01.12.12
Posted in Historical Trivia, Playing the Tourist, family stuff, food and restaurants, gardening at 4:23 pm by Administrator
Last week I got an email from my sister asking if I would forward her a copy of some family pictures with some Ifugao and/or pictures of the rice terraces. Being the compliant sister that I am, I dutifully forwarded her a few pictures no questions asked (after all we took a ton of them during our visit last August). She gave me no explanation why she wanted them, just a “thank you” when she received it. So I asked her what that was all about. It turns out some good friends of hers had given her an old book that was published in the 50’s. It was a Hardy Boy type of book called The Skull. Apparently, it was a sort of joke as they weren’t familiar with the Rice Terraces or the Ifugao. The story is of some guys who leave from Manila to the Philippine Rice Terraces in search of treasure. My sister’s friends thought it was all made up, but my sister informed them that there are real Ifugao and real Philippine rice terraces. She had forwarded my family pictures to back up her claim, heheh.
My sister’s request got me rummaging through my pictures, so I figured while I was at it, I might as well share some of those pictures on my blog. I know we’ve already started the new year, but there’s still a lot of things left over from last year. Here’s one of the pictures we took last August with my family and mom at the rice terraces with some Ifugao.
Okay so we’re blocking the view of the rice terraces, so here’s a better picture of one of the spectacular views there.
Looks like a postcard, huh? There were so many scenic shots like this. It reminded me of pictures we took while in the Yucatan Peninsula years ago where many of our photographs looked like postcards.
These terraces are in the Banaue area. When we visited, we stayed at the Banaue Hotel, which was actually commissioned by Imelda Marcos from what we were told. When we arrived, we found that they had a welcome sign with all the guests’ names arriving that day.
I guess they listed the guests in alphabetical order, so our name was on top. Gosh we saw so many things there and took so many pictures, it’s hard to know which ones to share as there is only a small space on the blog. I’ll just share a few more that I liked like this one of Brian walking through the rice terrace. He really wanted to walk right in there and touch the rice. . .
The man behind him was our tour guide. He was very nice and accommodating. Luckily for us, there was still a lot of rice to harvest. Other times during the time we visited, the rice would have been harvested already and we would have only seen brown terraces. But fortunately, it was still quite green.
We visited a few museums, and also a small village called Taam Village, IIRC. It’s customary for them to keep the bones of their ancestors in their home, so here’s a pic of a young gal showing us the bones of her grandfather.
The structure we were in was actually one of the homes, which is basically a hut. I don’t think they all had wood floors like this one.
As we were winding up our tour of the village, my boys got ambushed by a bunch of Filipino gals taking a tour there, too. It’s interesting how they can spot outsiders easily and asked if they could take some pictures with my boys. Since they were all taking pictures, I joined in and grabbed a snap. Ah, to be young again. . .
And finally, before we left Banaue, we had lunch at the People’s Inn, which had another nice view of the terraces. There’s actually many, many views as the terraces are very extensive in size. While we felt surrounded by terraces, we actually only saw a small portion of it’s entirety.
You wouldn’t know if from looking at the above picture, but not more than two minutes passed after this shot that it got cloudy and started to rain. The sudden change of climate reminded me of Kauai. It would rain for a short while and clear up quickly as well.
Well, that’s it for now. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for my first post of the year, but I’m already behind, ha! I’ll likely post a few more stuffs from last year before I get on with this year.
Marlakins
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11.21.11
Posted in Anything goes, Historical Trivia, History, Playing the Tourist, museums at 11:59 pm by Administrator
Before I get too lazy, I thought I’d start to share some of the pictures we took while at Mexico City. Here’s a pic near our hotel on the Avenue Reforma.
Brian and I were taking a walk to look for a place to exchange currency. The rate we found was 12.15 Mexican pesos to 1 U.S. dollar. The exchange rate was better at the currency exchange along the street than at the hotel or the LAX airport. Oh, one other thing, I found that it could actually get a bit chilly in Mexico City. I never really thought of Mexico being cold.
After exchanging a little cash, Brian and I headed over to the Anthropological Museum. Here’s a pic of the front of the museum.
