Category Archives: Current Affairs

Pussy Riot

Current Affairs

I want to start  – scratch that – I feel it necessary to start this by disclaiming any alliance with Russia, Putin, child beating, or kitten killing, but two years in jail, even a Russian jail, does not seem like cruel and unusual punishment to me for what Pussy Riot did. They forced their way into Moscow’s biggest Orthodox  cathedral and sung an anti-Putin song – using the term loosely – and had to be dragged out. I have been told by our neutral, Western, press not to like Putin and I don’t, but imagine if  Dave Mustaine of Megadeth had forced his way into the Washington National Cathedral, sang a song against Obama – saying, for example, that Obama should be impeached for staging the Aurora shooting –  and had to be dragged out. I would be very surprised if he didn’t go to jail or get slapped with a huge fine and I, for one, would be all for it.

From all I read, Russia just sounds like a nasty kleptocracy and I would not want to live there and there is still something hypocritical about our State Department’s concern, about Madonna’s taking up the cause, about all the Western hand wringing. I imagine that Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich wanted to raised concern and outrage about freedom of speech in Russia and they are getting it. They just aren’t getting it for free.

Aleppo

Current Affairs

Today, Syrian government forces have launched a ground assault against the rebels in the city of Aleppo. They are using everything they have including helicopters and jet plans as well as tanks and heavy artillery. The rebel forces have beaten off the first wave of attacks but the battle will continue. Aleppo is the largest city in Syria with a population of 2,132,100 as of 2004 (it is probably considerably less now – even with counting the dead – and will be way less in a couple of days) and the Syrian government wants it.

It is so nice here in Portola Valley, we just saw a super Jazz concert by Mads Tolling in Pacifica, on TV the Olympics are so compelling – the American women’s soccer team seems awesome –  and Hamilton is on the pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix; in the old Silk Road hub of Aleppo, people are being killed. As fast as the government can kill them. In Aleppo, the world is like Aurora times 1,000, day after day after day. How can these people, this country, not have PTSD.

Louis CK talks about white people problems – and we all have them – but compared to what is happening in Aleppo right now, they are not real problems. Today, please, take a moment – just a moment – to be glad you are not there, we are not there; take a moment to feel compassion for those poor souls who are.

 

A couple of random thoughts on the Colorado shooting

Americana, Current Affairs, Psychological Musings

I keep thinking about the Colorado shootings. It makes my heart ache. All the victims: the people who got killed, the people who got shot and will live, the people who were there and escaped – using the term very loosely because nobody who was there escaped – the people who had to go to the hospital or morgue to identify some child or loved one, Holmes’ parents. All victims of a man who spent alot of time and energy to destroy lives.

I keep asking myself, Why would anybody do this? I guess that it is the obvious question, I guess that it is the questions almost every asks, it certainly is the question the police are asking. Yea, sure, he is nuts, but then I hold the position that anybody who kills somebody is nuts. But being nuts just begs the question, Why did he think he was doing it? I can understand the guys who flew into the World Trade Center; I have never been that dedicated to anything, but I can understand it it. I can even sort of understand Columbine or Virginia Tech, But this is incomprehensible to me.

This was not a suicide: this was not somebody so unhappy they wanted to take their life and then added as many people as they could. James Holmes – does anybody call him Jim? – went out and bought some guns and also bought body armor to protect himself as much as possible, he then went out and shot as many – totally random – people as he could. He seemed to want to live through this. He then told the police that he had booby-trapped his apartment.  Why would anybody do that?

Ever since Charles Whitman climbed up the Texas Tower, we hear the same thing, “He was really shy, really quiet, but really nice and sweet.” I read somewhere that you can tell how likely someone is to have road-rage by the number of bumper stickers they have on the back of their car. But I think that the scary people are the ones who are shy, quiet, and sweet.

As an aside, the even more scary people are like Luke O’Dell of the National Association for Gun Rights who took the opportunity to say  “Potentially, if there had been a law-abiding citizen who had been able to carry in the theater, it’s possible the death toll would have been less.” Scary because they are trying to change public policy and – in many places – seceding. Imagine that nightmare, a shootout in a dark movie theater between several idiots as a way to cut the carnage. End aside.

 

Summer Solstice 2012

Around home, Current Affairs, Photography

Michele planned the return from her trip to Ireland so she could be there for the solstice (and spend some time with her step-sister). Yesterday, she went to see the Drombeg stone circle near Baltimore and liked it so much she went back this morning at 5 AM for the Summer Solstice Sunrise. Yesterday, it was clear and green and very Irish and this morning, after getting up in the middle of the night and driving for an hour, the sunrise was fogged in and – I guess – still very Irish.

Of course she had her iPhone and, of course, she had her handy App that tells her where the sun is coming up – or the moon, or Jupiter –  and, of course, it works in Ireland.

As an aside, I have never been to Ireland and have no connection with it but I do know all the Counties around Baltimore; County Cork, County Kerry, County Clare, County Limerick, County Tipperary,  County Kilkenny, County Waterford. I don’t think that there is any other place in the world where the names are that famous. Not Paris, not New York, not even London. It is very strange. End aside.

Twenty three and a half hours later, I was watching the Summer Solstice Sunset

 

cast its alpenglow on the buildings of San Francisco.

As the light faded, wisps of fog came in softening the scene and dropping the temperature. A very San Francisco Solstice.

 

 

 

The transit of Venus

Around home, Bay Area Walks, Current Affairs, Religion, Science

Michele and I went up Russian Ridge to watch the transit of Venus. I have read about the transit of Venus across the sun several times in the last couple of days, but Michele has been talking about it for a month. Since it was going to be at sunset, I suggested that we go up where we could see the sun sink into the ocean with Venus in transit. It turned out to be colder than we both thought it would be – in the mid 40’s when we got back to the car after standing outside for an hour – but the light was golden and then sun sank right on cue.

As it sank, Michele got the picture she wanted: Venus visible against the setting sun on the lower right hand side right where she knew it would be.

I got what I didn’t expect, the wonder of seeing Venus as a round object – not just a bright star – twenty three and a half million miles from us….crossing in front of the sun.