One thing I really enjoyed back in the day is going to a good dance club. Yep, it’s true and I’d probably still do it if given the chance. It may strike one as strange but the kind of music I really enjoy dancing to is called Trance. There's something to that ever present, pulsing beat that gets to the heart of me. One of my coolest dancing experiences happened in Mexico when I got invited to rave a few blocks away from Monterrey's Gran Plaza. I was a little leary about going into this apparently abandoned building, but after going through a few doors, there in darkness you felt the thumping music emanating from the DJ's table. That rocked.
Today, as you can tell, I am a huge fan of trance music and I can trace this specific musical leaning towards my introduction to one of my all-time favorites bands, New Order. In the late 1980s, New Order’s Substance and Technique, were a couple of my favorite albums. In my own modest, musical tastes, I’ve always considered N.O. as the vanguards of the 80s new wave movement and the godfathers of today’s techno-trance music. This assumption was confirmed when I read the liner notes from their 2000 release, International. This is an excerpt from those notes:
New Order doesn’t dance, but really like it anyway.
They stood there, without saying a word to their audience. It was cool.
If New Order hadn’t played in New York, they would have never discovered Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage and John Jellybean Benitez’s Fun House.
They would never have worked with Shep Pettibone, Arthur Baker, John Robie or Steve Silk Hurley.
And the history of House music wouldn’t have been the same.
Without New Order, rockers would still listen to rock.
The true punks do dance music.
The techno generation is still running 20 years after Blue Monday.
Through the years, New Wave eventually became House and Techno, which could be lumped in the all encompassing Electronica genre, and finally we get Trance. After New Order, Depeche Mode, and even Nitzer Ebb, came Front 242, then into a certain extent, Nine Inch Nails, Republica, & Garbage. In the mid to late 1990s there were the likes of The Chemical Brothers (formerly the Dust Brothers), Fat Boy Slim, & today's Paul Oakenfold. But the most remarkable aspect of all this is that it's amazing to know and even hear that New Order's music is still relevant to today's music scene all these years later. It just goes to show that good music is hard to put aside.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
My Top Weather Moments
The Weather Channel starts a new series called 100 Biggest Weather Moments this weekend. And since I'm a big weather buff, I thought I'd come up with my own, personal biggest weather moments. Here's my top "10":
10). Winter drought of 2005-2006
This period of time was one of the driest on record in the D-FW area. Not only was this winter fairly warm, it was also very dry and windy. This dry and windy weather got on my nerves so much so that I went and removed both sets of windchimes from our balcony, because they became a daily reminder of how dry and windy it was.
9). Summer of 2000 & Hurricane Gilbert
A). The D-FW area endured one of the driest summers on records in 2000, if not the driest 3 months ever. No rain fell this summer and when it did, there was much rejoicing. I remember seeing people running outside just to feel the rain hit them.
B). Although Hurricane Gilbert did not make a direct hit on the Texas coast, our football game the week of its landfall took a direct hit. The football game that week was supposed to be our longest trip out of town. We were all looking forward to it- the trip was slated to take at least 2 1/2 hours. All us band folk were supremely disappointed that the game got cancelled. My family did take a trip that weekend anyway, but we ended up at a hurricane evacuation shelter in Seguin.
8). Thunderstorm at a Texas A&M-Kingville football game 1993
My buddy and I drove down to Kingsville to see an A&I (old habits die hard) football game. A&M-K is a perennial powerhouse in Division II football, so we decided to make the 45 minute trek so see our first college football game. As the third quarter progressed, storms started to make their presence known with an ever-growing lightning show. Early in the fourth quarter, the winds picked up dramatically, along with intense lightning, which made the officials call the game with the Javelinas up by three touchdowns. The lightning show was spectacular, albeit quite dangerous. On a side note: this was the Javelinas' first conference game and entered the game 0-5, having lost each game on their non-conference schedule. However, they did not lose again until they reached the Division II championship game.
7). Ice & sleet 1996
This wasn't that big of an ice storm but most of San Antonio was shut down for a few days until what ice accumulated had melted. I remember having to stay in my apartment for three straight, subfreezing days, as both school and work were closed, and before I knew it, I started to get what I equated to was cabin fever. In other words, I had to get out of there, well at least for a while, because being cooped up started to suck.
