Entertaining Rubbish, Me

We Are Part Of The 99 Per Cent (Which Suck)

Robert Cottrell -- educated; measured; British -- is writing for the online version of the London Financial Times, and he believes that there is so much wonderful content written by the elite, for the elites of the world to read. Oh, and discerning and intelligent people, 'the best sort', too. Specialized content; information and analysis to please the palettes of the educated and the oh-so-cognoscenti is available on line, 24 by 7.  Like little treats, for those who know, don't you know. You don't? O too sad.

That sublime layer constitutes one per cent of the Intertubes, in Mr. Cottrell's view.  Another 4 per cent, in his view, is "entertaining rubbish". The remaining 95 per cent "has no redeeming features".

Where, one might ask, would many of the blogs I read fit in Mr. Cottrell's perceived universe of taste and value? And I'll simply note the unasked question (Who the hell is Robert Cottrell, and why does anyone besides his family give a toss for his opinion, anyway?).

Also, I leave it to you to determine where Before Nine fits into the scheme of things as determined by yet another fine specimen of Homo Britannicus:  God Bless The Queen, and all who are on sale in her.

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Too Fragile A Basket

Watch The Skies

Meteor entering Earth's atmosphere, captured by dashboard camera from vehicle outside Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation; 9:26 AM local time, February 15, 2013 (YouTub)

PRESIDENT:  Was that it? Is it over?

TRUMAN:  No, sir. Those were small; the size of basketballs -- Volkswagens...

PRESIDENT:  Well, just how big is it?

OTHER SCIENTIST: Sir, it's seven hundred kilometers in length and --

TRUMAN: (Interrupting)  It's the size of Texas, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT:  My God.  How did we miss this?

TRUMAN:  Sir, the entire budget for tracking near-earth objects last year was 20 million dollars -- million, not billion -- to look for everything that could hit us coming out of the sky. And, excuse me, Mr. President -- but it's a big-ass sky.

-- NASA Director Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton)
Armageddon (1998)

Chelyabinsk, Russia is a city once known only to U-2 or SR-71 overflights, or the eyes of Keyhole intelligence satellites; it was known by the then-Soviet military's designation of Chelyabinsk-50 or -65, a center of their nuclear weapons program -- a secret city, difficult to get into and the home of technicians and specialists that tended the warheads stored and maintained in the surrounding countryside.

The area has had three uncontrolled releases of nuclear materials in the past seventy years, and is known as one of the most radioactively-contaminated places on the planet outside Chernobyl.

Now, the warheads are gone (probably). Chelyabinsk is a major transportation hub between European Russia west of the Urals, and Siberian provinces of Sad Vlad The Putin's empire. A town of just over a million people at the eastern foot of the Urals, it resembles a Rust Belt city in Illinois or Ohio -- some genteel decay here and there; important, but not the thriving center it once was.

Yesterday, in the winter sky over Chelyabinsk at 9:26 AM local time, an asteroid which had been pulled into Earth's gravity well, estimated by NASA to be 50 feet in diameter and weighing some fifteen thousand pounds, entered our atmosphere at roughly 40,000 miles an hour.

Since the second half of the 20th century, close monitoring of Earth's atmosphere has led to the discovery that such asteroid airbursts occur rather frequently. A stony asteroid of about [30 feet] in diameter can produce an explosion of around 20 Kilotons, similar to that of the... bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and data released by the U.S. Air Force's Defense support Program indicate that such explosions occur high in the upper atmosphere more than once a year ...Military satellites have been observing these explosions for decades..  (Wikipedia)

Dashboard cameras around the area (what, in a backwater like Chelyabinsk, are so many vehicles doing with dashboard cams?) captured the decent of the small asteroid, heated by friction in a few seconds to several thousands of degrees, shining as brightly as the sun:

Several miles in the air, the super-heated rock exploded.  A resulting pressure wave shattered windows and caused light structural damage in the immediate area; seismographs recorded an earthquake near Chelyabinsk at 2.7 on the Richter scale. 

Some 1,100 people were injured, mostly from flying glass, and most of the damage was to windows and window-frames -- no joke in a Russian city in winter. The most spectacular damage in the city (a collapsed wall at a zinc factory; see below) may have been exacerbated by cut-rate building construction methods.
 

Reports estimate that the asteroid was probably the "stony" type, composed mostly of rock, and it's explosion released energy equal to a 250 - 500 Kiloton nuclear warhead -- roughly 10 times the explosive force of the 'Little Boy' plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. 

