Thursday, April 13, 2017
Anti-Conventional Sayings
The ever-shrinking-in-my-view Colin Powell made famous his version of the warning statement from Pottery Barn, "You break it, you bought it" transferring its meaning to military incursions into foreign countries. I've always thought he was wrong on that.
I just want to set the record straight. I was in Pottery Barn just last week and someone bumped into a tray of champagne flutes and the whole lot crashed to the floor and most of the flutes broke. The manager rushed over and immediately informed the guy who knocked them over that it was all OK and he shouldn't worry about it. He walked out a few minutes later and never had to pay a thing.
The Japanese made the mistake of starting a war to get oil (Dutch East Indies) etc. by sneak attacking our base at Pearl Harbor. Hardly anything short of that would have gotten us into the by then long-ongoing world war. And it made us pretty mad, so mad that we firebombed all the Japanese cities and even nuked two of them. Japan was a pretty countryside with ash fields for cities in August 1945. I don't think we paid any reparations or anything.
Neither in war, nor in the store, do you own what you break.
I just want to set the record straight. I was in Pottery Barn just last week and someone bumped into a tray of champagne flutes and the whole lot crashed to the floor and most of the flutes broke. The manager rushed over and immediately informed the guy who knocked them over that it was all OK and he shouldn't worry about it. He walked out a few minutes later and never had to pay a thing.
The Japanese made the mistake of starting a war to get oil (Dutch East Indies) etc. by sneak attacking our base at Pearl Harbor. Hardly anything short of that would have gotten us into the by then long-ongoing world war. And it made us pretty mad, so mad that we firebombed all the Japanese cities and even nuked two of them. Japan was a pretty countryside with ash fields for cities in August 1945. I don't think we paid any reparations or anything.
Neither in war, nor in the store, do you own what you break.
Labels: Colin Powell; WWII City Bombing; Pottery Barn
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 11:21 AM 