6). Valentine's Day Snow 2004
This was my first significant snowfall. I had seen, up to this point, only a few dustings of snow, perhaps an inch or so of accumulation, but what this memorable is that both my wife and I had to work that day, so we had to call a sitter for our then 16-month old daughter. After the sitter arrived I had to drive my wife 7 miles in one direction, retrace my steps, as it were, drive back seven miles back towards home and then drive the 11 miles to my job. All this in the 4 or 5 inches of snow that had fallen, mostly, overnight. Flurries still fell until noon, but all I was wishing to do all day was to take my daughter outside and make a snowman for her. I did make one that evening, but my little girl was fast asleep by this time.
5). Hurricane Brett 1999
This hurricane hit the Texas Gulf Coast between Corpus Christi and Brownsville. In other words, it hit a bunch of nothing. There's nothing out there except a bunch of brush and ranches. Good thing too, if it had traveled about 75 miles up the coast it would have directly affected Corpus and the rest of the Coastal Bend. I had just moved to Dallas, when my cousin invited me to make the trip, the day before landfall, down to help our respective families board up or anything else. But what made it extra memorable for me was that my sister-in-law had just given birth to my nephew the same day we arrived- the day before the hurricane made landfall. Although the storm hit far enough away, that they really did not need to evacuate, my brother and his family, including my day-old nephew, took off for Central Texas.
4). Summer of 1980 and Hurricane Allen
My recollection of that particular heat wave aren't that great, other than remembering the intense heat when we ventured outside, which was rather infrequent, seemed different than summers past. But I do remember our Hurricane Allen induced evacuation to San Marcos that August quite vividly.
We set out for someplace away from the coast that day and I think we left with no specific place in mind. I'm sure that's still a given for hurricane evacuees nowadays. That day was hot and it took us almost two hours to get to the next town over, 7 miles away! The rest of the trip was a mix of my Dad's frustrated rumblings, my Mom's worries about the family and house we left behind, and my younger brothers' respective fussiness. We arrived, sometime in the middle of that same night, in San Marcos. We were given refuge on the campus of what was then called Southwest Texas State University. Even though we were a few hours inland, we were not necessarily out of the woods. As with landfalling hurricanes, inland areas are susceptible to tornadoes, and we were evacuated once (again) on account of a tornado touching down nearby.
When we returned home, we were greeted with a backyard full of water. My younger brother and I walked out there and found spots where the water came up past our knees. Thinking back on it, that wasn't a very smart thing to do. Who knows what could have been lurking in those waters!
3). 1998 Weather Weirdness
I call it weird because of how the weather played out year. We had at least three separate hailstorms pass through the San Antonio area in one February evening. Then, about a month later, the Friday before Spring Break, sleet pellets fell even though it was maybe a paltry 40 degrees. Two months later, began one really hot summer. By mid May, most of Texas had experienced above or near normal temperatures, with many cities topping 100 degrees! I had never been one to complain about hot weather, but by the end of June, I was already wishing for cold weather. That was a abnormally hot and dry summer, and things evened out before too long, but unfortunately, it did in one day.
Many people who live in San Antonio know that any little rain that falls usually causes some parts of town to flood. So when a 500-year flood occurred on a Saturday in mid-October, you know it would be pretty bad. I went to bed the night before the flood event occurred thinking about the company paintball game planned for the next day. We did have a slight chance of rain the next day, but it was forecasted to arrive something after our paintball match. But lo and behold, I had a rude awakening the next morning. Tremendous flashes of lightning, accompanied with jarring thunder eventually kicked me out of bed. Car alarms, including mine, were going off with the jolts of thunder. So much for that slight chance of rain that afternoon... I got up and went over to the living room TV and saw that the local stations had their storm coverage up and going and it was barely 6:30am!
I got myself ready for work as I had to put in a few hours of work before the paintball game that afternoon. Well, needless to say the game was cancelled. Although most of the rain had stopped by mid-day, the subsequent runoff was just beginning. The area around the Olmos Dam, namely along Highway 281, was under water. Different parts of town were also under significant amounts of water. I remember trying to take this girl I dated to work, but all roads leading there were under water. Weeks later after the water receded, the high water mark along 281 was visible high on the trees- not on the tree trunks but high up on the leafy canopies!
2). Jarrell Tornado May 27, 1997
I did not actually witness this tornado personally but I followed the storm's path of destruction southward from Waco through Jarrell and then through San Antonio that afternoon and evening. As I readied myself for work, the Weather Channel was already on top of this fast breaking story. The storm essentially worked its way south along the I-35 corridor, where Jarrell took the brunt of the storm.