The Nagasaki bomb was a fusion weapon, designed to destroy, and detonated a few hundred meters above the city. The super-heated rock flying over Chelyabinsk was only responding to the laws of physics, and may have exploded high enough in the air that the effects of releasing that much energy were mitigated by distance.   

However -- if the asteroid had instead been composed of nickle-and-iron, it probably wouldn't have exploded in the air. It would have been heavy enough to hit the earth and  release its energy on impact -- and that would have had significantly more force than 250 - 500 Kt. 

An unknown asteroid, falling to earth and causing over a thousand injuries, would have been singular enough.  But it happened just hours before a known and well-publicized asteroid, DA 14, was set to make the closest pass to Earth by a large chunk of rock in anyone's memory: It missed us by only 17,000 miles, well within the Earth's ring of communications and military satellites (out at 25,000 miles).

17K isn't even the width of an Elephant's eyelash in galactic terms -- and DA 14 was three times larger than the object that blew up over Chelyabinsk yesterday -- about as large as the object which caused the Tunguska Event in Siberia, over a thousand miles away and 105 years ago.

On June 30, 1908, a stony asteroid or small comet (which, is still a matter of debate) entered the atmosphere over Siberia and exploded -- in exactly the same manner of the object yesterday at Chelyabinsk.

A few eyewitnesses saw an object streaking east-to-west across the sky, as bright as the sun, followed by one or more explosions. The airburst (like the one at Chelyabinsk) released an estimated 10 to 30 Megatons of energy, as much as the largest strategic nuclear warheads ever made.  Old-growth trees were blown down by the pressure wave in a wide radius around the presumed blast site, and enough dust was blown into the upper atmosphere to be noticeable for months afterward.

Trees flattened at the Tunguska Event site in Siberia; 

photo taken during the 1927 expedition

Something like Tunguska was a rare event; scientists this week commented that it might only occur every three hundred years.  It isn't unusual for meteorites to enter the atmosphere -- but most are small and unseen,  except on clear nights away from the light pollution of cities, or during annual meteor showers in the summer and fall.

What is unusual, experts say, are events like Chelyabinsk -- "once every hundred years" was the phrase I heard tossed around on news programs -- but they may happen more often than we think.  Earth is a big planet, and three-fifths of its surface is covered by oceans.  An event could happen over the mid-Atlantic, and not be seen by human eyes.

An almost identical event to what happened in Chelyabinsk was seen in Indonesia four months ago, with similar vapor trails, pressure waves and seismic shock reports. 

Smoke trail from the Indonesian meteor, October 2012

Scientists reported recently that they believed it to have been caused by an asteroid roughly the same size and weight as the Chelyabinsk object -- and, the event happened in a sparsely populated area surrounded by a large amount of water, rather than forest.

Scientists have located the larger Near Earth Objects.  Since these rock present the potential for massive damage or extinction of the species, the astronomers take their work seriously. 

Once any asteroid is discovered, the level of hazard any it presents is based on regular observations. Its size, velocity and 'spin' (motion around an internal axis) are determined.  As it approaches the inner Solar System, to become a real threat it must pass through a region in space referred to as a "keyhole".  If it does, then it will be affected by Earth's gravitational pull and possibly drawn in for an impact -- then, or years in the future.

It's a constant dance of mathematics, objects moving through through space and influenced by gravity.  An asteroid orbits the Sun, but so do we -- and what NASA and other astronomers do is constantly refine their calculated odds that an asteroid will arrive at the same place as we will be in our orbit, and when -- or by what margin it will miss us. So far, the chances that any known asteroid will hit us are extremely low. 

The danger is with asteroids too small to see, until they've already hit us -- like the one which exploded yesterday.  And, as Chelyabinsk showed, even something the size of a diesel locomotive can cause real damage.

The problem is, projects to locate any NEO's are underfunded, meaning sizable chunks of rock and iron can come sailing at us out of nowhere. Asteroid 2011-MD, which zipped by in June of last year, was roughly half as large as the Chelyabinsk object.  It did miss us by 3,400 miles -- but it was discovered by NASA only 4 days before its closest approach. 

No industrialized nation has done more than talk about how Humanity might respond if we found a potential planet-killer, capable of producing an Extinction-level Event, was on its way. Human culture is primarily focused on acquisition, dominance, and the continuation of a status quo; making plans for an event seen as improbable just isn't a priority.

 Obligatory cute small animal photo in middle of science blog thing

On tonight's CBS Evening News, Jeffrey Kluger, science editor at Time magazine, said what happened over Russia was rare but nothing new. Asked what could be done about a potential threat, Kluger suggested the technology was available to deflect or change the speed of an asteroid "just a few centimeters per hour, so that when it [approaches Earth], we've already moved past [the point of intersection]".

