captured, and that this would inevitably have led to Great Britain becoming a satellite of Nazi Germany. Kind of puts everything into perspective, doesn't it?

Anyway....

This is it for 2020. It's been a really bad year, obviously. And I don't know if it makes sense to anyone who lives outside of my head, but doing my Daily Devotional Readings* has helped me. It gives me something to look forward to, something which (I think) is worth doing for twenty to forty-five minutes, and it gives me a feeling of accomplishment...especially when I look back and see that over the course of my 1,156 days of this project, I've read just a hair under 17,000 pages of some pretty challenging books...and knocked several items off of my Reading Bucket List...including one that has been on that list for 45 years. I know in a larger sense that reading seems kind of paltry: people are dying, the economy is in ruins, and we still have a president who is doing his utmost to destroy any semblance to democracy that this country's government still retains...but you know, I can't do much about any of those things other than hope and / or despair. But I can try to advance my personal knowledge and spiritual growth, and I think that's at least a big part of what we are here on this planet to do. 

See you next year.

P.S. This:

* Short version: committing myself to read for a set amount of time or a set number of pages every day. That currently means 20 pages per day...sometimes a little more, occasionally slightly less. 

Day Seven (DDRD 1,157): January 1, 2021

Read to page 140. Held off until later in the day because I wanted to watch Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk before I resumed reading, but I only made it halfway. Not for lack of interest--it is a truly great movie. But when you live with two autistic people, sometimes you just don't have that 1 hour and 47 minutes of uninterrupted movie viewing time. I did manage to get in my reading time, though, and maybe I'll be able to finish the movie up tomorrow.

Day Eight (DDRD 1,158): January 2, 2021

A couple of interesting things courtesy of Sir Winston right off the bat today (before 7 am, even):

Churchill made reference to flying back from war-ravaged France in a Flamingo airplane. It wasn't the first time he'd referenced this plane, but this was a particularly striking incident. France was on the verge (maybe even over the verge) of falling to the Nazi powers, and Churchill had flown in for a consultation, mostly to tell the French leaders to keep on fighting. He flew in in his Flamingo accompanied by 12 Spitfires. When it was time to fly back to England, however, there wasn't sufficient fuel for the Spitfires, so he either had to wait in France or head home unaccompanied. He decided to go for it. On the way back to England, his pilot looked down and saw two Nazi airplanes attacking fishing boats...in other words, Too Damn Closed For Comfort (2DCFC). They got past the fighters without attracting their notice, but it made me wonder about this so-called Flamingo. What kind of plane was it? 

Well, since this is the 21st Century, I didn't have to wait for an answer:

Pictures from Wikipedia, both labelled Public Domain.

General characteristics

• Crew: 3
• Capacity: 17 passengers
• Length: 51 ft 7 in (15.72 m)
• Wingspan: 70 ft 0 in (21.34 m)
• Height: 15 ft 3 in (4.65 m)
• Wing area: 651 sq ft (60.5 m²)
• Empty weight: 11,325 lb (5,137 kg)
• Gross weight: 18,000 lb (8,165 kg)
• Powerplant: 2 × Bristol Perseus XVI 9-cylinder air-cooled sleeve-valve radial piston engines, 930 hp (690 kW) each
• Propellers: 3-bladed variable-pitch propellers

(Courtesy of our friends the Wikkans @https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Flamingo)

I was surprised at what was not listed or shown there, so I read the whole article...and nowhere was there any indication that this plane carried any armaments at all. Yowza. That Churchill had 🏏 for sure.

Also, Churchill quoted Dr. Samuel Johnson, and I just had to connect it to Trump in a Tweet:

And btw, here's hoping we do as well against the Trump Supporters as Churchill did against Nazi Germany.

In other news, I finished watching Dunkirk today. What an amazing movie. More to say on that elsewhere. For here, just this: if you haven't seen it, it is well worth your time. Especially if you watch the Making Of features before you watch it. It will increase your appreciation of Christopher Nolan immensely.

I've also bumped into the book The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson which sounds like a must-have item. I'm hoping that the library has an audiobook so that I can get to it right away. (My print / e- book schedule is about as full as it can get right now.)

And more also, Churchill has made a couple of references to The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. I looked around to see what was what, and turns out it's a moderately pricey two volume set...but you can find it for free at the Hathi Trust Digital Library...though I know nothing about them vis-à-vis copyright. News as it happens.

Read to page 160.

Day Nine (DDRD 1,159): January 3, 2021

Went to bed pretty early, then (of course) woke up shortly after midnight and thought, "Well, I might as well get a start on my Churchill, then." Read ten or so pages before deciding that this was only making me more awake and put on a audiobook--which is a pretty sure-fire way of getting myself back to sleep. (I've rarely heard the end of a 15 minute sleep-timer session.)