As soon as I walked outside you could just feel the humidity. It was pretty oppressive to say the least. I remember looking up at the tops of the utility poles and you could actually see the haze and humidity. I thought to myself, "if something comes in today, it's going to get nasty."
When I arrived at work, I chatted with one of my new co-workers, who was a classmate at UT-San Antonio and a former storm chaser in Oklahoma, about this storm. For a second he and I thought about actually chasing this storm! Anyway, we didn't go, but we both kept up with the storms progress via the good ol' internet. After the storm passed Austin, it weakened a bit and turned west, and we thought would pass San Antonio entirely. But after this westward veering, it gain a little bit of strength, put down a brief tornado near Boerne and put out this impressive looking cigar-shaped, rolling cloud in the part of town where I worked.
We in San Antonio were lucky that the storm weakend before it reached us. The reason why I placed this event so high on my list is because of its storm history and that I witnessed the remnants, thankfully, of this historical storm. Please check out this site that talks about the Jarrell tornado even further.
1). Coastal Bend White Christmas 2004
I spoke of this weather event on a posting back in December 2006. I still can't believe, that to this day, I had my first White Christmas, in all places, in my hometown near Corpus Christi. We received about 7 inches of snow at my parents house, which was one of the higher totals in the immediate Coastal Bend vicinity. We were so taken with the pristine nature of the snow around our house that we didn't even build a snowman. I'm sure if we had the time to build one, it would have been huge with all the snow on the ground. Please read my posting from this last December for more of a play by play of events.
10). Winter drought of 2005-2006
This period of time was one of the driest on record in the D-FW area. Not only was this winter fairly warm, it was also very dry and windy. This dry and windy weather got on my nerves so much so that I went and removed both sets of windchimes from our balcony, because they became a daily reminder of how dry and windy it was.
9). Summer of 2000 & Hurricane Gilbert
A). The D-FW area endured one of the driest summers on records in 2000, if not the driest 3 months ever. No rain fell this summer and when it did, there was much rejoicing. I remember seeing people running outside just to feel the rain hit them.
B). Although Hurricane Gilbert did not make a direct hit on the Texas coast, our football game the week of its landfall took a direct hit. The football game that week was supposed to be our longest trip out of town. We were all looking forward to it- the trip was slated to take at least 2 1/2 hours. All us band folk were supremely disappointed that the game got cancelled. My family did take a trip that weekend anyway, but we ended up at a hurricane evacuation shelter in Seguin.
8). Thunderstorm at a Texas A&M-Kingville football game 1993
My buddy and I drove down to Kingsville to see an A&I (old habits die hard) football game. A&M-K is a perennial powerhouse in Division II football, so we decided to make the 45 minute trek so see our first college football game. As the third quarter progressed, storms started to make their presence known with an ever-growing lightning show. Early in the fourth quarter, the winds picked up dramatically, along with intense lightning, which made the officials call the game with the Javelinas up by three touchdowns. The lightning show was spectacular, albeit quite dangerous. On a side note: this was the Javelinas' first conference game and entered the game 0-5, having lost each game on their non-conference schedule. However, they did not lose again until they reached the Division II championship game.
7). Ice & sleet 1996
This wasn't that big of an ice storm but most of San Antonio was shut down for a few days until what ice accumulated had melted. I remember having to stay in my apartment for three straight, subfreezing days, as both school and work were closed, and before I knew it, I started to get what I equated to was cabin fever. In other words, I had to get out of there, well at least for a while, because being cooped up started to suck.
6). Valentine's Day Snow 2004
This was my first significant snowfall. I had seen, up to this point, only a few dustings of snow, perhaps an inch or so of accumulation, but what this memorable is that both my wife and I had to work that day, so we had to call a sitter for our then 16-month old daughter. After the sitter arrived I had to drive my wife 7 miles in one direction, retrace my steps, as it were, drive back seven miles back towards home and then drive the 11 miles to my job. All this in the 4 or 5 inches of snow that had fallen, mostly, overnight. Flurries still fell until noon, but all I was wishing to do all day was to take my daughter outside and make a snowman for her. I did make one that evening, but my little girl was fast asleep by this time.
