Two Polaks Meet 13 Year Old Girls

So these two Polaks meet 13 year old girls.

One is Roman Polanski.

One is Karol Wojtyla.

The links from The Anchoress's new location seem a little rickety but the contrast will show through, worth a quick look and thought.

Here is an excerpt on the Wojtyla matter with it's link:

'During the summer of 1942, two women in Krakow, Poland, were denounced as Jews, taken to the city's prison, held there for a few months and then sent to the Belzec death camp, where in October they were killed in primitive Nazi gas chambers by carbon monoxide from diesel engines.

Their names were Frimeta Gelband and Salomea Zierer; they were sisters. As it happens, Frimeta was my wife's grandmother. Salomea - known as Salla - had two daughters, one of whom survived the war and one of whom did not.

The elder of these daughters was Edith Zierer. In January 1945, at age 13, she emerged from a Nazi labor camp in Czestochowa, Poland, a waif on the verge of death. Separated from her family, unaware that her mother had been killed by the Germans, she could scarcely walk.

But walk she did, to a train station, where she climbed onto a coal wagon. The train moved slowly, the wind cut through her. When the cold became too much to bear, she got down at a village called Jedrzejow. In a corner of the station, she sat. Nobody looked at her, a girl in the striped and numbered uniform of a prisoner, late in a terrible war. Unable to move, Edith waited.

Death was approaching, but a young man approached first, "very good looking," as she recalled, and vigorous. He wore a long robe and appeared to be a priest. "Why are you here?" he asked. "What are you doing?" Edith said she was trying to get to Krakow to find her parents.

The man disappeared. He came back with a cup of tea. Edith drank. He said he could help her get to Krakow. Again the mysterious benefactor went away, returning with bread and cheese. They talked about the advancing Soviet Army. Edith said she believed that her parents and younger sister, Judith, were alive.

"Try to stand," the man said. Edith tried and failed. He carried her to another village, where he put her in the cattle car of a train bound for Krakow. Another family was there. The man got in beside Edith, covered her with his cloak and made a small fire.

His name, he told Edith, was Karol Wojtyla. Although she took him for a priest, he was still a seminarian who would not be ordained until the next year. Thirty-three more years would pass before he became Pope John Paul II and embarked on a papacy that would help break the Communist hold on Central Europe and so transform the world.

What moved this young seminarian to save the life of a lost Jewish girl cannot be known. But it is clear that his was an act of humanity made as the two great mass movements of the 20th century, the twin totalitarianisms of Fascism and Communism, bore down on his nation, Poland.

Here were two people in a ravaged land, a 24-year-old Catholic and a 13-year-old Jew. The future pope had already lost his mother, father and brother. Edith, although she did not know it yet, had already lost her mother at Belzec, her father at Maidanek and her little sister at Auschwitz. They could not have been more alone.

Pope John Paul II is widely viewed as having been a man of unshakable convictions that some found old-fashioned or rigid. But perhaps he offered his truth with the same simplicity and directness he showed in proffering tea and bread and shelter from cold to an abandoned Jewish girl in 1945, when nobody was watching.

It was based in the belief that, as he once put it, "a degradation, indeed a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human being" was at the root of the mass movements of the 20th century, Communism and Fascism.

Stalin once contemptuously asked, "How many divisions has the pope?" Starting with his 1979 visit to Poland, John Paul gave an answer.

Perhaps the strength that enabled him to play a central role in ending Communism and the strength that led him to save Edith Zierer did not differ fundamentally. Like his healing ecumenism, those acts required the courage born of a core certitude.

Edith fled from Karol Wojtyla when they arrived at Krakow in 1945. The family on the train, also Jews, had warned her that he might take her off to "the cloisters." She recalls him calling out, "Edyta, Edyta!" - the Polish form of her name - as she hid behind large containers of milk.

But hiding was not forgetting. She wrote his name in a diary, her savior, and in 1978, when she read in a copy of Paris-Match that he had become pope, she broke into tears. By then Edith Zierer was in Haifa, Israel, where she now lives.

Letters to him went unanswered. But at last, in 1997, she received a letter from the Vatican in which the pope recalled their meeting. A year later they met again at the Vatican. Edith thanked the pope for saving her. He put one hand on her head, another hand in hers, and blessed her. As she parted, he said, "Come back, my child."'

Train Ride

This looks like fun who wants to go?

Possibly too late but worth checking.

Update: The train ride was great fun. Went earlier than the blues run, though. Prepare for excessive train photos and possible video.

Train Proximity

I have spent quite a bit of time close to where the trains run. With this home and this train schedule I would be more than happy. You can find yourself far away and missing the impending, disrupting mass. You more than grow used to it...

Jennifer May for The New York Times

MORNING LOCAL A freight train passes a few feet

from Kathleen Hulser’s 1839 summer house in Connecticut.

