Tourist in my own town

62012 so i think maybe, now that im not doing anything with my life, ill try and keep up the blog whenever i do something interesting. yesterday arthur and i went on a tour of the Great Lakes distillery newer distillery facilities. http://greatlakesdistillery.com/ these are the notes as we went, the facility was very small, with only one still, there wasnt much to see, but it was exciting none the less Great Lakes distillery, first in Wisconsin since prohibition Walgreens built their empire by selling medicinal whiskey during prohibition, as it was the 1920s, and liquor could cure most ailments, (laudanum anyone?). on December 5 1933 prohibition was repealed, Wisconsin was the second state to ratify, and a Wisconsin legislator wrote the 21st amendment, it was passed in less than a year. most of the spirit market was dominated by a handful of giants in the US, until the Late 90s when craft spirits took off. the guy that began the business first made a Vodka, using Soft Red Winter Wheat which is a local Wisconsin ingredient, it was the first craft spirit outta WI. Vodka doesnt require any specific sugar input, unlike rum, tequila, brandy, whiskeys etc, only a high enough alcohol content during the still process. The "tail" is where all the flavor comes from, but its also where all the bad stuff is that gives you sad hangover. while the tail isnt good for you, its not real bad like the "head" where all the other alcohols are, the ones that make you go blind n fun stuff like that. after the presentation bit on the still, we wandered over to the wall of barrels. The charred barrel that bourbon goes into is a result of some cheap asshole in Kentucky, he bought pickle barrels, for cheap, and then to get the pickle flavor out, he charred the barrels. after bottling, the bourbon never leaves a barrel, and can therefore not be reused for further bourbon production, so they are sold to other distilleries and breweries because the bourbon flavor adds to the beers and liquors. This distillery produces about 60,000 bottles a year. for a bit of Great Lakes history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Seavey the Distillery has produced a Rum, named Roarin' Dan Maple Rum. Being that he was a pirate, and you know, pirates love their rum, and the northern Wisco maple farms, fusion, blah, the spirit was good thats all that really matters. Kinnickinnic means what is blended in ojibwa, hence the name of their blended whiskey (which was also good), they cannot put out a real whiskey, cause it takes forever to make it, this is a blended whiskey with some of their white whiskey and another US produced aged Whiskey. its a small batch distillery, so there is all kinds of love that goes into the spirits, and you can really taste it in them. by the end of the tour we had tried 6 of their different products; straight Vodka, Citrus and Honey Vodka, Gin, Blended Whiskey, Maple Rum, Absinthe, and Rouge Absinthe. it was a good time, got a lil drunk, and then me and arthur went to some kitch bar and had appetizers before going to Dicks for milkshakes and pizza, and a movie. i dunno when the next milwaukee post will pop up, but check back periodically, maybe youll read something interesting

Final Reflections

21612 So now that im a few weeks out i have had time to think about the whole trip. life isnt a series of experiences, its the sum of our experiences. and this trip has contributed significantly to the summation of my life. seeing all the different people and places, experiencing all of the different histories and cultures (and foods) was great. and this entire venture was similar enough to my trip last year, and in line with my studies enough to make t all the richer. pointing out similarities, and discussing the contrasts; both throughout the blog, and in class, with the Balkans helped me to better understand the effect of history on both places. the dialogue has cemented my hopes of putting my education to use, in Eastern and Central Europe, just as the region was the focal point for conflict in the last century, i think it will be throughout this century, and i hope to be engaged in the middle of it. on top of all the scholastic stuff i inevitably made friends over the course of the dialogue, and i hope that despite me being done with Northeastern, i hope that some sort of relationship survives between myself and the regulars i hung out with. considering i still, even only 2 weeks out, continue to regularly talk to a handful of them, i think this is a realistic hope.

