The Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People: by Steven E. Ozment.

I remember reading a statistic quoted by a British persona to the effect that the French had twenty million problems - this was before the second world war, French population was sixty million and Germans were eighty million in number, so the accounting was easy enough.
....................................


Land of fairy tales, so much so there is a scenic route specially designated so. And the forest creatures, the fairy tale characters, all come out between November and February, the time when theoretically Halloween is celebrated what with darkness of winter descending and spirits, creatures, demons coming out - official celebration is usually in February, a day variable through the country and fixed conveniently by every town independently. But through the four month dark period the creatures and spirits are visible in car toys, stickers, home decorations and various other manifestations.

The fairy tales were probably ancient legends from history before recording, now designated a lower position of children's stories or myths, but such power as they hold does not belong to the realm of imagination alone. Mickey Mouse is much loved in US but foxes in German, Rapunzel and so on, have a different power. Pigs dominate the place with appearances as toys, stickers, candy or other fun food forms. Germany might have been told to forget her pre Roman Gods, but forgetting lesser creatures was not imposed on the land and if it was it did not succeed at all.
..................................

The language teacher assigned us in Germany explained, or at least attempted to explain, the fear of strangers Germans seemed to pathologically have at a very primitive level in various ways.

This fear is experienced by various outsiders and quite a lot of born and brought up citizens who never lived anywhere else, too, when for example they are of Turkish ancestry. Commonly "no foreigners wanted" goes with half of advertisements openly enough in print along with houses or apartments for rent, roughly; the other half merely do not put it in print, but seldom are comfortable; and German friends are friends in US or other countries but not in Germany. And so forth.

This language teacher tried to claim it was because Germany never had an empire like the French and the British, but she knew this was untrue, Germany did have a definite presence in Africa before wwi. Then she talked of African-American US soldiers molesting German girls post wwii, and this we refuted vigorously, we could not imagine US military allowing this to happen in any way. Fact is German women were kept for use of German military in facilities and only women of Bangladesh before independence used by Pakistan military were in worse condition than the German young women kept for use of German military and other paramilitary males. This was apart from the young women used to breed a superior race by keeping them in a facility and breeding them with select high level nazis.

She of course knew all of this and could not be too certain we did not - we did, but did not think of throwing it back at her, it was far too unpleasant. So she came up with another reason.

It went back to the ancient history of Mongolian hordes attacking with Attila the Hun, she said, who were successful in Europe until the Germans fought back (how far they came into Germany is a good question, since the British refer to German as the Huns, and whether it is related to some racial remnant or merely a set of traits, some definitive characteristics shared, is anybody's guess) - which remained in German subconscious, she said.

"Germans had never seen horses before, and they were terrified" was her final explanation.

Sally Hemings; by Barbara Chase-Riboud.

I remember seeing the episode of Oprah when the various branches of Jefferson family were on the show post the court decision of all branches of Jefferson family having equal right to the burial at family burial ground, which had seemingly disturbed some people other than "white" half of the family.

There were some people on the show who looked white enough but were actually part of the black or African American (why don't people think they have a right to say European American? After all Europeans are not native to the land and are far from default choice of the word American, whether US or anywhere else in America) branch of the family. Their ("white") neighbours did not know this about them until the court decision about the case for right to burial in the family plot, which is when they reportedly uncomfortable with them - I forget after all these years if they stopped talking to them actually but that won't be surprising.

God's Secret Agents: by Alice Hogge.

When Catherine of Aragon was married to the heir to the English throne the hope, as usual in such marriages, was that the two kingdoms would unite or at least be on friendly terms, with peace and prosperity for both. With the untimely death of her husband, this hope seemed to end, and she was to return to her parents, but the English royals devised a way out of sending her away, by marrying her to the next heir, Henry the 8th, who was just about a teenager but precocious. This was against the English law which prevailed until a century ago (if it has been amended since Shaw wrote about it is rather irrelevant in this era except for the royals who need to be legitimate to inherit) so they asked for a special dispensation from the pope, with a declaration to the effect that Catherine's marriage with her first husband was never consummated. However, she did not have a son, while Henry did, and he finally was desperate to have a legitimate son, and grew to believe that he had sinned after all in marrying his brother's widow. The pope refused to cancel the annulment of her first marriage though or to grant another annulment, chiefly for the reason that Spain was too powerful now and besides Spain was closer and in a position to threaten the pope personally; besides, it was irksome to do a double annulment at England's behest, and be a far more ridiculous puppet of the royals of Europe, than digging heels in and refuse mulishly to please the English would be much marrying king.

Henry found a way out - seceding from the church of Rome, which had already happened in Germany with beginning and establishment of protestant church. The period that then followed in England until Elizabeth I came to power was filled with strife, intrigues, murders, plots, executions, threats, and much dark manipulation, which included Roman agents, priests secretly or openly arriving in England to turn back the tide. People were fed up with the strife by the time Elizabeth was the Queen, it is not for nothing Mary was called and is remembered as Bloody Mary with attempts to turn England back to Roman dominion. Hopes were pinned on Elizabeth, hopes for peace for people of England.

Elizabeth did achieve this and more, with Britain firmly established on path to prosperity and forging ahead, during her reign. She sacrificed a possibility of any personal life with happiness of motherhood by never marrying, and her first attempt to establish peace in realm of religion was by asking England to unite under one church for the nation, not aligned to either Rome or any protestant church abroad. Once this was granted she then refused to conform to either and much form of both was retained in the new church for comfort of people in devotion.

Rome refused to give up on power in Britain though and attempts on her life escalated with signed and sealed orders to murder her sent through priests from Rome travelling to England and attempts to restart civil wars, with much maligning of her person as well - nothing new, and not something that has stopped since either - and it took more than loyal subjects to deal with them, often with shrewd, wary and capable men of England helping her survive. The miraculous escapes she had, what with priests from Rome secretly crawling about the palace (with signed and sealed orders and weapons including daggers, ready to murder her and create havoc), were nothing short of Divine intervention on her behalf, and for the nation and the world.