The CBS anchor asked, That's all it takes? "That's all it takes," Kluger said.

Discovering an object in time to do something (remember, 2011-MD was found only 14 hours away from Earth); building probes -- multiples, because you need redundancy, a second and even third chance with these kinds of odds; then, make a successful rendezvous with the asteroid far enough away from Earth, when your radio signals to the probes will take some time to reach them... it's not as simple as Kluger suggested on CBS.

Total numbers of Near-Earth Asteroids discovered, by method (Wikipedia)

And even Kluger, in an article posted at Time online, says that "drawing-board technology is not the same as actual hardware, and it’s imperative that our good ideas are translated into in-the-hangar spacecraft."

All of the materialistic, political and religious issues we struggle with as a species are an utter waste of time, and an insult to the generations who came before us since Lucy and her kin lived at Olduvai Gorge and looked up at the lights in the night sky.  We need to keep looking up at the Cosmos.

And I agree with the occasionally-quoted remark attributed to Robert Heinlein, that "Earth is too small a basket for Humanity to keep all of its eggs in".   Our destiny is Out There -- even if intergalactic travel at the moment will take hundreds of years, even if all we can do is set up large-scale colonies on the Moon and Mars.

It's really just a matter of making a decision to go. Part of our developing as a technological species means we understand the possibility exists that something -- a meteor, a solar flare; a virus, or changes we've wrought in the Earth's climate  -- can happen.  The whole of humanity could be kicked back into the Stone Age in a matter of minutes.  We deserve better than that.

Tourists on the rim of the Barringer Crater in Arizona -- one-half mile wide,

and created by a nickle-iron asteroid the size of DA 14, which missed us yesterday .

But I'm only a Dog, and not often listened to.

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Und Noch Einmal:  ...and, about the asteroid, DA 14, which just missed us by 17,000 miles last week? 300 feet long, and about 100,000 tons?  Bigger, even than the Tunguska Event object?

Well, it will be back in 2080, when -- unless something else intervenes -- it will hit us traveling at about 18,000 miles an hour.  Don't make any vacation plans for that year.

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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).

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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.

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Is The Wonderful Good For You, Nize For You, This Life

We Make For You, Because Now We Are Broadcasting It Every Year
By I. Rabschinsky


George Bailey Guy Making The Panik

So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.


Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving To Movies:
"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim. Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.


Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra, but still we love him).


Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?
Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!


TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.
EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.


GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,
because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!


(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!


GEORGI: So you are saying that when the consciousness
of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle
is not only necessary but inevitable?
SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.


A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children


Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them


For Them, The World Is Something To Carve Up, Like Beef


While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.



GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!
He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm
tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!
CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.



BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of
weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?
GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber
dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!
MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!


BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.
All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before
your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back
to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.


GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your
class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your
crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.



And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.


GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.
SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair
Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?
SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed
peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.
But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.


RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!
PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.



...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow! Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy, but still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

---

The Ending Is This World

Big Mayan Thing Maybe Happen Okay

Personally I am the skeptik. Not like I am wishing the big earthquakes and giant octopus from out of space. No way Buddih! But there is big industry of people making lots of the Money from this thing of the Mayans. And, of course, I would have like to be making some of this End Of World Money. You, also, would like (Oh, yes you would too).

In the Mean Time, back on this planet, we gots plenty work to do just to get restaurant food not tasting like cardboard and Idiots walking around making the Texting all the time and not watching where they are going. Plus we have people with the guns and also Global Heating. Not like we do not have enough to do; yes, Mayan Guy say world is ending; fine. Thank You. We will be getting right on that, but first there is even scarier Fiscal Cliff. Maybe we could solve this using some money from End Of World stuff.

These, believe me, are way bigger problem than Center Of Galactic Thing making creamed corn on your personal shoes -- or, you know, whatever you believe Ending of World will look like.

I ask Great-Uncle Yehudi about End of World (Having been in Great Patriotic War, I am thinking he might know something about this). He is being sitting in Barcalounger, watching Leaving It To The Beaver House on the TeeVee, and laughs while waving at me to go away. "If Messiah shows up, call me," Yehudi says. "Otherwise, go do useful things -- but somewhere else."

So; ending? Maybe, Not Maybe; I don't know. I am betting it looks just like downtown Moldova.

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

__________________________________________________________________

AND, ALSO:  This morning, still in the darkness, I am made awake by telephone. It is Great-Uncle Yehudi. "Guess what?" He is asking.  What, I am saying. "World did not end! You still need to take out garbage, bubchick."

