The release of the DVD of Holocaust, the mini-series starring Michael Moriarty, James Woods, and Meryl Streep, marks the 30th anniversary of its airing. I know Ive seen this miniseries before, and I know it wasnt when I was seven years old, so Im guessing I checked it out in VHS form from Detroit Public Library when I was living there 12 years ago. I seem to remember being better impressed by it then - when I knew significantly less about the Holocaust than I do now.
Ostensibly this is the story of two families, the German Jewish, affluent, educated Weisses ( meaning white, I assume not coincidentally) and the more working class, gentile Dorfs who are, at the beginning of this saga, poor and without work or helpful patronage. However, the scope of this mini-series is more ambitious than careful, believable coverage of two small families would allow for. Instead during the course of the story the viewer is taken to Buchenwald, Theriesenstadt, Auschwitz, and Sobibor, to the Warsaw Ghetto, Babi Yar, and the Wannsee conference which planned it all. We see Reinhard Heydrich in action, as well as Hans Frank, Adolf Eichmann, Heinrich Himmler, and Rudolf Hoess, the death farmer. While this gives a school student or entirely unknowledgeable viewer a decent overview of the many horrors perpetrated by the Nazis from 1935-1945, it completely stretches believable narrative by its seams.
The mini-series begins in 1935. The Weiss family is celebrating a wedding between their artist son, Karl, played by James Woods, and his lovely gentile bride, Inga (Streep). The danger of this union is apparent and discussed by several of the wedding guests as the Nuremberg Laws are about to be enacted. One of them clearly has his eye on Inga and is revolted by her choice to marry a Jew. The Weisses feel the tension, but try to diffuse it and laugh it off. Within a very short period of time, it becomes apparent even to matriarch Berta Weiss (Rosemary Harris) that things just arent funny. Josef Weisss longtime medical practice becomes Jew-only by decree and his former patient, Erik Dorf, warns him to leave Germany because worse is coming and he will not help him when it arrives.
Meanwhile the unemployed legal clerk Dorf has a sickly wife and two children to support and no idea how. His wife, Marta, tells him of an opening in Heydrichs office and advises him to be ambitious and confident. So the passive and Jew-neutral Dorf gets sucked into the world of the Nazi party and is soon devising way after way to bring about the downfall of the Jews around him.
After the violence of Kristalnacht, things become harder for the Weisses. They are forced to sell their stately home and medical practice for nearly nothing, and Josef is evicted to Poland where he was born. Soon after that Karl is taken away to Buchenwald, and the women must fend for themselves with Ingas help and connections. It all goes downhill from there into rape, murder, madness, insanity, torture, starvation, illness, overwork, and annihilation, basically in that order.
On the one hand, as I stated before, if you know nothing about the Holocaust, this is a good overview. You see the work camps, the ghetto, the death camps, the death pits. You see the political maneuvering behind the killing. You see the steady progression of Jewish families losing everything - civil rights, employment, homes and belongings, freedom, and, finally, life itself. But the Weisses are really too small a family to illustrate all of the rest. Eleven or twelve characters, all of them from urban Germany, are supposed to have witnessed the above as well as partisan fighting in the Soviet Union, the planned escape from Sobibor, and Wannsee? Um, no.
Erik Dorf is a nobody at the start of the movie, and, while he is bright, his wife has to push him time and again to be more ambitious in his career. Yet he gets an invitation to the secret conference where the Nazis plan everything? Dr. Weiss winds up on the Jewish Council in the Warsaw Ghetto trying to determine who is put on the trains while trying also to sneak some of them off. His brother winds up being a key player in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Karl who is even more passive then Erik Dorf, ends up doing illegal paintings of Theriesenstadt conditions as a form of resistance. Inga allows herself to be used sexually by her previous admirer who happens to get stationed at Buchenwald where Karl is taken first just to be able to get letters to her husband. s all just so unlikely. Yes, millions of unlikely, unbelievable things happened during World War II, but not all to two middle-class German families. I mean, Sobibor. They sort of had me until Sobibor, or maybe Babi Yar. No, thats not right. They lost me when Dr. and Mrs. Weiss and their friends were taken from the Warsaw Ghetto to Auschwitz. Warsaw didnt empty into Auschwitz, it emptied into Treblinka where people got off the trains and were immediately gassed. All the people. Immediately. But historical authenticity would eliminate pages more of drama for Dr. and Mrs. Weiss.
The main problem of this series, though, isnt historical accuracy. Its that the characters are just not three-dimensional. The Weisses are all good, noble, stoic, and brave. Inga and Karl are supposed to have this great love, a love that leads Inga into Hell for Karl, but its just not there on the screen. They have no chemistry. And even if they did, Karl is just so annoying. Passive. Bland. And possessed of a schlocky Bostonish accent. He never seems Jewish. He never seems anything.
Inga isnt much better. Shes the stand in for the Good Gentile. The kind that sees things As They Are. She loves her Jewish relatives - all of them. She defies her own family to protect them. She sleeps with a pasty, fat, antisemitic idiot to give her husband a lifeline. Shes necessary to this movie because, apart from one other passive character, all the other gentiles are high ranking Nazis or foaming antisemites. Its pretty much black/white. She can cry on cue, but the pathos of her situation - I never felt it.
The highlight of the mini-series is definitely the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising because by that point its all action and little melodrama. The only one left in Warsaw is Uncle Moses, and hes an okay guy, but hardly central. But the action, thats well done. You cant help but root for the rag-tag band of insurgents who managed to route the Nazis for nearly a month, even if you dont know any of them. Go, underdogs!
Okay, one last gripe here. I know the Holocaust is Jewish in the public consciousness, but many, many other people went up in flames under the Nazi onslaught. Six million Jews perished, but so did two and a half million Polish civilians, eleven and a half million Soviet civilians (as well as nearly twelve million Soviet troops), as well as a host of other peoples, many of them in the same death machine the Jews perished in. The Nazis hated the Slavs almost as much as they hated the Jews, and they were next on the list of people to go. Roma people were exterminated, gays and mentally disabled people were murdered, and one and half million German civilians also died. These were all people, some of them nice, some of them mean, some of them tolerant, some of them fiercely antisemitic, but all of them victims of the Nazis and all of them tragic stories. is too broad a title to use, if none of these people get a mention. Im waiting for a Holocaust mini-series that shows German, Polish, and Soviet civilians as people overwhelmed by this Great Horror and not as villains and bystanders in a Jew-only drama.

