NEWS -- ON THE MARCH !!

Turn Your Home Into An Arena Of Terror And Shame By Reading This

 

Dateline / Washington: President Boner To Go Away

President John Boner announced yesterday that he is stepping down from his position as Speaker-To-Animals in order to spend more time with his family and his expertly-crafted hairpiece. Upon hearing the news, Boner's family locked him out of his Georgebushtown Double-Wide home and he was forced to spend the night with a sheep, hooker, or kitchen appliance by himself.

Poor Boner. Since the exit of Lil' Eric Cantor, Boner had come under increasing pressure from members of the Amerikanischer Tea Partei who live in his pants to secede from the USA, end Medicare, divert the nation's Social Security funds to Lloyd Blankfein for His amusement, and provide treats to America's deserving wealthy.  Because Freedom. But Boner could not do this -- he could not wear his pants. The Powerbars that Be had a sad, and America didn't care, because Hillary!  Jebby!

Boner had been recently described by some Parteigenossen as "sick, old; his coat was no longer shiny and his nose was warm" -- clear signs, they said, that he should be taken out behind the House Barn and put down -- but humanely, with a shovel, or volume 2 of the House Rules.  Rather than allow himself to be publicly shamed, Boner ran away.

He is gone now. But we should remember his relentlessness, his turgid imbecility and Aspergerish mien withal. Remember how he sat behind the Pestident during the annual STFU Address and the teevee showed him making sour faces and farting into the seat cushion.

He accomplished so little for so many, and allowed the few so much; a Lickspittle Running Dog who cried on command, thought Gustav Klimt was a clothing designer, and who never stopped thinking of the Girl he left in his behind.

 (Britches 'n Cecil / ©2009 Paul Corrigan:  Hey -- We Want More!)

Boner was last seen with Britches and Cecil, thinking of additional, last-minute Crumby Presints he could leave for all of us, on his way Out The Door That Is America -- that's the one spray-painted gold, with that cheesy lamp beside it.

 Dateline / Again Washington: President Mikky To Go Away Too, Also

Righthandy Guy to President Boner, Kevin McCarthy looked as if he was set to become Presidenty himself. But like a becalmed Sturgeon in a reduced-watershed Sacramento Delta, he too failed to find enough Tea Partei to live in his pants. Then, he marched proudly out to expose himself before the Press. Many wanted to look away, but America is a strong place which no deodorant can tame -- so we looked anyway, and it was cheesy, but it was real.

Mikky Tells The Press The Truth About Potomac-Town

McCarthy told everyone that Chopin's Etude No. 3, Op. 10 in E Major, was the equivalent of Proust's  "Remembrance Of Things Past". Many agreed. Many more thought Chopin was a brand of Chinese frozen food, or an ice cream Treat For Our Wealthy.

Then McCarthy told the Press that he had been in Washingtown a long time, and knew the Trooth: Alien beings who felt nothing (because they were Plant Matter), who were birthed from huge seed pods, replaced us while we slept.  "You're next," Mikky said to America with a smile. "I haven't slept in a thousand hours, I don't have the votes, and I need a new face." And then he -- like 2% of the Frog species of the Earth this year -- was gone too.

Dateline / You Know Where: Sad Vlad On Every Corner

Sad Vlad Desperately Seeks Totoro Approval. Think We're Kidding? Maybe. Or, Maybe Not.

Strutting and preening in a way designed to make even the simple Yak desire him -- Sad Vlad, The Putin, Botox Wrestler and All-Around Guy, got the better of everybody, again, by driving his military vehicle into downtown Middle East and parking in a handicapped zone.

The Nato, an all-but extinct creature in Europe, looked on and whinnied or grunted or keened -- you know; that noise that Natos make. Other major countries stood around and watched, fuming, with arms crossed, the very picture of being offended by simply unspeakable rudeness. Well; I never, they huffed.

"That's your fucking problem," Sad Vlad replied as he loaded a crate of Extra Pony-Size Trojan-Ezy into his armored car. "You never. I always."

Many Tea Partei members in that America found themselves curiously aroused by the melding of manliness and Cluster Munitions. If only we could do that, they thought to themselves privately as they watched the Russian BombCam footage on teevee. If Lil' Boots were here, then President Cheney woulda shown that Eye-sis. Guess we'll have to root fer the Russkis!

And Sad Vlad didn't stop there. He was spotted in a submersible, dashed down to Crimea, jetted off to New Ork and told a roomfull of people that Russia was On The March and would Be Great Again, by Soso's Last Underpants!  ('Soso' =  a nickname for 'Joe'; you can fill in the rest if you are licensed to do so.)

Vlad said he was building a new coalition with that Iran, and kicking the indecisive, candyassed Amerikanyets' Middle Eastern foreign policy to the curb. Bizarre Al-Asshat, Killer Dentist of Syria, would be propped up. Screw the Saudis and the UAE and those guys -- they'd come around, or else. He'd put a saddle on a Nato and ride it around, or he wasn't the Leader Of The Fee-Based World. "Take that, John Carey," Sad Vlad bellowed. "My face job is better than your face job!"

Fortunately, Sad Vlad said all this in Russian, without formal translation, and the roomful of people he was speaking to were a busload of tourists from Canada in the Tiki Room of a Holiday Inn in the South Bronx. Vlad's wranglers hustled him back to the big UN building in time for him to address the assembled nations and say more or less the same things. "Come and get me, Coppers!" Vlad growled, then looked up towards the heavens and shouted, "Top Of The World, Babushka!"

Dateline / Murrika: TRUMPOLA !

Be Still, My Weasel. (Photo: David Becker / Reuters)

Donnyboy can no longer control the Weasel Who Lives On His Head. It speaks to him; it purrs. He has listened and repeated whatever it says.  Whatever it has told him to do, he has done. And because the USA likes warm cheese and Amerikan Idle, and everything is now Reality Teevee, the antics of Donnyboy's faux-bling candidacy has fascinated the Americans (but not as much as whatever Sports Franchise Product we are supposed to be watching now).

Citizens understand in their bowels that they have no power. That the Game Is Rigged, in ways which -- if we bothered to read documents on Wikileaks -- would induce vomiting. So life for the powerless becomes theater, "Reality Teevee"; and suddenly the spectacle of politics makes sense: It won't make any difference what we do. We don't choose -- "They" choose.

You buy many things. You toil at jobs. Daily, you consume your own body weight in foods rendered from sugar, whale fat, and abused animals. You text. A lot. You watch teevee. You daydream about Taylor Swift and unconsciously imitate that little hop-step she has perfected. You keep saying It's possible for anyone to become rich in America; we're the land of opportunity. I can win the Lottery. I can make a profit in the Market.

Against that backdrop of rabid hope, a Donnyboy candidacy not only makes sense; it has an odor of inevitability about it (which smells just like the interior of a 1939 Mercedes).  Hell; in these conditions, even a Grand Turtlebear Bachmann candidacy makes sense.

But now, Donnyboy's luster, all Palmolive and Sprinklies from the soda fountain, has begun to soften in the heat. The Weasel is tired, and whispers even more nonsensical things for Donny to repeat. It dreams of escape -- of leaving Donny bald, with the Weasel finally able to live in seclusion, where it can repair itself from the PTSD it suffered during Donnyboy's marriage to Ivana.  It dreams of a Mrs. Weasel.

This was Donny's last Fifteen Minutes, and it came with commercials.  Only, Donny believed it was real; the Weasel -- old, bleached and tired -- knew better. As it always has.