early reflections

6712 had the final today, two essays, i wrote them up in about an hour and a half. i am confident in my answers, any stress i have is based upon who is doing the grading, we have an English teacher here as a TA, and i am worried he will knock off points for not liking the way i write. the questions basically had us go through the initial development of communism in the Czech Republic and the rest of Eastern/Central Europe, and the second question was the post-communist development of the Czech republic and one of its neighbors. after class i took another sweet nap, before heading off for the end of dialogue boat ride. the boat ride was fun, not only were (most) of us students there, but there were a few of our lecturers and tour guides. the boat took us up the river (so northwestish) and through a lock, and then back down the river some. about a 2 hr trip, i was enthralled in conversation with the clique of girls i hang out with for much of the time, (though the tank fell asleep at various points, apparently not appreciating not only our final moments together, but also our final moments together in such a beautiful city as Prague, she claims she felt), and enjoying the scenery, so i did not follow through on any discussion with the guest lectures. the end of the boat ride also meant our last interaction with Harlow over the course of the trip, and likely my last physical encounter with him ever. we shook hands and said our goodbyes, ill probably follow this blogpost up with an email to him, i hope to use him as a reference for my grad program applications in the not so distant future i suppose there should be some reflecting going on now that we are near the end. i will surely have better stuff after my hours of flight time, but ill put some ideas out there now. overall this was a great trip, the various excursions (barring the long walk) were engaging and educational, i have actually been to most of the locations we wandered through, but i was still enthralled at every turn. the various lectures, and guides that went with us to these places were all very knowledgeable, and for the most part engaging. my feelings are torn as to the variety of students on the trip, my last dialogue was filled with international affairs, or poli sci, or history kids, so to be here with different majors, the bios, the journalists, the comms, made it a different experience. their lack of knowledge about the region made the discussions were a little more broad than i would have really liked. but it also gave me a chance to reexamine my outlook and knowledge on all this stuff when they (namely the troop of ladies) turned to me in an aside to ask something or other.

teaching is a reward unto itself

6612 yet another day of interview presentations, some of the girls from the gaggle i hang out with were freaking out about talking infront of us, they subsequently did well, later in the evening they were freaking out about the final tomorrow, so i walked through everything with the whole gaggle (covertly doing my own studying while schooling them). anyways more on this later. after the class i went to eat with some catz, unfortunately it was a none-too-exciting dish of four cheese gnocchi, so nothing epic on the food front. found my way home, and took a nap. the Big One woke me up to go buy beer for her dad, she wanted someone to point out what was local, cause im an expert i guess? anyways, i end up getting some stuff to bring home for tastings as well. my pops always laments "once you got old enough to be cool, you moved out" so i figure i can at least bring some good beers back with me from the whole "being cool/moving out" process. i then wandered around Prague a lil by myself, trying to chase down a good vinoteka, that carried the craft local made Czech Absinthe, again to share with my Best Friend For Life. after all this a section of our dialogue went to the Ballet, it was at the Státní Opera ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_State_Opera ). first off, small world category; i ran into a girl from my capstone class. we walked into the foyer, and hesitated deciding as to which direction to take to our nosebleeds, and she spotted me as she was waiting at the ticket counter, she is backpacking round Europe now that shes all graduated. it was a rendition of Cinderella. i have been to very few ballets in the course of my existence, so i really have nothing to gauge against, it was interesting, there were a few points where i noted the male dancers (a set of aristos in the ballroom scene) were off, but for the most part it seemed pretty good. everyone was also a little disappointed by the dress Cinderella was wearing throughout said ballroom scene, she was supposed to be like resplendent, and make everyone else look as the Big One put it "like the didnt even get dressed that morning". the walk home from the theater we got to chat with Harlow himself, that was fun, (not a moment of asskissery, i say this with the utmost sincerity) he is a cool guy, even when ignoring his seemingly endless pool of knowledge, im glad he runs this dialogue, as ive had my heart set on this one since learning of the Dialogue program, his ways have certainly exacerbated my enjoyment of the trip. upon the completion of said walk, much of the troop of girls gathered in the hallway to go over the exam. i am reassured now after going over everything with them, i guess that whole "you cant know till you teach" adage has some veracity to it.

