Some recent local events brought to mind a story I heard some time ago. I do not know the exact wording and I will expand it a little without changing the message. It is also a valuable history lesson. Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed .....
to repeat it.

In the later 1930's, a Lutheran pastor in Germany commented that, “they (the Nazi's) came for the crippled and retarded and as I was neither of these, I said nothing. They came for the Communists and I was not a Communist so I said nothing. They came for the Jews, I was not a Jew and said nothing. They came for the gypsys, and I said nothing. They came for the homosexuals and I said nothing. They came for the Catholics and I said nothing. Then they came for me and there was no one so say anything for me.”

We know much about the genetic cleansing against the Jews. But Hitler did a lot more “cleansing” than that. Starting with cleaning out the hospitals and asylums. And anyone who did not avidly approve of him. We could have lost that war and all of this could have come here.

How much do we cower in fear and protect our own interests without considering this lesson? Roosevelt did not. The barbarians are at the gates.

The news from the Middle East keeps coming. Several stories I reported previously in my blog ( 2 October, 2006, 30 August, 2006, 19 August, 2006) need to be repeated.

The first is of a roadblock in Iraq where a car was being checked. The soldier notices that the driver has a spare tire and says “Why do you have this, do you not trust in Allah?”.

The second is a story from a television comentator. It concerned a frog and a scorpion on the banks of the Jordan River. The scorpion asks the frog for a ride across. Of course, the frog says “You will just sting me when we reach the other side.” The scorpion replies that he promises not to. So they start across. In the middle of the stream, the scorpion stings the frog and they both start to sink. The frog asks “Why?”. The scorpion replies, “Because this is the Middle East.”

The third is that back in the Arafat – Sharon era, I thought that the solution to the problem then would be to erect a steel wall with no doors around the area. They could solve their own problems and we could come back in ten years to see if anyone was still alive. If the gunfire and bombing had stopped, they could be admitted to the rest of the world. That is what we need to do with Iraq and some of their neighbors.

There are a lot of things that cause me to doubt the sanity of some humans. Maybe there are a bunch of things I just do not understand. Or am I the one who is stupid? It is always difficult, even in retrospect, to narrow down root causes of complex situations such as the unrest in the Middle east. Even if we had Arthur C. Clarke's Foundation, could anything have altered this idiotic bunch of nations?

Does the blame lies with England and France and the Treaty of Versailles where the developed countries treated the Middle East with such dishonor and contempt. The end of The Great War caused so much horror and it still does. Does it go to Roosevelt's administration's failure to address the situation and the Jewish refugees? Or to the rest of the “developed nations” and their treatment of that area at the end of World War II?
Or does it go all the way back to the Crusades? Is it still religion, people slaughtering other people in the name of God? Or is religion just a handy excuse to do what they would have done anyway? Is it just politicians doing what they do best? What is the real reason for mass idiocy?

I had the experience of going to a town council meeting on Monday evening. In the nine years living here, I went to one other several years ago when a truck stop company wanted to build one right next to us. It was not the right place due to zoning, traffic, surrounding homes, etc. A vigorous discussion and the town fathers denied the zoning change request. They did the right thing. The company really was challenging the gas station on the corner that had been there for years. They built a little ways down the road and everyone is happy.

The meeting on Monday was because of a company wanting to build some apartments on a couple of lots almost right across the street from us. They needed a “special use permit” to build there. Sort of a big deal – 60 apartments and a small bunch of shops. Done right, could have been a decent thing, “high end apartments”. A couple of problems, however. The intersection involved is already dangerous. Some environmental concerns. Once again, there are better places already cleared and on access roads. Also housing around here is not moving too fast. “High end” quickly becomes subsidized housing in the middle of a nice neighborhood.

The big problem, however, is town council. One of the members owns the property. Morals and honesty drop pretty quickly. An illegal closed meeting. Meetings held but not announced or advertised. An open meeting with many heated statements against putting the apartments there. Not against the project, just against the location. The planning commission fails to approve because of the town improvement plan and the public outcry. That is supposed to stop the process but council approves anyway. An official of a nearby town expressed astonishment at the blatant disregard for sunshine and the rule of law. The community asks “how can they do that” and says they are going to move. And what can we do now?

It seems that I compose entries on honesty and honor much too often. See 4 May, 2007, and 3 October, 2006. We do not think of our local town fathers in the same category as other politicians. At this level, they are supposed to be on our side. They may not be slaves of their party and campaign funding but the mendacity is there, anyway. Personal gain and favors for a buddy are just too much of a temptation. The rules and personal honor seem to evaporate. The needs and the will of the people take a back seat. A stupid question: does the honor code, any honor code, apply to any politicians. Are there any real honest and brave men out there in positions like this? Of course there are and I do know some. But it gets to you.

