Tag: WW1

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Czechoslovak Legionnaires

Content below is episode #172 of Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast

RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT

  • This week I recommend the book Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne
    • Joe Rogan talks about this book a lot so I thought I would give it a shot.
    • I was pleasantly surprised to find a historically accurate book that is told from a narrative perspective.
    • the American West has more to tell than you think. give this one a listen.

NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT

  • World War 1 (The Great War) started in 1914.
    • Austro-Hungarian Empire at the start of the war was vast, ruling over many different lands.
      • The Czech and Slovak cultures were heavily repressed by the empire and the grumbles of independence had already started before WW1
    • When it did break out, there were ethnic Czechs and Slovaks living in Russia.
  • The Czechs and Slovaks requested of the Russian Tsar to have their own Czechoslovak unit within the Russian army.
    • The Russian Tsar understood the benefits of having a Czechoslovakian unit motivated against Russia’s Austro-Hungarian enemy. He dubbed his Czechoslovakian force “Druzhina” translating to Companions.
      • The unit was created by 720 soldiers and 21 officers in September of 1914. He sent them to the front lines to fight alongside the Imperial Russian Army.
These three bafoons were major players in the Great War
Russian Tsar Nicholas II
  • What Tsar Nicholas the II didn’t anticipate was the long-term intentions of his Druzhina Czechoslovakian unit.
    • Druzhina didn’t just want their own unit to fight their hated repressor the Austro-Hungarians… They predicted this Great War would be the downfall of the teetering Austro-Hungarian empire and wanted a backup plan when that happened.
    • When their Austro-Hungarian imperial overlords fell, there would be land for the taking.
  • With only those 720 soldiers and 21 officers making up the Druzhina unit, they were designated for recon duty on the Eastern front.
    • The Czech and Slovak volunteers (pictured on a patrol on the Eastern Front) saw themselves as freedom fighters against an oppressive regime. But the Austro-Hungarian authorities considered them traitors to the empire. Afterall, the Austro-Hungarian empire did rule over their homeland.
…and if caught, they faced execution. This Czech fighter was hanged after his capture by Austrians in 1918.
  • The 21 officers realized their numbers were so low that if they wanted to keep from being absorbed by Russian forces they would need to grow their ranks and fast.
  • They made many recruiting efforts in Russian areas with high Czech populations while also convincing a large number of enemy troops in the Austro-Hungarian army to defect.
    • This sounds astonishing, but consider the Czechoslovakian people were torn apart by two different empires that cared little for their cultures. It wasn’t hard to convince men to stop fighting a horrific war between empires they hated and secretly takes up arms with their own brethren.
    • Not to mention, the Czechs and Slovaks were treated well by the Russian empire.
  • This recruiting lead to an ethnically and culturally cohesive unit, that also benefited from being well-versed in the language and tactics of both the Russian and Austro-Hungarian sides.
  • Recruitement efforts were successful. Where they only numbered 741 in September of 1914, by April of 1916 they were 2,436 strong. They were no longer reconnaissance, but the Czechoslovak Rifle Brigade

