homage a Donald Evans / 1st Day Issue: Architettura di Vleeptron: Costruzione di elefante / Self-Medication / the Czar is not addicted

What did we decide? The thing at the bottom is in Thai? Well, you can verify this with the telephone Country Code at the bottom. And buy a DVD and talk to the nice ppl in Thailand. There must be places in Thailand that aren't in Bangkok but ask the nice person on the phone if he/she's in Bangkok. And how's the weather? And has everything calmed down since the coup? Do the tourists still keep bumping into friendly soldiers with loaded M16s?

TECH NOTE: The HTML of the Thai language text seems to be clogging up the blog, slowing it down, making it sick. It was fun while it lasted. E-mail moi if you want the original Thai e-mail offer for DVDs.

Vleeptron wishes to remind everyone before they send the bat via PayPal to buy the Thai DVDs that we have a standing order from our Man-on-the-Ground in All the Russias, StereoBalls, to buy .mp3_s of Eurovision Contest Songs. Sup, Vladimir? What's happenin' in Moscow?

~ ~ ~

BOB'S RULES FOR DESPOTS

1. Don't leave your country to go on a holiday, even if Tweena and Vivika just called on the cell phone and say they're waiting for you in the hot tub of your villa on the Cote d'Azur.

1a. You can have your own jet plane. Just don't use it.

~ ~ ~

Do you have any other Rules for Despots? Leave A Comment. Leave A Comment about Anything. (No Anonymous Drivebys!)

I'm mildly bummed, and I have learned from the last 2+ years that whenever I'm bummed and someone Leaves A Comment, I get HAPPY again! Isn't that stupid? Yeah, well, I know people who when they're bummed, they shoot heroin or smoke crack. One woman I knew (note Past Tense of verb "to know") mixed liquid Diazepam (Valium) with her heroin.

It's called Self-Medication. Receiving an unanticipated Comment, shooting opiates or cocaine (Sherlock Holmes shot a 7 percent solution of cocaine intraveinously), or smoking crack -- in Thailand the Stuff du Jour is Shabu, I think that's their local word for methamphetamines which they suspect are manufactured and smuggled in from the Socialist Workers Military Junta Paradise across their northern border -- are all morally and ethically equivalent means of Turning That Frown Upside Down.

Just Say No -- but considering about 100,000,000 human beings all over the surface of the Earth at any given moment Just Said Yes, one must ponder the Usefulness or Meaning of condemning 100,000,000 of our sisters and brothers because they're using whatever means is available and affordable to Turn That Frown Upside Down.

Professional Supermoralist William Bennett, one of America's first Drug Czars, ceaselessly says that drug addiction is the voluntary loss of the Human Soul, and thus a modern (it's not) kind of Slavery Nouveau.

When William Bennett is Frowning, he likes to Turn It Upside Down by throwing millions of his own and his family's U$ dollars down a large colorful noisy electronic toilet and repeatedly flushing for hours at a stretch, alone in a dark corner of a legal casino.

The odds of Winning at big payout casino slot machines are mathematically indistinguishable from throwing money down the toilet and flushing, it is the Worst Sucker Game in the casino. When outed by a journalist with a sense of humor, whimsy and irony, Bennett snarled that it was his own goddam money and what he did with it was nobody's goddam business but his own and it didn't negatively effect his family, he didn't have a problem with obsessive casino slot-machine playing, he could quit whenever he wanted to. He continues to appear regularly on television programs and publishes books of Moral Advice to Youth about Taking Personal Responsibility, and getting help if they need help by turning themselves and their relatives and neighbors in to the Police.

I think it's rather charming that one of the most violent, ferocious and toxic of all USA government policies, the War on Drugs (circa 1974) -- which has promptly turned the Land Of The Free into the World's Number 1 Gulag -- is fundamentally and historically based on the state's compelling interest to Save the Human Soul, an entity whose very existence has been debated for centuries, if not for millennia. Also featured at such debates is the related question: Can something which cannot be empirically verified be said to Exist?

And down the hall they are asking if Essence precedes Existence, or contrariwise? Coffee and pastries in the Great Hall from 1:30 to 5.

But momentarily speaking for the Affirmative -- Given that each of us has a Soul (and also either cats, dogs and chipmunks have Souls, or else cats, dogs and chipmunks do not have Souls), how best should the State use force, violence and mass incarceration to prevent us from Giving It Away, Selling It or Losing It? (Once I lost mine in Amsterdam, but the Hotel Ambassade called -- I'd left it in the shower -- and sent it back to me.) How should an Enlightened State Bureaucracy save All Our Souls? How, exactly, will Society be better off than we are now when the State has effectively and with violent coersion crammed all our Souls into our Bodies and kept them there at gunpoint?

Best Essay on these important topics wins a White (no tomato sauce) Square (no circles) Pizza from the spectacular Florentina's, which is run by a family of Turkish immigrants and was originally Atilla's. If it's really good, smart or interesting, I throw in free Spanikopita and Baklava.

~ ~ ~

ATTENTION JEWS and NON-JEWS: It's Sukkot. Happy Sukkot. It's an Autumn (northern hemisphere) Harvest thing, I think it centers around the Book of Ruth.

Make a temporary yurt-like or teepee-like dwelling out of sticks and leaves, and you and the family sleep outside for a few nights. The dwellings are like the dwellings ancient Hebrew farmers made and lived in while they harvested the crops.

The Stop & Shop superhypermarket has a sign on its front window:

We Sell Kosher and Non-Kosher Food

for decades I have wanted to sneak there in the middle of the night (they never close) and razor the sign so it says

We Sell ...... ... ... ...... Food

~ ~ ~

Also happy Columbus Day (bank holiday in USA). On the first day he set foot on dry land in the New World, according to his ship's log, Columbus (Cristobol Colon) asked:

1. Where is the gold?

2. Would these people make good slaves?

~ ~ ~

ALSO IN THAILAND is the wonderful crazy verkakte ELEPHANT BUILDING which Vleeptron has often displayed, first in a post about how Homelamp Security, with scant hours to avert Disaster, forced down a westbound airliner from Heathrow when they learned Cat Stevens / Yusef Islam and his daughter were aboard. HS has since released warrantless secret e-mail and telephone wiretaps which prove the superannuated hippie folksinger had been planning to sing "Peace Train" on an acoustic guitar in Chicago, and thus destroy all of American society just like he did in the 60s, because we were fools and let him get away with it.

So like who was the first to answer "Bangkok"? RevJJ? Was that you? Anyway, if it was you, I might really have to pony up the pizza, you live near and sometimes you Buzz Northampton.

The first time we displayed the marvelous Elephant Building we attributed the design to the late American architect Phillip Johnson, and said it was his last commission. More recently we credited I.M. Pei with the design, and patwholooks@thefrozenmusic correctly pointed out that Pei designed that verkakte pyramid subway station under whose floor is buried the corpse of Mary Magdalene, as everyone knows by now. Magdalene is (by UKians) pronounced: Maudlin. If you have a funny way to pronounce it, Leave A Comment and

:-(
Turn Bob's Frown
Upside Down
:-)

TECH NOTE: The HTML of the Thai language text seems to be clogging up the blog, slowing it down, making it sick. It was fun while it lasted. E-mail moi if you want the original Thai e-mail offer for DVDs.

Vleeptron Hall of Heroes: Shawn Fanning

I just love this guy. I love computers, I love programming, I love the way innovative software keeps changing the world.

Anybody who says you need a team of 120 software development professionals to make a big noise in Cyberspace is ... well ... stoopid. If you get a good idea, and you can program in BASIC, or FORTH, or Logo, or LiSp, you can be the next Shawn Fanning.