One of the reasons that Churchill was not lulling me to sleep is that he was writing about how in 1940 both Britain and France were BEGGING the United States to get involved in the war...and FDR was saying, "I'd love to help, but...I don't wanna." Which resulted in France collapsing. It also made me think, "What if FDR really COULDn't get America involved in the war, even though he wanted to?" I mean...there was no Imperial Presidency back in those days, right? And I assume that Congress wasn't about to authorize a declaration of war when the American people, so recently (less than a decade) having emerged from the Great Depression...and still smarting from the horrors of the First World War...had no interest in getting involved in "a European conflict." Which then made me think, "So...maybe FDR actually thought that he had no choice...and was justified...in letting the attack on Pearl Harbor happen." After all, what's 2,403 deaths, and 19 U.S. Navy ships damaged or destroyed compared to the fall of Europe? (I also found it interesting to learn that "The three aircraft carriers of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were out to sea on maneuvers." (https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/pearl-harbor-fact-sheet-1.pdf) Happy coincidence there, ennit?

ANYway...after a bit more sleep, a 5 am wake-up, a futile attempt to find a news program worth watching, and some coffee, I finished and read to page 180. 

There were some more interesting things along the way, at least two of which are insisting that they are Tweet-worthy.

First:

"In itself the idea was sound, but there were no facts to clothe it with reality." (169)

Can you say, Claims of Voter Fraud?

Second:

"France must not only make peace with Germany; she must change sides, she must become the ally of the conqueror, and by her loyalty and services against the common foe across the channel save her interests and her provinces and finish up on the victorious side." (178)

France...or Ted Cruz? 

Third:

"I was somewhat surprised to see the staid, experienced politicians of all parties engage themselves so passionately in an immense design whose implications and consequences were not in any way thought out." (180 - 181)

Can you say The Republican Party and objections to Electoral College results?

Obviously Cowardice and Capitulation are not recent innovations for people "serving" in government.

P.S. 

Day Ten (DDRD 1,160): January 4, 2021

Read to page 200. Hey, that's almost 30% of the way already. I'd actually like to read more per day, but things have been pretty hectic lately, so I think this is as good as it's going to get--since it's taking me 45 minutes or so to put down 20 pages. 

Day Eleven (DDRD 1,161): January 5, 2021

Read to page 220. You know, reading seems to go more quickly early in the morning. Maybe because there are fewer distractions. Maybe because the morning coffee rush is in full blast. Maybe my brain works better in the early am.

Here's a sad thing I read early on in Today's Twenty: In a letter dated June 28th, 1940, Churchill says, "We have really not had any help worth speaking of from the United States so far."

And Britain (and France, before they collapsed) were BEGging for the U.S.A. to help.

Also a flash of Churchill's sense of humor when he says, "...the Germans certainly read my war books with attention. " (216)

Yep.

Churchill made reference to "butcher and bolt," and the context didn't make it clear what he meant by that. I kept thinking of "bolt" as 🔩, which didn't help. But a little Googling and I found out that (1) it is used nowadays to refer to having sex with a woman and then leaving her quickly, and (2) that during WWII it was a strike squad. Some interesting information to be found here: 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2814866/Kill-without-mercy-party-like-theres-no-tomorrow-Churchills-secret-band-fearless-warriors-broke-hearts-rules-Nazis-spirit.html

And check out the picture they use to illustrate this article. Kind of...well...sugGESTive, isn't it? Maybe it's just me.

Day Twelve (DDRD 1,162): January 6, 2021

Read to page 240.

Hey...so Churchill painted, too. In his spare time. I just placed a request for Winston Chruchhill: A Passion for Painting by Edwina Sandys (Churchill's granddaughter) with the LFPL. Because, you know, I need some more books to read. Mostly I just want to look at the pictures, though. I found a few of them online and I thought they looked really good.

P.S. I'm listening to MSNBC's commentary on the Senate "Debate" on the Electoral Vote Count goes on, and Chuck Todd just quoted Churchill re: "...you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing — after they've exhausted every other possibility." Chuck was applying it to Mitch McConnell.

Day Thirteen (DDRD 1,163): January 7, 2021

Read to page 260. Lots of information about plans in case the Germans did a land invasion of Great Britain. Which made me wonder about my knowledge of history. So far as I know, there was no land invasion...but there was a huge air battle. I'm anxious to find out if that "knowledge" is correct.

Also very interesting: Churchill makes reference to guns which fire "45,000 yards." (244) Ummm...that's 135,000 feet! That's 25 1/2 miles! They could do that in 1940! And Churchill talks about the accuracy of those guns. How is that possible? Reading this actually makes me interested in knowing more about the nuts and bolts of WWII.

Day Fourteen (DDRD 1,164): January 8, 2021

Read to page 280...which was the end of Book I: The Fall of France. Now on to Book II, which bears this ominous title: Alone. 