Those emissaries of Rome with orders to murder a sovereign ruler for sake of reestablishment of power of Rome is what this book is about. To all those that equate the power of Rome with ultimate power above the title of the book is apt, but to all others it is nothing short of a parallel of jihadi tracts of today to demolish all powers not of Islamic nations, holding UK, US, India, Israel, Australia, Canada and other nations - especially those of Europe - as culpable and any propaganda against them claiming a torture of Muslim residents thereof as merely a valid weapon for the purpose of establishing kingdom of god.

England celebrates Guy Fawkes Day with fireworks officially - wonderful to enjoy especially when travelling on a dark night.

Story of Tibet: by Dalai Lama and Thomas Laird.

Work of several hours of interviews of the present Dalai Lama by Thomas Laird, about Tibet, history and religion, and related subjects.

The present Dalai Lama is impressive in his unassuming and friendly manner and a casual, easy demeanor retaining an inner persona of untold stature - whether this was a spiritual achievement early on or a persona that grew through all the travails of his land and people that he suffered along with them, perhaps those closer to him know better.

During a recent speech of his being telecast, one had this uncanny experience of the television channel telecasting the even suddenly going blank, and not recovering for several hours by which time the speech in its entirety was no longer telecast, although short excerpts were - but one never can know which part one would find something of value. This disturbance was obviously due to deliberate intervention by those that would silence all Tibet and especially Dalai Lama, by whatever means possible - Tibet has suffered an unrecognised genocide while US provided billions of dollars and arms to Pakistan to defeat Soviets in Afghanistan, with not a word of even condolences for the genocide of Tibetans through half a century of Chinese occupation.

The only other time I remember a similar television blackout in recent times is when in Germany once CNN was telecasting a program about German racist attacks on foreigners of the "wrong" colour, including one where a middle aged Indian man was beaten up by German youths and thrown on the train tracks with every intention that he should die there - German trains and so forth are extremely punctual to the fraction of a minute and the youth obviously knew about the timings, and it was a deserted site; only, luckily for the frail beaten up unconscious man lying on the tracks, someone discovered him before he was run over and his life was saved.

As I was listening to this, aghast, with more to come about the rest of the country, suddenly the television went blank, at least as far as CNN goes - it was the only English language channel allowed - and obviously the other channels, German, were not going to telecast any of this. CNN returned several hours later, with no repetition of this program.

So are the victims silenced by the bullies with shoutings, obfuscations, threats, and outright yanking of the television and other communication media, if not by threats or outright genocide.

The German teacher that was obviously on job to endoctrinate us misunderstood at first when I began the topic and blamed "a Jew with a big mouth" for foreigners getting the wrong idea about Germany, since he would not shut up about racist and anti semitic incidents in north Germany.

She gave up on us but not before I was given enough clues about what was going on. We were in effect surrounded by those that would keep watch, inform on us, and attempt to inculcate us with the required attitudes.

Others kept away, even friends of long standing. We gave up on them for good. They were friendly before we visited Germany, very. In their own land they dared not befriend foreigners of English speaking variety.

Fortunately some Tibetans have managed to escape such muzzling by managing to escape to India, and fortunately for the world the Dalai Lama is one of them.

Nag Hammadi Library: by James M. Robinson, Richard Smith.

The official blurb gives reasons to read this book, more than that, reasons why anyone caring about history and truth thereof would probably find this worth a read. -

"This revised, expanded, and updated edition of The Nag Hammadi Library is the only complete, one-volume, modern language version of the renowned library of fourth-century manuscripts discovered in Egypt in 1945. First published in 1978, The Nag Hammadi Library launched modern Gnostic studies and exposed a movement whose teachings are in many ways as relevant today as they were sixteen centuries ago. James M. Robinson's updated introduction reflects ten years of additional research and editorial and critical work. An afterword by Richard Smith discusses the modern relevance of Gnosticism and its influence on such writers as Voltaire, Blake, Melville, Yeats, Kerouac, and Philip K. Dick. Acclaimed by scholars and general readers alike, The Nag Hammadi Library is a work of major importance to everyone interested in the evolution of Christianity, the Bible, archaeology, and the story of Western civilization."

Gnosticism obviously was not all dead these sixteen centuries - shouldn't that be at least twenty, sixteen being the number of centuries it went underground while twenty being probably the real age of the documents in this? - For Yeats, Voltaire and co, not to mention others before them (Da Vinci?) were aware of the thought if not of the labels and of the Nag Hammadi location.

Indeed, while the libraries in Alexandria, Egypt and Spain were burned by inquisition and their predecessors of official Roman authorities wiping out all traces of thought and evidence and facts Rome had decided to banish for convenience, there had been scholars, Jewish and Arabic, who had kept various documents alive, which eventually found their way into establishing Paris as a centre of quest for knowledge and learning by passing Rome and authority in the interest of knowledge pure - and hence grew the university and science.

But on the other hand Rome did have and was granted monopoly of a sort over theology, in west at any rate, albeit by power of Rome over matters of politics as well as other realms, power abrogated by Rome to oneself, and this stranglehold of power of Rome could only break with discoveries of Nag Hammadi documents that not only were often new - whole gospels - but were contradictory to those authorised by Rome while the rest were presumed carefully obliterated, although this discovery fortunately proved the obliteration was not successful, fortunately for the quest for truth.

This being the volume that gives those of the discovered documents that were in Nag Hammadi, a major source, is probably worth a read.

Unless it is one of those regular efforts by authorities after all to obfuscate the truth again, as often shown on television information channels, with soothing voices and pooh-poohing of anything not authorised these last sixteen centuries.

Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimesion of American Racism; by James W. Loewen.

Anna, IL; Darien, CT; Cedar Key, FL ..... These are some of the names of Sundown Towns, where rule has been that no blacks (or other races for that matter) are allowed after sundown, especially after dark.

Whether the rules were laws or simply unwritten and acted on punctiliously nevertheless is rather unimportant, since the methods of execution included any and every means possible including fraud, lies, and use of legal and law enforcement authorities. Not without their fully willing cooperation, of course. No compunction about using harassment, race riots, even murder, to keep "other" people out.