caviar and free speech

6512 today we had a few more interview presentations, but the primary activity of the day was the excursion to the Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty facilities. first off the place offers 21 different broadcast services in 28 different languages. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty ) while it was originally funded by the CIA to broadcast to the Eastern Bloc, nowadays they work to broadcast radio/tv/webservices to various places around the world, predominantly reporting the news in these countries, as they are generally not liberal with and limited freedom of press/speech. The service covered Central Asia, the Caucasus and Russia. Though communism fell, and the US wanted to cut the program, the Czech president, Havel invited the program to Prague because he thought it would still be necessary to fight censorship and tyranny in the newly "free" Europe, also it was cheaper than Munich, and much more appetizing to the US. Things have actually gotten worse in Russia in the past ten years (not surprisingly) Putin has closed many of the news bureaus, and all but 2 of the broadcast stations in Russia have been closed. This is the headquarters, there are 350 journalists here, plus supporting staff the Director of Azerbaijani service came to speak to us my notes from the discussion follow: They have generally unrestricted internet however only around 20% of the population makes use of the internet on at least a weekly basis, but international broadcasters for radio/tv have been kicked out. The government actively tries to control the flow of information, particularly inflow of international news, and heavy censorship of domestic news. he pointed out that human rights and corruption are serious issues, no free elections, rubber-stamp parliament, entire country is run by single family. He first started working for the Russian service of Radio Free Europe, then he went to DC to work in the Radio liberty offices, almost right out of college. He has recently been promoted to the managerial position for the Azerbaijani bureau due to his background and "consistent laudworthy behavior" (as he put it). He believes Radio liberty is important, because there would be no expression of alternative sources, the media is controlled by the state, He further believes that Radio Liberty is important, because the Azerbaijani people get to see that the US is doing good things, helping them out, providing unbiased news, that the US is worried about more than just security and energy. he explained that whenever he goes back to Azerbaijan, he is followed, which is fine, because he has nothing to hide, he maintains transparency, the police will not find that he is doing anything wrong the harder they scrutinize, the more ridiculous they look when coming up with nothing of note. the building itself was very cool, new and modern, and reminded me a bit of the parliament building in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there was heavy security and a no photo policy, so you will still be left with only your imagination. i really liked this visit, this was much more like my previous dialogue, going and talking to members of the government and civil society. here we have been speaking to mostly academics, which is certainly interesting, but it is nice to get a glimpse of the application of these concepts we talk about. after class n some chill out time, the girls and i found our way to an (expensive) Czech place for dinner, i split a plate of fried cheese and french fries with the tank, and had a 1/4 of roasted southern bohemian duck, with both potato and bread dumplings, the Budvar beer i had with it cleaned up well. came out to the mest expensive meal so far, but i certainly consumed 20USD worth of food and drink.

that paper thing

for grading purposes, this will have been previously read for those of you with nothing to do, and which to hear about my discussion with Professor Hnát, read on Oral History: A Young Economists’ Perspective Pavel Hnát, was the man I chose to interview for our oral history bit. As it turns out a number of other characters from our dialogue had a similar idea, so there will likely be similar write-ups to come. Mr. Hnát lectured us on Monday, May 28th, particularly on the transformation of Czechoslovakia from a command economy, to a free market economy, and the subsequent discussion we had with him followed on this nicely. Pavel Hnát received his masters in International Trade, and a PhD in European Studies, today he is a professor of economics, and from what I could ascertain various sub-studies therein. He was eight years old at the time of the Velvet Revolution, Hnát admitted to us that he does not remember specific instances of the Revolution but he can certainly recall the palpable excitement of his parents and peers. Much of the after-lecture interview tied in neatly with the lecture itself, this may have been for our benefit, but I believe that this was because he has since framed the Revolution within his area of expertise, transition economics. Mr. Hnát focused on the necessity of the transformation in both his lecture and the discussion he had with us. He further broke down the way in which Czechoslovakia went about this transformation; via redefinition of the state, such as reorganization of the state organs, and its interaction with the rest of the world within the auspices of globalization, political transformation, namely liberalization, and most importantly for Pavel Hnát’s examples, the economic transformation. I got the feeling that Professor Hnát is an ardent neo-liberal economist, and I believe that this is integral to our understanding his understanding of the Czechoslovak transition to liberal democracy. He discussed the ideas of Shock Therapy and The Washington Consensus (both theories firmly in the neo-liberalist camp) at length, claiming that Czechoslovak successfully navigated their transition due to the appropriate implementation of these practices. His positive explanation of the restitution process, and the Voucher Privatization endeavors served as examples of why Czechoslovakia in contrast to its neighbors like Poland and Hungary, so quickly and less-painfully transformed itself into a free market economy. His stance was made more obvious to me through his discussion of the EU and its various other organs, he believes in the intra-EU free trade, and porous border, but as we found out later he also believes the EU is effectively a neo-mercantilist empire, pushing exports while limiting imports, and centrally controlling capital movement, and in the case of the Euro working to centralize currency decisions across a multi-state system. Hnát felt optimistic about the Czech Republic joining the EU, but was concurrently worried about the currency issues of the Euro itself, and its effect on the Czech economy. We also discussed the more personal aspects of this transition with Professor Hnát, even at his age, he was optimistic about the Revolution, and he said this was probably a result of his parents’ enthusiasm for change as well. He claims his family generally does not discuss politics, but ensures us that his parents and his views on the Revolution and subsequent transformation has been for the best, he did note that the divide would become more apparent with the generation before his parents. Mr. Hnát cited that his grandparents had more issue with the Revolution than he or his parents, namely because they “back in the day” chose communism voluntarily, and witnessed firsthand the fascism of the 1930s, and believed in the early rhetoric of the Communists. He went on to explain that while they still may be nostalgic for the promises of communism, and their distaste for sudden change, it has not been a significant issue dividing his family. His family faced significant economic difficulties at the time of transition, which he admits were attributed to the shock therapy undertaken by the new Czechoslovak government, however, he and his family certainly benefitted overall. He recalled the housing restitution system as being the most personal hardship to him and his friends. He says that he and his parents are most excited about the opportunities which have been opened by the Revolution. He is glad for not only the opportunities since afforded him, but also future generations; he gives his students as an example. Many of the students he teaches take at least a semester abroad, going all over the world to gain not only academic knowledge but the many experiences kids (like us!) garner through interaction with those different from ourselves. We asked after a few more comments on the EU, and Czech opinion on globalization, he said that though everyone will disparage the multinational corporations like IKEA and Tesco, but they still shop there (much like the Americans and Wal-Mart). Hnát also described to us the path by which he believes the Czech Republic will further succeed in the global community, namely the Czech government needs to invest in Hi-tech industries, as well as logistical and telecom development, noting that the Czech Republic has neither the populace, nor the resources to compete with the likes of China, or their more neighborly Ukraine or Poland. The interview was interesting, especially because I had had a glimpse into his professional life beforehand the discussion. Knowing that Pavel Hnát was an economist helped me to better understand the stories that he was telling as well the lenses through which he views the Revolution and subsequent transformation. I was very interested in everything he had to say, and I feel that I got a better interview out of him than I would have a “common” Czech citizen because of his background as an academic. That being said I recognize that he has a different viewpoint than many “lay” Czech people, he recognized the necessity of the shock therapy, he believed, as I do, that the five years of financial difficulty that resulted in following the Washington Consensus, were better than the continuing difficulties neighboring ex-Communist countries are facing to this day. Again I have to voice my appreciation for this assignment, the open ended nature of the project has helped us to make it our own, I know I got much more out of my interview than I would have had I been required to follow more stringent guidelines.