Dateline / Murrika: We Who Are About To Die Want You To Go Instead

Be Selective.

As a Dog, I sleep. I enjoy the sleep. I doze where and whenever I have an opportunity. But you tend to miss stuff, and when you discover (for example) that the Selective Service Act is alive 'n well in USA -- just when you thought it was safe to put your hand in a fishbowl; Ha Ha Ha Ha, but WTF???

...yesterday’s emphasis on battlefield prowess with the people skills required of troops more recently focused on counterinsurgency. At a time when U.S. military action has become defined by targeted airstrikes, ships jockeying in the South China Sea and a reluctance to place boots on the ground, the Army is seeking to reassert itself on the strategic stage, experts say.

About a week ago, Selective Service pamphlets began showing up again in U.S. Post Offices across the country. With conflicts on the rise across the globe, the U.S. program has once again shifted into high gear to register all eligible U.S. males, legal and illegal, between the ages of 18-25 in the event a U.S. military draft becomes necessary. The timing of the move is sure to raise questions about what may be shortly coming down the pipe in terms of an “inevitable” global conflict.

And it turns out to be true. Male animals between 18 and 25 must register. Must. Well, I mean; Holy Shit. When did this happen??

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Dujuan Downer

News You Will Not See

Word has reached Before Nine™:  That crazy Typhoon Dujuan has made landfall on the China coast, and has fallen into a Depression. 

We know what it's like.  And we are very sorry that it didn't work out.  Counseling and meds may help -- you're in The East; try some of that herbal stuff.

But, look: You competed well in the international meteorological arena.  Not every pitcher is a Don Drysdale; not every golfer is a Se Ri Pak; not every writer is a Donna Tartt and not every painter is a Rothko or an O'Keefe. Not every major weather system turns into a Katrina.  

You know? Just have to keep that perspective. 

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Random Early Morning Barking

Someone Make That Dog To Shut Up

Burned And Fearful

Here in Kiddietown ( "One Big Campus; One Big Dorm" ), it's been sooty; the Bay Area has been smelling faintly of burned California's Oak, Pine, Manzanita, Chaparral, Poison Oak, and the occasional home. As a Dog, I can tell.

And in the Big World: How About Yesterday In That Stock Market, Hah? Wheeeeeeee! And while I don't like the imagery, as The Great Curmudegon has said, "Another Day At The Dog Track!"(Reminds me of a George Carlin joke from his standup days -- A news announcer, reading off a list of events: "...and, the stock market dropped six hundred points. Trading was a little spirited, there, towards the end...")

Kim Jong Tubbyboy, Leader of the People's Fun Republik Of Chuckles, is demanding everyone love him and do what he says, or it's war with South Korea, maybe.   Sad Vlad, The Putin, says to the sovereign nation of Ukraine: Do What I Want or the troops I claim not to know about will invade. The followers of ISIS, when not raping women and children, destroying the cultural heritage of the Middle East, and generally turning territory they've seized into Col. Kurtz' paranoid enclave from Apocalypse Now, demand the Earth convert to their notion of what Islam is, or they will invade everywhere.

Donnie Trump says he doesn't care if anyone loves him or not, he'll be invasive. Oh, and, Ooogli Ooogli Ooogli -- Hillary!  Jebby! Who among us can contain the simulated excrement excitement.

(And oddly, a larger number of people in Ukraine than usual have been looking at this blog recently...  you'd think they had better things to do with their time, but perhaps it takes their mind off of being indiscriminately shelled. Good luck to you all, and be safe.)

Crossing The Styx, The Boatman Doesn't Care What You Owned

As usual on my way to work, homeless men (mostly) are still sleeping in the stairwells of the Embarcadero BART station At 6:00 AM. You step carefully over them to enter the station. More are sleeping just inside. You avoid stepping in the occasional puddle of puke or piss or scavenged food.  The men lie stretched out as if beached, or dead; it's the sleep of damage and exhaustion and hopelessness on the banks of the Styx, which is never really that far away for any of us.

A friend mentioned on Sunday that, among other middle-school parents they know (like my friend, involved in some sector of the Tech economy and relatively affluent), several said a number of homes in their various Kiddietown neighborhoods had just been purchased, for cash: two- and three-plus million dollar homes. "Who can do that?" my friend asked. "Can you imagine having so much that you can do that? Two million in cash? I can't."

For some reason, I remembered this conversation as I made my way down, down, into the Sub Way, the electric road beneath the City. It made me consider the the huge gap opening between Those With and Those Without -- right in your face (and particularly in a place like Kiddietown), you see the preening frenzy of affluence and access, getting and having; Another crazy you get from / Too much choice / The Thumb in the satchel / Or the rented Rolls-Royce.

Kiddietown is awash in cash. It's a town full of Big White Busses with smoked windows, painfully thin hipsters, trust-fund girlz who chitter with a nasal whine, and drunken frat-boy clones, all staring down at tiny smartphone screens, dreaming of how they can become overnight millionaires when their startup goes to IPO and is 'acquired' by one of the mega-names of the Tech world.  When criticized, if they bother to respond at all it's with an insouciance that defines them, in a Tweet: Fogeys gonna foge.

The dichotomy between having two million dollars in cash (the life savings of two-plus "regular" working families in America; every nickle and dime they'll ever earn) to "acquire" a residential property, and the  homeless lying unconscious and underground, made me consider where we are as a society and a country. If you've ever been curious what things Dogs think about, that's one.

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Business Cycle Sluts

Technology and commerce drives economies and fuels cycles of cultural change. In the years after WWII, the first large shift began in the decade after Vietnam. Whole industries (steel, clothing, kitchenware, furniture, automobiles) disappeared or downsized. In 1981, Reagan took office with rising unemployment -- solved by cutting taxes for the wealthy, and increasing "defense" spending against the Communist Bloc.

As Daddy Bush became President, the Evil Empire dissolved. We had a quick, winnable war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- but the wartime / 'defense' economy dwindled and unemployment rose again. Daddy Bush lost the 1992 election to Clinton ("It's the economy, stupid").

The second economic shift was the 'Dot-Com Revolution' -- electronic and computing technologies had become mature (and disruptive), and the World Wide Web began to develop. Venture Capital flowed into startups (e.g., Google, PayPal); while established tech names increased their sales and market share (IBM, Intel, AMD, Cypress; HP, Dell, Compaq; Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Oracle; Yahoo, Netscape). Cell phones got smaller; processors got faster and faster.

In Kiddietown, you could walk past beautifully designed storefronts; inside, people were busy... primarily designing websites, software applications, and offering 'transformational concepts' to businesses -- how to do commerce on the Net. The Busy People believed they were building the Future, an end to Old Ways of working and earning a living. No one knew exactly what our Future would be, or how we would all transition into it -- but it would be on the Web, and we would navigate it with a few clicks, and get everything we ever wanted.  It would create jobs!  DEN.com!  WebVan!  Boo.com!  Pets.com!  Yay!

With the 2000 crash, the beautiful storefronts vanished. Before Clinton left office, he had helped Larry Summers and Phil Gramm and the BSD's set the stage for the Go-Go, "Lil' Boots" Bush years. We had Terraists, and a second war in the Middle East. The economy initially grew around 'defense' spending and tax cuts for the wealthy; then, around real estate sales, and the financial / investment 'industry'.  Everyone knows what happened next.

