Ronald Reagan’s Gift to the LGBT Community

October 2, 2012

Editors
Newsweek

Editors:

Lists such as your 10 best presidents since 1900 are always a fun way to get people talking.

Personally, though, I don’t believe Ronald Reagan has a place on any “best presidents” list.

For one, there were sources within the Communist world, such as the Solidarity movement, which went a long way to destabilizing Red Europe, and it’s a shame the American media never gives them the credit.

Also, Communism only ended in one part of the world.  The other dominoes remained unmoved; there was no global rush to embrace capitalism or any other American ideology.

Ultimately, though, history will judge Reagan for his lack of response during the AIDS outbreak. A president has a responsibility toward every citizen, but when it appeared only the gays were affected, Reagan let them perish. The gift of Reagan’s hatred helped foster one of the greatest pandamics our civilization has ever seen.

For that, he failed us all as a president, and, to me, will always be an unconscionable man.

Best,
Stephen Sonneveld

Letter to the U.N. to Put an End to Human Rights Violations Against LGBT Americans

July 14, 2012

Ambassador Susan E. Rice
United States Mission to the United Nations
799 United Nations Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10017

Ambassador Rice:

I am a journalist who recently interviewed a gay entertainer for the Windy City Times.  He had mentioned having undergone six years of “reparative therapy” (also known as “conversion therapy”) and the detrimental effect being made to turn straight had on his psyche during those formative years, and beyond.

These practices were something I’d heard about through pop culture, and always in a comedic fashion, but upon looking into it and talking with my interview subject, I no longer find it a laughing matter.  As a matter of fact, I am appalled such camps and practices exist in a civilized society.

I won’t insult your intelligence by trotting out this psychiatric report or that.  You know as well as I do, as well as any reasonable does, that one is born heterosexual or homosexual.  We are as we are made.

I call upon you, Ambassador, I call upon the U.N., to lodge a human rights violation against any organization that does such so-called therapy/ministry, and insist that the practice be banned in this country and around the globe. This is a human rights violation of the highest order.  To deny and defile a person’s basic right to be is the equivalent of being made to scrub the color off one’s flesh, and the true image of oneself from the mind.

I’m tired of headlines such as the recent murder of a teen lesbian couple in Texas.  Practices such as conversion therapy that preach homosexuality is something to be feared contribute to every slur spat and every bullet fired.

Remember the words Abraham Lincoln said: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”

As I would not want to be forced to change who I am, the very core of my being, I cannot abide it happening to my brothers and sisters.

They are Human.  They have Rights. They are being Violated.  You have the power to stop it.

Thank you,

Stephen Sonneveld

CREATING “Z”

Times Square was the monument of the 20th Century, but by the end of the 21st, it will be recognized as a monument to folly.

One of man’s few intellectual improvements from the natural world was the concept of exchanging capital for capital, as opposed to the mercenary system of the food chain, where one thing absorbs another unequally.

Capital was developed because items were ascribed value based on the needs of the tribe.  For some, shiny rocks and beads were prized, for others, the person with the most livestock was considered wealthy.  The flaw in this system, which plagues markets to this day, is that money is only an idea; it is an agreed upon value of things that fluctuates based on emotion and speculation.

That concept of fair exchange should have promoted some issue of social equality, in that an individual with no material wealth has capital in his labor.  All commerce requires labor to produce capital.

True to the system’s flaw, however, man placed more value on the object than in the hands which forged it.  Social predators reverted back to the food chain mentality and created slavery and various other feudal practices so as to wholly absorb the capital without having to share it with labor.  Instead of a fair exchange of X for Y, man created profit from another’s work, not his own.

Lawful slavery was abolished, but the mindset among those who control the capital remains the same.  Though labor is the driving force of commerce, laborers receive a disproportionate amount of capital (X) in exchange for their work (Y), because they don’t share in the profits (Z) that were the direct result of their efforts.

At the start of the 21st Century, mankind has made no new intellectual progress regarding economics. Systems of commerce remain a snake eating its own tail.

The consumer culture that began at the end of the 20th Century is best epitomized by the patchwork temple to promotion that is Times Square.   Like London’s Tower, New York’s intersection has received lasting notoriety for dubious purposes. Unlike an ancient monument to Athena, or a Statue of Liberty celebrating a great ideal, or a flag on the moon that, for a brief moment, united the world in celebration of the human spirit, Times Square is modern man’s cathedral to the god of commerce; congested and garish enough to make one believe that companies would advertise in people’s sleep if such a thing were possible.

It is in this world where those who control the capital have no imagination but to insist that the snake eat more, faster.  The end result will be demise.  As a for instance: it has been alleged that it is getting to the point where the people who work at Wal-Mart will no longer be able to afford to shop there.

All commerce requires labor to produce capital.  And all labor requires capital to perpetuate commerce.  By underpaying, or, quite literally, not sharing the wealth, in a system that requires constant spending, the snake has nothing left to eat but its own head.

For such a system to work, the snake, that antediluvian symbol of rebirth, needs time to heal, to regrow. The inequality of two entities exchanging X for Y, but only one profiting from Z, needs to be amended so that both profit from it, equally.  Again, finding our truth in the natural world, every stage of a cycle needs to run in equal measure.  A long winter will ruin the spring bloom; a drought in summer will kill the harvest.  An individual who expends maximum labor only to receive an unlivable wage will be unable to support commerce.

It was morally wrong to exploit workers, and blinding folly to exploit them in the marketplace. Consumers are not a segment of society.  Consumers do not exist. There is no such thing as a strictly consumer class which only puts money in the streets without having to take any home.  Workers exist, and it is they who consume.

We are all workers.

Family was the cornerstone of civilization; art, the cornerstone of culture; and agriculture the cornerstone of organized society.  Commerce is little more than a tool to help in that organizing.

The human mind evolved once, and accepted that X for Y is the most fair exchange of capital.  Since the invention of profit, however,  X for Y created Z, and we, the race, must answer the evolutionary call and realize that X for Y creates Z, which must be shared equally to promote a society in balance.

THE AVERAGE AMERICAN WILL BE EXPOSED TO NAZI CONTENT 844 TIMES IN 365 DAYS

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate how many times a year the average American is exposed to Nazi content in the media.

Methodology

For an incident to be “counted”, the reporter cannot deviate from his normal routine, or to purposefully seek out a media, such as a Hitler documentary on television or a WWII-themed book or film, to drive up the numbers. The incidents must be random.

The exposure must be the result of some form of media, from a book on a shelf to an email advertisement.

The counting begins on a random day and will end a quarter of a year later, wherein the results will be published.

To avoid items intentionally being brought to one’s attention, the reporter must not let others know he is counting such references until the quarter is over.

Dates listed for DVDs are the date on the home video packaging, and may not reflect the actual year the contents were either made or originally released.  The director, the writer and production company are noted when available.

Books of all stripes are listed by author, publisher, and exact publication dates when available.

Multiple references within the same work are counted as a single reference if the reporter is exposed to these references during the same sitting.

Multiple listings for the same work indicate the media is seen or read at different sittings.

The counting only applies to each new incident, not multiple exposure to the same incident.  For example, a reporter visiting a favorite store would only log the first time he was exposed to a particular Nazi DVD on the shelf there, not every time he entered the store and saw the same DVD on the same shelf. The purpose of this report is to tally how many times the average American is exposed to Nazi material, not how many times one is repeatedly subjected to that material.

“Uncounted” Incidents

A separate tally will be kept for when the individual purposefully seeks entertainments where Nazi subject matter would be expected, such as the 2011 Captain America film, which advertised it was set during the second World War.

The Log

Monday, September 19, 2011 4 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While flipping through the new nonfiction DVD titles, saw the following two titles:

DVD – Out of Europe, Richard Lerner, Richard Lerner Productions, 2010. A cover blurb for the documentary proclaims, “ESCAPING THE HOLOCAUST: One Lucky Family’s Survival Route from Belgium to America”.

DVD – Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suss, Felix Moeller, Zeitgeist Films, 2009. A cover blurb for the documentary proclaims, “The untold story of the notorious Nazi filmmaker”.

BOOK – Mon-El: Man of Valor, James Robinson, DC Comics/Time Warner, 2010.   THB collection of single issue comic books from 2009-2010.  In one issue, there is a single panel of Mon-El battling a swastika-wearing villain.

BOOK – Mon-El: Man of Valor, James Robinson, DC Comics/Time Warner, 2010.   THB collection of single issue comic books from 2009-2010.  In a following issue, there is a single panel of Mon-El battling a different swastika-wearing villain.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 1 incident

BOOK – Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man: Volume 2, various, Marvel Comics, 2006. TPB collection of single issue comic books from 1979-1981.  In an issue written by Bill Mantlo, the retelling of the villain Swarm’s origin reveal him to be a Nazi scientist who fled to South America.

Friday, September 23, 2011 1 incident Week 1 – 6 incidents Total 6 (0)

BOOK – Avengers: Standoff, Geoff Johns, Marvel Comics/Disney, 2010.  THB collection of single issue comic books from 2003.  Thor tries to stop the nation of Slokovia from killing its innocent civilians.  Captain America tries to intervene, and Thor tells him he witnessed the camps of WWII.

Later in the same issue, Cap tells Thor dropping a nuke on Berlin would not have stopped hate or saved the Jews.

Sunday, September 25, 2011 1 incident

DVD – Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, Julia Sweeney, Indefatigable Productions, 2009.  Taped performance of the actor/writer’s stage monologue.  During the “Judges” segment, contemplating death without an afterlife, Julia asks, “Hitler just dies?”

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 3 incidents

YOU TUBE – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIEYCiBZOLU – “Dave Allen at Large (opening 1984)”.  A sketch from the late Irish comic’s show features men at a pond, disappointed their RC boats are sinking. It’s revealed a toy sub is sinking them.  An admiral of nondescript uniform lifts the sub out of the water, tucks it under his arm, and gives the Nazi salute.

YOU TUBE – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbgqtvJOJus&NR=1 – “1/4 The Best Of Dave Allen…The Comedy Sketches”.  A sketch from the late Irish comic’s show features Nazi soldiers inspecting the wagon of a British POW, looking for escapees.  The joke is that the escapees are dressed as the horse pulling the wagon, and safely leave.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While walking through the kids section, saw this title displayed atop the bookcase:

BOOK – Auschwitz, Pascal Croci, Harry N. Abrams, 2003.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 3 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While flipping through the new fiction DVD titles, saw the following title:

DVD – The Reader, Stephen Daldry, written by David Hare, The Weinstein Company, 2008.  Kate Winslet’s Academy Award performance highlights this thriller, based on the book by Bernhard Schlink, set in “turbulent post-Nazi Germany”.

