Men Who Play Nazis Try to Explain - New York Times

The revelation that Rich Iott, a Republican candidate for Congress from Ohio, was an active member of a group of dedicated to understanding the experience of soldiers who served in the Nazi Waffen SS by dressing up in their uniforms — and staging recreations of their battles — has forced historical re-enactors to defend their hobby.

That Mr. Iott engaged in this pastime came to light on Friday, when Joshua Green of The Atlantic published photographs of him in an SS uniform beneath a headline asking, “Why is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?”

Mr. Iott admitted to Mr. Green that he had spent time playing a character he named Reinhard Pferdmann as a member of the 5. SS Wiking re-enactment group, which is described on its Web site as “a nonprofit, nonpolitical organization dedicated to the preservation of the history of WW II and the lifestyle of the German combat soldier (specifically Waffen-SS foreign volunteers).”

Even so, the Ohio businessman — who quickly posted photographs of himself playing American soldiers in recreations of three conflicts — insisted that his admiration for Nazi Germany was purely based on its achievements in battle. He told Mr. Green:

I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things. I mean, they took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them. From a purely historical military point of view, that’s incredible.

As my colleague Brett Sokol reported last year, Mr. Iott is far from the only American to play the part of a Nazi soldier in his spare time. Reporting on a re-enactment of the Battle of the Bulge in Pennsylvania, complete with men in Nazi uniforms carrying authentic weapons (loaded with blanks), he noted:

Almost every weekend, there is a re-enactment somewhere around the country, and while most are invitation-only affairs drawing from several dozen to several hundred participants, last year’s World War II Weekend in Reading, Pa., attracted more than 20,000 to witness the liberation of a faux-French village.

Another former Nazi re-enactor in the news, a police captain in Portland, Ore., who may be disciplined for constructing a memorial to a Waffen SS commander in a public park, offered a similar excuse, calling himself “a history geek” after his hobby was made public.

As Maxine Bernstein reported in The Oregonian on Friday, an investigation by Portland’s police force found that the officer, Mark Kruger, had brought “discredit and disgrace upon the Bureau and the City,” by nailing five memorial plaques in honor of of Nazi soldiers to a tree in a city park.

Mr. Kruger’s former commander wrote that the officer should have known that a plaque honoring “a Waffen SS member and the commander of a battalion responsible for a large-scale massacre of prisoners of war could alarm a member of the public familiar with these historical events.”

While Mr. Iott’s Democratic opponent, Representative Marcy Kaptur, and the Republican minority whip, Eric Cantor, joined Holocaust survivors in saying that his hobby rendered him unfit for public office, the candidate told a local Fox News affiliate the dismay over his role-playing was “a good example of why people look at career politicians and say, ‘We just can’t trust these people — look how they act, they behave like children.’”

Changes have been made to the Web site of the group Mr. Iott used to be a member of, Wiking.org — and an affiliated YouTube channel — but The Atlantic managed to save a copy of a “recruitment video” for the group posted online (embedded above) as well this text, which attempts to justify the group’s apparent celebration of the Waffen SS Wiking unit:

Nazi Germany had no problem in recruiting the multitudes of volunteers willing to lay down their lives to ensure a “New and Free Europe”, free of the threat of Communism. National Socialism was seen by many in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and other eastern European and Balkan countries as the protector of personal freedom and their very way of life, despite the true underlying totalitarian (and quite twisted, in most cases) nature of the movement. Regardless, thousands upon thousands of valiant men died defending their respective countries in the name of a better tomorrow. We salute these idealists; no matter how unsavory the Nazi government was, the front-line soldiers of the Waffen-SS (in particular the foreign volunteers) gave their lives for their loved ones and a basic desire to be free.

But Robert M. Citino, a military historian and professor at the University of North Texas, told Mr. Green that the Nazi division’s role in the Second World War was far from heroic:

The entire German war effort in the East was a racial crusade to rid the world of ’subhumans,’ Slavs were going to be enslaved in numbers of tens of millions. And of course the multimillion Jewish population of Eastern Europe was going to be exterminated altogether. That’s what all these folks were doing in the East. It sends a shiver up my spine to think that people want to dress up and play SS on the weekend.

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Poll: Tim Cahill defectors aided Deval Patrick - Boston Herald

By Jessica Van Sack
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - Updated 1 hour ago
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The treacherous defection of Tim Cahill’s running mate to Charlie Baker’s camp has backfired on the GOP candidate and helped propel Gov. Deval Patrick to a seven-point lead in the race for governor, a new Suffolk University/7News poll shows.

