Dear David F.,

That particular poem by Al Zolynas is one
of my favourites. It deeply resonated with me.
It touched a chord. I'm pleased that his work has also
aroused your interest.

Do I go mushrooming? Unfortunately no. I don't know
enough about which mushrooms are safe and which are not.
However, friends of my mother used to go - and they'd bring
back some great samples. Recently we were given a couple
of packets of dried forest mushrooms from Lithuania that
I shall be using in preparing the recipes for our Christmas
Eve banquet. They're "Dziovinti Baravykai," or Dried
Boletus Mushrooms. Which I'm sure will add to the flavour of
the dish I will be preparing.

.

Dear Runner,

.

With reference to Mao, Stalin, Hitler (and Pol Pot), you wrote:

« They believe they have the right to slice up unborn babies, treat people who are different as inhumane and make up their own morality »

After the war, Hitler's former lawyer, Hans Frank, claimed that Hitler told him in 1930 that one of his relatives was trying to blackmail him by threatening to reveal his alleged Jewish ancestry. Hitler asked Frank to find out the facts. Frank said he determined that at the time Maria Schicklgruber (his paternal grand-mother) gave birth to Alois (his father) she was working as a household cook in the town of Graz, her employers were a Jewish family named Frankenberger, and that her child might have been conceived out of wedlock with the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger.

Hans Frank was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg Trials and was executed. No evidence has ever been found to confirm his version of Hitler’s paternal grand-father but the rumour persists. Exactly who was Hitler’s paternal grand-father remains a mystery.

If, at some future time, evidence should come to light corroborating Hans Franck’s version, I know it would be against your principles , Runner, and I certainly do not want to shock you, but I, personally, should sincerely regret that Maria Schcklegruber did not have an abortion.

You also wrote :

« To attribute someone like Hitler who was a strong believer in evolution as a Christian is dishonest at best »

Hitler’s conception of race was not Darwinian nor was Darwinism the source of his anti-Semitism. The motivation and origin of his views were political, not scientific.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler is perfectly explicit about the sources of his anti-Jewish attitudes. He identifies two political figures who turned him from an individual hardly aware of Jews into a passionate anti-Semite: Karl Lueger (1844-1910), the mayor of Vienna (1897-1910) and newspaper baron; and Georg Schönerer (1842-1921), member of the Austrian parliament and ...

.

(Continued …)

.

.

(Continued …)

.

leader of the Pan German Party, which sought to unite the German speaking lands in a political confederation.

By Hitler’s own admission, these two political figures, not Darwin, were pivotal in forming his anti-Semitic attitudes. He was not, as you suggest, a “strong believer in evolution”.

To quote Robert J. Richards, Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago :

« Writing in the Zeitschrift after it became a Party organ in 1937, Günther Hecht, an official of the Party’s Department of Race Politics and member of the Zoological Institute in Berlin, explicitly rejected the idea that the materialistic theories of Darwin had anything to do with the “völkisch-biological position of National Socialism.” It is quite clear that Darwinian evolutionary theory held no special place within the community of biologists supportive of National Socialism. Rather, biologists and philosophers most closely identified with the goals of the Nazi party and officials in that party utterly rejected Darwinian theory » :

http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Was%20Hitler%20a%20Darwinian.pdf

Hitler was raised in a Roman Catholic family. He was born in 1889 and was baptised Catholic in the same year. He was confirmed on 22 May 1904. He even wrote in “Mein Kampf” that as a small boy he had once “ardently wished to become a priest”.

In a speech delivered at Koblenz, August 26, 1934 Hitler states:

« National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity. The Church’s interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles »

However, it is reported that he became hostile to Catholicism towards the end of his life

.

Hi Foxy,

Here is "proof" that the gods are at work. "T" attributes the recent chain of earthquakes in New Zealand to the actions of the government and their environmental vandalism, a total lack of respect for the forests etc, lack of respect is seen as a big no no. According to "T" Ranginui, put Ruamoko the god of earthquakes to work, warning of an impending major calamity, with a serious of relatively minor shocks, including the Pike Rive coal mine disaster. and the destruction of the Christchurch Cathedral in 2011, a building "T" first entered for the one and only time in 2010, I have to admit, then she didn't like being inside the place, and spent most of her time outside taking photos, incidentally the cathedral had survived numerous previous earthquakes relatively unscathed, but not in 2011.
The recent shock resignation of John Key, the NZ Prime Minister, and the leading political exponent of environmental vandalism is also seen as evidence that the gods are active. I suppose we can put whatever spin we like on events without real evidence. Another unsettling phenomenon was the "snow" a few years back across the Nagapuhi tribal land of Northland (a warm region not known for snow), I saw the pics, and it looked like a post card from Norway. According to the experts it was not snow, but a kind of frost which in a very humid atmosphere had condensed into what looked like snow, was thick in places about 100mm, sure looked like snow. This even caused much excitement and consternation, along with plenty of chatter on 'Facebook',mobile phones etc, for a time, until the snow melted. The upshot is, a short while later a shale oil company tried to move into Maori lands of "T"'s second sub tribe, through marriage, causing much division within the local community, with allegations of bribery etc. It was thought this nonsense had been put to rest through overwhelming community action, but unfortunately seems not, the mining company is back, to try a second time, with government support. is all this related, maybe.

Dear Paul,

Thank You for another interesting post.