The Crash of 2008 allegedly ended in 2012. Tech expansion and development had continued after the Dot-Com Crash;  Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007; T-Mobile brought out the G-1 Android phone in 2008; and virtual (Cloud) storage technology became a reality.  A decade on from the 2000 Crash, more tools we use in our work and personal lives depend on programmers, developers, technicians, system architects and security specialists than in the Dot-Com era.

This is the third large, and latest, shift in a progression from a manufacturing economy to one based on creating infrastructure, hardware and software to provide access to goods and services. By 2012, the Tech sector, and the "service economy" (both traditional [waiters and hotel staff], and non-traditional [Uber; TaskRabbit]) were the prime factors driving the Fabled Recovery. The beautiful businessfronts returned to Kiddietown.

Money, money, money is being made. The streets are full of BMWs, MBZs and Teslas. Everything from the Crash has been made All Better. The future is robotics and more leisure time -- for some people, anyway; Yay! Why, then, does it feel so much like 2006?

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There are plentiful examples of cultures where the gulf between those who Have and those who Have-Less becomes wider and wider.  My favorite is the European / American 'Golden Age' (roughly, 1875 through the summer of 1914), the time of The Proud Tower, the Distant Drummer.

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.

A.E. Housman, "A Shropshire Lad" (1896)

Each time a culture lurches forward, it leaves people behind. I watch the antics of the Kiddies; I see the bodies on the stairwells. I see the restaurants, theaters, bars, clubs and side streets crowded with people exuding energy, spending money; I hear the cars with sound systems pumping Cholo music, Soul and Rap as they cruise the City. I smell the burning neighborhoods in Syria, Gaza, Yemen, Cairo, Brazil. We are so fortunate, here in the Land of the Brave and the Home Of The Hip -- and, damned; but don't bring that up at the backyard parties.

I hope you weren't expecting a real analysis. It's just one Dog's random thoughts, and the feeling that in the rush to grab for the shiny ring, it's helpful to remember that ring is only what we've been taught to want from the cradle; and it's made of brass, inside and out.   Just sayin'.

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MEHR, MIT GOOD OLD MAMA'S HOMEMADE SCHADENFREUDE:  As ever, a trenchant view from one of the Smartest People In The World™ can be found here.

...Population growth is slowing worldwide, and for all the hype about the latest technology, it doesn’t seem to be creating either surging productivity or a lot of demand for business investment. The ideology of austerity, which has led to unprecedented weakness in government spending, has added to the problem. And low inflation around the world, which means low interest rates even when economies are booming, has reduced the room to cut rates when economies slump.

 

Whatever the precise mix of causes, what’s important now is that policy makers take seriously the possibility, I’d say probability, that excess savings and persistent global weakness is the new normal.

My sense is that there’s a deep-seated unwillingness, even among sophisticated officials, to accept this reality. Partly this is about special interests: Wall Street doesn’t want to hear that an unstable world requires strong financial regulation, and politicians who want to kill the welfare state don’t want to hear that government spending and debt aren’t problems in the current environment.

But there’s also, I believe, a sort of emotional prejudice against the very notion of global glut. Politicians and technocrats alike want to view themselves as serious people making hard choices — choices like cutting popular programs and raising interest rates. They don’t like being told that we’re in a world where seemingly tough-minded policies will actually make things worse. But we are, and they will.

I Do Not Wear Bladder-Leak Pants

And Additional Random Barking

Mongo With Outdated Technology

Things Are Going On, out there. Many of those things have no effect (or, none so immediate) on a medium-sized white Dog with an interest in current events. 

At The Bottom Of The Bag, It's All Greecy

Alex Tsipras' Syriza Party obtained a majority in Greece's Parliamentary elections, which allowed them to form a government, order take-out food, and name ministers. Greece had been scheduled for sale to Donald Trump (who has wanted his own country for so long) and a few unnamed members of the Chinese clique of Oligarchs government. They were elected because the majority of the Greek people no longer wanted to live under Austerity™.

It seemed for a time that Socialism and Democracy might win against the Forces Of Capital™, and the ECB/IMF/Eisen Kanzellerin would be forced to accept new terms in restructuring $276 billion Euros of Greek debt (owed mostly to German and French banks).  The suffering of the vast majority of Greece's people (a direct result of Austerity measures which accompanied EU bailout loans) might end.

There was an exciting game of chicken between Tsipras and the Troika, with a referendum and press hoopla -- and überall, the possibility that Greece would 'exit' the EU and the use of the common European currency which gives the Union legitimacy. There was "concern and volatility in the major markets."

Then Alex caved and Angela won and Greece will only have to sell a part of itself to Trump and the Chinese Oligarchs.  Greece will receive additional loans from the EU, but with more Austerity™! And, there's every possibility that within a year, the new loan / refinancing arrangements will collapse! So all this has actually been a Game Of Chicken, followed by a game of Kick The Can Down The Road, and the Greek people appear to have lost both times. But, Angela's happy. So.

President Visits Africa Because China

Herr Obama suddenly showed up in Africa to dine, dance, see members of his father's family, and do a little flag-waving. It's hot, and there are trees. The African governments he has visited have been polite. He has been well-received, in a Chamber-Of-Commerce Luncheon kind of way.

We should hope he has been. Given that the Chinese government has spent over $100 billion US on foreign aid in Africa since 2000, and investments by private Chinese firms (some of which have members of the Chinese Commie government as majority shareholders) total tens of billions more.

African governments, many teetering on unstable tribal politics, are happy to receive money and public works, education or infrastructure projects from anybody to stave off the next coup attempt. Of course, some of the money may end up in numbered, offshore accounts of unnamed African or Chinese persons. Well, that's business.  And, America can't afford to spend any money, anyway.

We have the impression that Mr. Obama is popular in Africa. Perhaps he could be elected there after he is done with us here? But, hey; nobody really cares, because  Hillary!  Jebby!

China Buys Itself

There has recently been criticism of the Chinese Red Commie government as it artificially propped up it's stock market and selectively limited equities trading to a list of specific companies. The intent was to prevent a collapse of and panic in their internal market; the criticism centered around well now we can't accurately value Chinese equities can we?

Here in The Land Of The Brave and Home Of The Kiddie -- after allowing Phil Gramm, Larry Summers, and a whole crew of Financial BSD's to dump America over the hood of a 1956 Chevy, we were treated to "Irrational Exuberance" without the benefit of Vaseline. Then the Housing Bubble© popped, and the Little People had a sad.

Lil' Phil and Larry got theirs; so did Angelo Mozilo and the other BSD's (Their mindset? In 2010, it was reported that Jamie Dimon's daughter had asked him why the Crash had happened; he replied, It's a business cycle, honey; happens every few years." The girl thought about it, then asked, 'So why is everyone so upset?'). And, who really cares what happens to the "little people", anyway?  They're so disposable. They're only allowed to live so they can buy things -- like multiple homes with toxic mortgage terms, or H&M clothing, or iPads and SmartPhones, and everything they've ever seen in the movies or on the teevee.

But Phil and Larry, and their friends, did cause a big problem. And without intervention from the government (to prop up the BSD's and their banks and trading houses and insurers), the 2007-2008 crash would have dragged the global economy down even further. So, Lil' Boots signed off on TARP because people told him to, and Herr Obama signed the Economic Relief Act because Larry told him to.  The Banksters got plenty of free money, and so much more. Because Democracy and Freedom! Yay!   Hillary!  Jebby!