5). Hurricane Brett 1999
This hurricane hit the Texas Gulf Coast between Corpus Christi and Brownsville. In other words, it hit a bunch of nothing. There's nothing out there except a bunch of brush and ranches. Good thing too, if it had traveled about 75 miles up the coast it would have directly affected Corpus and the rest of the Coastal Bend. I had just moved to Dallas, when my cousin invited me to make the trip, the day before landfall, down to help our respective families board up or anything else. But what made it extra memorable for me was that my sister-in-law had just given birth to my nephew the same day we arrived- the day before the hurricane made landfall. Although the storm hit far enough away, that they really did not need to evacuate, my brother and his family, including my day-old nephew, took off for Central Texas.
4). Summer of 1980 and Hurricane Allen
My recollection of that particular heat wave aren't that great, other than remembering the intense heat when we ventured outside, which was rather infrequent, seemed different than summers past. But I do remember our Hurricane Allen induced evacuation to San Marcos that August quite vividly.
We set out for someplace away from the coast that day and I think we left with no specific place in mind. I'm sure that's still a given for hurricane evacuees nowadays. That day was hot and it took us almost two hours to get to the next town over, 7 miles away! The rest of the trip was a mix of my Dad's frustrated rumblings, my Mom's worries about the family and house we left behind, and my younger brothers' respective fussiness. We arrived, sometime in the middle of that same night, in San Marcos. We were given refuge on the campus of what was then called Southwest Texas State University. Even though we were a few hours inland, we were not necessarily out of the woods. As with landfalling hurricanes, inland areas are susceptible to tornadoes, and we were evacuated once (again) on account of a tornado touching down nearby.
When we returned home, we were greeted with a backyard full of water. My younger brother and I walked out there and found spots where the water came up past our knees. Thinking back on it, that wasn't a very smart thing to do. Who knows what could have been lurking in those waters!
3). 1998 Weather Weirdness
I call it weird because of how the weather played out year. We had at least three separate hailstorms pass through the San Antonio area in one February evening. Then, about a month later, the Friday before Spring Break, sleet pellets fell even though it was maybe a paltry 40 degrees. Two months later, began one really hot summer. By mid May, most of Texas had experienced above or near normal temperatures, with many cities topping 100 degrees! I had never been one to complain about hot weather, but by the end of June, I was already wishing for cold weather. That was a abnormally hot and dry summer, and things evened out before too long, but unfortunately, it did in one day.
Many people who live in San Antonio know that any little rain that falls usually causes some parts of town to flood. So when a 500-year flood occurred on a Saturday in mid-October, you know it would be pretty bad. I went to bed the night before the flood event occurred thinking about the company paintball game planned for the next day. We did have a slight chance of rain the next day, but it was forecasted to arrive something after our paintball match. But lo and behold, I had a rude awakening the next morning. Tremendous flashes of lightning, accompanied with jarring thunder eventually kicked me out of bed. Car alarms, including mine, were going off with the jolts of thunder. So much for that slight chance of rain that afternoon... I got up and went over to the living room TV and saw that the local stations had their storm coverage up and going and it was barely 6:30am!
I got myself ready for work as I had to put in a few hours of work before the paintball game that afternoon. Well, needless to say the game was cancelled. Although most of the rain had stopped by mid-day, the subsequent runoff was just beginning. The area around the Olmos Dam, namely along Highway 281, was under water. Different parts of town were also under significant amounts of water. I remember trying to take this girl I dated to work, but all roads leading there were under water. Weeks later after the water receded, the high water mark along 281 was visible high on the trees- not on the tree trunks but high up on the leafy canopies!
2). Jarrell Tornado May 27, 1997
I did not actually witness this tornado personally but I followed the storm's path of destruction southward from Waco through Jarrell and then through San Antonio that afternoon and evening. As I readied myself for work, the Weather Channel was already on top of this fast breaking story. The storm essentially worked its way south along the I-35 corridor, where Jarrell took the brunt of the storm.
As soon as I walked outside you could just feel the humidity. It was pretty oppressive to say the least. I remember looking up at the tops of the utility poles and you could actually see the haze and humidity. I thought to myself, "if something comes in today, it's going to get nasty."
When I arrived at work, I chatted with one of my new co-workers, who was a classmate at UT-San Antonio and a former storm chaser in Oklahoma, about this storm. For a second he and I thought about actually chasing this storm! Anyway, we didn't go, but we both kept up with the storms progress via the good ol' internet. After the storm passed Austin, it weakened a bit and turned west, and we thought would pass San Antonio entirely. But after this westward veering, it gain a little bit of strength, put down a brief tornado near Boerne and put out this impressive looking cigar-shaped, rolling cloud in the part of town where I worked.