DVD – The Super Hero Squad Show: Season 2, Volume 1, various, Marvel/Disney, 2010.  In the episode “World War Witch!” written by Nicole Dubuc, the Scarlet Witch is transported to 1942 in what appears to a Normandy-like beach.  She sees goosestepping German soldiers who are using what the vaudevillians called talking “Dutch”, where the actors are just saying gibberish, but the audience knows the ethnicity the actor is trying to convey.  The Witch says, “I don’t understand, but that says ‘bad guy’ in any language.”  She joins up with the Invaders to battle the Red Skull and the German soldiers, while the Squaddies from her time battle the Germans while trying to rescue her.  In lieu of swastikas, the German soldiers have a red skull/”S” emblem on their brown uniforms.

DVD – The Super Hero Squad Show: Season 2, Volume 1, various, Marvel/Disney, 2010.  In the episode “Villainy Redux Syndrome!” teleplay by Mark Hoffmeier and Eugene Son, Captain America is watching the “history network” and sees the same goosestepping German soldiers on the Normandy-like beach from the previous episode, to set up the joke that he doesn’t remember history happening that way.

Thursday, September 29, 2011 3 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While flipping through the new fiction DVD titles, saw the following title:

DVD – Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, A Band Apart, 2009.  The Swastika features prominently in the logo design.

While walking past the nonfiction DVD titles during the same visit, saw the following title:

DVD – I’m Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust, Lauren Lazin, MTV Networks, 2005.

WATCHING TV – While watching Revolution about the American struggle for independence on History’s newly christened H2 channel, a “this day in history” crawl came on.  In 1939, “Nazis and communists divvy up Poland”

Friday, September 30, 2011 4 incidents Week 2 – 14 incidents Total 20 (0)

WATCHING TV – Flipping through the channels, landed on Comedy Central’s Workaholics.  Blake Anderson asks Adam DeVine if he put poop on his top lip and called himself “Adolph Shitler”.

DVD – Monarchy with David Starkey, Granada, 2006.  The eminent scholar begins the series defining what a “monarchy” is, in which a montage of various past and present leaders plays, including Adolph Hitler.

WATCHING TV – Flipping through the channels, landed on public television’s History Detectives, where a man was watching film of Adolph Hitler, remarking how he (the man) was part of history.  I am unsure of the context of this segment, but will assume he found the film and was hitherto unaware of its content.  The segment ended, and even more Nazi footage played as a lead in to a segment about Wagner’s music being played in Israel.

BOOK – The Amazing Spider-Man: Animal Magnetism, various, Marvel Comics/Disney, 2011.  TPB collection of single issue comic books from 1985-2010.  In an issue from 2010 written by Stuart Moore, the mustachioed mayor, and long-time series character, J. Jonah Jameson is giving a speech about a volunteer initiative.  Spidey quips, “Please let it be public funds for Hitler lookalikes…”

Sunday, October 2, 2011 2 incidents

SURFING THE NET – In the writer’s room of newsbiscuit.com (http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/forum.php?id=3), saw a posting for a potential article titled “The Fuhrer Declaims” by “yuri_nahl” which looks to be some sort of ad parody.

SURFING THE NET – In the entertainment section of newsmutiny.com (http://www.newsmutiny.com/pages/Entertainment/EntertainmentHQ.html), saw a picture of Hitler next to the headline, “History Channel Begins Incorporating Product Placements Into History”.  No writer credited.

Monday, October 3, 2011 2 incidents -  (1 uncounted)

BOOK – Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man: Volume 3, various, Marvel Comics, 2007. TPB collection of single issue comic books from 1981-1983.  In an issue written by Roger Stern from 1981, Detective Snider informs Spider-Man that the villain the Smuggler “fled Europe years ago to escape smuggling charges — and wound up working for a Nazi war criminal.”

OUT & ABOUT – Graham Crackers Comics, Wheaton, IL.  While browsing, saw Art Spiegelman’s Maus displayed on a shelf.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While flipping through the nonfiction history section of DVD titles, numerous Holocaust titles directly followed two DVDs: the first was about Lord Nelson’s fatal sea victory at The Battle of Trafalgar, and the second was WWI in Color narrated by Kenneth Branagh.  Branagh’s starring role in BBC and HBO’s dramatized account of the Wannsee Conference, Conspiracy (Frank Pierson – director, Loring Mandel – writer), was also among the Holocaust titles. Uncounted incident because specifically looking in history section.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 4 incidents

DVD – The Battle of Trafalgar, Graham Holloway, Cromwell Films, 1993.  For reasons that are not entirely clear, an opening montage plays of actual war footage from the first and second World Wars, including Nazi soldiers.

DVD – The King’s Speech, Tom Hooper, written by David Seidler, The Weinstein Company, 2011. Oscar’s best film of the year features a scene where the royal family is watching a newsreel of George’s coronation, immediately followed by footage of Nazi marches and Adolph Hitler making a speech.

PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL – Comic Store Newsletter from the Chicagoland Graham Crackers Comics, no date, but promotions range from October through November 2011.  The books pictured for the October 3-10 graphic novel sale, are Bone, 30 Days of Night, Coraline, Wolverine, Superman, Sonic Universe, Watchmen and Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

SURFING THE NET – On the front page of msn.com, a caption under country crooner Hank Williams, Jr., states “Singer sorry for Hitler remark”.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 2 incidents – (1 uncounted)

OUT & ABOUT – Graham Crackers Comics, Wheaton, IL.  While browsing, saw the Tattered Man (Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Image Comics, 2011), which features images of concentration camps on the cover.

OUT & ABOUT – Graham Crackers Comics, Wheaton, IL.  While browsing, flipped through the Death-Defying ‘Devil (Joe Casey, Dynamite Entertainment, 2008-2009), and saw a nicely rendered Adolph Hitler.  Uncounted because aware the premise is entirely about WWII-era heroes resurrected to fight today.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While flipping through the nonfiction current events section of DVD titles, the intriguing cover for Lake of Fire features a blurb from David Poland of the Hot Blog, which begins, “As Shoah is to the Jewish Holocaust…”

Thursday, October 6, 2011 6 incidents

SURFING THE NET – My colleague on this sports site lists the Third Reich among other fallen empires. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/875156-wwe-turning-john-cena-may-save-the-soul-of-wrestling

COMIC BOOK – Marvel Apes #1, Marvel, November 2008.   This humor title, the premise being there is a mirror world where every hero has a simian counterpart, contains a back up-story penned by Tom Peyer, and features the ape versions of: Captain America punching Adolph Hitler (top panel, an homage to Captain America #1), the Submariner drowning a Nazi soldier, the Human Torch setting a Nazi soldier on fire, and Captain America clocking two Nazis with his shield (bottom panel).

COMIC BOOK – Marvel Apes #2, Karl Kesel, Marvel, November 2008.  In the feature story, two captions revealing Marty’s thoughts about Roy state, “Damn. He really is a nice guy.” “Just like so many brownshirts, I guess.”

COMIC BOOK – Marvel Apes #4, Marvel, December 2008.  Flipping through the last issue, the last page features the variant cover used for this issue.  Illustrated by Art Adams and Dean White, the image features the ape versions of Submariner, the Human Torch, Captain America and Bucky running into gunfire.  Underfoot is the world, where a swastika burns into a continent, with the phrase “Fortress Europa” horseshoed under it.

OUT & ABOUT – Wal-Mart, Glen Ellyn, IL.  While browsing in the DVD section, saw the following titles:

Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, written by Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander, MGM, 2008) features a cover image of Tom Cruise leading an impressive cast of British actors, all but Terrance Stamp of whom are wearing Nazi uniforms. Cruise plays the heroic Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, but also had to don Nazi garb to do so.  In the $5 aisle.

Inglourious Basterds was in the $13 aisle.

Friday, October 7, 2011 2 incidents

COMIC BOOK – Captain America: Who Won’t Wield the Shield?, Marvel/Disney, June 2010.  Two pages in to this satirical follow up to the death of Captain America story, the Red Skull offers to buy a super soldier, and has a swastika and a pin-up style picture of Hitler on his checkbook.  This opening story was written by Jason Aaron.  In the story, “The Golden Age Deadpool” written by Stuart Moore, Deadpool is experimented on by Fifth Columnist spies, and is referred to as “Veapon X” the remainder of the story, though instead of looking like an “X”, it is a swastika.

WATCHING TV – On the Movieplex Channel: a few minutes into the 1987 Patrick Dempsey comedy In The Mood (Phil Alden Robinson, story with Bob Kosberg and David Steven Simon, Lorimar Motion Pictures), there was footage of Hitler walking through a crowd.  During a newspaper montage foreshadowing all the trials the lead character is in for, Hitler’s picture is once again seen, and Dempsey’s voice over even tells us that society was “comparing me to Hitler!”

Saturday, October 8, 2011 3 incidents Week 3 – 21 incidents Total 41 (2)

EMAIL – From Amazon Studios, a division of Amazon.com that is trying to use the social networking model into a film production studio.  This email lists a contest to design a poster for one of eleven “high-profile Action/Adventure projects” that were uploaded by users, and chosen by the studio producers for further consideration.  The following three (from those eleven) titles were listed one right after the next:

• Return Fire: Modern-day Special Forces travel back in time to WWII to stop a Nazi plot.
• Sky Pirates: Stunt pilot battles Nazis for an unstoppable ancient power.
• The Alchemist Agenda: A treasure hunter and a Mossad agent hunt for Nazi gold.

COMIC BOOK – Marvel Apes #3, Karl Kesel, Marvel, December 2008.  The backstory of the ape version of Captain America is told, featuring scenes of him and Bucky storming a Nazi headquarters… only to be attacked by “Nazi vampire Baron Blood!”

WATCHING TV – On the TV Guide Network’s 100 Moments That Changed That Changed TV, a talking head commenting on the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II remarks that, prior to this broadcast, when most Americans thought of Europe, they only thought of “bombings, war, Nazis.”

Sunday, October 9, 2011 1 incident

WATCHING TV – Turned on the TV Guide Network to see what shows were on, to once again be told by the talking head that when most Americans thought of Europe prior to Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, they only thought of “bombings, war, Nazis.”

Monday, October 10, 2011 6 incidents

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels between The Soup on E! and Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on History:

Joel McHale opened The Soup wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses, in reference to Hank Williams, Jr., who was pictured, singing, “Are you ready for some Hitler?”

Two members of the Decoded team were interviewing someone who had worked at Fort Knox, who told them the safe housed important documents, including the Magna Carta for the UK when they were being attacked by Nazis.

The History Channel ran a commercial touting their four Emmy awards, and showed footage from various series including one specifically about the Reich, and another one about WWII battles, which featured German soldiers.

SURFING THE NET – While searching The Soup on Google to verify the spelling of Joel McHale’s name, the autotype feature began a list which displayed “The Soup Nazi”.

