Michael Klaas

@michaelklaas

I travel. I take photos. I like mountains & beaches, Blazers 🏀🔴⚫️, Palace ⚽️🔴🔵 and Timbers ⚽️🟢🟡. You'll see a lot of Earth science stuff on this feed, a bit of my photography and a sprinkle of sports & politics. He/Him

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Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Jul 5

Always a joy when I get to spend a morning at Oregon’s Painted Hills.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Jul 4

One more quick aurora post before I go to bed.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Jul 4

Lovely aurora tonight in Fossil, Oregon.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· May 20

Quote with a fictional band that is not Spinal Tap

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Apr 25

They let a dork near the court this evening

A big nerd ( yours truly) in front of the Trailblazers court at Moda Center

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Nov 10

Had a lovely morning walking through Tahquitz Canyon, protected land of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. Saw some bighorn sheep. Heard a few distant rockfalls. Breathed some desert air.

Photo of a white-walled stone canyon with a light waterfall flowing over the edge into a pool of water below.

Photo of an awkwardly angled stone perched in the middle of a desert canyon.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Nov 6

Victory from the nosebleeds! #RipCirt

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Oct 11

No confetti for the pre-season, but the new signage looks great.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Sep 18

Here is the complete text of that portion...

Text that reads:
“Tell me now—how was the world lost?”

“That,” he said, “is easy to tell, much easier than you may suppose. The world was lost one day in 1935, here in Germany. It was I who lost it, and I will tell you how.

“I was employed in a defense plant (a war plant, of course, but they were always called defense plants). That was the year of the National Defense Law, the law of ‘total conscription.’ Under the law I was required to take the oath of fidelity. I said I would not; I opposed it in conscience. I was given twenty-four hours to ‘think it over.’ In those twenty-four hours I lost the world.”

“Yes?” I said.

“You see, refusal would have meant the loss of my job, of course, not prison or anything like that. (Later on, the penalty was worse, but this was only 1935.) But losing my job would have meant that I could not get another. Wherever I went I should be asked why I left the job I had, and, when I said why, I should certainly have been refused employment. Nobody would hire a ‘Bolshevik.’ Of course I was not a Bolshevik, but you understand what I mean.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I tried not to think of myself or my family. We might have got out of the country, in any case, and I could have got a job in industry or education somewhere else.

“What I tried to think of was the people to whom I might be of some help later on, if things got worse (as I believed they would). I had a wide friendship in scientific and academic circles, including many Jews, and ‘Aryans,’ too, who might be in trouble. If I took the oath and held my job, I might be of help, somehow, as things went on. If I refused to take the oath, I would certainly be useless to my friends, even if I remained in [page ends]

Text that reads:
the country. I myself would be in their situation.

“The next day, after ‘thinking it over,’ I said I would take the oath with the mental reservation that, by the words with which the oath began, ‘Ich schwöre bei Gott, I swear by God,’ I understood that no human being and no government had the right to override my conscience. My mental reservations did not interest the official who administered the oath. He said, ‘Do you take the oath?’ and I took it. That day the world was lost, and it was I who lost it”

“Do I understand,” I said, “that you think that you should not have taken the oath?”

“Yes.”

“But,” I said, “you did save many lives later on. You were of greater use to your friends than you ever dreamed you might be.” (My friend’s apartment was, until his arrest and imprisonment in 1943, a hideout for fugitives.)

“For the sake of the argument,” he said, “I will agree that I saved many lives later on. Yes.”

“Which you could not have done if you had refused to take the oath in 1935.”

“Yes.”

“And you still think that you should not have taken the oath.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” he said, “but you must not forget that you are an American. I mean that, really. Americans have never known anything like this experience—in its entirety, all the way to the end. That is the point.”

“You must explain,” I said.

“Of course I must explain. First of all, there is the problem of the lesser evil. Taking the oath was not so evil as being unable to help my friends later on would have been. But the evil of the oath was certain and immediate, and the helping of my friends was in the future and therefore uncertain. I had to commit a positive evil, there and then, in the hope of a possible good later on. The good outweighed the evil; but the good was only a hope, the evil a fact.”

“But,” I said, “the hope was realized. You were able to help your friends.”

“Yes,” he said, “but you must concede that the hope might not [page ends]

Text that reads:
have been realized—either for reasons beyond my control or because I became afraid later on or even because I was afraid all the time and was simply fooling myself when I took the oath in the first place.

“But that is not the important point. The problem of the lesser evil we all know about; in Germany we took Hindenburg as less evil than Hitler, and in the end we got them both. But that is not why I say that Americans cannot understand. No, the important point is—how many innocent people were killed by the Nazis, would you say?”