When I started this episode I could not point out Czechoslovakia on a map…
When I started this episode I could not point out Czechoslovakia on a map…
  • The Czechoslovak unit was part of the famous Brusilov Offensive, the greatest battle for Russia up until this time. They lost 500K men.
    • They attacked weak points in the Austro-Hungarian line and caused it to break in 1916.
    • This Russian offensive saw 1.7 million men smash through the broken Axis lines.
    • The Czechoslovak unit displayed great bravery and discipline during this offensive. Both the Russian and Axis sides saw how cohesive a unit they were.
  • In 1917 another Czech regiment was added to the Czechoslovakian brigade swelling the units numbers even more.
    • By this time the rest of the Russian forces were beaten, tired, and not too happy with their Tsar… but the Czechoslovakian morale was higher than ever.
    • By March 15th of 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne. The Bolsheviks were starting to gain traction with the Russian people
      • Crack a history book if you want to know how this one played out LOL. The Russian Revolution is fascinating. The very first episode of this podcast was about one of the minor players in the Russian Revolution.
after Russia’s 1917 revolution ended with Bolsheviks seizing power, the Czechoslovakian situation inside what had been the Russian Empire became increasingly precarious.
  • The Bolsheviks wanted to get out of wars and they were getting more of Russia’s troops to see their side. The result, Russian troops were becoming unreliable.
    • In July of 1917, the Kerensky Offensive was launched. It would be the last Russian offensive of the war as it destroyed Russian morale.
      • But the Czechoslovakian unit gained a key opportunity here. They were incharge of a particular offensive task during the Kerensky Offensive. They failed, but their bravery spurred propaganda that made the units already badass reputation soar even higher.
  • The Provincial Government of Russia had enough on their hands and decided to unshackle the Czechoslovakian unit that had been placed on it by the Tsar.
    • With their new popularity and now unrestricted from the government, the unit grew faster than it had ever grown before.
    • They added artillery batteries and gained thousands of volunteers eager to join the unit they heard fostered a tight-knit brotherhood of badassery.
    • By 1918 they were known as the Czechoslovak Legion with 40,000 strong.
  • It was around this time that a guy named Tomas Masaryk founded the Czechoslovak National Council based out of Paris.
    • Masaryk wanted to build a homeland for his people the Czechoslovakians
    • With a Czech mother, Slovak father, and American wife, Masaryk was well-placed to rally for an independent Czechoslovakia.
      • After World War I broke out in 1914, thousands of Czechs and Slovaks living inside Russia heeded Masaryk’s call to fight alongside Russians against the Central Powers, which included Austria-Hungary.
    • By October 1917, the Imperial Russian Government had lost command of the country to the Bolsheviks… a party that most did not see rising to power.
    • With Russia falling apart and the Austro-Hungarian empire seeing the Czechoslovakians as traitors, the Legion was trapped and being hunted
  • Masaryk was the Czechoslovakian leader. He knew he had to get his ultra-badass fighting force (the only fighting force the currently nationless Czechoslovakian people had) out of tumultuous Russia
  • Where else to send his men other than France, the country that supported an independent Czechoslovakian nation and allowed Masaryk to start his Czechoslovak National Council
    • The French provided financial support to the Czechoslovakians, but only if they would help them fight the Germans.
      • I know, lots of different countries in this story here. Its Europe, what can I say LOL
    • Russia had pulled out of the war due to the whole Russian Revolution thingy, and they were France’s ally helping to keep Germany occupied on 2 fronts. So yeah, France needed any backup they could get.
When the Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from the war in the spring of 1918, some 40,000 well-armed Czechs and Slovaks found themselves trapped.
  • So now France was like “you want a country of your own? We’ll help make that happen, but you’ve got to get your asses to France to help us fight these Axis guys
    • Now, the Czechoslovak Legionnaires were badasses, and they were 40,000 strong with artillery and all, but they didn’t think they could fight all the way across the Austro-Hungarian territory to make it to France (about 2,400 kilometers of enemy territory). So what did they do?
      • Well they decided they would try to travel to the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok… about 9,700 kilometers from their base in Kiev, then get a ship and sail it from the Pacific coast of Russia, all the way over to France…
    • In order to travel across all of Russia, they made an agreement with the Soviet Government called the Penza Agreement. Basically it said the Czechoslovakian Legion would have safe passage through The Russian motherland, as long as they gave up their weapons.
      • Seeing Russia devolve into a bloody backstabbing nation, the Czechoslovakian Legion didn’t trust the agreement. They expected the Soviets to not keep their word… plus they were still fighting the Germans
      • And the Soviets thought the Czechoslovaks would join the White Russian Rebels in Siberia (these White Russians were loyal to the now-dead Tsar)
        • Again, go back to episode #1 to hear about the craziest SOB from the Russian Revolution fighting for the white Russians.
      • So the Legion didn’t want to give up their weapons, but did anyway… or at least they gave up SOME of their weapons to appease the Soviets into letting them travel to the Pacific port of Vladivostok
    • The majority of their weapons they hid on the trains they used to travel to Siberia
The legion cut a deal with Josef Stalin, then a Bolshevik leader, who promised safe passage if the Czechs and Slovaks surrendered most of their weapons.
  • Along the way they encountered way too many Soviet officials demanding bribes and a railway that was in horrible disrepair (sounds about right for Soviet Russia LOL)
    • by May of 1918 the Legion was scattered across thousands of miles of the TransSiberian Railway
    • While the legion travelled East to the Pacific, Hungarian POWs were travelling West from Russian siberian prison camps (not nice places). On May 14th, the Legion met the POWs of their former imperial overlords.
    • The Legionnairs recognized some of the POWs as men who were directly responsible for massacres of Czech wounded during the war… the Legion took revenge.
    • The bloodbath was gruesome and the news of it reach Leon Trotsky, the Soviet Commissar of War.
