April 5, 2022: Reader Tips

Reader Tips 74 Comments

With everything going on in Eastern Europe these days, I took stock of my historical understanding of the continent.  I came to the realization that I know quite a bit about WW2, somewhat less about WW1, but really not much at all pre-WW1.  To that end, I discovered this video, which I think is very informative.

Your somewhat more recent tips are greatly appreciated!

74 Replies to “April 5, 2022: Reader Tips”

  1. B and others, for your viewing pleasure tonight, here is a cheesy early 90s Sci-Fi flick with Emilio Estevez, Mick Jagger (yes him), Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins, I give you Freejack, video quality is ok, audio is good.
    https://youtu.be/dMttRJcpVYE

    1. Thanks. I remember when it was shown on, I think, the Canadian SF cable channel (Space?) and switching it off because I wanted to go to sleep. I’ve been waiting to see it ever since then.

      Now one cheesy SF movie deserves an even cheesier one, Invaders from Space:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjgvl3u6Um8

      This one isn’t just a tire-biter, it eats the rim, as well. Still, watch it for a giggle–it’s about an hour and a quarter long.

      The invaders and their plans seem to be an awful lot familiar….. Maybe they’ll remind you of a certain disease…..??

      2. To make up for that stinker, how about a George Romero double header?

        First, the grand-daddy of all those zombie movies and TV shows, Night of the Living Dead:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H91BxkBXttE

        That flick was made more than 50 years ago on a shoestring budget and it still holds up well.

        Then there’s the sequel, Dawn of the Dead:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7c-O9Nnu5U

        This one was made about a decade later and it’s in colour. This is a longer version than the original release. I’m watching it right now.

        Romero went on to make more movies on the same theme, including Day of the Dead (which was shown on TCM Underground this past weekend), which was more of the same, as well as a re-make of NOTLD.

        1. Much of the action in DOTD takes place in an indoor shopping centre. It makes one wonder if George Romero wasn’t satirizing the consumer culture of the late 1970s.

          1. He was. Remeber the montage of them enjoying the shallow pleasures of the mall? Before their comrade finally succumbs to his wound making the whole thing seem less than worth it. The whole giving up freedom for security and comfort debate not being worth it in the end.

    2. Nice. My favorite spawn of President Sheen.
      Want more cheese? Try Judgment Night from around the same time.
      Suburban Dads Emilio, Cuba Gooding Jr and Jeremy Piven get off at the wrong exit in Chicago and are chased through the projects by white gangsters with New York accents led by Denis Leary

      1. Yes, I remember that one.
        “We have a special in the frozen foods section, dead meat”.

  2. A statue of Alexander Wood (1772-1844) was destroyed today in Toronto. The statue was only 17 years old. It was erected in 2005 (with much fanfare) by the LGBT community, honouring a gay pioneer.

    Who tore it down?
    Trump supporters?
    Convoy truckers?
    Stephen Harper?

    “…a completely ahistorical social panic was ignited, to the effect that Wood started up residential schools. Except he didn’t. The whole thing was nonsense.”

    https://quillette.com/2021/11/26/lessons-in-history-from-the-toronto-mob-seeking-to-tear-down-a-19th-century-gay-icon/

    1. This is something that should be remembered and replicated. Start rumors that Jack Layton was a residential school proponent for example.

      2. Only Harper and Turdeau II were not in the cabinet of a government operating residential schools. I wouldn’t doubt that Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien personally dug unmarked Indian graves with Joe Clark carrying the water for them.

  3. Live interview from a pastors daughter who escaped through Russian controlled areas to safer areas in Ukraine.

    Russian soldiers are starving. Different groups, young kids and black coloured uniform types.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3NS7miUj1M

    This is from a Christian perspective, I know Walter personally, so vouch for the interview.

    1. Those who are supporting Russia, I would say watch the video.

      Russia is doing psych-ops and seems some in here are swallowing it. Russian soldiers are killing the protestors, blocked humanitarian food and kidnapping pastors and taking them to remote camps.