Day Fifteen (DDRD 1,165): January 9, 2021

Read to page 300. The Battle of Britain. Pretty intense stuff. Churchill says that it was one of the decisive battles in the history of the world, and I can see that from his description. If the British planes had not been able to defeat the Germans, it would have allowed the Germans to launch an invasion force across the channel--which stood ready and waiting--and Britain would have been overwhelmed. How might that have changed the face of the world. Meanwhile, the U.S.A. is still not involved in the fighting. It seems pretty shameful. I'd be interested in finding out what was in FDR's mind as this was going on.

Day Sixteen (DDRD 1,166): January 10, 2021

Read to page 320. It's astonishing how much punishment London took from the Nazi bombings. Churchill tells several anecdotes about them, in one of which he is seated at a dining room table fifty yards (was it yards? that seems unlikely, but I'm not feeling the inclination to check right now--and besides, meters are about the same anyway, so...) from a strike. Just amazing.

This morning I also happened upon a movie entitled The Man Who Never Was (1956) which was just about to start, so I let it roll. It was based on a true WWII story about a very strange Counter-Intelligence mission, but I'm not going into that. It was worth seeing, though. But at one point the military guy who has proposed and is overseeing the mission goes to 10 Downing Street to see, as they say, "The Old Man," and though we never see him onscreen, we hear a Churchill-y voice calling out from a room, telling the military guy to get on with it. I looked up the credits to see who it was, and surprise, surprise, surprise...it was Peter Sellers. Funny. I also read (in Wikipedia, of course) that Sellers was in a BBC comedy troupe (the Goons, if you can believe that) who did a parody of the story (based on the book) in 1953...and that Sellers had the role as Churchill there as well. Is it possible that that's how he got the movie role, then? Seems likely.

Another interesting thing: the Brits used people on the roofs of buildings to spot enemy planes, and these spotters were called...🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁...Jim Crows. How did THAT happen? And btw, when I tried to check on this vis-a-vis origin and relationship to the American slang, I found yet another distinction: apparently RAF slang defined Jim Crow as "an aircraft on a reconnaissance mission." 

https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/battle-of-britain/battle-of-britain-pilot-slang/

It's a strange linguistic world out there, isn't it?

Day Seventeen (DDRD 1,167): January 11, 2021

Read to page 340. Which is, by the way, pretty close to the halfway point. This volume seems to be going much more smoothly than the first...and I enjoyed the first immensely, so that's really saying something.

ANYway....

More London Bombing stuff...which prompted me to look for some images. I found some startling stuff, but this is the one that summed everything up for me:

which I found at https://www.express.co.uk/news/history/603421/Britain-1940-bomb-World-War-II-history-facts.

Because in London, life went on...despite the devastation and fear. And not in a "I'm going to get my nails done during the pandemic" way...but in a "I am not going to let these bastards grind me down" way. I wish that we had a bit of that spirit in the U.S. of A. these days, for sure.

I also found a short video which I found very informative and even inspiring at https://www.britannica.com/event/the-Blitz. Have a look if you have a few minutes.

Churchill talked about his people pressuring him to find secure quarters, especially for sleep (most of the raids took place at night), and he commented, "One felt a natural compunction at having much more safety than most other people...." (331) Yowza.

Day Eighteen (DDRD 1,168): January 12, 2021

Read to page 360. Very clear now that the reason the land invasion of Britain never occurred was because of the British ability to stave off the German air attack...coupled with their defense of the coast. Also quite striking is the slowness with which America came to the aid of the British...after completely failing to support the French, which resulted in their being conquered by Germany. Churchill asked FDR for 40 to 50 old, reconditioned destroyers in May of 1940, telling him how desperate was this need. It would literally be the difference between holding off the Germans and succumbing to them. Nevertheless, these destroyers were not sent to England until September. And even then, Britain had to turn off lots of naval bases (for long-term "lease") in order to get this meager support. Sounds like FDR was incapable of acting because of Congress and the lack of interest in the people of the U.S. to get involved in the war. Churchill points out that without those aforementioned destroyers there was a good chance that Hitler would conquer the entire world. FF'sS.

Day Nineteen (DDRD 1,169): January 13, 2021

Read to page 380.

Reference FDR: "He emphasized more than once that the negotiations for the air bases were in no way connected with the question of destroyers. Destroyers were, he said, not involved in the prospective arrangements." (361)

Meanwhile...Churchill was negotiating with FDR to trade British territories (which could be used for air bases) for 50 used destroyers.

Which is another example of how politicians...even good ones...lie like cheap rugs.

Day Twenty (DDRD 1,170): January 14, 2021

Read to page 400.

