Hitler Slept Until Noon

At the present time, it is still too early to say whether this is a large-scale diversionary attack or the main effort.

Morning Report for 6 June 1944, German Command in the West

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The only high-command officer who responded correctly to the crisis at hand was Field Marshal Rundstedt, the old man who was there for window dressing and who was so scorned by Hitler and OKW.

Two hours before the sea-borne landings began, Rundstedt ordered the two reserve panzer divisions available for counterattack in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer and Panzer Lehr, to move immediately toward Caen. He did so on the basis of an intuitive judgment that the airborne landings were on such a large scale that they could not be a mere deception maneuver (as some of his staff argued) and would have to be reinforced from the sea.

The only place such landings could come in lower Normandy were on the Calvados and Cotentin coasts. Runstedt wanted armor there to meet the attack.

Rundstedt's reasoning was sound, his action decisive, his orders clear.

But the panzer divisions were not under Runstedt’s command. They were in OKW reserve. To save precious time, Rundstedt had first ordered them to move out, then requested OKW approval.

OKW did not approve. At 0730 OKW informed Rundstedt that the two divisions could not be committed until Hitler gave the order, and Hitler was still sleeping.

Rundstedt had to countermand the move-out order.

Hitler slept until noon.

Stephen E. Ambrose

“There Were These Two Tarts . . .”

David Profumo had rather more facts of life to learn than most adolescent boys, and he learned them the brutal way, on his first day at Eton, when a "ginger-haired ****weasel of a boy" in the year above him decided to tell him a story that would end his innocence for good. "Well," began the boy known as The Butcher, "there were these two tarts . . ."

Until that moment, the 12-year-old David had had no idea of his dark inheritance. He had been sheltered by his parents, not just from the basic facts of human reproduction, but from any hint that his name might be associated with one of the 20th Century's most infamous sex scandals.

Elizabeth Grice

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David Profumo and John Profumo in 1958, five years before The Profumo Affair.

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It was fifty years ago today that The Profumo Affair ended with the resignation of John Profumo from the Macmillan government. Profumo was never again to return to public life, although he lived another forty-three years.

Profumo’s wife remained steadfastly loyal to him after his fall, devoting herself to her husband and three sons for the rest of her life (she died in 1998).

Profumo’s wife was the stage and screen actress, Valerie Hobson, one of the great beauties of the 20th Century. Hobson had given up a brilliant acting career in order to marry Profumo in 1954. (Her final role had been Anna Leonowens in the first London production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “The King And I”, a production that opened in the West End in 1953.)

When Profumo’s dalliances were brought to the attention of British intelligence, the intelligence community initially thought it was dealing with little more than a standard sex scandal. Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies (both still alive) appeared to be nothing more than good-time girls, a couple of half-witted, mindless pleasure-seekers, hoping to trade off their good looks for a little coin and a little fun as long as their looks held up.

Then, to its horror, British intelligence discovered that Keeler, a totally uneducated woman, knew all about “nuclear payloads”.

At the time, the term “nuclear payload” was known only to scientists and defense experts.

The investigation had suddenly taken a new turn . . .

1939 New York World’s Fair

The 1939 New York World’s Fair.

The statue of George Washington seen in the photograph was a late addition to the Fair. Near the end of the planning stages, the organizers decided it might help attract attention (i.e., visitors) if the Fair honored the 150th anniversary of Washington’s First Inauguration.

The 1939 Fair was the second-largest fair ever held in the United States, exceeded in size only by the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis. The 1939 Fair was the biggest international event between the two world wars.

Germany was the only major nation that did not participate in the 1939 Fair. Germany offered “budgetary” reasons for its decision to sit out the event—when in fact Germany had determined that there was no propaganda value to be gained by hosting a German pavilion, the American press having been so firmly anti-German since 1933.

The 1939 Fair was a financial disaster for the organizers; they were forced to declare bankruptcy once the Fair concluded.

The 1939 New York World’s Fair commissioned one notable music composition: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Five Variants Of Dives And Lazarus”.

Saturday’s S.M.U. Commencement

Saturday morning’s S.M.U. Commencement.

According to my brother, Saturday was the first time in fifty years that S.M.U. had held its commencement ceremonies out-of-doors.

The commencement speaker was Kay Bailey Hutchison, who gave a very serious and very dignified address.

Everything about the ceremonies was first-class—and very efficient, which we appreciated.

Andrew and I have suffered through more prolonged—and even obnoxious—graduation ceremonies the last seven years than we can shake a stick at, including our own, and Saturday’s was by far the best.

In my family, we already have a new line of patter: we are making predictions how Northwestern will manage to render offensive its graduation ceremonies one year from now.

The S.M.U. Class Of 2013

The S.M.U. Class Of 2013, in a photograph taken one week ago today.

