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Archives: September 2007
30 Sep 2007, Comments Off on Animeme
Animeme
Tigtog tagged me…
An interesting animal I had
When I was about eleven, my best friend and I decided to keep rats. Our parents were soooooo forbearing. Mine was called (unimaginatively) Ruth, and I can't remember my friend's rat's name. They were white albino rats, and they had gentle and patient personalities- putting up with being carried everywhere, for instance. I only ever got bitten once, and that was my fault.
Our school had a St Trinian's-style blazer and one day we thought it would be fun to take our rats to school in our pockets. We took them out halfway through a class, and cleared the classroom. What brats. I don't remember how much detention we got.
When the fashion for keeping rats surfaced in the punk era, I felt gently nostalgic, but my ratty days were over.
An interesting animal I ate
If reptiles count, Snake soup, in a spooky little alleyway in Taipei. It was supposed to be for men, but I tried some anyway. As they always say, it tasted like chicken.
I've got to defer to Bora, though, who passed this meme on – I've never gelded a horse and eaten the, er, results.
An interesting animal in the museum
When little I was taken to the Adelaide Museum quite often and I loved the giant whale skeletons which at that time filled the large windows in the front facade of the building (My memory might be quite wrong, but that's how I remember it.) We had a copy of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories at home, an old edition with spoooooky illustrations. The whale skeletons reminded me of those illustrations, especially in the story How the Whale got his throat.
Googling, I find that "The South Australian Museum has the most technologically advanced facility for the preparation of animal bones in the Southern Hemisphere."
An interesting thing I did with or to an animal
This heading sounds vaguely indecent. Can I count birds? As a child, I became obsessed with falconry after reading The Once and Future King and a little-known, fascinating american children's book called My Side of the Mountain. There was as much opportunity to learn falconry in 1960s Adelaide as there would be to fly to the moon, but one year my father had a temporary job change which meant that we spent the best part of the year in rural Oxfordshire. Touristing about, we happened to visit Chilham Castle in Kent, where Alan Oswald kept the art of falconry alive and gave public displays. That led to three wonderful weeks learning to handle hawks, a very sweet owl, a Wahlburg's eagle called Wally, and (once) a terrifying spanish Imperial eagle called, unromantically, Bugsy. I loved the technicality of it; the gloves, the jesses, the complicated rules.
Wally belonged to a little girl called Emma who went on to make falconry her profession and went to the Emirates to handle the princelings' hawks for them. I lost interest in later life after thinking through the animal welfare issues, both for the captive predators and their prey, and the impossibility of maintaining this demanding pursuit in a busy urban working environment (Kes notwithstanding).
An interesting animal in its natural habitat
When do we get to see animals in their natural habitat? Ususally only in documentaries, because when I see them in the flesh it's usually in the interstices between the natural, the natural-corrrupted-by-urban, and the man-made habitat. The beautiful chocolate-coloured wallabies in our local Organ Pipes national park are hopping around an environment that was degraded in the twentieth century and has been restored to a simulacrum of its natural state from the 1970s. There is the echidna which grumpily digs itself straight down into the sandy soil in the car park of the surf beach, as you scrabble for your camera to try and capture it. There are the possums and bats who argue and bicker in the gum trees next to our suburban house at night. There's the wombat who calmly stumps around the campsite at Wilson's Promontory. And what about the peregrine falcons who live in the concrete-and-glass canyons of the CBD, nesting in the tops of skyscrapers and feeding on the pigeons which are themselves brought there by the human activity? Some animals and birds eat scraps from the humans' diet, and almost all of them live in a habitat which has been shaped by people. Logging, land clearing and development destroys more of their "natural" habitat every year.
The line between natural and man-made, after all, has always been blurred in a country which until 220 years ago, had an indigenous culture living off the land for tens of thousands of years.
So with all those hedges and caveats, as an-interesting-animal-in-its-natural-habitat, I recommend the dingo, Australia's largest carnivore, a native dog who may have come to this country thousands of years ago in canoes from the Indonesian archipelago; a ghostly creature who will follow you just out of sight, a presence felt rather than seen in the landscape. If you camp out in the inland, they howl in packs together at night, an eerie sound which amplifies the loneliness of that country. They are also very likely doomed, as the burgeoning population of feral domestic dogs can't be prevented from diluting their gene pool.
It would round off this post nicely to mention that my rat-owning friend Anne (Annie) Taylor grew up to study and make art about dingoes. I can't find much more about her work on Google to show you; sadly, she didn't have much of a web presence when she died. Dingoes are more appreciated now, I think, rather than just treated as baby-eating vermin- although we might not be able to save them, unless by some high-tech DNA saving technique – and I like to think she played some part in that.
They'll hate me for it, but I'm tagging Link, Barista and Bernice.
albino rats, animal bones, once and future king, rudyard kipling, snake soup, whale skeletons
27 Sep 2007, Comments Off on School Bullies
School Bullies
There are quite a few very nasty examples of corporate bullying about at the moment, but I think this takes the prize.
Catholic schools have been urged to withdraw their support from Amnesty International, after the human rights group changed its neutral stance on abortion.
The director of the Catholic Education Office, Stephen Elder, yesterday wrote to principals at all 328 Catholic schools in the Melbourne archdiocese, advising them to cut their longstanding ties with the organisation.
The letter called on schools to "convey their disappointment" to the organisation, after the human rights group decided earlier this year to ditch its long-held neutral stance on reproductive rights and lobby governments to decriminalise abortion."
As many people have pointed out before me, when it comes to taking away lives, it's hard to beat these pro-lifers. In some areas, an abortion is forbidden even for an ectopic pregnancy, which, as you'll know, usually means the death of the mother. Catholic doctrine on abortion kills women, full stop.
We're not even talking about universal abortion rights, which, as everybody knows, would lead to Girls gone Wild having abortion parties just for the hell of it.
The group will now campaign for the abortion rights of women who have become pregnant through rape or incest.
…One impetus for the change is the fact that rape is now acknowledged as a widely-used weapon of war in many of the countries where Amnesty operates.
It's only possible to take the Vatican's line on abortion if you privilege an unborn foetus over a real, live, breathing woman. The fact that many already-born women and girls are condemned to death by this doesn't seem to worry the likes of Stephen Elder. It's made even crazier by the fact that the Catholic religion forbids contraception, as well. Pregnancy as a punishment for sexual activity.
What a miserable, bullying attempt to pull the Catholic school system into line. And let's hear it for maintaining our free and secular public system.
asshattery,Gender, feminism
catholic education office, catholic school system, human rights group, lobby governments, melbourne archdiocese, unborn foetus
25 Sep 2007, Comments Off on I'm changing my name to Harriet. Or Fanny
I'm changing my name to Harriet. Or Fanny
I chose this image because I'm taking Girlchild and her cousin to Sydney for three days in the school holidays. So I feel very much like one of those Ladies of a certain age who would chaperone young ladies to Bath in a Jane Austen novel. I'm sure the Travelodge won't be as ritzy as this, though.
This is a question for all bloggers, lurkers and Sydneysiders in particular: what are good things for sixteen-year-olds to do in Sydney?
I've had some good suggestions from Facebook:
Catch the Manly ferry to Manly and walk around there
Hang out at Bondi Beach
Ice skating at Fox Studios if they're into ice skating
Paddington or Balmain or Glebe markets on a Saturday
Powerhouse museum ("sneakily educational")
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert musical (this met with great approval, but they'll be coming here to Melbourne in that week; Murphy's Law.)
Thanks for those suggestions. Any others? We'll probably be going to see the Cops. Yes, I know, if we'd gone during APEC we could have seen thousands of cops for nothing. Anyway, I expect them to be exceedingly diverting.
bondi beach, glebe markets, jane austen novel, powerhouse museum, priscilla queen of the desert, queen of the desert
23 Sep 2007, Comments Off on The kids are all right
I've seen the future, and it's Ship's Piano.
They play tunes with the old traditional influences: Buzzcocks, Pistols, the Fall, Clash, Ramones.
They write all their own material.
They are all 14 years old.
buzzcocks, clash, kids are all right, pistols, ramones, tunes
23 Sep 2007, Comments Off on Liveblogging my tax return
Liveblogging my tax return
1:25 PM: I always have problems with the question on page 1: Will you need to lodge an Australian tax return in the future?
Jeez, I dunno. I always tick Yes, because I intend to be still alive and compos mentis and employed next year. But who knows if they'll be around to lodge an Australian tax return the following year? Life is precarious. What if I'm knocked off my bike (that's assuming I get on it enough to be knocked off it) under the wheels of one of the B-doubles that our new local MP won't be banning from our local roads? What if I have a massive great haemorrhage or an unfortunate car accident and I'm in a persistent vegetative state?
Unfortunately, the only options are binary, or rather, quadrinary. Yes, no, don't know, and last return. There is no text option for long philosophical discussions.
2:00: Do you think I'm being too anal putting $460 in the Supplementary section against Personal Services income (PSI) for occasional services rendered to Tess Mckenna at the Brunswick Green?
2:18: 20% Tax offset on net medical expenses over the threshold amount
You'd think they'd find it in their hearts to put in brackets what the threshold amount actually is.
Murphy's law says I've managed to lose the booklet for the supplementary section. A search on the ATO website for "medical expenses threshold" comes up No pages match your criteria.
4:15: Abandon the Deductions for now. I've done everything else on the Tax return, now for middle-class welfare family tax benefit.
Spouse details:
Spouse number 1
Dear God, how many am I supposed to have? Surely one's enough.