It's true that China's investment markets and economy are managed more tightly by its Red Commie Island-Creating Cybercriminal Oligarch government than any other major international player.  It's also true that China has two economies -- the one that interacts with the global financial structure, and its 'grey market' - "a loosely regulated network of state-owned commercial banks, trust companies, fund managers, and grassroots finance firms" (as noted by Reuters), which more closely mirrors traditional Asian financial networks to provide lending and investing. 

America  and the West has its analogs in a shadow economy, the derivatives markets, and a lack of regulation -- all of which made the 2007-2008 Crash a certainty, and are present in China now. The difference is their government is attempting to intervene far earlier than the U.S. government did in an attempt to forestall a larger crisis.  No matter how thin you slice it, it's all government / central bank intervention.

Have A Little Stalin With Your Turkey

Last week, Recep Tayyip "KiKi" Erdogan, President of Turkey, announced his country would work with the United States and others to rein in ISIS, which has escalated its violence in neighboring Syria to an extent that it's begun spilling north (A recent suicide bombing in a Turkish border town killed 30-plus people; two Turkish policemen were killed when ISIS attacked an outpost on the border with Syria).

Turkey opened a major base to the U.S. military as a launch point for air strikes, promised to use its own air force against ISIS and promptly launched a large number of fighter-bomber attacks against targets in northern Syria.

Here's where it gets murky:  Turkey -- even before KiKi (himself an Iranian-style 'State Islamist') came to power -- has engaged in a thirty-year guerrilla war with Kurdish separatists, in particular the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. A cease-fire was declared in 2013 -- but recently the group has made an alliance of sorts with ISIS in hopes of advancing their own cause (a bit like the Frog allowing the Scorpion to ride its back in crossing the river).

So as it turns out, the vast majority of airstrikes Turkey has made weren't aimed at ISIS at all. They've hit the PKK (the end of the truce with them was announced after the first strikes were carried out). Erdogan's claims of support for an anti-ISIS campaign are, uh, smoked Turkey and mirrors. 

KiKi and his 'Justice and Development' party came to power in Turkey over a decade ago; Erdogan became the country's Prime Minister until (per Turkey's constitution) he could no longer serve -- then, he ran for President, to extend his rule (as had Sad Vlad, The Putin, in Russia).

Erdogan accused Turkey's military (which was the ultimate power in the country since the days of Kemel Ataturk) of plotting to overthrow his Islamist government, dismissing key general officers and replacing them with those loyal to him.

Nothing new here: Erdogan has turned out to be more like an Islamic Stalin in his country than an Iranian Mullah. But not all Turks want KiKi or his politics: In a recent election, his Justice and Development party lost its large majority in Turkey's parliament. There have been (generally unsubstantiated) claims that KiKi has allowed Turkey's government to provide aid to ISIS or allow their fighters to cross its borders into Syria unopposed.


70th Anniversary Of The Big Bang

Only Color Photo Of First Atomic Bomb, 1945 (Click To Enlarge. Easy! Fun! Scary!)

 Boom. It's the gift that keeps on giving: Made In U.S.A.

Ask the Japanese. Ask the residents of a large area around the original Trinity test site, where rates of cancer are stratospherically higher than among the general population, and in particular among people who lived there as children in 1945 and were exposed to fallout from the explosion of the first Plutonium atomic bomb.

Mullah Omar, He Dead 

 For over a decade, people went on and on about this guy: 'Mullah' Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban; on the wanted list of all manner of organizations. Terrorist, maniac, half-blind. And -- nobody knew where he was. Sorry to harsh everyone's buzz in the intelligence industry (and isn't that a pseudo-oxymoron), but he was right here.

Yeah, no kidding -- Omar. Short, a little skinny; beard? Horn-rimmed glasses with one frosted lens? Worked in the cubicle right next to mine.  Did some project management on the IT side; had a decent sense of humor, condo in Walnut Creek; drove a Volvo. Played a little pickup basketball at lunch. Rabid Warriors fan. Had kids but no wife, I think. He also loved the film "Office Space" -- just raved about it. He would go around quoting Milton Waddums lines... and one of his prized possessions was a red, Swingline stapler.

You didn't mess with Omar around the stapler. Once, someone made a half-assed joke about Omar and Office Space -- "What's with the stapler, man? Should we call you 'Milton'? You gonna, I dunno -- burn down the building, go 'Taliban' on us?" And Omar got really quiet and went completely immobile and just looked at them with his one, good eye. Swear to god, I don't even think the guy was breathing as he stood there. Creeped everyone out.

The next day, he was fine -- but for about thirty seconds we thought we was going to, you know, go Taliban. But from then on, no one, and I mean no one, ever said anything about Milton (an definitely not the Taliban) ever again. Before going home, Omar would lock the red Swingline in the overhead bin of his cubicle and take it out again when he came back in the morning.

Once, I screwed up my courage and asked him about the Taliban thing: I mean, Dude; is that really you? And instead of trying to behead me, he smiled and laughed, as if he were a little embarrassed ("Well, we all are doing the goofy stuff when we are young, you know").

And then, one day, he just disappeared. Poof; as if he had never been there. I ended up being assigned some of his project stuff -- oh, and I got his stapler. So, s'all good.

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Reprint Heaven: Stuff Out There

Dude; Where's My Spacecraft
(I appear to enjoy shouting at the heavens [or, as The Spouse Of Chuck puts it, 'raving'] about the terrible beauty of this, our place in this Universe, but believe me -- there are people out there talking about stuff on the Intertubes who (a)Believe it all, and (b)Have little if any sense of humor.  So, this, from 2011.)

Extraterrestrial Pere Ubu; Or, The Klan In Space

(Alien Captured On Someone's Cell Phone Video)

I rant and rave about the world's hereditary wealthy and that The Fix Is In; but, that's nothing. In an attempt to put our fingers on the truth behind how the world operates; to answer The Big Questions, many people are drawn to varying degrees of conspiracy theories. You go down the rabbit hole of the Intertubes, and don't be surprised at what you find.

For example: Did you know that we are all "soul cattle", and that Grey Aliens and "The Nordics" ( ! ) are battling it out in the skies above, over whether to guide us as carriers of souls, or harvest us for what we're dragging around?

Or, that 'The Elites' are preparing for a round of nuclear exchanges and bioweapon releases to eliminate 50% of the world's population, and ensure the worldwide rule of Caucasians of Northern European extraction?  

Officials In The United Nations Want You Dead... If we were to borrow from Reagan’s wisdom, we have the potential to unite humanity against our common foe. For those who are awake, it is your duty to your creator and to fellow man to relentlessly educate humanity as to the true nature of the elite along with exposing their final solution. 

...“No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation.” 
David Spangler, Director of Planetary Initiative, United Nations

But of course.  And,

This is just the tip of the scary events coming. There are tons of things you need to know. Like how all kinds of ancient cultures have always known. Polar shift has happened before and so has global destruction. We aren't bigger than the universe! If Planet X Nibiru is going to come, they can't control what the solar system does to Earth.

Because ... it's all perfectly clear now - after being up all night thinking about it: Everyone is nothing more than a small captured 'piece of Light Being' in a bag of skin and bones. And, since light has both wave and particle functions, the expression of this duality in real life must be exemplified in the air conditioning conundrum. I hope this helps. Have a snick and think about it.

My God; if saying so wasn't "stayin in denial by being co-oppted by the Power Struktur ", I'd add that it's probably better people be employed full-time so their minds (such as they are) aren't allowed to wander around like pigeons.