If you don't know how to program your computer, well ... I don't know what to say. I'm embarrassed for you. You paid $1000 or $2000 for a box, and you can only use 1 percent of its power and potential.

"Napster" seems to be Fanning's high school nickname for the hair he was always shoving under his baseball cap.

from Wikipedia:

Shawn "Napster" Fanning (born 1980 in Brockton, Massachusetts USA) developed Napster, the first popular peer-to-peer filesharing platform, in 1998.

Napster

Motivated by a friend of his who was having difficulties accessing the MP3 files he wanted, Fanning spent months of little sleep writing the code for a program that could provide an easy way to download music. He developed the program while attending Boston's Northeastern University. Later Fanning made the cover of Wired magazine and rose to fame, yet soon after, Napster was the target of several music industry backed lawsuits, which ultimately ended up causing the cessation of the service. Since November 2002, the Napster name and logos have been property of Roxio, Inc.

He also had a cameo, playing himself, in The Italian Job (2003); in the film, Seth Green's character accused Fanning of stealing Napster from him, while he was taking a nap (hence the name.) Also in 2003 Fanning opened a new company SNOCAP with Jordan Mendelson and Ron Conway. It aims to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media.

Newton's pure math: Arithmetica Universalis

Arithmetica Universalis, an unauthorized publication -- a bootleg -- of Isaac Newton's Cambridge lectures on pure mathematics. In both the first Latin edition and the first English translation, Newton was not cited as author; some say he tried to purchase the entire run of the first Latin edition to keep it out of circulation. This posthumous 1761 edition is the first to cite Newton's authorship.

Newton was lifelong neurotically reluctant to publish his scientific and mathematical discoveries, an obsessive dread of controvery which nonetheless fueled his bitter, lengthy public dispute over the invention of the calculus with Leibniz. Most modern scholars agree the invention was simultaneous and independent. Leibniz' simpler and more logical notation prevailed and is the one taught and used today.

In the Arithmetica, Newton reveals his discovery of the Binomial Theorem, the algebraic foundation of the differential calculus.

Newton held Cambridge's Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, which Stephen Hawking holds today.

You can read every page of this edition of the Arithmetica, including about 20 pages of Newton's geometrical diagrams, in FlipBook format (just click on the right-hand page to turn to the next two pages).

After a paranoid depressive episode -- a nervous breakdown -- Newton's friends and admirers urged him to leave Cambridge for London. With his brilliant, charming and beautiful niece Catherine Barton (admired by, among others, Jonathan Swift) as hostess, Newton pursued government and political ambitions and eventually became Master of the Mint, foiling the schemes of counterfeiters and overseeing a major coinage conversion, for which he invented "milling" -- the ribbing around a coin's edge which prevents "snipping" bits of precious metal from the circumference. Though his government achievements are of little lasting significance compared to his scientific achievements, they showed hard-headed, immensely practical aspects of his character. One dispute with a flamboyant counterfeiter ended up with the counterfeiter convicted, drawn and quartered.

Newton devoted most of his intellectual energies to alchemy and to investigations to reveal the truths of the early Christian church (and the doctrines he believed were subsequent historical falsehoods). He was deeply religious, apparently secretly an early Unitarian -- i.e., he rejected the Trinity -- and his personality was more comfortable in the Middle Ages than in the scientific Enlightenment he was credited with creating.

Mathematics was taught at Cambridge, but was outside the standard curriculum for undergraduates. He bought his first math book, a trigonometry text, when he had trouble understanding the trigonometric concepts in the astrology books he was trying to master.

John Maynard Keynes ended his biographical lecture about Newton by asking if the world would be better if there were more Newtons. It would not, he concluded; a world full of Newtons would be a world full of monsters.

But a great monster now and then makes for a much greater world than a world with no monsters at all.

Phobos et Deimos, les satellites de Mars

Harumph. The lovely French image of Mars, Phobos and Deimos has vanished.

Whoops! It's back again!

Vleeptron has found another one -- an amazing marriage of Astronomie and Arte -- specifically the fabric crafts.

Judy W. Ross of Point Roberts, Washington State USA, and Roberts Creek, British Columbia, Canada, begins each day by gazing at NASA's Hubble photo of the day, and was inspired to make a quilt based on the photos.

This is her square of Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos. The whole quilt is magnificent -- you can click on any square -- and was featured as the NASA astronomy picture of the day on 17 October 2003. It received the Creativity Award at the 2003 Sunshine Coast Quilt Guild show in Sechelt, BC, and was featured at the fourth annual Fibre Arts Festival in Gibsons, BC. The quilt [spent] the summer of 2004 on display at the Lick Observatory, Santa Cruz, California. Copyright Judy W. Ross.
Mars is the god of War. His two attendant godlings are Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic).

from planete.astronomie.free.fr

===============================

Mars possède deux petits satellites, Phobos et Deimos, de forme irrégulière (voisine d'une ellipsoïde) et criblés de cratères.

Voici une vue de Deimos.

Certains astronomes les considèrent comme des corps semblables à des astéroïdes, capturés par la planète au tout début de son histoire.

Ceux-ci ont été découverts par Asaph Hall, le même jour en 1877.

On remarque qu´ils gravitent à une faible distance de la planète.

Phobos mesure environ 21km sur son axe le plus long et Deimos 15km.

Comme Phobos, Deimos ressemble beaucoup a un astéroïde sans doute capturé par Mars: il est essentiellement fait de composés carbonés et d´eau.

* Distance de Mars: 23,460 km
* Taille moyenne: 10 x 12 x 15 km
* Magnitude visuelle: 12.7
* Période de révolution: 1 jour 6 heures
* Vitesse orbitale: 1.4 km/s
* Inclinaison de l´orbite sur l´équateur de Mars: 1 à 3°
* Excentricité de l´orbite: 0.0002
* Masse (Mars = 1): 3/100,000,000
* Densité (eau = 1): 1.7
* Vitesse d´évasion: 6 m/s
* Réflectivité (albédo géométrique): 0,07

==================

Voici une vue de Phobos.

En 1988, les Russes envoyèrent deux sondes sur le satellite Phobos. Les deux missions échouèrent, bien que l'une ait pu retransmettre certaines données et photographies avant que le contact radio ne fût perdu.

Phobos ressemble beaucoup à un astéroïde : il est essentiellement fait de composés carbonés et d´eau.

* Distance de Mars: 9,380km
* Taille moyenne: 18 x 22 x 26 km
* Magnitude visuelle: 11.6
* Période de révolution: 7 h 40 m
* Vitesse orbitale: 2 km/s
* Inclinaison de l´orbite sur l´équateur de Mars: 1°
* Excentricité de l´orbite: 0.015
* Masse (Mars = 1): 2/10,000,000
* Densité (eau = 1): 2.2
* Vitesse de libération: 10m/s
* Réflectivité (albédo géométrique): 0.06

PIZZAQ (all ages): Finding your way around Mars

Yes, click, certainly.
Filched from Lunar and Planetary Institute
Universities Space Research Association

Vleeptron admits it uses Salty Language sometimes, and from time to time discusses Subjects which are not entirely suitable for human beings younger than 40.

Today, however, a PizzaQ for All Ages! YOU decide if you're old enough to try it!

Here's Mars, both hemispheres, bracketed in an easy x,y coordinate axis system.

For 6 slices, with sausage and onions:

Find Victoria Crater!

