Stop Immortalizing Mass Killers

Other countries are watching what we do after our mass murders and it’s always the same – nothing.  Our high profile killers capture the headlines as regularly as we receive our monthly utility bills.  What the world might not know is that our Media is not only fascinated by them and loves them, but it makes big bucks off them like pimps do with prostitutes.   Their mindset: if there’s a slow news day, let’s fill them with Lockup this or that, the intimate dreams of prison inmates, or the sexual perversions of Richard Speck or Charles Manson.  The main thing to remember is to feed the insatiable morbid appetites of the public like in the days of the Roman Coliseum.

The Left’s knee jerk solution to the killings nearly always centers on getting rid of guns and saying the guy should have had psychiatric help.  In this latest shooting one expert dismisses the assertion that the shooter was evil by the old saw that he had a disease.  That’s socialist code for “He’s not responsible for what he did.”  How many times in the last 50 years have I heard this? 

The Media should stop its fake indignation and do something besides talking about mass killings.  Not only do they have the conditioning power to do it, but they’ve adjusted the violence valve before.  In my book, Journal of the Silent Majority, I recalled how it was done.  Remember all the TV shows like Combat with Vic Morrow that conditioned us for intervening in Vietnam?  When Martin Luther King Jr. said Vietnam was draining off civil rights funds, the Media re-tweaked the valve and eliminated those WWII violent shows – even westerns and did for a long time.   It also began satirizing and poking fun at our soldiers, sailors, and Marines – every service: I Dream of Genie, McHale’s Navy, F Troop, Gomer Pyle USMC, and M.A.S.H, all populated by idiots and fools.  It was no accident that support for the Vietnam War was methodically undermined by the Media who counts on the public's short attention span.

Government doesn’t have to pull the Media’s FCC licenses on the grounds of national security even though our problem has become an international political and social embarrassment.  Since the public owns the airwaves, we should demand that the Media initiate at least a six month moratorium on the violence industry which includes Gangster Rap.  They’ve done before.  Cable, print, and radio should voluntarily cease immortalizing our miscreant psychopaths: no pictures of him, no voice mail, no national coverage or after-the-fact psychoanalysis, no reading of his manifestos, no movie rights (Son of Sam), no Bonnie and Clyde, and no O.J. sensational trials.  Most people think the Media’s role is to report the news and not create it by capitalizing on avoidable tragedies that produce endless copy cats.

Cool Scandinavian Houses

There is a measured beauty about Scandinavian houses.  The high rise apartment buildings were clean, colorful, and modern, but I’m not concerned with them here.  Most of them looked like shoe boxes stuffed with hundreds of people.  I prefer the little single family dwellings.  They’re homey and architecturally more interesting because more often they reflect the creative talents of individuals who take pride in ownership - all the more interesting because Socialism dominates the politics of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

 

The first picture was taken in Denmark along the Odense River.  The two-story is all brick with the windows encased in Roman arches.  (Notice the little girl looking out at me.)  The other taller windows have an arch style of their own and you can see the transparent lace curtains.  The Danes have that oval style curtain stylistically more pleasing than what is fashionable in America.  Notice the windows have darker brickwork contrasting with the tan brick walls.  I’ll never know if the owner did it on purpose or not, but there are crosses in every window.  Abundant ivy makes the house a tourist magnet despite the fact that this photo isn’t even the front of the house.

The second house is located in Växjö, Sweden.  It’s a barn style with a huge dormer on top.  The Swedes love tiled roofs and I don’t blame them; they must last forever.  The foundation isn’t the poured concrete that Americans are familiar with.  It appears to be granite block and Sweden has a lot of rocks.  Even the fence posts are granite.  The overall effect of the house is stout, well maintained, functional, and pleasingly colorful like the tradition of accenting their houses with flowers.

My last picture was also taken in Växjö.  Like the last house, it had a steep pitched roof, brown picket fence, and multi-paned windows.  The pattern on the door follows that of the windows. The skylights seemed to be a little out of place, but I guess the owner had his reasons.  They need a new seal.  Whatever the shortcomings of the house, the beautiful yard work offset them.  What is that purple privacy bush in front of the living room window?  Notice the flowers and evergreen shrubs along his walkway.  They’re tapered from small to tall making them an organic privacy fence in their own right.  The guy knew what he was doing.