This museum cost about $5 U.S. or $51 Mexican pesos per person. It was a very good museum, full of artifacts that were well laid out and separated by groups like the Mayans, Aztecs, Olmecs,etc. Here’s an example of part of the Aztec exhibit.
The round stone mounted against the back wall is an Aztec calendar. The cylindrical stone laying between me and the Aztec calendar is believed to be a sort of alter for human sacrifices. The center hole is believed to be where the heart was placed during or after the sacrifice. Yikes! The carvings along the sides of the stone seem to depict the sacrificial ceremony that takes place on that alter.
Here’s Brian next to another carving. If memory serves me correctly, this is part of the exhibit for Teotihuacan. At least I’m pretty sure that right outside to the left of Brian was the miniature layout of the Teotihuacan pyramids.
We took loads of pictures so that we could continue to enjoy them at home. They were also good for art inspiration. I’ve known that colors were used back in those times, but like the Italian villas, I didn’t realize how colorful the original structures were. For instance, here’s a replica of what some of the outer walls looked like. Along the side was a sort of freeze made of ceramic, and the colorful paintings looked like a sort of fresco.
Unfortunately we were only able to spend the last half of the day at the museum. You could easily spend the whole day or more there because it was really loaded with so many artifacts. But the museum closed at 6PM, so we had to get moving. There were lots of vendors just outside of the museum, and also some flying pole men dancers. Here’s a pic of them as they were slowly repelling down.
I believe this dance has something to do with Mayan mythology of the creation of the world. They’re supposed to be birdmen (the diety associated with this dance is a bird), and one of the men plays a flute as they gradually spin around and around until they slowly reach the ground.
That evening Brian and I hopped on a local bus to get back to the hotel. That was much cheaper than taking a taxi. The bus ride only cost $4.5 pesos each compared to us paying about $20 U.S. dollars taking a taxi from the airport to the hotel. Granted that was farther, but still, a taxi would have cost us much more. $4.5 pesos is just under $0.50 U.S.
The next day we joined a tour that took us to The Guadalupe Shrine and the ruins of Teotihuacan. I’ll try to sort through some of those pics and share those later. Aside from being wiped out from traveling and the slight time change (Mexico is two hours ahead of California time), our trip to Mexico was quite nice. Definitely a nice quick get away.
Marlakins
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11.02.11
Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, Historical Trivia, History, Uncategorized at 8:00 pm by Administrator
Back in 1999, I was diagnosed with Very Severe Idiopathic Aplastic Anemia. Idiopathic basically meant that they didn’t know what caused my aplastic anemia. But that didn’t stop me from wondering what might have caused it, and so one of the things I did was take a minerals test to see if I had any heavy metals problem. The one metal that stood out was uranium. My level was off the chart. My naturopath remarked that all the people he had seen with levels that high pretty much all had cancer. He also remarked that there was a woman he knew who got uranium exposure through tailings from the uranium mines. I didn’t think about it back then because I really didn’t know anything about uranium and what it was. So I had no idea where any uranium mining was done. Since then I have read quite a bit on it. And recently when Borders went out of business, I purchased a bunch of books, several about the topic of nuclear energy and/or nuclear arms. I’m currently reading one of those books, which is entitled Yellow Dirt by Judy Pasternak.
I’m only half way through Pasternak’s book, but I can definitely say that she is an excellent writer. As usual, I never know at first if anything I’m reading is true or not, so I do like to look up other sources to see what they say about the topic. In particular, Pasternak’s book deals with uranium mining in Navajo territory. For anyone who may not know where Navajo territory is, it’s in the four corners region of where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah meet, thus it’s name, four corners. Now, I’ve been to Taos, New Mexico, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona, but I’ve only been to the airport in Denver, Colorado. I’ve always thought it would be nice to one day visit Four Corners. After reading about the uranium mining done on the Navajo reservation and how it was never cleaned up properly, I don’t think I want to go there anymore, sigh. It’s a really sad thing to think about how the Navajo reservation was poisoned like that considering the Navajo were trying to help with the cold war effort of mining for uranium and earlier for vanadium. Not only were the Navajo “not” informed of the dangers of radiation exposure, then were purposefully monitored (in secret) to see how the human body reacted to radiation exposure. Basically, they were used as both slave (they only got a small portion of what the uranium was worth) and guinea pig (according to Pasternak, the Manhattan Project was interested in understanding the risks their scientists were taking with radiation exposure). To add insult to injury, it was the Navajo Code Talkers that helped the U.S. take Iwo Jima, yet their land and people were knowingly exposed to dangerous levels of radiation through their mining. The Japanese were never able to crack the code because they didn’t know the Navajo language.