So obviously a good many white neighborhoods and suburbs are the result not of accidental choices or even real estate prices, but instead it is due to deliberate practices of decades, centuries of racism and segregation, with thousands of all-white towns coming to be between 1890 and 1968, and the years mentioned are notable as in shortly after the end of post civil war occupation of the south when southern states regained their autonomy back to the sixties when civil rights movements took strength and Kennedy brothers were murdered amongs many others who died in fighting for the anti racist movements.

Many of these towns still continue to exist today - the last I heard of one was within less than a decade ago, a really posh suburb of southern California on the seashore that "sees to it" that blacks are kept out, whether as residents or casual passing by cars.

The other time I could have had a clue about this was when a few decades ago - again - in southern California, in a backwater university town, a student openly declared she would never live in Los Angeles, and it was only when she repeated it that I desultorily asked why, which is when she quite candidly said, without any thought to how it sounds, that it was because LA was full of blacks.

I remember distancing myself - and losing a relatively better paid job in a very short while, perhaps due to her reporting to those in authority of such matters in exchange for ensuring a better career for herself (the university was downright discriminatory when it came to women, and she could not get a professor to ask her a question when everyone was aware that she knew most answers better than her male classmates) that all in all I was clearly unsympathetic to the southern Cause (southern California is often more South than west, at that) and hence the authorities deciding I was undesirable after all, pretty much as my predecessor had been. Looks are not the all of it, one needs the right attitude as well to prosper in these places. If one can stand living there that is.

Sundown Towns tells the story of how these towns came to be, what (who?) maintains them, and so forth, about US social tapestry.

War Against The Weak: by Edwin Black.

Eugenics that culminated in horrors in German concentration camps began in Long Island laboratories, measuring heads and corroborating body characteristics to superior intelligence. If they had ever found superior intelligence in races other than pale technicoloured ones, they would have abandoned it and buried it under a heap of abuse masquerading as criticism and concern for humanity, but they did not think of measuring intelligent people of sepia or monochromatic races - even though Hardy had indeed found a miraculous example amongst many of his compatriots right around then or a bit before.

So it was conveniently concluded that pale technicolour characteristics were superior in terms of inner characteristics of intelligence and more, quite wrongly, and the genocides happened.

It was not restricted to race of course - those that were deemed unfit were coercively sterilized ("Light In The Piazza" indirectly and gently, charmingly tells the story of such one girl), and laws enacted in 27 states in US that were racist and cruel, with sterilizations taking place even after Nuremberg trials when internationally the who thing was condemned. Master races attempted to be perfect to rule.

Now, over half a century later, with all the supposedly strong education these decades in Germany against nazi doctrine, nevertheless the mindset is only as changed as to allow people to hold virtues of perceiving reality secretly while heaping false abuse and accusations on races not technicolour, assuming everything German is superior while there is no real query or wish to know about any other culture than of Europe and a hostility if such queries are answered truthfully - since another culure might emerge obviously superior in less than a weekend worth of conversation.

So another system of abusing and threatening is adopted with manufactured faults of such other cultures pointed out and begins a very tiresome process of questioning those accusations for their worth. Sometimes though such a closet nazi would would descend to abusing another culture, faith, achievements, openly; that is easier to deal with, they are only a step away from racists pushing around people on train stations.

Day of Tears; by Julius Lester.

A most interesting part of history of US, described as

"On March 2 and 3, 1859, the largest auction of slaves in American history took place in Savannah, Georgia. More than 400 slaves were sold. On the first day of the auction, the skies darkened and torrential rain began falling. The rain continued throughout the two days, stopping only when the auction had ended. The simultaneity of the rain storm with the auction led to these two days being called " the weeping time." "

makes one wonder.

Surely it could not have been a coincidence, surely a supposedly devout nation - US does put "In God We Trust" on US currency - might have considered the possibility that this rain was not exactly a blessing or indifference from heavens, surely rain never had a connotation of happiness or relief attached to it for the immigrants from Europe that conducted the slavery, the sales, the auctions?

And did it occur to anyone to enquire with any religious figure of authority if this was a sign of disapproval from above? Or at the very least something to stop and ponder about?

When an innocent soul is hurt, a cry goes up and reaches directly all the way up, and does not go unnoticed - and this was a lot of innocent souls being tortured and humiliated for no fault of theirs.

Surely this much might have occurred to someone?

At any rate one might note that after a century or so of various slaves attempting to flee and a few rebellions, this day or days - March 2 and 3, 1859 in Savannah, Georgia - of the largest auction of slaves in US history when 400 slaves were auctioned, was not too long before the whole edifice of slavery and slaver states collapsed. Within less than two years, Confederacy had declared an independence, and in April 1861 war was declared. Within less than a decade the war was over, the slaves were emancipated, and southern owners went through a horrendous time of occupation for a while. The tide would turn around a couple of times, and it was not all that hunky dory for the freed slaves in all parts either, but still ...

The cries indeed had reached up, way up.

Martin Van Buren; by Ted Widmer.

A good many firsts - first president to be born after US independence, first professional politician, first one of Dutch descent, and so forth. A curious one in this collection of phrases in the editorial introduction is the phrase "first ethnic president", exposing a mindset where not only everyone from outside European descent but in fact everyone not of Anglo Saxon WASP descent (and male, obviously) is seen as "ethnic", granted a knowledge and a right to think only within the context of his own limited circle (women get a more limited circle, again obviously) while only Anglo Saxon descent is granted a normality and WASP males a birthright to think over universally and make decisions regarding any and all spheres of considerations for everyone.

Martin Van Buren is worth reading about for more than his background, of course - he supported the excellent Andrew Jackson and attempted to find a solution to the then growing question of slavery related conflict of states. Southern states were using them for plantation work, heavily dependent on manual labour, while northern states were industrial and increasingly mechanised. However, the ships that had brought slaves, the slavers that had captured people in Africa and those that had sold them - and sometimes those that bought them to settle in western new states - were northerners. It was not as obvious a moral picture as north good south bad. His attempts to find a solution were to cost him, however, as often good intentions do.

Thomas Paine: by Craig Nelson.

