BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

FOUND IN AN OLD COMPUTER: FROM 2002

I do not read anything of AWAD but the daily word itself. I did not know that there was a book. We are in Great Neck since June staying at a friend's apartment who has a place in the Hamptons. We have brought Florida weather with us. Sorry.

My studies of Leopold II temporarily put aside, I am now reading Ben Hecht's autobiography which brings back many of the names of my youth, unknown by anyone of your generation except, of course, you, names like Sherwood Anderson, Charles MacAurthur, Fanny Brice, Gene Fowler, Billy Rose, Mike Ben Ami (Israeli gun runner,) William Frawley, David Bellasco (now you know who the theater is named for--he was a producer) Red Grange, Hugo Haase*--I didn't know the name either--anyway a hoard of names was buried deep in my mind, and mining them has been fun, not the back breaking work that usually accompanies my literary "studies" when I must struggle to learn new names. Recovering the old ones is easier, and the slagheap shrinks.

Of course, there are many others mentioned in Hecht’s book who are still known names, but what interests me is the number of names who were important in Hecht's day who have been forgotten by Everyone, and who were not even known in the fifties. At least not known by me in the fifties. Fame is, indeed, fleeting.

Maria knew one of the names: Bill Frawley.

Well, here's a factoid for you: Sherwood Anderson died on shipboard after swallowing a toothpick in an hors d'oeuvre sausage. So much for toothpicks & sausage, eh?



Much of my reading this spring and summer has emphasized the inhumanity of man, and we are reminded that it is nothing new. You can read about it in the Bible, some of the inhumanity ordered by God Himself. Gross told me a little about the un-Godlike punishments delineated in the Bible but I didn’t pay attention until I began to read about the other genocides we’ve lived through.

Strange, eh? Well, Leopold and his minions were no pikers when it came to elemental bestial horror, and with these biographies under my belt "Heart of Darkness” gets a new reading, the horror now being the Belgians and Europeans rather than the Africans. It’s not as though the Africans learned much from us, they had some of their own home-grown horrors, but it is true that bestial behavior on earth isn’t limited to the beasts, nor is it limited to Saddam, Stalin and Hitler.

Gross has moved from his study of religion to a new study of science based on his reading of science written for the “educated layman.” Well, we may not be properly educated, but we are laymen. He mentioned his astonishment at the miracle of our presence on earth, considering all the mischance that could have occurred going back millions of years even before there was a man who could be inhumane to his fellow creatures.

Eons of evolution brought us to the human state and at any minute during all those eons the path leading to humanity could have been obliterated; then more eons when anyone of our ancestors could have been killed or could have died of illness before having the offspring that would lead to us.

For this alone, we should give more honor to our grandparents and those before them. Look at me—in effect the penultimate of the Katz line—it doesn’t look as though Aaron will have any more children and most likely Max will remain childless. So, there’s no more Katz’.

But all the ones before us struggled, starved, froze, planted, hunted, star gazed, humbled themselves (or didn’t), just so that you and I could be here worrying about our weight or a tax increase. How many times did we hide in the woods, hearing our neighbors being raped and killed? Look, we’re just dots in the universe and lucky dots at that.

So why are we so bad to each other? Jerry, the fellow in whose apartment we are staying, had a daughter who died of cancer in her thirties. Right now he is having an air conditioning problem. I remarked that Maria and I felt bad for him, and he answered, with more than a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye, that after losing a daughter he was able to focus on the real, the good and the important. According to Jerry, air conditioning filters don’t fit into any of those categories.

Genocide: A case may be made that the first genocide was God's killing of the first born Egyptians. Since then genocide has been a popular method of taking control of land or getting rid of neighbors.

The twentieth century has seen plenty of genocidal terrors--starting early in the century with the Turkish eradication of the Armenians. Americans stood by and allowed it to happen, denying all the time that it was happening, in spite of Ambassador Morgenthau's warnings, protests, and pleadings with our Congress. We wanted to maintain a delicate relationship with the Otttoman Empire and so we said nothing. We've always found diplomatic or policy rationalizations for ignoring humanity in need. Need I remind you of Cambodia, Bosnia or Rwanda?




A Problem from Hell -- America and the Age of Genocide -- Samantha Power -- Race Murders in the twentieth century --Armenia Cambodia, Holocaust, Bosnia, the Kurds, Kosovo, Rwanda. But remember genocide goes back much further than the 20th century.

Leopold II of the Belgians, King of Colonialism -- Barbara Emerson.
Leopold owned the Congo personally and his evil is painted herein by a silken brush.

King Leopold's Ghost: Adam Hochschild. Genocide and plunder in the Congo. Money making for the very rich and unconcerned.


*Hugo Haase was a German hero-politician of the twenties and thirties who chose to stand up to the Weimar Government when it massacred two thousand Germans in Moabit prison and later chose to stand up to the Nazis and was assassinated for it on the steps of the German Parliament.


Well, its late. I’m going to call my granddaughter Remi, and give her a hug over the phone.

Buster Stronghart