Powerless Ponderings By Atomic Beam

One of many large tree limbs that fell at my apartment
complex during the Nor'easter on Wednesday

After outlining some thoughts on Tuesday, it was actually my intent to post a blog on Wednesday, but Mother Nature clearly had other ideas.

Yesterday the second Nor'easter in six days slammed into the east coast like it was trying to make a point.

While incredibly high winds defined the Nor'easter that left at least seven people dead last Friday, yesterday's storm dropped some really heavy snowfall in a short time.

For those of you who don't live on the eastern coast of the U.S., when I say heavy, I don't just mean intense snowfall (which it was), it was a dose of that physically-heavy, really wet snow that's really hard to shovel - it also takes its toll on trees, power lines and the human body.

I'm no Gordon Parks, but take a look at the photo above I took this morning as I drove around the apartment complex in Hamilton, New Jersey where I work and live - that's a 70-foot section of a huge tree that just toppled from the weight of all that wet snow yesterday.

The grounds crew had to use the backhoe to push it up next to the snow bank to clear the driveway until we can get the tree surgeons we use out to cut it up and haul it away.

A bunch of large limbs and branches like that one fell all over the property yesterday, at least two cars got crushed - fortunately they were parked and no one was inside them at the time.

Early Wednesday morning it was about 47 degrees out and it was basically just light cold rain / snow that wasn't really sticking - and I thought maybe the Nor'easter warnings had been a bit hyped.

Anthony Gonzalez perished when he drove over a
live power line in Franklin Lake, NJ on Wednesday 

But around 12:30pm the snow suddenly got heavier like someone had turned on a big spigot and the temperature dropped - and big flakes started coming down hard.

It was actually kind of eerie sitting in my office because I could hear thunder rumbling (yes, thunder while it was snowing) and after a couple hours I started hearing these big cracks as limbs started falling from the weight of all the snow.

The storm proved deadly to a driver about 90 minutes north of here in Franklin Lakes, NJ just northwest of Paterson.

According to an NJ.com article, the driver, identified as 40-year-old Anthony Gonzalez, supposedly tried to drive around a barrier that had been erected around a downed, live power line which electrocuted the vehicle, which then became engulfed in flames - he was found inside when firemen arrived at the scene just before 9am this morning.

An article in The Bergen Record posted on North Jersey.com reports that Gonzalez was on the way over to his 61-year-old father's house to help shovel snow when his vehicle struck the wire.

Which is about as heartbreaking as it gets.

Like state offices and schools, all our regional New Jersey offices were closed, but I can walk to my office in about a minute, so I went in just to get some busy work out of the way and answer emails while I listened to NPR, but I left when the snow had reached about six or seven inches - and it was nasty out.

I don't think I was in my apartment more than about 20 minutes or so, it was like 4:20pm, and I'd started working on the blog I'd planned to post yesterday when I walked into the kitchen to take some stuff out for dinner when my radio suddenly went dead.

I got this bad feeling just as I looked at the stove and saw the digital clock blink off - and I heard this long beeeep! from my stove.

When the power goes out, my stove gives off this distinctive beep, and my heart really sank when I heard that.

It was late afternoon, getting darker, snow is pouring down outside, the roads are basically impassable at this point and my apartment was suddenly really quiet - and the realization that I had no power was really sobering.

All my plans went right out the window, I was going to wrap up the blog, edit and then and post it, then kick back and watch Netflix - but the power took out my WiFi so I couldn't use my laptop.

Writer Stephen King at work

I'm pretty good about keeping all my devices charged up, so when the power went out I was still able to use my iPhone to get Web access.

But the thing is I can't really use it to write a blog.

I mean I CAN, but it's really awkward editing text, adding links and cropping and placing photos - the only time I use my iPhone or Kindle to work on my blog is to maybe correct small typos I didn't catch, change the occasional word, or check my traffic statistics.

I do most of my writing on my MacBook Pro at my desk, I'm a pretty decent typist and it's just the way I like to work - I find it helps the discipline of writing to have a place where you write.

