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incorrect-hunterx-quotes · 6 years

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Hisoka is a name that often appears in old rumors, tales, historical narratives and in many secret documents of underground societies all around the world and in different centuries.

In 1919, when the first World War was over and the main focus was on recovering and building, a German soldier found a report about the time right before WW1 in the basement under the palace of Prussia. But he was found dead before he could share these documents because of a headshot. The culprit is unknown and the only hint left was a paper with the following sentence: "Verdammt, Hisoka!" ["Damn it, Hisoka!"]. There the research about that name began and it turned out to be a person who surpassed the natural laws and has been living for many centuries. Also it is pretty sure that he is the biggest asshole in history.

His story is way too outrageous and goes beyond logical human understanding so that it has been kept secret in order to keep the balance of the world's history.

The "True" Mastermind behind major Disasters

Excluding the Greek "crimes" it can be said that Hisoka’s first deed was giving Brutus the knife to stab Caesar in 44 BC. Then until the 14th century not a single trace of Hisoka could be found. This is the longest break in the known sightings of Hisoka.

In 1378 he broke the nose of the Sphinx and blamed a Sufi Muslim who was later hanged for vandalism.

Furthermore he was responsible for the Spanish Inquistion in 1478. In fact it was Columbus who discovered America in 1492 but of course Hisoka was the one who started killing the natives.

As time went by the next disaster linked to Hisoka was the Great Fire of London (1666). The fire started at the bakery of Thomas Farriner and spread. The major firefighting technique of the time was to create firebreaks by means of demolition; this, however, was critically delayed owing to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor of London whose name (coincidentally) was Sir Thomas Bloodworth. And by indecisiveness it is meant that he was woken up, annoyingly said "Pish! A woman might piss it out!" and went back to sleep. So how much Hisoka is involved should be pretty clear.

To escape the mess after the fire he moved to Ireland but about 200 years later he got bored and decided to pull a "prank" causing the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852).

After his return to the United Kingdom in 1895 he found out about H. G. Wells’ time machine and used it to travel back in time to visit Atlantis and sunk it for an unknown reason. When he came back in 1897 he started the legend of Dracula.

Then in 1912 he sabotaged the guidance system on the RMS Titanic and 1937 on the LZ 129 Hindenburg

Consequently the ship sunk and the passenger airship burned and crashed to the ground in two of the biggest disasters of the 1900′s. Big Surprise.

While traveling from the UK to the Russian Empire, Hisoka stopped in Austria to kick A. Hitler out of art school leading from his journey to the army and later in to politics.

Later upon arriving in the Russian Empire he started preparing an inevitable plot for WW1 which would ultimately sabotage Russia, so that it will not be able to last till the end of the war. But right before the beginning of the war Hisoka went on vacation.

On his way to Hawaii he met Santa Claus and killed him (Krampus is still free though).

A few years later he returned to Germany to cause the Hindenburg disaster and afterwards traveled to France for WW2.

Near the end of WW2 when the reinforcement from the US arrived he used the chance to finally return to America after over 400 years but did not stay for long. From there he flew to Japan and dropped the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki (but not Hiroshima) in 1945.

Back in the US he triggered the Vietnam War (1946) and decided to go back on vacation in Bora Bora this time.

His third vacation resort was somewhere in the Caribbean, he stole the Russian nuclear bombs that played an important role in preventing the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) from escalating so his vacation didn't get ruined by the fallout.

In the early 1970s after his vacation he peacefully enjoyed his time by taking enthusiastic walks in Northern California and somehow gained the title "Zodiac Killer".

Later in January 26, 1986, the 10th flight of Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-99) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight. Its failure caused by breach (made by Hisoka) in the SRB (solid rocket booster) joint it sealed.

For some nostalgic reasons Hisoka was "missing" the east side so he made a few calls to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and somehow because of that, on April 25, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster happened.

Surprisingly he was not the slightest bit involved in the 9/11 incident in 2001. At that time he was occupied by a very hard puzzle of 1000 pieces without anything to rely on because he threw away the box and could not remember the picture. He started working on the puzzle in January, and after many months completed it in December.

Unfortunately that puzzle could not keep him focused long enough so he made a short trip of a few days to Fukushima on March 9, 2011 and 2 days later the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was on every media of the world.