I have to say it I was a little embarrassed with I shot these photos of Scandinavian houses in 1977 when I was young and could walk all day without getting tired.  Sometimes the occupants would go to the windows and stare at you.  Most American tourists are curious anyway, but when I look back at the experience and the memories it brings back, I believe it was worth it.

Midnight and Overtime

Second shift had its advantages.  There was the ten percent pay differential and things were quieter at night.  Gone were the production and office hordes that made the plant a bee hive during the day.  Once in a while you could see a machine operator finishing off a production run under the soft glow of fluorescent lights.  The rest of the massive concrete and pillared areas would be in total blackout.  The only visitor was a watchman named Gates who, in those days, carried one of those big round clocks encased in leather.

In front of the swinging doors that formed the boundary between manufacturing and the office areas were the long darkened corridors that led to the massive modular furniture expanses that formed the corporate departments.  I’m glad I didn’t have to work in them; so many people during the day.  Once in a while someone would stay late like the lady in Purchasing who used to tell me management would never promote her because she was a woman.  Incidentally, several years later they did promote her to the head of Purchasing.

I always looked at my predicament as a bitter pill.  So what if I was just out of college and all I could find was a job pushing a broom?  I did what it took to make a living and always took advantage of any opportunity including overtime and that’s what I was doing after midnight.  Our crew of volunteers was usually called up for emergency clean ups, shoveling late night snow or moving furniture.What drew me to volunteering was the princely sum of $13.00 per hour even though I’d usually get home at O Dark Thirty (3 AM.)  Plus, in the early 1970s you could buy more for your dollar.  My studio apartment on the Plaza was only $85 a month and gas was 23 cents a gallon at the Hudson station at 38^th and Main in Kansas City.

What’s there for young people now?  Inflation has severely eroded the dollar.  Overtime is mostly a thing of the past.  They’re now lucky to get 40 hours a week in order to qualify for benefits – healthcare mainly.  Profit sharing is so antiquated that I believe most college graduates entering the work force don’t know what it is, but I hope they know what “A penny saved is a penny earned.” means.  In a difficult situation you adapt, persevere, and overcome.  You look for a way out and earn money by saving money and not going into debt.  You lower your expectations and limit your vices.  Above all, you invest in the things that count like a house.  My overtime allowed me to have one built.  When the maintenance men who threw away their money on turkey hunts, Jack Daniels, boats, and snow mobiles learned about it, they became visibly upset.

The Mystery Troop Ship

On any given Saturday when I lived in the Kansas City area, you could find me searching the reference areas at the University of Missouri, Kansas City or the microfiche at Mid-Continent North Library in Independence.  It’s a solitary activity looking for the WWII troop ship arrivals of September 19, 1945 in the New York Times: Aiken Victory, Charles Goodyear, Depaux Victory, John Spencer, Clinton Kelley, and the Mormacon.  Docking at Newport News were the Fayetteville Victory, Cooper Union Victory, and Howard Victory among others.  Twenty-three troop ships arrived that day and who could say if my father was on any of them?  His Honorable Discharge reflected the same date.  Is there any way a Baby Boomer can fill in that important piece of the puzzle: ship and port of arrival?

There’s nothing like a primary source sample to clarify things and I found mine at the Internet site of Oak Valley to Po Valley.  It’s a WWII web site built around the diary of a soldier and truck driver in the Engineers who’d been stationed in Leghorn, Italy where my father was.  It looks like he was also in the Peninsular Base Section (PBS), the collection of Army service units in Italy.  Even though it’s hard to read, one of the documents on the site is “Water Movement Orders” which are the GI’s orders sending him home.  So what?  I can barely read it.  What’s important to the rest of us interested Boomers are four pieces of information:  primary source Water Movement Orders, their source (27th Replacement Depot at Pisa), the ship’s name, and the orders’ distribution list.

The Water Movement Orders are what you search for at the National Archives.  You find records of the 27th to find them.  You should discover the ship’s name.  Perhaps, more encouragingly, the distribution list on this example cites 86 copies to 20 commands or individuals: Army Service Forces, New York Port of Embarkation, Adjutant General, Group Commander, MTOUSA, Transportation Section PBS et al.  The fire at the National Personal Records Center, St. Louis, in 1973 couldn’t have destroyed everything.