And so this is "the excitement of living".

__________________________________________________________________

Sandy Hook

Observations By Others

 (Photo: AP, via The New York Times)

There are no real words for what happened in Connecticut, yesterday. There is plenty to say about how it happened.

I overheard someone at work (a classic gun nut owner who believes Negros persons of color will overrun his part of the planet) observing that "this [presumably, massacres committed by unstable individuals with firearms] is the new normal".

On PBS' The News Hour, a professional psychologist asked to comment said (and I'm paraphrasing) that "It's important to say... this kind of tragedy doesn't happen every day... that schools really are safe places."

I reject the first comment. The second remark made me think: This fellow doesn't go to many Inner City schools, then -- massacres with 27 dead don't happen every day, that's true; but there are shooting incidents, and kids packing, and metal detectors, and education occurring against a solid backdrop of poverty and violence, every day. 

The psychologist on News Hour was, I thought, trying to suggest themes parents might pass on to reassure their children (Don't worry, Timmy; It Can't Happen Here) -- that planes can crash, but the odds of going down in one, or having one crash on top of you, are hugely in your favor. And largely, that is true.

But planes do crash. Ships sink. Trains collide and buses plunge. Whenever that does happen, there are NTSB investigations, reconstructions and root-cause analyses. There are discussions with engineers and manufacturers about what to do to lessen the chances such a tragedy doesn't happen again.

Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day." 

I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children.

I grew up around guns. I've owned firearms; at various times because I was required to carry them, but afterwards had no sane reason to keep them. I don't want them in my home.

We live in a world of high anxiety, and there are persons who want to exploit those feelings of danger, threat, and imminent disaster:  Gun manufacturers, and their lobby, the NRA, are at the top of the list.  Mike Huckabee and the rest of his fellow Xtian evangelical ilk; there are 2012 World-Enders, predicting massive earthquakes and crustal displacement and 'coastal events', and ultimately few survivors.

There are White Power fascists, and Survivalists, and the people who manufacture and sell them freeze-dried food and plans for bunkers to shield against the EMP bursts from North Korean-launched warheads, detonating high above the USA.

What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine, in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.

And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country. 

The debate is not about Operator Error.  It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.

Along those lines are two, other very pertinent observations -- one, a part of the discussion at TPM Prime (Subscription Required):

Memekiller:  ...for me, it's all about the NRA. I'm anti-NRA, not guns, and am offended by the strangle-hold they have over our politics. And I'm angry that Democrats have ceded the issue, only to have the NRA, if anything, put twice as much effort into unseating Democrats and Obama who, if anything, loosened rules on guns ...

... And the gun culture the NRA fosters... Would the prevalence of guns be as frightening without the culture of paranoia and conspiracies they perpetuate? It's not just about freedom to own a gun. The NRA culture is a cult of xenophobia and insanity. They don't seem to be aiming their message at responsible gun owners so much as the disgruntled and those prone to paranoia. They are less about developing an advocacy group than they are about assembling a well-armed militia of the mentally unstable.  

And the other, at The Great Curmudgeon :

Broken

Our discourse, that is. Fortunately, we have DDay trying to repair it.

Just to pick at random, here are a couple headlines at the Hartford Courant site just from the past 24 hours: Woman Shot, Man Dead After Standoff In Rocky Hill. Armed Robbery At Hartford Bank, Two In Custody.It’s not that school shootings like this are abnormal. They are depressingly normal. The fact that there were no shootings in one day in New York City recently was seen as a major achievement, which shows you how desensitized we have become to gun violence as a normal occurrence of daily life.Just a reminder. The NRA is an industry lobby for the gun industry. The industry that makes consumer products largely designed to kill people.  Not deer. Not rabbits.

People.   

by Jay Ackroyd (@jayackroyd)

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12/12/12

Boneryänker's Almanach

Zwölf-Zwölf-Zwölf.  Sehr Ausgezeichnet, Dude!

See You in A Hundred Years!

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Wishing The Good

Good For You; Nice For You; And Small Childs Also

Wishing  Moldavish Guy the Good Hanukkah, and the Small Child01 and Small Child02, and Spouse who wishes to kill me.

And he is also having Birthday -- for which I called to him and making congratulations but never called him back. About this I have a specific amount of shame.

Great-Uncle Yehudi was also not impressed by this, but had just been hit with phone book and this is time when he is not always sure about what year we are in. But still, we love him.

I, Rabschinsky, say this  -- to Moldavish Guy; you also. 

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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.

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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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