The garden needs a water. This is NO WAY an attempt to procrastinate.
Tomorrow for sure.
compos mentis, family tax benefit, occasional services, persistent vegetative state, supplementary section, unfortunate car accident
21 Sep 2007, Comments Off on Friday dog blogging: I haz a bucket
Friday dog blogging: I haz a bucket
Niece's Australian bulldog puppy. Squee!
I'll get her to send me another one showing her lovely face with the splotch of brown over one eye.
Her name's Bessa, after the brick, evidently.
Friday,Stuff
australian bulldog, bessa, bulldog, niece, puppy, splotch
17 Sep 2007, Comments Off on How soft have we become
How soft have we become
When scraping off last year's rego sticker and putting on this year's is a job I so dread that I put it off until September?
job, rego
16 Sep 2007, Comments Off on Someone spifflicate that whinger
Someone spifflicate that whinger
Someone on Crackbook asked: "What's your favourite word?" One of the replies was spifflicate.
When I was growing up, my Dad would often threaten to spifflicate me or my brother if we didn't get a move on and, well, do whatever. Or conversely, stop doing whatever it was we were doing. I hadn't heard it used in any other context, so up to that day I'd thought that it was a nonsense word he'd invented.
If I'd thought about it more I would have decided that this wasn't very likely, as my Dad wasn't a consumer of nonsense literature at all. But it turns out that the word comes, not from Lear or Carroll, but from the very kind of Manly Fiction which he enjoyed. After doing a double-take on finding out that spifflicate was a real world, of course, I googled.
Everything.com:
Originally spelled spiflicate, the basic meaning is one of hurt or harm, even to the point of death, and was originally coined some time in the 18th century. Possibly a conflation word, from stifle, suffocate, spill and castigate, it quickly developed from meaning "confound, silence or dumbfound" through a reference to rough treatment, and thence came to mean the bringing of death or destruction.
Examples from Everything.com and Languagehat:
I won't tell ye a second time – hand me that stick, or I'll spifflicate ye" – Ernest Seton
Of the enemy, about 500 were killed, and more than 1500 made prisoners; and of the remainder, who made their escape over the walls, the greater part were cut down by the Dragoons, or spifflicated by the Lancers. – T.W.E. Holdsworth, 1840
So out with your whinger at once, and scrag Jane, while I spiflicate Johnny! – Ingoldsby Legends, 1856
The next generation of use softened the meaning and the threat somewhat, and by about 1900 it could be used in a wholly comic way to threaten punishment of unknown nature and extent, especially of children. Although the meaning was generally some sort of spanking, in our family, it had the meaning of a severe tickling, and to be threatened with spifflication meant one was in for a breathless, giggling few minutes.
But What's a whinger? I did some more googling.
Whing´er
n.	1.	A kind of hanger or sword used as a knife at meals and as a weapon.
The chief acknowledged that he had corrected her with his whinger.
– Sir W. Scott.
Well, who'd have thought? I always thought it meant someone who was always moaning. And corrected her with his whinger sounds a little, er, extreme.
But I digress. In America, spifflicated came to mean drunk, plastered, pissed as a newt, boiled as an owl.
They forced his teeth open, and, while a couple of them sat on his chest, they poured about a quart of corn liquor into his system. He was so spifflicated before they let him up that they had to lift him bodily and plant him in a seat. – Washington Post, 1904.
And it took me this long to find all this out. English is a very, very strange language.
dumbfound, ingoldsby legends, nonsense word, rough treatment, scrag, time hand
14 Sep 2007, Comments Off on More people I won't be voting for
More people I won't be voting for
I wish I had the fireworkz skillz to align the name of our district properly… but I think the skewwhiffness of it goes OK with the Royston Vasey ambience.
Our local by-election has thrown up the usual assortment of crazies and single-issue independents. There was a handy guide in our local paper. Here are some of the lowlights:
Vern Hughes, DLP. Vern's a character. He ran for the last election as a founding member of "People Power", which, to me, sounded suspiciously populist. A little investigation revealed he'd formed PP with Steven Mayne, who most people know as the founder of Crikey. This alliance seems to have fallen apart fairly quickly.
Vern is a passionate wonk whose hobby is starting up Institutes and Foundations and other kinds of thinktanks. He sure has a shitload of 'em. He's the Executive Director of Social Enterprise Partnerships, Development Manager of the Social Entrepreneurs Network, and now Director of the Centre for Civil Society. He seems to have a strong focus on disability and carers, but he's apparently a card-carrying member of the IPA and thinks that communities should have the right to opt out of Medicare, so I wouldn't really want to let him within cooee of actual public policy.
This time, Vern has chosen to hitch his wagon to the (unfortunately) resurgent DLP. I really don't know what to make of this guy; his affiliations are all over the place. The only consistent impression I get is do. not. want.
But at least he's a local.
The same can't be said of young Veronica Hayes of Family First.
Veronica Hayes is a Camberwell nurse who believes her party can make a difference.
Camberwell!? Are you shittin' me?
The 24-year-old says Family First is the only party that has its attention firmly on what is most important to families and "everyday people".
Sly and the Family First!
"People here have been taken granted (sic) for too long," she said. Ms Hayes' goals for Williamstown include improving housing affordability by abolishing stamp duty for first-time home buyers, getting the pokies out of neighbourhoods and limiting them to the casino and country racetracks, and increasing funding for respite care.
And a burgeoning gay and lesbian community, as well as a lot of renters and would be first home buyers who'll only lose out again when the abolition of stamp duty pushes up the prices of houses again. Nice idea about the pokies and the respite care, Veronica, but please fuck off back to your leafy Eastern suburb and do not try to foist your idea of the nuclear family on us Westies.
There is nothing whatever about Ms Hayes on Google. She appears to have no life prior to running for office, and I'm sure Family First prefers it that way. She's not even mentioned anywhere on their website, a day before the election. Damned poor show, FF!
I know I sound ageist; I don't want to be, honest. They just keep sending us the wrong 24-year-olds. If one of my under-30 bloggy must-reads decided to run for office, I'd vote for them in a flash. Unless they lived in Camberwell.
Then there's the usual motley collection of independents – most of them more or less nice people, some of them rusted-on council apparatchiks, some of them enthusiastic wonks with no hope of getting their bums anywhere close to the seat of Williamstown.
I'll vote for Rice at the primary school and buy a cake at the cake stall.
Update 15/09/2007: I told the Labor how-to-vote card holder exactly why I didn't vote for them. I kind of regret doing the same to the Family First spruiker, as she looked about 15. But, really.
And: No cake stall!!1! What is happening to this country?
cooee, entrepreneurs network, everyday people, little investigation, lowlights, royston vasey
13 Sep 2007, Comments Off on This is a local post for local people. There's nothing for you here!
This is a local post for local people. There's nothing for you here!
Bouncing off Barista's post about the by-election in his electorate, Melbourne Ports: we have one next weekend too, in Williamstown. We're the electorate which used to belong to Bracksy before his resignation.
Williamstown is a safe Labor seat, a very safe seat, and there's no Liberal candidate standing. (This isn't the seat young Hamish got the boot from – this is State, he was feral. Sorry, Federal.) The Labor candidate is Wade Noonan of the Transport Workers Union, who has been parachuted in by Labor. This is a slap in the face to the people who live in the electorate – they have been trying to get trucks (monster B-doubles, container trucks and tankers) to keep out of the residential areas for years now.
I was never going to vote Labor anyway. They've been shitting me mightily lately; Tim Pallas' arrogant refusal to even consider converting St Kilda road to allow for more bicycle lanes; Lynne Kosky's handling of the decaying public transport infrastructure, and the government's intention not to take back the public transport system, but instead stay with the discredited Connex corporation; the murky relationship between Labor, the CFMEU and the loggers and woodchippers; the continual privileging of roads and freeways over public transport, and Brumby, as the Murdochistas excitingly put it, crushing the proposed car-free day in the Melbourne CBD. They're Liberal Lite, just like their federal counterparts. Oh, yes – did I mention their dirt campaign against the Green candidates?
We've received four. bloody. letters. each from Labor at our house – one each, so that's eight – supposedly from the premier John Brumby, but authorisedintinylittlelettersatthebottom from S. Newnham of 360 King st. West Melbourne. Four each! Talk about overkill. (Who's paying for it?). Barista has also received a letter from these tree-killers purporting to be from Sue Loukomitis, claiming that the Greens want to "close down" MacRobertson High school, a selective secondary school nearby. Strangely enough, that's also authorisedintinylittlelettersatthebottom by S. Newnham, also of 360 King St. West Melbourne.
A few weeks ago I came across a grubby little website. It's an astroturf site which is made to look like some kind of grass roots radical's homemade effort, but which in fact is the work of – you guessed it – authorisedintinylittlelettersatthebottom by S. Newnham, of 360 King st. (If you're incensed by this nasty little piece of work, don't bother clicking on Comments – it's a shell of a "blog". Comments are disabled. Of course.) Greens-Liberal-deal.com.au (hmm, that'll catch on with the yoof all right) is linked to some local batshit crazies via this site.
Barista sez:
[Newnham] is the State Secretary of the Australian Labor Party, an organisation that seems temporarily to have lost both its name and logo.
That nice Greg Combet, now standing for federal parliament after being an ACTU hero, sent me a letter today as well, endorsing the local ALP candidate. The slightly eccentric layout of that letter is identical to this one. It was also authorised by Mr Newnham, who still can't find a logo. The Combet letter is folksy and nice, with his photo on it, and its clear what he wants and where he comes from. It contains this sentence:
"The commitment to decency and justice is what defines a good society."
Well put, comrade. Do you think you could maybe find these sleazebags who sent me that smeary letter and tell them to fuck off where they came from, so I can vote for the ALP now and in the federal election without feeling sick?
'Fraid I can't.
There's more about the dirt campaign here.
Politics,public nuisances
john brumby, lynne kosky, melbourne cbd, public transport infrastructure, public transport system, transport workers union