“Six million Jews alone, we are told.”

“Well, that may be an exaggeration. And it does not include non-Jews, of whom there must have been many hundreds of thousands, or even millions. Shall we say, just to be safe, that three million innocent people were killed all together?”

I nodded.

“And how many innocent lives would you like to say I saved?”

“You would know better than I,” I said.

“Well,” said he, “perhaps five, or ten, one doesn’t know. But shall we say a hundred, or a thousand, just to be safe?”

I nodded.

“And it would be better to have saved all three million, instead of only a hundred, or a thousand?”

“Of course.”

“There, then, is my point. If I had refused to take the oath of fidelity, I would have saved all three million.”

“You are joking,” I said.

“No.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that your refusal would have overthrown the regime in 1935?”

“No.”

“Or that others would have followed your example?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You are an American,” he said again, smiling. “I will explain. There I was, in 1935, a perfect example of the kind of person who, with all his advantages in birth, in education, and in position, rules (or might easily rule) in any country. If I had refused to take the oath in 1935, it would have meant that thousands and thousands like me, all over Germany, were refusing to take it. Their refusal would have heartened millions. [page ends]

Text that reads:
Thus the regime would have been overthrown, or, indeed, would never have come to power in the first place. The fact that I was not prepared to resist, in 1935, meant that all the thousands, hundreds of thousands, like me in Germany were also unprepared, and each one of these hundreds of thousands was, like me, a man of great influence or of great potential influence. Thus the world was lost.”

“You are serious?” I said.

“Completely,” he said. “These hundred lives I saved—or a thousand or ten as you will—what do they represent? A little something out of the whole terrible evil, when, if my faith had been strong enough in 1935, I could have prevented the whole evil.”

“Your faith?”

“My faith. I did not believe that I could ‘remove mountains.’ The day I said ‘No,’ I had faith. In the process of ‘thinking it over,’ in the next twenty-four hours, my faith failed me. So, in the next ten years, I was able to remove only anthills, not mountains.”

“How might your faith of that first day have been sustained?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. “Do you?” [final page]

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Sep 14

A little reminder from the streets of Portland.

Graffiti that reads "To complete their plans, all they need is your violence."

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Aug 10

This dude... ❤️💙🦅🏆

The GOAT, Dean Henderson, running across the pitch waving his hat after a victory.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· May 27

Whole lotta larkspur in the forest today.

A wooden fance at the edge of an oak and maple forest. The forest floor is filled with blooms of purple larkspur flowers.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· May 25

Well, one hell of a season is over. Already hyped for next season! 🦅 #CPFC

Teen Girl Squad drawing of "The Ugly One" saying "I have a crush on Every Boy" with "boy" crossed out and "Palace Player" in its place.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· May 17

Flying the banners here in Portland, Oregon! #CPFC

A ceramic eagle carrying a Crystal Palace flag.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· May 8

Any of y'all in the market for some totally acceptable ideas?

A hand holding half of a fortune cookie and a fortune that reads: "Sell your ideas they are totally acceptable"

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Mar 31

Few things are quite as nice as a weekend at the coast.

A picture of a beach at low tide with a lightly glowing blue sky reflected in the wet sand below the surf.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Mar 29

Moody beach day.

Crows sit on the jurting branches of a large piece of driftwood on a beach. Rain-threatening clouds loom overhead with just a few breaks of blue sky.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Mar 28

Here's one of the wild rabbits on Lokrum Island in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

A light brown rabbit in a green grass field.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Mar 6

Let’s go RipCity Remix!

RipCity Remix g-league team members congregating during a time out.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

See you next year, Winter Light Festival!

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

Loved this aurora waterfall thing!

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

More cool artwork at the Light Festival.

Layers of reflection in an illuminated prism.

An upside-down campfire suspended over an archway.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

Trippy atom construct thingy

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

The dragon breathes fire!

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

An LED chandelier at the World Trade Center.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

An archway at Pioneer Square.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 9

Really enjoyed a walk around the Portland Winter Light Festival this evening! Pics incoming...

The Portland sign outside of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

A shadowbox image of a fox illuminated from behind.

A grove of lighted trees glows blue in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

A pianist plays a piano that is decorated in flames. A pyrotechnic display surrounds him.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Feb 7

Kaylies? In MY coaching staff? It's more likely than you think.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Jan 17

I got a Sharpe glass out of it. That’s my only upside.

Michael Klaas@michaelklaas· Nov 19

I've got two... T.Stotts and me at a #RipCity United event. The second photo is from April 23, 2019. I was in the nosebleeds, but it was the single best sporting event I've ever attended, even from that distance. Absolute puppy-pile with strangers.