(and thus find the current position of the Mars Rover Opportunity)

Leave your Answer in a Comment in this form:

x = 444
y = 333

No Honor System. Google all you want. Call Klaas in Rotterdam. Ask your Mom.

btw there IS a Winner to the Elephant Building PizzaQ! The official awarding of that pizza later, sorry it's taken so long to get around to it. There are several Curious Aspects to this strange building and its famous not-architects.

fruit and firearms

All violence, either individual, religious or military, ended on Vleeptron 9,277 years ago (although squirt guns and water balloons are still permitted under responsible supervision).

This does not mean that Vleeptron eliminated firearms. When not being used to hurt human beings or animals, firearms are quite nifty machines, and people should have a right to be entertained by the quite astonishing things they do. You can try to ban firearms, but

Force = Mass x Acceleration

is part of our Human Heritage and everyone has a right to have Fun with that.

Here is what we do with firearms and fruit on Vleeptron.

After the show, go to Wohba's main page for lots of extraordinary images and fascinating information about, among other things, Victoria Crater and our surface rover Opportunity and our new Mars orbiter, which just snapped a photo of Opportunity. This guy is more fugged up on la Science than I am.

PUBLIC NOTICE: Everybody stop looking inside my brain! 5 minutes after I posted the amazing photo of Opportunity on the rim of Victoria Crater, U.B. von Wedding, Berlin sent me the same photo.

British Broadcasting Corporation News is to be commended for recognizing and emphasizing the importance of these images and this peaceful achievement. This week the Human Race doesn't have to be so embarrassed with how it behaves.

Much More Mars.
Much Less Iraq.

Fantastic Photo! Mars Orbiter Looks Down and snaps Rover Opportunity on the surface!

Click and you might see ...

The robot rover vehicle Opportunity on the "Cape Verde" cliffs above Victoria Crater, on the surface of Mars. The photograph was snapped Tuesday from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

Can you match the image of Cape Verde within the larger image of Victoria Crater?

Compare America's violent, murderous endeavors in Iraq this month with this magnificent achievement of science -- the robotic exploration of another planet. Both from the same government.

*************

Friday 6 October 2006

NASA'S Mars Rover
and Orbiter Team
Examines Victoria Crater

Opportunity at Crater's 'Cape Verde' (Annotated)

An image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity near the rim of "Victoria Crater." Image credit: NASA/JPL/UA

NASA's long-lived robotic rover Opportunity is beginning to explore layered rocks in cliffs ringing the massive Victoria crater on Mars.

While Opportunity spent its first week at the crater, NASA's newest eye in the Martian sky photographed the rover and its surroundings from above. The level of detail in the photo from the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will help guide the rover's exploration of Victoria.

"This is a tremendous example of how our Mars missions in orbit and on the surface are designed to reinforce each other and expand our ability to explore and discover," said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program in Washington. "You can only achieve this compelling level of exploration capability with the sustained exploration approach we are conducting at Mars through integrated orbiters and landers."

"The combination of the ground-level and aerial view is much more powerful than either alone," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "If you were a geologist driving up to the edge of a crater in your jeep, the first thing you would do would be to pick up the aerial photo you brought with you and use it to understand what you're seeing from ground level. That's exactly what we're doing here."

Images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, orbiting the red planet since 1997, prompted the rover team to choose Victoria two years ago as the long-term destination for Opportunity. The images show the one-half-mile-wide crater has scalloped edges of alternating cliff-like high, jutting ledges and gentler alcoves. The new image by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter adds significantly more detail.

Exposed geological layers in the cliff-like portions of Victoria's inner wall appear to record a longer span of Mars' environmental history than the rover has studied in smaller craters. Victoria is five times larger than any crater Opportunity has visited during its Martian trek.

High-resolution color images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera since Sept. 28 reveal previously unseen patterns in the layers. "There are distinct variations in the sedimentary layering as you look farther down in the stack," Squyres said. "That tells us environmental conditions were not constant."

Within two months after landing on Mars in early 2004, Opportunity found geological evidence for a long-ago environment that was wet. Scientists hope the layers in Victoria will provide new clues about whether that wet environment was persistent, fleeting or cyclical.

The rovers have worked on Mars for more than 10 times their originally planned three-month missions. "Opportunity shows a few signs of aging but is in good shape for undertaking exploration of Victoria crater," said John Callas, project manager for the rovers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"What we see so far just adds to the excitement. The team has worked heroically for nearly 21 months driving the rover here, and now we're all rewarded with views of a spectacular landscape of nearly 50-foot-thick exposures of layered rock," said Jim Bell of Cornell. Bell is lead scientist for the rovers' panoramic cameras. NASA plans to drive Opportunity from crater ridge to ridge, studying nearby cliffs across the intervening alcoves and looking for safe ways to drive the rover down. "It's like going to the Grand Canyon and seeing what you can from several different overlooks before you walk down," Bell said.

The orbiter images will help the team choose which way to send Opportunity around the rim, and where to stop for the best views. Conversely, the rover's ground-level observations of some of the same features will provide useful information for interpreting orbital images.

"The ground-truth we get from the rover images and measurements enables us to better interpret features we see elsewhere on Mars, including very rugged and dramatic terrains that we can't currently study on the ground," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. He is principal investigator for the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera.

JPL manages the rovers and orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

###
Guy Webster/Natalie Godwin 818-354-6278/0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

Dwayne Brown/Erica Hupp 202-358-1726/1237
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC

NEWS RELEASE: 2006-121

Election '06 -- Republican Kerry Healey's Willie Horton Boogeyman Halloween Boo! scare TV ad

Osama bin Lawyer
a.k.a. Deval Patrick, Democratic
candidate for Massachusetts governor

Okie Dokie, you want Massachusetts governor race news ...

Around Tuesday, Kerry Healey [the Republican] started broadcasting an ad against Deval Patrick [the Dem, an African-American] which accused Patrick of having been the defense lawyer for a convicted murderer of a policeman, getting the condemned cop-killer a reprieve from the death sentence, and finally making him eligible for parole. Then there's a throwaway line

While lawyers have the right to defend cop killers,

and then the tag line:

do we really want one as our governor?

Ah, I should have guessed the Healey campaign website would proudly have the ad for your viewing pleasure: http://www.healeycommittee.com/

The day it began to run, political observer guests on NECN (New England Cable News) were quite comfortable calling it an Attack Ad, others called it an act of campaign desperation, and someone said it was a classic "Willie Horton" kind of ad.

So much for the media experts. What I can't tell you is how effective the ad will really be. It's so blatant and harsh, that either it will scare the bejeebers out of the voters and they'll rush to Kerry Healey to save them from the Boogeyman and his Evil Criminal Defense Lawyer ... or, as sometimes happens, voters will recoil at the meanspiritedness and viciousness of the ad and be uncomfortable with Healy -- the Nastiness Thing.

She just may be ten years behind the times. If the ad's all about how despicable it is for a lawyer to defend a criminal ... well ... by this moment, an awful lot of Massachusetts voters have some husband or daughter or son or cousin who was facing Deep Shit until the family second-mortgaged the house and got a competent criminal defense lawyer. Who reduced the depth of the Shit from armpits to ankles. The last decade may have shifted the public perception from

"The Tough DA Saves Us All From Evil Criminals!"

to

"A good lawyer kept my nephew out of prison."

The Nastiness Thing may, unfairly, work worse against a woman candidate. They're still under old-fashioned expectations always to appear Warm, Fuzzy, Smiling and Nurturing. Nastiness or Meanspiritedness sit more comfortably on a male candidate's face and demeanor; a man's supposed to be able to look Mean and Tough on occasion.

But this is a Make-Or-Break TV ad for Healey. This ad alone -- and she's putting big $$$ into heavy airplay -- will be what's on voters' minds when they go to vote.

random image of Youth du jour

Hmmm. Surfing today I ran into this. Hmmm. So I filched it and I'm posting it. Maybe clicking will help.