SURFING THE NET – While researching wrestling promoter Paul Heyman, the sole item in the personal information section at the bottom of his Wikipedia listing mentions that he is “the son of Sulamita Heyman, a holocaust survivor.”

WATCHING TV – Turned on the TV Guide Network to see what shows were on, where 100 Hollywood Crimes, Misdemeanors & Dirty Deeds was profiling Charlie Sheen, and flashed the headline that he called producers of his sitcom “AA Nazis”.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 2 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.

While flipping through the new nonfiction DVDs, saw a color photo of Hitler and his generals on the cover of Nova’s Nazi Secrets Revealed (public television).

Walked past the DVD section and saw a black and white picture of Hitler on the cover of World at War: Volume 5 (HBO Home Video, Pearson TV International, Thames TV).

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 3 incidents

SURFING THE NET – While researching Gandhi, about two thirds of the “Nonviolence” section on his Wikipedia listing concerns Hitler and the Holocaust.

SURFING THE NET – While researching wrestler Zack Ryder, the third page of Google listings shows thekingofhate.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=6364&page=4, which contains “[Image: Hitler_insults.gif]“.

DVD – How to Steal a Million, 20th Century Fox, 2004.  Among the DVD extras is the complete A&E Television Biography of Audrey Hepburn, which includes film of Hitler, marching Nazis, as well as footage of the war and starving civilians in Holland, of which Hepburn was one.

Thursday, October 13, 2011 3 incidents

BOOK – Avengers: Red Zone, Geoff Johns, Marvel Comics/Disney, 2010.  THB collection of single issue comic books from 2003.  The climax to issue 68 is the reveal that the Red Skull was secretly the Secretary of Defense, says he loves America, and is costumed in the suit and tie the SOD was wearing. The following issue, when asked if he is trying to establish “the Fourth Reich”, Skull responds by saying “that dream is over.”  Yet, he is now costumed in his gray SS uniform, calls himself “Nazi Germany’s perfect soldier”, brags that Hitler taught him “you must instill fear to capture control” and calls Captain America a “Jew-lover.”  In issue 70, the Skull, still wearing his SS uniform, is defeated by the teamwork of the Black Panther and Falcon.  A caption from a reporter (summarizing the action and denouncement), references the Skull as “the Nazi fascist”.

NEWSPAPER – Chicago Sun-Times, Sun-Times Media, 2011.  The headline for Richard Roper’s column states, “Hitler analogy gains Hank Williams, Jr. most fame in years”.

WATCHING TV – Tru TV Presents World’s Dumbest Daredevils 10, Tru TV, 2011.  The talking heads commented on the silliness of a topless tobogganing event in Germany, but to close the segment, Chelsea Peretti sarcastically remarked about German cultural contributions, while graphics behind her showed a Nazi soldier and a sign that read “Juden boo”.

Friday, October 14, 2011 4 incidents

BOOK – Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists, Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.  The last paragraph on page 11 discusses the Nazi plunder of European artworks “for Hitler and Goring to swap and drool over.”  Lynn H. Nicholas wrote an award-winning book about the subject, which became a 2006 documentary.  The paragraph continues on to the following page, suggesting Burt Lancaster’s The Train (1964) for a war movie about the event.

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to see what Spike TV was showing at the top of the hour, to be greeted by various pictures of swastikas, and tattoos of SS officers belonging to the Aryan Circle of Texas which was being featured on the program Gangland.

OUT & ABOUT – Bargain Books, Wheaton, IL.

Browsing in the reference section, the back cover for the Encyclopedia of World History was visible, and featured a color photo of Hitler in a row of pictures.

In the comics section, flipped through one of the single issues of Superman, Wonder Woman: Whom Gods Destroy by Chris Claremont (DC Comics/Time-Warner, 1997), the last page of which saw a dejected man sitting on a bedside with a swastika flag behind him.

Saturday, October 15, 2011   9 incidents – (1) Week 4 – 28 incidents (1) Total 69 (3)

DVD – Framed, Andy De Emmony, BBC, 2009.  Footage from an air raid over Britain during “the blitz” was shown, along with footage of the National Gallery emptying it’s works to transport them to Wales for safety.  Uncounted because knew that historic fact would be used as a device to drive the modern fiction.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.

Browsing through the “G” DVD section: Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg, Kjell Grede, First Run Features, 1990. The cover features a reflective Stellan Skarsgard, an SS officer, and the headline: “Schindler Saved Hundreds / Raoul Wallenberg Saved Thousands”

Browsing through the “H” DVD section: Holocaust, television miniseries, Titus Productions, Inc. and CBS, 2008. James Woods, Meryl Streep wearing a Star of David, and Michael Moriarty sporting an SS hat, loom over the landscape of a concentration camp.

Browsing through the “new” DVD section: Army of Crime, Robert Guediguian, written with Serge Le Péron and Gilles Taurand, StudioCanal, 2011.  The image of a gun aimed point blank at an SS officer’s head dominates the cover for this film about French resistance fighters.

Browsing through the “D” DVD section: Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, written by Bernd Eichinger from the book by Melissa Müller, Traudl Junge and Joachim Fest, Sony Pictures, 2005.  Bruno Ganz as Hitler at the cover’s bottom center.

Browsing through the “B” DVD section: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Mark Herman, from the book by John Boyne, Miramax Films, 2008.  Two boys sit on either side of a concentration camp fence.

Browsing through the “C” DVD section: The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, written by Stefan Ruzowitzky from the book by Adolf Burger, Aichholzer Film and Magnolia Filmproduktion, 2007.  The intriguing cover features the sleeve of a soldier’s uniform bearing the Nazi eagle and swastika.

BOOK – Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists, Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.  In the chapter dedicated to heists from homes, the paragraph on page 100 begins, “Even setting aside the World War II years, when the Nazis set their vile standards for state-sponsored looting…”

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to see what was on, local station MeTV showed a Hogan’s Heroes scene where Schultz was on a table surrounded by the heroes, and Richard Dawson was costumed as a Nazi doctor, treating him.

WATCHING TV – A fall promo for local network MeTV: Schultz and his laughing Nazi commander were the first faces seen representing comedy programs.

Sunday, October 16, 2011 5 incidents (1)

DVD – The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, written by Stefan Ruzowitzky from the book by Adolf Burger, Aichholzer Film and Magnolia Filmproduktion, 2007.  Uncounted because knew the content before watching.

WATCHING TV – Flipping through the channels, where a voice over on History said, as images of Hitler played, “Hitler may have been responsible for more death and destruction than anyone in history, but he also wanted to build…” Did not get the name of the program; perhaps Modern Marvels, or something dedicated to engineering.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.

Browsing through the “V” DVD section: Valkyrie.

Browsing through the “W” DVD section: Where Eagles Dare, Brian G. Hutton, written by Alistair MacLean from his book, Warner Brothers, 2003.  Renderings of Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood are encircled with a swastika.

WATCHING TV – Flipping through the channels to find Valkyrie playing on TNT.

WATCHING TV – Flipping through the channels.  On Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken, a woman gives birth to a “perfect” child — a fully grown man with blond hair, who gives the Nazi salute and proclaims, “Sieg heil!”

Monday, October 17, 2011 8 incidents

DVD – Tell No One, Music Box Films, 2006.  The trailer for OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, automatically played.  The James Bond parody said it was set in 1955, but still featured a Nazi villain standing in front of a Swastika flag.

OUT & ABOUT – Graham Crackers Comics, Downers Grove, IL.  While browsing, saw American Vampire:Survival of the Fittest #4 (Scott Snyder, Vertigo/Time-Warner, 2011), which shows Nazi vampires looming over two blood-drenched vampire hunters.

OUT & ABOUT – Fry’s Electronics, Downers Grove, IL.

The majority of shelf space in the documentary DVD section is dedicated to war, much of it to WWII, with either Hitler or Nazi imagery on the covers of a good many of those.  Some titles had the BBC Video logo on the front.

While browsing the international DVD section: The Adventures of Werner Holt, showing a young man giving the Nazi salute, was prominently displayed and eye-catching.

On that same shelf, Army of Crime.

Below that was The Counterfeiters.

WATCHING TV – Watching Family Guy on TBS.  A cutaway joke showed Hitler and Eva Braun counting down to eating their suicide pills.

WATCHING TV – Watching Family Guy on TBS.  A subsequent episode that same night has Brian calling Rush Limbaugh a Nazi fascist.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 3 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  Looking through the true crime aisle to match a call number and saw Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World’s Greatest Robbery — and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, Mainstream Publishing, 1998.

SURFING THE NET – MSN featured the following headline next to a picture of Susan Sarandon, “Report: Sarandon Calls Pope a Nazi”.  A subheadline, “During an interview at the Hamptons Film Festival, the actress recalled sending a copy of a book to the pope saying, ‘The last one, not this Nazi one we have now.’”  The underline is where the hyperlink underline began.

A wholly underlined bullet point below that was, “Von Trier: I’m facing French charges for Hitler rant”.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 2 incidents

SURFING THE NET – Received an email from Amazon.com asking, “Are you looking for something in our Mystery and Suspense Movies & TV department? If so, you might be interested in these items.”  The Reader DVD, followed by The Reader blu ray, were the first of 8 items listed, and the only title listed twice.

BOOK – JLA: Superpower, John Arcudi, DC Comics/Time-Warner, 1999.  A new recruit to the Justice league asks Superman, “Kal, if you could stop Hitler before he started World War Two, or killed anybody, would you?”

Thursday, October 20, 2011 3 incidents

BOOK – Priceless, Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman, Crown Publishers, 2010.  A passage on the top of page 15 dispels myths about Hollywood art crime heroes and mentions Harrison Ford “saving the universe from Nazis and commies.”

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to H2 to see multiple footage of Hitler, and one of Churchill, in a segment about Churchill’s “morale bombing” of Germany.

BOOK – Priceless, Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman, Crown Publishers, 2010.  In a section about art crimes through history, a paragraph continuing from 203-204 begins, “Adolf Hitler’s ferocious war machine ran protection for history’s most carefully plotted looting and destruction of Europe’s cultural heritage.”

Friday, October 21, 2011 1 incident Week 5 – 22 incidents (1) Total 91 (4)

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to H2′s Ancient Aliens marathon to be greeted by a Nazi flag bearing a swastika, and other Nazi imagery relating to the symbol, as a lead in to a segment recounting the swastika’s meaning throughout ancient cultures.  (Did not watch the program, but when verifying the date of broadcast on the H2 website http://www.history.com/schedule/h2/10/21/2011 learned the entire episode was devoted to “Aliens and the Third Reich”.)

Monday, October 24, 2011 2 incidents

WATCHING TV – The TV Guide channel listing for National Geographic displayed a program titled Great Escape Revenge on the Gestapo.