Secretly the governments worldwide are still looking for that man in the shadows to avoid further disasters but without any success.

Hisoka’s Mythology

Hisoka was born as a mere human boy who coincidentally managed to find and keep the Holy Grail until he went to Olympus and took one of the Golden Apples of Hesperides for his immortality. Then after destroying the Holy Grail he kidnapped the Oracle of Delphi to know which major events to have fun with later on.

His sarcastic nature is beyond human understanding which can be clearly seen by his plot against the gods of the ancient times. It simply started with a prank on Ares by replacing his helmet with a hornets nest and (temporarily) ended with killing Zeus then dumping him in the closest volcano (because he was being a pain in ass) that happened to be Mount Vesuvius. So after the huge eruption of raw power of the volcano, Pompeii was doomed. Also he killed a few more gods and demigods and buried them in the resulting explosion.

Therefore he gained the title King Hisoka. His name was well known during the Hunter era but made it easier for Ares to find him. In the 1700s Ares came for revenge but was defeated utterly. Leaving only one "enemy" for him: DEATH, who has been trying to find Hisoka for 700 years. Everytime Death finds him, Hisoka steals his scythe and escapes. This has happened 9 times so far.

Nowadays the name King Hisoka has disappeared from the mainstream media. Hisoka is staying low, living on Earth and waiting for his next oppurtunity. There are still going to be more wars for him to start, people to kill, a there are still a few gods around that owe him debts and also some imprisoned gods whose fate has not yet been decided.

List of Gods killed (sorted by pantheons)

- Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Chronos, Hekate, Hera, Hermes, Iris, Nike, Pan, Zeus

- Bastet, Horus, Isis, Osiris, Ra, Serkhet, Set, Sobek, Thoth

- Frigg, Hel, Odin, Thor

- Innana, Tammuz

- Ryujin

- Xolotl

List of Gods imprisoned

- Achilles, Amphidrite, Atlas, Dionysus, Ganymedes, Helios, Hercules, Hestia, Hyperion, Hypnos, Nereus

- Amunet, Aten, Khonsu

- Ba'al

List of Gods owing Hisoka favors

- Apollo, Nemesis, Persephone, Prometheus, Triton, Zephyros

- Loki

- Questzlcoatl

- Raijin

- the Morrigan

#hisoka

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britishpathe · 6 years

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Che Guevara Executed, the Surrender of Italy and more | British Pathé To explore these themes, check out the complete films showcased in this video here: Che Guevara Executed https://ift.tt/2OhsN5n The First Oktoberfest https://ift.tt/2yn5WKJ The Surrender of Italy https://ift.tt/2Of5wRp The Cuban Missile Crisis https://ift.tt/2yoT1I1 Transatlantic Flight of the Graf Zeppelin https://ift.tt/2Q4oCWR The Walt Disney Company is Founded https://ift.tt/2yoT2M5 Einstein Emigrates to America https://ift.tt/2Og2bBm Alec Douglas-Home Becomes Prime Minister https://ift.tt/2yq6Mqd China Enters the Korean War https://ift.tt/2Og2c8o The First Code of American Football Rules Drafted https://ift.tt/2ylcIk6 Aachen Falls to the Allies https://ift.tt/2Obj40a BRITISH PATHÉ'S STORY Before television, people came to movie theatres to watch the news. British Pathé was at the forefront of cinematic journalism, blending information with entertainment to popular effect. Over the course of a century, it documented everything from major armed conflicts and seismic political crises to the curious hobbies and eccentric lives of ordinary people. If it happened, British Pathé filmed it. Now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world, British Pathé is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance. British Pathé also represents the Reuters historical collection, which includes more than 120,000 items from the news agencies Gaumont Graphic (1910-1932), Empire News Bulletin (1926-1930), British Paramount (1931-1957), and Gaumont British (1934-1959), as well as Visnews content from 1957 to the end of 1979. All footage can be viewed on the British Pathé website. https://ift.tt/1qFOeY5 A VIDEO FROM BRITISH PATHÉ. EXPLORE OUR ONLINE CHANNEL, BRITISH PATHÉ TV. IT'S FULL OF GREAT DOCUMENTARIES, FASCINATING INTERVIEWS, AND CLASSIC MOVIES. https://ift.tt/2aOWoLo FOR LICENSING ENQUIRIES VISIT https://ift.tt/oUOu3N

#IFTTT #YouTube

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gov-info · 4 years

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NARA Gov Doc: To the Brink - JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis App

In October 1962, the world held its breath as the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war.