And I'll pass on the 'Snick', thanks; chocolate's not good for Dogs.

Reprint Heaven: The Why Of Dog

Random Barking As True As It Was In The Olden Days

(From January 6, 2011)

Most people I know who cruise the Intertubes have a handful of sites which they visit regularly. They also use it for topic-specific searches (Which actor played the cop Bruce Willis punched at the end of that movie on a river which I can't remember the name of?), and just for random cruising.

Pretty pictures, writing that makes us laugh, cry, or not; funny videos. As a species, we demand our Entertainment -- and where there's entertainment, there's advertising and data mining and money to be made. Facebook knows. So does Little Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs VampSquid).

For the sites I visit regularly, I'm amazed at the amount of personal opinion about -- well, stuff that gets tossed out there, embedded like raisins or ratshit amongst more 'serious' essays about Our Life In These Times, or posts based on their professional work as financial analysts, historians, or monster truck devotees.

Opinions about the best martini, whether Jimmy Page or Rory Gallagher is the better classic rock guitarist; reports about their vacations; or why, uh, "intimate" relationships in marriage can actually be Teh Hot. It's like reading someone's diary, with misspellings, misinformation and syntax errors intact -- but, I suspect you already know this about the Intertubes.

It's the functional equivalent of a playground (or a neighborhood bar), with all the arbitrary supervision, rules you learn as you go, and ultimately organized for someone else's financial benefit. But you hang out there because it's flashy, and fun, and sometimes you're lonely and have no where else to go. Unlike the neighborhood bar, it can also be a place where everyone doesn't know your name (this blog a case in point).

Some sites are nearly all random junk tossed out of the unsorted, sock-drawer minds of people who should spend less time online (Some people shouldn't be allowed Intertube access, at all -- like refusing to sell certain people Spandex™ clothing. Ever). Occasionally, they find an acorn and publish something enlightening, but it's like hunting for a bomber in the chaff: Your radar has better things to do.

We who blog can't resist posting that personal and meaningless, opinionated Stuff, though -- because we're paradoxical creatures, who crave order and regularity and at the same time seek the "new", the random and surprising. And everybody who blogs does it.

I'm doing it right now. Woof Woof Woof Woof. Bark Bark. Bark.

---

Reprint Heaven: Talk Amongst Yourselves

Go Ahead. We Trust You.

(From March, 2010. And still pertinent.)

As I said a while ago, I'm not entirely sure about continuing to blog.

If this was the principal focus of my day, I'd be happy to opine on all manner of Stuff™. If I were both educated in depth, and employed in, a field that deals with many of the subjects I like to talk about, it's possible I'd be offering original ideas that might have a positive outcome for actual people.

But I do have a job, and a life, and if I spend time here, I don't want to just make wisecracks while passing along the wisdom of others, prophets spraypainting wisdom on their own subway walls. It's not very original, and not very satisfying.

I do like keeping tabs on what's happening. I like having an opinion about things, and putting it out there (It's something the Intertubes is famous for; talk about Democracy -- you can tell people you speak for the High Thetan Council Of the Magellan Cluster, or post your mother's favorite recipes, with equal abandon). I enjoy looking at situations, and can make an educated guess about what may happen based on nothing but what I know, everything I read, and on whatever currents in the culture or world events I smell with my Dog's Nose.

But all that is an illusion -- the idea that making pronouncements about the State Of Things is any better than reading tea leaves... and in that sense I'm no less equipped to prognosticate than a majority of the paid "policy analysts", bombasticating from their Institutes in and around the Beltway. The difference between them and myself is, they believe they can shape reality with their opinions, and are paid handsomely to do so; I know that the world is too slippery a place for anyone to say what will happen, and when. We can't even agree that facts are actually facts any longer, and that spells trouble.

It is a fact that we, in America and elsewhere, have been screwed while still wearing our pants for a long time; and the game is so rigged in favor of a tiny segment of the population that the immensity of it is barely comprehensible. We can see the world in motion, right in front of us, rising and falling in new patterns like a fantastic kaleidoscope every hour of the day. I have opinions about all of it, but they are just opinions, and they are only mine.

I joke that three people and a superintelligent parakeet are the only ones who actually read Before Nine, but in truth I never started doing this for any other reason than to have a bit o' fun. It certainly wasn't about popularity or money.

While I care about politics and economics, I'm neither an economist, financial analyst or political organizer. There are, however, other things I care about -- it's what the masthead says: One Person's Art and Literature. So perhaps this Blog will continue, but if so its focus is likely to change. We'll see.

It probably will, because some people do read it. After all -- you don't want a superintelligent parakeet pissed off at you. You don't. Trust me.

________________________________________________________

Mongo Misses Chuck

On Friday, Too, Also

Didn't mean to!

(BTW -- want to pass some time? There's some really interesting stuff out on the Intertubes. Watch a few of the 9/11 conspiracy videos available on U Tub. You'll either find it hard to stop laughing or find it hard to stop taking notes.)

______________________________________________

Mongo Continues Thinking About Chuck

Because We Do

___________________________________________________________________

Random Barking: News And The Dog

Wir Verlangen Eine Erklärung, Bitte

• Ebola Continues To Spread In Africa   

Responses by governments in Africa to the disease outbreak have been too little or too late, uncoordinated and only partly successful. Both Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), and Director of the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Dr. Tom Frieden, said that the Ebola outbreak must be brought under control as quickly as possible. The "Or Else" was unspoken but present.

Dr. Frieden went so far as to say that the epidemic is already "out of control", and that the "window of opportunity" for controlling the disease is rapidly closing -- a stronger international response must occur, or a greater tragedy will unfold.  On the PBS News Hour, Frieden (who had just returned from a one-week tour through the affected areas) said unless more medical and financial resources are made available, the disease would spread -- certainly further in Africa, potentially in more urban areas where it would be difficult to control ... and the disease could begin to appear, uh, outside Africa.  Like, in Europe.  Or, here.  That, too, was left unspoken, but present.

Earlier, the 'News Hour' aired footage taken by a BBC/ITV film crew near an 'Ebola Camp' (a medical compound where Ebola patients are isolated for treatment) in Liberia, as one of the infected walked out of the isolation ward. People in the immediate area began running away in terror; it was like watching a sequence from 28 Days Later.

The patient -- sick, frightened and probably not thinking clearly -- refused to listen to anyone suggesting he return to the Camp and kept on walking. Eventually, he was forcibly stopped and subdued by a small crowd of aid workers and a doctor, dressed in isolation suits, frantically pulled into the back of a truck and driven away.

Ebola Patient In Search Of Food (Left) Trailed By Aid Workers (Reuters News)

The sheer animal panic on the part of the townspeople around the Ebola Camp was disturbing and unnerving to watch -- but the patient had left the compound because he was hungry, and thirsty:  Relatives of those inside the compound were shown telling the BBC / ITV crew that those in the isolation ward were suffering, because the government of Liberia had not provided the Ebola facility with enough food or water.

At the moment, Ebola can only be contracted through direct physical contact with an infected person who is obviously ill. It doesn't spread as influenza does. However, as any virus circulates among more and more humans, it will do what any virus does -- mutate through recombination of genetic material, in order to give itself a better chance at replication by becoming more effective at infecting more hosts. Dr. Frieden noted there was no way to know how high chances are that Ebola could mutate, only that the possibility exists.

I invite you to remember the scene in the original Jurassic Park, where cloned Dinos had all been created as females and spontaneously changed sex in order to breed -- "Nature," Sam Neill said, "found a way".