      • Trotsky immediately revoked the Penza Agreement and ordered the Czechoslovakian Legion be arrested.
    • The Legion said F**K THAT!
      • They invaded the town of Chelyabinsk where they had encountered the Hungarian POWs. they took control. The Legion was in full-on revolt.
      • Leggionaires strung out along the Transsiberian Railway heard about their fellow Legionnaires take-over of Chelyabinsk and immediately started seizing towns and cities along the railway. One of the towns was the port of Vladivostok.
    • A lot had happened since the Legion left their base of Kiev, but the mission remained the same: get the hell out of Russia and join their Czechoslovakian people.
Other sources told the “Incident” at Chelyabinsk went down a bit differently. tensions were high in Russia. As Russia collapsed into chaos, the eastbound Czechoslovaks brushed past freed Austrian and Hungarian prisoners of war headed west.
In May, a freed POW flung an object at a Czech legionnaire, sparking a bloody brawl. Local Bolsheviks arrested the Czechs involved, but the legion wasn’t having it and stormed in to free its comrades. Bolshevik leadership reacted furiously, demanding the Czechoslovaks be disarmed or “shot on the spot.”
  • This nationless legion, deep in enemy territory and needing to navigate around the world to reach their few allies had managed to seize majority control of the longest single rail system in the world, stretching 5,771 miles (9,288 km) across Russia between Moscow and Vladivostok
    • needless to say, it had a major impact on the Russian Civil War.
    • The Legion was just trying to get the hell out of the blood bath that was Russia during its civil war, but in doing so, had run the Reds (the soviet Bolsheviks) out of Siberia… which made Siberia a safe haven for the Tsarist Loyal White Russians.
    • Oh and after Trotsky ordered the Legion be “shot on the spot” they decided to arm themselves as much as possible… they stole an armered train from the Bolsheviks LOL
The “Orlik” (Little Eagle) was wrapped in steel armor, bristled with machine guns, and bookended with two cannons.
Legionnaires inside the Orlik. Their journey east continued, but while the Czechoslovak rebels were now virtually unstoppable, the going was slow.
  • With their newly acquired war Train and now numbering 61,000 strong, they were on the road to Vladivostok port.
The legion, by now some 61,000 strong, needed to clear the tracks…
…repair sabotaged bridges…
…and fight off attacks from Bolsheviks (and swarms of mosquitoes).
But morale was high, and the trainloads of Czechoslovak fighters soon made a home on the rails.
Bakeries were created inside some wagons.
Others were decorated with images of home. This door depicts the Prague Castle above the message, “You, glory of the Czechs, as you used to live, you live and will live on in our hearts.”
“Death is better than the life of a slave,” proclaims another of the legionnaire’s wagons.
Legionnaires guarding a railway tunnel in Siberia. At the behest of the Western Allies, the Czechoslovaks were asked to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway and assist the White Army in its fight against the Bolsheviks.
  • Thats when the Romanovs story comes into play.
    • A small, but historically impactful detour from the Legion’s story.
Tsar Nicholas II and his family the Romanovs
  • The Tsar Nicholas II and his family the royal Romanovs had been kicked out of Moscow to make room for the Soviets. They had been moved to a town called Yekaterinburg, just 230 kilometers from the Czechoslovak held town of Chelyabinsk.
    • The Romanovs and their allies (including England and France) hoped the Czechoslovaks would be able to launch a rescue mission to save the Royal family… The Czechoslovaks were allies with France and England and the Romanovs had family in England that would have welcomed them. The Czechoslovaks were already heading to France… there was lots of hope they would make it out…
    • but the Soviets knew this was the plan and took action.
    • Under Vladimir Lenin’s personal command the last Tsar of Russia and his entire bloodline was executed by firing squad in a dark and dank basement in July 17th of 1918. Their remains were buried in the Siberian wilderness with no gravestones… the Soviets convinced them they were being rescued… and just shot them instead
the aftermath of the firing squad that killed the entire Romanov family
  • The Czechoslovak Legion arrived just 5 days later to find the room where they had been killed and no remains… just a torn up wall where they had been shot.
    • It wasn’t until in 1991, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, that the Romanov bodies were recovered. The state’s investigative team found thousands of bones and other relics from the imperial family, and DNA analysis soon confirmed they were in fact the Romanovs.
    • This scene was recounted on Netflix’s hit show The Crown where Queen Elisabeth learns about the fate of her distant family.
  • With the Romanovs dead and the Soviets gaining more power by the day, the Red Army fought back.
    • They defeated the Legion at Samara and forced them eastward. The Legion held on as long as they could, fighting bravely, but their morale was badly bruised.
    • Then on October 28th 1918, Czechoslovakia was granted statehood. The Great War was coming to an end.
    • The Legion was now deep in Russian territory, far away from the Homeland they had wanted for so long.
    • While the Legion had been allies to the white Russians during their time in Siberia, they were tired of fighting Russians with Russians and being caught up in politics that had nothing to do with their own people.
But the Russian Civil War was not their fight, and by the beginning of 1920, the legionnaires just wanted to go home.
  • The Mission remained the same: GET THE HELL OUT OF RUSSIA AND JOIN THEIR PEOPLE.
    • So when Admiral Kolchak, who had overthrown the White Russian Government in Siberia, established a bloody dictatorship in its place, and was losing the Russian Civil War against the Soviet Red Army asked if he could get on the Czechoslovakian controlled TransSiberian Railway… they said sure, why not old Kolchak, our power hungry ally who doesn’t seem to know how to run a government and hasn’t done much of anything to help us get to our newly created and undefended homeland… Come aboard!
    • The Legion called a truce with the Red army and handed Kolchak over at the first opportunity. Kolchak was promptly executed.
    • in Return, the Red army gave the Legion safe passage to the Pacific port of Vladivostok, the same port they had set out for years ago… but kept getting caught up in the Russian Civil War… again, a conflict that had nothign to do with them.
    • Wisely the Soviets didn’t try to take the Czechoslovak’s gun. They let the Legion go armed to the teeth this time.