So I wanted to see what other sources there were regarding the uranium mining in Navajo territory. I found videos such as this one on the subject.
While Pasternak’s book hasn’t discussed it (I’m only half way through the book, so she might mention it later), it seems there were other Indian reservations that were involved with uranium mining. Here’s another video on the subject.
Frankel mentioned Crow Butte, so I’m assuming that’s in Washington State. But I’ve seen other videos mentioning mining with the Lakota Indians, so I think that’s also South and North Dakota. The rush for uranium was during the 40’s to 70’s, but some mines continued on longer. Yet, to this day, it seems that those sites have never been properly cleaned up and people continue to be exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.
After watching some of these videos, I came across this one wherein McCain and several other politicians are trying to continue uranium mining in Arizona. Either McCain is mistaken about his information regarding the safety of uranium mining or he is just out-right lying, I don’t know, but he’s definitely pushing to commence uranium mining. They mention the Arizona Strip, which sounds like it’s along the Arizona-Utah border.
I know that the nuclear issue is very controversial, but after Fukushima, after Chernobyl, after Three Mile Island, after Windscale, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the multitude of studies showing the dangers and harmful effects of radiation, when will we learn? I don’t understand how anyone can think nuclear power is safe. From the mining of uranium ore to the spent fuel rods that they don’t know what to do with, nuclear power is dangerous. They talk about opening uranium mines for jobs, but are we willing to pay our lives for those jobs? Many, if not most, of those guys who mined uranium didn’t even know they were in danger until it was too late. What people do to each other is really appalling. If we only followed God’s golden rule to love one another, we wouldn’t be deceiving people into working in dangerous conditions. Instead of loving one another, we love money and power. But God sees everything.
Matthew 25:40
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Since you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
Marlakins
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10.30.11
Posted in Anything goes, Historical Trivia, Playing the Tourist, gardening, hobbies, museums at 9:16 am by Administrator
On Friday my boys and I visited the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu.
Wow, I would love to have a courtyard like that! But alas, only in my dreams, heheheh. Actually, this was my first time back at the Getty Villa since it’s reconstruction. The first time I had gone to the Getty Villa was during my high school days way before the Getty Center opened in Los Angeles. For anyone visiting Los Angeles, this is definitely one of the museums that should be on your list to visit. The Getty Villa was constructed as a replica of the Villa Dei Papiri for the purpose of housing J. Paul Getty’s art collection. The Villa was also intended to give the visitor the feeling of what it was like to walk in the villas back in it’s day and get a feeling of what it must have felt like to be in ancient Italy. It’s really a lovely place to visit full of history and art. Not only is the art collection engaging, but so is the architecture. Our docent told us that the Romans were obsessed with math and right angels and such, so a lot of that is seen in their architecture. This picture is an example.
According to our docent, the Romans were very practical, so all of their construction had dual function. That is, nothing was created solely for aesthetics, but also for functionality or special meaning. The gardens were also designed to grow plenty of herbs as was believed was done back in ancient Italy. The garden is impeccable. I even saw the most perfect pomegranate tree there. Other pomegranate trees I’ve seen have usually been unkempt and wild looking. The one in the Getty garden looked perfectly pruned. The picture doesn’t seem to do it justice. I found it to be very striking in person.
