Possibly the Best That Humankind has to Offer

The day after we read in the Torture Report about the worst that this nation can do, then we see something that has to be one of the best things than humankind can offer.

YouTube is full of cute and touching videos and I almost always blow them off whenever somebody sends me a link.  While I'm sure that it would be interesting, I figure that I just don't have time to do that for every single link that somebody thinks is worthwhile.

Well, the video below is worth 6 minutes of your time.  Trust me, you will not regret spending those few minutes of your life watching this:



(Link is here in case the embedded video does not play)

I should point out that while the musicians are Air Force personnel, this beauty of this piece has nothing to do with the military.  It is simply beautiful music wonderfully played and sung, and, well, is just kinda inspirational.

When we send space probes out to the far reaches of our solar system and beyond, a lot of thought goes into what info is included in case some other intelligent species finds it someday and wants to know who sent it.  I believe that things like stellar maps,  mathematical universal facts such as pi, and the pediodic chart of the elements are included, as well as some cultural info about our species.

In the latter category, they should just include this video.

Senate Report on Torture

From the Earth Bound Misfit, a succinct summary of where things stand or should stand with respect to the just-released Senate Report on torture.

"Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly." -- Attorney General John Ashcroft, in one of many meetings about using torture.

The Bush Administration knew about it. The Cheney Cabal pushed for using more brutal methods.  

As horrific as the report is turning out to be, it is also a profile in cowardice. There was no acknowledgement of the Bush Administration's demands that people be tortured. And the Obama Administration, aka MTAHNS, refused to turn over nearly ten thousand documents to the investigators. Obama opposed the CIA turning anything whatsoever over to the Senate inquiry, which makes Obama, for trying to cover up the commission of war crimes, as culpable as Bush.

The CIA and the Department of Defense committed war crimes. They committed the sort of crimes that, nearly seventy years ago, we executed enemy prisoners for doing similar things.

But they were not rogue agencies. The CIA and the military did what their bosses demanded of them. Which is not an excuse, but an explanation.

The release of the Senate report is a laudable step. But it is also a stark example of the shitty tendency of bureaucracy to blame the underlings for following the orders of the bosses.

Which leads me to this: We should either open a prosecution of the senior members of the Bush Administration for what they did, or pardon everyone who was convicted for torturing prisoners at Abu Graib. Either we follow through on being a nation of laws or embrace that we are a nation of war criminals. There really isn't any middle ground.

My thoughts are that since so many people wanted to hide the report--basically because it contained unpleasant things and would cast the mighty United States of America in an unfavorable light--then that's all the more reason to release it fully. 

If we are not proud of what we did, then it was wrong.  Period.  So...I'm waiting for the indictments or the pardons.  It's likely to be a long wait.

Drone Deaths

This hasn't made the national news--and it probably won't, although the numbers should be pretty easily verifiable--but an independent organization has done some math on the drone strikes of the U.S.:

According to Reprieve’s analysis as of November 24th, 1,147 people were killed in attempts to kill 41 men.

“Drone strikes have been sold to the American public on the claim that they’re ‘precise,'” Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve told the Guardian. “But they are only as precise as the intelligence that feeds them. There is nothing precise about intelligence that results in the deaths of 28 unknown people, including women and children, for every ‘bad guy’ the U.S. goes after"

Go read the whole article at the link.  And remember that every death adds to the growing list of people who will hate us.  Forever.

Cats in Art: Lion Statue in the Vatican (1 of 3)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

The bride and I recently returned from a couple weeks in Europe, the trip of a lifetime.  We first took a Rhine River cruise downstream from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Then we remained 3 more days each in Amsterdam and Rome.  While in Europe, my Cats in Art became a sort of quest for us and the others of our group, so the next few weeks here on Sundays will be focused on our kitty discoveries in the Old World.

Today's subject is the first of three lion sculptures from the Vatican.  One large room of one of their museums was filled with animal sculptures, among them this gem:

Image credit Gary, lion statue in the Vatican

This female lion has brought down a sheep, so I infer that the geographic locale depicted was the near East, perhaps today's Holy Land.  Lions used to roam there but sadly, no more.

This statue is near life sized, and the lion, well, just looks desperate.  She can now eat, but look at her facial expression, her gaunt ribs.  Life has not been kind to this kitty, and the artist was somehow able to magnificently convey that living-on-the-edge moment.  

To do that in stone is nothing short of remarkable.  Not to take anything away from painters, but if your subject kitty's bony ribs don't look right, you just let the paint dry and then paint over it.  Try that with your hammer and chisel.

In the sculpture above, simply note the number of pieces that are hanging free: the legs on each on the animals, the lion's jaw and ears.  Just think about how easily the sculptor could have tapped his chisel a tad too hard...and suddenly it's an "oh shit" moment.  Without the technology of epoxy or superglue, it was game over.

Where I Run: Jct of Marion and Swamp Fox Roads

Image credit Gary

This post probably only will be meaningful to the vintage guys and ladies.  Explanation at the bottom for the younger folk:

I ran into Leslie Nielsen this morning on my 10 mile loop from the house. We hung out, sang THE song, and then went our respective ways.

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

Explanation: the village of Marion (exit 10 on I-81 in southern PA) sits just up the road from this shot and is named after the real guy.  So who is the real guy?