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Well, this company grabbed it as their brand name too. And its quite a name that means they have to work hard to prove their claim.
Cat litters are made from such a variety of substances any more, its not surprising to find that this one is made from whole kernel corn. Apparently, the corn is  100% natural made entirely of plant material. It not only clumps well and is easy to scoop, but its also flushable, which means you dont even have to pack carry smelly nylon bags outside anymore. Talking about smell, this litter has impressive odor control qualities with no added chemicals or scents. According to the manufacturer, this light-weight litter is easy to use and great for automatic litter boxes too. Its safe too, which is a concern with other types of litter, and being long lasting and scoopable, its cost-effective as well. What else can you ask for? Maybe it is the worlds best cat litter after all?
If you want to learn more about cat littler and the history of this product, so crucial for modern cat lovers read this article: Cat litter - the dust settles.

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Winter is coming and i am bound to get depressed, itapos;s seasonal for myself as it is for most people who reside in buffalo. But in the winters past, itapos;s never felt as bad as it does right now when everything seems to be going perfectly.

at least i had an image.
a sense of who i was.
some new clothes in my closet.

i donapos;t care about anything.

i need to start caring about myself in order to get myself out of this.

all i ever want to do is just sleep. I wrap myself up in stupid tv shows. They mask how terribly pathetic my life is. Or, how i am. I donapos;t know who i am or what i want. I donapos;t even want to know those things, i donapos;t care about those things.



i am hopeless for all the wrong reasons.
i care but i do nothing about it.
iapos;m sad but i want no one to help me.

i donapos;t think anyone can help me.

it isnapos;t worth any effort. All i know is that life was supposed to get better in college, but i had no idea how good i had it in high school.

i miss it, still, after two years, and i want to go back.
if i canapos;t go back i just want to sleep.
i just donapos;t care.

or i care too much and i know thereapos;s nothing i can do, so iapos;ve given up.



maybe thatapos;s what it is.

iapos;ve given up on this. On everything. On trying. What am i working for? to pay for a car? so i can get back and forth from school? so what am i going to school for? so i can make money and buy things that i donapos;t need?



if you ask me what i want out of life i wonapos;t have an answer for you.

i want to survive it?
no. I donapos;t want that.


i want to be happy again, for real. I want to go back to the time where we walked for hours aimlessly around neighborhoods that weapos;ve grown all too familiar for it. Iapos;m homesick. Iapos;m ready to go home but iapos;ve destroyed that concept.