From a mechanic in London - lower class and not well to do either - to the founder of both the French Republic and US, a founding father of the latter, a thinker, someone who put forth the case for rights of every citizen and thoughts about inherent power in every one irrespective of status and other criteria then (as, indeed, even now, albeit subconsciously) prevalent, someone less well known than other more famous contemporary figures.

He was the origin of the phrase United States of America, without realising how this would confuse a nation and more - today people of US call themselves American without realising America is a huge continent from pole to pole and as such everyone of the continent has every right to call themselves American as well, while the confederate southern states are sometimes referred to mistakenly as south America by some young people in US without reflecting that South America is the southern half of the continent from Panama to Antarctica roughly speaking. Canadians and Mexicans rightfully call themselves North Americans including US but people of US are totally unaware of the very phrase North America when referring to people and do not subconsciously include Mexico if and when they come across it. Indeed the phrases prevalent in US are America (as in US), Canada, and Latin America, reflecting a caste system based on regions of Europe which dominated the migration to parts of American continent.

One would think someone would have realised the confusion, especially someone of the calibre of Paine, such use of nomenclature duplicated would cause - but we are speaking of a people who knew all along that they were migrating west, India was to the east, and nevertheless called the natives of the western continent Indian and still do, forever disfranchising them from being seen as the native and therefore rightful residents of the continent from pole to pole.

This latter confusion also serves to diminish the word Indian from association with civilisation of India and forever blemishes it with a subtext of connotations including uncivilised, wild, primitive, illiterate, savage, etcetera. That natives of the western continent do not deserve such epithets is added to the whole irony, what with the immense achievements of astronomy, architecture and so forth in southern parts and the ecological conserving superior ethos of the whole. Moreover now it is conjectured that they are related to northeast Asian people, who could walk over the Siberia to Alaska connection, as indeed they could use a raft to cross the Pacific.

Not all of this confusion is laid at door of Paine, of course, but if he thought of any of it or suggested other names it is not known. Meanwhile did the land have other names, the regions, the continent, has not been enquired into, since there has been no protest at foreign names being imposed on natives by the natives. No significant protest that could get beneath the thick hide of the non natives that is.

The book meanwhile is worth reading for all the understanding and information it provides about Thomas Paine.

J. Edgar Hoover: by Curt Gentry.

When a person in power is unfair, unjust, willing to use any and every means in his power to finish off enemies by any route whatsoever, using illegal means and lies without any compunction, things have the potential to become no less frightening than they were in fascist or nazi or any other totalitarian dictatorship where one must put away one's own mind, thoughts, capability of thinking and perception, and either dumb down if that is allowed or be forced to actively participate and promote the agenda of the dictator in power.

For this it is not necessary that the person in power be a head of state or a political party, a figurehead will do for those purposes - the real power may sometimes lie elsewhere, such as it does when an army chief attacks the country that his president or prime minister is holding peace talks with, or an intelligence agency - read spying agency - sabotages the agenda of the president or the prime minister and promotes the agenda he approves instead.

J. Edgar Hoover had not only such power as the chief of FBI for several decades but the character and the inclination that would use it to the full to spy, blackmail, threaten and incapacitate various people in US who could have done far more good to people of US and people of the world if let by Hoover - and this included presidents of the US, Kennedys, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, and many more including every innocent artist and writer persecuted during the McCarthy era. He used illegal tapping and surveillance to his purpose without so much as informal permission from any authority, indeed a US president would not be even informed and could moreover be blackmailed by Hoover. He kept blackmail files and was not above using them.

Legend goes that after death of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy asked Hoover "Did you guys kill my brother" with tears in his voice. Such was the power and the known character of the person who held the position of the chief of FBI for several decades and controlled various things including investigations against great persona he blackmailed, sometimes with success.

John Lennon was a strong influence against right wing until his personal life - the possibility of the couple never seeing Yoko's daughter again, or being deported to England - made them cancel a few public engagements and helped Republicans come to power.

Hoover's role in McCarthy persecution of artists and writers and so forth made the whole persecution pervasive and fearsome, this was the current history that prompted Arthur Miller's writing of The Crucible, about Salem witch trials, the eerily similar atmosphere of the two times being obvious to anyone that lived through the McCarthy era.

With a person or more like this in power it is hardly far from credibility that the murders of Kennedys and Martin Luther King might just have been not by the persons named and conveniently finished off by other killers.

Was Hoover responsible for killings of Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr? This book with research into recently released papers might give a clue.

He did attempt to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr and used extensive surveillance of invasive nature to find a way, as in other cases. And Martin Luther King Jr. knew he was going to get murdered just the way he was, except he chose to not be shied away from his public role and keep silent and hiding. Kennedys neither of them knew until it was too late.

And thus the long rule of the right wing in US with short intervals of sane intelligent others that did not please Hoover, the latter including Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Life Of Mahatma Gandhi: by Louis Fischer.

The editorial description of the book - on a site on internet meant for books and readers, perhaps on the book cover or in as well - goes

"This is a biography of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). He led the fight for Indian independence from British rule, who tirelessly pursued a strategy of passive resistance, and who was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic only a few months after independence was achieved."

The editorial description is notable in light of facts of history that took place around independence of India - for one thing Gandhi desperately wished to visit the newly partitioned land of Pakistan in west, to make efforts to bring peace where millions were being murdered; the then premier Liaqat Ali Khan issued a flat warning to the effect that he could not guarantee security of any sort to Gandhi who was seen as leader of Hindus by Muslim League officially, even though the people then living in the new nation did not all perceive it that way (in fact people of North West Frontier Province were extremely upset about not being included in India so much so the Viceroy's tour was cut short, and their leader - called Sarhad Gandhi, "Gandhi of frontier", due to his following Gandhi and his ways, was jailed by Pakistan government almost all his life); consequently Gandhi could not visit the region so recently a part of India and now torn with so much violence against Hindus, amounting to an exodus and a massacre both. Government of India could not ignore the warning and declaration by Liaqat Ali Khan about safety of life of Gandhi, and he was pleaded not to carry on his intention (whether he actually was denied a visa as most Indian dignitaries and artists can be summarily through the history of six odd decades of Pakistan is not the question) and he went east to Bengal instead, where he was successful in bringing peace within Indian borders.