Somewhere along the way in Today's Twenty I remembered a line in a Noam Chomsky book in which Noam quoted Churchill saying a horrifically racist thing, and I had to pause for a moment. Nothing in the 1,000 pages (or so) that I've read from Churchill gave any indication that he was that sort of man. In fact, quote the opposite. So I did what you would do in this situation: I Googled. And I found a very interesting essay--"Hearsay Doesn’t Count: The Truth about Churchill’s 'Racist Epithets'” by Richard M. Langworth, and published on July 2, 2020 on a page labelled The Churchill Project. Well. They had me at Churchill. You can read the whole thing HERE if you want to, but here's the part that mattered most to me: "WSC’s 20 million published words: fifty books, 2000 articles, thousands of speeches, private letters and papers"...contained very few things which could be considered racist epithets, and the vast majority of the things that could be considered as such were actually not Churchill's words, but the words of others about Churchill. So the article concludes that the charge of racism is bullshit. Of course, for perspective's sake I should add that this Project is sponsored by Hillsdale College, which is one of the most conservative colleges in the United States of America...but I thought the article made a convincing case, and, as I said previously, the idea of a racist Churchill did not jibe with my (admittedly limited, but not meager) Churchill experience. 

Two other things: (1) Langworth noted that there were "60 million words about Sir Winston by biographers and memoir writers"--which is quite a wowie kazowie...and (2) the Hillsdale page has a link to a free online course you can take on Churchill...and a page where you can take a virtual tour of a Churchill art gallery. Pretty cool. I just may see about taking that class.

On page 393, Churchill said, "Warships are meant to go under fire." Which I realize is just what it is, but I thought you could take that as having some pretty profound implications. Especially if you apply it to human beings. Human beings are meant to __________ . Hmmm.

Also, Churchill tells a brief story about a mission wherein 9 of 14 British airplanes were lost when they ran out of gas and plunged into the sea, killing the pilots. This was a result of the lack of resources that the Brits had...though he did say that they never let airplanes cut it so close on fuel for missions again after that.

You definitely get the idea that Churchill cared deeply about the soldiers and sailors and airmen in this warm...and about the British people. I am definitely of the opinion that he was a very fine man and one of the great leaders in the history of the world.

Day Twenty-One (DDRD 1,171): January 15, 2021

The Real Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday, by the way--not the "moved for you convenience" celebration day. Also, what would have been my 37th wedding anniversary if that patient had made it. C'est la vie.

Read to page 420. 

Yet again I am amazed at Churchill's knowledge of the intimate details of the war...and his ability to care about things from the biggest of big pictures to the smallest detail. For instance, check out this note he sends to the First Lord:

Prime Minister to First Lord 18. IX. 40 

Surely you can run to a new admiralty flag. It grieves me to see the present dingy object every morning.

(412)

Kind of a hoot...and a bit heavy-handed, to say the least...but what the fuck, he's right, isn't he? If you want to take pride in your armed forces, you take care of your flag.

In other news, Churchill talks about having to transport airplanes across Africa by disassembling them, shipping them, and then reassembling them. The process took about 4 months and only 107 planes reached Egypt in this way. That was a new one on me, spoiled as I am by living in the 21st century.

WSC also makes a couple of references to "troubles that never happened"--meaning we spend so much of our lives anticipating the worst possible outcome. Been there, done that. Bought souvenirs.  

And, WSC makes this comment: "The victory of the Royal Air Force on September 15th is seen now in retrospect to have marked its decisive turning-point. But this was not apparent at the time...." (403) That also made me think about how we never really know where we are when we're in the midst of suffering, you know? Which is a good reason to hold on as long as you can, isn't it? That's a message I need to hear on a regular basis. It also brings to mind a Churchill quote I just read somewhere else: "If you're going through hell, keep going."

Day Twenty-Two (DDRD 1,172): January 16, 2021

Read to page 440. Some interesting tales, but I'm feeling too shitty today to do anything about it.

Day Twenty-Three (DDRD 1,173): January 17, 2021

Read to page 460. Lots of complimentary stuff about Charles de Gaulle...so much that I'm starting to think I need to know a whole lot more about him. 

A little Googling later...hmm. Looks like books written BY Monsieur de Gaulle are hard to come by, and expensive when they are to be had. On the other hand, a recently published book by Erik Larson--The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz--came up in my de Gaulle search...and I have had that on my Kindle for the past couple of weeks as an audiobook. I've been listening to it, too...pretty much every night. But the bad news: I turn it on when I'm ready to shut down, and I set a sleep timer for fifteen minutes...and I've never made it to the end of those fifteen minutes, so I have just been listening to the same five to ten minutes over and over again. 

Speaking of French stuff...in Today's Twenty, Churchill was talking about an address that he gave on October 21st, 1940 to the people of France...to be given in French. He gives the text of his message which includes this: "We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes." Is that weird or what? (451) That Churchill.

Day Twenty-Four (DDRD 1,174): January 18, 2021

Read to page 480. At one point, after a positive turn in the war goings-on, Churchill says, "I purred like six cats." That's pretty funny, especially coming from the original British Bulldog. 