WATCHING TV – A commercial on the station This TV was shown for the war movie Malta Story, wherein a soldier proclaims, “We’re going to crack Rommel on the nose.”

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 2 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Best Buy, Downers Grove, IL.  While browsing in the “action” section, saw Valkyrie.

OUT & ABOUT – K-Mart, Lombard, IL. While browsing in the $5 movies, saw Inglourious Basterds.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 3 incidents

COMIC BOOK – JLA 80-Page Giant #3, D. Curtis Johnson, DC Comics/Time-Warner, October 2000.  In “The Century War”, the villain Centurion leads a ghost army comprised of soldiers and warriors from various eras.  On one page, he is flanked by his generals, including a ghostly Adolf Hitler.

SURFING THE NET – Received an email from Amazon.com asking, “Are you looking for something in our Drama Movies & TV department? If so, you might be interested in these items.”  Of the eight DVDs listed, the first was Valkyrie, the third was Inglourious Basterds, and the fifth was Defiance, the 2008 Daniel Craig feature from Blood Diamond director Edward Zwick about farmer brothers who fight against the Nazis.

SURFING THE NET – A link from an MSN Movies article about Steven Spielberg discussing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=678306&gt1=28101) went to a June 29, 2011 article written by Tim Kenneally for the Wrap website (http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/shia-labeouf-and-his-big-mouth-28703), titled “Shia LaBeouf Keeps Running His Mouth, Studios Keep Signing His Checks”.

The 11th and 12th paragraphs, at the bottom of the first page:

Contrast that with Megan Fox’s fate after likening “Transformers” director Michael Bay to Hitler, due to his alleged dictatorial management style.

The comment, according to Bay in the July 2011 issue of GQ, was enough to get Fox sacked from the series. Bay claims that, when word got back to executive producer Steven Spielberg, he told Bay, “Fire her right now.”

Thursday, October 27, 2011 2 incidents

WATCHING TV – On the Cartoon Network’s airing of American Dad!, written by Laura McCreary, Stan remarks, “The only nickname I ever got was in eighth grade. They called me Stan Frank because I was always hiding and writing in my diary.”

WATCHING TV – Later on Cartoon Network, Childrens Hospital, written by Jonathan Stern, Chief tells Valerie, “Once we start playing loosey-goosey with the charter, things will snowball.  Look what happened with Nazi Germany.”

Friday, October 28, 2011 1 incident

DVD – Agatha Christie’s Poirot Collector’s Set 5, Acorn Media, Granada, 2003.  In “The Double Clue”, written by Anthony Horowitz, the Russian Countess tells the smitten detective, “It’s another world now.  Stalin, Hitler.  Everywhere you look, it’s all changing.”

Saturday, October 29, 2011 2 incidents Week 6 -  12 incidents Total 103 (4)

OUT & ABOUT – Wal-Mart, Glen Ellyn, IL.  A $10 DVD kiosk in the middle of the aisle featured Inglourious Basterds.

SURFING THE NET – Looking up what was playing at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, and read the listing for the film Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (Joann Sfar, Music Box Films, 2010), “A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.”

Monday, October 31, 2011 1 incident

OUT & ABOUT – Dollar General, Lombard, IL.  A DVD kiosk featured Valkyrie and Defiance.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 3 incidents

DVD – Agatha Christie’s Poirot Collector’s Set 11, Acorn Media, Granada, 2004.  In the “Filmographies” section, a listing for actor John Normington lists “Hitler’s S.S.: Portrait in Evil (1975, TV)”.

WATCHING TV – The “It’s all coming back to me” promo on MeTV features Nazi officer Sgt. Schultz saying, “I know nothing!”

WATCHING TV – While on the TV Guide channel to see show listings, Ugly Betty was playing, and Vanessa Williams’ Wilhelmina Slater proclaims, “People still view me as a drop dead gorgeous fashion Nazi.”

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 6 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Half Price Books, Orland Park, IL.  While browsing in the –

– art section, saw An Artist Against the Third Reich: Ernst Barlach 1933-1938, Peter Paret, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

– premium editions section, saw an encircled swastika centered on a black spine of a slipcase containing a two volume collection of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, William L. Shirer, Touchstone, 1990.

– graphic novel section, flipping through the TPB Hulked Out Heroes (Marvel/Disney, 2010) to see the Red Skull toasting Adolf Hitler in front of a swastika banner.

– graphic novel section, flipping through Invaders Now! (a coproduction between Marvel and Dynamite, 2011) to find a splash page of villains wearing swastikas on the book’s first page of art.

– DVD section, saw two copies of Valkyrie.

– clearance section, saw Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea, Jeffrey T. Richelson, W. W. Norton & Co., 2006.

Thursday, November 3, 2011 1 incident

DVD – Agatha Christie’s Poirot Collector’s Set 12, Acorn Media, Granada, 2004.  In “The Incredible Theft”, written by David Reid and Clive Exton, plans for a new military plane are stolen and absconded to the German embassy, where they are handed over to a brown shirt who performs the Nazi salute.

Friday, November 4, 2011 1 incident

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to the beginning of Syfy’s Sanctuary, where a man, in a recap from previous episodes, says someone is planning the “abnormal final solution”.  I’ve never seen the show, but it sounds like they adopted the word “abnormal” for the race of beings depicted in the program.

Saturday, November 5, 2011 1 incident Week 7 -  13 incidents Total 116 (4)

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to a program about Stalin on PBS station WTTW Chicago in which an ex-German soldier was featured in a contemporary interview about Germany’s plans for Stalingrad, while concurrently showing archival footage of German soldiers.

Death in the reporter’s family; 3 days away from media.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 (1) incident

BOOK – Project Superpowers: Chapter Two, Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, Dynamite Entertainment, 2010.   THB collection of single issue comic books from 2010.  In book 4, the Lady in Red says, ” You have no idea how many times I lay in a Nazi morgue, surrounded by their scientists.”  Uncounted because knew the premise featured WWII-era heroes brought back to modern times.

Friday, November 11, 2011 2 incidents

WATCHING TV – Watching American Dad! on Cartoon Network, which features the character Klaus, a German national whose mind was transferred into the family’s goldfish, and has a crush on matriarch Francine.  Klaus reassures Stan that he has no intention of “invading Francine-land.”

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to local station This TV to see the beginning of The Longest Day, which features Nazi officers and soldiers speaking in German.

Saturday, November 12, 2011 2 incidents Week 8 -  4 incidents (1) Total 120 (5)

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to History’s H2, which was broadcasting what I later learned was a program titled Nostradamus Effect and the episode was “Hitler’s Blood Oath”.  The show was rated TVPG and featured a bevy of Nazi and Hitler imagery, asserted that Hitler had been mentioned in “past texts” such as Nostradamus’ works and the Bible, his links to current Neo-Nazi culture, and went so far as to advance the idea that Hitler’s “rebirth” would destroy the world.

DVD – Agatha Christie’s Poirot Collector’s Set 7, written by Bill Craig, Acorn Media, Granada, 2003.  In “The Underdog”, the chemical magnate reads a newspaper that has the headline: Hitler’s Pledge to Britain.  A subplot of the story was about the fear in having this British company selling product to Germany, which the characters worried was prepping for war.

Sunday, November 13, 2011 3 incidents

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to Lakeshore Public Television, which was having a membership pledge hosted by two broadcasters in front of a TV screen that was paused on a vintage film of swastika flags.  Apparently the channel had been broadcasting the Emmy winning mini-series The World at War, and was offering DVDs of the show as part of the pledge, “plus three additional episodes” about the Reich.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  Looking through the new DVD section and saw Wish Me Luck Series 2 (Acorn Media, 2002), which featured a swastika flag and a Nazi officer on the front cover.

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to PBS station WYCC, which featured WWII film footage and a one-person reinactment of an Army private’s heroism during the siege of Bastogne.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 2 incidents

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to one labeled “TotalL” on the on screen display; perhaps it’s the Total Living Network, a Chicago based Christian network.  Shown on the screen was a full color WWII-era political cartoon, while the voice over announced, “But imprisonment of the Jews was not enough for Hitler.”

DVD – Agatha Christie’s Poirot Collector’s Set 2, Acorn Media, Granada, 2002.  In “The Cornish Mystery”, dramatized by Clive Exton, Poirot tells Hastings he can see their future in the newspaper.  The Captain glances at it and reads aloud, “Hitler speech, full text?” “Further down the page.”

Thursday, November 17, 2011 2 incidents

DVD – Agatha Christie’s Poirot Collector’s Set 8, written by Douglas Watkinson, Acorn Media, Granada, 2003.  During a debate at Cambridge about female equality in “The Case of the Missing Will”, the young debater mentions the “madmen” Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  While searching in the “C” DVD section, the cover to Come and See (Elem Klimov, written with Ales Adamovich, Kino Video, 1993) features Nazi soldiers running across a fiery background, while, in the foreground, a Nazi officer has the barrel of a gun at the temple of a young boy kneeling before him.

Friday, November 18, 2011 3 incidents

DVD – Painted Lady, Julian Jarrold, written by Allan Cubitt, Acorn Media, Granada, 2008.  While watching home movies, the character of Sebastian tells Helen Mirren via phone about the “vast depositing of hidden art, stashed away to avoid Nazi looting.”

SURFING THE NET – Received an email, subject line: “Defiance”, from Amazon.com asking, “Are you looking for something in our Mystery and Suspense Movies & TV department? If so, you might be interested in these items.”

The Defiance DVD, was featured first.  After three other movies, the Defiance/Enemy at the Gates Blu Ray combo was offered.

Below that was Hanna, the child assassin action film, then Hidden in Silence (Richard A. Colla, written by Stephanie Liss, Echo Ridge Entertainment, 2010), the cover of which featured Holocaust imagery.

Saturday, November 19, 2011 1 incident Week 8 -  11 incidents Total 131 (5)

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to Comedy Central in time to hear comedian Daniel Glover say, “Town full of Hitlers,” in his stand up special Weirdo.

Sunday, November 20, 2011 2 incidents

WATCHING TV – The Thanksgiving-themed episode of Family Guy on Fox, written by Patrick Meighan, featured Joe arguing with  his Iraqi war vet son, and mentioned Nazi soldiers only following orders.

BOOK – The Incredible Hercules: The Mighty Thorcules, Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Marvel/Disney, 2010. While thumbing through this TPB collection of single issue comic books from 2009-2010, arrived at the page in issue 137 where Cho’s enemy Dupree is listening to the radio adventures of Master Mind Excello, who is shown slugging a Nazi officer.