• 101 Celebrities' Nude Photos Hacked And Shared Online

In what must rank as one of the greatest tragedies of the twenty-first century, a group of 101 "celebrities", who apparently backed up their iPhone photos to Apple's iCloud, had their accounts hacked and the photos (apparently, some number of them showing the celebrities in the nude) copied and publicly distributed on the net via the site, 4Chan (The same folks what gave you " 'sup, /b/?" selfies -- yeah; those folks).

It was briefly considered whether to suspend trading on all major exchanges and to raise the matter in the United Nations General Assembly. Okay, maybe not.

One question, though: Why did these, uh, individuals have even so much as a single photo of themselves, naked? (Oh -- the UK Daily Mail reported that "Mary Elizabeth Winstead [who?] tweeted that nude photographs of her were taken with her husband 'years ago in the privacy of our home' ". Well, okay then.)

• Sad Vlad Continues Slow-Motion Invasion, Eats Candy Bar

Well, no one is sure about the candy bar, but it's plain that the Russian 'Republic' has sent troops into Ukraine to provide just enough support for pro-Russian "rebels" that will allow them to seize the eastern section of that country -- which Russia will then absorb.

It's kind of a playful act by the Big Red Bear, really, just a 'little' invasion. No more than a division, tops -- and not even any air support! If they really wanted to go all out, the Ukrainians wouldn't stand a chance; Sad Vlad, The Putin, observed today that if he wanted to really invade, the could "take Kiev [Capital of Ukraine] in two weeks".

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

The Ukrainian army had been winning against the 'rebels' in the previous two weeks -- which made Sad Vlad unhappy and peevish -- you know those Oligarchs; no one is permitted to say 'no' when they want something. So, the Russians slithered in, though one of their smaller units was captured by the Ukrainians and confessed to their active-duty status on camera.

The Russians waved a hand; ahhh, this is all a lie, a provocation. History and truth mean whatever the Oligarchs want them to.

America and the EU make noises about more trade and financial sanctions against Russia, and the Ruble continues to sink against the Euro and the Dollar -- but Sad Vlad knows he's holding most of the cards.  The EU, NATO and the United States appear weak and Sad Vlad appears fully in control. No one is going to start WWIII over the Ukraine.

And, the West Russia's diplomatic influence is needed to deal with Iran, Syria, and other nasty spots or bad actors in the Middle East.  Sad Vlad will eat another candy bar and snicker. No pun intended.

• Lybia; Syria And Iraq And ISIS

Attacks by the Islamic Fascists in Syria and Iraq are -- unless the Ebola outbreak becomes worse -- together with the civil war in Syria, the greatest humanitarian crisis of the 21st century to date, a disaster equal to the appointment by the Supreme Court to the U.S. Presidency election of George "Lil' Boots" Bush.  It's a tribal conflict, a sectarian blood feud, with millions of displaced refugees and thousands dead, overlaid by a struggle for primacy in the Islamic world between the Mullahs of Iran and the House of Saud.

I'll say this once: Even if the West supplies more air power for the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmurga, ISIS will still have to be dealt with on the ground and destroyed. I'm not anxious for more conflict in a region that's seen almost nonstop bloodletting since March, 2003 (thanks, Dick! Thanks, Lil' Boots!), but these Fascists have proven themselves to be -- much like another bunch of European true believers who had to be crushed sixty-one years ago -- monsters who don't deserve to draw another breath.

You don't negotiate with them. You defeat them militarily and put the survivors on trial for Crimes Against Humanity, and then execute them or imprison them for life. Period.

• America: It's Good To Be Rich

So long as a large majority of people have nice lives and can afford not to see the Bad Things just outside their magic circle -- or are so focused on making ends meet because their lives aren't so nice, and so don't have time to see anything else -- America will probably do very little about any of those Bad Things, until they start happening here. At the moment, it's all just things happening on a big flat-screen teevee. Until it isn't.

An article in The Motley Fool recently listed a number of reasons why You Should Be Grateful -- statistically speaking, even if you're not doing so well here in America ™ you're in the top One Per Cent of the world. Compared to the people suffering in West Africa, Ukraine, or the Middle East, you've got it made, Baby; there's a long line of humans who would do pretty bad things to have your life. 

The article's subtext was, aber natürlich: So don't whine any more. Statistically speaking.

• The Most Profound And Important News Of All: A Story For The Ages

Finally, yet another humbling, and awe-inspiring chapter in the continuing tale of Rich Kiddies Gotta Play -- the best, of course, we saved for last:

(Photo: UK Guardian)

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Dog Stuff: Oh Yes I Am Too

Wages; No Sin

As I've noted, I have, uh, a life (of a sort) with a job in it. And on occasion I have to pay attention to that fact because I don't do well as a certain kind of statistic. So I'll be focused on other things for a while.

It doesn't mean that I don't love you all as only a Dog can -- unreservedly, with slobbering, and a certain level of low-key Would You Just Let Me Out The Door, Already whining -- but I'm doin' Dog Stuff.

And we continue to think about Chuck.

---

Traffic From The Moldova

BeforeNine seems to be getting more traffic (like eighteen whole hits a day; yeah sure you know; whatever) from Moldavia.  We are mute in our Dog-like amazement -- meaning, we're not barking at the moment.

We assume this must be due to subtle influence of a friend of I. Rabschinsky, the redoubtable Moldavish Guy, but who knows.

Мы надеемся, что это хорошо для вас, хорошо для вас. Сделайте хорошая вещь сегодня для вашей матери или малых порожденных процессов. Спасибо.

Okay now. 

______________________________________________________

Downton Abby Normal

I feel it's incumbent upon me to remind that Downton Abbey, BBC's hit on PBS, the 'let's-have-three-cheers-for-the-rich-toffs' series, has opened for the past four seasons with the same image of Lord Robert Grantham and Isis, his Labrador Retriever, walking up towards the palatial family home of the Crawleys.

Or, a higher class of soap opera with the high production values of British television -- and brought to you by the image of the hind end of a white dog.

____________________________________________________________________

The Dog Abides

I'm still here; just insanely busy with Things that relate directly to a paycheck, all the while wondering The Why, Why Why of Everything, and the Universe, and the Hey Hey Hey.

It's, you know -- Dog stuff. You do it (Oh yes you do too. You know who you are).

_____________________________________________________________

Grifter, Plus-Sized

Kudos To The Human Eclair

Hey; here's a happy, "human interest" story (depending upon whether you consider the person involved as being part of the same species of the rest of us).

 Despite the fact that he long ago gave up hope of ever looking down from a standing position and seeing his toes again, Karl Rove recently achieved one of what, in my simple Dog's way, I'd bet is a cherished, life-long goal: To weigh more than Hermann Goering.

Karl isn't very good at 'doing the math', helped bring the most toxic American Presidency in modern times into being, and can't rap-and-dance. Two things he apparently does superbly are talking hundreds of very very wealthy Rethug political campaign donors into giving up their money (as he did during 2012), and eating. 

US News and World Report online's 'Washington Whispers' section for Thursday, November 8, 2012 -- two days after the election -- ran a post entitled, "Why We May Never Know How Much Money Karl Rove Made Running Crossroads".  Karl apparently scans the Intertubes for news about himself, because that same day US N&WR reposted the article with a lengthy correction -- the apologetic kind that gives the impression that someone, uh, threw their weight around.