      1. Our Prime Minister runs over our protesters with horses…
        But you had to get this video and news from other sources not paid by our governments generosity which would normally be illegal but hell, everyone gets paid by our politicians in some way or another if you want to stay in a prosperous business including our judiciary who should be doing their jobs but are not.
        So we have run away corruption everywhere!

    2. Thank you for posting. Sadly, I doubt anyone will change their mind. Many are too invested in a belief that Pootin is fighting globalists and do not want to hear anything to the contrary.

      1. Johnbrooks, as was saying, they ^^^^^. will not listen, their faith in the absurd narrative they have constructed is fanatical and they have nothing else.

        1. Indeed. Soros knows all.
          I knew you would never let that pass, as it contradicts your narrative, and that’s all ya got.
          Your side never do any evil in a war, and the other side is the spawn of Satan, right?
          You are either an idiot or a shill, or, more likely, both.

          1. I never said my side does not do evil. I do not live in a binary world. You do. That is just a typical accusation you are throwing to deflect with whataboutism. You’re a demagogue. It is your thing.

            The fact remains, everything I was saying for years about russian bestial barbarity is being proven true as we speak. You were accusing me of hyperbole, turns out I was literal.

            Also, expecting Ukrainians to be saints and not to take a measure of revenge for the monumental atrocities inflicted upon them by the Siberian horde is absurd. But an absurd still lesser, than an expectation, that for the first time in history, russians will act civilized.

          2. Yes, you are sooo non binary and nuanced that you are willing to run over bicycle riders.

          3. And now, after your limitations have been demonstrated, you’re changing the topic. Of course.

          4. Define limitations, Colon, if you can.
            What exactly are my limitations as opposed to yours?
            You seem to have nothing but ad-hominem and straw-man arguments, with an occasional tu-quoque thrown in for good measure.

          5. Your limitations:
            1. Kathy Neuman style of argument (so you’re saying… something completely different than what you are saying].
            2. Chronic inability to stay on topic (see bicycles).
            3. Unwillingness to accept reality and insistence on binary world (pure Maxipads vs “LibCons”, Pootin vs globalists etc).
            4. Pathological need to accuse others of your own faults. (For example” You seem to have nothing but ad-hominem and straw-man arguments, with an occasional tu-quoque thrown in for good measure.” that phrase describes you perfectly)
            5. Rabid aggression when your narrative is contradicted.

            Those combined make you a demagogue and a piece of excrement. You’re beneath me. You’re worthless.

  8. There are some great European history books available in just about any decent public library. The last 2,000 years there is wildly entertaining, especially the Bidenesque moments.

    1. “Europe” by Norman Davies, is a great start.
      “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder is a heartbreaking account of Eastern Europe under Stalin and Hitler. It will give you nightmares.

      1. Thx. Biden coercing Ukraine to fire a prosecutor fits nicely in the historical milieu.

      2. Other good titles:
        “The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia” by Eric Jones.
        “How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation Of The Industrial World” by Nathan Rosenberg
        “Russia under the Old Regime” by Richard Pipes a best book I came across that explains russia today.

      3. I learned a lot of history from the historian Barbara Tuchman in her 2 books – “The Guns of August” about the lead-up to the first world war (often described as a “bar fight”) and “The March of Folly”. I also enjoyed her book “A Distant Mirror” about the events in the 14th century which closely paralleled the 20th century.

        Everything old is new again.

    2. Figuring out the mess leading up to the Great War is an interesting exercise. To explain why George Washington was against international treaties is to review this.

      Upon the assassination of the Archduke and his wife, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia declared its intent to aid “all Slavs”. This meant Germany had to come to the aid of Austria-Hungary. Germany tried to talk Russia into letting it stay a local dispute. Czar Nicholas II insisted the Russian people were frenzied for war.

