Christmas Here – and in Nagasaki, 1945

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place. Since this is Timmy/Zimmy week here, and elsewhere, let’s just start with ecumenical Bob’s wildest Christmas song, “Must Be Santa.” Then, in case you missed the return of Darlene...

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He Took the Only Photos in Hiroshima on August 6

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place. It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. ~ Charles Dickens Yoshito Matsushige, a photographer for the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper in...

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Trinity and the Parts Left Out of Oppenheimer

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s substack Between Rock and a Hard Place. Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945.   In this way the fateful, and...

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Massacres, Then and Now

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place. On this holiday Monday: First, if you missed yesterday’s post, here are 15 varied songs marking the day. Next: My “Memorial Day Massacre,” which came out over PBS one year ago,...

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Songs for Memorial Day

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place. Fairly eclectic group, but here goes: John Prine unveils “Sam Stone” in very early TV appearance. A little-known early Joni Mitchell song, “The Fiddle and the Drum,” performed by...

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‘To Hear and Feel the Horror’

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place. Just back from New Orleans last night. After many trips from about 2001-2009, this was our first visit to a beloved city in quite awhile. I had posted last week about the trip but...

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Oppenheimer Finally Opens in Japan

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood. Going back to last July, I have covered reactions to the Christopher Nolan movie in Japan – sight unseen, since it did not find a distributor there. Then a late-March...

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