Here’s a great roundup of cartoons.

January 13, 1945

MINNEAPOLIS (Routers) The Roosevelt administration reeled today from new revelations of atrocities at POW camps in America’s heartland, where German and Italian prisoners have been worked to exhaustion, and many have died. Amid rising calls to shut the camps down, the international community has expressed shock at news of the harsh treatment of the Axis prisoners, eliminating any pretense at moral underpinnings for our war efforts in the Pacific and western Europe.

Produce Farms of Death

For many, the lachrymose ordeal begins when the prisoners first arrive, as they are housed in an onion-drying shed on the Odegard Farm in Isanti County. Many deaths have been reported, as some of the new arrivals are killed by the veteran prisoners, perhaps while camp guards simply look the other way.

But if they survive the first few days, new horrors are in store for them. There have been reports that prisoners were forced to toil in the fields for eleven-hour days, from seven in the early morning, until the late evening at 6 PM. For this, they get only three dollars a day, with no overtime pay. Thus, the local farmers are benefiting in this cruel war from what many say is tantamount to slave labor. Harvesting potatoes and onions in the fields of despair, they come back to their harsh camps each evening, in tears from the onion fumes (a chemical weapon precursor), dirt and “tater” skins under their fingernails, their lives an unending slog of spud-infested misery.

An Archipelago Of Torture

There is no relief for the POWs when they return to barracks. In the long hot, muggy summer twilight, the mosquitos come. Dubbed “swamp eagles” by the locals, they feast like locusts on the flesh and blood of the brutalized men who dare to venture out beyond the safety of screens in their rough-hewn cabins.

There have been claims, so far unsubstantiated, that some prisoners have been cruelly tortured, often kept awake at night by camp guards playing the Andrews Sisters on the radio. Some of them were made the butt of jokes, and forced to put womens’ nylons on their heads. One poor wretch was reportedly given repeated wedgies by the camp staff until he would reveal the words to all of the verses of “Lili Marlene.”

But sadly, this goes beyond physical deprivation and hardship–the prisoners’ spirituality has often been attacked as well. In many cases, the Germans’ beliefs have been ridiculed by their unfeeling captors, with one man’s copy of “Mein Kampf” reportedly torn up by an angry prison guard. Some claim that Adolf Hitler’s picture is used as a dart board at some of the camps, in plain view of the prisoners. There have also been failed attempts to deprive them of their own cultural traditions, forcing them to conform to midwestern mores, with severe punishments for using the word “scheisse,” instead of “uff da.”

The situation at the Odegard “Death Farm” isn’t unique–such conditions reputedly apply across many camps throughout the upper midwest. Olivia, Owatonna, Montgomery, all the way out to Algona, Iowa–like Manzanar, the formerly bucolic names may now go down in history as a vast network of brutal work camps that will shame America for the rest of its existence.

Good Hamburgers

The administration, of course, attempts to defend the camps.

The commanding officer claimed that “…the Italian POWs in Princeton drew illustrations, carved wood and played sports, including baseball and soccer. The POWs cooked their own meals and some visitors sampling the POWs

The Israelis have discovered sarcasm.

I guess I need a “Sarcasm” category.

Actually, this part puzzled me a little:

However, she noted that the research threw little light on the popular national stereotypes of the English as highly sarcastic and the Americans as totally lacking in irony.

I recall a survey in the Economist several years ago, when they had a little vignette of a description by a member of the foreign service about a certain African (or some other Third-World) country. He apparently said, with face straight, that the problem with the place was that the people there “lacked a sense of irony.”

But I didn’t know they thought that was the case here, or that such a stereotype exists. I do think that Brits tend to have a more ironic, drier sense of humor (droll, if you will), but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do it in America. If she thinks that Americans aren’t sarcastic, she’s never been to New York. Or Boston.

[An update]

It reminds me of the old joke about the Soviet Russian, the American, the Ethiopian, and an Israeli (don’t ask me why). A reporter runs up to them, and asks, “Excuse me, what ‘s your opinion about the meat shortage?”

The Ethiopian asks “What’s meat”?

The American asks, “What’s a shortage?”

The Russian asks, “What’s an opinion?”

The Israeli asks, “What’s this ‘Excuse me’?”

The Israelis have discovered sarcasm.

I guess I need a “Sarcasm” category.

Actually, this part puzzled me a little:

However, she noted that the research threw little light on the popular national stereotypes of the English as highly sarcastic and the Americans as totally lacking in irony.

I recall a survey in the Economist several years ago, when they had a little vignette of a description by a member of the foreign service about a certain African (or some other Third-World) country. He apparently said, with face straight, that the problem with the place was that the people there “lacked a sense of irony.”

But I didn’t know they thought that was the case here, or that such a stereotype exists. I do think that Brits tend to have a more ironic, drier sense of humor (droll, if you will), but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do it in America. If she thinks that Americans aren’t sarcastic, she’s never been to New York. Or Boston.

[An update]

It reminds me of the old joke about the Soviet Russian, the American, the Ethiopian, and an Israeli (don’t ask me why). A reporter runs up to them, and asks, “Excuse me, what ‘s your opinion about the meat shortage?”