Obviously the world ended last month and nobody told me.

reviews of new TV show "Jericho" / what guys think about when it's 1150°F / 621°C outside [heavily redacted]

A Web Community comments vigorously about the new CBS network prime-time TV show "Jericho."

If you saw it, you probably didn't notice a single thing which has generated this spontaneous outpouring of critical comment.

Also lots of Useful Practical Tips in case The World Ends.

=====================

On TV tonight was a show called Jericho. It is about the aftermath of a nuclear exchange, WW3 type scenario.

One of the characters was caught out in the fallout, so a medtech advised him to drink " a couple of teaspoons of iodine". Folks- don't drink iodine....period.

The US Gov't recommends flooding the thyroid with iodine to preclude the absorbance of radioactive iodine in fallout using the following method: stick your pointy finger into iodine only up to the first joint. This method automatically adjusts dose per body size/weight.

The amount of iodine actually needed is miniscule. Drinking iodine is a bad idea.

PS another bad idea practiced on the same show was a block party in the streets the day after the mushroom cloud appeared.

PPS, another gross technical error was the part where they removed the flight recorded from a downed airliner, and played the 1/4" acetate tape on a home reel-to-reel machine. Data recorders actually use steel wire as the recording medium, naturally, to keep it from melting in a crash. Duhh.

Where have all the technical advisors gone? We won't even comment on their use of a CDV-715 type "Geiger Counter".........

================

Now you see why some of us don't watch the idiot box. You want
to pull an Elvis, pull out the .45, and BLAST the screen...yeah!!!
Either that, or roll all over the floor, laughing your guts to
pain. I'd rather play with my RAD toys.
Phil

=============

Dead on ...

Jim R

========

Hi Theo,
I'm sorry but I have to correct you on the CVR (cockpit voice
recorder) issue. The vast majority of CVR's in current service use
1/4" tape with four tracks. Wire CVR's are rare, but some flight
data recorders (FDR) used wire, others scratched marks on thin metal
foil. The most common CVR is the Fairchild (now L-3) A-100. More
modern units are digital and use solid state memory for storage.

My most hated TV/movie error is tyre squeal from a car on a dirt
road!

R***** G****.

--- In IonizingRadiationFans@yahoogroups.com, "Theoelectronics" wrote:

} On TV tonight was a show called Jericho. It is about the aftermath
of a nuclear exchange, WW3 type scenario.

================

{ Where have all the technical advisors gone? We won't even comment on their use of a CDV-715 type "Geiger Counter"......... }

My opinion of the whole idiot tech advisor thing is that "they" don't want the public to know how these things truly work except for forensics tv shows and military movies. My other opinion is that the producers are a bunch of tight asses who would rather guess at how something works (and have PR respond to the few people who complain about the mistakes) than to pay real advisors and have to go to the expense of obtaining the correct equipment/materials/sound effects. I think that would call it their "technical license". All it is though is an insult to those of us intelligent to know how "it" is supposed to work.

S**** J****

================

Jim R wrote:

Basically, they assume we're all stupid - except the writers of "House."

JRW

================

Don't be sorry or hesitate to correct me R***** ( or anyone) we are all here to learn, and THANKS.

My "Science in the Movies" book must need updating!

Theo

=================

Now you've hit a nerve and my perversion. At least once upon a time perversion. Way back in my Police Department roots, some 40 years ago now, we had a dump next to the shooting range. I enjoyed shooting old TV sets more than punching holes in paper! There was even and abandoned car there we practiced on....

At that time, the rangemaster at the Police Academy picked up brass from qualifying sessions and reloaded it. Sold them to me for $1.25 a box - ready to shoot-once-fired.
Over the years I gathered about 10,000 rounds that way, for eventual re-reloading by myself. Still have a few around, but no longer even own a .38 Now prefer the Walther PPK 380.

Ahh the god 'ol days.....

Theo

D** ****
*/* 22

==================

{My most hated TV/movie error is tyre squeal from a car on a dirt road!}

It isn't that hard to get tires to squeal out here in AZ in the dirt. But
our dirt is like concrete with a real thin layer of flour on top. Digging a
hole out here to plant flowers or whatever involves a pickax and the hose.

S**** J****

==================

Food for thought --- on Jericho they were using a 715 as a "geiger counter"- well, there's two side to that coin....

For one thing we all know the limitations of the 715, it's not a gieger counter it's a field survry meter.. but do you know the limitations of the 700?

In the case AFTER a nuclear attack, the 700 is going to have limited use - for several reasons. For one, the are a number of nucleotides produced in a blast that the 700 WILL NOT react to. Secondly, beyond it's upper limits, the unti will "lock up" and either peg at the upper end of the meter or show no activity at all - the only "key" to knowing it's happened is that instead of clicks, the earphone will produce a "rushing" sound - the GM tube runs off into its dead zone and won't reset.

FEMA's documentation warns of the use of the 700 for anything other than a training unit and advises the judicious use of the 700 and the 715 in conjunction with each other.

It's a fact that after a nuclear attack, the residuals are going to be MORE than 50 mr/H - it'll in in the R/H range and only an ion chamber unit will be useful.

So, in one way they were correct - in the other, they hadn't a clue as to how the unit should actually be used and the sound it makes, which is nothing.

J R

===================
===================

HERE BEGINS an interesting thread. Geiger Counters and other devices to measure radioactivity are really designed only for normal natural levels of radiation, or slightly elevated levels associated with government-supervised industry and research.

There are radiation monitors for little surprises like Three Mile Island or Windscale, but they're as rare as the surprises themselves.

In other words, most radiation monitors are designed to measure a range between Darkness and a Sunny Summer Afternoon.

So which instrument would work best on a day when the temperature's 1150 degrees Fahrenheit / 621 Celsius and everyone's skin is blistering?

And who will volunteer to carry this instrument into the women's bathroom next to the Chernobyl control center, to see what the meter's registering?

===================
===================

It's a shame they are passing up a good opportunity to educate the
public on such an important issue. BTW, would an ion chamber survey
meter (CDV 720 I believe?)be better since it can detect betas as
well as gammas? What would your choice of an instrument be in the
event of a nuclear attack?

- D*****

==============

} What would your choice of an instrument be in the
} event of a nuclear attack?

Of the CDV family, my instrument of choice would be a 700. If I could
have two instruments, I would have two 700's, so I had a backup.
Likewise for three. Oh, by the time you got to ten or so, maybe I'd
consider having a 715, never know when you might need to prop open a
door.

Once a 700 gets into saturation, I am not particularly concerned with
the exact reading. It's high enough to be a problem. I'd be more
interested in knowing what the value is down at the low end, and
using it to check for surface contamination, testing food and water,
etc.

C**** S********
B**** C** Systems

=====================

I saw in a catalog somewhere CDV-720s for 59.99, but don't remember which one and don't know what the ebay price is. It might have been cheaperthandirt.com Yeah, it disgusts me to see how TV misinforms people so much, especially to make them think that all guns and dynamite are bad and make you a criminal.

On 10/5/06, dataoaf2 wrote:
It's a shame they are passing up a good opportunity to educate the
public on such an important issue. BTW

============================

N*** A****** wrote:

But what range would the fallout after the rain be? They do go a little too far in trying to make the auditor seem human, don't they?