As with all museums, there is even a nice little gift shop. I always get sucked into those, heheheh. I found that the Getty Villa also has live stage performances. I’ll have to look into those and see when they do them and how to get in. I’m not sure, but I was under the impression some were performed in the amphitheater just in front of the villa. For anyone who loves art and architecture, you can easily spend the whole day there. Not only are there art works that you’d normally expect like pottery and sculptures, they had other things like this mummy.
I didn’t realize that the Italians did this back as early as the 1400’s (I think that’s about the date of this). I’ve been to Italy years ago and even visited some of their catacombs, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention if they mentioned these. The ritual was changed from the Egyptians, but there are some similarities, but also some differences like the face painting on the head of the mummy. Apparently, that painting was supposed to be what the deceased looked like.
I’m a sucker for art or most any craft, so I love to get ideas in places like this. For instance, one of my interests have been to learn to tole paint, so these murals caught my eye as I would love to learn how to paint these floral curly cues.
I love the floral vines along the column, pedestal, and below the window. Just before I went to the Philippines, I picked up some paint and paint brushes to try to learn how to do these as well as flowers. Have not gotten back to it since I’ve returned, wah. The other hobby that I’ve wanted to dabble in is mosaics. I purchase a book on this as well as checked some out from the library, so the Getty mosaics were also a great interest to me.
I like the idea of the shells as well. I’m thinking maybe I can try a small scale project like a flower pot for starters. The Getty mosaics definitely serve as a source of inspiration if not only for admiration of Italian creativity and skill, but for aspiring artists. We took a lot more pictures (I just love museums that allow picture taking), but there is just too much to share on a small blog like this. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend visiting the Getty Villa. For art lovers, it would definitely make for a very nice day.
Marlakins
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08.13.11
Posted in Book Reviews, Historical Trivia, family stuff at 2:10 am by Administrator
Brian, Matthew, and Aaron have arrived home safely yesterday. So now, Mom, Andrew, and I are left here in the Philippines. Still have a few more loose ends to tie before we head back home in a couple more weeks. But now that it’s gotten a little quieter here, I’ve had a chance to read one of the books I purchased here last February. Actually it’s a book I found in the “juvenile” section in a book store I visited here in the Philippines. Now that I’m reading it, it’s turning out to be quite interesting and right up my alley of study. It’s called, Living with the Enemy, A Diary of the Japanese Occupation. The book is basically the diary of Pacita Pestano-Jacinto. It’s compared to the Diary of Anne Frank, only this woman was older (in her 20’s) and newly married and pregnant. I’m finding her insights quite interesting, and it’s also bringing up more topics or points of interest that I want to research more. Such as the allied prison camps in Capas and San Fernando. Last week we took a trip up to the rice terraces. On the way there we passed Cabanatuan City (where the famous allied prison camp was located in The Great Raid or the prison featured in Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers). I wasn’t aware of the prisons in Capas and San Fernando, although we did pass through both places on our way back down to Manila. During our trip through Banaue and Sagada, I was surprised to learn that fighting had reached all the way up to the rice terraces. . . So, now I must add General Yamashita to my list of things to research. Supposedly he was famous for fighting in that region. We’ll see. . .
So in the meantime, I thought I might add one of the day entries of the book I’m reading. I would add August 13 (since that’s today), but there is not an Aug 13 entry, only Aug 12 and then Aug 23. So, here’s her entry for August 12, 1942.
“August 12
Oscar’s best friend, Hans Menzi, has been picked up and thrown into Fort Santiago. He is Swiss but has Filipino citizenship. his mother says that the charge is guerrilla activities. It does not seem possible but Oscar is afraid there might be some truth to it. He grew up here and has often said that he loves the Philippines even better than he does Switzerland.
The night of my baby’s christening party, he was so full of laughter. He stood godfather to my child. A shiver runs up my spine when I think of what he may be going through. I keep on thinking of how doubly cruel the Japanese can be to a white man.”
Fort Santiago is a prison fort that was used by the Spanish, then by the Japanese during WWII. It is located in Intramuros here in Manila. It is now open for tourists. I’ve blogged about it before on my past visits here. To see some pictures I took there just click here and scroll down to about the 4th picture and following.
Toodles until next time!