The Ethiopian asks “What’s meat”?

The American asks, “What’s a shortage?”

The Russian asks, “What’s an opinion?”

The Israeli asks, “What’s this ‘Excuse me’?”

The Israelis have discovered sarcasm.

I guess I need a “Sarcasm” category.

Actually, this part puzzled me a little:

However, she noted that the research threw little light on the popular national stereotypes of the English as highly sarcastic and the Americans as totally lacking in irony.

I recall a survey in the Economist several years ago, when they had a little vignette of a description by a member of the foreign service about a certain African (or some other Third-World) country. He apparently said, with face straight, that the problem with the place was that the people there “lacked a sense of irony.”

But I didn’t know they thought that was the case here, or that such a stereotype exists. I do think that Brits tend to have a more ironic, drier sense of humor (droll, if you will), but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do it in America. If she thinks that Americans aren’t sarcastic, she’s never been to New York. Or Boston.

[An update]

It reminds me of the old joke about the Soviet Russian, the American, the Ethiopian, and an Israeli (don’t ask me why). A reporter runs up to them, and asks, “Excuse me, what ‘s your opinion about the meat shortage?”

The Ethiopian asks “What’s meat”?

The American asks, “What’s a shortage?”

The Russian asks, “What’s an opinion?”

The Israeli asks, “What’s this ‘Excuse me’?”

In the midst of all the foofaraw over Newsweek’s eagerness to libel the Bush administration, Iowahawk has a story that’s been much less reported:

The debris-strewn streets of this remote Midwestern hamlet remain under a tense 24-hour curfew tonight, following weekend demonstrations by rock- and figurine-throwing Lutheran farm wives that left over 200 people injured and leveled the Whippy Dip dairy freeze. The rioting appeared to be prompted, in part, by a report in Newsweek magazine claiming military guards at Spirit Lake

Real experts are too boring.

Sadly, there’s a lot of truth to it.

Via Alan Boyle]

Real experts are too boring.

Sadly, there’s a lot of truth to it.

Via Alan Boyle]

Real experts are too boring.

Sadly, there’s a lot of truth to it.

Via Alan Boyle]

Questions about John Bolton’s fitness for representing the US at the United Nations were heightened today as more staffers came forward to describe his chronic abuse of his subordinates and volatile, unpredictable temper, as demonstrated in this Senate testimony:

Q: Frank, could we go back? Could you characterize your meeting with Bolton? Was he calm?

MR. FINGAR: No, he was angry. He was standing up.

Q: Did he raise his voice to you? Did he point his finger in your face?

MR. FINGAR: I don’t remember if he pointed. John speaks in such a low voice normally. Was it louder than normal? Probably. I wouldn’t characterize it as screaming at me or anything like that. It was more, hands on hips, the body language as I recall it, I knew he was mad.

Well, you can imagine that when I read this, I was simply shocked at the thought of such a monster representing us at Turtle Bay, reinforcing our international image as an out-of-control cowboy, hands on hips, fingers just centimeters from holsters. I decided to interview some other former staffers to see if this frightening incident was just the tip of an iceberg of hot fury. I got a few leads from the DNC, and came up with some pretty juicy stuff.

First, a “Nita Valium” recounted a fearful encounter with the fiend:

TM: So, what prompted the out-of-control incident that you experienced with Mr. Bolton?

NV: I brought some coffee in to him one morning, and accidentally spilled it on his lap, severely scalding his private parts.

TM: And how did he react?

NV: It was just horrible. He stood up, got a napkin to dry off, wiped off his trousers as best he could, and told me in a tone slightly louder than normal, that I should be more careful. I could tell he was on the very verge of shaking his finger at me. He seems like the quiet type at first, but you can tell that under that mustache, he’s always smoldering, just like Hitler. You never know when he’s going to explode.

TM: Was that the end of it?

NV: Later on, I heard that he had requested that someone else bring him coffee after that. He got his wish–I’ve never been able to do that again. My promising career as a coffee-bringer-to-John-Bolton has been ruined, and I had to settle for a promotion to a different department.

Another former staffer, “A. Peazement,” related the nominee’s response upon being informed that the State Department intended to recommend that North Korea be made permanent head of the UN Committee on Human Rights. He still shuddered in fear at the recollection of the incident, though it was years ago:

TM: So, he didn’t take it well?

AP: No, not at all. He raised his voice almost a half a decibel, and asked me why.

TM: Did your explanation satisfy him?

AP: Well, he said it did, but you could tell he was seething. His voice had the reasonable, calm sound of someone about to explode with fury and fling sharp and heavy items off the top of the desk at you. He was starting to almost frown at me, and I could tell that he was going to put his hands on his hips any minute, but I managed to get out of the room before he could do it.

This correspondent has to ask: How did this brute manage to work in a federal bureaucracy for so many years, with no apparent consequences? How has this kind of behavior gone so unnoticed for so long? How many more sadistic fiends like this are there out there, waiting to be nominated to some sensitive diplomatic post by this bloodthirsty administration? When can we once again be led by people who have the proper temper, and temperament for power?