The JFK Library exhibit gives unprecedented access to clandestine White House audio recordings, revealing how the President and his advisers worked furiously to avert World War III.

The app brings the Cuban Missile Crisis exhibit alive, providing a video series timeline, portraying the events of the historic presidential moments. Additionally, the app supplements the videos with officially released presidential documents, photos, and audio recordings which are shown at the exhibit.

#cuba #potus #jfk #potus library #nara #military

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pope-francis-quotes · 7 years

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10th Nov >> Pope Francis Stresses Need to Halt Nuclear Arms And Recognize Catastrophic Humanitarian, Environmental Effects at a meeting in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, to participants of the International Symposium on Disarmament entitled Prospects for a world free of nuclear weapons and for Integral Disarmament, promoted by the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development Jim Fair (Photo ~ © L'Osservatore Romano) The possibility of a world free of nuclear arms may seem increasingly remote, Pope Francis admitted on November 10, 2017. But he said the world must be “genuinely concerned by the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices.” His remarks came in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, to participants of the International Symposium on Disarmament entitled Prospects for a world free of nuclear weapons and for Integral Disarmament, promoted by the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, held November 10-11 at the Vatican. The Holy Father lamented that the “escalation of the arms race continues unabated,” noting that modernizing arms and developing new nuclear weapons is a great expense for nations and takes away the ability to address “real” priorities: “the fight against poverty, the promotion of peace, the undertaking of educational, ecological and healthcare projects, and the development of human rights”. Pope Francis also pointed out that nuclear weapons “exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race…and weapons that result in the destruction of the human race are senseless even from a tactical standpoint.” The Pope encouraged leaders “to reject the culture of waste and to care for individuals and peoples laboring under painful disparities through patient efforts to favor processes of solidarity over selfish and contingent interests.” “We live in a moment of human history when fear about potential global catastrophe has intensified to a point rarely experienced, since the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, in his remarks introducing Pope Francis. “Nuclear weapons have become again a global problem, affecting nations and impacting our future and future generations. Our conversations are as critical; and the decisions made by the global human family about peace and war in the coming months and years, particularly those with political responsibility, will have profound consequences for the very future of humanity and our planet.” Here is the Holy Father’s Address Dear Friends, I offer a cordial welcome to each of you and I express my deep gratitude for your presence here and your work in the service of the common good. I thank Cardinal Turkson for his greeting and introduction. In this Symposium, you have met to discuss issues that are critical both in themselves and in the light of the complex political challenges of the current international scene, marked as it is by a climate of instability and conflict. A certain pessimism might make us think that “prospects for a world free from nuclear arms and for integral disarmament”, the theme of your meeting, appear increasingly remote. Indeed, the escalation of the arms race continues unabated and the price of modernizing and developing weaponry, not only nuclear weapons, represents a considerable expense for nations. As a result, the real priorities facing our human family, such as the fight against poverty, the promotion of peace, the undertaking of educational, ecological and healthcare projects, and the development of human rights, are relegated to second place (cf. Message to the Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, 7 December 2014). Nor can we fail to be genuinely concerned by the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices. If we also take into account the risk of an accidental detonation as a result of error of any kind, the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned. For they exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race. International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms. Weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity (cf. Message to the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, 27 March 2017). Essential in this regard is the witness given by the Hibakusha, the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with other victims of nuclear arms testing. May their prophetic voice serve as a warning, above all for coming generations! Furthermore, weapons that result in the destruction of the human race are senseless even from a tactical standpoint. For that matter, while true science is always at the service of humanity, in our time we are increasingly troubled by the misuse of certain projects originally conceived for a good cause. Suffice it to note that nuclear technologies are now spreading, also through digital communications, and that the instruments of international law have not prevented new states from joining those already in possession of nuclear weapons. The resulting scenarios are deeply disturbing if we consider the challenges of contemporary geopolitics, like terrorism or asymmetric warfare. At the same time, a healthy realism continues to shine a light of hope on our unruly world. Recently, for example, in a historic vote at the United Nations, the majority of the members of the international community determined that nuclear weapons are not only immoral, but must also be considered an illegal means of warfare. This decision filled a significant juridical lacuna, inasmuch as chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-human mines and cluster bombs are all expressly prohibited by international conventions. Even more important is the fact that it was mainly the result of a “humanitarian initiative” sponsored by a significant alliance between civil society, states, international organizations, churches, academies and groups of experts. The document that you, distinguished recipients of the Nobel Prize, have consigned to me is a part of this, and I express my gratitude and appreciation for it. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio of Pope Paul VI. That Encyclical, in developing the Christian concept of the person, set forth the notion of integral human development and proposed it as “the new name of peace”. In this memorable and still timely document, the Pope stated succinctly that “development cannot be restricted to economic growth alone. To be authentic, it must be integral; it must foster the development of each man and of the whole man” (No. 14). We need, then, to reject the culture of waste and to care for individuals and peoples laboring under painful disparities through patient efforts to favor processes of solidarity over selfish and contingent interests. This also entails integrating the individual and the social dimensions through the application of the principle of subsidiarity, encouraging the contribution of all, as individuals and as groups. Lastly, there is a need to promote human beings in the indissoluble unity of soul and body, of contemplation and action. In this way, progress that is both effective and inclusive can achieve the utopia of a world free of deadly instruments of aggression, contrary to the criticism of those who consider idealistic any process of dismantling arsenals. The teaching of John XXIII remains ever valid. In pointing to the goal of an integral disarmament, he stated: “Unless this process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men’s very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms race, or to reduce armaments, or – and this is the main thing – ultimately to abolish them entirely” (Pacem in Terris, 11 April 1963). The Church does not tire of offering the world this wisdom and the actions it inspires, conscious that integral development is the beneficial path that the human family is called to travel. I encourage you to carry forward this activity with patience and constancy, in the trust that the Lord is ever at our side. May he bless each of you and your efforts in the service of justice and peace. Thank you. © Libreria Editrice Vatican