Monday, November 21, 2011 1 incident 

BOOK – The Incredible Hercules: The Mighty Thorcules, Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Marvel/Disney, 2010. Issue 135 of this TPB collection of single issue comic books from 2009-2010, has Cho facing the mad scientist “with two evil Axis brains”, Doctor Japanazi.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 2 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Half Price Books, Orland Park, IL.  While browsing in the DVD section, saw Warner Bros’ Where Eagles Dare.

DVD – Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act (disc one), Directed by Philip Martin, Written by Frank Deasy, Acorn Media, Granada, 2006.  After her father’s passing, Tennison confides in a former colleague about his soldiering during WWII, “He was one of the first soldiers who liberated Belsen. So…  He knew what people were capable of.”

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 9 incidents

DVD – Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act (disc two), Acorn Media, Granada, 2006.  Looking at the special features, where the filmography for actor Tom Bell lists, “HOLOCAUST (1978, TV)”.

OUT & ABOUT – An issue from 2011 of Comic Shop News had the following blurb touting Dynamite Comics’ The Boys #53, by Garth Ennis & John McCrea: “Christmas 1944 sees Captain Greg Mallory safely in reserve, far from the front line with Nazi Germany.”

SURFING THE NET – Rev. Mel White’s article “What the Bible Says – and Doesn’t Say – About Homosexuality” (http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian) contains the passage, “Over the centuries people who misunderstood or misinterpreted the Bible have done terrible things. The Bible has been misused to defend bloody crusades and tragic inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support Hitler’s Third Reich and the Holocaust…”

SURFING THE NET – An article titled “Popes Gone Wild: What the Catholic Church Would Rather You Forget” by user name Theophanes (http://theophanes.hubpages.com/hub/Popes-Gone-Wild-What-the-Catholic-Church-Would-Rather-You-Forget) mentions Pope Pius XII’s “continuing refusal to say anything against the Nazi party,” and claims that Pope John Paul II “was also part of Hitler’s Youth”.

SURFING THE NET – While searching on Google, a blurb for Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit [Paperback] (Gary Wills, Image, 2001) on Amazon.com was shown as:

The New York TimesŪ Best Sellers … Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit and over one million other books are available for … List Price: $17.99 …. such as the Holocaust, priestly celibacy, homosexuality and the political function of Marian devotions. …. The papacy of John Paul II has grown increasingly humorless, pessimistic, …

SURFING THE NET – On page 2 of my Google search “pope john paul ii chicago tribune 1993 list”, the following appeared:

Hitler’s Pope: Pius XII

jesuswouldbefurious.org/Catholic/Hitlerspope.htmlCached

Jason Berry, Chicago Tribune: … It is hard to imagine a more timely book, in light of Pope John Paul II’s … and which lists many other books and sites on this matter , …. not the same John Cornwell who made those comments in 1989 & 1993. …

SURFING THE NET – Researching on http://articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/pope-john-paul-ii/recent/5 led to the July 2, 2006, article “Archives on Pope Pius XI to be released”, stating, “For years the Vatican has struggled to defend Pius’ successor — Pope Pius XII — against claims he did not do enough to save Jews from the Holocaust.”

SURFING THE NET – Researching on http://articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/sin, led to Chris Jones’ October 23, 201, theater review, “Gutsy drama mines sins of a Nazi father” which begins, “Most of us are well aware that heinous Nazi war criminals like Josef Mengele attempted to evade justice by fleeing – in Mengele’s case, to Paraguay – and living materially comfortable lives, even finding time to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.”

SURFING THE NET – Catching up on the Penn State scandal on http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/23/8981222-report-1-of-2-new-abuse-allegations-made-by-sandusky-family-member. Beneath the article, the second headline in the “Most popular posts” section was “Parents of Adolf Hitler Campbell lose custody of newborn Hons”.

Thursday, November 24, 2011 3 incidents

WATCHING TV – During CNBC’s broadcast of the documentary Walt: The Man Behind the Myth (Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Pantheon Productions, 2001), narrator Dick Van Dyke said that about the time Disney was building his Burbank studio, Adolf Hitler had begun invading Europe.

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to MoviePlex, where a dirigible with WWII Germany black Maltese crosses painted on it was lowering down to steal a golden dragon statue.  The man harnessing the dragon says, “C’mon, Nazi!”  That was actor Jack McGee, while the pilot of the airship was Roger Moore, playing a WWI veteran turned adventurer in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s directorial debut The Quest (written by Steve Klein and Paul Mones, Universal, 1996).

SURFING THE NET – On MSN.com’s sidebar listing “Popular pages” was the headline, “Anne Frank’s other home opening to the public”.

Friday, November 25, 2011 1 incident

OUT & ABOUT – Half Price Books, Orland Park, IL.  Hitler and Hitler’s Secret Weapons were two of the “H” DVDs in the documentary section.

Saturday, November 26, 2011 1 incident Week 9 -  19 incidents Total 150 (5)

BOOK – The Incredible Hercules: Smash of the Titans, Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Marvel/Disney, 2009.  A THB collection of single issue comics from 2007-2009.  In issue 110, Hulk tries convincing Cho that he has taken lives, but Cho defends the Hulk’s actions, saying with, “Yeah, and Captain America killed him some Nazis. Big deal. That was war, Hulk.”

Sunday, November 27, 2011 1 incident

WATCHING TV – The first run Family Guy on Fox written by Mark Hentemann started with Peter being too fat to be allowed on a roller coaster, then must connive a way to ride on the new mega coaster “The Holocaust”, which prompts a joke about how he’d always heard about it, but didn’t think it existed.

Monday, November 28, 2011 2 incidents

DVD – Batman Year One, Warner Bros, 2011.  In the special features for the upcoming Justice League: Doom animated movie, a character sheet was shown for the immortal Vandal Savage wearing various historical costumes, including that of a Nazi officer with a swastika armband.

SURFING THE NET – Reading about the 1941 animators strike at Disney, “However Hitler’s War in Europe cut off 40% of Disney’s foreign release market which led to Disney’s two following films Pinocchio and Fantasia to fail at the box office.”

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 7 incidents (1)

BOOK – 63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read, Jesse Ventura with Dick Russell, Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.  Chapters 12 exposes America’s secret Cold War practice that gave “many of Hitler’s top henchmen not only sanctuary in our country, but putting these same Nazis to work for us.”   Chapters 13-15, “Nazi War Crimes”, summarizes recently declassified documents.

OUT & ABOUT – Villa Park Library, Villa Park, IL.

A display on the side of one of the stacks contained books to peruse, “If you liked Stephen King’s 11/22/63″.  One was Hitler’s War (Random House, 2009) by “New York Times bestselling author” and “the master of alternative history,” Harry Turtledove.  A confusing cover blurb asks, “If Neville Chamberlain hadn’t appeased the Nazis would the Allies still have won World War II?”  The cover image is of a knife plunging into the Austrian/Czechoslovakian border.  The hilt bears the SS brand, as well as the golden eagle with swastika symbol.  The bottom left corner of this same front cover also has a photo of goosestepping soldiers.

In the comic and folk art section, saw:

Hitler’s Last Gamble: Battle of the Bulge (Bill Cain, Osprey Publishing, 2007) is mostly a comic book recap of the battle, but also contains maps and other educational material.

Yossel: April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert, ibooks, 2003.  This “story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising” is a graphic rumination of what would have happened to the great comic creator had his family remained in Poland instead of emigrating to the United States.

BOOK – Superman: From the Thirties to the Seventies, Crown Publishers, 1971.  The introduction by E. Nelson Bridwell informs that Superman arrived in 1938, the ninth year of the Great Depression, and “the year Hitler took over Austria”.

BOOK – Tales of the Dark Knight: Batman’s First Fifty Years: 1939-1989, Mark Cotta Vaz, Random House, 1989.  The book contains a full color reproduction of World’s Finest Comics #9, where Batman, Robin and Superman throw baseballs into the faces of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito.  The splash page for the story “Swastikas over the White House” and other sections of that tale are reprinted in black and white.

BOOK – Studs Terkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaptation, adapted by Harvey Pekar, edited by Paul Buhle, the New Press, 2009.  In the section about organizer Bill Talcott, a pyramid of the social power structure accompanies the thought that “[managers of big corporations] have the kind of power Eichmann claimed for himself.  They have the power to do bad and not question what they’re told to do.”

BOOK – American Conspiracies, Jesse Ventura with Dick Russell, Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.  Chapter two reveals the known but little reported “coup attempt by some of the titans of Wall Street, to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 and put a military man in charge of the country.”  Wanting the support of disgruntled World War I veterans, the “rich and powerful titans of finance” chose “the most decorated Marine in American history”, but did not count on him being opposed to their fascist plot.  The authors suggest “if it hadn’t been that they tried buying off the wrong man to be their puppet, quite possibly we’d have been living in a country not that far removed from Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy.”

Of note a few pages later is a quote from a 1971 interview with former House Speaker John McCormack who didn’t remember why the plotters were never brought to justice, but recalled, “They were going to make it all sound constitutional, of course, with a high-sounding name for the dictator and a plan to make it all sound like a good American program.  A well-organized minority can always outmaneuver an unorganized majority, as Adolf Hitler did…”  (Uncounted because knew a chapter on FDR would likely contain WWII-themed content.)

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 1 incident

SURFING THE NET – While researching Chicago’s 1933 World’s Fair at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_Progress, “citation needed” as to whether or not Chicagoans thought the Graf Zeppelin airship was “a prominent reminder of the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler to power earlier that same year.”

Thursday, December 1, 2011 3 incidents

SURFING THE NET – On the Wikipedia page about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, “Bogdanovich suggested that Lang’s distaste for his own film also stemmed from the Nazi Party’s fascination with the film. Von Harbou became a passionate member of the Nazi Party in 1933.”

SURFING THE NET – Visiting http://crossover.bureau42.com/crosscomix.html and saw link, “Superman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and the Justice Society take on Hitler and the other Axis Leaders”.

SURFING THE NET – A character’s word balloon at http://crossover.bureau42.com/zpopeye.html, “That Captain America — He’ll give Hitler what for!”

Friday, December 2, 2011 2 incidents Week 10 -  16 incidents (1) Total 166 (6)

BOOK – Superman: Red Son, Mark Millar, DC/Time-Warner, 2004.  TPB of single issue comics from 2003. In the third issue, Lois tries recruiting Wonder Woman to her cause, arguing that even FDR might have had ulterior motives for being president, “But he still beat Hitler, right?”

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels, landed on H2 which was recounting how American pilots hid among the Belgian resistance to escape the Gestapo.

Sunday, December 4, 2011 1 incident

DVD – A&E Presents Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Sad Cypress, written by David Pirie, A&E, 2003.  At a party, one of the guests reveals she just came home from Germany.  A partygoer remarks to the detective, “I think the National Socialists are doing fine job over there.  I sometimes wish we had politicians like that here.”  Poirot responds, “I think, monsieur, it is most fortunate you do not.”

