#avid

And thus to my final and most melancholy point: a great number of Stalin's enforcers and henchmen in Eastern Europe were Jews. And not just a great number, but a great proportion. The proportion was especially high in the secret police and 'security' departments, where no doubt revenge played its own part, as did the ideological attachment to Communism that was so strong among internationally minded Jews at that period: Jews like David Szmulevski. There were reasonably strong indigenous Communist forces in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, but in Hungary and Poland the Communists were a small minority and knew it, were dependent on the Red Army and aware of the fact, and were disproportionately Jewish and widely detested for that reason. Many of the penal labor camps constructed by the Nazis were later used as holding pens for German deportees by the Communists, and some of those who ran these grim places were Jewish. Nobody from Israel or the diaspora who goes to the East of Europe on a family-history fishing-trip should be unaware of the chance that they will find out both much less and much more than the package-tour had promised them. It's easy to say, with Albert Camus, 'neither victims nor executioners.' But real history is more pitiless even than you had been told it was. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#camus #communism #czechoslovakia #david-szmulevski #east-germany

Many of the network television shows have done takeoffs on 'Family Circus,' including 'David Letterman,' 'Friends,' 'Roseanne,' and others, and, in my estimation the use of them is a compliment to the popularity of the feature, which just by mentioning it's name sets up the image of a warm, loving family-type feature. ↗

— Bil Keane

#compliment #david #david letterman #done #estimation

I teethed on books of heroes such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David. ↗

— Luke Ford

#abraham lincoln #books #churchill #david #heroes

Is anyone serious about the politics of happiness? David Cameron dipped a toe in the water, using the word lightly, but denying the hard policies it implies. Labour shies away from it, but should take up the challenge. ↗

— Polly Toynbee

#anyone #away #cameron #challenge #david

When I was younger, I was fascinated by David Bowie, for example. he had created an entire myth around himself. It was as important as his music. ↗

— Lars von Trier

#bowie #created #david #david bowie #entire

I'm running against a woman who's got David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel running her campaign. ↗

— Joe Walsh

#campaign #david #got #her #i

I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race. ↗

— Kerry Washington

#around #called #characters #david #desire

The representation of the tabernacle arose out of the temple of Solomon as its root, in dependence on the sacred ark, for which there is early testimony, and which in the time of David, and also before it, was sheltered by a tent. ↗

— Julius Wellhausen

#ark #arose #before #david #dependence

One other fact is significant: the domestic feasts and sacrifices of single families, which in David's time must still have been general, gradually declined and lost their importance as social circles widened and life became more public. ↗

— Julius Wellhausen

#been #circles #david #declined #domestic

First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago. ↗

— Carl Wilson

#ago #associate #avid #become #blogs