Do your local politicians do like this, too?

Each morning, I enjoy the “This Day in History” that comes up in my “My Yahoo” which I like as my home page. A couple of things today, the end of World War II in Europe in 1945, President Harry S. Truman's birthday in 1884, and the Battle of Coral Sea in 1942. I also enjoy going to Jim King's blog, “American Timeline: 1800 to 1900” ( http://oldwesternfanatic.blogstream.com/) and LiveScience's “Today in History” (http://www.livescience.com/history/today_in_history.html). On this day in 1794, Antoine Lavoisier was beheaded in Paris.

I was born in 1936 so these events pique my interest. Do not remember Lavoisier's vist with Madame la Guillotine but one of my favorite scientists. Can not say I remember Coral Sea in the newspapers of the time but it has been one of those heroic undertakings which, like Guadalcanal and Ironbottom Bay, show the courage and determination of the battered American forces at the beginning of the Pacific war. I do remember VE Day. Lived in a small Pennsylvania town and my parents and all of the neighborhood were elated. And Harry S. Truman. I well remember him. One of my very favorite Presidents.

Coral Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Coral_Sea) was the first carrier engagement. After Pearl Harbor, four carriers were about all twe had left. The Japanese were approaching Australia by making a landing in New Guinea and seemed unstoppable. The planes of both fleets fought in the first non-gun fleet battle. It was a tactical victory for the Japanese because one of the four carriers, the Lexington, Lady Lex, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_%28CV-2%29) was lost and the Yorktown hit by a bomb while the Japanese lost a light carrier (“Scratch one flattop.”). It was a strategic victory for the U.S. Fleet, however, because the New Guinea invasion was thwarted and Australia was safe. It also gave experience and knowledge that helped the next fleet battle, Midway, become a real turning point. The courage and determination of Admiral Jack Fletcher and the untried American forces to risk so much to block the bigger and more experienced threat. The Japanese probably could not have won the Pacific war but Coral Sea and Guadalcanal showed them what they had against them, The United States of America.

VE Day is an of course (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VE_Day). The Germans could have won the European war but they did not. And all of the prisoners that were just actors were freed from the concentration camps that did not exist. How anyone could not believe in the Holocaust is beyond understanding. But the German's did not conquer, the concentration camps were emptied, and the horrible European war was over.

And “Give 'em Hell Harry.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman). Right up there with Washington and Lincoln. See my 3 April, 2007, entry on the Marshall Plan. In these days of politicians who do not face up to the challenges, or accountability (“The buck stops here.”), do not accomplish, are slaves to their party and to reelection, to money, Harry is a gleam of hope that maybe they could be competent.

Antoine Lavoisier, the “Father of Modern Chemistry” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavoisier). Began the Metric System. Began stoichiometry. Described combustion and did in the Phlogiston Theory. Began our system of chemical nomenclature. Described acids. Etc. In other words, the father of modern chemistry. Unfortunately, as a nobleman, tax collector, bank executive, he became a victim of the French Revolution.

Who do we have today whose birthday will be remembered in fifty, a hundred, two hundred years?

It is interesting how things come together in our brains. This morning while I was sitting on my favorite thinking seat, I gave birth to a conjuncture of observations on a great subject: brains.

The specific thing that started the thinking is a great Scientific American article on ravens and how smart they are (http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=33596DFF-2B35-221B-6BFAFF94A4575CD8&sc=I100322). We had just been talking about how smart our daughter's dog, Callie is (see my 5 January, 2007 entry). There was an article in National Geographic recently on the collective intelligence of ants (http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0608/feature7/learn.html). I had marvelled at the ability of the tiny brain of a hummingbird and all it accomplished (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_hummingbird).

And then, there is our miraculous brain. We rightfully spend a lot of our time and money on all of the things that go wrong with our brains. But all of the things our brains do well! Here I am composing a bunch of words and sentences that have some meaning in an effort to communicate my deepest thoughts (no smartass comments, please) on a machine that our collective intelligence has created that will flash them around the world to all humanity in a fraction of a second. I can navigate our Grand Marquis around a city I have only visited once and my wife can tell me where my socks are. I tutor online and the other day a student asked me if I could help him with an sn2 reaction mechanism. I took organic in Western Reserve forty years ago. And I remembered! I remembered nucleophilic and Lewis acids and all of it.

We know something about the secrets of the tiniest particles and the expanses of the universe. We also have a good start at understanding the secrets of life, ourselves, and even God. Some of us have parts of our bodies and brains that have limitations, some of us are blooming idiots, some of us are Republican Presidential candidates who do not believe in evolution, but in places outside the Beltway, the glass is so much more than half full. Thank God and Mother Nature for all that we have received.