Def Leppard released "Euphoria" 1999

Def Leppard released their seventh studio album Euphoria June 8, 1999.  Three years after Slang, it was a breath of fresh air.  It reached #11 on Billboards 200 and went gold in the U.S., Canada and Japan.

My favorite track is Paper Sun, which was written about the car bombing in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Soyuz 11 launched 1971

Soyuz 11 crew: Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsayev

Soyuz 11, launched June 6, 1971, was manned by Commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, Flight Engineer Vladislav Volkov and Test Engineer Viktor Patsayev.  They docked with Salyut 1 but had to replace part of the ventilation system before they could board her.

Upon re-entry, the capsule depressurized too early, killing the crew.  They are the only known humans to have died in space.

Book review - The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

I started reading this twice before but always got side-tracked or some other excuse, and put it aside.  So after reading two previous non-fiction books which take place during the same generation.  I decided to tackle Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time.  This work centers on the 1930’s Dust Bowl, where over-plowing and careless use of resources created one of the biggest man-made environmental disasters ever.

In the late 1920’s and early 30’s, people swarmed to the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, northeast New Mexico, southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado.  The native Americans had been routed from the area (again) and “great American hunters” had decimated the bison almost to extinction.  The path was paved for white farmers to make their way to endless free land, grasslands for miles with no trees in sight.

It seemed like a boon to anyone trying to get rich and establish a huge farm spread.  Then acres of land were being plowed and turned over by the millions.  An area half the size of England had been turned into wheat farms.

It was good while it lasted, maybe two years.  Then the rains stopped and the stock market crashed.  All of a sudden, wheat sold at a fraction of its cost to harvest it.  Bumper crops in Russia and elsewhere helped drive the price down as well.  At the start of the 1930’s, people in the northeast starved while tons of grain rotted on the ground in Oklahoma.

This was just the beginning of the Dust Bowl.  The destruction of the top soil and the hearty grasses that could withstand extremes in weather holding it in place left soil open to the wind and elements.  Egan’s description of the years of drought, frequent sandstorms that blotted out the sun, and the desperation of the people as they watched family members suffer and die from dust pneumonia is heart-wrenching and the reader can almost feel grit between his teeth.

Egan’s book is also a testament to the human spirit, determined to go on, not letting the fury of Mother Nature’s revenge run them out of their homestead.  He took first-hand accounts from the survivors of the Dust Bowl who remember those terrible years as if they were last week.

Book review - Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

One of the comments on the dust jacket of this book describes it as “emotionally devastating” and I found that to be an understatement.  David Grann’s book covers the 1920’s northeast Oklahoma when the Osage Indians were sitting on one of the richest oil reserves in the world.  Just two or three generations prior, the government relocated hundreds of thousands of native Americans to Oklahoma, the infamous Trail of Tears.

The idea was to move the native Americans to an area of the country where it was arid, rocky, hilly and the soil was not conducive to growing crops.  No one else wanted it so why not give it to the “Indians”?

It sounded like a good idea to the American government and white people until oil was discovered on this land.  Soon the Osages were riding in chauffeured limousines, building huge houses and turning small towns such as Gray Horse and Fairfax into thriving cities.

But wealth like that is going to draw trouble.  With the help of corrupt the American and Oklahoma governments, the white people began scheming on how they could get their hands on all that money.  Although plots were woven to inherit or control Osage lands, some decided to take a faster route and resorted to murder.

Molly Burkhart’s sister disappeared suddenly.  Her body was found several days later, badly decomposed.  The cause of death was determined to be a bullet fired into the back of her skull.  Despite no exit wound, the bullet was never located. 

More Osages were killed in this manner, but others were poisoned.  Whether the plan was outright violence or more insidious, the goal was the same.  The Osage had little help from law enforcement and virtually from the government.  Here is where the emotional devastation comes in, as the extreme injustice is allowed to flourish with impunity.  Corruption was everywhere and the Osage powerless to defend themselves, robbed of their wealth.

Grann unravels the most diabolical schemes that involved Molly Burkhart, her sisters, mother and even her children.  Grann’s book begins to read like an Agatha Christie novel with twists, turns and surprises that would impress the Queen of Mystery herself.

The bad part is this is no cozy mystery.  It is a documented story of greed, racism and murder.

"Turnabout Intruder" last episode of Star Trek airs 1969

Turnabout Intruder, the final episode of the original Star Trek series, aired June 3, 1969. It was supposed to have aired March 28 but got preempted because of Dwight D. Eisenhower's death, so it didn't air until June 3.  Nurse Chapel's hair is brown, which has always been blond up to this point.  Lieutenant Uhura does not appear in this episode.

This episode takes place 4 years before the events in Star Trek: The Motion Picture although they were released ten years apart.

Happy birthday, Ensign Travis Mayweather!

Anthony Montgomery, born June 2, 1971, is best known to us Trekkies as Ensign Travis Mayweather on Star Trek: Enterprise.  He auditioned for a regular part on Star Trek: Voyager but didn't get it.  He was brought back to audition for Tuvok's son for an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, didn't get it.

He was remembered for those auditions and brought in for Star Trek: Enterprise, which he got!

Book review - In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

🔯🔯🔯🔯 (out of 5)

A friend bought this book for me after we visited the new Holocaust Memorial in Dallas, Texas.  When he recommended it to me, I mentioned I was familiar with Erik Larson, having read several of his works.  I had not read this one simply because I was not interested in pre-World War II history.  It was important enough to him that I read it so he bought it for me.  I’m glad he did because I always enjoy Larson but also the book tells a different point of view of Germany under Hitler’s reign just prior to the Holocaust and WWII.

The subjects of In the Garden of Beasts are American Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany William Dodd and his daughter Martha.  Dodd’s wife Mattie is mentioned very little and seemingly played no role in any events, except as bystander, in the book.  The son Bill Jr. is not much more involved.

Much of the book is devoted to the daughter Martha and her sexual exploits, as she enjoys the perks of being the U.S. Ambassador’s daughter.  Life is one big party and she cannot imagine the atrocities being committed against the Jews by the Nazis.  A little anti-Semitic herself, Martha enjoys several lovers and playing them against each other.

I was confused as to Lawson’s choice of Ambassador Dodd as the main subject matter.  Dodd’s appointment, although controversial, was not scandalous.  It seemed the main reason he gained enemies in Washington was because he couldn’t force Germany to pay back the money the U.S.  The State Department could not, or would not, believe the reports of attacks against the Jews in Berlin, despite repeated efforts by Dodd to enlighten them to the horrors he knew to be factual.

Other than this, there is nothing spectacular about Dodd and his family, besides being helpless witnesses to the events unfolding around them and being unable to convince anyone in the U.S. that the worst was yet to come.

As with all of Larson’s books, In the Garden of Beasts contains intimate details of the events, gleaned from hundreds of resources.  You can imagine you’re standing in the Tiergarten area of Berlin watching soldiers march by, and feeling the underlying terror of the city.

I give it 4 (Jewish) stars out of 5 since the main character only provided a minor portal to a majorly important time in history.