Day Twenty-Five (DDRD 1,175): January 19, 2021

Read to page 500. You know, I'm starting to get more than a little suspicious about FDR's failure to get the U.S. of A. involved in WWII. Churchill was practically begging for US involvement...and at this point in the story, it's over a year before the US will actually get into it. I had a stray thought: is it possible that the US wasn't sure that it would be a bad thing if Germany conquered Europe? Scary thought, but....

Day Twenty-Six (DDRD 1,176): January 20, 2021

Read to page 520. 

Churchill quotes from a letter from the Reich Foreign Minister to Stalin that Great Britain "was led by a political and military dilettante by the name of Churchill, who throughout his previous career had completely failed at all decisive moments and who would fail again this time." 

Kind of awesome that he would quote such a passage...simultaneously  denoting humility, confidence, and a strange sense of humor.

Speaking of his sense of humor... on page 516, Churchill is telling about a meeting between the Germans and the Russians, and notes that "We had heard of the conference beforehand, and though not invited to join in the discussion did not wish to be entirely left out of the procedings." This is in reference to a British air raid on Berlin, where the conference was taking place.

I like this Churchill fellow.

Day Twenty-Seven (DDRD 1,177): January 21, 2021

Read to page 540.

On December 13th, 1940, Churchill writes to Roosevelt to tell him that the destroyers the United States sent to great Britain were for the most part useless. Many of them were in need of repair which rendered them inoperable. 

It is very hard not to be disappointed in FDR and the American response to early cries for help from France and Great Britain.  

Day Twenty-Eight (DDRD 1,178): January 22, 2021

Read to page 560...which means (1) that I have less than 100 pages of text left in this volume and (2) that I have now entered the first Appendix (A). I'd thought about reading these Appendices as they came up in the text, but that turned out to be impractical because of the length of this one...and also I thought that it wasn't necessary, as it was no great effort to read the Appendices in Volume I as separate things. (It wasn't like reading a bunch of endnotes.) So there's that.

Day Twenty-Nine (DDRD 1,179): January 23, 2021

Read to page 580. 

P.S. Reference my comments Day Twenty with respect to Noam Chomsky and the horrific racist thing he said Churchill said? Well, I finally figured out that the line I thought I was remembering came from Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival? (2003).  It goes like this:

So you can see that I had conflated Lloyd George and Churchill. That said, if Churchill was, indeed, "enamored" of the idea of using poison gas against the "recalcitrant Arabs," the lack of the racist epitaph doesn't exactly lighten the blow. The operant word here being "if." And? Well this, straight from Churchill's pen:

"It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected."

Hmmm. So...looks like my hero Noam Chomsky was either operating from a superficial bit of knowledge--which is bad--engaging in a bit of propaganda--which is really REALly bad. I'm going to assume that he was misinformed, because I don't want to stop loving Noam with all of my heart.

Day Thirty (DDRD 1,180): January 24, 2021

Read to page 600. So probably only three days left in this volume. How did that happen?

Today's Twenty was completely comprised of messages Churchill had written to various people...from FDR to various generals, secretaries of state, etc. I was once again struck by the breadth of Churchill's awareness and knowledge: he writes about everything from filling in bomb craters to replacing broken glass to a new type of hard hat to pigs to lighting during air raids to...well, you get the picture. The guy just seemed to know about every aspect of war time society. Contrast that with some of the nincompoops in our present (or present just a few days ago, at least) government. It's astonishing.

P.S. I was watching the third episode of Ted Danson's new show, Mr. Mayor, and at the end someone reacted to a speech written by the just-hired new speechwriter by saying, "Sounds like Winston Churchill." So there's that. 

P.P.S. Looks like Jet is going to miss The Second World War Volume II: Their Finest Hour:

Day Thirty-One (DDRD 1,181): January 25, 2021

Read to page 620. In one of his letters, Churchill says that secretaries should stop referring to each other by their Christian names in their official notes, as it is hard enough to keep track of surnames. I feel that.

Day Thirty-Two (DDRD 1,182): January 26, 2021

Read to page 684...in other words, The End. Hadn't really meant to, but before I hit Today's 20th page, the text ended and the next few appendices were charts, then three pages of letters between Churchill and the Prime Minister of Australia, and then some abbreviations and that was that. 

Some notable moments.

One: In a letter dated December 22, 1940, Churchill writes with his concerns about the treatment a prisoner is receiving.

Keeping in mind that this is the Prime Minister of Great Britain...writing in a time of war...whose outcome is uncertain...and he's inquiring as to the treatment of a prisoner...to make sure that he is being treated humanely. Even more than that, to make sure that he is being accorded a level of dignity. How amazing. Especially in the context of a time when we have a leader who treated hundreds of detainees cruelly, and obviously didn't give one gram of shit about what conditions they lived in. And get this: Mosley was imprisoned because he was pleading for the Brits to accept Hitler's peace offer.

Amazing.