My brother is part of the numeral “3”.

“The Laundromat Lady”

According to law-enforcement authorities, our stalker uses public Laundromats to launder clothes.

In consequence, my sister has taken to referring to our stalker as “The Laundromat Lady”.

Below is the daily record of our stalker’s visits for the week of December 3.

All stalker visits for the week originated from ISP address 71.36.205.124, registered in Cottage Grove, Oregon, and Elmira, Oregon.

All times are Pacific Standard Time, the time zone of our stalker.

Visits longer than twenty minutes in duration are noted.

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Monday, December 3, 2012

10:20 a.m. PST
3:52 p.m. PST ***
8:01 p.m. PST
9:40 p.m. PST
10:32 p.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was forty-seven minutes in duration.

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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

10:27 a.m. PST
11:19 a.m. PST
12:08 p.m. PST
1:49 p.m. PST
8:00 p.m. PST ***
9:54 p.m. PST
11:22 p.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was thirty-one minutes in duration.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

8:43 a.m. PST ***
12:08 p.m. PST
2:15 p.m. PST
4:22 p.m. PST
9:31 pm. PST
12:05 a.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was twenty-seven minutes in duration.

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Thursday, December 6, 2012

10:15 a.m. PST
1:22 p.m. PST ***
8:08 p.m. PST
9:07 p.m. PST
9:57 p.m. PST **

*** This visit by our stalker was twenty minutes in duration.

** This visit by our stalker was twenty-four minutes in duration.

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Friday, December 7, 2012

11:28 a.m. PST
12:03 p.m. PST
12:43 p.m. PST
6:17 p.m. PST
10:05 p.m. PST

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Saturday, December 8, 2012

9:34 a.m. PST
10:49 a.m. PST ***
4:54 p.m. PST
7:04 p.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was twenty-six minutes in duration.

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Sunday, December 9, 2012

1:55 p.m. PST
9:27 p.m. PST ***

*** This visit by our stalker was one hour and three minutes in duration.

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Our stalker is a middle-aged, mentally-ill woman from Springfield, Oregon, who works on a part-time basis for the Eugene Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival.

Our stalker spends her entire day online—literally, all day, every day, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week—defaming and harassing the Minnesota Orchestra, entering hundreds upon hundreds of idiotic comments, day and night, all over the worldwide web, on any website that so much as mentions the Minnesota Orchestra in passing. Our stalker is neither an educated nor an intelligent woman; she writes the same mindless gibberish over and over.

Myself, I wish our stalker would learn the proper application of the word “disingenuous”, apparently the only multi-syllable word she knows. Our stalker has misused or misapplied the word hundreds of times, on countless websites—and her wholesale misuse of the word is always jarringly inapt.

In January, our stalker began to send us private messages (she last sent us private messages a couple of weeks ago), not a smart maneuver on her part. We shall publish all such private messages once we are cleared to do so.

A couple of weeks ago, our stalker created a new screen name at Minnesota Post: Andrew VanZ. (For those who click on the link: our stalker graduated from Centennial High School in Gresham, Oregon, in 1984, which explains her new user information—and persons will note that our stalker posted additional comments under her real name on the very same threads in which she also posted as “Andrew VanZ”.)

Our stalker is a sick, sick, sick woman.

She is also a very foolish one.

Curious persons may find photographs of our stalker on Sahil Kumar’s rather peculiar but undeniably hilarious Bangalore-based website devoted to fat, unattractive, down-market American women. To read Mr. Kumar’s accompanying texts in English requires installation of a complicated language pack—but the photographs of our stalker, of which there are two dozen on prominent display, speak for themselves. Texts are superfluous.

For anyone in search of hearty laughs, the photographs are definitely worth a look.

The Nightmarish Wasteland Of Armentières, 1918

The nightmarish wasteland of Armentières in April 1918.

Armentières was destroyed in ten days during The Spring Offensive that had begun in March 1918, a campaign the Germans had hoped would break the four-year stalemate on The Western Front. From April 9 to April 18, Armentières was subjected to unprecedented destruction.

Although there is scant evidence of such in the photograph, the area depicted had been a near-impenetrable forest, for centuries, prior to The Spring Offensive.

Once The Spring Offensive—initially successful—ground to a halt, Germany knew that the war was no longer winnable.

Quiz Time

Is the rather alarming creature second from the right male or female? I genuinely would like a definitive answer.

Andrew’s father is wont to say, “I could argue both sides of the case with equal conviction.” Such is precisely my train of thought as I ponder the photograph.

Andrew says the photograph was taken at Fisherman’s Wharf in Budapest—and not in Outer Space, as I had initially supposed.

Old Threshers

A Minnesota farm family in 1901.

Principles And Manners

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.

Samuel Adams