drafted and signed professional contracts.
ball or they are continuing with their education with summer classes.
Mariners minor league affiliate, the Everett AquaSox.
and throughout the Pacific International League.
The team also conducts a free youth baseball camp each summer for the community.


Ask a person to explain the universe is and guaranteed you'll receive an answer just as expansive. Frustrating to conceive of an area that defies convention. For that's what it is: an enigma.
Sure, scientists the world over have struggled to define just exactly what it is that the Earth inhabits and how it came about to be. Mathematical calculations summarize what is perceived to be forces governing its structure, but as soon as one explanation arises, another takes its place.
Take, for instance, the recent talk about finding traces of waves of the original big bang isn't all it seemed to be. Could be interstellar dust, although optimism remains that perhaps evidence of the Big Bang is still present in the astronomer's findings. And not to discount their discovery, because if they truly do find remnants of all that is, ever was and will be, my God, that's like touching the face of eternity.
Though I'm not a scientist, I do wonder how an event so enormous, so unfathomable to most mortals, could have left a trail of crumbs in its wake. It has been determined that the universe began 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years ago, more or less. That's all calculation, the only tool available to determine its age. It's also calculated that the observable universe is 48 billion light years in size. Nothing to sneeze at, of course. These numbers are only the result of of the logic of numbers and not the result of a person who stood at the rim and said, "Well, then, here we are…at the end." Unless, of course, you're a person named Doug who's actually hitchhiked your way from one end to the other. In my opinion, he's in a place to know at present, but he's not giving up his secrets anytime soon.
My mind shuts down when I contemplate the enormity of all there is. It gets worse when I attempt to ponder what caused its creation. That Big Bang came out of…what? What was before it? Could it be that there was a universe that lived, breathed and died before it? Or perhaps time bent backwards and regenerated its youth to live in another incarnation?
Only the eternal reaches of the universe and time can tell.


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L E Phillips Libertas Center
Google Rating: 3.7
L E Phillips Libertas Center is located in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Most Insurances
The facility name, logo and brand are the property and registered trademarks of L E Phillips Libertas Center, and are being used for identification and informational purposes only. Use of these names, logos and brands shall not imply endorsement. BetterAddictionCare.com is not affiliated with or sponsored by L E Phillips Libertas Center.
Molly Manowski, 2 years ago
Dennis Kelly, 2 years ago
Shannon Hartman, 3 years ago
The best! Still clean after 5 yrs!
Heather Fox, 3 years ago
If you need help, come here!
Todd Davey, 4 years ago
2301 Cty Hwy I, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin 54729
www.libertascenter.org
At L E Phillips Libertas Center, located in scenic Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, individualized addiction treatment programs are aimed at fitting the specific requirements of the patient. With unique treatment plans that are tailor-made to suit the individual, addicts will have every opportunity to overcome their addiction.
Just before the patient begins treatment at L E Phillips Libertas Center, a comprehensive patient assessment will be conducted in order to determine which treatment method will work best. No matter what age group the individual belongs to, treatment is available to those of all ages . In order to obtain a life that is free of addiction, the addict has to be in the mindset of 'recovery'. This means that the idea of sobriety is already planted in the individual's mind and therefore will want to work toward achieving that goal.
The dedicated staff members at L E Phillips Libertas Center are committed to the recovery of the patient and will do everything in their power to help them throughout this trying time. Reaching personal life goals is possible but it requires the addict to kick the habit of abusing drugs and alcohol in order to obtain them. This is exactly why facilities for addiction treatment exist.
There is no reason that treatment shouldn't begin today, so contact L E Phillips Libertas Center and discuss the various treatment options today. Breaking the cycle of addiction is difficult which is why treatment facilities are here to help. Typically speaking, addicts fail when it comes to seeking treatment on their own as not all facilities out there are as reputable as others. At L E Phillips Libertas Center, the staff is dedicated to helping their patients succeed in recovery. It's never too late to seek help and assistance with drug or alcohol addiction.
L E Phillips Libertas Center strives to show addicts that there is a life outside of addiction and through treatment; Addicts will be able to take control of their lives. Patients are also urged to attend relapse prevention programs even after treatment is completed in order to mitigate the chances of relapse in the future.
The time to get help for addiction is now. Contact L E Phillips Libertas Center today at www.Libertascenter.Org and learn how treatment can change life around for the better.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


OH DEAR, WAS MY HINT SO OBVIOUS IN MY PREVIOUS POST? I guess it was pretty obvious, I did mention my lunch was done and ready... and er... the leftovers were for dinner unless there was an invitation to dinner?
True enough, after publishing it, I received a message from my good friend, Florence, extending her kind invite for dinner with her family in town. Not sure she read my post or not... benefit of the doubt... hahahaha... At first I was halfhearted... feeling kind of "paiseh" and at the same time, I was looking forward to having dinner with them. She mentioned it would be a simple dinner in town but little did I know they went to this Delight Restaurant... and the Food?? Wow, they livened up my taste buds!
When we say "wahhhh".. our eyes seem kind of larger... right?
They are enough to last me for one week's cooking!!
Thank you so much for inviting me to dinner, Florence!
I am so glad that I made the right choice to Go!
An impressive and mouth-watering dinner you had last night.
Nice name, the restaurant. Sweet & sour looks really nicely done.
Another bookmarked restaurant for next time!
A very delighful dinner. Food looks awesome.
I love ku lou yok! It's so good to go with rice!
Yes, and kids love them anytime!
This is really your wish came true. So sweet of your friend to invite you to such a delicious dinner. Underneath all the garnishing of ginger, greens and garlic is fish, right?
Oh, you too! Zumba lady sure can one!
Bring me makan la when I'm back !
PH, more delightful dishes in store!
So much for generous and smart friends... hahhaaha..
Wah! Your ranting and hinting very effective la.....instant response. Very delicious and delightful dinner.


The Ultimate Battle! Godzilla Versus Cats!
Horror In Your Cup! Deliciously Terrifying Coffee Art.
>> Never miss an awesome post! Enter your email below to subscribe to Riot Daily.
This Killer Clown Prank is Seriously Creepy and FULL of LOL's!


SK Telecom announced on Dec. 7 that it completed developing the industry's first open-source oneM2M-based Internet of Things platform.
oneM2M is the largest standardization body for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications established in 2012. The organization includes related organizations, research centers, and enterprises from major countries around the world.
After successfully commercializing an M2M platform in 2008, SKT has been involved in the development of open-source platform Mobius from late 2011 as a national project, together with the Korea Electronics Technology Institute and Ntels. As oneM2M announced a candidate for an IoT/M2M standard in August of this year, Korea's largest mobile carrier implemented the standard with the Mobius, finishing the development of a commercialization-ready platform.
The newly-developed platform supports not only M2M terminals in B2B fields but also IoT devices in B2C areas like wearable devices or smart accessories. It can easily search a necessary device among numerous devices registered in the platform, and also can download an appropriate app for the device.
The mobile carrier is planning to finalize the national project in the first quarter of next year and to open a platform on its commercial network during 2015.
SKT will showcase the Mobius in an event hosted by oneM2M to be held in France on Dec. 9, demonstrating that it can connect to platforms developed by global companies and research centers.


text:
On November 9th, 2012
State Workers Don't Tolerate Pension Abuse - Busted, Booked & Convicted
File a false disability retirement claim and you had better watch your back. Quite literally. Our California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) members who are investigators with CalPERS not only have badges, they have surveillance cameras. People may lie, but video rarely does and our investigators won their case in court.
A Sacramento jury convicted Lisa Trevino-Angelo, 41, a former part-time personnel specialist at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for fraud and lying to investigators in order to receive state disability retirement.
"These investigators are sworn peace officers who work full time to expose those who not only break the law, but give state workers and those with a CalPERS retirement a bad name," said CSLEA President Alan Barcelona.
Trevino-Angelo submitted for state disability retirement, a tax free benefit, back in 2008. She claimed, "It is impossible to sit comfortably, write, key, use my hands, lift, squat, bend, stand, reach, walk, kneel, complete tasks, concentrate or hold a mouse, hold a pen, or hold a phone in the crook of my neck or hand for even a small period of time without pain."
Our investigators submitted more than four hours of videotape in which Trevino-Angelo was seen bowling, shopping, cheering at a sporting event and lifting a toddler. She was arrested in 2009 and convicted October 31st, 2012. A judge is expected to sentence Trevino-Angelo on January 4. She faces up to two years in jail.
"Our CalPERS investigators are members of the California Association of Fraud Investigators (CAFI), an affiliate of the CSLEA organization," said CAFI President Paul San Gregorio. "Our investigators work hard in preventing these kinds of abuses that not only damage the legitimate claims for an injury retirement with the State of California, but damage the reputation of all state employees who work hard and provide a safe California. These actions will not be tolerated and our investigators with CalPERS will actively seek prosecution to protect the sovereignty of the CalPERS system and all legitimate injury claims."
"We won't tolerate state workers or anyone with a CalPERS retirement to abuse the system," said Barcelona. "We commend our investigators for exposing this case of fraud, making the bust, and taking this case all the way to conviction. Their job is to validate the true injuries and illnesses and weed out those who are just making it up to make a free buck. This was a job well done."
Two Caretakers Sentenced for Elder Abuse and…
Moss Landing Man Convicted of Contracting Without a License
Santa Rosa Man Convicted in Fraudulent "Slip and…
Norco Woman Charged in Financial Elder Abuse Case


text:
Q: Creating an instance of a type using reflection I am trying to use reflection to create an instance of one of my classes. The interface for the class (IInstructions) has one variable shown below.
    string[] Operands { get; set; }

