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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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29 January 2001 - 10:03 am
I don't really understand why everyone is getting reminiscent about the Challenger explosion. Seven people died. I don't think that that is enough people for us to continue to remember the explosion 15 years after it occurred. I mean, 6,000 people died in India two days ago. The time people spend talking about Challenger would be better spent in trying to help the survivors of that earthquake.
If you really want to reminisce about people dying, I have a better anniversary for you. Fifty-six years ago last Saturday the invading Russian army arrived at "the site of a Polish artillery barracks in the Katowice district at Oswiecim (pronounced ohsh-VYEN-cheem), a remote location at the fork of the Sola and Vistula rivers served by good rail connections." Auschwitz. "By the time Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz and its subcamps, an estimated 1.3 million people had been shipped there and at least 1.1 million, including 960,000 Jews, had died there, the history establishes. Because fleeing guards burned millions of documents the exact toll will never be known."
The discovery of Auschwitz and the other Nazi concentration camps are events that should be marked on everyone's calendar, but very little attention is paid to them. The holocaust has shaped US foreign and domestic policy for the last fifty years (for example, President Clinton spent his last days in office trying to broker a peace accord between the Palestinians and the Israelis, whose country was founded by holocaust survivors), yet many people seem more concerned about a technological breakdown that left seven people dead, than a societal breakdown that left more than one million dead.
[ The only news article I could find about the Auschwitz anniversary is this one, from the New York Times. Free registration is required to view some articles at the Times' web site. ]
Posted by on 29 January 2001 at 10:03 AM
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