sanctioned whining

4612 class today was dedicated to the presentations for our oral history, and it was dominated by my groups presentation. as it went a half dozen of us wound up sitting down and talking to Pavel Hnát, the econ professor that lectured us last week. we divided the presentation fairly easily, each of us discussing points that interested us specifically. i spoke on the general feelings people had on the transition, the guy we spoke to was an academic meaning he had a little more insight into what was happening in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic than lots of people. but he had interesting stuff to talk about. overall i think our presentation went pretty well, (ill post my writeup as an addendum: day 29a, it is by no means a necessary reading to this dialogue), a girl who spoke with one of our tour guides presented after us. she focused more on the personal story, which was very interesting. i like that this assignment was so open ended, in that we could focus on who, and what we wanted. her presentation was interesting, and im sure she enjoyed the narrative more than she would have enjoyed the dry talk of command to free market transitional econ that i was into. i look forward to hearing about other peoples presentations in the coming days. we also got a chance to discuss our opinion on the dialogue overall with Harlow, it was nice to air our grievances and pile our lauds. also later this afternoon, ill go hunting for booty to bring home.

a glorious 12 hours of sleep

3612 i know i have said we didnt do much before, but today, we really did absolutely nothing. i slept in till noon for the first time in over 4 weeks, i woke up, the girls (minus the injury-prone lil girl) happened to be going to the american-dineresque Bohemia Bagel for breakfast, i tagged along. had myself a fried egg, bacon and swiss bagel sandwich, i asked what kind of bagels they had, and the waitress straight up told us she doesnt know exactly which ones they have, i asked if they had onion bagels, and she acknowledged me. ultimately the bagel that i got was unidentifiable, maybe it was spinach? anyways it was tasty. after this i went home, watched the latest Underworld movie, that was awful, and then napped more. after the nap i wandered aimlessly around our immediate neighborhood, i got a pasta dinner and came back home, wrote up the writeup for the oral history presentation, and despite my best efforts, got dragged out to the jazz bar we frequent. there i had a beer, and sat around till other people got as tired as i was, and had an excuse to excuse myself. i do feel a little guilty that i did nothing, but then again, this is the first day in 30 days where i got to do what i wanted. i had wanted to go to the communism museum, the one that is above the McDonalds, across from the casino, but it would likely be closed on a sunday, and i was exhausted from the previous weeks of adventure. maybe ill go later this week, i also need to chase down some authentic Bohemian style absinthe to compare to the Swiss/French style i have back home.