Anything you need to write should ideally be within arm's length, thesaurus, dictionary, journals, pens, pads of paper, cat toys etc. so you don't have to get up and break concentration.

Stephen King's excellent book for writers (a must-read whether you're aspiring, amateur or professional) appropriately titled "Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" emphasizes the importance of having an established "writing space" where you can go to work undisturbed.

Now this may sound strange, but I when I sat down to try and write while the full charge on my computer lasted yesterday, the silence was disturbing my concentration.

You know how lots of snow outside has the effect of making it even more quiet? Well it was so quiet in my 2nd floor apartment I just couldn't concentrate, plus I couldn't get online and I was stressed about having no power.

I always listen to music when I write, I like to have a radio I keep on top of my bookshelf about seven feet away on a somewhat low volume with as few commercials as possible - so it's usually classical on WQXR, classical or jazz on Philadelphia's WRTI, or sometimes progressive / independent rock or alternative on Philly's WXPN, depending on my mood and what I'm writing about.

The background noise keeps me company and helps me concentrate - I could've listened to music on my laptop or phone, but that eats up power and since my power was out, I had to save as much of the battery charge as I could for my devices because at the time I had no idea how long the power would be out.

You may have read in my previous blog about the Oscars, my friend Dave from Dunboyne, Ireland told me he'd been without power for three days - so I was genuinely worried yesterday.

For under $15 you should have an Atomic Beam
and some AA batteries on hand...just in case

I kept checking the PSE&G Website to check on when the power outage would be repaired, and the estimates ranged from 11pm last night to 12:15pm today - at one point the estimate was for Saturday.

Fortunately I had some roasted chicken in the fridge, so I sat down and ate that with a salad by the light of my Atomic Beam lantern I got for Christmas.

Now I don't really plug products on this blog, but I have to tell you, this thing worked amazingly.

Honestly, I'd never used it until last night when it was really dark and the candle and small flashlight I had weren't really cutting it.

It takes three AA batteries, which I happened to have, I unscrewed the bottom, put them in and let me tell you, as a former Boy Scout who has camped in all kinds of weather and light conditions using everything from Coleman lanterns, to flashlights to carbide miner's helmet lamps, the light this thing gave off was amazing.

It's only five inches high and three inches in diameter (pictured above), and the casing is made of a dense plastic, but it has two metal handles that fold upwards to become handles and it has no switch.

You simply pull the top open and it lights up - you can pull it a small way out or all the way depending on how much light you want.

The bottom, where you insert the three AA batteries, is magnetic, so you can stick it on a fridge or any metal surface and it will stick firmly, there's also a small hook that unfolds underneath so you can hang it from something.

I'm not ashamed to admit this thing picked up my spirits measurably - and it was practical too.

Like I said I usually don't push products on my blog ( and I certainly don't get paid for doing so), but having been in something of an emergency, this thing worked efficiently and I was glad I had it - I highly recommend picking one up to have at home - check out the Website.

You can get a two-pack of them on Amazon for about $15 bucks or so if you have Amazon Prime - I'm going to buy another to keep in my car - believe me, if it you find yourself in the dark unexpectedly, you'll be glad you have an Atomic Beam lantern (and some AA batteries).

Anyway, I took it over to my easy chair, sat down and read two long chapters of "The 900 Days: The Siege of Stalingrad", historian Harrison Salisbury's dense, exhaustively-researched account of the Siege of the beautiful Russian port city of Stalingrad (now renamed St. Petersburg once again) during World War II.

It was kind of atmospheric reading accounts of the citizens of Stalingrad struggling to survive no power, little (if any) fuel for heat, very little food and almost constant arial and artillery bombardment from the German forces encircling the city during the brutal winter of 1941 - 1942.

But it took my mind off my own circumstances, which seemed like Club Med in comparison to what those poor people endured.

Those who managed to survive anyway, a staggering 3,466,066 Russian soldiers and civilians died during this horrific chapter of World War II.