Pakistan meanwhile attacked India in the northern state of Kashmir and Jinnah pretended it was all tribal hordes, and atrocities by attackers included rapes and murders of nuns in a convent; and while this was going on, Pakistan also demanded a larger share of the treasury while flatly refusing to share the debts of India before partition (you pay what India owes, give us share of what India had) and logically as well as strategically (paying huge sums to those that are attacking you is extreme folly for any sort of statesmanship, surely?) it was obvious to see why the Indian parliament, cabinet, everyone was in agreement that such demands were ridiculous.

Gandhi insisted, however, in giving in to the demands made by Pakistan, no matter how dishonourably they behave. When it was clear this would not be done he was unhappy and went on yet another fast for clearing of his soul. Naturally the government of India gave in.

Meanwhile refugees from west had been pouring in from Pakistan and their horrendous stories were becoming known in various corners of the nation where they could find a place to rest - refugees from west went everywhere, where ever they could, from Amritsar in Punjab to Delhi, U.P., Mumbai, Bangalore, name it. One such refugee camp near an army training school town near Mumbai a volunteer helping in the camp, a local person, went from anger to determination of not letting this continue, and he went and shot Gandhi after bowing down to him in reverence first.

Epithets ascribed to this man, a lonely person who hardly ever talked to anyone even within his family, range from crazy to fanatic to Hindu fanatic. The last is merely a convenient tool to use this man's background to crucify a tremendous culture with a very ancient tradition that is identified with India, something convenient for those that would destroy this open wide and deep treasure trove of a tradition that is a democratic faith, an inclusive culture, a tolerant and secular religion, a tremendous source of knowledge of mind and spirit.

An equal parallel would be to call John Wilkes Booth a "Christian fanatic", killers of Kennedys "American fanatics", the popes who ordered murder of Elizabeth I "Catholic fanatics", and so forth.

What could one call the people in US that attacked people and shops and so forth belonging to those that looked Asian, not only innocent of the 911 attacks but often not even of Islamic faith, then? The first person to be so murdered was a Sikh, wearing his faith's attire, taken by the killer to be a 911 attacker. What sort of fanatic should one call him, the killer who did not know the difference? Ignorant is merely accurate, but to parallel an acccusation of the sort in the editorial description one would have to find something more fitting.

So much for the official description of the book. Facts in short are more along the lines of following:-

This is a biography of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). He led the fight for Indian independence from British rule, who tirelessly pursued a strategy of passive resistance, and who was assassinated by a loner crazed by the harrowing tales of refugees, only a few months after partition which accompanied independence, along with the separated part Pakistan attacking India, demanding share of treasury and refusing to share debts, while Gandhi insisted (and was followed) in his wish that those demands be met, attacks by Pakistan continuing nevertheless. Pakistan had incidentally refused to allow Gandhi to enter the new country for a peace tour to attempt to stop the massacres, declaring the government of Pakistan could not guarantee security of Gandhi's life if he visited, since the Muslim League (- which carried out a massacre of a few thousand with knives in Calcutta in 1946 on a day named Action Day by Jinnah before Gandhi broke and agreed to the demand of partition of India into a separate nation for Muslims) called Gandhi a "Hindu leader".

the Wave: by Todd Strasser and Morton Rhue.

I remember seeing a short film on television some time ago about this, I remember being horrified as the story progressed since it was obvious where it was going, I remember we were impressed in many ways including about the teacher who knew how easy it was to start a mass movement and how it simply caught on and had a life of its own no matter how false the premises and how worthless the ideas.

It all started when a high school class of students of history questioned how a whole nation could be mesmerised into so false a set of ideas making an ideology into thinking and resulting horrendous actions as the nazi movement, and the teacher thought it was a matter of mass psychology - it is easier to follow the crowd, and most people do, discarding the evidence or experiences or logic that goes counter to the mass and joining in putting away any doubts, no matter how horrible the actions required of them in order to continue.

It is interesting to read a bunch of opinions and reviews about this book on a site for readers, seemingly from a requirement in a high school class, and see the variety of praise and discomfort, reasons given for either or none given. Almost an experiment parallel to the story of the book - and if one went behind the subconscious reasons of discomfort behind the reviews that dislike this book and are uncomfortable or worse about having to read it and write about it, one would find a truth easy enough to see.

It is not merely fascism or nazi movement that were supported with mass hysteria and need to conform for security, giving up all thought and logic and evidence around. This applies to all totalitarian thought, including but not limited to communism.

This applies to any and all faiths or religions that require total unquestioning belief along lines prescribed by a central authority, in a book and an institution that limits independent inquiry.

It applies to fashion, school groups, modes of thought prevalent (such as anyone who thinks and reads is a nerd while bullies must be kowtowed to and sport jocks get everything they ask or don't even ask including droit de seigneur through school and forever) and more.

Naturally there are bound to be people uncomfortable with this book, and perhaps those that expressed a positive opinion are merely going along with a requirement - at least some of them - while some discomfort expressed is due to a subconscious realisation of quite how much the uncomfortable one is aware that they and their society are not that different in following a pied piper or a bunch of them.

Few religions or faiths encourage or even allow independent thought, and those that do are usually at receiving end of much disapprobation by members of other faiths due to lack of a fixed authority, a central institution, the very tolerance that allows thought and independent realisation by anyone and everyone within the religion so victimised in name of monotheism.

For any faith that professes monotheism usually also insists that its own version, name, description of the said monotheo is the only real one, and another one professing equal but different monotheism therefore is suitable for a war waged understandably by both. But another faith or religion or culture that allows respect for any and every possible name or form or appearance or descent of the Divine makes such conversionist religions and their followers extremely uncomfortable, and this results in propaganda against the tolerant faith and culture - a propaganda consisting of lies, vicious lies and muck with much ignorance about higher realms, and a deep seated vicious unwillingness to learn or know or open oneself.

Such attacks in name of monotheism are usually no different from the mass hysteria described in this book against any dissenter.

Other Powers: by Barbara Goldsmith.

