History Forum / General / British History / February 2006

The two Guardia Civil who were my travel companions for a long train ride,
going down the Spanish Coast, were very polite and even soft-spoken.

They both had rifles, which they kept upright between their knees at all
times, and pistols.

We had a very pleasant conversation, mostly in Spanish, about Spain and
Spanish culture.

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

Well-worth Reading:

<http://www.yale.edu/annals/Reviews/review_texts/Pryce-Jones_on_Radosh_National_R
eview_06.23.01.htm>

"National Review, July 23, 2001 v53 i14 pNA
Experiment in Terror. Review by David Pryce-Jones.

Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, edited by Ronald
Radosh, Mary R. Habeck, and Grigory Sevostianov (Yale, 537 pp., $35)

To contemporaries, the Spanish Civil War seemed an epic, even biblical,
struggle between Communism and Fascism, in other words between good and
evil. And to most contemporaries, the outcome was appalling: The Fascist
victory meant that there was no chance to put Communism into practice in
western Europe, and no chance either to stop Hitler in his tracks.

Communists and their supporters have argued ever since that they alone made
any serious attempt to head off the coming world war. Whatever bad things
Communists may have done elsewhere, in Spain their cause was pure to the
point of being romantic. As a result of a good many histories and memoirs,
that remains today the generally accepted opinion.

Spain Betrayed is a formidable demolition of this myth. It consists of a
collection of 81 previously unpublished documents from the Russian State
Military Archives, all of them reports from Soviet agents and advisers in
the field during the civil war. The material is specialized, to be sure, an
account of day-to-day political and military events, sometimes in the most
minute detail, but the editors place everything in context with brief and
helpful introductory commentaries. One of them, Ronald Radosh, is a former
Communist whose uncle fought in Spain. In recent writings, including an
autobiography, Radosh has been coming to terms with his previous disastrous
misjudgments, and this book is another step in that process. The two other
editors are academics: Mary R. Habeck of Yale and Grigory Sevostianov of
Moscow's Institute of Universal History.

HONEST ACADEMICS!  PRAISE THE LORD! -- DSH

One way or another, these documents all went through the Comintern, the
bureau in Moscow that ran Soviet operations abroad for Stalin. The Comintern
could call on the services of its own operatives; the secret police, later
called the KGB; military intelligence or the GRU; and the European Communist
parties. Taken together, these documents show that Stalin aimed to transform
Spain into a Soviet satellite. In that case, he would have extended the
Communist reach, and encircled both Germany and France."...
-------------------------------------------------------

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

Many European, et al., males, and not just those from Latin countries, seem
to have the name MARIA somewhere in their names.

Germans and Austrians, for example, can be found with this name --
presumably they have a Roman Catholic heritage -- but not necessarily.

Is the idea that if a boy has the name MARIA somewhere in his name that the
Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother, will watch over him and protect him throughout
his life -- or is it just taken from his own mother -- or some, none or all
of the above?

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

Many European, et al., males, and not just those from Latin countries, seem
to have the name MARIA somewhere in their names.

Germans and Austrians, for example, can be found with this name --
presumably they have a Roman Catholic heritage -- but not necessarily.

Is the idea that if a boy has the name MARIA somewhere in his name that the
Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother, will watch over him and protect him throughout
his life -- or is it just taken from his own mother -- or some, none or all
of the above?

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

So, one lot of your young charges will develop LUNG cancers and the other
lot will develop MOUTH cancers.

Sad!

DSH

Yes, that was indeed a Foregoing Gaffe....

Henceforth, Gutman-Satterfield shall be known as _GAFFE'S SATTERFIELD_.

Deus Vult.

DSH

Veni, Vidi, Calcitravi Asinum.
----------------------------------------------------------

Hilarious!

Gutman-Satterfield makes a serious GAFFE by screwing the pooch on the simple
plural _GAFFES_ -- while trying to skewer someone else.

Hence G-S takes an:

Egregious Pratfall!

KAWHOMP!!!

KERSPLAT!!!

Having been hoist with his own petar....

Deeeeelightful!  As T.R. would say.

Bully!

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

Veni, Vidi, Calcitravi Asinum

Yes, that was indeed a Foregoing Gaffe....

Hilarious!

DSH