I am trying to create an instance of this class using reflection that has the operand variables set. The code I have got so far is shown below.
        Assembly[] assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies();
        Console.WriteLine(operands[0]);
        foreach (Assembly a in assemblies)
        {
            Type[] typeArray = a.GetTypes();
            foreach (Type type in typeArray)
            {
                if (opcode.Equals(type.Name, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
                {
                    Object dynamicObj = Activator.CreateInstance(type);
                    instruction = (IInstructionWithOperand)dynamicObj;

                }
            }
        }

This, so far searches through the loaded assemblies and retrieves the correct assembly and type for that assembly. However, I'm unsure how to set the variable for this type and correctly create an instance of it?

A: If the type is always IInstructionWithOperand then you could declare
IInstructionWithOperand instruction;

and then assign it exactly as you have:
instruction = (IInstructionWithOperand)dynamicObj;

Or, suppose all of the code above is within a function. You could make IInstructionWithOperand the return type of the function, like
IInstructionWithOperand GetInstruction(string opcode)
{
    Assembly[] assemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies();
    Console.WriteLine(operands[0]);
    foreach (Assembly a in assemblies)
    {
        Type[] typeArray = a.GetTypes();
        foreach (Type type in typeArray)
        {
            if (opcode.Equals(type.Name, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
            {
                Object dynamicObj = Activator.CreateInstance(type);
                return (IInstructionWithOperand)dynamicObj;
            }
        }
    }
}

You don't have to declare a variable within the function. When you call the function, it will look like this:
var instruction = GetInstruction(someOpCode);

and the declared type of instruction will be IInstructionWithOperand.
That's probably a good idea anyway because it will keep parts of your code separate. One function creates an instance of a class that implements IInstructionWithOperand, and another function (or class) uses it to do something.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


During a recession acquirers are more inclined to see a merchant's increase in sales as a risk. Legitimate merchants showing too much growth over a short period of time can be deemed high risk and the acquirer may decide to implement or increase reserves. But merchants who find themselves in this scenario can take steps to avoid credit controls.
There have been a number of recent articles outlining how the economic downturn will result in increased fraud, which I believe have inaccurately portrayed the real fraud risks in an economic recession. While many make the case the fraud will increase during times of economic uncertainty, we are also seeing companies paying closer attention the books and taking measures to limit losses while sales and margins continue to erode.
Published on February 19, 2009,	by fraudpractice in Fraud Prevention.
New legislation may provide fraudsters with legal loopholes. The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act includes regulation that prohibits providing information about newly opened accounts before they are activated by customers, which could create an increase in fraudulent credit card applications.
Published on February 2, 2009,	by fraudpractice in Fraud Prevention.
Don't learn the hard way about what a disgruntled employee is capable of doing. Fannie Mae waited to remove root access from a terminated employee and almost suffered dire consequences. Managers need to think about procedures and practices to protect their companies exposure when letting employees go, especially those in payments or fraud departments.
If a fraudster or fraud ring can sucessfully perpetrate fraud, you can pretty much assume they will continue to do so until you stop them. Profiling three cases we look at the 'typical' cybercriminal, a computer savvy male under 30, and why they continue to engage in cybercrime even after being caught once before. Getting into the mindset of a cybercriminal may just help you stop them.
Many credit and debit cards boast zero fraud liability but there are fundamental differences in the legal obligations of issuers to cover fraud losses between credit cards and debit cards. Additionally, zero fraud liability may only apply to signature-based debit transactions for certain card brands – so using your debit card with the PIN at the point-of-sale may change your fraud liability rights.
Published on August 15, 2008,	by fraudpractice in Case Studies.
All too often employees with easy access to the business' or customer's financial information take advantage of lax monitoring and security procedures. Here we profile several cases of individuals who took advantage of their employer, friend or neighbor's lack of checks and balances.
Requiring CVV at Checkout Could be Dropping Sales Conversion by 40%???
Published on July 7, 2008,	by fraudpractice in Sales Conversion.
Requiring customers to provide the card security code (CSC, CVV, CVV2, CID) at checkout will reduce fraud attempts, but can also cause a decline in sales conversion. Adding this step to the checkout process has shown to cause a nominal reduction in sales conversion, but how severe are the consequences?


text:
Q: Tables with same name in uppercase and lowercase In MYSQL, is it possible to make a table with same name but with lowercase and uppercase. eg "abc" and "ABC" tables in the same database?

A: MySql:
mysql>  create temporary table tt (s varchar(100));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql>  create temporary table TT (s varchar(100));
ERROR 1050 (42S01): Table 'TT' already exists

select version();
+------------+
| version()  |
+------------+
| 5.7.19-log |
+------------+

MongoDB:
> db.createCollection('tt');
{ "ok" : 1 }
> db.createCollection('TT');
{ "ok" : 1 }
> show collections;
TT
tt
> db.version();
3.4.9

Is it answer on your question?)


Primarily constructed from solid American White Oak, with partial real Oak veneers, this substantial and rather fetching range, that looks far more expensive than it is, combines contemporary design and durability with excellent value for money.
This collection is delivered fully assembled. 2 Door + 1 Drawer Wardrobe is partially assembled.
Save £24.98 when ordering the dressing table set compared to dressing table, mirror and stool ordered separately.


Eek what have I done………….?
OK so last week I retired from work.
It was time. I started work in 1965 at the National Provincial Bank at 129 High Street in Southampton. But that's now an Indian Restaurant. So it was time.
But on Monday I start a 3 year BA (Hons) in Geography and International Relations at Plymouth University. I chose Plymouth as I live 100 yards away. So in my later years there's a good chance of remembering where I live.
Next week is Fresher's Week. The jokes have been done. To death.
Oh and on 01 November I start a part time job working in the University for one of their projects. I managed to have my interview on their annual Give a Pensioner a Job Day.
All I can say is I'm so looking forward to it! And a field trip in October!!


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text:
05/11/2020 - Public Hearing - Rezoning
Approved City Events
Athletic & Sporting Events
David L. Bodenhamer Recreation Center
First Aid / CPR Classes
George C. Meyer Tennis Center
Gulf Shores Recreation
Gulf Shores Sportsplex
Johnnie Sims Park
The fireworks will begin at 9 p.m.
Gulf State Park Fishing and Education Pier
Free to the public.
Fourth of July Fireworks Celebration
The City of Gulf Shores will celebrate the Fourth of July with a stunning fireworks display, beginning at 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 4. Fireworks will be shot from the Gulf State Park Fishing and Education Pier. According to organizers, fireworks will be shot from the southern end of the 1500 foot fishing pier, leaving Gulf State Park, Gulf Shores Public Beach and surrounding areas as ideal locations for spectators. "We can't thank Gulf State Park enough for their partnership allowing us to put on this wonderful show," said Recreation and Cultural Affairs Director Grant Brown. The timeline of public access to the Gulf State Park Pier on Thursday, July 4, is as follows: •	6:00 a.m.: The Gulf State Park Pier will close to the public for firework setup. •	12:00 p.m.: The pier will reopen to the general to a point beyond the bath house, maintaining a distance from the fireworks setup. •	6:00 p.m.: The Fire Marshal will close the pier for the fireworks show.
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text:
new-paltz,-ny
Select a City All Cities Basel Berkeley, CA Berlin Bregenz, Austria Brno, Czech Republic Chicago Cologne Healesville, Australia Lincoln, MA London Los Angeles Madrid Milan New Paltz, NY New York Paris Prague Stockholm Sunderland, UK/Whitley Bay, UK Taipei Zug, Switzerland Zurich
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Zachary Heinzerling, Action Is Art: A Study of Ushio Shinohara's Boxing Painting, 2012, digital video, color, sound, 5 minutes.
Ushio Shinohara
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (SDMA)
When Sonny Rollins shaved his hair into a Mohawk in 1958, he was declaring solidarity with American Indians. When, that year in Tokyo, Ushio Shinohara did the same, it wasn't clear what the gesture meant. An early drawing (also 1958) in "Shinohara Pops!: The Avant-Garde Road, Tokyo/New York," the artist's recent retrospective at the Dorsky Museum, provides a clue. The self-portrait, titled Danmo and Beat Painter—danmo a hip inversion of modan, as in "modern jazz"—shows the artist, hair shaved into a Mohawk, smoking a cigarette in a bar. Hanging behind his funky head like a caption is a poster naming bebop legend Art Blakey.
Shinohara soon became a media star, featured in magazines and on television programs as the "rockabilly painter" and epitome of youth culture's joie de vivre. He donned hand-wraps or gloves for the cameras, dipped his fists in ink or paint, and began
— Ryan Holmberg
Order the PRINT EDITION of the December 2012 issue for $17 or the ONLINE EDITION for $5.99.