And speaking of attention to details...in a note to the Lord Privy Seal dated December 27th, 1940,  Churchill discusses his concern with the cold storage of meat, saying, "I am very much concerned about the meat position." (634) I feel compelled to add that The Meat Position would be an excellent name for a band.

Final Note: Is it just me, or does this page number look like it was written in by hand?

So there you have it. Onward to Volume III tomorrow. 

DDR Day 1000 to Day 2000:

(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + __ days, 4,379 pages  Total: 6,970 pages...more than 1/2 of my first 1,000 DDR days

The Comic Books I'll Be Reading For a Long Time to Come

When I was a little feller, comic books cost 12¢ each, so my $1 a week allowance had a lot of bang. In 1970 they went up to 15¢ each, and five years later made the outRAGEous jump to 25¢ a pop. And then things really got out of hand: by 1980, 40¢; 1985, 75¢; 1990, $1.75; 1995, $2.50; 2000, $2.95. Then things stayed relatively stable for a bit before taking off again around 2010, when the price rose to $3.99. They've stayed there for the most part...though it's not at all uncommon for a first issue to add a few extra pages and charge $4.99.

Well. If you love comics you put up the bucks. That's why ComiXology has been quite a relief for me. It took me awhile to accept the idea of an e-comic book, but it is pretty common for a new comic book's price on ComiXology to go from the regular $3.99 down to $1.99 after a month or so has passed. And then there are the sales. Some of these sales are just amazing. 

For instance, there's one going on Right Now (so act fast if you're interested!), and I took a look at the Marvel Masterworks books that were up and decided I really needed to have a bunch of them.

I ended up spending 

So the price of 3 1/2 new comic books. Which would net you about 81 pages of reading pleasure.

I got 2,925 pages of comic book. That is not a typo. 2,925 pages. Granted, there're no NEW comic books here...but there's Jim Steranko and Jack Kirby and Jim Starlin and Neal Adams and other stellar talents. Here's the buy list:

So $140 off the e-versions. And the print versions of these books go for at least $50 apiece...if you could even find them. I'll let you do the math on that, but let's just say I got one hell of a deal, and even with my dedication to reading, it's going to be a long time before I work my way through all of these pages.

Did I mention that this sale won't last long?

Many Worlds in One: The Books I've Read, Am Reading, & Intend to Read

I'd guess that most of us have heard some variation of the Multiple Universes theory. Certainly anybody who reads DC comic books, right? So it's not that it was anything new per se, but when I read a reference to the theory in one of the essays in Teenagers From the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes edited by Timothy Callahan (a most excellent book, by the way) and saw a footnote which referenced Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes by Alex Vilenkin, I decided to see if the Louisville Free Public Library had a copy of that tome. It did. So I did. And, as is often the case, that book then sat on my book table for several weeks. But then this morning I read a bit in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Earth (the sixth book in the Foundation Trilogy) which talked about multiple worlds, it turned my mind back to Alex Vilenkin's book. Asimov's version had an interesting twist to it that I hadn't heard before, by the way. After postulating that there could be a nigh-infinite number of worlds, each one based on variations of acts (in THIS one I got up at 4:00 am because my cat was meowing and batting the door, while in THAT one I slept until 7:00 because my cat was visiting family in New Orleans), one of the characters in the book talked about how there were some beings (The Eternals...no relation to Jack Kirby's / Marvel's group) who could move from one "world" (really a universe, right?) to another, and apparently they searched through a bunch of them to find the world which best suited human beings. Well. That's kind of interesting, isn't it?

It also got me to thinking (again) about the problem of suffering vis-à-vis a religious / spiritual cosmology. The whole How Can A Kind God Permit Needless Suffering? thing. The only answer I've ever heard religion provide is "Some things are beyond our understanding" (aka You Gotta Have Faith a-Faith a-Faith), which is just unforgivable laziness in my opinion. But if there are an infinite (or nigh infinite, per Asimov) number of worlds (universes), and they are based on all of the possible variations (how can that NOT be just straight up Infinite?), then suffering is just one of the variations, isn't it? In this world (universe), my daughter is autistic. In the next world over, she has a Ph.D. in Mathematical and Computer Modeling. And in the next one over, she is the greatest pop singer that Iceland has ever known. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 

I don't know that it's an explanation that brings any solace with it, since we're still hip deep in the big muddy of THIS universe (so far as I know, anyway), but at least it makes sense, doesn't it? And that ought to be worth something. It's better than "I don't know why God allowed that baby to die of cancer, but I have Faith that...."

Must ponder more. 

And I guess it's time to crack that Alex Vilenkin book.  The universe has been pestering me to get to it, after all.

SHAUN CASSIDY!