I'd venture to say that it's impossible to understand the mindset of the Russian character without understanding the Siege of Stalingrad and what happened there - and why.

It's a gripping, but challenging read because the research is unmatched and it names names of those in the Russian military and government who were responsible for the massive bureaucratic failures that led to over a million German and Axis troops being able to invade Russia's western border in the summer of 1941 and eventually mercilessly lay siege to the city of Stalingrad for over two hellish years.

But it also identifies the countless heroes, soldiers and civilians alike, who sacrificed selflessly for the Motherland to try and save their beloved city - many of whom were later executed by Stalin after the war.

The book, published in 1969, was banned by Soviet authorities because of the harsh truths it reveals about the Soviet Union and Stalin's leadership in searing detail, I've been wrestling with this behemoth for months, in part because sometimes it's so intense I have to put it down every now and then and read something else.

Anyway, to wrap up, as I write this, in the blessed comforts of light, heat, WiFi and music, according to PSE&G there are still about 2,295 customers in Mercer County, NJ where I live without power - 42,934 PSE&G customers statewide have no power as of 10:45pm, and that's not even counting those served by JCPL.

That means hundreds of thousands of people are without power in their homes, condos or apartments right now and it's going down to 28 degrees - that's just in New Jersey.

So rather than politics, racism, unchecked use of force by police, America's damaged justice system or films, tonight my thoughts are with those of all races, ethnicities, religions and backgrounds sitting in the dark tonight waiting for their power to come back on.

Both here in America, in states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, or down in Puerto Rico, or across the Atlantic in parts of the U.K., Ireland and Scotland - and those in the city of Stalingrad from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944.

My power finally came back on at around 8:30am this morning, and I genuinely feel blessed for that - because I know and understand that others have waited a lot longer than 16 hours for the lights to come back on.

Nobody Is Forgotten and Nothing Is Forgotten

Russian poet Olga Berggolts

Last week millions of American citizens on the storm-ravaged island of Puerto Rico were still without power, medicine, food, water and fuel, while the man who calls himself president occupied his days publicly criticizing members of the National Football League for peacefully expressing their 1st Amendment right to free speech.

After the Republican-controlled Senate failed once again to pass an ungainly healthcare bill that would have stripped access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans and allowed insurance companies to charge exorbitant rates for pre-existing conditions, they set their sights on slashing taxes for corporations and the tiny fraction of the U.S. populace that makes up the 1%.

Depending upon one's perspective, the chaotic, directionless meandering and trite, paternalistic moralizing that defines today's Republican Party can be as exhausting as it is exasperating.


Arguably, a number of Russian citizens in the port city of St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) likely felt the same way about the Communist Party - particularly on June 22, 1941 as news spread of Hitler's massive German invasion (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) along the western borders of the Soviet Union.

Russian poet Olga Berggolts was not among those who (albeit quietly) expressed criticism of the Party for its slow response to the many indications that an army of 3.8 million German soldiers was moving east into the Soviet Union across an enormous 1,800-mile front - though she had every reason to do so.

Born in St. Petersburg in 1910, she was just seven-years-old during the October Revolution of 1917 - when the Bolsheviks (led by Vladimir Lenin) toppled the short-lived provisional Russian government that took power after Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on March 5, 1917 in the wake of widespread criticism of his leadership during the First World War as revolution and widespread hunger swept across Russia.

The end of the 304-years of the Romanov monarchy in Russia heralded years of internal political conflict, socio-economic upheaval and violent civil war that eventually led to the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922.

Olga Berggolts (sometimes spelled Bergholz) grew up amidst all that upheaval and chaos, becoming a devoted but idealistic Communist, poet, editor of a local factory paper and a writer of children's stories by the 1930's.

Olga Berggolts' arrest photo

But Joseph Stalin's consolidation of his control of the Communist Party and the country would usher in one of the darkest periods of her life.

Starting in 1936, Stalin and other officials began a two-year campaign to oust members of the Communist Party suspected of being "counter-revolutionaries" or "saboteurs".

