Where Credit Is Due: Epilogue
By Mitch Berg
Those of you who’ve been watching this blog for years may have figured it out – when I have a loooong anthology series, I’m often doing something other than writing every morning.
Two anthology series at the same time – “Soundtrack” and “Where Credit Is Due?” Unprecedented, right?
It was. I actually took an honest-to-God vacation. I spent two weeks in Norway (by the time you read this, I’ll be home again).
I spent that time visiting relatives – in this case, the grand, great-grand and great-great grandchildren of Bernt Oleson Græsli, who I talked about last week. In getting ready for the trip, I started thinking about all the things that go into a generation of people – decades, generations, even centuries of work, wins, defeats, triumphs, disasters and innumerable lessons and traits and legends passed down to those who follow.
I had a distant relative tell me I resembled my great-great-uncle (who died in 1965 at 93 years old)
My great-grandfather’s little brother (front row, 3rd from left, his five sons, and their families, seventy years ago. The farmhouse behind them was built in 1850, has been the setting for generations of family photos, and still stands today. I spent a bunch of time this past week with some of the younger kids in this photo, and their children.
I got some questions answered (how did my great-grandfather get the idea to come to America), answered some questions (nobody knew what happened to his little sisters – but I did!), and had a great time thinking about what is family, and what are the motivations and influences and good times and bad times that make people who they are.
And there’s more to come. Maybe on the blog, maybe not.
But it’s been a couple of fun weeks, both in real life and blog-time.
October 13th, 2023 at 6:38 am
Nice, Mitch.
My wife and sister in law went there last summer to trace their mom’s family roots. Both of their grandparents came to America separately and met here in Minneapolis. The mystery that they were attempting to solve was that from what they can tell, their grandmother came here, unaccompanied, at age 9. They visited a village that had the same name as her maiden name and found a church where a couple of family members were married. They have been sleuthing off and on since they returned and plan to return.
October 13th, 2023 at 9:01 am
Say Mitch?
What do your Norwegian family members think about Israel using white phosphorus artillery shells against civilians in Gaza?
Did they wonder why the Weimerican ministry of propaganda hasn’t mentioned word one about it? Given that the Department of munitions sharing has green lighted the use of cluster munitions against heavily populated areas in Ukraine, do the gentle folk of Norway think the Israelis are entitled to use them in their conquered territories?
October 13th, 2023 at 10:36 am
Damn Mitch, if I had known you were going to Norway, I would have asked you to look up some Handes or Skaalruds, my Norwegian family. Sounds like a fantastic trip you had, great job.
P.S. Blaze, go take your meds and lie down. And go comment somewhere else, someplace where they like as**oles.
October 13th, 2023 at 9:25 pm
Dang Mitch, that sounds like a great trip. I think I warned you several years ago that genealogy is not a hobby, it’s an obsession.
October 14th, 2023 at 9:25 am
Just caught this:
What do your Norwegian family members think about Israel using white phosphorus artillery shells against civilians in Gaza?
Can’t say as it came up. We had other matters – like, solving 130 years worth of family. mysteries – to sort out.
But let me get this straight: if the opportunity comes up, you want me to ask a bunch of people in rural Norway, some of whose parents and grandparents remember and fought in World War 2, what they think of…:
…becoming “collateral damage” when the people their government attacked hit back?
I can’t imagine they’d have a perspcctive on that, but I’ll put it on the agenda for next trip.
October 14th, 2023 at 5:14 pm
Oh, yeah – and apparently it wasn’t flwhite phosphorus, and in any case using white phosphorus around civilians is no more a war crime than any other kind of artillery:
https://youtube.com/shorts/cS37emjPslA?si=KgHszfRUaJAvLh8h
October 14th, 2023 at 8:19 pm
Oh hell. Mitch brought out the big gun you tubers and debunked tf out of human rights watch.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/israel-white-phosphorus-used-gaza-lebanon
But still, that’s a lot of words to say ‘yeah, white phosphorus is cool with us if Israel says it is.’
October 15th, 2023 at 10:43 am
“big gun you tubers” – just a guy who was an infantryman for 20 years.
Which statement of McBeth’s is wrong, and why?
October 15th, 2023 at 5:14 pm
“ just a guy who was an infantryman for 20 years.”
1. Being an infantrymen doesn’t bestow shit in and of itself. I was military; you were not. There are a commensurate number of nitwits in the military as in the general pop.
2. This knucklehead didn’t even try to share his bonifides.
3. He’s sitting on his fat ass in Michigan; not within 8,000 miles of the action.
4. The people there (HRW) say he’s full of shit.
October 15th, 2023 at 5:19 pm
Listen; if burning civilians alive with a chem that cannot be extinguished, and don’t go out until everything is ashes is cool with y’all, I’ve got no argument.
Just say so.
October 15th, 2023 at 5:52 pm
1-3. So, you aren’t going to attack the facts he presented. He’s shared his bonafides all over the place. He’s done hundreds of videos. And he was infantry, you were in the Navy, my background is irrelevant.
4. Not sure what HRW’s specific bonafides are, either.
if burning civilians alive with a chem that cannot be extinguished, and don’t go out until everything is ashes is cool with y’all,
Strawman noted.
October 15th, 2023 at 6:19 pm
I’m cool with it.
War is hell. The horror of war is meant to make intelligent people think twice before starting one. And to make sober people turn in those who might start one.
I see no legal or moral way for the United States to dictate the methods of war the victims of a terrorist attack must employ in retaliation.
October 15th, 2023 at 6:31 pm
Goodness, and here I thought you had to go to mainstream media to get one of those brutal murders, rapes, innocent civilians, dead children… yeah, yeah, sure but whatabout the Israelis! And from the ever so reliably anti-Israeli HRW, no less.
I’m also confused as to why being shot to shit (after being raped or tortured), or blown up (with grenades down a bomb shelter) is somehow more humane than being burned to death by a not even commonly used weapon type.
October 15th, 2023 at 6:39 pm
Not clear on your point, jdm. Are you saying you have the legal or moral authority to dictate terms of war to the participants?
Would you mind sharing the source of your authority?
October 15th, 2023 at 6:52 pm
I have no authority. I wasn’t responding to you. I was responding to Blade who thought it so important to jack this thread about Mitch’s Norwegian family to (hands on hips) bring up “just how awful” Israelis are according to HRW. And implying that the various filmed and proudly displayed activities by Hamas like shooting concert go-ers (after being raped or tortured), shooting families one at a time starting with the children, or just throwing grenades down bomb shelters and shooting those who try to escape is somehow more humane than being burned to death by a not even commonly used weapon type.
Sorry for being unclear. Hope that helped.
October 15th, 2023 at 11:06 pm
It did.
October 16th, 2023 at 5:36 am
Thank you for clarity, jdm.
October 16th, 2023 at 7:12 am
“ I see no legal or moral way for the United States to dictate the methods of war the victims of a terrorist attack must employ in retaliation.”
Oh, I can think of one legal and moral way the US can dictate the methods of the 2 wars it is currently facilitating; stop facilitating them.
Let the head chopping muzzies, the Israelis, the Uke and Ruskie mobs fight their own turf battles and worry about our own foundering country.