These are not the Boston Red Sox I grew up with. After an 86-year drought from 1918 to 2004 in which the Red Sox went without a championship, the club last season won its fourth World Series title in the past 15 years.
The Red Sox won a franchise record 108 games in the regular season before beating the Yankees, Astros and Dodgers en route to the title. The team was led by American League MVP Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez. With these players back along with youngsters Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers a year older and expected to contribute more, the offense should have little trouble producing runs again this year.
The entire starting pitching staff from last year also returns, including ace Chris Sale. The only big piece missing from last year's championship team is closer Craig Kimbrel. Even without Kimbrel, the Red Sox are favorites to return to baseball's postseason.
Red Sox fans who have cut the cord have a number of ways to watch Sox games this season, whether you're in the Boston area or an out-of-market follower of the club.
In 2019, Red Sox games will be shown on New England Sports Network (NESN) in the Boston market, which includes most of New England. You can livestream Red Sox games on NESN if you live in Connecticut (excluding Fairfield County), Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Three of the major live TV streaming services carry NESN.
Disclosure: CNET may get a share of revenue from the sale of the products featured on this page.
YouTube TV costs $40 a month and includes NESN. It also includes the channels that carry national baseball broadcasts: ESPN, ESPN2, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS. Plug in your zip code on its welcome page to see if NESN is available in your area.
FuboTV costs $45 per month and includes NESN in the Boston market. It also offers Fox, FS1 and TBS for national broadcasts, but not ESPN, ESPN2 or MLB Network.
PlayStation Vue's $50-a-month Core plan includes NESN. The Core plan also includes ESPN, ESPN2, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS for national broadcasts. You can see if NESN is available in your area here.
Where are the cameras in your car and what are they looking for?
World Malaria Day 2019: What Is The Disease And What Are The Symptoms?


According to research by NIHR CLAHRC West and the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol, online GP consultations will require very careful implementation – or they won't create the hoped-for benefits.
All patients in England will have access to online GP consultations by 2022/23, as per to the 10-year plan. However, will these have the time-saving benefits hoped for?
A new study delved into the effectiveness of online GP consultations by compiling data collected at 36 practices in Bristol, south Gloucestershire and north Somerset, all of which are using eConsult.
The research found that, while patients reacted favourably, staff at the practices haven't yet seen the efficiency benefits.
Additionally, 70% of online consultations still led to a telephone or face-to-face consultation.
The study also found that online consultations have a lot of potential to actually increase workload if not carefully implemented and marketed.
Dr Jeremy Horwood, of NIHR CLAHRC West and the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol, said: "Online consultations may have value for some patients, such as straightforward medical enquiries, but they cannot replace face-to-face consultations in situations which are more complex.


If you've been wondering what's been taking the expected Fox theme park in Genting Highlands so long to open, this piece of news will likely be the answers. Looks like the theme park might not even open in the first place, or at least not as a Fox themed one.
In a recent report, Genting Malaysia Bhd. has sued 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney Co. for attempting to pull out of the agreement of the Fox theme park, originally slated for launch this year.
Genting is seeking more than US$1 billion (US$1.75 billion to be exact) in damages in a suit filed on the 26 of November 2018 at the Central District Court in California, USA. According to Genting in their lawsuit, this comes amidst Disney's finalisation of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox and not wanting to be associated with a gambling-related business.
The Fox World theme park, which was announced WAAAAYYY back in 2013, was originally slated for launch in 2016. However, after numerous delays and what seems like a soon to be launch in 2019, this news of termination seems to have thrown a spanner in the works. In fact, the only thing that has been launched so far is the Fox World Studio Store back in April 2018.
According to Genting, they have already invested around US$750 million-plus into the theme park and will also be seeking punitive damages.
No official statement from both Disney and Fox have been given so far and it's no surprise that with this piece of news, Genting shares have seen a huge drop in its value, in fact, it's the lowest seen by the company in eight years.
Looks like we're not going to see a theme-park in Genting Highlands anytime soon and whether it'll remain Fox World or not remains to be seen.


Be alerted when Gossling - Harvest of Gold (Vinyl LP) is back in stock.
A notification will be sent to when the Gossling - Harvest of Gold (Vinyl LP) is back in stock.
Australia's Gossling is quietly brewing a revolution against the status quo, all powered by delicate and sophisticated vocals. There's no swagger here, no bravado, instead Gossling's music proves the irresistible power of minimalism. "I'm interested in music that stirs emotion," says mastermind Helen Croome, about her latest album, Harvest of Gold.
The debut LP follows critically-lauded EPs which earned Croome accolades and airtime in Australia and activated a global audience, earning Gossling a stellar 2014 set at South-By-Southwest where she was named an artist to watch in 2014. Back in Melbourne she teamed up with producer John Castle (Vance Joy, The Bamboos) and set up shop in his studio called The Shed.
"It's really a shed," Croome explains, "it's a three room shack near his house, and John and I would toy around with keyboards and drums. The mics are set up to be live. If you have an idea, we put it down right away." The quick production session created the succinct sound of Harvest of Gold - nothing overwrought, just simple songs with lush textures and vocal hooks that deftly weaves complex emotional themes throughout.


Francis Cassidy was born to Mildred and Edward Cassidy on June 3, 1927. Baptized at St. Dominic's Church and raised in Pacific Heights, he was a proud son of the city of San Francisco.
He attended St. Ignatius Preparatory High School, then joined the Merchant Marines, serving in World War II from 1945-1946. After his military service, and a few years at University of San Francisco, Francis joined the Order of Preachers, where he was clothed with the Dominican habit on August 14, 1948 and received the name "Felix." Six years later, on June 11, he was ordained to the priesthood at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco.
Fr. Felix had many assignments throughout the province, serving at: Holy Rosary Church in Antioch, St. Vincent's Church in Vallejo, Holy Rosary Church in Portland and St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral in Reno. He was also superior of our community in Kentfield, and ministered at our missions in Chiapas in Mexico. But most of his life was spent at St. Dominic's Church and Priory in San Francisco, where he blessed and counseled the many pilgrims visiting the Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus.
He was a confessor to countless souls, lifting the burdens of those who sought him out to hear his words of encouragement. With his childlike heart, he remained a model of Christian virtue until his death on November 13, 2015.


text:
MCB HAWAII / MCAS KANEOHE BAY
Waimea, HI 96743, USA
MCBH tours showcase capabilities and improve community relations
Story by Sgt Jesus Sepulveda Torres on 04/10/2019
Aloha and welcome to Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH), we have training areas and historical sites galore!
To strengthen relations with local and state leaders, as well as federal and foreign representatives, MCBH conducts multiple tours a year for invited guests to learn more about the base.
Recently, MCBH staff conducted a tour of the Pu'uola Range Training Facility on Apr. 8, 2019, for Hawaii State Rep. Rida Cabanilla Arakawa and Ewa Beach neighborhood board Chairman Mitchell Tynanis.
"We invited Hawaii Rep. Arakawa and Chairman Tynanis for a tour Pu'uloa Range Training Facility," said Tiffany Patrick, the MCBH community plans liaison officer. "The visit included an informational brief from the commanding officer of MCBH discussing community partnerships, economic impact and mission statement, range staff also showcased their facility with a marksmanship demonstration."
Patrick said MCBH reaches out to members of the community and State representatives to strengthen local ties, and leave with a better understanding of the installation's purpose.
"Hosting these events improves our relationship and provides an opportunity for questions and concerns to be addressed," said Patrick. "Just as much as we want their support, they can feel rest assured that we will support them."
She said U.S. Marines assist in emergency relief efforts, participate in parades and actively volunteer across the island. Being the largest employer on the West side of island, MCBH helps input 1.77 Billion dollars into the local economy.
"It's not always just U.S. members that visit our base and training areas," said Patrick. "Throughout the year, we have various foreign delegates and military leaders that tour our airfield, ranges and historical sites. Just as we strengthen our local ties, we also improve positive relations with our partner nations."
Once every two years Hawaii hosts the Rim of the Pacific exercise, the largest naval training event in the world with multiple countries participating. For this event, Marine Corps Base Hawaii provides unique training venues to produce strong bonds and confidence between ally nations.
Assisting Patrick in planning and conducting visits is U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Bryon Edwards, the current operations officer for MCBH. He provides insight into how the base supports its operational units in the Pacific.
"We have a detailed command brief and video showcasing our capabilities," he said. "When guests are brought to Kansas Tower, the highest point in the center of MCBH, they get a 360 degree view of our base and see for themselves what we talk about."
The mission of MCBH is discussed to show how it supports and helps train units, said Edwards. He added that there is much more to see than just MCBH.
"Marine Corps Base Hawaii is more than just what is on this Peninsula, we have property across Oahu such as Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Pu'uloa Range Training Facility and other property," he said. "We like show that although we don't have a lot of area to work with, we are able to maximize the uses for what we do have. Another key factor in inviting State and local leaders is to address our efforts on environmental, cultural and historical concerns. We are very conscious when planning construction projects and conducting major exercises."
Beyond just visits, there is constant participation in attending community meetings, Edwards said.
"There is constant representation at board meetings here on the Windward side as well as more participation in Ewa, where this week we had that city's State Representative attend with the board chairman," he said. "It's another opportunity for us to meet with the community leaders and we hope to continue our growth with everyone who visits us."
Marine Corps Base Hawaii
Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay
Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay
Medical and Dental Services
U.S. Marines with VMM-268 complete trans-Pacific flight
2/3 Completes Bougainville I
Warthogs take over Hawaiian skies
MCBH Passport Fair
Reserve Citizen Airmen, Marines complete Tropic Koa ACE
MCCS


