Blogroll and Movies

Instead of doing anything particularly useful with my day, I've spent the last 2 hours surfing various blogs using the "next blog" link. Lots and lots of these blogs seem to be in Portuguese or Polish. What's funny about that is, they both sound very much alike, although they couldn't be more different. It must be all the "shushing".

While surfing around, I found a blog called The American Journal. I read about 15 entries, really liked the blog, and blogrolled it. This is the first time in a long while that I've added a complete stranger to the roll -- usually I end up adding friends, friends -of-friends, or well-known bloggers or celebrities. For a good introduction to this blog, read this.

I watched two movies this weekend. One was a 1988ish movie called Dancers. It was recommended to me by someone at work. After seeing the movie, I can only gather that it was on this person's top 10 list because it features prominently, the buttocks of Baryshnikov. I really don't get why this flick was even made -- unless, of course, it was Barysnikov's way of getting his signature ballet on film before he was too old to dance it.

The second movie is called Hitler's Secretary - The Blind Spot. This isn't so much a movie as it is an interview or documentary. Very poorly edited, it is an 80-some-odd minute lecture by Traudl Junge - one of Hitler's private secretaries from 1942 until the end of the war. I am going to have trouble assigning this one a star rating on the movie list. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Hitler, WWII, or even psychology, but I can't say that it is an enjoyable or well-made film.

Frau Junge admits to actually liking Hitler - apparently he loved doggies and really liked portraying himself as the stern but lovable father figure. This movie hits on a theme I find fascinating though - this woman lived with one of the most miserable excuses for a human being that ever existed, and never once understood who she worked for. Many Germans, Poles, French, and others in countries occupied by the NSDAP claimed after the war that they didn't know of eugenics or the concentration camps. This assertion has always fascinated me -- not because I think these people are idiots, or even liars, but because it is nearly impossibly true. It isn't that there weren't signs of things horribly wrong, or a lack of news reports or personal accounts -- but the psyche of these people just couldn't be wrapped around the horror of what was happening in their backyards.

I can't help but wonder how many Americans will be shaking our heads in the future, wondering how we could have been so ignorant of what our government has been up to in the last few years. I'm not comparing G.W. Bush to A. Hitler by any means, but it is truly amazing how human beings, creatures blessed with rational thought, are so quick to put in the driver's seat, anyone with a strong "can-do" attitude and a promise to rid the world of "evil-doers." We hand our consciences over to the guy in power, simply because he says it's ok to do so.