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zoltanberrigomo · 7 years

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Statistical Significance

Item #: SCP-3285

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Foundation agents have been placed in positions of power within the governments of Israel, Iran, North Korea, Japan, India, and Pakistan. At the discretion of the O5 council, a sequence of events culminating in a nuclear exchange between Israel/Iran, North Korea/Japan, or India/Pakistan can be put into motion at approximately a week's notice. Description: SCP-3285 is the collective designation given to patterns of events which bring the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation before de-escalation. The archetypal events grouped under this designation are:

SCP-3285-001: On Sep 26, 1983, Soviet early warnings satellites recorded five Minutemen intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from an American military base. The event occurred in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, shift supervisor at the Soviet command center, chose to report to his superiors that the incoming data was erroneous. The available evidence did not support this unequivocal judgement and Lt. Col. Petrov later described his choice as a "gut decision." Although ultimately correct, Lt. Col. Petrov was reprimanded, ostensibly for improperly documenting the event in the logs, and relieved of duty. It is notable that Lt. Col. Petrov was the on-duty staff officer as a result of covering for a colleague who was ill.

SCP-3285-002: In Oct. 1963, in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis, the captain of a Soviet submarine stationed off the coast of Cuba mistook depth charges for an assault and gave the order to launch a nuclear torpedo at an American ship. Regulations required unanimity among the top three officers; while the first officer concurred with the captain, the second officer, Commander Vasili Arkhipov, refused to agree to the launch.

SCP-3285-003: On November 9, 1973, a computer error at NORAD resulted in a faulty notification of a Soviet nuclear attack. Initial estimates placed the number of incoming Soviet missiles at approximately 250, which was almost immediately revised to over 2,200. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was advised the decision to retaliate must be made within minutes. However, just as this deadline was passing additional information became available which contradicted the initial reports.

Additional events considered part of SCP-3285 are:

The entirety of the Cuban missile crisis.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy (which lead to a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union in the majority of war games simulated by the Foundation).

The Norwegian rocket incident of 1995 (when Russian radars recorded an unexpected missile launch, consistent with an attack from a nuclear-armed submarine, projected to hit Moscow in under than 5 minutes).

The Thule false alarm of 1960 (when NORAD reported a 99.9% likelihood of a Soviet nuclear strike landing within minutes).