Back in the day...in this case, the day being somewhere in the proximity of September 1, 1980...I tried to buy every song associated with David Bowie (which usually meant buying an album to get a song). Not just covers of Bowie songs, but even originals or covers of songs Bowie had covered. I remember having a project of assembling an album of the originals of all of the songs Bowie covered on Pin-Ups. This had the side benefit of introducing me to a lot of bands that I might not have happened upon otherwise. In fact, I never bought a Beatles album until Bowie covered "Across the Universe," never bought a Rolling Stones album until Bowie covered "Let's Spend the Night Together," etcetera. And it wasn't just music that Bowie led me to. When he said in an interview that "Jean Genie" was written as a tribute to Jean Genet (a quip which was bullshit, but I didn't know it at the time), I sought out that Frenchman, read The Balcony, loved it and read everything else by Genet that I could get my hands on. Bowie was pretty instrumental in my personal education, for sure.

Which is how I happened to buy a Bay City Rollers album (It's a Game, on which the boys do a cover of "Rebel Rebel") and Shaun Cassidy's Wasp (again, "Rebel Rebel"). I doubt that I played the Bay City Rollers album more than once--it wasn't my cuppa tea--but that Shaun Cassidy album.... It was definitely interesting. Not the "Rebel Rebel" cover, which was kind of a tacky thing*, but pretty much everything else. Especially the ones where producer Todd Rundgren's hand wasn't quite so heavy. (There are a couple of songs where you would think you were listening to a Todd Rungren album. Which isn't a bad thing, I love Todd immensely, but y'know. It's SHAUN's turn to play, Todd.) 

In fact, I really liked Shaun's covers of "Once Bitten Twice Shy," for instance. In fact, I liked it better than Ian Hunter's original version (although of course you can't beat Mick Ronson's guitar), and I still think it beats the Great White cover (a Top 5 Billboard single)  by a country mile or two. Part of it is the inventive arrangement by Todd R., for sure. But a big part of it is also Shaun's voice, which is much better than Ian's or Jack Russell's. For one thing, he goes for a deeper register which allows him to up the ante in the second half of the song, and lends it a bit more of a punch than the other two versions. 

I'm also a big big fan of Shaun's cover of "It's My Life," which is slowed down and deepened considerably, to the point where it almost sounds like an Iggy Pop dirge. (That's a good thing, by the way.) And the Todd Rundgren penned "Wasp" is just fuckin' great. Check out these lyrics:

"Hey, that you? Is that still you?
You're looking mighty new wave
I hardly recognize you with that shish kabob through your face."

They don't write 'em like THAT anymore. In fact, I think I'm going to have to pull this album out and give it a spin now.

Oh, yeah, that's the stuff. Most of the songs on this album are covers, by the way, but Shaun & Todd do a good job of re-visioning them for the most part. (Which is not meant to be a back-handed compliment: all of these songs are at least good. Just that some--like "So Sad About Us"--don't stray too far from the original.)

Which finally brings me around to the reason I started thinking about Shaun Cassidy. I have a section of my blog entitled "The Book I Read," in which I track the books I read during the course of each year. I only do it for myself, so it's little more than a list, but strangely enough those pages garner quite a few hits. So I was thinking about putting up a video of "The Book I Read" by the Talking Heads, but couldn't find one I thought was really good, and then realized that that was in part due to the fact that I had first heard this song via Shaun Cassidy's version on Wasp. Which got me to thinking about Shaun Cassidy, and now we're back to the start, aren't we?

ANYway...great album. Not so great for Shaun, alas, as it was his final studio foray, and I get the impression that sales were less than stellar. But definitely one of my Top Twenty, I'd say. (Just a guess...I don't actually know what my Top Twenty would be. Hmmm. That sounds like a project for another time.)

Btw...if you're an Amazon Prime kind of guy or gal, you can listen to his album for free! Oh, Amazon...I do love thee....

* David Bowie pun, in case you didn't notice. But Shaun's "Rebel Rebel," while not as awful as the Bay City Rollers' version, was not particularly good, either.

Amazon.com: The Tome Machine

H. G. Wells wrote (and re-wrote, then re-re-wrote, and finally re-re-re-wrote) a book called The Open Conspiracy--and eventually subtitled What are We to Do With Our Lives?--which is basically his game plan for remaking the world in his mind's eye's image. As one of the chapters was entitled "The Revolution in Education," I thought I would start there. Turns out it is a pretty tiny chapter, though--in fact, a mere three paragraphs. It doesn't look all that radical to me, either . . . though it does suggest scrapping the "current" system in favor of one which actually educates people, which is always a nice bell to ring. The chapter ends on this note: "Before we can talk politics, finance, business, or morals, we must see that we have got the right mental habits and the right foundation of realized facts. There is nothing much to be done with our lives until we have seen to that." Hard to argue with that. I don't know if I need to read the book, but if you do, it can be found at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201081h.html. Or, if you don't like that one, it's also available at http://www.inlex.org/stories/wells/opencons.html#4. 

Amazon suggested this book for me . . . I suppose because I ordered my John Taylor Gatto book from them. See? This whole TIA thing has all kinds of benefits in the form of shoportunities! If those pissy little liberals would stop whining about it, it'd be a better world. Hey --if you've got nothing to hide, what the hell's the problem? Sheesh.

