21 Comments

Armand... great column here. So much I was not aware of. Cant wait to dive into the links, especially Balls and Strikes! Thank you. ✌️

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Susan Niemann: You and I share humor, and the looney right is full, just full of unintended humor.

I am still laughing over DJT and his "good question" over the electric-battery-boat sinking under its own weigh ten yards from the shark and whether one would elect to swim free -- attracting the shark -- or risk electrocution by going down with the ship, like the good captain.

By the way, DJT later repeated the story, almost verbatim, with a few elaborations, including elucidating what his contact is with MIT, which makes him so brilliant.

Imagine, laughing at fascists.

But one has to laugh, right! OMG, we are in nutty times.

Susan Niemann: Thank you always for sharing. Love your columns.

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Oh yes...we are indeed in nutty times. Common sense has flown out the window... DJT has brought out the primitive nature of people, I think. 🤦‍♀️

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Jun 25Liked by Armand Beede

Hi Susan . Donny boy didn't bring out the primitive in people , He swung open the door for people that had serious hate in their hearts . Racists , violent mobs , And of course communists . Do I think fed society has back idiots before yes . Yet right now anyone against trump or on the middle of who to vote for . You might night like Joe ,Yet important part is voting for donny mushroom , will be last time we vote ,Democracy will be gone .

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Primitive nature: Exactly!

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Wow Armand! Thanks for sharing these important pieces, however disgusting they may be💔

"Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz of ProPublica reported that the night before the decision came down, 70 or so partygoers, including two dozen state and federal judges, met to drink champagne and eat fine food at the Maine home of the man who had hatched and then executed a plan to stack the courts with extremist judges: Leonard Leo.

It was Leo who had helped pick or confirm all six of the justices who would, the next day, announce to the world they were overturning Roe."

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Lorraine Evanoff: Thanks, in turn, in that you share so much that enlightens us and inspires me.

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Better together my friend!

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Jun 25Liked by Armand Beede

Thank you for your insight . Yes they are snobs , racists , and nut cases , .Peace to you

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Jun 29Liked by Armand Beede

Thank you, never understood nor will ever why the people with everything beyond enough are so cruel.

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Mona Tambe: That has puzzled me, too. If you look at the businesses of Elon Musk, they have had poor compliance for worker safety, as is quite well documented:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/

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Jun 30Liked by Armand Beede

The simplest reason I can think of is they are extremely insecure, and not sure or know that they undeservedly inherited all and may be they might loose it through their own incompetence and mishandling. Pathetically sad that all that money doesn't bring happiness and peace of mind and they've to think and work to destroy others.

Again insecurity and at the same time arrogance to put others down, probably wants cf shoving their beliefs, 10C, Bibles in schools, etc and into others' lives.

Do not wish to offend anyone.

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Mona Tambe: Inheriting all! You know that Trump's Dad paid Donald Trump starting at two years old about $200,000.00 per year, apparently claiming a deduction on Dad's income taxes.

Easy life!

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“Leo the Fop” with a fob. (UGH).

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Laura Pizzicara: Touché! You said it well! Thank you so much.

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I guarantee you rich people don't live in Maine in the winter, Cubby. 😜

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Derp: Nelson Rockefeller was born in Bar Harbor.

I am sure the Rockefellers wintered warm.

As for me, I served on active duty as a judge advocate in the Air Force in . . . North Dakota! North Dakota is not just cold. It is A-R-C-T-I-C! When the temperature rose to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, I went outside in a tee-shirt. Why? Because, with temperatures at 30 below zero, it took 50 degrees of heat to warm the earth to 20 degrees Fahrenheit! You felt the warmth in store to raise the temperature by 50 degrees!

In the wisdom of the Air Force, I was sent to continuing education from North Dakota to Montgomery Alabama -- IN THE SUMMER!

That is the way the services work. I know! My whole life has been between the Departments of Air Force and the Navy!

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Zany like the Nazis in Germany.

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Elizabeth: Thank you for reminding me.

My beautiful, deeply intellectual Mom -- Francophone Belgian (from Charleroi)) -- inspires my every breath still today, may the gods rest her good soul, she and my family (I was born just short of three years after WWII) were occupied by the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich.

My Mom reared me on family stories of the horrors of the Third Reich.

I am bilingual with German. I am thinking of sharing of the work of Irmgard Keun, great, great writer who was young during the Third Reich, and who fled the Reich in 1936, to Oostende (in Flemish Belgium). Irmgard Keun wrote about life under the Third Reich at that time, and she has very lively prose to illustrate the lives of average families under the Reich.

So, Elizabeth, I am thinking of covering exactly aspects certain of the Third Reich.

For example, a Family member of ours endured "enhanced interrogation" (verschärfte Vernehmung) under the Gestapo, which made me particularly sensitive and, frankly outraged, when "enhanced interrogation" was approved for "the war on terror" under the Administration of George W. Bush under the perverse counsel of John Yoo (Professor of Law, Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley).

For a sample, see:

https://harpers.org/2007/06/defending-enhanced-interrogation-techniques/

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My son is an actor and was part of the play “Here There Are Blueberries” about the employees of the death camp Auschwitz. Someone donated an album of photos to the Holocaust memorial archives. The play was based on research into people who made the Holocaust happen. Profoundly important play to help us remember the Nazis were also normal people convinced to participate in mass murder. The play was nominated for a Pulitzer (did not win). We are currently treading dangerous waters.

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Elizabeth: You and I can DIALOGUE:

That with your dear son -- remember, a son ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS love his Mom! -- moves me.

Hannah Arendt, who, naturally had to flee the Third Reich, wrote exactly on the theme you mention at the end . . . the "normalcy" leading to Totalitarianism.

I would highly recommend "Copenhagen" -- there is a very good version available on Amazon Prime.

BACKGROUND: In the 1920s, the Physics Institute (now the Niels Bohr Institute) in Copenhagen was such a modern Athens of the scholarly world of physics as to gather in international conference such lights as Madame Curie, Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, and, of course, Niels Bohr.

At that time, Niels Bohr mentored the young Werner Heisenberg, who found the "Unschärfeprinzip" -- the Principle of Uncertainty, a very critical teaching of Quantum Physics.

Unfortunately, Heisenberg, a very good man, who did NOT take part in war crimes, and was against the Nazis, did NOT leave Germany during the Reich.

Circa 1941, Heisenberg wanted to see his mentor.

Heisenberg traveled (under the severe travel restrictions of the Third Reich!!) to Copenhagen to the home of Niels Bohr and his well-loved wife, Margrethe Nørlund.

The play, "Copenhagen," plays out the dialogue that broke the hearts of the three and broke forever a decades old friendship.

The play is quite vivid and plays out a lot of moral issues faced by physicists during the age just before "Manhattan" developed the true weapon of mass murder, the atomic bomb.

(I love, love modern physics. I hate the atomic weapons.)

Thank you so much for thoughtful dialogue!

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