============================

I have been driving Austin Healeys, Triumphs, Porsches and Jags on Arizona dirt roads for 46 years, quite a lot of it at the limit of adhesion. Never a squeal! I liked to say the the advantage to driving fast on a dirt road was that you never came into a blind, tight turn and found a layer of asphalt in the apex! Dirt on rural asphalt roads was common, as most of the tight turns were where the road intersected with a creek, normally dry, but flooded during rains, washing a layer of gravel and rocks over the road. Had about the same effect as ball bearings.
S*** is right about the soil for gardening. We call this barrier caliche, and if you have a layer of it in your backyard, you will be considering dynamite shortly!
J*** C. H*****
8*** E. **th St.
T*****, ** *****
5** ***-****
============================

Technically, the 720 needs a little work on the sensitivity side, but it's a good choice. I'd probably put a new 5886 in it unless you're sure it's up to snuff and run it for at least 8 hours straight every month. The 22.5 volt batttery is good for the shelf life of the battery, but the D's will last about 250 hours (2.5 times what the zinc/carbons will). My choice? I have a Victoreen 440 - that's what I'd use. (I also have a 440 RF/C that's not working yet - will be soon). Reason? Detects betas and gammas equally well - as well as xrays. I also have a 710 and two 720's - the 710's getting some mods, one of the 720's is going to get an extra amplification stage (another 5886).

But that's me.

I'd have at least a 700 and a 715 (or 717).

Jim R

=================

dataoaf2 wrote:

J**;

I also have a modest collection. I have a CVD700, 715, 717, and
720 (in need of repair-I need to fix the clamps on the plastic
bottom case). I also have a PRI model IIIB scintillation counter,
an early DG-2 (works well) and one of those small newfangled
Russian counters with the blinking LEDs. After getting some
valuable feedback on a post earlier this week about extending the
range of a CDV 700 I'm thinking this might be something to persue.
I don't have a way to calibrate (cheaply) my CDV 715, 717 and 720
but maybe if I check the circuitry I can match them against each
other in case I encounter significant radiation. A major advantage
to a real geiger counter as I see it is you can make relative
measurements. Taking a background count and noting if there is an
increase would at least tell you if there is a trend toward higher
radiation.

- D*****

====================
LATE ADDITION from BOB:
====================

This thread seems to be about choosing monitors suitable for post-Apocalyptic levels of ionizing radiation.

Lo-Tek rules.

When Something Happened on a morning when only one enemy bomber had been reported in the sky over Hiroshima, the Japanese government and military contacted one of the nation's leading university physicists and dispatched a light Army plane to fly him to what was left of the city.

He had suspicions (he wasn't associated with Japan's primitive infant fission weapons program), but no proof.

The view from the plane proved nothing about the nature of the destructive force involved.

When he stepped out of the plane, he took out the one instrument he'd brought with him, an electroscope/electromometer, the $5 science toy beloved of every 12-year-old boy. His may have been the more professional, pricey model -- they use gold foil -- but the $5 toy would have worked just as well.

The two metal foil strips flew apart at the maximum 180-degree angle, and "pegged" there. He knew instantly what the fundamental forces had been. The electroscope told him everything he needed to know to make his report.

Bob Merkin

Massachusetts USA

bring them home now

Military, civilian, Iraqi, Coalition deaths and casualties.

See what we've done:

Flag-draped coffins of U.S. military combat deaths returning to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
(Russ Kick's Memory Hole.)

going to lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside / when I lay my burden down

A few posts ago I showed the symbol of the War Resisters Support Campaign / Campagne d'appui aux résistantEs à la guerre, which helps American military deserters in Canada defend themselves and fight being returned to the United States.

Incidently, the Toronto solicitor most active in giving legal aid to American deserters was a U.S. draft evader during the Vietnam War, who became a Canadian citizen and went to Canadian law school. There is a deep historical continuity across the border. Extending back into the past long before the Vietnam War.

I have taken the liberty of modifying the WRSC's image to a form more appropriate for soldiers like me. As soldiers like me chose to turn their backs on a despicable war against Asian non-Christian non-white strangers, we would have laid down not our M16s, but our somewhat different but equally necessary war weapon.

After the great American 100-Hour Victory of Desert Storm (1991), General "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf told his troops that any soldier who clerks and types (rather than humps and shoots) is (a vulgar, uncomplimentary term for) a homosexual.

Detroit-Windsor Tunnel / Bob's last night before the Army

Please click by all means.

Old postcard of the Detroit-Windsor
Tunnel, modified by the artist
Saul Steinberg.

This wild trip to Canada and Detroit and back again through Ontario and via the strange Superhighway of the Future, 407ETR -- Bob's Unsupervised Drinking Gourd Tour -- has filled my mind with so much that I am hopelessly behind writing about it, but at the same time accumulating images I want to post and talk about.

But before I explode or implode, here is an image, a strange, faded old postcard of The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. The Tunnel specifically was one of the places I planned to visit on the way to see my army buddy Ron.

Neither of us seemed particularly happy to have been drafted in the army during the Vietnam War, but Ron expressed some surprise when I told him that the night before I was drafted, I was looking down into the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. But didn't go through. But now, 37 years later, I was going to take this opportunity specifically to drive through the dinky little tunnel, which, I think like 407ETR, is a private for-profit corporation.

Whoops -- no it's not. The Tunnel is jointly owned by the cities of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario.

I wrote back to Ron:

======================

Bob's Previous Visit to THE DETROIT-WINDSOR TUNNEL ...

I was hanging with my high school sweetie in Berkeley when the date for my induction approached. There was Big Family Trouble and basically I'd run away from home to get my rents off my back. My intention was to drive home to DC to get drafted. I certainly wasn't politically warm toward the war. But throughout history, Trouble At Home has always been the Recruiter's Best Friend.

Two years in the Army during a big war looked better to me than dealing with my family just then.

When it was time to drive home, I looked on the UC-Berkeley Ride Board to see if I could get some company and gas sharing money, and hooked up with a woman who was going home to Detroit. It was right after her exams.

She was nice and helped the long trip pass, but otherwise very unmemorable -- I can't even remember her name. But I drove her home, they were happy to let me get some sleep on their basement couch, and then I was off to get drafted.

Somehow my hunt for the highway took me to the entrance to the Windsor Tunnel, I guess around 10pm. I parked across the street from the entrance and got out of the car and looked at it while I had a smoke. I don't think I was super-seriously thinking of going to Canada; the only reason I was at the border was just the accident of taking the girl home to Detroit.

But I did stare down that tunnel for about ten minutes, and thought about this and that. Then I got back in the car and drove back to DC and got there in time to get on the bus to Fort Holabird in Baltimore, where the physical and the induction took place.

Ever since those days, when I think of Canada, I think of Trudeau letting us draft guys sneak in, stay and work, and eventually become citizens. And I think very warmly of Canada, and love to visit all over the place, and I always feel happy and comfortable.

I'm just glad I can choose when I want to go, and I'm glad I can come back. As I thought about this and that at the Windsor Tunnel, I was just really ripshit that violent psychos were trying to chase me out of my own country, and I just refused to let that happen.

===============
from Wikipedia:
===============

Detroit-Windsor Tunnel

Detroit–Windsor Tunnel Carries
2 lanes connecting I-375/M-10 & Highway 3B
Crosses Detroit River
Locale Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario
Total length 5,160 feet (1,573 m)
Width 22 ft (6.7 m)
Vertical clearance 13 ft 2 in (4 m)
AADT 28,000 per day
Opening date 1930

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is a highway tunnel connecting Detroit, Michigan in the United States, with Windsor, Ontario in Canada. It was completed in 1930.

It is the second busiest crossing between the United States and Canada after the nearby Ambassador Bridge. About 28,000 vehicles use the tunnel each day. The structure is jointly owned by the two cities.