Trees To Be

 

Anuradha Roy

I first ran across Anuradha Roy when I saw one of her books (her first novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing) at the library. I thought it was a new book by Arundhati Roy, whom I have loved since I first read The God of Small Things. When I picked the book up and saw that it wasn't Arundhati, I was disappointed, of course, but since I already had it in my hands, I started reading the first page of An Atlas. It was pretty interesting right from the get-go, so I ended up checking the book out and spending some time with it. And then something happened. I don't remember what, but knowing me it was probably either I diddled around too long and had to return it unfinished or I ended up getting distracted by other stuff. Both of those things happen quite frequently. I know that I wasn't displeased with the book, and have thought about going back to it a number of times over the years, but never got around to it.

But a few days ago I had an image in my mind of a sunken city, and since that conjured up a memory of An Atlas, I thought I'd go poking around for it. I found that the Louisville Free Public Library had ten items listed under Anuradha Roy's name: 

Four novels in book form--3 of them also available on CD, one also available in Large Print, and one available on Playaway. And then there was this other thing: Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World. Well. They had me at Stories. So I decided to start with that one, figuring that it would be a smaller commitment that I might actually be able to handle as I juggle the other 9 books I'm currently reading every day. (It's all about manageable goals, isn't it?) And it arrived promptly, I picked it up forthwith, and read Anuradha's story yesterday.

It was entitled "Drowning in Reverse," and it was superb. It's a piece of non-fiction writing, but it has all the beauty of well-written fiction, and like all good writing, it was about a lot more than it was about. The focal point of this piece was a city which had been flooded out of existence in order to build a dam. Interesting bit of synchronicity there, that I started with the image of a drowned city from An Atlas, decided to go look for the author of that piece, and ended up reading a different piece which centers on...the image of a drowned city. This essay also goes into the political corruption that makes it possible to destroy an inhabited city in the name of Progress, which is summed up quite nicely here: 

"In a country run by politicians who are almost all thugs of different shades, the poor know that governments are of the rich, for the rich, by the rich."

And gee...even though Anuradha is writing about India, this sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

Anuradha also tells us that the government had plans to make a tourist attraction by making it possible for visitors to go down in submarines to have a look at the drowned city. That pretty much sums it all up, doesn't it? 

Also like all good fiction, this essay reaches beyond itself and introduces me to poet Anthony Hecht, quoting these lines from one of his poems:

Emerging from a sudden crater of water

That closes itself like a healed wound

To plate-glass polish as the diver slides

Upwards....

She didn't identify the specific poem these lines were taken from, but a bit of Googling narrowed it down to something from Collected Earlier Poems: The Complete Texts of The Hard Hours, Millions of Strange Shadows, The Venetian Vespers by Anthony Hecht, which my library had a copy of, which I put on reserve, which I will soon be reading...and then I'll know the title of the poem. (I'm overjoyed that the LFPL has this book, looking forward to getting it into my hands...and sad to tell you that they had only one copy, and that it was stored in Remote Shelving, so clearly this isn't a High Demand item. Poets deserve much better.)

This, by the way, is yet another example of how I end up reading as many as a dozen books at one time. For me, reading is always a process resembling fission.

ANYway...Anuradha Roy is a superb writer, and I am going to have another go at An Atlas of Impossible Longing posthaste...and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I went on to read her other three novels venisoon after. You come too?

Oh, and as long as I'm here, I will add that I took a look at a couple of other pieces in Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World (edited by John Freeman), and both of them were quite good as well: "The Funniest Shit You've Ever Heard" by Lina Mounzer (how could I resist that title? Unfortunately, there was nothing funny about this essay, but it was compelling reading) and "On the Organic Diversity of Literature: Notes From My Little Astrophysical Observatory" by Sjón, translated by Philip Roughton (again...Ø resist...title). Both of these were so good, in fact, that I may even read a few more things from this anthology. There are pieces by Margaret Atwood, Lauren Groff, and lots of other no doubt fine writers...from all around the world, by the way. If your library doesn't have a copy, you can get it on Kindle for a mere $13.99 or as a book book from Amazon for a mere $10.39 (Anuradha Roy's piece alone is worth that).

And hey...it's Jet approved:

P.S. I finally got Anthony Hecht's Collected Earlier Poems, and after it sat on my end table (actually an old wooden crate) for a suitable amount of time, I went to look for the poem Anuradha Roy had quoted from. First I looked at the titles. Nothing seemed likely. Then I went through every page, doing a glance at three or four strategic points on each page. Nothing. I went back to Google Books and was able to locate a clue: there was a II on the page following the page that had these lines. And...finally...I found the poem. It is called "The Venetian Vespers," and it is 25 pages long. So I'm going to have a cup of coffee, watch a football game or two, ride the stationary bike, and then get to it. News as it happens.