“Whether they like Deval Patrick or not, people are still saying he’s run the best campaign and he has the best temperament to be governor,’’ said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. “He’s on the goal line. But he hasn’t gotten the touchdown yet.’’

The survey of 500 registered voters, conducted Sunday to Tuesday, shows Patrick leading with 46 percent, followed by the GOP’s Baker with 39 percent, Cahill with 10 percent and Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein with 1 percent. The poll has a 4.4 percent plus-minus margin of error.

With an astonishing 80 percent of likely voters aware of Cahill’s lawsuit accusing former aides of sabotaging his campaign, one in four said the debacle made them more likely to vote for Democrat Patrick.

Cahill’s former aides and ex-running mate Paul Loscocco — who left the campaign to endorse Baker — ended up doing more harm than good. The move hurt not just Cahill, the state treasurer and independent challenger, but Baker as well, with 17 percent of voters saying the debacle made them less likely to support Baker. Nineteen percent said it turned them off to Cahill.

Surprisingly, 45 percent of those polled said Cahill should remain in the race.

The episode did little to boost confidence in Baker’s leadership, with twice as many voters saying Patrick has the best temperament to be governor — and 38 percent saying he has run the best campaign.

More evidence that Cahill’s defectors missed their mark: Just 10 percent of voters reported that the exodus had the intended effect of hindering their support of Patrick.

Both Cahill and Baker are polling higher negatives than positives. Not so for Patrick, who has a 46 percent favorability rating, compared to 43 percent who view him unfavorably.

As the election looms a mere 19 days away, previously undecided voters and former Cahill supporters are breaking evenly for Patrick and Baker.

Cahill is also an obstacle for Baker in his biggest stronghold: Southeastern Massachusetts, Paleologos said. Suffolk County also remains a Patrick stronghold.

Despite President Obama’s lagging approval ratings nationwide, his stumping for Patrick Saturday may prove to be a Bay State boost, with 51 percent registering a favorable opinion of the commander in chief.

“Tim Cahill is toast, and Charlie Baker is getting burned by his manner and message,” said 7News political editor Andy Hiller, who added Patrick is like the “Mona Lisa” with his “serene smile” as the other two go for the jugular.

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Facebook Keeps Privacy Features Comin' - Mediapost.com

In its latest effort to ease privacy concerns, Facebook on Tuesday unveiled additional security features, including the ability to request a one-time password for use on public computers. "The feature ... allows you to text 'otp' to 32665 from a mobile phone associated with your account to get a password to use on a public computer, such as at a library or Internet café," reports the Los Angeles Times.

"The measure helps protect people from keylogging programs or malware." Another new feature lets users see all the active sessions on their account, as well as log out remotely. The top social network also plans to routinely ask users to update their account information, such as their phone number and the security question that helps prove one's identity. Kudos to Facebook for continuing to pursue a more secure environment for users, but that last endeavor sounds more like a ploy to keep members' personal information up to date -- important to advertisers willing to pay a premium for reliable demographic data.

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FCC to Tackle Bill Shock, Consider Overage Warnings - eWeek

The Federal Communications Commission is taking its next set of steps to prevent U.S. consumers from experiencing "bill shock"?unexpected charges on their mobile phone statements due to hidden costs or unclear billing practices.

According to the New York Times, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Oct. 14 will propose to the five-member commission that wireless carriers and mobile Internet companies be required to alert consumers when they're about to incur charges above the set amount of their monthly plans.

"The data is clear that there is a significant consumer issue," Genachowski said.

A study commissioned by the FCC regarding consumers' feelings about their wireless service bills found Americans to be generally confused about wireless billing. Approximately 30 million Americans reported experiencing sudden one-time increases to their bills, though they hadn't made changes to their calling or texting plans.

In May, Joel Gurin, chief of the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, said the FCC has fielded hundreds of complaints about bill shock and his team was questioning carriers about the practice and costs of alerting consumers to overages. Requiring such a warning would not be unprecedented, as carriers in the European Union are required to warn customers when they're close to their data limit or about incur roaming charges.

"The solution is a 21st-century solution," Genachowski said, according to the Times.

Still, mobile phone companies are less keen to take up the practice, even while asserting that customers have the right to clear information regarding the wireless usage. In a filing with the FCC, Verizon pointed out that many wireless carriers helpfully offer online tools that allow customers to monitor their usage.

Such online tools, however, have not been enough to prevent bill shock. The FCC got involved in the issue, the Time reports, after The Boston Globe ran a story about a Massachusetts man who racked up an $18,000 bill after an offer of free data downloads expired.