i hate what my parents did to me, how they ambushed me and got it out of me.

i hate them now.
i donapos;t think i could ever forgive them, even if they did apologize.
not that they ever will.

the hope i had for acceptance, love, comfort. Itapos;s all gone. Now itapos;s so fake. So fake.

this is the worst fake iapos;ve ever had to do.

itapos;s fake, itapos;s forgotten. Itapos;s gone.

hope. Gone.

gone.
gone.
gone.
gone.
one.
gone.
g.



replacement. Replaced.


depressed people see the way the world really is.

itapos;s happy people who are abnormal.

investigator com, tools to measure humidity, tools to measure force, tools to measure distance, tools to measure body fat, tools to measure bandwidth.

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I am still searching for a solution regarding the poor connection of my Streamyx broadband. I have to admit that the problem started when lightning struck my whole network two months ago. Whatever it is, I have everything replaced as best as I could yet I am still having an issue with dropped signals and total time out for long hours on a daily basis. It is only these couple of days that my connection has improved slightly.

Yesterday, the Streamyx technician came to my home, did a troubleshoot and replaced my modem, just in case the one I am using, which is also a Streamyx assigned modem 1.5 months ago, is faulty. You see, I am eligible for a lifetime warranty so they will change for me at no cost if necessary. I take whatever modem they provide, even if it's called BILLION, which I have never even heard of.

Anyway, I asked the Streamyx technician that I wanted to change my telephone cable because I have changed all my hardware except this cable and the one outside coming into my house. I asked him if I should I call the electrician. The technician told me that he will connect me to a Telekom contractor. I asked him how much and he said it's "very cheap".

This morning, he called me up to check if my line is OK yet, which it is not. I still get 2 - 3 minutes of dropped signal off and on which is damn irritating. I took the opportunity to ask him how much it is to pull a new cable and he said, once again, "very cheap." He also said that it would be less than RM50 and that I could easily "talk the price" with him.

Actually since yesterday when he was here, this already sounded very fishy. I am thinking that this is a free Telekom service, of changing a new telephone cable, since this is Telekom property, right? If it's a REAL contractor then why is there no fixed rate, but "very cheap" and that I could easily negotiate the price with him?

I am not being petty and calculative about the RM50 or whatever price. If they want some "kopi money" so be it. I just want my connection to be fast, steady and reliable! Ughr.

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Getting cat urine on your carpet is by no means one of the joys of pet ownership. It can be really distressing and frustrating and it is easy to get angry at kitty
Removing cat urine is one of the more challenging cleaning tasks. Not only is it very pungent, the urine actually bonds with fibers in your rug. The biggest mistake when cleaning the cat urine is to not use proper cleaners.
The salts in the urine also bonds with the carpet through an ionic charge. These bonds will get stronger the longer the urine is in contact with the carpet. Homemade cleaners will not release these bonds. Steam cleaning will not release the bonds either, sometimes steam cleaning will make it worse.
Some commercially available pet odor removers work by masking the odor by masking the foul smell caused by the bacteria that is using the urine as its source for fuel.Other products use compounds in the attempt to absorb the smell.
These products, along with the home made remedies, may have short term results, but in order to completely eliminate the odor, (and to not encourage your cat to soil in the same place) every trace of the urine needs to be removed by cleaners that can undo the strong bonds between the fibers of your rug and the urine.
The first action to take when discovering a wet spot:
1. Mop up as much of the urine as you possibly can. Use absorbent paper towels or old towels. Lay them on the spot and blot until there is no trace of wetness. Recognize that you may only see a small part of the spot as the urine soaks into the padding under the carpet. Be careful adding water to the spot. You dont want the spot to spread out into the padding underneath.
2. Use a cleaner that can be injected into the padding underneath the spot. Inject to cover about half a foot in diameter. Spray the surface of the rug liberally.
3. When using a proper cleaner, that is all you need to do. No rinsing needed. Keep your cat away from the area until it is completely dry which can take a few days.
Even though it can be easy to let the frustration out on the cat, remember that cats do not eliminate outside the box without some, for them, good reason.
Inappropriate urination is a symptom that something is not OK. You may need to investigate what caused your cat to not use the box along with some enticement to use the box again. Not correcting the reason your cat is not going in the box may keep you cleaning your carpets and furniture over and over again.
Cleaning the area properly, eliminating all traces of urine along with understanding the cause, and maybe using an attractant like the very popular Dr Elseys Cat Attract, will soon see a kitty using her box and a sweet smelling home.

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