The Life in My Years

European Days: Auschwitz And Man’s Inuhumanity

Paul

January 25, 2025

Warning: Graphic and disturbing content.

Nick Fuentes posed the word problem on a podcast in 2019. “If I take one hour to cook a batch of cookies and Cookie Monster has fifteen ovens working 24 hours a day for five years, how long does it take Cookie Monster to make six million batches of cookies?” Wearing a supercilious smirk on his face, Fuentes went on with his riddle for a little over two minutes.

It may have been a math problem for sixth graders, but it was not. It was in fact Fuentes’ weak attempt at humor in trying to discredit the fact that the Nazis exterminated six million Jews during World War II. Not surprising. Fuentes is certifiably odious; a self proclaimed incel, unapologetically white supremacist, and a Hitler and Putin fanboy.

We couldn’t understand, there was a chimney and the place was lit up when we got to Auschwitz when it was dark. ‘What is this chimney burning?’ Night and day, and flame is coming out. And the camp is absolutely lit up.” Barbara Stimler, Holocaust survivor describes arriving at Auschwitz.

The bus ride to travel the 66 kilometers from Krakow’s central bus station to Oświęcim, Poland, population 34,000, takes about 90 minutes. Why visit Oświęcim? Most people, at least those who don’t reside in Poland, wouldn’t recognize Oświęcim by its Polish name. More people, wherever they’re from, know the city by its German name – Auschwitz.

Must be a helluva thing when someone asks you where you live and your answer is, “Auschwitz.”

Helluva thing.

Why didn’t they just didn’t rename the town? Did they think that the world would forget? And while on its face that sounds like an absurd question consider this:
One in ten Americans never even heard of the word “holocaust.”
A 2020 survey found that among Millennials and Gen Z, 48 percent of respondents couldn’t name one single World War II concentration camp or ghetto (This is why when I talk to people about my trip to Krakow and bring up Auschwitz, I feel I have to qualify it with, “You know – the concentration camp?”).
People like Nick Fuentes have a large following of zealots.

Cora and I are squeezed into the second row of the bus, seated behind two Italian women who are deep into gossip. My rudimentary Italian only picks up a few naughty bits but whatever I can pick up keeps me occupied on a mostly bland bus ride.

We’re on the 8:40, out of Krakow, one that we just barely made. Squeaked on despite having left our hotel in Stare Miasto (old town) at eight. What was supposed to only take 20 minutes took 35. Turned out we took the correct tram but in the wrong direction and had to double back, and then we got off at what we thought was the wrong stop. As things worked out, the stop where we got off was closer to the station than the stop that Google had suggested.

We’re on our way to take a tour of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and museum. I don’t know what to expect. All I know is that the tour lasts three and a half hours and that there’s plenty of security screening to get in. I have my camera with me but I’ve been asking myself since we planned the trip to Poland if I want to take photos.

Is it even proper to take photos?

47 – America’s Nightmare: Inauguration Day. A Tsunami of Deceit in a Desert of Morality

Paul

4 comments

January 23, 2025

January 23, 2025
January 20th was Inauguration Day. I’d been dreading that day since weeks before the November election when I’d resigned myself to the blunt reality that Donald Trump would be reelected (It was while we were in Vienna that I turned to my wife and said, “Trump’s going to win”).

By the end of Inauguration Day I was spent. Despite having kept the promise I’d made to myself to avoid Donald Trump’s inauguration, a trickle of news had leaked into my day. They say that one can drown in an inch of water and by day’s end I was left suffocated by the ooze of Trump.

The snippets that had leaked out ran the gamut from the ridiculous and eye rolling (renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Mount Denali back to McKinley) to the brazenly scandalous (pardoning of the January 6th traitors and insurrectionists), to the cruel and unconstitutional (the ending of birthright citizenship). That none of it was unexpected, didn’t blunt the ensuing outrage. But shock and awe was the incoming administration’s strategy from the start.

Late that afternoon, I was sitting on the front porch, reading and listening to music, enjoying the last hours of sun. When Stevie Wonder’s classic, A Place in the Sun came on I was nearly reduced to tears. Is there anymore, as the song says, “hope for everyone?”

47 – America’s Nightmare: The Looming Storm

Paul

12 comments

January 20, 2025

January 20, 2025
It’s early here in San Francisco on Martin Luther King Jr. Day – four in the morning, seven on the east coast. Today is the day that the United States celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Today is also Inauguration Day, when, at Noon Eastern Time, the new President of the United States will be sworn in.