A period of political repression which would come to be known as the "Great Purge" or the "Great Terror."

An estimated 600,000 Soviet citizens (the actual number will never be known) were executed at the hands of the Soviet government between 1936 - 1938.

Thousands more were sentenced to labor camps or prisons on intentionally-vague charges that allowed the Party leadership to imprison, torture, or kill virtually anyone.

For reasons that are unclear, but likely related to the content of her writing, her work as a newspaper editor, or her relationships with other intellectuals, Olga Beggolts was ousted by the Party, arrested by the NKVD (precursor to the KGB) and jailed for 12 months for "Unreliability to the Party".

While I can only surmise that she sought happiness, stability and intellectual companionship in marriage, the 1930's were far from kind to her.

Or those she loved.

Boris Kornilov & Olga Berggolts

Sometime in 1925 or 1926, she met the highly-regarded and handsome young poet Boris Kornilov while both were members of "The Shift", a group of poets in Leningrad led by the writer and poet V. M. Sayanov.

Berggolts and Kornilov were briefly married for about two years and they had a daughter named Irina.

But after his first collection of poems was published in 1928, his writing began to spark criticism by the Communist Party establishment.

Without the benefit of having extensive historical knowledge of the period, from what I've read, Kornilov began drinking heavily - understandable given the times.

It's quite possible that because of that, Berggolts was motivated to accept a job as a journalist in Kazakhstan in 1930, where she eventually divorced Kornilov and married Mikhail Molchanov - a literary critic with whom she had a second daughter, Maya, who (sadly) eventually died at 11 months old.

Back in Russia, Kornilov was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers in 1936 - the same year that he and Berggolts' first daughter Irina died of heat disease when she was just 8-years-old.

On March 19, 1937, Kornilov was arrested in Leningrad after being accused of being involved in an anti-Soviet plot - he was sent to Siberia and eventually executed on February 28, 1938.

Perhaps because of her relationship with Kornilov, Berggolts was arrested by the NKVD a second time in 1937 while she was pregnant with her third child (presumably by Molchanov) and sentenced to prison for two years, during which she was interrogated and tortured - sadly, resulting in the child being born stillborn.

Now what fascinates me, is that despite all that personal tragedy, and her brutal treatment at the hands of the Soviet state, Berggolts remained a devout Communist - she remained true to the cause.

According to an article about her on Russiapedia.com, Berggolts is quoted as saying of the Communist-ruled Soviet establishment that imprisoned and tortured her, "there was something wrong with the people, not with the idea of Communism." 

You have to respect her for being a true believer.

Berggolts at work at her desk

After being released from prison in 1939 (the same year the movie Gone With the Wind was released), she returned to Leningrad and re-joined the Communist Party and continued to write poetry.

As a character Berggolts figures prominently in the author Harrison Salisbury's "The 900 Days", his definitive (and comprehensive) 1969 non-fiction account of the three-year German siege of the city of Leningrad during World War II - that's where I first learned about her life and contributions to the Russian war effort.

Not only did she record her written personal observations of life in Leningrad during the siege, she grew famous for reading her poetry on the radio on the only functioning radio station that still broadcast during the long and devastating German siege when the city was being starved, frozen, attacked and bombed from the skies and shelled by artillery.

Her uplifting poetry readings and messages of hope read over the radio are widely credited with helping to boost morale amongst the people of Leningrad during the horror of the three-year German siege.

During which an estimated 1.5 million Russian civilians and soldiers died as a result of combat, starvation, disease or freezing cold - numbers that are almost incomprehensible considering how much the Siege of Leningrad takes up in the historical textbooks of American students. 

Berggolts gave hope to the thousands of Russian civilians who helped defend their beloved city by building fortifications, anti-tank defenses, moving supplies and fighting alongside the Red Army to repel the German attackers.