  • The Legion had about 50,000 soldiers at this point and they weren’t all together. They were spread out defending their one bargaining chip they had in hostile Russia, the TransSiberian Railway.
    • So it took over a year until the las to the Legionnaires made it to Vladivostok.
    • Along the way, the Allies kept pestering the Red Army which slowed the LEgions evacuation. The Allies tried to get the Legion to fight the Red Army, but the Legion was done fighting other people’s wars. They didn’t take the bait. THE MISSION STAYED THE SAME: GET THE HELL OUT OF RUSSIA AND GET TO THEIR PEOPLE
    • By March 1920, the last Czechoslovak train made it to Vladivostok.
Legionnaires boarding at Vladivostok. The Czechoslovaks left behind some 4,000 dead but took with them more than 1,000 local women whom they had married.
  • The Czechoslovakian Legion was formed in September of 1914 under Imperial Russia because it had no country of its own.
    • The next 3 years it spent fighting in some of the most bloody battles of the Great War.
    • In 1917 the Imperial Russian Army was no more, overthrown by the Soviet Red Army. So the Legion set their sights on France to link up with Marasyk and Czechoslovak National Council… their people.
    • Literally caught in the middle of the Russian Civil War the Legion seized control of the Great TransSiberian Railway so to not get swallowed up by the Russian White and Russian Red war.
    • They spent 3 years deep behind enemy lines until they were able to get their last man out of Russia.
    • In the end 60,000 Legionnaires made it out of Vladivostok with another 10,000 refugees.
    • they made it to Europe and received a hero’s wwelcome as they strode into their new Homeland.
    • These 60,000 Legionnaires, these battle-hardened veterans, these badasses, formed the new Czechoslovak Army.
    • Their Journey from the Eastern front of the Great War across Siberia and finally to a new nation in Europe is astonishing.
      • Churchill wrote about these ultra-tough men: “The pages of history recall scarcely any parallel episode at once so romantic in character and so extensive in scale.”
      • Roosevelt wrote: “The extraordinary nature of whose great and heroic feat is literally unparalleled, so far as I know, in ancietn or modern warfare.”
Legionnaires guarding a train in Siberia on a -40C day. By the autumn of 1918, World War I was over and the legionnaires’ distant, beloved Czechoslovakia had been declared an independent nation.
After weeks at sea, the legionnaires of Russia finally returned to their independent homeland under its new president, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (visible inside car during his 1918 inauguration in Prague).
A century later, the Czechoslovak Legion’s travails in Russia are remembered with a traveling museum and immortalized in monuments and in reliefs on a Prague building (pictured).
Czech and Slovak fighters on the Eastern Front in 1916.
  • From the safety of Czechoslovakia, and after the Communists had seized full control of Russia, one legionnaire recalled, “The brotherhood of the Czechoslovak Legion was a thing at which to marvel. Nothing could shake the confidence of the legionnaire in himself and in his brothers. And so we were able to stand firm in the heart of the Bolshevik ruin, and for all practical purposes, remain untouched by its doctrines.”