a long walk

2612 so on our first weekend in Prague, we had a scheduled "genuine Czech weekend experience" it was, in all honesty, unpleasant. i really try to appreciate all the organized activities on these things, but this was really not all that great. we hopped on a train and rode out to the countryside, we made our way to another chateau. this bit was cool, the place was built during the 16th century by some German Protestant family in an Italian Renaissance style, and when the Thirty Years War came to an end, considering what side they fell on, they were forced to sell their property, it end up in the hands of the Lubkowics family ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobkowicz ). the place was pretty impressive, it had all kindsa art n curios in there, more than like 65,000 books, including 500+ year old books, one of which about astronomy was pretty cool, there was also a room dedicated to all the hunting that the princely family did over the years, with antlers and skins and bones of all kinds of exotic animals. unfortunately photos were strictly forbidden so i havent any. the chateau was pretty cool, much like all the others in the region but interesting in its own right. aaaaaaand then walked a bunch, and then walked more totaling to somewhere around 90 minutes of walking between rough country and small towns, till we got to a Biker rally-like thing, which we walked through to get to a scummy pond. this pond was absolutely brimming with tadpoles, there were areas that were black with them, it was kinda unsettling. after sitting around this pond/grassy area for 45 minutes, we walked another 60 minutes to another train station to get home. i would have really preferred to have a day in Prague, or at least a more directed day in the country. i think that morale would have been greatly improved had we been promised food, like on the Dialogues dime. i recognize the budget was kept low, but walking us around all day through country most of us werent to keen on anyways, and not really giving us time to get food/drink, meant we were rather grumpy by the end. again i appreciate the effort put forth for us by the program, and our guide, but i really did not like wandering around and doing nothing all day, there are 3-4 musuems in Prague i could have hit, and would have enjoyed so much more. i am likely to fall asleep soon, tomorrow is a free day, hopefully i stumble into something worthwhile.

a lil lacking

1612 i have started to get a lil lax with my blog posts, but thats cause not much of note has happened, i feel a lil bad that the most exciting part of the day for me was going to a club in the eve, but thats whats up. ill give you a rundown anyways woke up for class, which was very interesting today, we had a guest lecturer from Charles University? (i think he was in the Faculty of Philosophy for Charles) and he walked us through the political philosophy/economy/social commentary written by Václav Havel, the Power of the Powerless ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel ). the lecture was very interesting, i havent had an opportunity to think about politics from a philosophical point of view since like second year, so i enjoyed it. the lecturer walked us through a little of the historical context of the essay, and Havel's life, and then jumped into asking questions like "what is a lie?" and "why is the truth better?" so that was fun, mentally exhausting, but hey, these exercises are as essentially as squats and pullups. i feel like a good number of the catz in our group didnt appreciate the lecture, as they are lame majors like communications and biology. in the evening we had tickets to see a dance performance at the newer stage in Prague ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterna_Magika ). it was titled Graffiti, and even now as writing this (26 hrs later) im not entirely sure what i saw. the production was spectacular, there were dancers on stage, doing interpretive? dance, some kind of modern stuff that was a lil confusing, impressive, the balance, and body control was certainly spectacular, but i wasnt always sure what was going on, and then, on top of that (literally and figuratively) there were more images, in that over the entire stage was an angled mirror surface, and to compliment this there was a screen parallel with the floor, which had all kinds of images on it. so as a member of the audience you could see what was on that screen via the mirrors, and we saw what was happening on the floor with the appropriate lighting. it was crazy, kinda sensory overload, not disenjoyable, just alot, i may have a Eureka moment and figure out what was going on in the coming days, but for right now, it was cool seeing dancing and pictures n music, but im not entirely sure what was going on. after class i took the free time to nap, we havent had much time to ourselves so far on this dialogue, so i slept, i didnt have any particularly interesting dinner, and eventually we went out. we went to a club that had a series of DJs coming through, one of them being Porter Robinson ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_J3WWYp8Gc ) who is a big deal (and quite a bit younger than me, i guess im getting old) the show was good, there were lots of people, myself and a number of catz had a swell time. tomorrows post will be more substantive, i promise