A promising must read about Victoria Woodhull - a suffragist candidate for presidency before women could vote, first woman stock broker in New York with her sister, advocate of women's rights, spiritualist - and other details of the era, such as debates post civil war and reforms about vote for black males vs white women (didn't occur to anyone such pitting of disfranchised against one another was unnecessary and served the masters, although it must have occurred to the said masters and hence the debate), scandalous trial involving Henry Ward Beecher the minister (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe) who was sued for having sex with another man's wife, and so on - biography and history of the era.

The Bounty: by Caroline Alexander.

About the Bounty, this time exonerating Captain Bligh - although the court martial did go against him in England.

Captain Bligh had been given the difficult job of bringing breadfruit plants back from Tahiti to West Indies for planting them there so workers could be fed at a fraction of the price (why they did not think of bananas is difficult to understand, perhaps exotic was the key - anyway breadfruit and related plants were easily obtainable from Asia, India specifically, in all likelihood) but he was not satisfied with this difficult job. He wanted to make a record sail around the world, which in those days meant going around Cape Horn at least once. Bounty tried it on the way out, found it far too difficult - storms in Drake's Passage are notorious and going around is more difficult if anything - so then, after a month of battling it out with winds and storms at the Cape Horn, they turned around and went via Cape of Good Hope instead, sailing across Indian Ocean.

All this had tired out the men, and relaxing in Tahiti was something they were not willing to exchange too soon for sailing again, what with low quality of food and discipline required to return through two of the three oceans no matter which way they sailed (Bligh perhaps did still dream of a world record?) so even without making a villain out of Bligh likely it was not fault of the men to have no part of returning. They did stand to face hanging for mutiny those days, if caught, so a decision had to be made as to how to avoid being hanged for being free.

This was done with setting those that wished to return on a small boat adrift and setting the Bounty afire to avoid being caught, and later sailing with men and women from Tahiti to another island. Which became a legend and still is.

Pitcairn is one place more difficult to go to and usually applications for visit take a year or two to bring fruit, if they are not denied outright. Often stamp collectors send an envelope with money and return address just to have an envelope with Pitcairn stamps and cancellation.

Charlie Wilson's War: by George Crile.

A wealthy socialite from Texas with little except her ideas about faith on her mind and not pleased with happenings in the world, decides to take matters in her hands, uses a friends who is a congressman and usable, and informs him it is up to him to defeat the communists who are not to her taste due to her faith of southern variety - the agenda being to use the ungovernable Afghans and defeat Soviets by dealing a crushing blow, without a shot fired at US. Very convenient, it costs only money and some arranging so the supply of arms and money to the Afghan and other fighters does not easily prove to be of US or CIA origin.

Charlie Wilson, the congressman, went to work - his socialite friend did have a clout - and the supply of money and arms to the men fighting Soviets in Afghanistan from Pakistan grew to several billions and anti aircraft missiles.

Pakistan, incidentally, informed Wilson that the money had to go through Pakistan, no other option would be allowed, and no inconvenient questions were to be asked (such as how much of the arms and money was being used for a covert war against a democratic and successfully secular India for an agenda of a takeover and conversion of the whole continent to Islam, the philosophy that gave birth to Pakistan in the first place) and Wilson - and presumably other parts of US government in on this - was forced to comply. Some might have been not quite forced, at that, since a secular nation sticks in the throat of any evangelical agenda, and a democracy is harder to control than a totalitarian regime throttling a nation with a military despot at its head willing to lie, cheat and massacre at will. For profit, of course.

So the war was escalated with public opinion in US home market being as blatantly manufactured as it was for Poland with every day front page accounts of the poor Afghans, while Tibet had been allowed to be massacred quietly on the other side of a tiny border since defeating Soviets and not necessarily communism or every big bad wolf of a totalitarian oppresive regime was the agenda. Let China swallow Asia, who cares, so long as the Russians are losers to US - and if China is a threat tomorrow (unthinkable, they are tiny Asians with no blonds or blue eyed pinks, they couldn't be a threat - besides they are not friendly and have nuclear weapons, and demand being kowtowed to by everyone) that shall be the problem of whoever heads US tomorrow.

So the moment was won, Soviets lost and rolled back out of Afghanistan just as British had done nearly a century ago, and later came the break up of the Soviet empire with unification of Germany and freeing of nations behind iron curtain. That this might lead to a rise of neo nazis with a stronger Germany no longer apologetic about its past choices and unfriendly to English speaking or other varieties of foreigners of wrong colours was not a problem for those that celebrated Soviet losses, since the US occupational army in Germany had been sensitive to the German feelings and instructed any people of the wrong colour not to show themselves that often outside the US bases anyway.

Meanwhile the crucial moment was missed and the flow of money to Afghan cause to the tune of several billions of US dollars for arms - serious arms - for fighting dried up overnight, with not even a few thousands to go for schools or hospitals in the land ruined totally by the war for over a decade. When the tide countering the dreaded Soviet influence of communist thought, an Islamic fundamentalist jihadi regime out to kill all joys and all civilisation including music, and imprisoning women in their own homes with no medical facilities (only women doctors were allowed to see women patients, but women including doctors and teachers were not allowed to practice any profession, or even leave home without a male relative to accompany the said woman or women) and starvation for widows (no way of earning and no permission to shop) routine - all this was not the problem of those in faraway US that had brought it into being by rolling back the Afghan regime that had seeked help from the Russian neighbours inviting Soviet occupationary forces to control the rising tide of fundamentalist Islam.

Soviets had been seen as competitors and threat to free trade, Islam was yet to be seen as a threat of any kind, even when India suffered terrorist incursions and hijacking of a plane. The plane was taken by hijackers who had used Nepal for convenience to hijack a plane to Afghanistan via Pakistan, and when India finally did comply with the demand of release of a handful of terrorists to free nearly two hundred of its citizens - one newlywed man was murdered with his new bride sitting beside him, his throat had been cut to make a point - US authorities were on the tarmac while Indian ministers were not allowed. India was blamed later for releasing the terrorists when it was discovered one of them was behind terror attacks in New York and Washington. That US could have helped India and did not was conveniently pretended forgotten.