Of the approximately $1 Billion raised by the Republican party and/or the political Right in 2012, the amount raised by the American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS PACs was approximately $ 300 Million by Rove's own admission ["Rove tells us that the amount he actually raised was less than one third of [$1 Billion]"].

Also according to US N&WR , 80% of all Right-wing PAC donations for the 2012 election cycle came from a pool of only 196 billionaire donors. On the basis of statistics, it would seem fair to assume this same crowd provided a hefty amount, if not the bulk of Crossroads' $ 300 Million.

Just one Dog's opinion -- but I'd say it's more than a possibility that some of these donors are unhappy with Karl over the poor results obtained after raising so much money, and that they might question the legitimacy of whatever was paid to Karl in compensation for his masterminding, "I have the math", fundraising efforts.

To be fair, the Democratic party and / or political Left raised a roughly equal amount in 2012.  Altogether, this last election cycle cost over Two Billion dollars -- and the question we should be asking is whether this is acceptable and appropriate.  Or is it an expression of contempt for voters? That an election isn't an honest debate over America's national priorities, but another commodity to be sold to a bunch of rubes?

 Thomas Nast, Who Took The People's Money? " 'Twas Him!" [1874] (Wikipedia)

Rove isn't the problem, but he perpetuates it. He dug in his hooves and fought his way to the trough, likes it there, and will fight to make sure the system which made his fortune remains undiminished.

But, whatever the case -- Boy Howdy: Karl was so good at talking the gold out of people's purses that I'd bet we will shortly see him able to sport a third chin, just like Hermann's. 

We here at Before Nine like to notice these things. Now, we cheer on Der Dicke Karl as he attempts what we assume is his next level of Personal Best -- to weigh more than Marlon Brando.

______________________________________________________________________

Films We Like: The Sand Pebbles (1966)

What The Hell Happened

News from the Middle East and South Asia isn't good. Any democratic and inclusive, or pro-Western (not always the same) hopes that the 'Arab Spring' would result in moderate influences in the Arabic and Muslim world has not developed. 

The Syrian civil war has continued, with (as western media reports) 'Islamist' factions associated with Al-Qaeda getting access to shoulder-launched anti-aircraft rockets and other weapons. The struggle appears to be reaching an endgame -- Damascus is ringed by pockets of rebels and its airport is under fire -- but no one knows what kind of nation, post-Assad, Syria will become.

In Egypt, the Islamist-dominated government of Mohammed Morsi is poised to declare marital law in order to protect its domination of Egyptian society, and ensure a draft constitution (primarily written by the Muslim Brotherhood after secular and non-Muslim Egyptians walked out in protest) will be voted on -- in a process to be overseen by the Islamists.

Yesterday, Khaled Mashal, the political leader of Hamas (allied with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and to a lesser degree the Iranian-influenced Hezbollah in Lebanon), returned to Gaza and vowed in an outdoor speech to cheering crowds that Hamas would work to remove Israel, completely.

 None of this news (or much of a surprise) to Israel or its current government -- but at least to my mind, Israel hasn't seemed as surrounded by real threats since 1967 as it does today.

And in the background is Shiite Iran, playing what it sees as a long, deep game for dominance of politics in the Islamic world.

This the world; we just live in it -- or as I like to say, I just work here.

_____________________________________________________________________

The idea of the lives of ordinary people, caught up in a larger drama of political action, crisis or warfare, isn't new as a subject for film.  But thinking about this made me remember a film I haven't seen in a long time, but will pull out tonight.

In 1966, Robert Wise directed The Sand Pebbles, a story of a U.S. Navy gunboat operating on China's Yangtze river in the mid-1920's.  Based on a 1962 novel by American author Richard McKenna, the film had a good cast, script, excellent photography, and a soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith.

The first large-scale escalation of the Vietnam war took place that year. The movie had been filmed in 1965, so 20th Century Fox (which distributed Sand Pebbles) wouldn't have known that would happen -- but the film was clearly a comment on American military involvement in Asia, and on what happens to ordinary men and women when affected by currents beyond their ability to influence.

McQueen As Jake Holman (DVD Beaver)

The film opens with Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), a Machinist's Mate, taking passage aboard a steamer on his way to join the river gunboat USS San Pablo as its chief engineer.  He was transferred from a battleship, the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet, after some altercation -- Jake, apparently, has a small problem with Navy discipline, and his transfer to a backwater gunboat would make him someone else's problem. Holman is a loner, wary and more than a little cynical, who doesn't expect much from life but tries to do the right thing.

China in 1926 was wracked by civil war between Nationalist forces loyal to Chang Kai-Chek and regional warlords, and the young Chinese Communist party. American military forces were stationed in China to protect business interests; however, a legacy in the aftermath of the First World War was the concept of national self-determination. Unless to protect American citizens, U.S. military forces had to remain strictly neutral.

 Candice Bergen, For Whom I Developed A Deep 

And Abiding Crush From The Time I Saw This Film (DVD Beaver)

On board the steamer, Holman meets a young teacher from Vermont, Shirley Eckart (Candice Bergen, in her first film role) who isn't put off by Jake's initial replies to questions about his life ("Nice American girls don't talk to China sailors"). She's traveling to teach at a mission, China Light, further upriver.

As Holman leaves the steamer, Shirley and Mr. Jameson, the Director of China Light who is escorting her, watch him walk away and climb into a Rickshaw. "I can't help feeling a certain sadness about his life," she says. Jameson replies, "Yes, it would be sad, if he wanted something else," then dismisses both the military and Navy sailors in one brief comment: "As long as they obey orders, the Navy takes care of them. It's a way of life that appeals to a certain kind of man".

 Richard Crenna, Commander Of The Gunbboat USS San Pablo

(Photo: The Indispensable DVD Beaver. Sing 'O Canada'. Right Now.)

The San Pablo is captained by a strict and patriotic Lieutenant (Richard Crenna), who is aware that the gunboats are a political target for Chinese nationalists and communists alike. Its crew are rough sailors who like a life in the 'China Navy', treated like masters by Chinese servants, whom they constantly refer to as "slope-heads" (the cast playing the crew included Joe Turkel, Simon Oakland, Barney Phillips and Gavin McLeod).

Once aboard, Holman gets involved in the ship's Navy and Chinese pecking order. After the accidental death of the ship's chief engine room 'coolie', Jake is ordered to teach another Chinese engine room worker to replace him. Reluctantly ("You can't teach them slope-heads anything"), he chooses Po-Han (played by the Chinese-American actor, Mako) as his new chief. Others in the crew are not happy with Holman's choice.

 Holman Teaches Po-Han (Mako) How To Manage The San Pablo's Engines

After receiving word of a fight between British soldiers and Chinese nationalists, the American government orders its nationals evacuated from central China. The San Pablo makes a run upriver, to evacuate China Light and take Shirley and Jameson with them.

While tied up near the mission, Po-Han -- sent ashore by the 'Boss Coolie' on the ship, is captured by a cadre of communists, and while the San Pablo crew looks on, publicly torture him.

He screams for someone to shoot him; even Bergen, watching from the ship, looks up at Holman -- can't you do anything to help? Jake moves to do it, but Crenna immediately says no -- they are under orders not to fire on any Chinese, which could easily blow up into an 'incident'; he orders the crew not to shoot. "Well, somebody oughta shoot something!" Jake spits back.

The commander offers to pay for the man's life, but the communists refuse. Finally, Jake takes a rifle from another crewman's hands and fires, then throws the weapon into the Yangtze.