Additional █ classified instances believed to be part of SCP-3285 are listed in document SCP-3285-LJKW.

While the positive outcome associated with each of these events can be explained by reference to the laws of chance, the chance of humanity surviving all the events comprising SCP-3285 is exceedingly small. Precise assignment of probabilities is problematic, but the key observation is that probabilities of independent events multiply. As a result, attempts to assign probabilities to positive outcomes of events in SCP-3285 typically lead to extremely low estimates for the probability of all of them occurring together.

Additional evidence for the anomalous origin of the phenomenon lies in the apparent coincidences or unusual events that prevented many of the events comprising SCP-3285 from escalating into full-blown nuclear war. Lt. Col. Petrov was on-duty covering for a sick colleague; a different staff officer might have reported to the Kremlin that a nuclear attack was underway. The Thule false alarm occurred during Soviet Premier Khruschev's widely publicized visit to the United States, leading NORAD operators to consider a Soviet attack at the time unlikely. Testimony was not extracted from Lee Harvey Oswald due to his murder by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner without explicit Soviet connections.

The most plausible explanation derives from the anthropic principle. A nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union would have escalated to a "nuclear winter" and the likely extinction of humanity. In all the universes where these events happened, humanity and the Foundation do not exist. Thus any human being alive at the end of the cold war will inhabit a universe where a nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union was averted.

Stronger versions of the anthropic principle propose to make predictions based on what a "typical living observer" is likely to experience. This framework appears to match SCP-3285: given that the cold war has a propensity to repeatedly escalate into nuclear confrontation, the typical living observer will inhabit a universe which comes to brink of nuclear war before ultimately retreating [1].

An implication is that humanity is unlikely to survive confrontations between nuclear powers, as the anthropic principle cannot ensure humanity's safety in the future. As nuclear weapons grow progressively easier to construct due to technological progress, the danger from SCP-3285 is projected to grow exponentially. In particular, it appears highly unlikely that humanity will survive a future in which small states and private/subnational actors are capable of building substantial nuclear arsenals.

Possibilities for containment: On 5/6/2007, the Historical Dynamics Division proposed a possible means of containment. Project Controlled Burn is premised on the observation that excesses of violence often drive periods of peace in human history. For example, broad revulsion at the atrocities of Nazi Germany is considered to be responsible for the relative peacefulness of the post-WW-II period in Europe.

It is therefore proposed that a limited nuclear exchange, comprising between 20-40 atomic explosions, would result in a widespread abhorrence of nuclear weapons with a strong preventative effect. The probability that an exchange of that size would lead to the extinction of humanity is believed to be exceedingly small, although a large number of civilian casualties are to be expected.

The Historical Dynamics division has argued that a controlled nuclear war between North Korea and Japan is the most attractive possibility for containment of SCP-3285. Since nuclear weapons were used in World War II on Japanese soil, it is conjectured that the destruction of several Japanese cities would evoke a particularly strong wave of worldwide sympathy. It is therefore recommended that, if the Foundation chooses to provoke a nuclear exchange, either Hiroshima or Nagasaki (or both) be included within the list of targets to emphasize historical resonance.

The Ethics Committee approved Project Controlled Burn on 2/8/2013. On 1/7/2015, the O5 council voted 10-3 to forego implementation, with the proviso that the vote be revisited every five years. On 9/20/2017, following increased tensions between US and North Korea with threats of nuclear attack on both sides, the O5 council met to discuss the matter again. The possibility that an uncontrolled nuclear exchange in which one side emerged as the clear victor might in fact accelerate nuclear proliferation was discussed. By a vote of 8-5, the previous decision was affirmed. The next vote is scheduled for 1/7/2020.

[1] There are a number of mathematical ways to formalize this statement. The simplest is to model relations between cold war powers as a one-dimensional random walk which has a tendency to move towards an absorptive state corresponding to nuclear war. Conditional on lack of absorption, Eq. (3.4) of E.A. Van Doorn, ``Quasi-stationary distributions and convergence to quasi-stationarity of birth-death processes,'' Annals of Applied Probability, pp. 683-700, 1991 provides a concentration result for such a random walk around the absorptive state.

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elizacatherinemoore18-blog · 5 years

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Are there any limits to what can be described as Performance Art?