We in San Antonio were lucky that the storm weakend before it reached us. The reason why I placed this event so high on my list is because of its storm history and that I witnessed the remnants, thankfully, of this historical storm. Please check out this site that talks about the Jarrell tornado even further.
1). Coastal Bend White Christmas 2004
I spoke of this weather event on a posting back in December 2006. I still can't believe, that to this day, I had my first White Christmas, in all places, in my hometown near Corpus Christi. We received about 7 inches of snow at my parents house, which was one of the higher totals in the immediate Coastal Bend vicinity. We were so taken with the pristine nature of the snow around our house that we didn't even build a snowman. I'm sure if we had the time to build one, it would have been huge with all the snow on the ground. Please read my posting from this last December for more of a play by play of events.
Honorable Mention: I wasn't around to endure the following storm, but I love to hear my parents talk about their experiences when Hurricane Celia hit in 1970. Each of them had their stories to tell, but I especially like to hear my Mom's harrowing tale. Her story started with her drive to work that day. She stopped to put gas in her car on her way to work that morning, when the lady behind the counter asked her where she was going. My mother told her work and then the lady asked her why that was so with the hurricane expected to arrive sometime that afternoon. Wow, can you imagine not knowing that a hurricane was on its way?! Anyhow, my Mom went back home and stayed with the rest of her family and awaited the hurricane's arrival.
They endured the first half of the storm in my grandmother's house where they felt the roof shudder and the walls sway. As soon as the calm of Celia's eye arrived, they had heard that folks were being sheltered in our church a few blocks away, so they all went to the church to avoid being in a house that may blow away during the second half of the storm. When the stronger side of the eyewall came ashore, my mother's family and a few other people huddled in the church's sacristy. A few moments later they heard a tremendous crash. One of the ladies with them said that the roof and the walls of the church had just fallen down. With this, they immediately left the church and went to the priest's house adjacent to the church. Because of the ferocious winds occurring at this point of the storm, each person was tied to the other with rope. Apparently this was a good thing, since my Mom's youngest sister, who was 5 at the time, was blown horizontally by the winds that were probably close to 100 miles an hour. After the storm passed, someone looking out the window, saw something really big sitting on the front lawn of the priest's house-- it was a chunk of the roof of the very house they were in.
These are the stories I never get tired of hearing!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The Undoing
What's that old saying, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"? Considering the current state of the world, it would seem that some of us have certainly forgotten this old adage.
Consider this: a war started on what could be seen as a whim; a quick end to said war was forecasted by the ones who started it; and no true objective was laid out at the outset by the conflicts initiators, and even when the war was well underway. Am I talking about the war in present day Iraq? No. I am talking about a conflict that set the world on fire almost 100 years ago. I speak of The Great War. In G. J. Meyer's A World Undone, he writes that "anyone inclined to believe that some dark force beyond human comprehension intervened again and again to make the Great War long and ruinous would have no difficulty in finding evidence to support such a thesis." A great point to describe the great conflagration initiated in what would later be called, Europe's Tinderbox- The Balkans.
What brought much of the European continent into a constant state of chaos occurred, inauspiciously, on the edge of the vast, yet declining Hapsburg Empire. The news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, hardly sent a ripple across Europe, much less create a sense of crisis. The archduke's uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph, "seemed almost grateful" at the reports. Both Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia scarcely reacted to the news, with Tsar Nicholas only declaring "three weeks of mourning in honor of the slain archduke." With this much "fanfare", it is a wonder that the war started at all.
A unique aspect of this massive tome is how Meyer split each of the six separate parts into smaller entities, those of which include a brief introductory synopsis of those disparate characters involved in the war itself. What he did was deconstruct these characters so as to introduce them to the reader and give one an insight on how and why a given person or group of people behaved the way they did and how they came to be, for example: who were the Junkers and why were they so militaristic? This anecdotal filler before a new chapter begins, fits in wonderfully between Meyer's tremendous play-by-play.
Many times througout the conflict, each side squandered opportunities to breakthrough, figuratively and literally; the Germans could have laid siege to Paris soon after the war started, as they followed their Schifflen Plan; as did the British when they broke a thinly garrisoned line at Neuve Chapelle. I found this description of the British leadership by German war planner, Max Hoffman, quite telling. The British "soldiers fought like lions, but were led by donkeys."