Later that night, Shirley finds Jake alone on deck. She asks who Po-Han was; "So you became a teacher, too; that's good", she says, then reaches out and puts a hand on his arm -- a gesture of support, sympathy -- but Jake, who lives in a completely different world than a schoolteacher from Vermont, only looks at her and walks away.

In port, with leave, Jake and Shirley spend time with each other; she finally gets him to talk about himself. They become friends, and (without either of them realizing it openly) more than that.

Holman's only real friend on board, "Frenchie" Burgoyne (Richard Attenborough, who had played opposite McQueen two yeas before in 1964's The Great Escape), had fallen in love with a Chinese girl, Mei-Li, and tells Jake he wants to marry her (There's more to this part of the story line, but you ought to see the film).

Holman, the realist, disagrees -- in the Nineteen-Twenties, mixed-race liasons were next to impossible. They couldn't be married in America, and certainly not in China. Despite that, Frenchie and Mei-Li hold an impromptu, unofficial marriage ceremony in a small christian church, and ask McQueen and Bergen to act as witnesses.
 

  Frenchie (Richard Attenborough) And Mei-Li (Marayat Andriane) Exchange Vows

When they finish pledging themselves to each other in font of a framed print of the Ten Commandments in Chinese, Frenchie, still holding hands with Mei-Li, turns to Jake and says, "Put your hand on ours -- for luck?"

It's a moving scene; Holman, the tough, wise kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Utah, who joined the Navy to stay out of reform school, is short on words but long on sincerity; "I wish ya all the luck; and hope it all goes smooth and easy for ya," he tells them.

Watching them walk away, Shirley says they seem very much in love. Jake doesn't believe Frenchie and Mei-Li's life together has much of a chance. When Shirley steps closer, he kisses her gently, then holds her and says things won't work for them, either -- "'Cause you're goin' back to China Light soon, and I'm goin' back to the Fleet."

Bergen tells him there's an alternative: Come back to China Light. He could operate the new machinery arrived from the United States; she would teach, and they could make a life together. But Holman says, "You know how hard they look for deserters, Shirley? And what they do with them when they catch 'em?"

Shirley persists. "It's good up there, Jake. we could make a good life... you could be a kind of engineering missionary." But Holman shakes his head, tries to make a joke ("I told ya not to talk to sailors, didn't I?") and smooth the moment over. A few days later, he watches her wave to him as she stands on the boat taking Jameson and herself back upriver.

The ship is anchored in harbor, surrounded by small boats flying the nationalist Chinese flag; water in the channel out to the Yangtze is too low to allow them to move. Once a week, a single American sailor will be allowed to travel to the American consulate for reports, orders and mail. Otherwise the ship remains stationary in port.

One night, as the winter drags on, Frenchie deserts by swimming ashore through freezing water to get to Mei-Li, and falls ill. When Holman is picked for courier duty in rotation, he goes looking for Blackie and finds his friend dead, with Mei-Li -- now pregnant with Blackie's child -- sitting beside his body. Mei-Li is despairing; she has nowhere to go.

Jake comforts Mei-Li, who tells him she'll be all right, that he should return to his ship, and Holman a makes a snap decision: He'll desert. "I'm through with all that. Come up to China Light with me... It's gonna be all different up there," he tells her. "It's just gonna be everybody, all together."

Suddenly, several men break into the tiny apartment, see Frenchie's corpse, and drag Mei-Li out of the room; Jake tries to keep them from taking her but the assailants throw Mei-Ling from a window. Jake manages to make it back to the San Pablo with a split lip, but loses his sailor's cap in the process.

As Jake, battered and hatless, steps into the launch to return to the San Pablo, a sailor waiting for him uses a phrase that is one recurring theme in the film: "What the hell happened?", usually spoken when something unexpected occurs, some act triggered by the larger political struggle in China -- meaning, I don't understand; the world isn't supposed to work this way. "Don't say nothin' about this on the ship," Jake replies.

The day after his return, more boats appear around the San Pablo with signs saying, "Give Up Murderer Holman!" -- accusing him of Mei-Li's death. The Commander asks Jake what it means; he explains Frenchie's death and Mei-Li's murder; the Chinese must have gotten his name from the label in his lost cap.

The commander tells Jake he has just created a major incident, but that he has no intention of giving him up to Chinese authorities. The boats around the San Pablo remain as a blockade -- which the ship can't run without creating another 'incident'.

The crew tries to force the captain to turn Holman over (In a memorable scene, Oakley and others stage a near-mutiny, chanting "Holman, Come Down!"), but Crenna stands firm. Hoping there's enough water in the harbor channel, he orders the ship to make way, and Jake returns to the engine room -- with the ship's XO handing him a sidearm.

Then, a radio message comes in -- nationalist troops have attacked Americans in Nanking; American Marines have landed. Crenna tells Holman and his officers the San Pablo will  go upriver and rescue the missionaries at China Light. The gunboat fights its way upriver through a series of linked sampans stretched across the mouth of the river; among the defenders killed are some of the mission (and Bergen)'s students.

When a shore party, led by Crenna, arrives that same night at the mission, saying they have to leave, Jameson tells the sailors he and Bergen have "renounced nationality itself", declaring themselves stateless persons. Crenna says the nationalist Chinese won't care; Bergen will be raped, and they'll both be shot.

When the commander says the shore party will remove the Jameson and Shirley, McQueen says flatly he isn't going. "Do you know what this is? Desertion in the face of the enemy," Crenna says. McQueen doesn't even blink: "I got no enemies. Shove off, Cap'n."

Then, one of the students appears, and tells Jameson that the rest were killed by the gunboat attack; Jameson is shocked, saddened and angry at once. "Now they're coming for me," he says. "Because of you. Damn your flag; damn all flags! It's too late in the world for flags!"

The nationalists suddenly arrive; Jameson walks forward, calling out in English and Chinese, waving his declaration of neutrality at them; he is shot dead.

The sailors return fire; the commander tells the detail that he will keep firing, making it seem they're all still in the mission, while the rest of them leave by a rear exit. He miscalculates and is killed. Picking up the BAR, Holman tells the other sailors that he will keep shooting, while they get Bergen to safety. Jake gambles on being lucky, holding the attackers off and slipping away in the dark.

He nearly makes it -- but in making a last run for the rear exit, he is fatally shot. Propped up against a crate of the mission's machinery, Jake says, "I was home... What happened? What the hell happened?" -- and is shot again. The final scene shows Bergen and the other sailors heading to the river and the launch, which will take them to the San Pablo.

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McQueen received a Best Actor nomination for the 1966 Oscars -- the only Oscar nomination he ever received; I was surprised to learn that -- in a year which saw nominations for Michael Caine (Alfie), Paul Schofield (Man For All Seasons), Alan Arkin (The Russians are Coming...) and Richard Burton (Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf?). Mako, who played Po-Han, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Unfortunately, Sand Pebbles did not win a single Oscar.

I'm not about to make predictions on what will happen over the next decade, let alone the next year, except to say that we are going to have to learn to live with higher and higher levels of uncertainty.

More and more, people may be asked to take sides, to show proof of their fealty to official values or to political or religious organizations. What The Hell Happened may be the question more and more people carry with them, no matter how it gets expressed.

We have a choice in how we respond to our future -- as individuals, as members of a community and culture. Instead of sharing anxiety and fear, we may find more community than we realize. And, like Jake, we can try to do the right thing, remembering we may have to act courageously to hold on to the people and things we love.

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