Russian civilians walk past a frozen corpse on
the streets of Leningrad during WWII  

As Harrison Salisbury observed in chapter 33 of "The 900 Days" , Olga Berggolts once described the city's populace as moving through the streets of Leningrad to the front lines of the battle by: 

"familiar streets that each remembered like a dream - here was the fence around our childhood home, here stood the great rustling maple...I went to the front through the days of my childhood, along the streets where I ran to school."  

Lately I've found myself reflecting on Berggolts' words.

Especially as I try to make sense of what's happening with the regression of the U.S. government under Republican control, and the attempts to turn the GOP's obsession with widespread voter suppression of their perceived "political enemies" into government policy.

Think of Trump and his fabricated claims of voter fraud in the 2016 presidential elections (which he won...).

Or his controversial and widely-reviled White House "commission on voter integrity" led by the notorious Republican voter-suppression specialist Kris Kobach - whose crusade to "purge" voter rolls of thousands of citizens he deems ineligible to vote based on bogus, inaccurate data reeks of the same kinds of tactics that enabled the Communist Party under Joseph Stalin to charge, arrest and even kill people without due process or fair trial.

I've watched in horror as Donald Trump recklessly tramples over the hallowed institutions of our government as he attempts to mold them into a mechanism that exclusively trumpets the rigid ideology of the right-wing faction of hyper-conservative politicians and billionaire political backers that has coopted the Republican Party.

Like those citizens of Leningrad making their way past a cityscape altered by the German invasion that Olga Berggolts described, sometimes it feels as if I'm moving along a conveyor belt of change with other Americans.

Piskariovskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg

Moving past institutions like the presidency, the Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Education - and seeing them altered into nearly-unrecognizable reflections of what Congress and the American people intended them to be.

When I visited the then-Soviet Union in the summer of 1987 with a group of classmates and our teacher, my visit to the city of St. Petersburg opened my eyes to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

A city with a fascinating history stretching back to 1703 when it was founded by Peter the Great.

To stroll through the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, or the Winter Palace once occupied by the Romanov family opened my eyes to a rich culture with a deep literary tradition - it stood in stark contrast to Ronald Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire."

Unquestionably, one of the most moving experiences of my life was during a visit to the enormous  Piskariovskoye Cemetery in the heart of the city - before then I had no concept of the extent of destruction of the Siege of Leningrad.

But when we stepped out of our tour bus and walked to a stone terrace that overlooks the cemetery, which is more like a vast open park, my eyes were immediately drawn to rows and rows of raised elongated symmetrical mounds (pictured above).

When I asked our tour guide what they were, I was stunned when she told me they were mass graves - each one containing thousands of bodies. Because of the cold, the bombing, the starvation and lack of fuel during the siege, it was almost impossible for many civilians to effectively bury their dead.

Piskariovskoye Cemetery, which opened in 1960, was built as a solemn place of remembrance, mourning and reflection - and a final place of resting for the remains of approximately 420,000 civilians and 50,000 soldiers who died during the siege.

Etched on the Memorial Wall of the cemetery are the words of Olga Bereggolts:

"Here lie Leningraders. Here are city dwellers - men, women, and children. And next to them, Red Army soldiers. They defended you, Leningrad, the cradle of the Revolution, with all their lives.

We cannot list their noble names here, there are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite. But know this, those who regard these stones: No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten." 

Regardless of the current political tensions between America and Russia, I've never forgotten the kindness and generosity of the everyday average people I met during my visit to St. Petersburg, or the suffering and tragedy of the Siege of Leningrad during WWII - and I never will.

Was Hitler Really a Meth-Addict? - Stepping Out on 'The Gray Lady'

A young Hitler next to a photo of a Fuhrer-like cat (Photo - Atlas/London Media)

Confession: I've been cheating on my lady with an old flame since last month.

The media furor that erupted last month over New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley's article calling show runner/writer & producer Shonda Rhimes an "angry black woman" sparked a slew of well-written op-eds, articles and insightful reader responses.

