Waiting for April 20th to End

I can’t believe how many Google searches for “Hitler’s Birthday” led people to my site this week. There have been hundreds, and from all over the world. I’m stunned that when you type in that phrase, my blog is the sixth site that comes up. Okay, I wrote a post a year ago today called “Hitler’s Birthday,” but I don’t think I’m one of the first to put those two words together. I’m sure many of the people who were looking for information on Hitler’s birthday were doing so for research or other innocent purposes, but since I wrote that post I’ve also received a fair amount of comments from folks who may actually be celebrating that maniac’s 118th birthday today. I’ve heard from neo-Nazis in several countries as well as some bona fide former Nazis who have taken me to task for criticizing Hitler since he obviously did so much good for Germany. One commenter insisted that Franklin Roosevelt was far worse than Hitler. I delete these comments the second they appear. I have no interest in providing a forum for that kind of lunacy but it saddens and depresses me that Hitler’s birthday is still seen by some as an occasion worthy of commemoration.

Today is also the 8th anniversary of Columbine, and the deranged perpetrators of that horrific murder were apparently idolized by this week’s mass murderer at Virginia Tech. Yesterday was the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, another horrific event with ties to Hitler’s birthday. Nationalistic skinhead groups were running rampant in Moscow today causing one university to order all of its foreign non-Slavic-looking students to stay in their dorms for the next three days as a safety precaution. Tonight in New Zealand white supremacists are throwing a big rock concert to celebrate the Fuhrer’s big day. The country’s Race Relations Commissioner said that while highly offensive, the concert in not illegal. “Mercifully, there aren't many people in New Zealand happy to celebrate Hitler's birthday,” he noted. “I don't think it's going to be a very big party.”

NBC and other media outlets have been roundly criticized for airing the videos mailed by the Virginia Tech murderer on Monday in the middle of his rampage. The same thing happened when the decision was made to air footage made by the killers at Columbine. I don’t think these videos should be suppressed but I can’t see the purpose in showing them over and over. Why can’t the networks curb their incessant coverage until there is something new to report? I remember that after a teacher was killed at my daughter’s school last year by a speeding car that plowed into a group of students, the building was surrounded by news vans and reporters for several days. Running that gauntlet was unpleasant but at least in our case interest waned by the following week. I know that news agencies are just doing their jobs, but what can first seem like an outpouring of sympathy to those who are affected by such tragedies can very quickly turn into exploitation and ghoulishness.

Now I just want to end this depressing post and hope we can get through the rest of the day without further incident. Yikes, I just heard that a few minutes ago a gunman barricaded himself on the second floor of an office building at a NASA facility in Houston. I don’t know if there are any hostages and there’s no sign that this has anything to do with Adolf Hitler’s birthday, but I’m counting the hours until this day ends.

Good News: Tomorrow we can celebrate the birthdays of Charlotte Bronte, Anthony Quinn, Queen Elizabeth II, Elaine May, Iggy Pop, and Patti Lupone. Now there’s a party I can get behind!

Comments

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

I appreciate the Good News end to this post! Why can't mainstream media news balance something positive (and I mean *balance* versus 28 minutes of horrific, PTSD-inducing blather & 2 minutes left for a human-interest piece??) Argh. JP

[Wendi Goodman]

I have a 16 year old living with me. He sent me a text message from school telling me that there had been a bomb scare and all the kids were rushed out to sit in the bleachers until the "all clear" signal was given.

I was angry when I found out via a text. The school has the capability of doing mass phone calls & they should've notified the parents and given us the option of picking up our kids. None of that happened. I contacted a local news channel and asked my they hadn't put the story on the news at noon. The response I got was "we don't air that kind of story. Bomb threats are usually not legitimate.

Later in the day, that same news station was running a story about another school in this area where there was a threat against the school with a gun. That was also unfounded but it was still a news story.

Yesterday was a bad day all around.

[Churlita]

I'm glad it's over too. All the planets must align in a bad way around that day to cause so much evil.

[V-Grrrl]

At least we had a good time celebrating Neil's birthday!