It was only the third underwater vehicular tunnel constructed in the U.S. (after the Holland Tunnel between Jersey City, New Jersey and downtown Manhattan, New York City, New York and the Posey Tube between Oakland and Alameda, California).

Its creation was prompted by the opening of cross-border rail freight tunnels including the St. Clair Tunnel between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario and the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel between Detroit and Windsor.

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was constructed of sections of steel tube floated into place and sunk into a trench dug in the river bottom. The river section of the tunnel was connected to bored tunnels on both banks. The tubes were then covered over in the trench by 4 to 20 feet (1.2 m to 6.1 m) of mud. Because the tunnel essentially sits on the river bottom, there is a wide no-anchor zone enforced on river traffic.

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is 120 feet short of a mile at 5,160 feet long (1,573 m). At its lowest point, the two-lane roadway is 75 feet (22.8 m) below the river surface.

External links

* Detroit & Windsor Tunnel Corporation - official website
* Detroit News archives: The Building of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel

a US Army deserter surrenders in Kentucky

Symbol of the War Resisters’ Support Campaign / Campagne d'appui aux résistantEs à la guerre, which aids US military deserters who have fled to Canada.

AWOL means Absent Without Leave. During World War One, American and British soldiers sometimes called it "French Leave," suggesting it was a more common practice among French troops.

In the US military, there is a specified number of days in which the missing soldier, sailor or marine is guilty of this fairly routine crime, with a wide range of light punishments. A soldier who voluntarily returns to military control while he or she was just AWOL -- perhaps on an extended drunken bender -- can get through the routine punishments that are most likely to follow.

But remaining outside military control beyond this period of time renders the soldier, sailor, marine or Air Force member a deserter -- in all militaries at all times, particularly during times of war, the most serious of crimes. In wartimes not very long ago, desertion was routinely punished by execution. In all times, the deserter is perceived as an outlaw to all society, a pariah, someone who has wandered beyond the Pale.

And yet every war spews its deserters. Wars are not waged democratically even in a democracy, but deserters vote against the war with their feet.

There is also the serious military crime of Missing Shipment. When a soldier fails to be at the dock or the airfield when his unit deploys to a combat zone, he or she can expect a serious and unpleasant court martial. Military service ordinarily demands fairly little of the individual soldier, but you don't want to Miss The Boat; that's a Major Fuckup.

Desertion rates are an indicator of the state of military morale and support of a particular war by the serving troops. Desertion rarely begins as a purely political statement, although in the last few years of Vietnam, largely political desertions became more and more common. While Canada made itself a haven for Americans evading military conscription, desertion was quite a different legal matter, and Sweden -- politically and diplomatically hostile to America's role in Vietnam -- granted its hospitality to American servicemen who deserted during the Vietnam war.

Note here, however, the Army's apparent willingness to quickly discharge the noisy deserter and get the whole mess over with quickly. Desertion is a public headache the military wishes not to dwell on. This may be an indicator the military has a lot of deserters.

During the Iraq war when US combat forces have been stretched nearly to the breaking point, the frequency of combat rotation leads to the breakup of marriages and families, exhaustion, increases in alcoholism, and inevitably an increase in hard drug use, despite the US military's program of drug testing. Officially, the military does everything it can to downplay and underpublicize these consequences of an unpopular war and a military stretched thin, and sent to wage a war far different from the wars it trained for or is well equipped to fight. Rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder -- "shell shock" and "combat fatigue" from earlier wars -- are particularly high, yet the US military itself has been criticized for its unwillingness to recognize or treat the high incidence of PTSD.

A combat soldier's primary psychological loyalty is to the other soldiers in his small combat unit, platoon or company. During wartime, desertion is a severe blow to unit morale.

The Democracy Now! interview that follows the AP story has the flavor of Vietnam-era antiwar efforts. The intro suggests US military desertion to Canada has become common, and that there are private political American support programs for deserters to Canada.

==============

The Associated Press
Tuesday 3 October 2006

AWOL Soldier
Surrenders in Kentucky

by BRETT BARROUQUERE

RADCLIFF, Kentucky -- An Army soldier who fled to Canada rather than redeploy to Iraq surrendered Tuesday to military officials after asking for leniency.

Specialist [no class provided] Darrell Anderson, 24, said he deserted the Army last year because he could no longer fight in what he believes is an illegal war.

"I feel that by resisting I made up for the things I did in Iraq," Anderson said during a press briefing shortly before he turned himself in at nearby Fort Knox. "I feel I made up for the sins I committed in this war."

Anderson, of Lexington, returned to the United States from Canada on Saturday. He could face a charge of desertion.

Attorney Jim Sennerty of Chicago said Anderson will be interviewed by military investigators, given a uniform and assigned to a barracks while his case is processed. In three to five days, he will be given a discharge of other than honorable. At that point, he should be free from his military commitment and face no other charges, Sennerty said.

"He's not a criminal," Sennerty said.

Fort Knox public affairs officer Connie Schaffery has said officers had been in touch with Anderson but she couldn't say what would happen until after he surrendered.

Anderson joined the Army in January 2003 and went to Iraq a year later with the 1st Armored Division. He was wounded and received a Purple Heart in 2004.

He fled to Canada in early 2005 after receiving orders to return for a second tour of duty in Iraq, becoming a highly visible war critic and spokesman for Canadian peace groups.

Anderson's mother, Anita Dennis, said the military failed in its responsibility to take care of her son after he returned from war.

"They treated his physical wounds, but they left his emotional wounds untreated," Dennis said through tears. Anderson said he suffered from nightmares and was unable to get the treatment he needed by the time he was ordered to redeploy.

- 30 -

© 2006 The Associated Press

============

Democracy Now!
Tuesday 3 October 2006

War Resister Darrell Anderson
Returns From Canada
to Face Possible Charges

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Specialist Darrell Anderson came back from Iraq nearly two years ago with a Purple Heart and an order for a second deployment. Instead, he fled to Canada where he's been until this week. Specialist Anderson returned to the United States where he could face charges. He'll be turning himself in to the military later today. He joins us on the line from Lexington, Kentucky. [includes rush transcript] Army Medic Agustin Aguayo, Specialist Mark Wilkerson, Specialist Suzanne Swift, Lt. Ehren Watada, and Sgt. Ricky Clousing. Those are just some the American service members we have interviewed recently who are refusing deployments to Iraq. Well today, we bring you a new voice. Specialist Darrell Anderson came back from Iraq nearly two years ago with a Purple Heart and an order for a second deployment. Instead, he fled to Canada where he's been until this week. Specialist Anderson returned to the United States where he could face charges. He'll be turning himself in to the military later today. He joins us on the line from Lexington, Kentucky.

* Spc. Darrell Anderson, Purple Heart veteran of the Iraq war. Fled to Canada in January of 2005 and returned just this week. He is turning himself in to the military today.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we bring you a new voice. Private Darrell Anderson came back from Iraq nearly two years ago with a Purple Heart and an order for a second deployment. Instead, he fled to Canada, where he’s been until this week. Private Anderson returned to the United States, where he could face charges. He’ll be turning himself in to the military later today. He joins us from Lexington, Kentucky. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

DARRELL ANDERSON: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us why you’re turning yourself in today?

DARRELL ANDERSON: Basically it was -- I just couldn't live up in Canada no more without work permits and healthcare and the support of my family, while dealing with post-traumatic stress from Iraq and everything. And also I feel that I want to put on my uniform and stand on a military base and resist the war, because it was something that I wasn’t strong enough to do before.

AMY GOODMAN: Why don't you tell us when you went to Iraq, when you returned, and why you decided not to go back?