The irony couldn’t be more stark, and the visions of America so conflicting. The only saving fortuity, the only deliverance from a darker blasphemy, is that due to dangerously cold weather conditions in Washington D.C., the swearing in ceremony has been moved indoors from the National Mall where, in August of 1963, Dr. King delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech before a crowd of more than 250,000 (King’s speech was delivered on the opposite end of the Mall from where the inaugural speech would be made).

47 – America’s Nightmare: For Pete’s Sake

Paul

13 comments

January 15, 2025

for Pete’s sake
A mild oath of exasperation, annoyance, frustration, anger, or surprise.

If you’d watched the Senate confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth and all you saw were the questioning Senators, while the nominee was sequestered behind a screen, you wouldn’t have been faulted for thinking that two nominees were behind that screen.

One; the town drunk who cheats on his wife, shows up to work half in the bag, has tanked a couple of businesses and is generally considered an embarrassing lout.

The other; a good upstanding family man with good Christian morals who rose above some possible failings to be a pillar of society.

It could’ve been a guy named John. And depending on who was doing the speaking and the questioning, it was either Gotti or the Baptist.

Your choice of which ‘John’ was behind the curtain could have been based on the questions asked and the tones with which they were presented. To use a baseball analogy, the Democrats threw some nasty fastballs aimed right at Hegseth’s dome, while the Republicans gently placed the ball on a tee, patted him lovingly on the back and said, ‘go get ‘em, big fella.’

I started to watch from the beginning but my own well being and the well being of those people and objects around me compelled me to be content (or discontented) with occasionally rejoining the spectacle and then clicking ‘off’ on the remote when it all became too sickening to bear. It was a disgusting theater of the bizarre put on by the Republicans.

I skipped dinner and went to bed early last night; depressed, sick at heart, sick in my gut and sick of seeing the feckless, fawning of the Republican Party which is content to watch the country circling the drain.

47 – America’s Nightmare: The Daily Cycle

Paul

15 comments

January 11, 2025

January 11, 2025
Expectancy, anger, frustration, disgust and resignation.

When it comes to life in Donald J. Trump’s America, it’s my almost daily cycle of emotions. A loop that ends in a spin of hopelessness.

It was one of those days yesterday as Trump, convicted of falsifying business records in the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff scheme, received his sentence. Legal speak for the sentence he received is, “unconditional discharge.” In common everyday parlance, the sentence is, well, nothing. Nothing at all, carry on, nothing to see here, go along on your angry way Mr. Trump.

It wasn’t the sentencing hearing one often sees, in which the convicted stands before the judge and, with a downturned face, teary eyes and a look of remorse, apologizes, promises to do better in the future, and begs for the court’s mercy.

No, this time it was the over worn MAGA theater as the convicted felon appeared virtually and went on another, oh woe is me, I was treated unfairly by a rigged system, tirade. It included some of the usual Trumpian boilerplate: “political witch hunt,” “I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” “weaponization of government,” “lawfare,””I was treated very, very unfairly.”

In the sentencing, Judge Juan Merchan issued a stern rebuke to Trump and concluded with his wish of “Godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”

Fini!

When the first act opened with a bang on March 30th, 2023 with a grand jury indictment – I still have copies of the newspapers – there was plenty of expectancy. Nearly 22 months later the cycle was made complete; anger, frustration, disgust and resignation as the final curtain came down with a whimper.

47 – America’s Nightmare. Imperial America

Paul

17 comments

January 8, 2025

There are still 12 days until inauguration day and the fatigue is already mentally and emotionally crushing. There’s a name for it. It’s called Trump Fatigue (let’s call it TF for short). TF was particularly taxing yesterday as Trump expanded on his plans for a revival of American imperialism.

His proposals range from the annoying to the frightening. All of them seem to have roots in that good old American tradition of jingoism and nostalgia for the days of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.

Ranked from the bothersome and the petty to the insane, following is a list of Trump’s proposals for remodeling the world’s geopolitical map.

Renaming Denali back to Mount McKinley
A purely domestic issue, this is probably the most doable for him.

Between 1917 and 2015, North America’s tallest mountain was named for the 25th president. In 2015, under President Obama, the peak was given the name Denali, an Athabascan word meaning “the High One”; the State of Alaska actually predated the official U.S. name change by forty years.

There are probably two reasons at play for Trump. McKinley is something of a hero to Trump, likely because McKinley was particularly friendly to the “robber barons” of his time – the 19th century Elons.

The other reason is that Athabascan is a Native American language, and, well, you know, too much melanin.

All Trump needs to do is have a sit down with Doug Burgum, his Secretary of the Interior and the deed can be done.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
To answer the obvious question, yes, he can do this but he needs the approval of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which is a division of the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS operates under the direction of the Department of the Interior. Enter Doug Burgum again.

