Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

In the Second Iraq War, by invading Iraq,
The United States unleashed a conflict
between the Sunnis and Shiites,
and removed the buffer to Iran,
making Iran the major power in the Mid-East,
and causing Israel to be more vulnerable,
not to mention the mountains of dead and wounded!
(Thanks to George, Dick  and Tony)

But as we know they meant well!

Herbert Kuhner

In order to prevent the Asian dominos from falling,
the United States entered the Vietnamese Civil War
on the South Vietnamese side.

The result was the uniting of traditional enemies
against the United States.

By the incursion into Cambodia, the United States
triggered off the Khmer Rouge carnage,
adding to mountains of dead and wounded.
(Thanks Dick and Henry!)

But as we know they meant well!

Herbert Kuhner

The first sacred message received by the children at Fatima in 1917 was basically directed against atheism and communism. The second and third were directed against the Soviet Union.

The Catholic Church had it in for the Soviet Union. That stands to reason.

Every religion - save Judaism - is evangelistic, including the atheistic religion of communism. Nothing wrong with that! Unless, of course, the sword is used as a means for conversion.

In 1940, The Western Christian democracies, except Britain, were overrun by Christian Nazi Germany. Okay, a local conflict.

However, when the Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the conflict was between Christianity and atheistic communism. Soon afterward, the United States entered the war, clouding things up a bit. The conflict was now, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union against Germany and Italy, which was the seat of Catholicism.

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Herbert Kuhner

Here’s Hemingway the pugilist: “I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. De Maupassant. I’ve fought two draws with Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody’s going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I’m crazy or I keep getting better.”
- Ernest Hemingway, The New Yorker, May 13,1950Believe it or not folks, this statement came from a man of letters, who was a Nobel Laureate, to boot!

He was sort of right - as far as fisticuffs are concerned. But I’d give him even more than he gives himself. He could have knocked out three of the four in a genuine boxing ring. I’m not so sure about Maupassant, who was quite an athlete; I’d place my bets on him.

The bookmaker may be the right address for bets on boxing, but it’s the wrong address for literary evaluation, since the matter of winners and losers is completely theoretical.

Incidentally, Tolstoy made comparisons too. He thought that Shakespeare was dwarf compared to him, and another genius he put down was the great Leonid Andreyev.

Literary merit is always a debatable quality. An author shouldn’t be asked to blow his own horn, and if he blows voluntarily, he’s invariably supercilious. Rating an author is the business of the reader and the critic. Only a fool or a tyro would publicly compare himself to others of the trade. When start to compare, you’re bound to lose.

Let me tack this on! I love Maupassant more than I can say. What would I be without him? And by saying that, I win.

Sharron Angle, Tea-Party Republican candidate for the Nevada Senate, wants to outlaw abortion universally, even in cases of rape and incest. She insists that a young girl raped by her father should know that “two wrongs don’t make a right. “Much good can come from a horrific situation like that,” Angle added. ‘Lemons can be made into lemonade.’”

Yes Sharron, you need lemons for lemonade. And while you’re squeezing them, don’t forget, “If you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.”

And while Sharron is squeezing and breaking, here’s Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, Austria. If a child is raped and becomes pregnant, the child should have the child. “I would inform the child of the wonder of the new life in her body - that it is partially her child which will long for the love of a mother and that that it would grow up like a brother or a sister. I also say to her: This will enable you to heal wound that you have acquired …”
- Kreuz.net Catholic News, Interview with Bishop Andreas Laun, Sept. 9, 2006

- Herbert Kuhner

Herbert Kuhner

The great crimes on this earth are murder and rape. A murderer takes the life of a human being. A rapist violates a human being.

Pedophilia is rape of an infant, a child or a minor. Pedophilia can be effected by either violent means or by seduction. Committing the crime of pedophilia is tantamount to the murder of an infant, a child or a minor.

Pedophilia is rape of an infant, a child or a minor. Pedophilia can be effected by either seduction, intimidation or violent means

The suffering of a murdered victim ceases after he has been killed. A victim of rape is
spiritually killed but continues to live.

Pope John Paul II in his 2005 book Memory and Identity compared the Holocaust to abortion, as did many other men of the cloth. He wrote that both abortion and the murder of six million Jews were the result of humans under the guise of democracy usurping the “law of God.”
- Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, No. 68, May 1, 2008

The Archbishop of Cologne, Germany, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, “put women who had had an abortion in a row with mass murderers like Hitler, Stalin and Herod. He compared abortion to the Holocaust and the abortion pill with Zyklon B, the gas used by the Nazis in the extermination camps.”
- BBC Online, February 22, 2005.

Yes, these holy men want stamp out legalized abortion, which would mean a revival of the back-street variety and bring the knitting needle into play again. (According to APA, unsafe abortions cause 70,000 deaths a year internationally.) The holy men concentrate their efforts on fighting against “murder before birth” but what about murder after birth? The word “Holocaust” would certainly be more appropriate to describe the fate of the victims of pedophilia.

Both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI oversaw the hush-up and the shuffling around of pedophile priests. Ratzinger, who was Wojtyla’s ideologue, now lays the blame for the cover-up on Wojtyla. Yes, Ratzinger is as innocent as the driven snow!

Motivation

Sexual behavior between consenting adults is nobody’s business. If the Catholic Church makes it their business, it is “their” business. However, criminal acts are the business of society.

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Herbert Kuhner

Herr Kuhner, if you do not withdraw your case, we will send the public health officer.
- Anonymous caller

Martin Luksan suggested I tackle this again, so here goes!

Yes, this is a trip down Memory Lane, but there is nothing sentimental about it. These were not the good old days. There’s no dabbing at the edges of your eyes with a hankie when you think back.

I’d like to express my gratitude to all the people I encountered who helped me achieve a better understanding of the past.

My First Experience with Inhumanity:
Let me go back to 1938. I was three at the time. My mother and I were in my grandmother’s apartment in Rueppgasse in the 2nd district of Vienna. The doorbell to my grandmother’s rang. I ran to the door and opened it. It was the SA. They entered to ransack the apartment. One of them, I remember clearly, wore a brown suit and limped. The other wore a grey suit. They searched the apartment. The brown-suited man pushed my grandmother, who was eighty-three away from the sideboard in order to ransack it. And indeed it contained her shopping money.

I see that occurrence as clearly as if it were taking place right now.

My parents left what had become Ostmark with me in 1939. Members of my family who remained at that address, as well as at Kärntnertrasse 28, my paternal grandmother’s address, were deported and murdered. Incidentally the latter address used to be occupied by the Educational Academy of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party. It is now the home of a trend chain store.

After my return to Austria in 1963, I set about translating and publishing Austrian poets. I considered it my special mission to render those poets who had experienced the Shoah.

The conditions were anything but sanguine and salubrious. It was as if I had never left.

I soon got into hot water. Apparently, I can’t let things be. I simply had to stir the pot. And I seem to keep on stirring and stirring.

I’ve always said that I wanted to have smooth sailing, but I couldn’t help rocking the boat. Rocking seems to be in my genes. Stepping out of line, which is a movement my feet can’t seem to avoid making.

I’ve been termed a troublemaker. Yes, that’s what I am, and that’s what I’ll be as long as I am on this planet.

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