Things we don't notice
This morning I had yet another in the endless line of appointments at the VA Medical Center. I didn't see a handicapped parking space that was vacant in the first row I went down, or on either side, but there was one about 2/3rds of the way down. So I figured rather than waste time I'd just grab it and walk. It would be a bit much, but I could handle it.
I didn't notice until I was standing in the waiting room that I hadn't needed to stop for a break, or slow down. I was a little short of breath but there's no question it was easier to do this than it has for awhile. Maybe all of this effort to walk a little extra isn't going to waste. And maybe because of it, food isn't going to waist. :)
* * *
Yesterday was the anniversary of a date that may have become even more infamous than the way FDR described the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Because on August 6th, 1945, the U.S. dropped just one bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.
Those who measure such things say it was actually very inefficient in that less than 2% of the bomb's material achieving fission. In spite of that relative inefficiency, buildings and people within 1,000 feet of the blast were vaporized. The range of "total destruction" reached roughly one mile from the blast point. Estimates put the number of dead in a range between 90,000 to 160,000; many of whom did not die immediately but suffered greatly after the blast until they mercifully passed away.
I was thinking about this the other night while playing trivia. The question was asked, what does the acronym NBC stand for when talking about military weaponry. My teammate didn't know but of course I did. I say of course, because it's a military acronym I'm very familiar with. I was well-trained in Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons because at my first duty station, I was designated assistant manager of the shelter my barracks represented. I learned how to attempt to survive the aftermath of an attack by nuclear weapon, biological weapon or chemical weapon.
Did you know that the U.S. considered the idea of using chemical weapons in the invasion of Japan, rather than dropping "Little Boy" (code name for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima)? Large quantities of phosgene and mustard gas were moved into position and trained personnel were ready to use them in an invasion. Estimates placed the U.S. casualties in such an invasion (with or without chemical weapons) between 1 million and 3 million, while the same prognosticators estimated that between 5 million and 10 million Japanese would die during that invasion. Mostly civilians.
You're free to debate the ethics of whether killing several hundred thousand Japanese by dropping two atomic weapons on their nation (the second bomb of course hit Nagasaki days later). That's not my purpose. My purpose is to remember that 68 years later, we remain the only nation on this planet to have every dropped a nuclear weapon, on purpose, on another nation. We dropped one on Spain by accident but that's another story for another time.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Did someone really say that Anthony Weiner...well they said "Weiner needs to beat it"?
Why should illegal aliens receive special treatment when they are caught driving without a driver license? If you don't have a license, don't drive. If you want to argue that entering the country illegally is not a crime, fine. But driving without a license is. And just because you can't get one doesn't mean you should be treated differently. Either don't impound any cars, or impound all of them; when it comes to people driving without a license.
There's a headline on the L.A. Times website that says the girl who was the cause of the amber alert recently is in "grave danger". When you hear someone is in grave danger, does the sound of Jack Nicholson's voice echo in your head posing the question, "Is there another kind?" Just in case you haven't heard this: http://www.hark.com/clips/qfdcdqpcty-is-there-any-other-kind
Will the lawsuits by interns who weren't paid and want to be paid going to make it harder for people to break into the entertainment industry (probably not)?
Why did Ben get first billing when they named "Ben & Jerry's"?
What do you think of a veterinarian who tells a dog owner that she has to cough up $10,000 for surgery that may or may not save the dog's life, and if she doesn't she'll be reported for animal cruelty (about the same as I think, I suspect)?
Does the fact we call many of today's cellphones "smart phones" mean the older ones are dumb phones?
Why is it that we deplane when we get off of an airplane but we don't "plane" when we board?
* * *
This Date in History:
626 – The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Constantinople.
936 – Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.
1420 – Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence.
1427 – The Visconti of Milan's fleet is destroyed by the Venetians on the Po River.
1461 – The Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
1679 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.
1714 – The Battle of Gangut: the first important victory of the Russian Navy.
1782 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.
1789 – The United States Department of War is established.
1791 – American troops destroy the Miami town of Kenapacomaqua near the site of present-day Logansport, Indiana in the Northwest Indian War.
1794 – U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
1819 – Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.
1879 – The opening of the Poor Man's Palace in Manchester, England.
1890 – Anna Månsdotter becomes the last woman in Sweden to be executed, for the 1889 Yngsjö murder.