DARRELL ANDERSON: Well, it was just -- as soon as I got to Iraq, it was obvious that everything we were doing there was wrong, and there was no justification of it. And I believe that if I returned to Iraq and followed military procedures and orders, that there is no way around it: I would eventually kill innocent people. And I believed it was my human right to choose not to do so, and it was my military duty to resist this war.

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you in Iraq, and at what point when you went to Iraq did you decide that you felt you couldn’t fight there anymore?

DARRELL ANDERSON: I arrived in Baghdad in January of ’04, and it was in April of ’04, when I was ordered to open fire on a car of innocent civilians, and I refused. And my superiors told me that it was military procedures, if a car comes though a traffic stop, you are ordered to open fire. And I just didn’t agree with our procedures we were doing there, ’cause if I followed them I would be killing innocent people.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what happened?

DARRELL ANDERSON: I refused. They told me if I refused again, I’d be punished. But I was still a fresh troop on the ground, so no action was taken. And just events like that just kept occurring, until one day I saw a couple of my fellow soldiers get hit, and I pulled my trigger while pointing it at an innocent child. But my weapon was on safe, and then I realized what I was doing, and I just realized that no matter how good or [inaudible] you believe you are, when you’re there, that you’re eventually -- you know, the evil in this is going to take over, and you’re going to kill people.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Private Darrell Anderson, you came back to the United States. You were deployed again. How did you escape to Canada?

DARRELL ANDERSON: Actually, I’m Specialist Anderson, I was a Specialist in the U.S. Army. It just -- it came that -- at the time I went AWOL there was no support in the U.S. There wasn’t that big of antiwar movements, and I couldn’t get support from the military to deal with the nightmares, and the only place I found support was in Canada through the War Resisters’ Support Campaign [Campagne d'appui aux résistantEs à la guerre]. And that was pretty much the only thing that saved my life at the time, with all the stuff I was going through.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you leave your base to even go to Canada?

DARRELL ANDERSON: Oh, I was home for Christmas leave in Kentucky from Germany. And it was then that I decided with my family that going to Canada was our best option. My family drove me to Canada through the night. So I was actually in Canada before I was even AWOL from the Army.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you live in Canada over this last year and a half?
DARRELL ANDERSON: Working under the table, cheap labor, construction, cooking, just scraping by with -- I also had support from the Campaign up there. I took a -- I went to a psychiatrist a few times, but I just couldn’t afford the transportation to get there anymore. And so, I wasn’t living very well, but I had my freedom for the time I was there.

AMY GOODMAN: Darrell Anderson, you were wounded yourself in Iraq. Describe what happened.

DARRELL ANDERSON: It was -- we were in a howitzer and one of my fellow soldiers took shrapnel from an RPG, and I took his place on top of the vehicle through a hatch, and it was like an hour or so later that two IEDs blew up, and I took shrapnel on my side. And I felt the burning, and I pulled the piece of metal out, and I saw the blood. And just like the guy before me, I fell back into the vehicle, taking all my gear off, you know, asking my fellow soldiers if I’m going to die, am I going to be okay? And once they decided -- the sergeant said, "It didn’t go in. You’re going to be okay." And he went to take my place, and I grabbed him by his gear, and I pulled him down, and I went back up and stood my ground after I had been hit.

AMY GOODMAN: You won a Purple Heart for this.

DARRELL ANDERSON: Yes. I was awarded a Purple Heart when we returned to Germany. Some major pinned it on me, and there was a big ceremony and stuff like that. But it didn’t really mean much, ’cause the same guy that got hit the same day I did who was severely injured, he was up in his room, isolated from all the other soldiers, and they’re putting me on display, because I was injured, but I was able to continue. So, as soon as they gave me my Purple Heart, it really didn’t mean anything to me, ’cause they weren’t giving my friend his Purple Heart ’cause he was getting kicked out of the military.

AMY GOODMAN: So what happens to you today?

DARRELL ANDERSON: I turn myself in. I make my last stance, and I take whatever’s coming. The last couple of months I believed I was going to do a year or two in jail on my return, but through my lawyer talking to Fort Knox, they said that they’re going to release me in three to five days and not court-martial me and everything. So, right now, I’m kind of just hoping they stay to their word and I can get out in a week and start more counseling. But I don't know exactly what’s going to happen ’cause the military is known for telling you one thing and doing another.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. And we will continue to follow your case.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

driving home deep in the night Bob listens to a hymn, and now filches it

I love listening to the radio on a long drive, particularly in the middle of the night. The band below 91.9 FM usually contains college radio, public radio and, more and more frequently, religious -- i.e. Christian -- i.e. mostly Protestant -- radio, although the Roman Catholic church has ambitious footholds in FM.

Here in this region of FM, missionaries and evangelists are still battling gently and politely for your mind and soul -- there's little hellfire and brimstone on these stations -- and their most powerful tool is a body of music of unimaginable sweetness and the simplest major-key harmony, with a promise, never violated, of absolutely no musical surprises or challenges.

A young soprano with a perfect voice -- perfect like alabaster -- backed by a string ensemble of perfect harmony and relentlessly perfect rhythm -- sang this hymn. In the deep of the night on a dark country road in upstate New York, with her voice my only contact with another human being, she had my complete attention. It was simultaneously antiseptic and mesmerizing.

Here, somewhat predictably, the MIDI is impersonating a church organ.

Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling

Words and Music by Will L. Thompson (1880)


Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me

Refrain

Come home, come home
You who are weary, come home
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling
Calling, O sinner, come home!

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies
Mercies for you and for me?

Refrain

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing
Passing from you and from me
Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming
Coming for you and for me

Refrain

O for the wonderful love He has promised
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon
Pardon for you and for me

Refrain

==============

"He's calling you!"

-- Mark 10:49

When the world-renowned lay preacher, Dwight Lyman Moody, lay on his death bed in his Northfield, Massachusetts [about 20 miles north of me; Moody invented a thin, cheap, durable rice paper for mass-printing inexpensive Bibles, made a fortune, and founded the private boys' school Northfield Academy, and its sister school for girls, Mount Hermon Academy] home, Will Thompson made a special visit to inquire as to his condition. The attending physician refused to admit him to the sickroom, and Moody heard them talking just outside the bedroom door. Recogniz­ing Thompson’s voice, he called for him to come to his bedside. Taking the Ohio poet-composer by the hand, the dying evangelist said, "Will, I would rather have written 'Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling' than anything I have been able to do in my whole life."

(Emurian, p. 109)

This hymn was sung in the 1985 Academy Award winning movie, "The Trip to Bountiful," and at a memorial service for American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, 8 April 1968.

from Yesteryear's corrupt failed murderous Toll Road to the impossible XpressTollRoute of the Future: the Supercallifragiallisticexpialidocious 407ETR

Figure 1.
click maybe / cliquez peut-être

The Zeta Beam was screwed up somehow -- well, it was my fault because this time I tried to take my pickup truck to Vleeptron, and the Zeta Beam just burped and spat me and the truck into Canada, and I had to drive around Ontario and then drive home.

Which wasn't bad at all. I love Canada. I live in Massachusetts, and the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are my nearest neighbors, a day trip from my home (but you have to take a nifty hi-speed ferry to Nova Scotia).

When I realized I wasn't in the Dwingeloo-2 Galaxy, I decided to bother my old army buddy Ron the commercially successful artist -- the Earth has 4.2 gazillion visual artists, but only 3 commercially successful visual artists who don't have to live most of their lives on the public dole and/or in their girlfriend's apartment.

What do you call a musician who breaks up with his girlfiend? (Answer below.)