CREDIT:

2:36

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Income Taxes

The content below is from Episode #160 of the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast

RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT

  • This week I recommend you watch the 1998 *classic Simon Birch
    • It only has 44% on rotten tomatoes from critics and 77% from audiences
    • It stars the kid from the first Jurassic Park movie Joseph Mazzello, Ian Michael Smith (as Simon Birch), Jim Carrey, Oliver Platt, and the forever-babe Ashley Judd.
  • Here’s the plot
    • Simon Birch (Ian Michael Smith) and Joe Wenteworth (Joseph Mazzello) are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca (Ashley Judd), is keeping her lips sealed, no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend (David Strathairn) with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.
  • SPOILER ALERT from here on out.
  • If you want to watch Simon Birch without knowing how it ends, skip to the main event on the blog or for the audio people, skip a minute or so ahead.
    • This movie is sad as hell. It hilariously traumatized me as a kid because of how tragic it is.
      • Simon Birch dies in the end. The main guy, whom the movie is named after dies. This lovable wisecracking philosopher you grow to love throughout the movie dies leaving his lonely friend behind. It’s sad as hell. … but that’s not the most traumatizing part.
    • Joe’s mom, played by Ashley Judd, dies a horribly traumatic death.
      • Throughout the entire movie Simon has a crush on Joe’s mom (and who wouldn’t… its 90’s Ashley Judd, shes a 12).
      • It is how she dies that was so shocking my mind repressed the memory.
      • You see, there were just about 4 things Simon Birch cared about in this movie: being pissed off at god for being born with dwarfism, his buddy Joe, Joe’s hot mom, and baseball.
        • but because of Simon’s condition, he can’t play sports. He is too small and fragile. It’s also why he thinks he will never get to be with a beautiful woman like Joe’s mom.
        • Well towards the middle or end of the movie there is a moment where Simon’s reluctant baseball coach is forced to put Simon in the game. Simon goes up to the plate and the audience can tell they are setting it up for Simon to actually hit a home run.
          • I remember watching with such anticipation and excitement for the Simon the underdog to slug one out the ball park. The movie goes to slow motion, the pitch is thrown, and little 11-year old dwarf Simon Birch smacks the ball harder than anyone had ever hit a baseball. It was epic. I remember my whole family watching this on VHS rental from Blockbuster at home and cheering for the little guy…
          • But the cheers didn’t last long…
          • Because the first positive thing to happen in Simon Birch’s life, this awesome home run he’d been dreaming about for so long turned out to NOT be a home run, but a fowl ball.
          • It went flying across the field and smacked Ashley Judd’s character (Joe’s mom, Simon’s crush, Simon’s bestfriend’s mom) right in the damn temple. She was dead instantly….
          • TRAUMATIZING for a little kid LOL. I was like 10 years old when I watched it.
          • I looked to my dad in shock saying “you can’t die from a baseball can you?!”
          • My mom, the nurse, said “oh yeah, blunt force trauma to the temple, you bet you can die from it.”
  • I mentioned how I repressed this memory. Well it all came flooding back a few months back when I saw a Facebook reel.
    • There was a meme going around where people took the Mentos Freshmaker commercial theme music and played it over various scenes from movies and TV shows. Welp… they did it to Simon Birch (click link below)

https://www.facebook.com/reel/735426717609601

I laughed so damn hard at that clip. I rewatched it so many times. I had to share with you guys, the Who’d a Thunkers. And I thought it would be a good recommendation segment.

It is definitely dark humor, but OMG I think it is comedy gold. Nay, comedy diamond.

NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT

  • Everyone hates taxes.
    • Even those who think they are a necessary evil when living in society, and support them theoretically, still don’t enjoy paying them on a practical level.

“The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.”

James Madison, 4th President of the United States
Anyone remember a certain tea party?
  • Taxes and America have a weird relationship.
    • Being over-taxed is the main reason America exists as an independent nation. Think about the Boston Tea Party. America’s main source of revenue was import and export taxes.
    • But then America had a change of heart… unfortunately.
    • Income Tax specifically came around in the late 1800’s with the Civil War.
      • The country was hit hard by the bloodiest conflict it had ever seen and so the Revenue Act of 1861 was passed with the help of the Lincoln administration. It made anyone with yearly income of $800 or higher to pay a flat tax.
      • In 1872 the Revenue Act of 1861 was rescinded.
        • The income tax wasn’t proportional to population and some found it contradicted the constitution. So the government’s right to charge these kinds of taxes was disputed by the people.
        • Unheard of today to see a government be granted power during a crisis and when the crisis is over have the government let go of that power back to the people… remarkable.
    • But that didn’t last long. In 1913 the 16th Amendment was passed.
      • Like all amendments, tis a bit too wordy for the common man such as myself so let me give you the highlights:
        • “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
      • The dirty 16th allowed the government to charge our income and didn’t allow for any loopholes. And it seems this was sort of a pandora’s box moment. Sure, congress has repealed amendments before (refer to Prohibition [18th amendment] and the end of prohibition [21st amendment]).
        • But no one in their right mind is predicting the government to give up all that sweet cash money they make off the backs of the working man.
        • Honestly, (and I can’t believe I’m going to say this), but I can see income tax making sense on certain things. Like celebrities, politicians, and other professions we all collectively hate, but don’t take away the income of those blue-collar workers busting their asses all day long.
        • But I understand you can’t just tax some and not others. It’s either all or nothing, otherwise it opens the door to financially imposed prejudices.

