WWII

vixyish and I passed a DVD sale on the way home from dinner. So I bought a copy of Memphis Belle, the only movie left that I was interested in. It will fit nicely into my WWII section (now 8% of the collection).

We watched it later in the evening. When I wasn't blathering about related things I had seen at the National Air & Space Museum I was thinking about World War II. Cynical thoughts. I've always thought of the ghost of Vietnam as a potent force in national politics. It was dragged out and fretted over for every 'police action' during my lifetime -- every one until Afghanistan, that is. The ghost of WWII is much more influential these days. They're a wonderful study in contrasts, these two ghosts. The ideal of uniting to defeat great evil and the fear of getting sucked into horrible, divisive, unwinnable wars. Both haunt America.

I freely admit that I'm a sucker for WWII nostalgia. It was an amazing war that did amazing good. The Marshall Plan was forward thinking on a level I simply have trouble attributing to governments. And yet... maybe it's best if we don't think just wars are possible, just necessary, tolerable ones.

I wonder if the ghost of WWII won't end up responsible for far more evil than all the good we managed to do 60 years ago.

4-1-1996

Stolen from here by way of Kuro5hin.

The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the fast food chain Taco Bell took out a full page ad in the New York Times to announce that they were purchasing the Liberty Bell and renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Their reason for doing this was to "do their part to reduce the country's debt." In a related release, the company pointed out that corporations had been adopting highways for years, and that Taco Bell was simply "going one step further by purchasing one of the country's greatest historic treasures." Thousands of people called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the Liberty Bell was housed to angrily protest the selling of the bell. Taco Bell kept a straight face until noon, at which point it revealed that the earlier press releases were jokes. Soon afterwards Mike McCurry, the White House spokesperson, responded to the jest by declaring that the federal government would also be "selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford Motor Company and renaming it the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial." The hoax paid off for Taco Bell. Their sales during the first week of April shot up by over half a million dollars.

Can you image Ari Fleischer doing anything (intentionally) humorous? I miss the Clinton administration.