1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.
1927 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.
1930 – The last confirmed lynching of blacks in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana. Two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed.
1933 – The Simele massacre: The Iraqi government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day.
1938 – The Holocaust: The building of Mauthausen concentration camp begins.
1940 – World War II: Alsace-Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich.
1942 – World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
1944 – IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
1947 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
1947 – The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).
1955 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.
1959 – The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design, and was minted until 2008.
1959 – Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1960 – Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent from France.
1964 – Vietnam War: the U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
1965 – The infamous first Reyes party between Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and motorcycle gang the Hells Angels takes place at Kesey's estate in La Honda, California introducing psychedelics to the gang world and forever linking the hippie movement to the Hell's Angels.
1966 – Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan.
1970 – California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during in an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.
1974 – Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air.
1976 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.
1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been negligently disposed of.
1979 – Several tornadoes strike the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities.
1981 – The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
1985 – Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.
1985 – The White House Farm murders took place near the English village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England.
1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.
1998 – The United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
Nathaniel Greene
Carl Ritter
Mata Hari
Louis Leakey
Ralph Bunche
Stan Freberg
Don Larsen
B. J. Thomas
Alan Keyes
Jonathan Pollard
Wayne Knight
Alberto Salazar
David Duchovny
Cirroc Lofton
Abbie Cornish
Brit Marling
Sidney Crosby
Movie quotes today come from 1993's smash hit "Jurassic Park" since Wayne Knight had a role in it:
John Hammond: When we have control again...
Dr. Ellie Sattler: You never had control, that's the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place. But I made a mistake, too, I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now. The only thing that matters now are the people we love. Alan and Lex and Tim. John, they're out there where people are dying.
#2
[Dodgson is meeting Nedry at a restaurant in Costa Rica]
Dennis Nedry: [waving] Dodgeson!
Lew Dodgson: [sitting down] You shouldn't use my name.
Dennis Nedry: [loudly] Dodgson, Dodgson, we've got Dodgson here! Nobody cares. Nice hat. What are you trying to look like, a secret agent?
#3
John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.
#4
Muldoon: [Muldoon and Ellie have arrived at the site of the T-Rex attack] I think this was Gennaro.
Dr. Ellie Sattler: [about 15 feet away] I think this was too.
I didn't notice until I was standing in the waiting room that I hadn't needed to stop for a break, or slow down. I was a little short of breath but there's no question it was easier to do this than it has for awhile. Maybe all of this effort to walk a little extra isn't going to waste. And maybe because of it, food isn't going to waist. :)
* * *
Yesterday was the anniversary of a date that may have become even more infamous than the way FDR described the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Because on August 6th, 1945, the U.S. dropped just one bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.
Those who measure such things say it was actually very inefficient in that less than 2% of the bomb's material achieving fission. In spite of that relative inefficiency, buildings and people within 1,000 feet of the blast were vaporized. The range of "total destruction" reached roughly one mile from the blast point. Estimates put the number of dead in a range between 90,000 to 160,000; many of whom did not die immediately but suffered greatly after the blast until they mercifully passed away.
I was thinking about this the other night while playing trivia. The question was asked, what does the acronym NBC stand for when talking about military weaponry. My teammate didn't know but of course I did. I say of course, because it's a military acronym I'm very familiar with. I was well-trained in Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons because at my first duty station, I was designated assistant manager of the shelter my barracks represented. I learned how to attempt to survive the aftermath of an attack by nuclear weapon, biological weapon or chemical weapon.
Did you know that the U.S. considered the idea of using chemical weapons in the invasion of Japan, rather than dropping "Little Boy" (code name for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima)? Large quantities of phosgene and mustard gas were moved into position and trained personnel were ready to use them in an invasion. Estimates placed the U.S. casualties in such an invasion (with or without chemical weapons) between 1 million and 3 million, while the same prognosticators estimated that between 5 million and 10 million Japanese would die during that invasion. Mostly civilians.
You're free to debate the ethics of whether killing several hundred thousand Japanese by dropping two atomic weapons on their nation (the second bomb of course hit Nagasaki days later). That's not my purpose. My purpose is to remember that 68 years later, we remain the only nation on this planet to have every dropped a nuclear weapon, on purpose, on another nation. We dropped one on Spain by accident but that's another story for another time.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Did someone really say that Anthony Weiner...well they said "Weiner needs to beat it"?