Monday, December 5, 2011 2 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Villa Park Library, Villa Park, IL. The eye-catching red and white framed swastika on the black spine of The Rise and Fall of the Reich was spotted in the reference stacks near the front desk.

WATCHING TV – The round table segment of E!’s Chelsea Lately, where the panelists were discussing Christmas trees; Brad Wollack said the good thing about being Jewish was not being led to believe in imaginary things, which he started to list.  Chris Franjola interjected with, “the Holocaust.” Wollack laughed and began to respond before Handler moved the conversation along.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 1 incident

DVD – The Last Detective (disc one), Acorn Media, Granada, 2004.  The biography for author Leslie Thomas cites his journalism career, “covering such events as the trial of Adolf Eichmann.”

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 5 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Villa Park Library, Villa Park, IL.  Looking through the new DVD section, saw the William Holden film The Counterfeit Traitor (George Seaton, from the novel by Alexander Klein, Paramount, 2004), which had a rifle-wielding Nazi soldier on the front cover, and a Nazi officer on the back.

While looking through the “S” DVD section, saw:

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Marc Rothemund, written by Fred Breinersdorfer, Zietgeist, 2005), which featured the heroine under a swastika flag and surrounded by Nazi officers on the cover.

Steal a Pencil For Me (Michele Ohayon, Westlake Entertainment, 2008), a Holocaust documentary.

SURFING THE NET – Received an email, subject line: “Hidden in Silence”, from Amazon.com asking, “Are you looking for something in our Mystery and Suspense Movies & TV department? If so, you might be interested in these items.”

Of the seven movies offered, the first was Hidden in Silence (Richard A. Colla, written by Stephanie Liss, Echo Ridge Entertainment, 2010), the cover of which featured Holocaust imagery.

The fourth movie (One Day in October, Kenneth Madsen, written by Damian F. Slattery, Det Danske Filminstitut, 1992) features a giant swastika superimposed over D.B. Sweeney, with the movie’s title framed by barbed wire that becomes a Star of David, under the headline, “Against the Greastest Evil in History, a Nation Stands Together”.

DVD – The Last Detective: Series 2, Acorn Media.  In “Dangerous and the Lonely Hearts”, written by Russell Lewis and Tim Vaughan from Leslie Thomas’ novel, the murder investigation hinges on a violin the music teacher Green claimed belonged to his father.  While a boy, his family was put into a concentration camp by an Albanian neighbor, and he was rescued by an English Jew who took him to the U.K. and gave him his surname.

Friday, December 9, 2011 1 incident Week 11 -  10 incidents  Total 176 (6)

DVD – The Trip, Michael Winterbottom, IFC Films, 2011.  While trading ABBA impressions, Steve Coogan tells Rob Brydon, “You sounds like the Nazi from Inglorious Basterds.”

Sunday, December 11, 2011 6 incidents (1)

SURFING THE NET – Reading a colleague’s article on BleacherReport.com.  In the comments section, someone named “Fan’s Opinion” wrote that a wrestling storyline was “too close to SS for me”.  Another reader responded, “new nexus was worse, armbands and a salute”.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/973995-wwe-hall-of-famer-superfly-jimmy-snuka-needs-your-help#/articles/975285-wwes-15-most-tasteless-offensive-storylines-ever/page/16

OUT & ABOUT – Villa Park Library, Villa Park, IL.  While browsing in the “new” DVD section, saw the James Cagney film 13 Rue Madeleine (Henry Hathaway, screenplay by John Monks, Jr., Sy Bartlett, Twentieth Century Fox, 2003), the cover of which had the series headline “Fox War Classics”, and featured Nazi officers holding a man down in the street, and a swastika banner hanging over the front door of the title’s address.

OUT & ABOUT – Graham Crackers Comics, Downers Grove, IL.

While browsing at a kiosk near the entrance, saw The Keep (F. Paul Wilson, IDW Publishing, 2011) a hardcover book with a cover featuring a swastika over a gothic castle.

Also thumbed through the treasury edition of the late Dave Steven’s beautiful artwork on The Rocketeer Jetpack Treasury Edition (IDW Publishing, 2011), the inside cover of which reminds the reader about the Nazi spies that figure into the adventure.

Uncounted because knew the premise.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  A search “Annilihation” (i.e. the Marvel comic) in the WorldCat interlibrary loan database, resulted with:

The first listing, on the first page of results, was Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis (Ian Kershaw, W.W. Norton, 2000)

The seventh listing, also on the first page of results, was Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews (Francois Furet, Schocken Books, 1989)

The eighteenth listing, on the second page, was Hitler, a Biography (Ian Kershaw, W.W. Norton, 2008)

Monday, December 12, 2011 6 incidents

DVD – Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, Set 1, Disc 4, BBC, Acorn Media, 2004.  The murderer in “Death at the Bar” written byAlfred Shaughnessy from the Nagio Marsh novel is revealed to have been “a Nazi in all but name,” worried about the exposing of his “past as a Nazi sympathizer.”

OUT & ABOUT – Unicorn Comics, Villa Park, IL.

While browsing, saw an issue of Red Skull: Incarnate #5 (Greg Pak, Marvel/Disney, 2011), the cover of which evoked a propoganda poster, intentionally, of the character in his Nazi uniform looming over Nazi tanks.

Also saw an Alex Ross painted cover of his series for Dynamite, Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist (2011), which features the hero centered between looming visages of Ming the Merciless on one side, and Hitler opposite.

MAGAZINE – MAD Magazine #510 (August 2011).

The article “New Trends: Ironic Hipster Facial Hair” by David DeGrand featured the “Reverse Hitler”.

No writer credited to the article “How Does Captain America Stack Up Against Other Famous Captains?” featured, “Captain Von Trapp stood up against the Nazis in one of the greatest motion pictures of all time.  Captain America stood up to the Nazis in the fourth-best suprhero hero movie of the summer of 2011.”

WATCHING TV – The Family Guy episode “Cool Hand Peter” written by Artie Johann and Shawn Ries aired on Cartoon Network, and featured the guys debating if they’d rather be a hobo or Hitler two years before the war ends.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 2 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Villa Park Library, Villa Park, IL.  While browsing in the “new” DVD section, saw the Citerion Collection 2011 release of Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, which features am image of the Tramp, but when turned upside down, becomes an image of Hitler.

SURFING THE NET – Watching a comedic review of Star Wars Episode 1 (http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/) which features clips of the Rocketeer film, where that character blasts off past the swastika banner on the airship.  The narrator also later makes a reference to Nazis invading.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 3 incidents

DVD – Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, Set 1, Disc 3, BBC, Acorn Media, 2004.  In the Filmographies section, a listing for actor Eleanor Bron was, “The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988, TV)”.

DVD – Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, Set 1, Disc 3, BBC, Acorn Media, 2004.  Watching the film written by Hugh Leonard from the Nagio Marsh novel, a woman complains to her brother about the small morning sausages, asking didn’t they win the war?  The flippant brother responds that perhaps it was “Hitler’s secret weapon”.

WATCHING TV – Flipping the channels to History’s Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, where a pop up ad for the network’s website asked, “Did the Germans create UFO’s during WWII?”

Friday, December 16, 2011 3 incidents

BOOK – Agents of Atlas, Marvel, 2007.  A THB collection of single issue comic books from 1947-2007.  In the What If story from 1978 written by Don Glut, Marvel Boy’s origin from 1950 is retold, beginning with, “In 1934, Professor Matthew Grayson’s wife and daughter were killed by Nazis.”

DVD – Prime Suspect 3, Disc 2, HBO, Granda, 2003.  In the second episode written by Lynda La Plante, an adult who had been abused as a child by the prime suspect tells Tennison he was watching a documentary about concentration camps, and how the “Angel of Death” was never captured.

BOOK – Agents of Atlas, Marvel, 2007.  A THB collection of single issue comic books from 1947-2007.  In the What If story from 1978 written by Don Glut, the villainous mastermind’s main henchmen in this 1950′s set story is Fritz Voltzmann, who boasts that he follows commands “vith the same efficiency I used vhen I vas Karl Von Horstbaden, commandant at Auschwitz.”  He tells his master, “[M]y Nazi ingenuity has done the ‘impossible’ — and brought together the most powerful threats to this country since the fall of the Third Reich!”

Saturday, December 17, 2011 4 incidents Week 12 -  24 incidents (1) Total 200 (7)

BOOK – Agents of Atlas, Marvel, 2007.  A THB collection of single issue comic books from 1947-2007.  In issue 1 of the 2006 series written by Jeff Parker, secrent agent Jimmy Woo warns his troops that the villain may still have “that crazy Nazi Fritz Voltzmann working for him.”  Voltzmann was able to create “shadow warriors” that captured all but one of the super-powered team.

BOOK – Agents of Atlas, Marvel, 2007.  A THB collection of single issue comic books from 1947-2007.  In issue 3 of the 2006 series written by Jeff Parker, Marvel Boy’s origin from 1950 is retold, featuring an image of Nazi soldiers standing in formation, swastika banners waving behind them, under the caption, “We were Germans, after all, and my father was a pacifist.”

DVD – Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, screenplay by Michael Arndt, 20th Century Fox, 2006. Grandpa complains that he has “Nazi bullets in my ass!” which is repeated.

BOOK – Agents of Atlas, Marvel, 2007.  A THB collection of single issue comic books from 1947-2007.  No writer is credited in the reprint of Marvel Boy #1 from December 1950, where Professor Grayson tells his son why they no longer live on Earth, “I remember a day in 1934!  There was a tyrant then on Earth named Hitler – a beast who was out to grab the world!  In the end, he failed!  He and his gang killed millions of innocent people before they were stopped!  Your mother was one of the victims, Bob!”  The professor is seen reading a telegram: Regret to inform you commercial plane your wife was on…shot down this morning by Nazi anti-aircraft gunners… Mistook it for military plane… Nazis convey regrets… Wife and daughter are dead.”  A newspaper headline in the back reads, “Hitler breaks promise again! Invades Rhineland”.

Sunday, December 18, 2011 1 incident

BOOK – Agents of Atlas, Marvel, 2007.  A THB collection of single issue comic books from 1947-2007.  No writer is credited in the reprint of Yellow Claw #1 from October 1956, where the mastermind blackmails a monocle-wearing man with a scar on his cheek, “Karl von Horstbaden… alias Fritz Voltzmann… the missing ex-commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp… and one of the world’s most wanted Nazi war criminals!”

