These Midnight Ponderings kept me awake the other night while the world awaited the miracle rescue of 33 trapped miners in Chile.

I recently attended a Civil War encampment. There were Union reenactors and Rebel reenactors. I talked to a Union Captain, a professor at Hillsdale College. We talked about the atrocities committed by the Confederates at Andersonville Prison where 12,912 men, or 28 percent of men held there, died. A family ancestor was a prisoner there. He then told me about the atrocities at the Union’s Rock Island prison camp where nearly-naked soldiers tried to survive a brutal winter eating rats and dogs. Nearly 2,000 died there.

I saw tents, and rope beds, portable ovens, utensils, rifles and other tools soldiers used in their daily living in the field. We talked about the damage a mini-ball could cause, the rate of amputations and the advances medicine made because of the war. We talked about how Stonewall Jackson marched 23,000 men 26-miles on one hot day.

I walked away with a better understanding of what the average soldier went through during that dark period of our history. We did not glorify war. We did not spout politics. If anything, I came away with the idea that if more people went to reenactments, there would be more pressure on politicians to weigh even more heavily their decision to send our young to war.

Rich Iott, the Republican candidate running against Democrat Marcy Kaptur for the U.S. House of Representatives, has taken a lot of grief for being a Nazi reenactor. Local Democrats and the talking heads have used his hobby as a media opportunity to condemn Nazis and the Holocaust.

Sheez, that’s easy.

Only a few radicals don’t condemn the Holocaust.

There is no evidence, however, that Iott is among them, nor is there any evidence that he espouses any abhorrent Nazi belief about race and ethnicity. He simply portrayed a soldier, much like the Union and Doughboy soldiers he has also portrayed. This particular soldier, a Wiking SS soldier fought on the front lines in Russia. It was a combat assault-engineering group, according to the website wiking.org.

The group belongs to a larger group of World War II reenactors. Its goal is the same as that of the Civil War reenactors--portray the day-to-day life of the soldier.

A disclaimer on the site states its members are “…in no way affiliated with real, radical political organizations (i.e. Aryan Nation, American Nazi Party, etc) and do not embrace the philosophies and actions of the original NSDAP (Nazi party), and wholeheartedly condemn the atrocities which made them infamous.”

Until someone provides other evidence, I give Iott a pass on this.

I also give him a pass on selling Foodtown. What would you have done if you owned the stores and were faced with the daunting prospect of competing with the wholesale buying power of giants Meijer and WalMart?

Iott sold to a larger chain that had a better chance of competing and a better chance of keeping his employees in their jobs. Unfortunately, it still ended badly.

These two decisions are non-issues with me. I’m more concerned with Iott’s waffling on whether he would vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and his opposition to the bailout of the American auto industry. In 2007, Detroit’s Big Three employed some 239,000 workers, many of them living and working here in Northwest Ohio. Imagine what our economy would look like without the American auto industry.

It’s easy to be against big government, but Iott’s rhetoric won’t fool me this election like George Bush’s did in 2000. Bush promised less government spending, but the Republicans spent our money like drunken Democrats. When it comes to fiscal responsibility, they have no credibility. It’s just talk.

Simulating sex
There’s more to grinding than simulation of the sex act, but if you’re a parent criticizing Lake school officials for banning the dance, you may want to read these tips for grinders from the website Wikihow:

“Guys may experience an erection while grinding. If this happens, don't be embarrassed. An erection is your body's natural response to this kind of friction. If you still feel uncomfortable, there are a few things you can do to hide it:

• Bend your knees so that the bottom of your stomach is the area getting the most friction or turn your body so the side of your body is the side that is getting the friction.

• Just go with the flow and ignore it, some girls love this!

• Turn so that they are grinding your knee.

• If repositioning does not work, you may want to excuse yourself for a few minutes to let things settle down.

• If all else fails "pull up and tuck".

• If you know you're going to be grinding somewhere wear tight underwear.”

Now, if you’re still comfortable with the dance, hold one at your house?

Lake school officials were right in instituting a no grinding policy as well as a DJ playlist that bans songs with the f-word and n-word.

If you as a parent think this music is okay, that’s okay. Raise your child as you see fit. But, none of this should be acceptable at school.
 

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