ranty

31512 after our morning class we had a tour hosted by a survivor of the work camp we were scheduled to visit, František Zahrádka (from now on, this man will be refered to as "he" a he was telling us stories). first we stopped in Příbram, a small town which housed the museum to the Third Czechoslovak resistance. the First being, the free czech legions fighting the Hapsburgs, via the Italian and French Armies, the Second fought the Nazis, and the Third resistance, were the communist resistance movement, only officially recognized in 2011 though the small museum we walked through dates back to 92. He worked with the resistance smuggling the czech RAF pilots out of the country to help them avoid the persecution by the new communist regime, cause you know, obvioulsy if they worked with the RAF (training Israeli pilots they were against the commies). He worked closely with american agents in Germany to achieve this. Real fear of WWIII breaking out as communism rolls through eastern europe, the situation in berlin particularly. Because of this many of the dissidents and resistance members, did not care for the length of sentence, they figured the war would start and they would be freed eventually by the victorious West anyways. He was 19 when he was shipped to the labor camp, where he was sentenced to 20 years of his life. The only reason he didnt recieve the death penalty was because the year before the government passed a law forbidding the execution of any under age of 20. He ultimately only spent 13 yrs in the camps. After his sentence was served, with his parents dead, he had no where to go, so he signed on with the uranium mining outfit which he worked for as a prisoner, as a qualified electrician. He worked till retirement at this mine.

While there were many who actively resisted, and were "punished", there were people who didnt cooperate with the communists, who were punished in the same fashion so the inmates in the forced labor camps were very different. The Germans actually did the original surveying noting there was uranium here. The Soviets were desperate to get the uranium to develop their one nuke program, and they subsequently pushed the czech communisnts to get the land. The Nazis had plans to reclaim the uranium, and started lying down the infrastructure necessary, but never got around to it as the war ended. In 1947 the russians brought in German POWs to do the work. By 1949, the German POWs were returned to Germany, and the labor was replaced with Czech subversives. Random facts about the camp: These mines produced very rich uranium veins, but the area also had silver and lead deposits. Some of the shafts went down to 1800m. Housed 1800-2000 inmates. it is a little disjointed, these were notes i took as he spoke to us (via a Charles University history professor translation), being a cool old guy, his stories and information came out a little haphazard, id prefer to keep it as is. He really wanted to note that there were good people, guards and civilian workers that did small things to make life easier, a scrap of food here, or a letter smuggled there, and from this pool of good people, there were those that went beyond and helped inmates to escape as well. this camp was very different from the Nazi labor camps, i didnt feel that collective guilt that was imposed in the facility yesterday, this guy lived through this, for a number of years, and he told us stories of his friends being shot before his eyes, or being beaten to within an inch of his life. but he seems to have come to terms with it, the Communist system which abused him and his people so, is over and done, and while i will never forget, he doesnt strive to remember. i know that sounds weird, but i feel like he isnt dwelling on the tragedies of the past, its something he acknowledges, and conveys to us (future generations) as bad, but he believes that like he did, we will do what we can to prevent anything like that from happening again. whereas in the Holocaust memorial stuff, i feel like i am just being emotionally berated, i mean, both of my grandparents were members of the US military through WWII, they actively endeavored against the Nazis in some way or another, i have no genealogical connection to the Holocaust (victim or victimizer) but i end up walking away from these places often times feeling guilty. and i chalk that up to the memorial/museum not being done well, i have mentioned a few that were well done, and i notice now that it is because i walk away sobered certainly, but also learned, not just feeling shitty. this kinda came up in class as well, we talked about Lidice and the concentration camp visits, and people mentioned how powerful it was to see that, and i brought up the point that the Lidice was a really good example for us, Lidice wasnt just the Nazis killing Jews (again not to lessen the tragedy of the systematic destruction of an entire people), it was a reprisal against the Czech people. WWII specifically, but accross history, there are countless accounts of tragedy visited upon a people for some reason (be it "legitimate" or not). i feel like we get caught up on the Holocaust alot, but then forget the historical genocide of the Irish, Native Americans, Albanians, and the Muhajir to name a few. basically, im sayin the world is a shitty place, memorials are good, but they most come with at least objectivity, and hopefully forgiveness.