text:
The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory
T-Z, Texan Revolution (1835-1836) Add comments
NBC, 1987, 170 minutes
Cast: James Arness, Brian Keith, Alec Baldwin, Raul Julia, David Ogden Stiers, Jon Linstrom, Lorne Greene, Jim Metzler and Hinton Battle
Screenplay: Clyde Ware and Norman Morrill
Based on the book by Lon Tinkle
Producers: Bill Finnegan, Patricia Finnegan and Sheldon Pinchuk
Executive Producers: Stockton Briggle, Richard Carrothers and Dennis Hennessy
Director: Burt Kennedy
Hoping to build a buffer between the Comanche and the settled areas of Mexico, the Mexican government allowed Americans to emigrate to remote and empty Texas. The native population was soon outnumbered by the immigrants, many of whom were from the southern states, so they wanted to continue their practice of slavery even though it was illegal in Mexico. More important, this was the Age of Expansion and Americans were used to settling and absorbing an area, regardless of what the original population thought, so conflict was inevitable. After a series of confrontations, open warfare began in October 1835 and the rebels had gained control of Texas by early December. Believing that the Mexican government would not be able to respond until spring, attention shifted from building an army to debating whether or not to declare independence. However, Santa Anna gathered an army much faster than expected and appeared in front of the Alamo in early February.
William Travis (Alec Baldwin) and Jim Bowie (James Arness) share command of the Alamo, but disagree over how to best defend the fort. However, they are supported by Davy Crockett (Brian Keith), who led a band of volunteers from Tennessee. When the Mexican army appears much sooner than expected, Travis sends messages to Colonel James Fannin, commander of the garrison of Fort Goliad, and Sam Houston (Lorne Greene) asking for help. Unfortunately, Fannin is reluctant to risk his troops to relieve the Alamo, and Houston has no army to send. As the siege progresses, Santa Anna (Raul Julia) becomes increasingly impatient with his officers' failure to capture the fort, causing British colonel Blake (David Ogden Stiers), a member of Anna's staff, to fear that Anna is mad.
Once again, I suspect that I am devoting too much time to exploring the many inaccuracies of a film that no one has seen or will see, but that is what I do, so here goes.
Bowie and Travis genuinely dislike each other, but gradually develop a grudging mutual respect. The script correctly shows that most of the volunteers followed Bowie. Command falls to Travis after Bowie is hurt when he is knocked off a wall by a cannon shot several days into the siege, which probably sounds more heroic than the real man, who developed tuberculosis due to a weakened immune system caused by lengthy drunken binges. Reinforcements finally arrive, for Santa Anna, while the rebels learn that Fannin is not coming. Fannin is presented as reluctant to risk his life to save the Alamo's garrison, which is a harsh yet deserved treatment of the real Fannin, who was an extremely indecisive commander.
Bowie and Travis agree on little, but they want to defend the Alamo to give Houston time to build an army. Unknown to them, the screen Houston is negotiating with the Cherokee when he receives the messenger asking for reinforcements, and replies that he does not have an army and the politicians can't make a government, so he needs men and gold from the US. Angered by Houston's inability to save the Alamo, Travis' messenger calls Houston a coward. It is the most negative portrayal of Houston that I have seen, and unfair. Admittedly, the real Houston did negotiate a treaty with the Cherokee, but he learned that the Mexican army had appeared at San Antonio de Bexar at the same time as the rest of the delegates to the convention. Moreover, the dismissal of the politicians as being unable to make a government is erroneous. In the movie, the siege of the Alamo forces the temporary Texan government to rush to hold a convention to declare independence. Actually, the convention was held on schedule, and had been arranged several months earlier. Given the delay in receiving messages from the Alamo, the convention was not even aware of the full danger in time to save it.
The screen Santa Anna wants to attack the Alamo, rather than bypass it, to avenge the dishonor of his brother-in-law's surrender of the fort several months earlier. In reality, Santa Anna wanted to capture the Alamo because it guarded one of the main routes into Texas, and he intended to destroy the garrison as a warning to the rest of the rebels.
Making the conflict personal, Santa Anna is Bowie's cousin on his wife's side, and the two men used to be very close. Presumably, the screenwriters felt that it would add some drama to the script, but there was no connection between the genuine Bowie and Santa Anna.
It is never explained why Colonel Blake is on Anna's staff. Apparently, he brought the British muskets used by the army, and I think the script is suggesting that the British government is somehow involved. Anna repeatedly taunts Blake that his government could not deal with their own rebels, leaving the problem to him. Blake thinks Santa Anna is mad, and the real man was a bit crazy, possibly addicted to opium.
The rebels claim to be loyal to the 1824 constitution, which lured 40,000 Americans to become citizens to settle Texas until Santa Anna revoked the constitution, taking away their rights. Ooooh, there is so much wrong with that statement. Admittedly, there were 40,000 American immigrants in Texas at the time of the revolution, but the original colony in 1823 had three hundred colonists. Worried that unrestrained American immigration would transform a Mexican state into an American colony, the Mexican government passed a bill on April 6, 1830 that banned further American immigration. It is true that the Texans claimed that they were loyal to the 1824 constitution, even though it outlawed slavery and refused to allow non-Catholics to settle in Mexico. Its main attraction was that it had been revoked by Santa Anna, so the colonists could pretend that they were still loyal citizens of Mexico, part of the growing federalist movement, which was trying to overthrow Santa Anna, even though they were separatists who wanted to break Texas off from Mexico.
Crockett is shown as an old warhorse, who led his own band of volunteers, even though the real Crockett had simply come to Texas to start over after losing his campaign for re-election to congress, and joined the garrison at the Alamo to put some military service on his resume in preparation for his political career in Texas. However, the script does capture his desire to win political office in the new republic.
One of the few good scenes occurs when the men are exhausted at night, aware that no one is coming, waiting for the attack. I like the young girl who gets her boyfriend to ask her to marry him so they can have sex before he dies. Travis' servant Joe (Hinton Battle) even arranges for them to use Travis' bed.
Sam Keith is too old to play Crockett, but should have played Houston.
The film sinks to new levels of heroics. At least, this version dreamed up some new inaccuracies. Honestly, it is better than several versions in the 1940 and 50s. Please do not misunderstand, I am not saying that it is good but there are worse.
It is a pity, director Burt Kennedy wrote several of the scripts for the Ranown westerns, the best westerns you have probably never seen, and was a relatively successful director of westerns, but this was made near the end of his career.
Raul Julia clearly had fun playing Santa Anna, more fun than I had watching the movie.
The Last Command
Heroes of the Alamo
The Texan Revolution (1835-1836)-Part I
Posted by HoF at 3:18 pm	Tagged with: Burt Kennedy, Davy Crockett, James Arness, Jim Bowie, Lorne Greene, Raul Julia, Sam Houston, Sam Keith, Santa Anna, Texan Revolution, William Baldwin, William Travis
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Electricity Is the Gift That Can Keep on Giving in Africa
April 8, 2017 by Llewellyn King Leave a Comment
Photo: South Africa – August 24, 2014: African woman with child collecting water from the river on the road leading to local Game Reserve.
He is generic Africa Man. You can see him everywhere, walking barefoot across the Savannah and desert landscapes. He is on a mission that gets harder as time goes on.
His mission is to find enough wood — a few dry sticks here, some roots there — to make a fire for a hot meal and to bathe. He walks and walks, adding a stick and a piece of scrub wood to the bundle carried, in the traditional way, on his head.
Generic Africa Woman is busy, too. Her mission is to draw water. She carries a container on her head, filled with water from a distant well, to make dinner — a meal of maize (corn) porridge with maybe a stew of some meat or even caterpillar — and to bathe.
African life is picturesque, but it is not pretty. Hardship is in daily attendance in much of Africa, blighted from deforestation and polluted water.
Yet Western aid has not been easily delivered. Much of it has been stolen, some of it has been misapplied and some of it has led to aid dependency.
So, as an old Africa hand (I was born in what is now Zimbabwe, and left when I was 20 years old), I was elated to learn of a new and critical partnership just announced between the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the U.S. Department of State's Power Africa initiative. Electricity anywhere is the gift that gives and gives, but especially when it begins to transform lives of hard struggle to ones that are less so.
When I was a boy, the opening of a power station or the building of a power line were events that brought forth celebration. Electricity signaled a better tomorrow.
When a village — whether it is in Bolivia, India or Uganda — is electrified, good things flow. A simple hotplate replaces days of firewood collection and those who can read can do so after the sun sets: hygiene improves, education is facilitated and expectations soar.
When the shantytowns that surround Johannesburg, South Africa, were electrified, the productivity of workers who flood into the city every day went up. Simply, they were saved from the drudgery of collecting animal droppings, wood scraps and other combustible stuff to burn.
The colonizers of Africa realized the need for electricity. Hence, in my part of the continent, two great dams were built on the Zambezi River: the Kariba, between Zimbabwe and Zambia, and the Cahora Bassa in Mozambique.
As a very young reporter, I covered the construction of the Kariba Dam, and its near destruction by unusually heavy flooding, in 1957. It has been the backbone of electricity supply for Zimbabwe and Zambia for more than 50 years.
But in recent years the dam, holding back the world's largest, man-made impoundment of water, has begun to show deterioration in the concave wall, but especially behind the wall. The outflow has been eroding the plunge pool and threatening the wall. Hundreds of millions of dollars have had to be raised internationally for remediation, which is yet to begin in earnest. If the dam should fail, about 4 million people would die downstream.
The dam also has been producing much less electricity than it had been previously due to multi-year drought in the region. Copper production in Zambia, a vital industry, has had to be curtailed because of severe electric shortages. Blackouts are routine throughout the region.