Marlakins
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07.11.11
Posted in Book Reviews, Historical Trivia, History, quotes at 10:18 am by Administrator
A friend of mine told me recently (after learning I was reading a book on the bombing of Nagasaki), that I should read about current events. Actually, I do read about current events, but I find that learning about past events helps me to understand current events better.
Another brief conversation I had with a friend was about “historical revisionists,” and how they try to “change” history. Granted, I do realize that there are those who try to re-write inaccuracies into history, but the fact is that because of so many “classified documents” and other eyewitness accounts that were not previously considered when writing “history,” there is a legitimate place and role for bonafide revisionists. Also, as time passes, more information is revealed from different angles. That information helps give a more complete picture of the situation at the time and helps to determine why certain decisions were made or to question whether certain decisions were wrong or not. To ignore other sources would be like trying to judge a court case using only one side of the argument.
I know of people who only read certain publications because they don’t trust other publications. But if one only limits themselves to certain publications, then they increase their chances that they don’t get the whole picture and thus form their opinions based on faulty or less informed information. My approach to that would be to read or watch those publications “knowing” that their information is questionable, but at least hearing them out so that I would at least understand the opposing viewpoint. As Admiral Rickover once said, “Open discussions and disagreements must be encouraged, so that all sides of an issue are fully explored.” So long as we go into a discussion humbly and not take differences personally, we can all learn something when we try to listen to the other side of an argument. If it doesn’t change one’s mind, then it can strengthen one’s already preconceived ideas. I think the Bible encourages knowledge and wisdom while discouraging baseless arguments. There is a big difference between discussions to learn the truth, and heated arguments to be divisive. Like the Bereans in the New Testament, I think we should search to learn if things are so. That was considered a good thing. Why live a life based on lies and false information?
Well, now I think I’ve meandered enough! Originally, I was going to write about the book I’m currently reading, First Into Nagasaki. I’m almost at the end. I’m reading the last portion of the book written by Weller’s son wherein he describes the backdrop to his father’s writings. One of the main highlights is how censored our news is and how skewing facts and history has been a common practice throughout history. As I remember hearing in high school, “history is written by the victors of wars” so we usually only read one side of the story. From my readings it seems that people are pretty much the same all over the world. We just view others as lower or enemies because of our ignorance of each other. And with our ignorance we are less compassionate.
But to get back to my thoughts while reading First Into Nagasaki is how controlled our media is today. We have three or four wars we currently know about today, but I’m sure there’s so much that we aren’t being told or are not even allowed to know. George Weller wrote,
“A censorship is supposed to keep political criticism under control.”
Weller’s son wrote that “every war correspondent has been censored.”
For what reason? I’m sure there are several reasons, but one reason can be understood through a letter sent to George Weller from one of General MacArthur’s censors,
“We believe that a correspondent has a certain duty towards the Commander of the Forces whom he represents, and it is the Commander-in-Chief’s desire that nothing of a political nature be released as coming from his staff of correspondents, and nothing that may be in any way criticizing the efforts of any Commander of any of the Allied nations.”
Weller went on the write, “What the United States badly needs is a long cold bath of reality.”
If “control of public opinion” is what the game is all about, we will never get that dose of reality. And our history books will be more political propaganda books, than real history books. The sooner we understand that, the more we can understand.
Marlakins
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08.31.10
Posted in Historical Trivia, family stuff at 3:24 pm by Administrator
I just arrived at my mom’s to hang out with the relatives and found no one home! Apparently, they’re out painting the town, so while I wait, I decided to share some pics. Since Val mentioned that Stout had been her old stomping ground, and then Laura mentioned visiting her brother at Stout many times, well, this will be my first pic, 
, Dad at Stout State College, April 9, 1956. Oye, was he young! I’m guessing he was about 25 years old here.
Here’s another one.
Here’s one in front of Stout’s library.
And here’s one at the Mueller’s House. Apparently, the Mueller’s took my dad in for a while during his study abroad. My dad is sitting on the couch, and the guy my dad is sitting next to is the Mueller’s son (Mr. and Mrs. Mueller are on the far end of each side of the couch), and my dad and their son became good friends. They continued to write to each other when my dad went back to the Philippines.