The FCC, in its proposal Oct. 14, will ask that wireless companies make their billing practices easier to understand and more clearly spell out what the limits of a contract are and what fees apply. "Most people still don't know what a megabyte is," Genachowski said, according to the Times. "So it's hard to expect them to know when they have reached their limits."

According to the Times, the chairman's office rarely puts forth proposals that aren't likely to receive the support of the majority of the board.

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Big-bucks Whitman versus bike-lane Brown - San Francisco Chronicle

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more Debra J. Saunders Archive | Blog | E-mail | Twitter | Big-bucks Whitman versus bike-lane Brown Debra J. Saunders

San Francisco Chronicle October 13, 2010 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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ShareComments  Georgia (default) Verdana Times New Roman ArialFont | Size: 0 Debra J. Saunders Big-bucks Whitman versus bike-lane Brown 10.13.10 Saunders: Obama team light on military service 10.12.10 ON THE RACE FOR U.S. SENATE Boxer's fiction vs. Fiorina's facts 10.10.10 Behind the meltdown of the climate-change bill 10.07.10 More Debra J. Saunders »

Californians do not face an easy choice in the race for governor - as was clear in Tuesday night's debate at Dominican University in San Rafael.

Republican Meg Whitman so parses her positions that at times she seems to stand for nothing. She has had to over-compensate for her spotty voting record by throwing more than $140 million into her campaign - while she incongruously argues that she can cut the size of state government.

Her budget plan is a joke that over-promises welfare cuts, advocates big tax cuts despite chronic budget shortfalls and then impossibly offers extra funds for higher education.

Voters don't really know if Whitman has what it takes to cut hard bargains with the Democrats who run the Legislature or big labor, which runs the Democrats.

If she has her eye on the White House, and the economy picks up in 2012, she easily could decide to broker feel-good deals that make everyone happy while kicking the can of fiscal reckoning down the road.

Democrat Jerry Brown is a proud cheapskate who has outsourced his campaign to political consultants working for the state-employee unions that have wielded so much clout that the ranks of state workers swelled by 33,000 since 2004 despite chronic budget shortfalls. Yet he blames Wall Street for Sacramento's cash-flow problems.

Brown's supporters argue that their man Moonbeam is no longer a knee-jerk lefty or never was one - and that the irascible Brown is the more likely candidate to play hardball with big labor.

Brown frequently notes that, as mayor of Oakland, he was pro-development and fought environmental regulations that impeded his goal of increasing downtown residency.

True. But at the same time, an inner Luddite was burning in Dao Mayor's very core. You could see it in his antics to delay the retrofit of the Bay Bridge.

In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake exposed the eastern span as unfit to withstand a big earthquake. Yet a decade later, when any thinking politician would be pushing for a start date, Brown was pushing for more delays - for a $50 million bike-lane to Treasure Island, a study to explore adding light-rail to the project and a tony design "that expresses the daring of human ingenuity and symbolizes the splendor of Oakland and the East Bay."

Daring is the word. Ten years later still, the retrofit is incomplete, and Oaklanders driving to San Francisco must brave a vulnerable structure supported by old timber pilings.

I saw that Jerry Brown on Tuesday night when he said that he would oppose suspending AB32, the state greenhouse-gas law about to go into effect. "You create uncertainty," Brown explained. "You create doubt for investors."

I think Whitman had it right when she argued for a suspension of the measure in light of the state's 12.4 percent unemployment rate. Whitman explained, "It's not fair to the employees in manufacturing, trucking, packaging, all the other industries, to drive those jobs out of state." Amen.

Referring to the AB32's mandate for the California Air Resources Board to set a "low carbon-fuel standard," bike-lane Brown declared, "My god, they're going to use less oil in California. You bet. We're going to use more California sun and more California wind, and we'll get it done."

He forgets how Sacramento works. Last week, The Chronicle's Wyatt Buchanan reported on CARB's gross miscalculations - overestimated diesel emissions by 340 percent - that could cost California industry $10 billion to $12 billion.

It's the Bay Bridge all over again. Forget the risks and practical consideration. Everything will turn out OK if you mean well.

The problem with Jerry Brown as governor is: Tough times are the worst time for magical thinking.

E-mail dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.

For more election-related news and information, visit our California Elections 2010 page.This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Be the first to share your thoughts on this story.Share your thoughts on this story. - be the first to share your thoughts on this question. - Sorry, comments are closed for this story.Big-bucks Whitman versus bike-lane BrownArticlesCalifornians do not face an easy choice in the race for governor - as was clear in Tuesday night's debate at Dominican University in San Rafael. Republican Meg Whitman so parses her positions that at times she seems to...

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