      I can’t remember who France had treaties with but the French declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Thus, Germany was stuck in a two front war against Russia and France. The Germans decided they had to quickly conquer one before it could concentrate on the other.

      The Germans actually thought Britain would have their back. Unfortunately, Britain had a secret pact with Belgium. When Germany rolled through Belgium to get at France the Brits declared war on the invaders.

      The Germans felt they had been stabbed in the back by Britain. Up to that point, Britain and France were adversaries. Germany actually expected Britain to declare war on France not them.

      That and the Treaty of Versailles pretty much set the stage for the rise of Hitler. A political cartoon in 1919 condemning the Treaty depicted an infant crying because he would be stuck going to war when he grew up.

      1. The direct cause of Germany’s entry into the war was Russia activating troops on its border. Germany warned them to stand down and attacked when they didn’t.

        1) Serbia supported Bosnian separatists who killed a future emperor
        2) Austria attacked Serbia
        3) Russia, allied with Serbia, declared war on Austria and threatened to attack Germany
        4) Germany attacked Russia
        5) France, allied with Russia, declared on Germany
        6) Germany attacked France through Belgium
        7) The UK, supporting Belgian neutrality, declared war on Germany.

        Thus started the world’s stupidest war ever fought. The world would be a better place if the Brits and Yanks would have stayed home and let the Eurotrash kill each other. Almost every world problem today directly descends from WWI.

        1. Don’t forget that UK was unwilling to let Germany challenge to Royal Navy’s supremacy go unanswered.

      2. The history of WWI is one of the failures of the ruling class in Europe. For example, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand wouldn’t have happened if the original heir to the Austrian Empire hadn’t committed suicide. He was unstable in part due to the absence of his mother, who clashed with the domineering mother of her husband (the wife was an emotionally unstable liberal, the mother a rigid reactionary). The empire was basically destroyed because the Emperor couldn’t handle the women in his life and raise his children to be capable humans.

        Germany had its own mental health crisis in the form of it’s megalomaniac Kaiser who was torn between his liberal, English mother and the conservative Bismarck. Wilhelm had an obsessive admiration for his grandmother Queen Victoria, and an incessant need to thwart his inferiority complex by proving Germany was stronger than England. All of Queen Victoria’s relations were kept in check by their familial ties until the old bird died, then within two decades all hell broke loose, literally.

        Albert and Victoria had a crazy liberal idea that they could create a peaceful utopia through their children’s marriages. Like most utopian fantasies, it ended in disaster. WWI was practically a civil war within the giant family that was the European aristocracy. They had become too stupid and selfish to realize how disastrous the war would be for the common people. When viewed through this lens, the Russian Revolution almost seems justified.

    1. Not gonna happen.
      President Trump gave her his blessing and ring of protection that comes with it.
      The majority of the United States it Trump country now as one of the first order of business when they win both House and Senate is to have Ice Cream Joe fired from the Whitehouse.
      At least that was the promise made by some Senators and House members.

      The Mainstream Media and Politicians couldn’t keep up with they’re Elections rigging and the house of cards is a tumbling.

      1. I will say again, as long as corruption exists within the American electoral system, I’m gonna continue to hold my breath, keep crossing my fingers, and pray that the corruption doesn’t steal another election. I will not underestimate the opposition again. Too many times have I been reassured, only to be massively disappointed.

      1. Too many paedo friendly walking brain dead. Despite Murkowski getting turfed at the primaries last time around, she was elected as a write-in candidate on the ballot.

    1. The /s is missing.

      It’s unfortunate that Putin poses no immediate threat to Hillary’s political ambitions; for if he did, he would be dead tomorrow.

    1. “world wide circle…..”
      Leon certainly has a way with words.
      Colorful vocabulary as well 😉

    1. I haven’t been on the air at all so far this year. I have to set up my station outside on my balcony and it hasn’t been warm enough yet.

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