Accidental Angel (collage, markers, adjusted scan)

 

 I scanned this with maximum Fade correction to brighten the colours, then adjusted gamma etc in the image processor.

Nobody wins wars

Illustration by The New York Times; Photographs by U.S. Department of Justice, via Associated Press and Srdjan Suki/EPA, via Shutterstock

A comment on a piece by Margaret Renkl about the conviction and deportation of 95-year-old Friedrich Karl Berger, who worked as a concentration camp guard in the last months of the war in 1945, when he was 19 years old. He emigrated to the USA in 1959, and lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The essay writer tried to find a satisfying answer to the question whether trial and conviction at this late date served any kind of justice. Renkl was uncertain, ending her essay “So which is it: real justice, or too little too late? I honestly don’t know.” Of the many comments, this one caught my eye.

John
California March 8

@Ronald Grünebaum My father was an infantry man in the Second World War and horrifically wounded as he crossed into Germany. Like most veterans, he didn't talk about it often and never at length. Except, that is, for one day he sat on the porch with my neighbor, Mr. Rupple, a navy veteran on the German side; they spent the afternoon in quiet conversation. My mother sent me to get my father for dinner and, as we walked home, I asked him if it was awkward talking with Mr. Rupple. He asked why I thought it would be awkward and I said, my 14 year old brain abuzz, that "we won and they lost." We walked a few steps then he said, "I'm surprised you still think people win wars."

Family Album on LensCulture (link)

 One of the photo sets on LensCulture. The backstory behind these photos is fascinating. A sample:

LensCulture: photo site worth visiting

I've kept this site bookmarked, always worth a look: LensCulture.

Some examples from different photographers:

 

Humour in the New Yorker: An historical anthology

     David Remnick & Henry Finder. Fierce Pajamas (2001) A representative selection of humourous New Yorker writing. I read my way through it over a couple of weeks, and there are precious few knee-slappers. There are however many pieces that will raise a smile, or annoy, or please, or engage, or interest, or trigger any other of the responses to what we read. The writers use all modes and genres, sometimes as targets, sometimes a means of humour or satire.
     I enjoyed it more than I expected. I also absorbed some unexpected history of humourous writing from the chronological and thematic arrangement: Spoofs, for example, and the War Between Men and Women, or The Writing Life, as well as Words of Advice, and several others, ending with a selection of verse that proves that writing “light verse” is a serious an occupation as any other.
      The tropes of humour and satire are governed by fashion: we learn of the difficulties of love and marriage through stereotypes that change over time. The overbearing wife and the meek husband (represented by Thurber’s Walter Mitty) don’t ring true anymore, but the mutual incomprehension does. There are satires on several kinds of ignorance that no longer resonate. But the self-satisfaction of the overweening ignoramus does. We even have a name for it now, it’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. The perils of celebrity, both for idol and adulator, are well explored in the section The Frenzy of Renown, the title itself making the main point.
     A good gift for anyone who likes reading miscellaneous short writing. I was going to give it away, but I will keep it for the pleasures of rereading. ***

"Let's Talk About Biden and Oil Jobs...." (link)

Title of a talk by Beau, was sent to me by email. I think Beau's blunt talk is worth a listen. Click here.

 

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is gone

 

Trump left the White House an hour or two ago. So he's gone.

The Wizard of Oz ends with the assurance that once the Wizard is exposed as a fraud, the world will be set to rights. Eventually, everything will be as it was supposed to be. Dorothy will get back home.

But this wizard has left behind a mass of Munchkins that still believe there's a Wizard behind the curtain. What would L. Frank Baum make of this awkward reality?