The Press and the Anger

This comment by Instapundit sums it up well: "They've done more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they've done on Barack Obama in two years . . . ."

I found myself mentioning today that if I were a "journalist" who took the train into Manhattan for work everyday I might find myself really uncomfortable with the notion of people knowing my occupation. Not just reluctant to get into personal talk on the train, but fearful of everyone knowing "who I am."

They are indeed too stupid and arrogant to know what they have wrought, to the detriment of us all, frankly it scares me.

Seth Thomas, Richard Russo, CT, and the Great Utopian Zucchini

Well here is a circle of several posts.

I recently mentioned the Great Utopian Zucchini's selfless efforts to raise money for the restoration of the clock ("After nearly a century of chiming the hours, our old Seth Thomas clock tower...has fallen silent.".) down in New Harmony, Indiana.

I noticed that the clock (sharp, eh?) was a Seth Thomas...(In 1813 a man named Seth Thomas came to the hollow to manufacture clocks. By 1856 Thomas was labeling his clocks with "Thomas Town." He helped route the Naugatuck railroad through Plymouth Hollow, linking us with the brass center at Waterbury.)

There is also a clock in Thomaston, Maine:



I now remember that I had previously conjectured on the matter of Richard Russo's choice of Thomaston for a locale in "Bridge of Sighs."

I was ignorant until I recently went to Maine that Thomaston is nearby Mr. Russo's abode Down East.

I must have been wrong in that Thomaston conjecture.

I have some train photos from Thomaston, CT back there, and they round out the mistake nicely. (I do enjoy that Old Naugie and the RMNE working train museum):






Some Grand Trunk and their railroad here (this last with Grand Funk music reference.)

Pandora Plug Pull?

Damnit! Leave my music alone...I have made purchases off of Itunes that I wouldn't have known to look for without some manner of radio-like device. The lawyers are flaying the goose. Like this here. The end is a little less than compelling but I think the essence of the tale is "Let people listen to music before they buy it. At least a little. Or you are a beast damn you. Also don't be mean to ugly people right off the bat just because and then make up rules to follow suit. And don't reach out to every train for whatever reason, you could be stuck for quite a while. Also try not to make sense of this post, for it will vex you!"

Train Photo

Train Video

Very stupid way to spend a couple of minutes, both filming it and watching.

Not Surprised

Instapundit links to a confession of sorts:

"But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist."

It seemed obvious to me. Notice that the individual expresses embarrassment, which is indeed suitable, but not fear. They'll drive the bus over that cliff and then blame ignorant backwards Americans when they do...

God I wish I had some manner of Editor detecting spectacles to wear on the train...Mr. Malone is, however, wrong to suggest that the current landscape is all that new...

Ford Fusion

goes 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas.



That's very cool.

That hypermiling along with the Ford reminded me of Charles Lindbergh, who was associated with Ford but went on to hypermile the P-38 in the Pacific and train others in his methods:

Lindberg was able to return from combat missions with his tanks half full when others returned empty. He was able to teach how to add 500 miles to the P-38's range. It had been considered to be 400 miles, Lindbergh's techniques let the Lightning appear hundreds of miles from where the Japanese expected to find them. He flew missions to Balikpapan, Mindanao, even led a 4 plane raid on Palau, considered out of range of land based fighters, a base defended by 200 enemy fighters.

(Some more WWII Lindbergh here. And here, via this chat.)

From The American Experience, Lindbergh, Ford, Nazis and Hypermiling:

With his hero status already greatly tarnished by his philosophical and political beliefs, Lindbergh delivered a speech in Des Moines that fully knocked him off his pedestal. Announcing that it was time to "name names," Lindbergh decided to identify what he saw as the pressure groups pushing the U.S. into war against Germany. "The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration." Of the Jews, he went on to say, "Instead of agitating for war, Jews in this country should be opposing it in every way, for they will be the first to feel its consequences. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government." The speech was met with outrage from numerous quarters. Lindbergh was denounced as an anti-Semite. His mother-in-law and sister-in-law publicly opposed his views. Civic and corporate organizations cut all ties and affiliations with him. His name was even removed from the water tower in his hometown of Little Falls, Minnesota.

All debate surrounding U.S. war policy came to an end on December 8, 1941, the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States was now at war on two fronts: in Europe and in the Pacific. Despite having resigned his military commission in 1939, Lindbergh was eager to fight for his country. FDR wouldn't hear of it. "You can't have an officer leading men who thinks we're licked before we start...,"said the President. Rejected by Roosevelt, Lindbergh worked as a private consultant to Henry Ford (a man who'd drawn fire for his own anti-Semitic views. Ford was manufacturing B-24 bombers in a Michigan plant. In 1943, Lindbergh convinced United Aircraft to send him to the Pacific as an observer. His work there involved a good deal more than observation though. Lindbergh flew more than 50 combat missions, including one in which he brought down an enemy fighter. The 42-year-old Lindbergh often bested men half his age in feats demanding intense physical ability. Drawing on his extraordinary piloting skills, Lindbergh instructed others on how to conserve fuel and extend their flying range by up to 500 miles.

