My son gave another one of his great comments today. Last time I highlighted an amazing sense of tolerance and coolness when he speculated that the character of Peep in a kid's show might be transgendered (simply because the genders of the other characters are made clear but Peep's is not).
Today he showed amazing insight regarding the origins of WW I, though perhaps not flattering to those who initiated that war.
Now I myself recently finished a book on the First World War and so this has been on my mind. Additionally I recently read two books on Empires who found their deaths in the First World War: the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. But this has not been a topic I discussed with my 7 year old son. But he recently has been talking about wars and why people fight them and has made distinctions between fighting the Confederacy and fighting the Nazis (fights he considers justified) versus our involvement in WW I, which he considers a war not worth fighting. Again, I haven't been able to figure out his source of information.
I then explained that WW I was a bit more complicated and our own involvement had to do with Germany choosing to sink any ship headed for Britain or France so they started sinking our ships. I forgot to mention the little bit about Germany trying to get Mexico to declare war on us, but my point was our reason for entering was a bit different from other nation's and could be seen as self-defense. I also pointed out that the original dispute was because of the assassination by people supported by one country (Serbia) of a leader of another country (Austria) and from the Austrian point of view they had a valid reason to go to war. What then happened was that Germany sided with Austria and Russia sided with Serbia, and that led to France siding with Russia so more and more countries got involved without really having a good reason. I also added the little blunder by Germany of invading Belgium, a neutral country that simply was in the way if they wanted to carry out their carefully planned invasion of France through Belgium (a plan that couldn't have worked but they were sold on it anyway). And Britain might not have gotten involved (they had no direct agreement with France or Russia that would have required it) had Germany not invaded Belgium.
Jacob then piped up with an amazingly apt comparison: one of the most famous pie fights in cinematic history, the Pie Fight from the Great Race wherein one person throwing a pie leads to a second person throwing a pie which goes astray and hits someone else...bringing that person into the fray until you wind up with the biggest pie fight I have ever seen. Jacob described the whole process as a direct comparison to the beginning of WW I. So I give you a reasonable depiction of the Great War as told with pies:
More pies (minus Gilligan's Island) below.
Now I should add that Jacob has not yet offered a historical parallel to the only other pie fight he has seen:
Perhaps it is time to introduce him to:
And of course one of my all time favorite pie events, Anita Bryant, Orange Juice swilling Angel of Hate, getting hit with a pie by a gay activist:
And gotta admit Ann Coulter is fast on her feet:
But nothing will ever beat, for me, The Great Race pie fight particularly now that I am seeing it as a metaphor for WW I.