In the meantime, my mom and dad wrote to each other while he was in the U.S, and she in the Philippines. This is a picture of my mom’s letters to my dad. He wrote on the bottom, “My Treasures.” Oye, what a romantic he was, huh? Sweet. . .
Okay, I think that’s all I have that I know for sure are from Stout. There are others that might be being that he’s in the snow, but it could also be Chicago as he has some pictures labeled Chicago also in 1956.
Well, the gang is back! So will quit here for now.
Marlakins
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07.03.10
Posted in Historical Trivia, Hmmm Moments at 10:41 am by Administrator
About a month or two ago, there was discussion about using a nuclear bomb to close off the Gulf oil leak. I had read that the Russians had done it in the past successfully 4 out of 5 times. Supposedly they had already been doing super deep oil drilling 40 years ago and had run into these blowout problems before, however, their wells were drilled on land, not in the ocean. I had wanted to know more information about this, but hadn’t gotten around to looking it up properly. This morning I ran across this video that gave a little more information. One question I had which others had asked was how long could this leak run before it ran out? I was surprised to learn that the leak that happened in Russian in 1963 burned for “three” years, before they nuked it and got it sealed off. This seems to support the idea that these oil wells that tap super deep strata contain abiotic oil, which could last indefinitely. Check out this news report.
I don’t support nuclear power or bombs. And while it’s been shown by the Russians that it has sealed some of their out of control wells, I wonder if it could make our oil leak worse being that it’s so deep under water. So if it doesn’t work, it might make things even more difficult to control. I am curious to know what other suggestions other countries have to stem off this problem. I’m hearing that other countries have offered help, but who knows how our government is receiving those requests. I hope the relief wells work and this gulf leak doesn’t go on for three years or more! I wonder if other countries would stand that since it could eventually spread into their oceans, too, if allowed to flow too long. . . If we can’t get this in control soon, I wonder if other countries will “insist” on lending a hand for their own safety and benefit.
Marlakins
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05.22.10
Posted in Historical Trivia, Uncategorized, museums at 1:08 pm by Administrator
A couple weeks ago I tagged along with my oldest son, Andrew, to visit the Wende Museum. His Post War Germany class was taking a field trip to the museum. As a special bonus, the teacher said that their guide was going to open up the vault for additional viewing. Oye! When I heard that, I asked Andrew if I could tag along, heheheh. Fortunately, his teacher didn’t mind, and the icing on the cake was that the curator allowed pictures so long as I didn’t use flash. So. . . here are a few shots I took in their gallery.
Well, I suppose I jumped the gun a bit. I should probably explain what the Wende Museum is. According to their webpage, “The Los Angeles-based Wende Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and enabling access to materials of Cold War-era Eastern Europe. The collection encompasses artifacts and archives from all former Warsaw Pact states and emphasizes life in the Soviet Union and East Germany. So while the curator was very informative, my lack of German vocabulary made it such that I had a hard time following along with who was who and what things were called. For instance this is a picture of a type of horn that was played in East Germany. She said that if you popped in the name of this instrument on YouTube there will be some examples of how this instrument sounds. But do I remember the name of this instrument? Sadly, no. . .
Pretty wild looking, huh? But then again, some trumpets and horns do tend to look pretty intricate, anyway.
Then there were statues and busts of people, again, the names of who I didn’t catch. . . (I’m starting to feel like an idiot here, and see that I really need to brush up on my East German history, which was pretty much nil from my school days). As the wall came down and society was being restructured, many icons, statues, and other symbols that represented their government were taken down, such as this statuette.
Okay, so I actually know who this statuette represents. . . Sergi Kirov, a prominent Bolshevik from the Soviet Union. Kirov opposed some of Stalin’s more extreme policies and was eventually shot and killed by a gunman.
The museum was quite small, but was stuffed with lots of items which included paintings, propaganda posters, sports memorabilia, etc. Here’s a picture of a sports locker complete with uniforms, medals and awards, news clippings, etc. Sports events were important in history because they help to place times and dates of events as they tend to be recorded in newspapers and share global connections through competitions.