The so called war on terror where Pakistan is still being given billions of US dollars under various labels (and demands further sophisticated weapons, obviously so as to be able to attack India, while refusing any accountability for money or arms or actions) even as the terrorist training camps in Pakistan have become so widely known via satellite technology to so many nations that it is impossible to pretend to ignore or be ignorant of them, even as Pakistan goes on demanding money from the world with one pretext or another (the terrorists are helping the victims of natural calamities so they really are good guys, they are helping to free other muslims from having to live with non muslims so they are devoted men of faith) with no shame whatsoever as a nation unable to provide any basic needs for the people conquered by military force and labeled "free" - the said freedom is only that of belonging to one faith and being willing to do anything to obliterate those of any other thinking or faith - all this is happening far away from US, and if the wolf is feeding on the neighbour's stock or babies it is ok for now. Don't disturb the wolf, it might come get your own.

What makes anyone so certain that the wolf's intentions are to please the goody faraway master that is allowing it to feed on the neighbour's stock and babies, and that the wolf has not eyed your own, with definite plans to come get them?

Is the socialite from Texas happy about all of this murders and massacres and general terrorism caused around the world due to her faith needing a defeat of Soviet communists (but not other huge communists nearby, or other totalitarian regimes, strangely enough), one can only wonder. Or does a confession get a reprieve good enough for all this massacre caused by throwing dollars and arms?

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: (2004) America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror; by Mahmood Mamdani

A look a the how and why of jihadi reign including cold war, Afghanistan and role of US - CIA in attempting to win one over Soviet regime by supplying money and arms to Pakistan with no accounting and no questions asked.

Some of us have lived though the times and some have lost more than sleep over the events, some have lost near and dear due to the "let them run amok as long as it is elsewhere". Still, a good book to inform those that only saw a one-up over Soviets as a good thing at any cost - to someone else - that sometimes when you feed a neighbour's stock or baby to the wolf it won't be a sated and grateful wolf you find at the door, it might just be one that takes yours next, being used to the idea and the taste and not familiar with an idea of it being wrong.

Perhaps the look ought to have gone further back and taken in the very core of any totalitarian philosophy that insists on conversion at any cost, usually preferred cost being the lives of others to be converted or eliminated. This is generally done in name of philosophy by any other name but the end game is usually the same, control of the world's assets, land, money, oil, minerals, women (free slave workers to serve and reproduce), lebensraum.

King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War: by Catrine Clay

" “Have I gone mad?” Nicholas asked his wife, Alexandra, in July 1914, showing her another telegram from Wilhelm. “What on earth does Willy mean pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not?” Germany had, in fact, declared war on Russia six hours earlier. "

With historical material like this the book is bound to be very informative and more.

Queen Victoria had taken care to keep a family together with holidays in summers and every possible occasions, affections between cousins suitably encouraged and marriages made or arranged or combination of both. Europe was at one point a criss cross of royalty all related, and so peace ought to have been a cinch, one would think.

But then there were personal jealousies and insecurities, especially with questions of who had precedence at ceremonial dinners and weddings and such important affairs. Kaiser Wilhelm famously is supposed to have been peeved with a lower rank at one such occasion of a family get together at dinner in England.

He on the other hand did try forbearance of others what with his having caused grief to the other two -

"the family tension caused by Otto von Bismarck’s annexation of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark (Georgie’s and Nicky’s mothers were Danish princesses)"

and the consequent tension in England within family, what with half of them relating more to their German relatives (there were scores of other princely states apart from Prussia where Vicky had married, Vicky who was daughter of Queen Victoria and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm) and the king and his parents (when Victoria's son was still alive and of course the king, or even when Victoria was still alive and therefore the Queen Regina) naturally more concerned about Denmark.

This book is published after papers - royal letters and diaries - released in UK by Queen Elizabeth, and promises to be interesting and informative in understanding the history further.

One wonders if there will be more light shed on the failure of George in saving Nicholas and Alexandra, both his first cousins, former through his mother's sister and latter through his father's sister, from the terrible fate that could be seen coming. He withdrew the offer of refuge in Britain due to political considerations, is what is known so far, due to advice from the ministers.

One wishes monarchs would have more courage when it came to saving lives of humans - blood relatives especially but even otherwise - especially when innocence is unquestionable. One would think that was a prerequisite of creed of nobility of character.

So why did he not do it? One might know after reading this.

Gone With The Wind, slavery, civilisation of the vanished confederacy, .......

A few years ago I remember being perplexed by an intellectual man who accused Gone With The Wind of not being in favour of black people, and I remember saying not everything had to be about denouncing slavery and the writer, the book was fine as long as slavery was not defended or enjoyed or presented with a justification. Gone With The Wind presented the story of women affected in a civil war, I said, and that was good enough. As a matter of fact it does far more than that, but in the heat of that moment saying more was rather difficult.

A little later another person, a visitor from France this time, brought up a similar question about a great national leader, and again I said, it is not necessary that everyone has to fight every cause. For example a man need not march for feminist causes in streets, he is still a decent man as long as he is not abusing his wife and children in any way, and his mind and heart are in the right place (wanting to abuse and lacking courage does not count, but thinking right does even if one says nothing).

Now the question has come up again on an internet site, with someone saying (in a review about Gone With The Wind):-

"The only thing I don't like is the way she portrayed the black characters--I mean did she really think the black people LIKED being slaves? That the "good" blacks like Mammy stayed with their white folks while the "bad" blacks went for freedom after the Civil War? I just hope she was writing they way people thought back then and not about her own views on this subject."

And I seriously asked why I never felt Margaret Mitchell or her characters could be accused of being horrendous slavers or pro-slavery, etcetera. With good reason, I came to the conclusion after a little thought. For one thing I had been going through excerpts or descriptions of various books about Mitchell and her work on the internet. And this brought to light a few things about the writer that were new to me but not surprising, since from GWTW one could easily gleam that much.

Just read she worked against the prejudices of her time, which was dangerous in sixties so all the more courageous in her time.

The epithets or adjectives belong to the characters, and there certainly was a hierarchy even within slaves - result being those closer to the family disdained others. There is an explicit description about the plantation mistress - usually owner's wife - being responsible for training the young into suitable professions for future on the plantation, according to their abilities.