Electricity is also a problem in South Africa, the industrial and commercial giant of Africa. Delay in ordering new generation, political interference in the decision processes and other problems, stemming from the end of apartheid, have damaged the system. Blackouts are affecting South Africa's competitive posture.
Now the government is being romanced by Russia, hoping to sell it a new nuclear plant on favorable terms. It would join the two-unit, 1,860-MW Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, which has been operating since 1984. Unfortunately emerging countries have a fascination with big, showy projects, like the national airlines and steel mills that have cost them so dearly in their post-colonial phase.
EEI and the State Department need to guide the countries of Africa to today's energy solutions, not yesterday's. Africa needs to turn to its most abundant resource: sunshine. In North Africa, Morocco is building the world's largest solar installation. Way to go.
Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: Africa, clean power, coal, electricity, fossil fuels, Infrastructure, Kariba dam, nuclear, nuclear energy, power, South Africa, uganda
Busting Statues Is Like Burning Books
January 3, 2016 by Llewellyn King 2 Comments
By Llewellyn King
Messing with history is not a cool thing to do. But there is a lot of it going on; particularly, pulling down monuments or going after other people's religious statues. This kind of heresy goes from the grotesque to the downright evil.
Topping my list of the grotesque is Nkotozo Qwabe, a young South African now studying as a Rhodes Scholar, who leads a movement to pull down the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at Oxford and, among other things, to ban the French flag from the campus. Compatriots of this ingrate have already removed a statue of Rhodes at South Africa's University of Cape Town.
On the evil side is ISIS, and its ongoing destruction of antiquities in Iraq and Syria — most recently, the monumental ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. With it, as with their razing of Hatra, Nineveh and Nimrud and other archaeological sites in Iraq, ISIS has turned to dust a world heritage: a cultural heritage and artifacts so precious that they rise above religion.
ISIS and the anti-Rhodes activists are trying to adjust history to passing present values. Knocking down an ancient temple or a statue is, in its way, book burning. It is destroying the record in order to distort the record.
Universities, here and abroad, are vulnerable to the demands of minority groups. Oxford has already removed one Rhodes plaque. At Princeton, students are demanding that Woodrow Wilson's name be expunged for his support, as they see it, of white supremacy.
Decent people and institutions accede to the inane and foolish wants of minorities to appear reasonable to the unreasonable. Princeton has already gone some way down that slippery slope.
At Oxford, Qwabe is not content with just demonizing Rhodes. He has denounced the French for their colonial and current activities, and compared the French flag to the Nazi flag. And he has criticized Oxford for being Eurocentric. Why would it be anything else? Founded in 1096, it is the second-oldest European university.
Qwabe would have us, and the people of Africa, believe that Rhodes was a villain of unspeakable proportions, practicing racism and genocide. In reality, by today's standards, he did some bad things and some very good ones, which include funding Qwabe's attendance at Oxford.
Qwabe's history is about as shaky as his gratitude. Rhodes was a controversial figure who believed absolutely in British exceptionalism as epitomized in the British Empire. He went to South Africa from England for his health and made a fortune in diamond mining. He entered politics and became prime minister of Cape Colony, on the tip of South Africa. There he seemed very enlightened, establishing a franchise that was open — as open as any at the time — and was not to be matched in South Africa until the fall of apartheid.
Where Rhodes's dealings get murky is when he financed the push into what is now Zimbabwe. Rhodes defrauded the king of the Matabele, Lobengula, in the south of the country, but saved the Shona tribe, in the east and central region, from certain extinction at the hands of the Matabele, a newly arrived offshoot of the Zulus in South Africa who conquered lesser tribes, killed the men and boys, and forced the women into polygamous marriages.
Another good thing that Rhodes did was to cut off a chunk of South Africa, then known as Bechuanaland, now Botswana, from control by the Afrikaner Boers in 1895.
Rhodes also lavished his wealth on universities, including his alma mater Oxford and South African universities, including Cape Town, located on his former estate, and Rhodes, the eponymous university.
Rhodes did some reprehensible things but he believed in the public good as saw it — that being a manifestation of the British way of life, justice and values. Obliterating Rhodes's historical role, and the few statues that point to it, is to meddle with the truth.
This same poison is at work on U.S. campuses, where student radicals bar speakers they disagree with from appearing. Punishing the memory of the great figures of history because they fail the social acceptability tests of the present is a disturbing part of the current academic scene, where free speech is under attack and free ideas are doctored to fit the values and prejudices of the moment.
There is a linkage between the thinking that is destroying the precious monuments of pre-Islamic civilization and punishing the memory of Rhodes and Wilson. The difference is only in degree. — For InsideSources
Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: British Empire, Cecil Rhodes, Hatra, Iraq, ISIS, Nimrud, Nineveh, Nkotozo Qwabe, Oxford University, Palmyra, Princeton, Rhodes Scholar, South Africa, Syria, University of Cape Town, Woodrow Wilson
The Forces that Made Mandela, Africa's Greatest Son
July 1, 2013 by White House Chronicle Leave a Comment
It has been said that Nelson Mandela, when he was young, aspired to be an English gentleman, and that is very likely. Mandela was a nobleman from Thembu royal family of the Xhosa people. In understanding Africa's greatest son, this is important. Mandela derived his fortitude from knowing who he was. That sense of place never left him in 27 years of prison or in the years of adulation that followed.
I believe that Mandela was sustained by three forces: his British Methodist education, his ancestry and his Christian faith, also given him in the Eastern Cape Province by Methodist missionaries and teachers.
Throughout his life, Mandela conducted himself as that mythical English gentleman with an innate sense of justice, knowing his place in the scheme of things — even a lifelong love of gardening. Just being was mission to Mandela. It won over jailers and eventually enemies.
Even when it seemed he would never know a day in the sunlight of freedom, that inner dignity remained intact. He said: "We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right."
He was magnanimous in victory and conservative in battle. He opposed excesses in the African National Congress (ANC), which he headed before and after his imprisonment and which he inspired during his 27 years of captivity. He was especially critical of the incipient racism in the ANC and of its disinclination to recognize the efforts of white liberals, particularly South African Jews, in the struggle against apartheid, first in the courts, then through civil disobedience and finally through violence.
Mandela was born to social position. He could have been the king of the Thembu. if it had not be for a lineage issue with his mother. He was brought up after his father's death by the the tribal regent and Methodist missionaries.
The youthful belief in Britishness as a fount of social justice and decency, evaporated when he got to the gold-boom city of Johannesburg. Yet, like Gandhi, he treasured some of the British values all his life. Also, they were in competition with Afrikaans values which were more extreme with regard to race.
I know something about English education in Africa during the days of empire because I was lectured with the same theories by British teachers in the neighboring country of Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Albeit two decades later than Mandela's schooling, the creed was the same. It went like this: We were a chosen people, kind but paternal, fair and enlightened and we are the gold standard for gentlemen. It was the glorious myth of those times, as heady as it was false.
There was no place for a black gentleman in that scheme of things.
Mandela studied law but was drawn into politics, always tempered by his Christianity and that sense of noblesse oblige that his heritage and schooling had imbued him with. He was a restrained revolutionary; but when he saw that legal maneuvering and civil disobedience were not going to succeed, he was bravely the public defender of the anti-apartheid cause. Mandela admired Gandhi and would have done it without violence if he had thought there was a chance. He advocated sabotage not murder. His terrorism was against property rather than people.
As Mandela was growing into a revolutionary, agreeing to political violence to overthrow the regime only as a last resort, apartheid was growing. Racial segregation was not a new idea, but its rigid enforcement with the massive relocation of people into "homelands," or Bantustans, was. About 3.5 million people were moved to what the government said were their traditional homelands. Cities were cut up without regard to property rights, family ties or tradition. Whites got the good parts, Coloreds (mixed-race people) a sliver and blacks got the slums with some state improvements. It was as rigid as it was diabolical. Blacks had to carry "passes" when out of their designated area for work or other reasons.
In and out of prison, Mandela was a brave light in a dark place. The miraculous thing is that he never grew bitter; he sought reconciliation not revenge. He said: "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner."
"Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrica" is the anthem of the ANC and much of Africa. It means "God Bless Africa." South Africa has been blessed with Mandela. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: British Methodists, Eastern Cape Province, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, Thembu, Xhosa
Put the Kettle on, Sarah Palin
Sarah m'dear, it's not about the party. It's about the tea.
For those of us of the British persuasion, tea is black tea. It was the tea on which the British built the empire.
It was also, I might add, the tea that Margaret Thatcher served at No. 10 Downing Street. I enjoyed some with her there. A Conservative traditionalist, she served it with milk for certain and sugar as an option.
Thatcher did not ask her guests, as bad hotels do now, what kind of tea they would like. Tea to Thatcher was black tea, sometimes known as Indian tea, though it might have been grown in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe or Sri Lanka. It was neither flavored nor some herbal muck masquerading as tea.
The former prime minister knew that good tea is made in the kitchen, where stove-boiled water is poured from a kettle onto tea in a pot, not tepid water poured from a pot on a table into a cup with a tea bag.
