The Eve of Destruction, 7/26/20 Update



We’re approaching the 75th anniversary of a world-changing event. Haven’t seen or heard anyone else talking about it, but it’s coming upon us and we will be talking about it here, perhaps in ways you don’t expect. The song above is from 1965, 20 years after a critical event that already had its three-quarter-century anniversary ten days ago.

July 16, 1945. Trinity Test.

Coincidentally or not, there’s yet another anniversary being celebrated this very day. On July 26th, which it now is, Mick Jagger turns 77, and the recording below dates from 1970, which is 50 years ago and almost exactly 25 years after Trinity and, you know. Are these meaningless markings of years? You be the judge.





Comments

Post a Comment

Readers also liked…

AI Fun with Dick and Jane

Image
How this post came to be. Saw this promo from the wrecked icon called the New Yorker and was reminded of a post put up here some months ago: Why didn’t I crop out the squatting woman? Truth in advertising.  That’s not true, actually. In fact, it’s a lie. I wouldn’t have stumbled on this lovely screenshot if it weren’t for an image I’d used in a Facebook post some days before: You won’t believe this, but while Iwas posting the pic just above, my wife showed me her ROFL pic from the The Babylon Bee… …Which is obviously directly relevant to the rantings of the Glasser person who thinks everything Trump has ever done or will do is a mortal sin against the Manhattan scripture called The New Yorker. Don’t get me wrong. I used to love The New Yorker. Then they surrendered it to the Smart Women, under the subscription-shrinking stewardship of Tina Brown, whose legacy has led gradually to the dollar-a-copy pitch shown in the first graphic above. Today’s mag looks a like the old one, but tha...
Read more

What’s a Little Hagiography at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?

Image
We, of course, were as offended as anyone by the President’s evident pleasure in  being depicted as Creator of the Universe. His later insistence that it was just a plate of food that happened to have blond hair was disingenuous to say the least. There. That’s out of the way. Putting aside all the bluster about blasphemy by secular observers whose relation to religion is probably a checkbox item, I believe there is a real story lurking in all the feigned outrage. a neon flash of double standards. It’s a media story, probably meaningless to those who aren’t ancient enough to have witnessed Obama’s first year in office. He was kind of everywhere, on every news interview program, every newspaper headline, and every magazine cover. (For the youngsters in the audience, there used to be things called magazines with words and pictures in them. It was a big deal to be featured on their covers.) If you weren’t a big Obama fan — and maybe even if you were — this got to be kind of sickening a...
Read more

Seventh Heaven for Hamilton

Image
  Lewis Hamilton wins Seventh World Championship at Formula 1 Grand Prix in Turkey: A stunning drive from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the Turkish Grand Prix gave him his 10th victory of the season – and, more crucially, saw him claim the seventh drivers’ title of his career, to equal the record of Michael Schumacher, as Racing Point’s Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel completed the podium after a thrilling race in Istanbul. Hamilton had started the race in sixth, risen to third midway through the first lap and then dropped back to sixth by the end of Lap 1 after an error at Turn 9. But a decision to change his intermediate tyres just once saw Hamilton drive a masterful race to claim victory by over 25 seconds from Perez. The win alone was enough to claim championship #7, but it was even more assured after a disastrous race for Valtteri Bottas - the only man who could have stopped Hamilton winning the title today - who spun six times en route to a P14 finish.
Read more

Tell me I’m making it all up for myself

Image
Haven’t been here for a while. Cooling my heels on maybe half a dozen posts for which I have content materials assembled and the writing just awaiting the typing I don’t feel like doing against the relentless pass rush of AutoCorrect/AI. Stranded, I guess. My principal emotion is akin to what I felt back in 2019, when I took a year off from this site because who can write about dread every day? Like then, my mind is telling me the Dark Age is upon us because we don’t deserve to be saved from the fate our enemies intend for us. They’re brain-damaged sociopaths; a near majority of us are just brain-damaged. Good guys and bad guys both done in by appalling lack of education and undeveloped consciousness skills at foreseeing consequences from a Universe-of-One perspective. I don’t like gas prices at the pump, I don’t like the way Trump talks so mean, and the Iran thing I just don’t get, so I won’t vote this time. Fine. We get what we deserve as a nation. That’s the real American Way. No ot...
Read more

Today’s News — 3/29/2019

Image
Today’s Hot Headlines: NY Daily News:   Vaccinate All Kids—Rockland County Exposes a Weakness in NY Public Health Detroit News: Trump in Michigan—‘The Collusion Delusion is Over’ The Epoch Times: Spygate—The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump The Week: Joe Biden’s Endless Gaffe-Riddled Apology Tour Newsweek: John Brennan Spokesman Says Trump Defenders Are Failing to Accept Reality Washington Post: The Trump-Russia Collusion Hall of Shame Breitbart: Limbaugh—‘They’re Setting Up the Impeachment Now‘ New York Post: Mexico Warns, Mother of All Caravans Headed to United States CNN: Fact-Checking Trump’s Michigan Rally The Babylon Bee: Stopped Clock Named CNN’s Most Accurate Reporter
Read more

History in Hindsight

Image
This post is a pick-up from an entry at another website of mine from Good Friday, a couple days ago. Originally, I didn’t see it as having an audience here because I don’t want to overdo the archaeology of my own work and past personal experience. But looking back is part of the process of using insights past in new ways that illuminate the present and the challenges of the future. So I rethought the placement and offer it here without apologies. The one day a year devoted entirely to death. Got to wondering, what’s the single deadest thing in our culture right now? Deader even than journalism, the fine arts, literature, music in every genre, and the scientific method. My own answer is history. I’ve read and studied a lot of history, both in school and as an avocation. As an elementary school kid, I saved a Sunday supplement that put color pics of all 35 Presidents on one sheet of newsprint and I memorized the order. Before college I got AP credit in both American and European history....
Read more

I think I might be a Grimm

Image
  A good catch by my wife is what started all this. As is our usual habit, we were watching something on TV older than the foul-mouthed, stunt-casted contemporary dreck when it rolled over into another older show called Grimm . I had heard of the series, maybe even seen some of it when it ran originally, and so we gave it a go. In the opening sequence our protagonist sees a young blonde on the sidewalk and as he watches her pretty face changes momentarily into a twisted monster version of her. Then it disappears and she goes to her car and drives away. That’s the premise of a show that ran for six years starting in 2011. The man who sees the transformation is, unbeknownst to him, a descendant of the famous Brothers Grimm who hunted down the monsters found in fairy tales. Here’s the scene I was able to capture later: Clumsy screen grab. Sorry. Don’t tell anybody. When the blonde woman did her quick change and vanishing act, my wife laughed and said, “Who knew that Pam Bondi started ...
Read more

Christmas Gift Suggestions

Image
*I’ve* never even had one of these. I’ll leave this one for one of you guys. Plenty of time to get this before Christmas. Here’s the EBay proffer for what’s called the ‘Pinback Button.’ The cute graphic treatment even includes the pin side. It you actually want to read a physical book that you can hold in your hands, put on your shelf, or give to some friend or family member who’d like to understand what happened to the Great American Experiment you can find a copy quite easily, still in time for Christmas, via the following retailers and others. Just search the ‘Shopping’ tab at Google for “The Boomer Bible” and you’ll find it. (If you’re viewing this on a tablet, you can read this graphic more easily by clicking on the pic and turning your device 90 deg counterclockwise.) I don’t make any money from your purchases obviously, but I feel like I’m doing a public service in showing you what’s out there. For example, here’s something that’s out there I hadn’t actually found till yesterday...
Read more