As the war roared on, or better yet, stumbled on, battles were initiated to gain or retake useless sects of land; land usually made useless by constant bombardment or useless for tactical reasons: the Battle of the Somme, the Brusilov Offensives of 1916; and the Battle of Verdun, a microcosm of the entire war itself for its "length and cost and brutality and finally in its sheer pointlessness."
Yes, Meyer makes an amazing point about how it seems that some "dark force" aided in the tragic prolonging of the Great War. But the problem can be described in much simpler terms: humans began the war, stupid humans that is. Communications between nations in those years were mediocre at best, but not to the point where people would rather not wait for a formal response to an ultimatum.
Many may ask if there was a point of the war and others will ask if there was anything to be gained in the end. From an American standpoint, US generals gained valuable battle experience, such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, but other than that, I would say there was little to be gained as the world is still paying for the sins of The Great War.
How Germany fared post-war is in direct relation to how World War II started. Problems with poorly conceived partioning of already inhabited lands, such as the Middle East by Britain and France still resonate today. Genocide and the like became the norm in the everlasting fractured region of Yugoslavia. To revisit what occurred during this tumultuous era, is an immense undertaking and Meyer's analysis proved as readable and entertaining as any best selling novel.
Consider this: a war started on what could be seen as a whim; a quick end to said war was forecasted by the ones who started it; and no true objective was laid out at the outset by the conflicts initiators, and even when the war was well underway. Am I talking about the war in present day Iraq? No. I am talking about a conflict that set the world on fire almost 100 years ago. I speak of The Great War. In G. J. Meyer's A World Undone, he writes that "anyone inclined to believe that some dark force beyond human comprehension intervened again and again to make the Great War long and ruinous would have no difficulty in finding evidence to support such a thesis." A great point to describe the great conflagration initiated in what would later be called, Europe's Tinderbox- The Balkans.
What brought much of the European continent into a constant state of chaos occurred, inauspiciously, on the edge of the vast, yet declining Hapsburg Empire. The news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, hardly sent a ripple across Europe, much less create a sense of crisis. The archduke's uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph, "seemed almost grateful" at the reports. Both Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia scarcely reacted to the news, with Tsar Nicholas only declaring "three weeks of mourning in honor of the slain archduke." With this much "fanfare", it is a wonder that the war started at all.
A unique aspect of this massive tome is how Meyer split each of the six separate parts into smaller entities, those of which include a brief introductory synopsis of those disparate characters involved in the war itself. What he did was deconstruct these characters so as to introduce them to the reader and give one an insight on how and why a given person or group of people behaved the way they did and how they came to be, for example: who were the Junkers and why were they so militaristic? This anecdotal filler before a new chapter begins, fits in wonderfully between Meyer's tremendous play-by-play.
Many times througout the conflict, each side squandered opportunities to breakthrough, figuratively and literally; the Germans could have laid siege to Paris soon after the war started, as they followed their Schifflen Plan; as did the British when they broke a thinly garrisoned line at Neuve Chapelle. I found this description of the British leadership by German war planner, Max Hoffman, quite telling. The British "soldiers fought like lions, but were led by donkeys."
As the war roared on, or better yet, stumbled on, battles were initiated to gain or retake useless sects of land; land usually made useless by constant bombardment or useless for tactical reasons: the Battle of the Somme, the Brusilov Offensives of 1916; and the Battle of Verdun, a microcosm of the entire war itself for its "length and cost and brutality and finally in its sheer pointlessness."
Yes, Meyer makes an amazing point about how it seems that some "dark force" aided in the tragic prolonging of the Great War. But the problem can be described in much simpler terms: humans began the war, stupid humans that is. Communications between nations in those years were mediocre at best, but not to the point where people would rather not wait for a formal response to an ultimatum.
Many may ask if there was a point of the war and others will ask if there was anything to be gained in the end. From an American standpoint, US generals gained valuable battle experience, such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, but other than that, I would say there was little to be gained as the world is still paying for the sins of The Great War.
How Germany fared post-war is in direct relation to how World War II started. Problems with poorly conceived partioning of already inhabited lands, such as the Middle East by Britain and France still resonate today. Genocide and the like became the norm in the everlasting fractured region of Yugoslavia. To revisit what occurred during this tumultuous era, is an immense undertaking and Meyer's analysis proved as readable and entertaining as any best selling novel.
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