Boiling water in a kettle, or pot, on the stove is important in making good tea. In a microwave, the water doesn't bubble. Tea needs the bubbles.
While the Chinese drank green tea hundreds of years before Christ, the British developed their tea-drinking habit in the 17th century. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted permission for the charter of the British East India Company, establishing the trade in spice and silk that lead to the formal annexation of India and the establishment of the Raj.
Initially, tea was a sideline but it became increasingly important and started to define the British. The coffee shops–like the one that launched the insurer Lloyds of London around 1688–continued, but at all levels of society tea was becoming the British obsession.
By the 18th century, tea drinking was classless in Britain. Duchesses and workmen enjoyed it alike.
Tea was the fuel of the empire: the war drink, the social drink, the comfort drink and the consolation drink. Coffee had an upmarket connotation. It wasn't widely available and the British didn't make it very well.
Also as coffee was well established on the continent, it had to be shunned. To this day the British are divided about continental Europe and what they see as the emblems of Euro-depravity: coffee, garlic, scents and bidets.
Although tea is standardized, the British play their class games over the tea packers. For three centuries, most tea has been shipped in bulk to various packing houses throughout the British Isles. But the posh prefer Twinings to Lipton.
Offering tea with fancy cakes, clotted cream and fine jams separates the workers from the ruling classes. One of Queen Victoria's ladies in waiting, Anna Maria Stanhope, known as the Duchess of Bedford, is credited as the creator of afternoon tea time; which the hotels turned into formal, expensive afternoon "teas." The Ritz in London is famous for them.
The British believe that tea sustained them through many wars. "Let's have a nice cup of tea. Things will get better." I've always believed that America's revenge against the British crown was to ice their beloved tea. Toss it into Boston Harbor, but don't ice it. If you should have the good fortune to be asked to tea at No. 10, or at Buckingham Palace, don't expect it to be iced.
Incidentally tea bags are fine, and it's now just pretentious to serve loose tea with a strainer. Of course, if you want to read the political tea leaves you'll have to use loose tea.
If you're serving tea to the thousands at your tea parties, Sarah, remember that unlike politics, tea is very forgiving. It can be revived just with more boiling water. –For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
Filed Under: King's Commentaries, Uncategorized Tagged With: Britain, British East India Company, Buckingham Palace, China, Duchess of Bedford, India, Kenya, Lipton, Lloyds of London, Margaret Thatcher, No. 10 Downing Street, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Sarah Palin, South Africa, tea, Twining, Zimbabwe
Waiting for Zuma, Big Man
April 29, 2009 by Llewellyn King Leave a Comment
What do you call a man who is a self-professed communist; has been accused of rape but the charges have been dropped, along with charges of fraud and racketeering; who practices polygamy and has 18 acknowledged children; and whose favorite song is "Mshini Wami" (Bring Me My Machine Gun)? You may call him a thug, but South Africans are about to call him Mr. President.
Step forward Jacob Zuma, 67, who led the African National Congress (ANC) to a resounding majority in the recent election and who will shortly be elected president by the South African parliament. This is a prospect that has delighted the poor black electorate of South Africa as much as it has terrified the rest of the population, including the country's 5 million whites.
Once again, it would appear that Africa is throwing up a "Big Man" who will lead them into the Valley of the Shadow of Death–and leave them there. Think of Idi Amin of Uganda, Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who are just three of Africa's megalomaniacal villains.
Although much is known about his bizarre conduct and strangely contradictory pronouncements, nobody has any real idea of how Zuma will govern. Already he is suspected of getting a key ally out of a 15-year prison sentence, after 28 months, on alleged medical grounds.
In most things Zuma left a trail of wreckage behind him, such as when he operated out of the ANC office in Maputo, Mozambique, during the struggle against apartheid. Similar stories of wild conduct and corrupt goings on came from Lusaka, Zambia, where Zuma ran the ANC intelligence network.
Zuma did one incontrovertibly positive thing: as a Zulu, he was able to stop the fighting between the Zulus and the Xhosas that threatened to tear the ANC apart and with it South Africa itself, after the fall of apartheid.
This was not an inconsiderable achievement, considering the role of the Zulus in South African history. First the Zulus, at 11 million people, are the largest ethnic grouping among South Africa's 48 million people. They are also the Prussians of South Africa: proud, warlike and with a distinct sense of superiority. They were formed into a cohesive nation in 1816, under Shaka Zulu; and were the only African tribe to decisively defeat the British at Isandalwana in l879.
For a while it looked as though the Inkatha Freedom Party, under Mangosuthu Buthelezi, would imperil the ANC's grip on power. But Zuma, with Zulu credentials and a leadership role in the ANC, quieted the Zulu unrest and the ANC prospered.
Although for many years Zuma was a member of the Communist Party of South Africa and has talked of wealth distribution, recently he has been kinder to business and even appears to be fascinated by it.
Encouragingly, some of Zuma's statements about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe are stronger and more critical than anything said by Thabo Mbeki, the man Zuma is replacing. Mbeki was committed to "quiet diplomacy," which meant say nothing and do less. He was part of Africa's post-colonial omerta: an implicit vow never to criticize another African leader even when he is a problem to you–as Zimbabwe is to South Africa with millions of refugees flooding over the Limpopo River.
White South Africans, and particularly farmers, are terrified that Zuma may yet take a leaf out Mugabe's book and introduce race-based land redistribution and begin the destruction of the country.
Another concern is Zuma's attitude to AIDS. Mbeki famously did not support Western therapies for many years and believed in quack remedies that assisted in the spread of the disease. Zuma's alleged rape victim, the 35-year-old daughter of a politician, is known to be HIV-positive. Zuma said the sex was consensual and he then took a shower to minimize his chances of catching the virus. That suggested that his knowledge of AIDS is not much better than Mbeki's.
Zuma, who likes to sing and dance at political events, is a conundrum. But there is no mystery about the challenges facing him: his base is poor and believes in instant solutions. While it is in Zuma's power to wreck his beautiful country as so many other Big Men of Africa have done to theirs, there is little he can do in a recession to fulfill the expectations of his neediest supporters. Will he, like Mugabe, try to deflect public opinion by blaming the prosperous?
Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: African National Congress, Inkatha Freedom Party, Jacob Zuma, Shaka Zulu, South Africa, Xhosas, Zulus
Fatigue as the Ultimate Healer
March 19, 2009 by Llewellyn King Leave a Comment
I first encountered the healthy corrective of fatigue when I was a young writer for a television news service in London. I was chronically late. Every interview I did started with an apology. Every day when I showed up for work, I was late. My supervisor would look at me and at the clock and sigh.
One day, I decided that the price of being late was too high: If you have to start with an apology, you never get a decent interview and the long face of my supervisor was painfully reproving. I was tired of my self-imposed misery. I was fatigued with my own sloth. Since that time, I have been fairly punctual.
Fatigue, it seems to me, can be motivator in governance and foreign policy. Take the three great revolutions of our time: accommodation in Northern Ireland, the collapse of apartheid in South Africa and the end of the Soviet Union. I submit that in all of these, fatigue played a critical if not seminal role.
I have been in and out of South Africa all of my life. Sure sanctions and international pressure played a role in bringing about change. But there was something else at work: fatigue. The people of South Africa were very tired of their own creation. Driving across South Africa in the 1970s with an African relief driver, I ran into what used to be called "petty apartheid": segregated places to eat. As a result, we took out food and ate it in the car. But at two roadside eateries (they were few and far between), the owners apologized to me for the offensive law. The weight of the injustice was getting to them.
That was the first time I saw a sufficient glimmer of hope that peaceful change would come, as it did.
In Northern Ireland it appeared that the sectarian violence, which emerged in 1963, would go on forever. Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in barbarous ways and terrorism was spreading into Britain. Over the 15 years I participated in a think tank in Ireland, I heard endless speeches from both sides about the hopelessness of the situation in which the Irish Republican Army, the right-wing Protestant "hard men" and the British Army fought a triangular terrorist war.
On a summer's morning in 1982, there were two terrorist attacks in the center of London. A car bomb was detonated as 16 members of the Queen's Household Cavalry trotted along a Hyde Park's South Carriage Drive; and less than two miles away, in Regent's Park, a military bandstand was blown up. Toll for the day: 10 soldiers killed, 55 injured. The I.R.A. claimed responsibility for the strikes. All of Britain was on a terrorist footing, but that did not stop an attack on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Brighton, England two years later.
By the 1990s, you could sense a change in Ireland: People were tired of the killing and living in fear. Without that fatigue, that revolution, the Good Friday agreement of 1998 and power-sharing, would not have happened.
Likewise by the late 1980s, the Soviet Union–the edifice of communism with its incompetence, its privations and its paranoia–had lost the loyalty of the people and the terror apparatus of the state was failing. Russians were tired of it and Poland was in near revolt. Mikhail Gorbachov loosened the reins and things hurtled forward.
Alas fatigue is not a policy, not even a strategy. It is just a reality; a factor in protracted disputes, oppressive governance and pervasive injustice.
When, then, will fatigue set in between combatants in the Middle East, the oppressed of North Korea or the misgoverned of Africa? According to my theory of fatigue, these things are overdue. But it is easier to fix your own timekeeping than history's.
Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: apartheid, communism, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Soviet Union, The Troubles