The train is back up to snuff

and at Gillette Castle. I had a nice trip up there.

The Connecticut River Valley Monorail will continue running, even after global warming floods!!

I read that somewhere.


Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

Fishing Skunk

Will explain unless I am asked not to...

Update:

Honeycomb from a catalytic converter...

I do like that train photo, may employ it further...

The Train Waits

Getting Back

to the series of tubes...

What a crooked piece of crap Stevens is, I loath on an equal opportunity basis and will not cease until the deficit is a surplus amongst many other factors.

New York sat on the fence for the Declaration...

That being said Happy Fourth of July and God Bless the United States of America!!!

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies

Presented by the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts

John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

For additional information about the Declaration of Independence, see these sites:

• National Archives and Records Administration: Declaration of Independence
• Library of Congress: About the Declaration of Independence

James Wolcott

I'm guessing that silly ninny never traversed the Darien gap...

I mean the real one. I'll grant it's entirely likely he's disembarked the train in Darien.

Wolcott seems to feel that Scipio has been overcome with the vapors while ample men of responsibility and clarity such as himself will have to hold down the fort.

Ugh.

(Scipio has a notably arcane and erudite link mixed in with that post! God Bless him!)

Whoops

That is a bad slip. The language is about what you'd expect for such a situation. (via Haha.nu)



Narrow Train Escape - video powered by Metacafe

Lions Lions Lions

Barbary lions. Cape lions. The skulls of royal lions excavated from the Tower of London's moat, cryptomundo has a post.

I did not know that there was an American Lion.

Reconstruction of the American Lion

Mr. Coleman also has this story story of a Chinese Bigfoot (called a "Yeren") stealing a beer through the window of a moving train.

Yeren art used on

“wanted poster” in China.

It seems the Bigfoot community is not free of the criminal element. This man blames his penchant for pederasty on the experience of having been molested by a Sasquatch.

There is a news video about that...(that Crypto page seems to be stuttering somewhat...)

Valley Train

Extra fortified with Gator goodness!!

Hartford Tea Party

Connecticut has a beautiful capital building. There were fears late in it's construction that the dome was near collapse. I have looked a bit for a link but I have read that the cracks during construction had the architect on the train racing north from New York on a Sunday...Tak that for what it's worth without me searching on the link...

That building has collapsed if you have any sentiment towards liberty or self determination.

And, yet, hope. Breath slowly on this ember...

Please...

A Tea Party, and perhaps real "hope-an-change"

Spencer Ackerman

What a tool.

Just google his name and read, if you want to laugh, get nauseous, get sad, and laugh again.

He really enjoys that whole threatening violence thing, and I understand, believe me, however it would incite liberals to question a person's masculine properties.

Somehow I must have thought that young people would have seen through the media liberalism, that the pendulum may have changed it's direction.

Painfully it is clear that having the youth is having the future, and the liberal MTV globalism brainwashing worked as desired.

An obnoxious self righteous little turd is Spencer Ackerman, and no doubt so many others on that fetid Journolist. I still wish I had media detecting specs for the train commute leading up to that election.

I can't read Wired without thinking of this smug twat now.

Is his twitter name really "Attackerman"?, that is so pathetic.

He's a Rutgers grad...The Black Knights, isn't that a racist throwback construct? Who came up with that mascot and name, Fox News or white people?

Spencer show me how to be cool, please please please...You brilliant JournOlists showed us the way with a black-but don't call him Arab-president who is post racial and wouldn't have signed up for the gig if he weren't black-don't call him Arab-because his resume would have been laughed out of town if he were white...but throw people who question his competence through windows and call them racists even if they only ever questioned ability while you extolled race.

Eat shit and die, Spencer--Oh! forgive me, that's violent and mean sounding, and I know you wouldn't go there, forgive me, I'm white, I must be innately cruel and I'm a white male, so I must have a predilection towards violent notions which cover my masculinity issues.

What a typical self-conscious white liberal little big mouth.

Frank J gets pretty close with the pipsqueak little dog notion.

Anyway, that's our fourth estate for you. As well as our youth.

Liberal: It means hating the folks who struggled to give you all that you have, and struggling to give it all away from the comfort of what you were given. Add snotty and arrogant, toss in a dash of self loathing dramatic brat, don't forget a pinch of start fights you can't win and shake vigorously.

By the looks of Spencer that is our future, God help us.

Our republic is not going to make it unless we wrestle the fourth estate from the "progressives."