The proposal, “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Gulf of America — what a beautiful name,” had barely left Trump’s lips when Representative and Trump groveler Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she had directed her staff to draft legislation to begin the process.

While the United States can unilaterally change the name, the international community doesn’t have to recognize the change.

47 – America’s Nightmare. January 6th. Not Today

Paul

11 comments

January 6, 2025

“What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history. That will be their legacy.” ~ Senator Mitt Romney, January 6th, 2021.

“The mob was fed lies … They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like.” ~ Senator Mitch McConnell, January 12, 2021. Six days after the insurrection.

“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.” ~ Senator Mitch McConnell, February, 2021, after voting not to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial.

“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” ~ Rep. Andrew Clyde (R) Georgia, May. 2021.

March 3rd, 2023. A song titled “And Justice for All,” is released. The song consists of Donald J. Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, interspersed with a group of men singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a backing track. At the end of the song, the choir chants “U-S-A!” six times. The choir is comprised of prisoners, incarcerated for their part in the January 6th, insurrection. Later that month, in Waco Texas, the song is used as an introduction to the kickoff of Trump’s 2024 presidential run. It isn’t lost on observers that Waco is the site of the Branch Dividian standoff.

March 6th, 2023, Tucker Carlson issues the statement, “A small percentage of them (insurrectionists) were hooligans, they committed vandalism … but the overwhelming majority weren’t. They were peaceful, they were ordinary and meek. These were not insurrectionists, they were sightseers.” Carlson makes that statement after airing a cherry picked video of the January 6th riot. After the airing, Representative Mike Collins (R) of Georgia says, “I’ve seen enough. Release all J6 political prisoners now.” Collins was not yet in Congress on January 6th, 2021.

Speaking of the January 6th, insurrection Donald J. Trump says, “They were there with love in their heart. That was unbelievable. And it was a beautiful day.” May, 2023.

“I call them the J6 hostages, not prisoners. I call them the hostages, what’s happened. And it’s a shame.” Donald J. Trump, November, 2023.

“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth … There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” ~ Senator Mitch McConnell, January 9th, 2024, commenting on his remarks of February, 2021.

March, 2024. Donald J. Trump promises to pardon January 6th insurrectionists. It’s a promise that he will continue to repeat throughout the campaign and following the election.

“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States … It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.” Senator Mitch McConnell, March, 2024.

June 6, 2024. Former Capitol Police Officers, Aquilino Gonell, and Harry Dunn, who both suffered serious career ending injuries inflicted by the insurrectionists visit the Pennsylvania State Capitol. Republican members of the legislature either boo the officers or walk out.

November 5th, 2024. Approximately two-thirds of eligible American voters ignore Donald J. Trump’s part in instigating an insurrection, allowing him to become the 47th President. Say what you will about the deficiencies in the Democratic Party’s strategy, the fact remains that the majority of voters who took part in the election, along with those who chose to stay on the sidelines, decided to excuse Trump for his actions regarding the insurrection, and his actions since then.

“I’m a big fan of John Eastman. Y’know, he was right. He happened to be right. That’s why they changed the law and nobody wants to talk about that.” ~ President elect, Donald J. Trump, at a gathering in Mar-a-Lago on January 4th, 2025, speaking of the events of January 6th, and John Eastman’s strategy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In attendance are Eastman, and other election deniers that include Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and former trade official Peter Navarro.

And so goes the campaign to remake history.

Lens Artists Challenge #330: Favorite Images of 2024

Paul

15 comments

January 4, 2025

Tina of Travels and Trifles is one of the hosts for this week’s challenge.

It’s been a minute since I’ve participated in the Len-Artists series. Probably closer to 525600 minutes and mostly due to the economics of not wanting to pay WordPress for the extra space to accommodate photos. But being partial to all of the end of year commemoratives I couldn’t stay away.

The year 2024 had me focusing mostly on urban photography; the ancient, the old, the modern, the shapes and the gritty. Before I knew that this iteration of the series was happening I’d already published an end of year post so I found myself looking for some other favorites (some are different images of the same subject).

Neuschwanstein Castle is almost like cheating, it’s so picturesque. It seems to be on every calendar and with good reason. My wife and I missed the tour of the interior of the castle but later on in the afternoon as twilight approached I took the bus back to the drop off and made the short hike to the Marienbrücke bridge from where one can take the classic images. I was lucky I had autumn colors and billowing clouds to dress it up. (Another image of this castle is in my previous post. This image is with a wider angle)

Picture Picks of 2024

Paul

15 comments

December 30, 2024

The year 2024 marked a change in this site, as I veered away from photo blogs. It wasn’t so much that I set the camera aside and lost interest in photography. It was more a function of WordPress affordability and not wanting to shell out the $$$ to support photo blogs. It was also a function of turning towards writing in a year that was filled with political and social fireworks. To celebrate the year end, here is a short collection of some favorite photos.