Why should illegal aliens receive special treatment when they are caught driving without a driver license? If you don't have a license, don't drive. If you want to argue that entering the country illegally is not a crime, fine. But driving without a license is. And just because you can't get one doesn't mean you should be treated differently. Either don't impound any cars, or impound all of them; when it comes to people driving without a license.
There's a headline on the L.A. Times website that says the girl who was the cause of the amber alert recently is in "grave danger". When you hear someone is in grave danger, does the sound of Jack Nicholson's voice echo in your head posing the question, "Is there another kind?" Just in case you haven't heard this: http://www.hark.com/clips/qfdcdqpcty-is-there-any-other-kind
Will the lawsuits by interns who weren't paid and want to be paid going to make it harder for people to break into the entertainment industry (probably not)?
Why did Ben get first billing when they named "Ben & Jerry's"?
What do you think of a veterinarian who tells a dog owner that she has to cough up $10,000 for surgery that may or may not save the dog's life, and if she doesn't she'll be reported for animal cruelty (about the same as I think, I suspect)?
Does the fact we call many of today's cellphones "smart phones" mean the older ones are dumb phones?
Why is it that we deplane when we get off of an airplane but we don't "plane" when we board?
* * *
This Date in History:
626 – The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Constantinople.
936 – Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.
1420 – Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence.
1427 – The Visconti of Milan's fleet is destroyed by the Venetians on the Po River.
1461 – The Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
1679 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.
1714 – The Battle of Gangut: the first important victory of the Russian Navy.
1782 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.
1789 – The United States Department of War is established.
1791 – American troops destroy the Miami town of Kenapacomaqua near the site of present-day Logansport, Indiana in the Northwest Indian War.
1794 – U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
1819 – Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.
1879 – The opening of the Poor Man's Palace in Manchester, England.
1890 – Anna Månsdotter becomes the last woman in Sweden to be executed, for the 1889 Yngsjö murder.
1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.
1927 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.
1930 – The last confirmed lynching of blacks in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana. Two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed.
1933 – The Simele massacre: The Iraqi government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day.
1938 – The Holocaust: The building of Mauthausen concentration camp begins.
1940 – World War II: Alsace-Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich.
1942 – World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
1944 – IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
1947 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
1947 – The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).
1955 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.
1959 – The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design, and was minted until 2008.
1959 – Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1960 – Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent from France.
1964 – Vietnam War: the U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
1965 – The infamous first Reyes party between Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and motorcycle gang the Hells Angels takes place at Kesey's estate in La Honda, California introducing psychedelics to the gang world and forever linking the hippie movement to the Hell's Angels.
1966 – Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan.
1970 – California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during in an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.
1974 – Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air.
1976 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.
1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been negligently disposed of.
1979 – Several tornadoes strike the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities.
1981 – The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.
1985 – Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.
1985 – The White House Farm murders took place near the English village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England.
1989 – U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.
1998 – The United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
Nathaniel Greene
Carl Ritter
Mata Hari
Louis Leakey
Ralph Bunche
Stan Freberg
Don Larsen
B. J. Thomas
Alan Keyes
Jonathan Pollard
Wayne Knight
Alberto Salazar
David Duchovny
Cirroc Lofton
Abbie Cornish
Brit Marling
Sidney Crosby
Movie quotes today come from 1993's smash hit "Jurassic Park" since Wayne Knight had a role in it:
John Hammond: When we have control again...
Dr. Ellie Sattler: You never had control, that's the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place. But I made a mistake, too, I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now. The only thing that matters now are the people we love. Alan and Lex and Tim. John, they're out there where people are dying.
#2
[Dodgson is meeting Nedry at a restaurant in Costa Rica]
Dennis Nedry: [waving] Dodgeson!
Lew Dodgson: [sitting down] You shouldn't use my name.
Dennis Nedry: [loudly] Dodgson, Dodgson, we've got Dodgson here! Nobody cares. Nice hat. What are you trying to look like, a secret agent?
#3
John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.
#4
Muldoon: [Muldoon and Ellie have arrived at the site of the T-Rex attack] I think this was Gennaro.
Dr. Ellie Sattler: [about 15 feet away] I think this was too.
posted by me at 5:48 PM
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