And speaking of propaganda, there were several posters on display that were used as propaganda tools for their masses such as pictures of their “happy workers”. One particular one that was “ironic” was this one, which claimed that the West spent more money on their military than on education.
Heheheh, in light of our current military budget, I’d say that “propaganda” was more fact than otherwise. I know that billions and even trillions of U.S. dollars have been spent on our military. I read an article recently that just for the Iraq war alone the U.S. has spent about 550 billion dollars. That doesn’t include all the other military expenses we have that are likely extremely costly such as research and development, etc. I’m sure there are varying figures, but here’s one example from About.com: US Government Info
Summary of Iraq War Cost Estimates
CBO estimated the following costs for an Iraq war:
- Initial deployment of troops: $9 billion to $13 billion
- Conducting the war: $6 billion to $9 billion per month
- Returning forces to US: $5 billion to $7 billion
- Temporary occupation of Iraq: $1 billion to $4 billion per
month
The US budget for education is about $70 billion for a year. Basically, “one” war, *not* including all the other U.S. military expenses for bases all over the world and research and development, etc., currently costs more than what the U.S. spends on education. The rest of the U.S. military expenses dwarfs what we spend on education. Apparently Soviet propaganda regarding our military vs education expenditures wasn’t too far from the truth. I find that a sad commentary.
Anyway, moving right along we passed the Wende Museum’s library. There were a couple researchers in there, so we didn’t go in and bother them, heh. Instead we headed down to their vault or archive department. I had no idea what to expect, and found that it was quite large and stuffed with more Eastern Bloc artifacts.
There were all sorts of items boxed and organized such as paintings, sculptures, flags, tapestries, books, record albums, uniforms, etc. Here are some of the busts.
Documentation regarding face recognition and passport information.
Files of border forms.
And passport stamps.
Various gift items from different countries. The pearl inlaid, rectangular box in the center of the table was a gift from Gaddafi, if I recall correctly. Or was it Sadat? Oye. . .
There was so much in there, and too many pictures to add here that won’t fit. They also had pieces of the Berlin Wall on their shelves, which I did take pictures of, but since there’s a more complete section of the wall displayed near my house, I thought I’d add that picture here instead.
Okay, so I think that’s all the pics that will fit on this one post. I got a few shots of Brian on the other side of this wall trying to climb over, ha! The side I’m standing on obviously is the side that faced the West. The Eastern facing side didn’t have all the artwork on it. This portion of the wall is currently being displayed right across the street from the LACMA.
For anyone interested in Eastern Bloc history, I recommend checking out the Wende Museum in Culver City.
Marlakins
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05.20.10
Posted in Book Reviews, Historical Trivia at 12:18 pm by Administrator
I haven’t finished reading The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, yet, but I am about half way through the book. It’s going much faster than Dark Sun, the Making of the Hydrogen Bomb probably because it’s a smaller book and the style of writing is much easier and casual. Nevertheless, I’ve already learned a lot of stuff in this little book that I had not known just a couple weeks ago that has helped some things I’ve seen and heard make more sense.
Anyone following my blog may know that I have been following the Iran nuclear controversy and have had an interest in Ahmadinejad. I’m a bit late on the scene as I am learning about Ahmadinejad and some middle east history more recently. I’m finding it very interesting, and as a result have been trying to understand the U.S or West relationships with Iran and, in general, the middle east by going back into history to see who’s who and try to connect the dots to why things are happening now. Or even how significant certain claims are now.