Ron lives in the USA state shaped like the palm of the human right hand, and we scrupulously visit one another every decade or two. I'd never met his wife or his kids. Every veteran has an old army buddy named Joe Shlobodewski, so for purposes of bothering Ron every decade or two either on the phone or in person, I am Joe Shlobodewski, Ron's old army pal.

(My Uncle who was in the Army during World War II ended up with an old army buddy who most certainly was NOT Joe Shlobodewski, but that's another story for another time. If you want to hear that story before I'm ready to tell it to strangers in Internet Cafe Sofia, the current asking price is U$1000.)

I drove straight west -- the straightest, flattest, most boring highway drive on Planet Earth. First the western half of the Massachusetts Turnpike, which crosses an imaginary dotted line and becomes the New York State Thruway, both toll roads with toll booths for which you have to stop (even though the Mass Pike is free for me when I drive west) and have an encounter with a salaried human being in the booth.

Here is a good place to mention that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is having a wonderful season of catastrophic scandals which began when it just murdered an innocent woman when the roof of a brand-new tunnel in Boston collapsed on the roof of her car. (Her husband was driving and wasn't murdered. There is a slim chance he may sue the state. For 11 gazillion dollars.)

(Perhaps "murder" is too harsh a word. The company that designed the new tunnel held the 2-ton concrete roof sections up with glue, the same kind of stuff I have a tube of in my kitchen for household repairs. Anybody can make a mistake. Errare humanum est.)

So now the Turnpike Authority is fair game for all sorts of nasty, mean-spirited, unfair, embarrassing attacks and criticisms on this fine government agency and its officials.

Among which is the way it collects tolls. Typically, when one of its salaried human toll collectors, who is somebody's otherwise unemployable newphew, in a toll booth collects 50 cents from a passing car, the process of collecting the 50 cent toll costs the state $3.50 .

.................. TOLL: $0.50
COST OF COLLECTING TOLL: $3.50
........................ -----
..... PROFIT TO STATE: $ -3.00

This is how government agencies that are supposed to be financially self-supporting work. They take the toll money and fix the highway. Huge frequent stretches of The Mass Pike are always under construction with hideous gridlock dangerous detours. The Mass Pike was built and first opened in the 1950s. It is Yesterday's Road, and Today is Today, and Tomorrow is -- well, hop in my truck, please buckle your seatbelt (that's the only rule if you ride in my truck, otherwise the cops can pull us over), we're driving to Tomorrow. Which, unfortunately, is located in another sovereign nation.

But not Vleeptron, not some planet several galaxies over. It's not very far away. I drove west to Buffalo and crossed into Ontario over the Peace Bridge. It was about 23:00 and there were about 12 Canadian border guards in paramilitary SWAT-like soots waiting for pretty much only me, so they asked me to park while they searched my truck for the firearms and liquor which Americans are always smuggling into Canada, but they didn't find any, so after about 20 minutes, I was on my way west again, toward Windsor, which is the Canadian city across the Detroit River from Detroit. I went through the skinny dinky little Windsor-Detroit Tunnel at about 05:00, and there were about 12 Homeland Security border guards waiting for pretty much only me, so they asked me to park while they searched my truck for the Ontario grow-op marijuana and high explosives and Jihadist literature which terrorists are always smuggling into the USA, but they didn't find any, so after about 20 minutes, I was on my way west again, toward Ann Arbor, where Ron lives.

Maybe later I will tell you about the wonderful dinner Joe Shlobodewski had with Ron and Missus Ron and Son Of {Ron and Missus Ron}, but this is about how to collect tolls on highways. (But Joe Shlobodewski had 2 Guinness stouts and the cabbage stuffed with ground lamb special, and it was swell.)

Back to Windsor via the bridge, and this time -- maybe around 06:00 -- the cloud of suspicion had lifted a bit and the Canadians took my word for it that I wasn't smuggling firearms and liquor, and waved me through.

I wanted to visit a pal in the Capital City of Canada, Ottawa, which is 0.883 gazillion kilometers on the very far eastern side of Ontario, and when I got him on the verdammt cell phone, he gave me driving instructions. Between me and him was Lake Ontario and Toronto. In Ontario, all roads lead to Toronto. But I didn't have any business in Toronto, so the trick somehow was to avoid Toronto as much as is possible.

A fairly new superhighway called 407 ETR makes it possible. It's about 20 kilometers north of Toronto, designed to be used as a commuter toll road or a toll road for drivers like me who just want to avoid Toronto's heavy urban traffic.

Regular 407 drivers have a transponder -- like an E-Z Pass radio thingie -- which automatically communicates with the superhighway and bills your bank account for your toll. I didn't have a transponder.

I drove east on 407 for about 3 hours; I had a full tank, a go-mug full of Tim Horton's coffee, a bag of Trail Mix, and I didn't even have to pee, so I never stopped. And 407 ETR never asked me to stop, even when I got off at the end. I never encountered a toll booth. Nobody ever has to stop for a toll booth inside of which is somebody's unemployable nephew.

But it was a toll road, and so I owed it money -- probably something around $5. And I still haven't paid it. But I will. I promise. Here's how that works. See Figure 1, Above.

When I got on 407 ETR (Express Toll Route), a TV camera (B) scanned the butt of my pickup truck looking for my rear license plate (A). Presumably, the camera got a view of my license plate (C) which was clear enough for the Supercomputer (D) to de-code the letters and numbers and identify the Issuing Authority (in my case Massachusetts). Then, 3 hours later, when I exited 407 ETR, another overhead camera scanned my ass, found my plate again, and told the Supercomputer that the truck that had entered 3 hours earlier was now leaving.

As I continued on my merry way toward Ottawa, the Supercomputer contacted the Electronic Database of All Motor Vehicles in North and South America (EDBAMVN&SA), which gives the Supercomputer my Name and Address, and the Supercomputer will (presumably) be sending me a bill in the mail (E) for the $5, to my Home (F). Which I will be delighted to pay if it really comes.

I have a hard time believing in Magical Miracles. This can't possibly really be happening. To collect tolls reliably, you must have an otherwise unemployable Nephew of Somebody who also works for the Turnpike Authority. Everyone knows that.

Notice the absence of an unemployable nephew in a toll booth. Notice the absence of a toll booth. Notice the absence of my truck stopping. Notice the absence of a radio transponder in my truck.

Every vehicle, even if it doesn't owe any money, must always stop at a toll both with an unemployable nephew in it. Everybody knows that. I'm just writing about wild science fiction Futurama Krapola here.

I told you I'd get you to the Superhighway of Tomorrow. 407 ETR, which zipped me past Toronto, usually at 100 kilometers per hour, is the Superhighway of Tomorrow, and if your Volvo or Corvette or your Yugo has a license plate from California or Mexico City or Costa Rica or Panama, 407 ETR would never make you stop, but would by now (Monday morning) mail you a bill for your $5 toll.

That's creepy. (The Future is always creepy the first time you bang into it.) Untouched By Human Hands. No Stopping. No cash (with all sorts of icky cooties) changes hands. No weekly Salary paychecks are paid. No nice fat lifetime Pensions for hundreds of otherwise unemployable Nephews and Nieces and Cousins after they retire from the Toll Highway Authority.

So now I've told you about 407 ETR, a Thing of the Future which is actually Here Right Now, if you're trying to drive past Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

What do you think of it? What do you think are the chances that I really will get a bill in the mail from 407 ETR in a few days or a week or a month? Please Leave A Comment.

Oh, and Abbas -- I didn't want to descend on you by surprise and bother the crap out of you. I'll do that next time. Promise. Boo.

Oh, here's the Answer to the Question: What do you call a musician who breaks up with his girlfiend?

Homeless.