The remarkably misogynistic tone of Stanley's piece and the casual reinforcement of ignorant racial stereotypes made me step back and take another look at the New York Times; and do some critical thinking about the make-up of their editorial staff, reporters and the content they produce.

The Time's response to the uproar was so tone-deaf and lackluster, I decided to divorce myself from "The Gray Lady" for awhile and select some other news outlets to "get my news on".

While I miss her, it led me back to an old flame: The Washington Post. Having grown up in Bethesda, Maryland, the Post was on our doorstep every morning (delivered by a neighbor's son from across the street who was a good friend of mine) and spread out about the house throughout the week.

I can still smell that combination of ink and paper. In the pre-cable days of the 1970's and early 80's in the suburban Washington area, the Post's weekly television guide was a highly-coveted and indispensable section of the fat Sunday edition of the Post in our house.

While the Post initially lagged behind the NY Times in developing a strong online presence during the digital transformation, these days the layout and functionality of the WaPo Website is much improved from just a few years ago and with Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos on board as the new owner, the online content and experience is bound to get better with time.

Now I'm something of a history buff; I'm currently slogging my way through "The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad", author Harrison Salisbury's 635-page meticulously-researched and exhaustive analysis of the three-year siege of the Russian city of Leningrad by the Germans starting in 1941 that eventually led to the deaths of some 632,000 Russians - including 4,000 from starvation and cold on Christmas Day 1941. Salisbury was also a long-time editor at the New York Times.

So when I visited the Washington Post's Website after work today to scan the headlines, the eye-opening title of Ishaan Tharoor's article, "High Hitler: Nazi Leader Was a Meth Addict" immediately caught my attention.

According to the WaPo article as well as a piece in The Independent, a new documentary on the UK's Channel 4 airing this weekend, "Hitler's Hidden Drug Habit", the Fuhrer had a quite a drug habit.

Including Pervitin pills containing meth-amphetamine (crystal meth), a barbiturate called Brom-Nervacit, and also morphine - three of the cocktail of 74 different drugs he took according to details from a 47-page American intelligence document.

At first glance such an article might seem gimmicky; after all I did capture the above photo of a young Hitler next to a cat that looks suspiciously like him from an article in Rupert Murdoch's The Sun (UK) entitled (wait for it...), "Mein Furrer" (really) about cats that look like Hitler, but I won't be posting a link to that tabloid jewel of the Murdoch empire. Even I have standards.

Some might consider an article about Hitler's drug use irrelevant given the current Ebola virus, the state of affairs in Syria and Iraq and the ongoing economic stagnation affecting the 99% in this country. But I think the insanity gripping this world (Boko Haram kidnapping school girls?) demands that we step back and reexamine history.

Plus, given renewed interest in the fascinating story "Is Paris Burning?", the book and 1966 film detailing Hitler's efforts to have his army completely destroy the city of Paris before the allied invasion could reach it (Salisbury's book "The 900 Days" also details how Hitler insisted his generals completely level the city of Leningrad as well), a better understanding of how extensively Hitler's mind may have been warped by his drug addiction may help historians gain new insight into the horrific loss of life and catastrophic destruction of World War II.

Maybe someone should drug-test Syrian leader Bashar al-Asaad? And Putin too while they're at it.

Perhaps a better understanding of the horrors of that war may help the world find ways to avoid slipping into another one in the mid-east.

I'll always love the NY Times. It's exceptional journalistic analysis, expansive coverage and insight have helped to expand my intellectual understanding of the world. But their handling of the Alessandra Stanley article (and the fact that they actually printed it) makes me and many others wonder if the editorial board may have gotten just a bit too cozy up on the pedestal.

Perhaps "The Gray Lady" has become a bit too gray. I'll come back to visit her for Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd but for now, I'm giving The Washington Post another chance; especially with the critical November elections coming up and the Nation's Capital once again preparing to take center stage.

Plus I've got a daily friends-with-benefits thing going on with the BBC and NPR too, so I won't lack for company or excellent content. Please don't tell the Gray Lady; she assumed we were exclusive.