So what got me interested in Iran and Ahmadinejad? I think it started from the news claims that Ahmadinejad stated that, “Israel should be wiped of the map.” I wanted to see what it was that he exactly said because I know that the media has a tendency to misrepresent things and that foreign languages can often be mistranslated, not to mention “intentions” can also be mistranslated. During my searches I ran into other speeches and interviews given by Ahmadinejad such as the speech he gave at Columbia University that riled everyone up because he seemed to claim that the Holocaust never happened. Oye! Then I also saw an interview with him and Brian Jennings and by then I had to admit that despite other people claiming that Ahmadinejad is a nut, he is still a captivating speaker “because” he is obviously a thoughtful, articulate, and intelligent man who has a very interesting perspective. Did I agree or disagree with him? To decide that I felt that I should do more research myself and find the facts to help me make a better decision. I know what I had been taught in school and from TV documentaries, but have I done any independent research before other than visit the Tolerance Museum? No, not really. So, from what I have read about wars and other world dealings I have tried to piece some of these things together. And that is what I continue to do to today by reading what I can get my hands on and why I’m currently reading The Ayatollah Begs to Differ to help me get a better or more balanced perspective (if possible).
Okay, so to cut to the chase, the part that gave me pause in the book was a couple paragraphs dealing with “why” Ahmadinejad bothered to bring up the Holocaust. It gave me pause because it was an angle that I had not even considered, and showed again that Ahmadinejad might be more clever than I gave him credit. Well who knows, this could just be totally off the wall, but I find it an interesting angle. I’ll quote the paragraphs below:
“What I wanted to know most from the president’s top media was who among the top echelon of government official had thought, other than Ahmadinejad himself, that organizing a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran (held in the winter of 2006 to wide ridicule mainly outside, but also to some extent inside, Iran) had been a good idea. At least in terms of how the media would see it. Iranians, particularly those who haven’t traveled much outside the country and no matter what their level of education, have very little knowledge, if any, of the Holocaust. Contemporary European and American history is not taught much is schools, films and documentaries on the Holocaust rarely make it to Iran, and books on the Holocaust are rarely translated. It was and is still generally accepted by most Iranians that something very bad happened to European Jews under the Third Reich, but because it didn’t affect or have anything to do with Iran, not even Iranian Jews, who were mostly unaffected by World War II, the Holocaust was rarely thought about by Iranians until their president decided to make it an issue of great import.
“Javanfeker was frozen by the question. He started at me for a very long time, not angrily, but more with a bewildered look in his eyes. . .
“I thought of Fuad, my Jewish-Iranian friend from Los Angeles who had explained to me his perspective on Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial with no small measure of admiration for what he saw as the finest example of Persian ta’arouf one-upmanship. Ahmadinejad, Fuad reasoned, had in effect said to the Europeans (and, in a letter, to Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany) that he couldn’t believe that Europeans had been or could be such monsters (and this at a time when Iran was being portrayed as monstrous). ‘You’re not monsters,’ Ahmadinejad was saying. ‘Surely not? Surely you’re a great civilization,’ a sentiment that could only compel the Europeans, and particularly the Germans, to respond in effect, ‘No, no, no we were. We really were monsters. The very worst kind.’ And by further asking why Israel had had to be created by them, he was essentially getting the Europeans to admit that they were entirely capable of genocide again. It didn’t matter, Fuad suggested, that Europeans by and large didn’t squirm, for Iranians and Arabs got the message, if only subconsciously. The Westernized and West-worshipping Middle Easterners whom Ahmadinejad loathes with the same passion as Khomeini did could hear the civilization they so admired shout, loud and clear, ‘Yes, yes, we committed the very worst genocide in history. Only a few years ago, and who knows, we could do it again.’ And Ahmadinejad must have, Fuad said, derived enormous satisfaction in hearing Europeans indignantly insist that their fathers were mass murderers. But Javanfekr was unwilling or unable to explain the thought process behind a Holocaust conference in Tehran, and maybe Fuad had been too generous in his reading of Ahmadinejad’s intentions.”
Hmmm. Of course I wonder how much relevancy that really has to what Ahmadinejad really intended, but it does seem to parallel the current arguments Ahmadinejad has with the U.S. of how we are the only country who has actually “used” nuclear weapons on another country who didn’t have nuclear weapons of their own. Personally, I think that the development of nuclear power may have come directly from Satan. To use it even for nuclear energy, in my opinion, is a Faustian bargain. As much as I think Iran, in principal, probably should be allowed to have their own nuclear program, I wish they wouldn’t for all of our safety (think Chernobyl). And that leaves us between a rock and a hard place.
Marlakins
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