This year my wife Cora and I traveled to Chicago, Vienna, Bavaria (highlighted by Munich), and Krakow, all of which provided magnificent photo opportunities. As always I also ventured to San Francisco.

The cities provided opportunities to focus on both modern architecture and what I like to call urban grit. Both of these aspects have caught my fancy. Away from the cities there is always natural beauty and rural charm to focus on.

I’ve included twelve photos in no particular order, each one representing a month of the year (though in honesty there were months in which my camera sat idle), and just for the hell of it, one banner photo.

As you’ll see in a few photos I took some license as regards editing. I avoided AI (something that PS is making difficult to do), except for a feature in Lightroom which reduces noise (that fuzzy appearance when a shot is taken in low light using high speed).

Comments, both positive and negative, are encouraged. What style do you like and what turns you off?

Urban Geometry (San Francisco)
What is urban geometry? Hell, I don’t know if it’s a correct term but it’s my term for close ups of modern buildings and the various patterns, shapes and colors that I think combine to make an interesting image. This photo was taken in the Financial District of San Francisco on New Year’s Day when there was less chance of a photo bomber.

Chinatown San Francisco
This photo was taken during the same photo walk as the photo above. It’s an example of the urban grit which I like to feature in monochrome.

America, Heal Thyself

Paul

5 comments

December 10, 2024

“My thoughts & prayers were out of network.” ~ A Facebook post reacting to the shooting of Brian Thompson

The vitriol was swift and caustic. Not against the gunman, Luigi Mangione, but against the victim, UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. A Facebook post put up by UnitedHealthcare announcing the death of Thompson received 46,000 responses. UHC took the post down when it was discovered that 41,000 of those responses were laughing emojis.

Indeed, reading social media posts, one had to wonder who was the killer and who was the victim.

There’s something uniquely American about healthcare nightmares. The torments go something like this story seen on social media:
“My health insurance denied a PET scan for my husband,” wrote one woman on social media. “He had been diagnosed with a very rare cancer with possible metastatic spread. The first denial claimed it was because he hadn’t had a liver biopsy yet, which he had. The second denial claimed it was because PET scans hadn’t proven their efficacy (they were the ‘gold standard’ test for a decade at that time). The cancer metastasized, and he died six months after diagnosis. He was 51.”

The preceding story begs the question, does one have to pull a trigger to be deemed a killer? Writ large, our broken system is the killer, and it’s a serial killer that’s been at it for decades and decades. The weapons of choice have been, and continue to be, politicians, corporations, executives, courts, and shareholders. And frankly, ourselves. Ourselves for allowing it to go on for decade after decade while screaming about the inequity and cruelty of it all.

Do I condone the murder of a man because he’s the CEO of a healthcare insurer or a pharmaceutical company. No, but more so, I condemn the deaths and ruination of millions of lives in order to gain wealth and to satisfy faceless shareholders. One user on X summed up the quandary quite neatly, “When you shoot one man in the street it’s murder. When you kill thousands of people in hospitals by taking away their ability to get treatment you’re an entrepreneur.”

And while death by denial might not be the outcome of an insurance claim refused, or a procedure delayed for pre approval, the outcome is often financial ruin and/or diminished quality of life.

When Sara England discovered that her infant son, Amari Vaca, who had recently undergone open heart surgery, was in distress, she took the child to the emergency room at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California. The doctors, who had to keep the boy alive by putting a tube down his throat and manually pushing air into his lungs with a bag until he was stable enough to go onto a ventilator, told England that the boy needed immediate specialized care at the nearest hospital; care that Natividad was not equipped to provide. When the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center informed doctors that they could care for Amari, the boy was flown by small plane and transported between hospitals and airports on ground ambulances. When the bill for $97,599 was submitted to Cigna, the claim was denied on the grounds that air transport was not medically necessary. Link to full story, here.

David Cordani, the CEO of Cigna, has a net worth of $570 million dollars. He could figuratively pull 98 large out of his pocket, pick off the lint, say ‘keep the change,’ and then go and have a quick $200 dollar lunch at Benjamin Steakhouse Prime. In the meantime, Sara England will likely spend years, if not decades, making herself whole, all the while conserving and foregoing while Mr. Cordani indulges in whatever the fuck strikes his fancy.

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