“…but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Benjamin Franklin
  • Taxes and Death go hand in hand.
    • The 16th Amendment called for a 1% tax on people with incomes over 3Gs per year and a 6% tax on people with incomes over 500Gs per year.
    • Those percentages pale in comparison to just a few years later in 1918 when incomes over 1Million per year were taxed 77%… 77%!
      • Can you guess what would cause taxes to jump so much in so little time? What was happening in 1918?
      • Oh, just a little thing known as World War 1, the Great War, the War to end all Wars.
  • After the war in 1922 the top tax brackets were taxed 58%, which is lower… but still majority. The tax rate kept dropping until 1929 when the top bracket was taxed 24%, which is still alot, but much more manageable.
    • Until… can you guess what started to happen not long after WW1? … you may have actually gotten this one wrong…
    • In 1932 during the Great Depression the top margins were taxed 63% because the US government (and most of the world) was reduced to that of beggars because of the stock market crash.
The scary numbers
  • Right after the Great Depression was WW2 and you know the government wasn’t going to let up on the income tax when they needed to kick the crap out of the Krauts on one side and the Japs on the other.
    • It wasn’t until the 60’s (1960’s that is) when taxes started to drop again.
    • Where there is death, there are taxes. In times of war, in times of crisis, taxes go up.
  • I said that you can’t tax some and not others right… well that isn’t always the case.
    • Some rules make taxes lower for certain people. The poor are taxed less than the rich, that’s the basic one. But there are also tax breaks for college students (because the government allowed student loans to screw us financially already LOL). And Parents are taxed less because they have the future of America to look after. On a basic level, these tax breaks make sense. The government is investing in the country’s future by allowing those less fortunate or those trying to better themselves a little more wiggle room. On paper, it is a good move…. but practically it doesn’t always work that way.
    • There are concerns that these strategic tax breaks allow for unintended loopholes that make the system less fair. People worry the current tax system favors the mega-wealthy.
      • I’m talking about your Uncle who works in sales and owns a boat, he’s probably paying taxes out the wazoo. No, I’m talking about CEO’s of giant monopolies somehow paying less taxes than your little old grandma.
      • Reference this article on loopholes that benefit the rich.
  • I think it is overall a good thing that our government isn’t always run by the same people.
    • Everytime the administration changes they tweak the system one way or another.
    • They increase economic growth, close loopholes (such as with alternative minimum tax) to make the system more “fair”, or influence some combination of the two.
  • I remember the adults bitching about taxes even when I was a little kid and didn’t know what the heck taxes even were.
    • I remember the shit-eating grin on my Papa’s face (RIP Papa) when my mom told him I got my first paycheck from a legit job.
      • LOL he smiled a sinister smile, looked me right in the eye, and said “a Tax Payer huh? Welcome to the club!”
    • But when you look back you realize it could be worse.
      • Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for our bloated government having less power. I say stick it to the man every chance you get. Work with your local (non-big corp) accountant to make sure you aren’t giving those big wigs a penny more than you legally have to.
      • But recognizing that things could be worse does grant one a little bit of comfort of mind in the form of gratitude.

CREDIT:

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The Nazi Hunting Wizard

The following content is from Season 2 Episode 20 of the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast

RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT

  • This week’s recommendation segment is simple:
    • anything Sir Christopher Lee worked on or inspired.

NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT: Sir Christopher Lee

  • To me and my generation,
    • he was the Sith Lord Count Dooku from Star Wars and the Evil Wizard Saruman from Lord of the Rings.
    • It turns out his real-life story was much more legendary than either of those fictional characters combined.
    • This episode is about Sir Christopher Frank Tarantini Lee.
    • Just as a heads up to the Blog Readers: I use a TON of images for this episode. I just kept finding amazing images of this man.
      • Plus, there were a ton of memes claiming extraordinary facts about him that I wanted to double check.
  • So let us start by going over his Guinness Book of World Records:
    • Most screen credits for a living actor in 2007 after being acknowledged to have appeared in an incredible 244 film and TV movies.
      • When he passed in 2015 the number had gone up to 282 acting credits (according to IMDB)
      • Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of his acting credits.
        • HERE is a list of Lee’s filmography over the years according to Wikipedia
      • Some of his most notable roles:
        • Francisco Scaramanga from James Bond: the Man with the Golden Gun
        • Saruman in The Lord of the Rings series 
        • Frankenstein’s Monster
        • Kharis the mummy in The Mummy 
        • Count Dracula
        • Lord Summerisle in the British mystery movie The Wicker Man
        • the diver Martin Wallace in disaster movie Airport ’77
        • Count Dooku from Star Wars
        • Count de Rochefort in a couple Three Musketeers movies
        • Willy Wonka’s Dad
        • Emperor of China,
        • the Grim Reaper
        • Lucifer
        • Grigory Rasputin
        • Ramses
        • Vlad the Impaler
        • hosted SNL
        •  Russian Commandant Alexandrei Nikolaivich Rakov in Police Academy 7
          • Those are just a small fraction of the roles he played. I picked them because they all sound like really fun roles to play.
    • the Tallest actor in a leading role (a record he would go on to share with Wedding Crashers star Vince Vaughan).
      • Lee was 6’5″
    • most films with a swordfight by an actor
      • having dueled in 17 films with foils, swords, and even billiard cues
      • he’s been in everything from cutlass fights on the decks of waterlogged pirate ships to rapier duels in seventeenth-century France to taking on a couple guys one-third of his age with a lightsabers and a fistful of force lightning on the deck of an Imperial Star Destroyer
    • In 2004 he helped set the record for First spoken dialogue in a massive multiplayer online role playing game after lending his vocal talents to the game Everquest II,
    • he played the role of Diz/Ansem the Wise in Kingdom Hearts to set the record for Oldest videogame voice actor.
      • That same year also saw Lee knighted for services to drama and charity before being awarded a Bafta fellowship in 2011.
    • In 2008, he was recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s Most connected actor living after software developed by the University of Virginia that mapped the working relationship between 1,250,000 actors and actresses in the Internet Movie Database determined that Lee was “at the centre of the Hollywood universe”.
      • His networking skills must have been amazing.
  • But even legends have to start out somewhere
    • Lee was born in England during the year 1922.
    • His father was Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee
      • (1879–1941)
      • Lee’s father, was a distant relative of Robert E. Lee and was multi-decorated war hero who’d served as a Colonel in the 60th King’s Royal Rifle Corps during World War I and the Boer War.
    • And his mother, Countess Estelle Marie
      • (née Carandini di Sarzano; 1889–1981)
      • She was an Italian Countess and descendant of Charlamagne
      • One of Lee’s ancestors on that side was the Papal Secretary of State who refused to attend the coronation of Napoleon and is buried in the Pantheon in Rome next to Raphael
      • Her visage was apparently so striking that her portrait was painted by almost a dozen famous Italian painters
    • Lee studied Classics at Wellington College. He was a champion squash player, an amazing fencer, and spent his spare time playing on the school hockey and rugby.
    • In 1939 Lee quit his job as a desk clerk to enlist in the Finnish Army against the Soviet invasion of Finland. He didn’t see much combat by the time he returned to England in 1940, but this means he did technically fight in the WINTER WAR.
    • When Lee did return to England it was to Enlist in the Royal Air Force to fight against the Nazis.
      • He enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1940 and trained with de Havilland Tiger Moths. Just before he was to have his first solo flight, he was diagnosed with a failure of his optic nerve that caused him headaches and blurred vision. Devastated, he was told he would never fly again. But that wasn’t the end of his military career, far from it…
      • He became an intelligence officer in WW2 and was shipped out to North Africa to join the Long Range Desert Patrol (later known as the British SAS)
        • If you have any knowledge of military powers of the world, or have seen a few movies, or even played a Call of Duty game, you know the SAS are some hardcore warriors.
          • Bear Grylls was in the SAS
          • and Christopher Lee was in LRDP the group that came before the SAS
        • Although Christopher Lee himself seldom spoke about his time in the military, history shows that the LRDP were some of the most elite soldiers in WW2.
        • While in Africa they took convoys hundreds of miles behind enemy lines (braving the formidable Sahara Desert) to sabotage Nazi Luftwaffe airfields with espionage, quick precise attacks, and of course… explosives. The unit Christopher Lee fought in (Long Range Desert Patrol) was very effective.
        • After his time in the LRDP, Lee became a Special Operations Executive. This would later be known as Winston Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (it almost sounds like the British were saying “sorry, not sorry” about being on the winning side of WW2.
          • These Special Operations Executives lead small team assaults on Germany’s top secret nuclear weapons sites in Norway.