Monday, December 19, 2011 2 incidents (1)

SURFING THE NET – Reading an obituary of comic book great Joe Simon on http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=690204&ocid=rr-mov-news. It reports what Simon told the AP about the creation of Captain America: “Jack [Kirby] and I read the newspapers and knew what was going on over in Europe.  And there he was – Adolf Hitler, with his ridiculous moustache, high-pitched ranting and goose-stepping followers.  He was the perfect bad guy, much better than anything we could have made up, so what we needed was to create his ultimate counterpart.”  Uncounted.

SURFING THE NET – The homepage of RogerEbert.com provided a link to the review of the documentary Garbo the Spy (Edmon Roch, written with Isaki Lacuesta, First Run Features, 2011). A photo of the Normandy invasion accompanied Ebert’s headline “The man who outsmarted the Nazis”.

WATCHING TV – On the Cartoon Network American Dad! written by Keith Heisler, Stan tries to inspire his son with, “Just look at Helen Keller.  Deaf, dumb and blind, and she wrote that whole diary in her little attic during World War II.”

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 2 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Villa Park Library, Villa Park, IL.  While browsing in the “new” DVD section, saw The Odessa File (Ronald Neame, screenplay by Kenneth Ross and George Mark Stein, Sony, 2005), which featured a headline on the front cover, “Nazis Surrender”. The 1974 film is set a decade earlier, and is a fictional story about a journalist tracking down a secret SS organization that was becoming a world threat.

DVD – Captain Horatio Hornblower, Warner Bros., 2007. Included in the Special Features was the Academy Award nominated short “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (narration written by Owen Crump, Warner Bros., 1950) which ended up being a history of the United States.  The longest stretch was on WWII, and featured on-site color and black and white footage, including a concentration camp. Narration labeled the bombed out Berlin “a sepulchural monument to the egotistical ravings of a madman.”

Thursday, December 22, 2011 1 incident

DVD – The Legend of Leigh Bowery, Charles Atlas, Palm Pictures, 2002.  Designer Mr. Pearl said of Bowery, “What he would call ‘drag’ and look like Shelly Winters sort of belonging to, perhaps, the Gestapo.”  Later, Bowery was shown in a photo sewing a fabric with tiny swastikas.  Towards the end of the documentary, friends recounted how Bowery liked to shock people, including making a Hitler picture from painter Lucian Freud’s rags, and featured photos of Bowery wearing his fashion-art pieces based on Nazi uniforms.

Friday, December 23, 2011 5 incidents Week 13 -  11 incidents (1) 1st Quarter Total: 211 (8)

DVD – The Last Detective: Series 1, Acorn Media, 2002.  In “Lofty”, written by Richard Harris from Leslie Thomas’ novel, the victim was thought to be a war hero who a prisoner in “Stalag 62 Germany”.  A suspect is referred to as “Fuhrer”.  Later, when Davies says the suspect is Swiss, the reply is, “Her and Eichmann.”

BOOK – Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars, Jeff Parker, Marvel/Disney, 2010.  A TPB collection of single issue comic books from 2009-2010.  In a flashback sequence from the first issue, Namor the Sub-Mariner and Namora battle Nazi planes and a sub.

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to H2, which was explaining Sir Isaac Newton decoded the Bible, and wrote “Histories Yet to Come”, shown as a montage including concentration camp footage and ending with an atomic explosion.  The show was Nostradamus Effect, and the episode was “The Apocalypse Code”.

OUT & ABOUT – Wal-Mart, Glen Ellyn, IL.  While browsing in the discounted DVD section, saw:

Bloodrayne: The Third Reich (Uwe Boll, written by Michael Nachoff, Phase 4 Films, 2010), a WWII-set story about the hero fighting Nazi vampires.

Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, written by Steven Zaillian from the book by Thomas Keneally, Universal, 2005), the Academy Award-winning film.

Week 14, the “control” week:

Monday, December 26, 2011 4 incidents

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.

Looking through the DVD “C” section and saw Charlotte Gray (Gillian Armstrong, written by Jeremy Brock from the Sebastian Faulks book, Warner Bros., 2002), which had Cate Blanchette over marching Nazi soldiers.

In the “D” section was Defiance.

BOOK – Annilihation Book 3, Keith Giffen, Marvel, 2007.  A TPB collection of single issue comics from 2006-2007.  In Annilihation #3, the hero Nova says, “When I was a kid, I always wondered why the Allies didn’t just assassinate Hitler.  Take out the head to kill the body.”

WATCHING TV – Top Gear Top 40, BBC America, 2011.  During the “Commie cars” segment, James May said, “I can stand up like Rommel and guide you.”

Tuesday, December 27, 2011 1 incident

WATCHING TV – Flipping channels to MeTV, which showed German soldiers congregating in a farmhouse.  It turned out to be the beginning of the episode “A Child’s Game” from the 1960′s program Combat!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 1 incident

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  Saw Schindler’s List while thumbing through the recently returned DVDs.

Friday, December 30, 2011 2 incidents  Week 14 – 8 incidents

DVD – Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (Disc 2), written by Peter Berry, HBO, Granada, 2004.  Tennison’s father recounts his role in the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp.

OUT & ABOUT – Helen Plum Library, Lombard, IL.  In the “G” DVD section was the concentration camp story God on Trial, Andy De Emmony, written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, WGBH, 2009.

Results

In a random 13 weeks, the average American was exposed to Nazi visuals and audibles 211 times.

The average American will be exposed to Nazi content 844 times in 365 days.

In that same quarter of a year, the average American only sought 8 pieces of media (the “uncounted” total) he knew to have Nazi content.

The average American will seek out 32 pieces of media per 365 days he knows will contain Nazi content.

The total amount the average American is exposed to Nazi content in the media is 219 times per quarter, or 876 times per 365 days.

SOCIAL CAPITALISM and the SYSTEMS THEORY OF ECONOMICS

Introduction

The purpose of this 1996 article was to further the debate of the decline of social capital in America by deciphering the correlation between civic engagement and our structure as a capitalist economy/nation, but the latter part of the work has relevance to the current economic crisis.

The springboard of the argument is the oft-quoted “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” by Robert D. Putnam (The American Prospect 24 (1996): 34-38), a Dillon Professor of International Affairs and director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

Putnam’s well-researched 1995 article explored the erosion of civic engagement in America, and the effect it had on our society.  In his 1831 tome Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville had made the correlation between American citizens who were out and about, participating in their communities, as being the pillars of democracy.

Putnam’s survey was centered upon the growing notion that “social connections and civic engagement pervasively influence our public life, as well as our private prospects”.

This article contests that capitalism is the larger reason civic engagement has waned, and builds a ground-level platform for addressing it via the Systems Theory of Economics.

THE AMERICAN DICHOTOMY

First, we must define social capital.  Putnam asserts it is “features of social life – networks, norms and trusts – that enable the participants to act together more efficiently to pursue shared objectives.”  He goes on to define civil engagement as “people’s connections with the life of their communities, not only with politics.”

Putnam believes that, on a large-scale, the reason social capital is in decline is due to technology, most notably television.  Even Paddy Chayevsky, the Academy Award winning screenwriter of Network, once stated, “Television is democracy at its ugliest.”

The theory of television, much like the hopes placed on the internet, began as one of great promise.  There is a wonderful moment in Tim Robbin’s film Cradle Will Rock between Nelson Rockefeller and Diego Rivera, wherein Rockefeller casts a skeptical eye on the mural he commissioned from the artist.  A portion of the painting depicts children sitting in a neo-classroom with television monitors on their desks.  Rockefeller remarks he saw the invention at the World’s Fair. Rivera passionately declares what a great tool for education television will be.

The two figures of businessman and artist, money and soul, represent the American/capitalist dichotomy.  One uses invention and theory for corporate profit and status, while the other uses them for education, expression and social betterment.

In the case of television, it is largely the businessman who won.  The single notable exception would be Children’s Television Workshop and Jim Henson’s Sesame Street, arguably the highest plane the medium ever reached.  The show had and continues to operate under a simple and noble purpose, to educate young viewers in an entertaining manner – to “sell” them letters, numbers and values as they had been advertised every other product.  What elevated Street beyond ordinary programming had always been the intention behind it.

For most of its existence, however, television has been used to fuel capitalism.  It has been the runway where food, clothes, trends and services have been modeled for the world to see.

The internet went one step further than television by actually becoming the marketplace as well as the showroom.  Almost immediately, what could have been a boon for education and communication was co-opted to make its primary purpose that of commerce.

On the surface, the web seems to fit Putnam’s description of a network which “enables participants to act together more efficiently to pursue shared objectives,” but the intention of the internet is to advertise to people under the guise of connecting them.

COUNTER ADVERTISING

Dr. Martin Luther King once stated, “We have guided missiles in the hands of misguided men.”  Or, to put it in a more consumer friendly manner: As Jeff Goldblum’s character Ian stated in the blockbuster Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Those quotes represent the state of television and the internet, as well as most of the technology in an age where a mammal was cloned.  Such advancement begs the question of whether or not we are prepared to use it.  In the rush to create the latest and greatest, we often overlook the practicality and ramifications of living with these devices.

Television and the internet are not used primarily as tools to benefit our society, but instead as counters on which to sell soap.  However, after fifty-odd years of commercials, audiences started tuning out to TV advertisements. Advertisers met the challenge of a reaching a disenfranchised Generation X through counter advertising, which often offered conflicting messages.

In the late 1990′s, monumental leaders and artists such as King and Henson, as well as Gandhi, Picasso, Chaplin and Einstein, were featured in Apple Computer’s “Think Different” campaign.  Ironic, considering the purpose of advertising is to influence the way a consumer thinks, drawing them to a product.  The slogan would have been more accurate if it read, “Think Different.  Like me.”

Another pronounced example of these advertisements were the Sprite commercials which urged the young viewers to “obey your thirst,” not advertisers.  Of course, any audience which truly did obey their thirst would not be swayed by advertisements.

As the century drew to a close, another form of advertising entered the scene that directly correlated and even contributed to the erosion of American civic engagement.  While Putnam may have argued that television was privatizing our leisure, I contend that capitalism is privatizing our interests.

SOCIAL CAPITALISM

What I’ll term social capitalism is the first of two aspects by which capitalism relates to the investment of social capital.  The consumer-psyche of America has infiltrated the way we politic, the causes we support, and the extent to which our dollar can buy social progress.

Our first examination of the linkage between deteriorating social capital and capitalism is in incentive purchasing.  In the 1990′s, car manufacturer Yugo offered to plant a tree for every car purchased.  Saturn gave away saplings to new owners.  It was feel good marketing to make the consumer believe they were doing something environmentally sound to counteract the inevitable pollution and expending of fossil fuels their purchase would cause.

Many products on the market stress the fact they recycle or do not test on animals, in attempts to reach a target consumer group, the kinds of people who look for such labels.  Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream has used environmentally and animal friendly procedures from the company’s inception, and has developed a loyal following among those who choose not to purchase from less expensive competitors.

