Emissaries

Nuuk, Greenland. Reuters photo by Sarah Meyssonnier:

Great news. Headline from nypost.com: “Army recruiting shatters records after President Trump election win.” Maybe white males are returning.

From NYP: “Playing classical music to babies inside the womb can stimulate their development, study suggests.” I’ve heard this before, not sure I buy it. Didn’t Sylvester Stallone advocate this way back when?

Headline from newsmax.com: “WSJ: ‘Entire’ CIA Offered Buyout.” Sad that it has come to this, but the agency needs people who put national security over politics.

Hallelujah! From NM: “NFL Ditches ‘End Racism’ Message for Super Bowl.”

From NM: “Trump Tells Staff to Obliterate Iran If He’s Assassinated.” I recall a rumor that President Reagan had also put something similar in place.

Among today’s celebrations, it’s National Fart Day. That’s every day for me.

I never tire of reading about WWII. Recently, Emissaries, a memoir by Alexander Rotenberg, published in 1987, his only book, came my way. Born in Antwerp, the youngest of nine children, he was in his late teens when the monsters arrived. At the urging of his beloved mother, he fled Belgium. She and a daughter stayed behind. He never saw them again. Although everyone is familiar with the evil perpetrated by the Germans, the strafing and bombing of fleeing citizens was new to me and made me angry. Rotenberg settled in Nice, France for a while, becoming a courier for the underground. The narrative delivers another reminder of how despicably many French citizens behaved, collaborating with the Nazis — and few were made to answer for it. As the Nazis closed in, Rotenberg again took flight. After a perilous nighttime trek across the Alps, he eventually settled in neutral Switzerland, aided by citizens working in defiance of the government’s hands off posture. Life was no picnic there, as refugees had to earn their keep, sometimes through hard labor, and accommodations were minimal. While often riveting in the first half, the narrative is less interesting in the second, although there are a few compelling stretches regarding orphans who witnessed abominations, and their rehabilitation. The final chapters cover the efforts of the author, who built his own insurance company in America, to return and thank and honor those who helped him and hundreds of others escape slaughter. I got misty reading certain passages. Whenever experiencing such works, the question always occurs to me: What would I have done? Although I highly doubt I would have participated in persecution, I suspect I would have looked the other way. Works like these also remind Americans how lucky we’ve been. The title refers to something Rotenberg’s mom said, referring to the choice to become one who does good or one who does evil. The writing is solid. I will be the first to rate Emissaries at Amazon. I will post four, but my actual rating is 3.5. Kudos, Sir.

Saw the doctor this morning. BP normal. Still no meds. Yay team!

Border between Canada and the U.S. in Champlain, New York. Reuters photo by Brian Snyder. Seems it would be very easy to sneak across:

The sun was shining and the wind had scaled back dramatically, so the Anti-Inflation Book Shop was a pleasant endeavor. My thanks to the gentleman who rolled up in an SUV and donated a large plastic bag full of Russian fare, and to Handy Sam, who dropped off a bunch of CDs, DVDs and knickknacks; and to the woman who bought Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay; and to the young man who purchased Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success by Jordan Belfort; and to the one who took home The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925–1975, and two books in Russian, one a Bible; and to the woman who chose two hardcovers in Russian and looked at me as if I were crazy charging her only a couple of bucks. Overstocked, I left a few items in a large plastic container in the garden at my nook.

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