Gen. Francis Marion was in the Carolinas and there gave the British fits during the American Revolution.  He was a guerrilla type fighter who became known as the "Swamp Fox."

All I can figure is that a local guy either served with Marion or was a big enough fan from afar to get a PA village and a road named after the General.

Enter the entertainment industry.  Swamp Fox was a short lived Disney TV show in the 50s (maybe very early 60s?) starring Leslie Nielsen.  My formative years....

THE theme song was quite catchy:

Image credit YouTube.  If the link doesn't play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADesK3Wa_D0&sns=em

God's Answer to the Gold Rush Crew

Last week I posted about the Discovery Channel show Gold Rush.  In that post I was disgusted that the mining crew would shamelessly pray to God for the success of their mining operations, thusly:

Heavenly Father,

We ask that the gold will just pop out of the ground.

Lord that you would show us the good spots.

Bless us and we pray it in your name.

Amen.

I just looked ahead to upcoming episodes and see that the Discovery producers will close the loop.  This is Comcast's recap of the future episode in which God reacts:

In a move that surprised even Himself, God grants Jack's prayer that "the gold will just pop out of the ground."  All over the Hoffman crew's claim, gold has mysteriously risen to the surface and is just lying on the top of the ground.  They simply pick it up, and without even needing to use mining equipment and processes, are rich beyond their wildest dreams.

And as it that wasn't enough, God personally appears, wearing mining clothes so He won't get muddy, and guides Jack to where the "good spots" are.

Oh, and then blesses all the crew. 

Amen, I guess.

Wolf Hunting...and Ultrarunning

Gray Wolf, image credit Gary Kramer, US Fish and Wildlfe Service

Seems that some "hunters" in Idaho were all geared up for a "predator derby" to be held in January 2015, except that the Bureau of Land Management just pulled the permit for the hunt.

According to The Guardian (I went British to get a hopefully unbiased take on the issue),

The US Bureau of Land Management has pulled the permit for a hunting derby that targeted the Rocky Mountain gray wolf, among several other animals, after environmental groups sued the federal agency.

“BLM’s first-ever approval of a wolf-killing derby on public lands undermines wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies and was not in the public interest,” said Laird Lucas, director of litigation at Advocates for the West, one of the environmental groups suing. 

Up to 500 hunters could have participated in the hunting derby on federal land, scheduled to take place in January on three million acres of federally owned wilderness. Hunters could have taken a nearly unlimited number of wolves, skunks, weasels, starlings, raccoons, coyotes and jackrabbits. The derby would have taken place over three days annually, for the next five years. 

Gray wolves were previously listed as an endangered species. But the top-tier predators became a political hot potato in the west after some ranchers and hunters felt that environmental groups didn’t live up to their end of a bargain struck in the 1990s when the wolves were re-introduced. Since, the debate surrounding gray wolves has become increasingly polarized.

Two things strike me: first, on the admin side, that the BLM ever approved the notion in the first place.  Then they backpedaled and didn't rescind the approval because it's a dreadful and horrid idea; no, they cited some problem with the application paperwork.  Gutless.

But of course the second thing that strikes me is why on earth there are some "hunters" who even think that this is appropriate?  "Let's go see how many critters you can kill in a given period.  We'll even award prize money!"

On things environmental, you have only to check with Aldo Leopold to get some understanding.  In the ecologic masterpiece A Sand County Almanac, Leopold actually writes about killing a wolf in the early 1900s.  Him, personally.  

Here's a excerpt, as posted on the Eco-Action site:

My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

Leopold came to realize the ecological error of wiping out the top predator.  But moreover, he realized the profound moral error of doing so, of killing something, well, just because you could.  

The link to Ultrarunning is pretty obvious: the chance to see a wolf in the backcountry.  But again, we have two levels: the higher level linkage is that you live and let live simply because you love life and on some level you just know in your heart of hearts that critters do too.

My Toy Train Group Saves the Day!

The following exchange appeared on my Yahoo Marx Trains group list serve last week (obviously the spammers send to everyone in the victim's address book). 

I tidied up the names and emails: 

3a 

From Bill M...Help!! 

Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:26 pm (PST) . Posted by: 

Bill M

Hello,

 I Hope you get this on time, Family and  i made a trip to Kiev, Ukraine and had my bag stolen from me with my passport and personal effects therein. The embassy has just issued me a temporary passport but I have to pay for a ticket and settle my hotel bills with the Manager. I have made contact with my bank but it would take me 3-5 working days to access funds in my account, the bad news is my flight will be leaving very soon but I am having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave until I settle the bills, I need your help/LOAN financially and I promise to make the refund once I get back home, you are my last resort and hope, Please let me know if I can count on you and I need you to keep checking your email because it's the only way I can reach you. I owe you.

Regards,
Bill M

3b 

Re: From Bill M...Help!! 

Thu Nov 27, 2014 12:13 am (PST) . Posted by: 

Paul Y 

Good news, Bill!

We have gotten together and sold all of our tinplate trains to pay your
bills. It didn't come to enough money, but luckily, we just got word from a
lawyer in Uganda that we have just inherited a huge fortune there from a
relative there we never met. We wired the proceeds of the train money to the
lawyer who promises to get us the fortune as soon as possible. Tell the
manager of your hotel that the money is coming. Sit tight. Don't move a
muscle. We promise to get back to you real soon. Honest.

Regards,
Paul Y