In effort to make theirs the credit card of choice during the profitable holiday season, American Express offered a program whereby a small portion of every transaction would be donated to the hungry and homeless.  Yoko Ono did commercial spots for AmEx and allowed the use of her husband’s “Imagine” during the 1997 season.

This purchasing of goods from corporations, who in turn donate monies to other associations, creates what I’ll call reinvested social capital.  The considerable drawback to this reinvestment is that it ultimately promotes the buying of more things.

The buy things, one needs money.  The money comes from a cycle of more and more working.  These occupations devour personal time.  In the case of the ever struggling middle class, the daily grind creates a tiredness in one to avoid participating in society once home for the night, because that is how they spent their day.

This is not the America of 1831 de Tocqueville praised.  There was no Great Depression, endless recessions, no urban sprawl.  There was no flood of immigrant labor as the early 1900′s would bring, and slave labor was still legal. Much of the west remained untamed.

The economic realities facing so many Americans today is best summed up with a Springsteen lyric, “I got debts no honest man can pay.”  Advertisers and economics seem blind to the fact that for many Americans, this is a new Middle Ages of work-work-die.  With no energy to go out, let alone funds to go out with, it is little wonder Putnam couldn’t find anyone to bowl with.

CHECKBOOK ACTIVISM

 In a 1997 collegiate address, Human Rights Campaign National Field Director Donna Redwing coined the phrase checkbook activism to define the support associations receive from mail-in contributions.

The burden of capitalism has painted Americans as 24/7 advertising targets, and the social effects of that are evidenced today.  Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see,” but Americans brainwashed into believing their primary role was that of consumer began wanting to purchase change.  Buy ACLU.  Buy NAACP. Use the Elton John credit card and give to AIDS research.  Americans literally invest in an organization or cause not by the social capital of picketing or registering voters, but instead by purchasing memberships to pay people to do those things.  We invest in charity and let others do the footwork, and lobby, and protest, because that is their job, that is what they do.

Letter writing or e-mailing a congressperson is what I’ll call direct social capital, because there is the intention of a formal interaction happening between members of society.  Checkbook activism, however, is indirect social capital, because one donates money with the hope something good will come from it, but the act itself requires no human interaction.

The capitalist cycle of working to spend money seldom allows a citizen time or energy enough to participate in social activities.  While protesting and lobbying may have positive long-term effects, the nine-to-five workday attitude most Americans have succumbed to results in letting others do the crusading.  It is simply another service we pay in our service-based economy.

THE SYSTEMS THEORY OF ECONOMICS

It is necessary to discuss the psychological aspects a given political system will have upon its people as much as it is necessary to discuss the socio-economic ramifications.

The bastardization of Adam Smith’s philosophies created the conservative political belief to keep the government out of the free market because the economy will regulate itself.  Physiology alone should tell us that no system, whether it is the human body, an automobile, or the free market, is better in the long run without having had a check up.  Government regulation is to the free market as a healthy diet is to the body. Nonetheless, the faith in the invisible hand of the free market prevailed, and those who benefited from it most only touted it more.

Throughout the 1900′s, the government convinced the populace that if the economy was good, everything was good.  A president’s approval rating could soar or dip depending on economic numbers.  It was ingrained into the collective consciousness that money is the standard for happiness and equality. Depression-era radio shows such as Amos ‘n’ Andy reflected the popular belief that the crash was a divine punishment for the hedonistic twenties – a Biblical smiting for the modern age consisted not of a flooded earth, but of an empty bank account.  Cold War jingoism twisted capitalism into a knot with all things great and good about America.

Consumers are taught to believe that capitalism presents an equal opportunity playing field, but in practice it isn’t even Darwinian.  In Darwin’s natural world, at least there exists a basic equality among all life on earth.  The free market is hardly a level game when one kid turns 18 and has to join the army in the hopes of getting college money because there are precious few opportunities in his rural or urban ghetto, while another turns 18 and inherits a trust fund and a name that is a legacy at a prime U.  There were opportunities open to billionaire George W. Bush when his businesses failed that were not open to the mom and pop who had to shutter their shop after Wal-Mart moved in and took all their customers.  Imperfect men cannot a perfect system make, but for capitalism to have been truly equal, imbalances such as those needed to be evened.

What capitalism has done is pushed people further away from one away, not only in economic disparity, but in an emotional disconnect.  It has fostered the want that drove a young man to kill a stranger for his shoes, or a middle-aged woman to tackle the Beanie Baby delivery man as he entered McDonald’s.  It justified taking Indian lands and sending our soldiers to die in the hell of Vietnam.  It allowed the world to stand by and watch as robber barons swindled rubes of their mineral rights and then raped the earth.  Capitalism in practice teaches the demivalues that amassing possession is the highest ideal one can achieve, and it is okay to step on any necks required to achieve it.

Rousseau wrote that community and civilization were dashed the moment someone said, “This is mine.”  Until we, as a race, can come out from under the weight of the consumer-psyche and the insistence on want, we will remain in the capitalist cycle, and our current investments in social capital will acquire no interest.

Rather than the current model which separates the free market, social programs, society and government, the Systems Theory of Economics would mesh them into a relationship of interdependence that would solidify our society in a system of checks and balances, whereby the people could check the power of the state, but also the economy.

The Founding Fathers drafted the social contracts between the American government and her people.  By their example – rather than continuing to allow this rogue, alien entity called the free market to hold sway over us without any check upon it – we the people need to create an economic constitution.  The abuses and failures of the free market warrant that we assert our rights as human beings to take lasting control of our prodigal creation.

A convention should be held of Americans with no partisan affiliation, or any ties to cozy cabal of financial agencies or monitoring organizations who were part of the reason the too-big system failed.  The mission of the convention would be to create a bill of economic rights, and a constitution – that would later be added as an amendment to the United States Constitution – giving the public a voice in how, when and by what means the market is regulated.

For this generation, it would be a start to creating economic stability and true economic equality.  Otherwise, this will remain true: The market is free, yet men are enslaved.

Homophobia and the Birth of Hatred

Where does hatred begin?

Homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has been documented in species as diverse as human beings and penguins.  It is as original as the race and has developed in every culture therein.  Yet, there are those who insist on labeling it “abomination” because passages in sacred works sought to define it as such.

While such words may be the wellspring of homophobia, they do not represent the raison d’être for that particular hatred.  No, as racism is entrenched in social economics, the genesis of homophobia is the economics that built the world’s religions.

Texts such as the Torah, pronouncements such as the Hadiths, and clerical practices that prohibited homosexual equality were created because old world religious leaders needed justification as to why same-sex acts should be outlawed.

The true reason for religions making homosexuality anathema was the most mundane of all: money.

For religions to propagate, they needed followers.  Missionaries and martyrs spread the word, but the easiest way to amass a flock wasn’t in changing people’s minds, or trying to convince strangers to give up their beloved traditions in favor of new ideas.  The easiest way to amass a flock was in creating followers, and raising them up from cradle to grave in a singular worldview.

The goal of every religion is to perpetuate itself.  The greater the population of believers, the greater the chances of that religion enduring.  The simplest thing to do is to encourage breeding among the followers while prohibiting any measure that is counter to that purpose.

Religious leaders drilled it into their subjects that sex was a sin unless it was for the unique purpose of creating children.  Birth control became a sin.  Homosexuality, which provided sexual release, but would not result in pregnancy, became a sin.  Likewise, masturbation, another sexual release that has nothing to do with procreation, became a sin.  Roman Catholic Canon Law 1084 commands that impotence, “whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature,” meaning that if someone was born a paraplegic, the Church wouldn’t allow that person to marry.

Prohibition in those areas, however, led to the encouragement of others.  When Judaism and Mormonism began, multiple wives were allowed, turning each home into a stud farm.  Multiple husbands were never allowed, though, because only the wives could become pregnant.  But then, the subjugation of women has always had a special place among the world’s religions. After all, any institution that controls women controls the population.

Old world religious leaders devised that the most profitable solution to the female issue was to make wives the property of their husbands.  Half the race was relegated to being second class citizens in their own bedrooms.  The dowry and the very identity of the female was absorbed into the male’s life, and her role became to provide him heirs.  The contract of marriage was nothing more than an agreement that signed over property rights.

The utter worthlessness of women is reinforced time and again in sacred stories.  According to the Old Testament, it was corruptible woman who brought about the fall of Paradise, whose curious nature smote her into a pillar of salt, who sapped not only man’s virile strength, but God’s very love for him.  The New Testament offers the impossible and ironic standard of a virginal matron among several fallen women.  Jesus shames those who would stone the adulteress, but it is a daughter’s sexy dance that fulfills her mother’s craven desire to behead the man who baptized the Progeny.

From the page into practice, that contempt for womanhood was upheld by orthodox religious services and hierarchies that did not have roles for women.  Islamic ideology went public, prohibiting women from showing their hair, from showing their faces, and having to walk behind their husbands, when even the family dog is free to run ahead.

Old world religious leaders looking out for their own interests did not possess the imagination to foresee a free society where couples unable to produce their own children would be able to welcome little ones into their homes.

Fortunately, we do live in such a world, and it is time the sad and desperate damnations of the greedy dead stop having sway over how we conduct our lives.

For Pope John Paul II in 2003 to uphold that homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided,” while at the same time speaking out against same sex unions and quoting Scripture that calls homosexual acts “a serious depravity” is laughable.

For American Evangelical groups in 2010 to back a bill in the Ugandan parliament that would make homosexuality punishable by death is horrific.  But both acts arise from the same strain of hate that is intermeshed in literature we are told speaks of love.

Old world religious leaders created homophobia and other imagined sins as nothing more than devices to help perpetuate their group’s continuance.  They were men of ambition and human foible, same as today.  Let not their mistake be made our mistake.  Let not their cunning be made our truth.  Let not the root of their evil be made the root of our faith.

Where does hatred begin?  Money.

Where does hatred end? Where you stop it.

SEX SELLS… DEAD FLEAS?

It’s no secret sexual imagery is used in advertising, but Merial’s provocative photograph used in their 2011 Frontline promotion to be displayed in veterinarian offices across the country has to rank among the strangest.

The central focus of the image is the smiling face of an attractive woman — who is on her back with her neck craned over the side of a cushion.

Her faithful canine companion, cropped to abstraction so that it appears to be in the shape of a tube, rests on the woman’s neck and chest.

If the woman’s exposed shoulder and tousled hair weren’t playful enough, her leg is in the air, suggesting the dog’s path upon her.

The coup de grâce of this defenseless ad: it guarantees “Satisfaction Plus”.

If Merial is half as desperate as the woman in their ad, their stock holders must be the ones needing satisfaction.