The solution to finding my mystery ship and its destination began with the Honorable Discharge.  Contacting the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis for information was next.  They sent me a “Request Pertaining to Military Records” form.  I received an “alternate records source”, a “Final Payment Roll” from the finance records of Jefferson Barracks.  In military administrative speak, some of it reads: “LP 31 July 45 by HA. FUESNOH CAPT FD Trfd as S/Sgt fr 7th RD APO 372 4 Sept 45/Arvd US 19 Sept 45 Incl.”  In plain English I believe it means Dad left the Port of Oran on July 31, 1945 by the orders of a Captain HA Fuesnoh.  He was transferred as a Staff Sergeant from the 7th Replacement Depot (Bagnoli, Italy) Army Post Office 372 and finally left Italy, probably from Naples, on September 4, 1945.  He said he heard about VJ Day (September 2, 1945) on a Victory Ship two days later at sea.

Many pieces of the puzzle are missing.  Was Captain Fuesnoh from E Company 2nd Transportation Corps Service Battalion (TC Hq. 3rd P of E)?  Did he sign the Water Movement Orders for the replacement depot or was he the disburser for the Finance Department (FD) who signed the final checks?  Was New York or Newport News Dad’s final destination?  Right now, I don’t have the answers, but I’m getting closer because I’ll know where to look in the proper National Archive’s Records Group.

Nazis: Evolution of Evil

Because WWII is a specialty of mine, I’ll review cable’s Nazis: Evolution of Evil on the American Heroes Channel.  Nazis seem to be everywhere today on television; maybe it has to do something with our upcoming Memorial Day and those who sacrificed to defeat them.  However, I think the Media is openly fascinated with Hitler and this show is an indication.  It characterizes him as the most feared dictator in history.  (My ears perked up.)  What about Stalin or Mao?  Why don’t they make specials on them and why make Hitler a media cult figure?  Perhaps it’s just money, but the program did have its positive aspects.

The program contained many original film clips I’ve never seen.  That was the best part and why the writers detracted from its documentary appeal with then-and-now scenes of buildings, people, and places in Germany is beyond me.  I know it was a made for TV thing, but why put a cheap frame on good painting?  The producer’s did a good job of describing the terrible events that enable the Nazis to come to power: the Great Depression and inflation, territorial losses, foreign occupation, chaos in the streets, hunger, and the threat of the Red Front.  Oddly, I detected no mention or examples of Germany’s moral decline: homosexuality or cocaine use, or how the Nazis were funded.

The program’s re-en-actors didn’t help the show.  Not one looked remotely like any of the Nazis.  Hitler didn’t look like Hitler – face too narrow like a fox and his haircut was tapered on the back of his neck giving him a shaggy appearance.  Ernest Röhm was so fat that he had a penguin’s gait.  Check out the guy on the general staff who wore the black plastic 1960s glasses frames.  It’s like the Roman soldier at the crucifixion who wore the watch.  Was it in the movie El Cid or Ben Hur? I can only guess that the staffing was made by a university’s actors troop.  Speaking of university - apparently, the show’s script was influenced by an all British collection of professors who can’t resist a re-introduction of Churchill’s name calling (guttersnipe.)  Everybody knows Himmler was a chicken farmer. The only class card they didn’t play was that fact that Hitler was a corporal.

The Führer’s picture behind the Führer’s desk was a little too much.  Maybe I’m wrong, but it would have been an embarrassing narcissism Hitler would never have allowed in his own office.  Frederick the Great’s picture was the norm because Hitler admired him.  The professors should also know that when they claimed Kristallnacht was just an implausible pretext for Hitler to persecute Jews, they should mention that Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, did shoot and kill a Reich’s official in Paris.

I’d give the show three stars out of five.  The new film clips are appreciated, but there seemed to be a hasty amateurish attempt to produce something for mass consumption, a soap opera.  That rush only makes the educated part of the public reach for the remote.  Even the titles of the shows now don’t seem fit the name of the channel.  Remember the travel Channel?  Now, it’s about food and what does the American Heroes Channel have to do with Nazis?