          • They worked with Eastern European rebel forces to destroy Nazi supply lines that would have given them a chance to defeat the Soviets.
    • Later in the 2000’s Lee was asked by a reporter about his time in the military. Lee (6’5″ legendary war veteran famous for playing some of the most terrifying roles in cinematic history) stopped dead in his tracks, turned to face the reporter and gestured for him to come closer. … This man has played DEATH and he his now focusing all his attention on this reporter that is about half his height.
      • Lee asked “can you keep a secret?”
      • to Which the reporter eagerly said “YES!” Expecting Lee to finally open up about his combat experience.
      • At this Lee leaned down and whispered in his ear “so can I,” and just walked out the room.
    • Records show that when Lee retired from the Military as a Flight Lieutenant in 1945 he was personally decorated for battlefield bravery by the Yugoslavian, Czech, Polish, and English governments. He was also good friends with the Former President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Josip Broz.
  • After the war, Lee started his long career of acting in 1948.
    • Nearly 10 years later in 1957 Lee got his first big hit “The Curse of Frankenstein” where he played Frankenstein’s Monster.
    • In 1958 he played one of his most iconic roles in Dracula, playing Count Dracula.
    • In 1959 he played the Mummy Kharis in the movie The Mummy
    • Then in 1974 Lee played Francisco Scaramanga, the main villian from James Bond The Man with the Golden Gun
Lee looks cooler than cool.
  • Even though he played the villian… Christopher Lee WAS James Bond.
    • Although Lee didn’t get an official credit for inspiring the character, Ian Fleming (coincidentally, Lee’s step-cousin), has admitted that Lee’s days as a spy are what inspired him to create the ultimate super-spy, James Bond
    • Ian Fleming and Lee fought together in the SOE (Special Operations Executives) during WWII.
      • … he WAS James Bond
  • Lee was obsessed with Lord of the Rings
    • Out of the entire cast of the Lord of the Rings movies, only Lee met the Author J.R.R. Tolkien.
      • In a 2010 interview with Cinefantastique, Lee described meeting Tolkien “quite by chance.”
      • “I met him with a group of other people in a pub in Oxford he used to go to, The Eagle and Child,” he said. “I was very much in awe of him, as you can imagine, so I just said, ‘How do you do?'”
    • Because he was a massive fan of the books (quote: “greatest literary achievement in my lifetime.”), Lee was determined to be involved in any screen adaptation.
      • So in the 90’s he started trying out for other Wizard roles.
      • By 1997, he landed the role of wizard Olwyn in the TV series The New Adventures of Robin Hood.
      • When he heard Peter Jackson was making the now-famous Lord of the Rings films, Lee sent him a picture of himself dressed as a Wizard (robes and all) with a note saying “This is what I look like as a Wizard, don’t forget this when you cast the movie.”
        • I love this story because it humanizes Lee and makes you realize he had weird quirks like being a MASSIVE Tolkien fanboy.
  • I’m just imagining these two terrors of cinema giggling together like school boys at slapstick comedy in the form of Looney Toons.
Imagine being so cool you turn down Swedish Royalty. I’ve met Swedish women and they are DROP DEAD GORGEOUS!
  • Lee’s Music Career
    • Going back to Lee’s collegiate education on the classics, he was a classically trained vocalist.
    • When he was 88 years old he came out with an album about his ancestor Charlemagne called “Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross”
    • He played with Manowar and Rhapsody.
    • His single “Let Legend Mark Me as the King” was written by some Judas Priest band members.
Aside from the content of his words, I am in awe by HOW he speaks.
I had to include an image of Count Dooku
  • Miscellaneous Accolades
    • Oh, Lee’s also a master at golf being the only actor to be a member of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, the most prestigious country club in the world.
    • He was married to Birgit Kroencke (a Danish Supermodel for 54 years.
    • He was a Commander of the Order of St. John’s of Jerusalem
      • The Order of St John, short for Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem and also known as St John International, is a British royal order of chivalry constituted in 1888 by royal charter from Queen Victoria and dedicated to St John the Baptist.
    • Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire
    • Received the the World Award’s lifetime achievement award presented to him by Mikhail Gorbachev in 2003
    • Also was awarded the Unicef Award of 2012 and the Cinema For Peace Award in 2014, which he received from Angelina Jolie
Order of Saint John
  • His characters have executed both Charles the First of England and Louis the Sixteenth of France.
  • He’s portrayed Englishmen, Egyptians, Spaniards, Transylvanians, Frenchmen, Greeks, Poles, Chinese, Indians, Italians, Wallachians, Romans, Germans, Arabs, Gypsies, and Russians, played the lead role in the biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
  • He speaks English, German, Russian, Swedish, Italian, and French, can do any English accent he wants, and sings everything from opera and death metal in a hardcore bass voice.
    • Lee’s movies have grossed more than any actor ever – his top five alone grossed $4.4B
    • he filmed every single scene in Star Wars 3 in a single day
    • he’s never received a Best Actor nomination BUT he’s been in 4 movies nominated for Best Picture
    • Lee belonged to three stuntman unions and did all of his own stunts.
      • He even has cool stunt injury stories
        • He once busted his face smashing head-first through an actual plate glass window for a scene.
        • He injured himself falling into an open grave while portraying Dracula, and once had his hand slashed open during a drunken sword fight with Golden Hollywood Era star Errol Flynn.
  • He was a living legend
    • You might point to his incredibly impressive ancestry or perhaps his military training, but after learning about his life you have to realize he was different from most people in a spectacular way.
    • I would have loved to have met him, maybe have a glass of brandy with the man.

CREDIT