As for slavery, several excellent characters including the much praised gentleman Ashley Wilkes not only do not agree with the system they were brought up in but Ashley goes further and declares he intended to free his slaves when he took over. Scarlett has no sympathy with the cause although she does not articulate or analyse this, and works when and where necessary for her folks along with the then freed slaves. In fact it is Mammy and Peter who refuse to work in fields while Scarlett, Melanie, Careen (the latter two with intentions better than strength) work alongside Dilcey, the proud worker who does not forget the favours Scarlett and her father did in bringing their family together and spending more money than necessary.

The book is not about, for, or ranting against the system of slavery - it is about a civilisation swept away with a war. It neither condones slavery nor explicitly goes into speeches against it.

Perhaps the best denouncing of it is hidden in the truly gentleman and ladies characters either starving to death or depending on a Scarlett for survival, which includes the Wilkes-Hamilton clan too, all but uncle Henry; Robillard aunts whom she sends money (and they give discreetly to Rhett's mother since his father won't allow the one not starving son to help); and of course there were the unending stream of soldiers that traipsed through the country walking back home, being fed at Tara amongst other places with what little food there was.

Point being, that the high moral ladies and gentlemen often starved after losing slaves (and land to taxes which was not fair or just) is a denounciation of the slavery if one understands it.

She could hardly have gone into very explicit denounciation in speeches more than this, she was not only born and brought up but living in south, and was attempting to introduce the history she knew more intimately to her Yankee husband by writing this book.

Zero, The biography Of A Dangerous Idea: by Charles Seife.

One presumes that the official description about this book, given on the site Shelfari,

"A concise and appealing look at the strangest number in the universe and its continuing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now, as Y2K fever rages, it threatens a technological apocalypse. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything. In Zero science journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers--from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists--who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time, the quest for a theory of everything. Readers of Fermat's Enigma , The Man Who Loved Only Numbers , Seeing and Believing , and Longitude will find the revealingly illustrated Zero freshly informative, easy to understand, and--infinitely--fascinating."

is related to contents of the book and not merely the blunder of someone else in description of the book.

Such assumptions are not far-fetched, since another book by an Italian writer spends an inordinate amount of paper and words to insinuate that only Europe - not even ancient Greece at that, no one before relatively modern science of Europe - could ever have really understood the golden ratio or the golden rectangle, much less built based on it.

Such thinking is obviously worth a good flush and yet it survives much as the assumptions about superiority of pale sun-starved colourings of hair do. Just to deal with one here, generally it is known that mathematics was revolutionised due to two important discoveries that reached Europe from India via Arabs, one of them was algebra (Hisab Al Jabr, literally mathematics of equations) and the other the concept of zero and numerical system based on using zero.

This description above however would have an average reader believe that "Babylon invented it, Hindus worship it" which fits neatly with the agenda to milk money from average middle class church goer to convert the poor heathen that seems to worship everything into the normal butchering and one day a week in a designated structure only authorised worshipping sort of person, before the said convert is integrated into the world as a lower race rather than one that seems to think they have a lot to be proud of.

That zero is both a trememdous idea and a useful symbol, a deep philosophical concept and perception of reality on an ultimate level and at the same time a means of making mathematics and numbers stupendously easier than the cumbersome Roman variation, is perhaps beyond whoever wrote that description above, whether the writer of the book or otherwise.

The war is not about whether it was "invented" by Babylon or India, since no one is paying any royalty in either case - although it is worth questioning why Europe did not have it when Roman numerals were used if Babylon did have it all the while, and if it was not the faraway India that was a reclusive world in itself that was the real origin of the concept.

No, the real question, the one worth asking, is about the subliminal message in the blurb, the underlying assumptions, the hierarchy of races and cultures assumed in face of evidence to the contrary.

For instance I am certain that the author is unaware of the complex astronomical calculations that go into producing a normal calendar in everyday use of a Hindu household, year in and year out, much less of the variety of slight differences in the said calendars from region to region - a good number are produced by independent sources all with the said astronomical calculations towards everyday astronomical facts for the year to come, and sold commercially, purchased and used regularly at homes - and all this in addition to the "normal" calendar with fixed weeks and months used for all official purposes simultaneously all over India, the one that western mind understands and thinks is the only one.

The said Hindu calendar, any and all of them, takes into account the real month (related to the moon, which is where the very word "month" originates, as does "man") and the real date thereof (which is the angle between three bodies in the solar system), and the fact that a day is different from a date - they need not begin or end simultaneously, but may, depending on the astronomical facts for the moment - is well understood in the country. (If anyone reading this has a headache, take two pills before attempting to figure that out.)

Other facts have been coming to light, since over half a century at the very least - for instance the fact that calculus was in India at least a century before Liebniz, Newton et al. Numbers of extremely high degree - according to a (non Indian) researcher, not conceptualised elsewhere before but dealth with in India - have been known and discovered in manuscripts to the tune of ten to the power ten to the power close to fifty. Rational numbers and fractions were dealt with to the tune of well over ten digits.

There have been manuscripts discovered - many locked under glass and never read yet in venerable institutions of learning in US, UK, etc - that tell a tale of a nation where flourishing schools of higher learning were disrupted by various onslaughts of marauding, murdering foreign armies and navies. In case of calculus it was the time of Portugese onslaught and the school dwindled away into nothing, survival being difficult when murdering soldiers are after you.

And yet Seife - or the person writing the description above in case that is not from the book - would have west believe that it is a lesser race that seems to worship zero, nothing, everything, anything, in need of conversion that waits on your dollars. And the gullible are thus separated from their hard earned pennies and pounds.

Incidentally, Seife does mean zero in German, I seem to remember, which amounts to a twofold pointer - one, the writer is displeased about his name being zero (i.e., possible to interpret as nothing, not even nobody but literally nothing) although his first name indicates that he is now living in an English speaking country, hence in an environment of questionable safety from ridicule (someone might know what seife means!) and hence he uses his German roots to both pull down a great nation, a great tradition and history, while making his own name seem to be an object of worship by those he aspires to look down on. The whole attempt merely reminds one of the nazi past of his roots attempting to relive.