The Oxford Dictionary definition of Performance Art is; ‘an art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance’. The connotations of the word ‘performance’ suggest an audience. After reading Grayson Perry’s book: Playing in the Gallery.I became fascinated by his statement ‘how do we tell if something is good? What are the criteria by which we judge art made today, and who tells us it is good?’. This allowed me to question myself and I realised, it is difficult to say that something is notart. Taking a shower, drinking water, applying my makeup. Are these performances? Are they performances even though no one but myself is witnessing them? In a world where we are obsessed with self-documentation, and all rely on the use of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Is it possible that we are all performance artists, as we express ourselves in any way we can in day-to-day life. We are able to record every second of our lives if we wish to. In this essay I hope to explore what qualifies as performance art, and consider the idea that we are all performance artists.

The origin of the Performance art movement began with peaceful rebellion against the violence and hate of World War One, headed by the Dadaist and Futurism movements in the 1910s. Performance art challenged the more traditional methods of creating art such as painting or sculpture. ‘In the post-war period performance became aligned with conceptual art, because of its often immaterial nature’. The horror of the First World War, grew equally powerful and dynamic movements of art, with the Dadaist movement (founded in Zurich) producing poetry, art, and performances all displaying a satirical and negative reactions to War. Hans Arp, a French-German sculptor, painter and poet stated: ‘revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts. While guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages, and wrote poems with all our might’. The movement questioned and challenged the social climate in the sense that if we as humans could cause so much pain, what was the value of creating art? The movement set out to destroy tradition, and create art with new functions. The Futurism movement ‘celebrated the modern world of industry and technology’, headed by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. The crux of the movement was separation from the past, specifically Italy’s oppressive one. The Performance art movement began to gain momentum and ‘stricter rules’[1]during the late 1970s, and transformed into a more time-based process, typically art would be made in live performances with people observing it. It is generally seen as an ‘ephemeral event’[2], rather than a stand-alone object, and is often filmed on a camera, or photographed as the event is happening. To me, ephemeral performance art imitates the unpredictability of real life, and the two are interchangeable.

This shows that the function of performance art has always been politically engaging, and has been utilised largely to respond to political events and has been ‘fuelled by many of the activist movements’[3]. The politically turbulent era of the mid 1960s, with the nuclear Cuban Missile Crisis and anti-war protests against the Vietnam War had a soundtrack of ‘folk-inspired protest songs’[4]by the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. David Wojnarowicz’s 1990 film, Silence = Death, made in 1990, the artist can be seen sewing up his mouth. This dark and horrifying imagery was protesting against the underfunding of AIDs research and treatment, which at the time was taking many lives. The lack of awareness was dangerous for many gay men at the time. In Yoko Ono’s 1964 work ‘Cut Piece’was first performed in Japan, in New York in 1965 and then in London. The artist gave the audience a pair of scissors and were encouraged to cut away pieces of her clothing, bit by bit, one by one, until she was in front of them in her underwear. Some members of the audience would cut small items of her clothing away, whereas others would cut away her blouse or bra strap. Yoko Ono remained quiet, still and expressionless throughout the performance. This poignant performance was to challenge the ‘passive role women often played in public spectacles’[5].Conceptually, this work relies on the audience’s willingness to participate in the performance and can be describes as a ‘Instruction Piece’. The blame is passed onto the audience and will reiterate the idea that the female body has been historically and presently viewed as an object. Similarly, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1985, an exhibition called ‘An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture’ was put on which would display some of the most influential work of the time. Despite the misleading name of the exhibition, all thirteen out of the one hundred and sixty nine artists with work featured in the exhibition were white females. This lack of diversity upset many people, and in response to this exhibition, a group of anonymous female artists, calling themselves the Guerilla Girls stood outside the gallery holding placards with slogans on them such as ‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?’. These slogans questioned female rights and visibility, even in the art world, and posed questions about the importance of the Male gaze. They could be distinguished easily by the gorilla masks they wore to keep their identity a secret. Feminist artist Judy Chicago said ‘Performance can be fuelled by rage in a way that painting and sculpture cannot.’[6]This suggests to me, that performance art takes many forms, and anything can be performance art if it is objecting to an aspect of the political and social climate. However, this poses the question. Is performance art still relevant, even if it is not in response to anything socially or politically? Can we all be performance artists even if we ourselves are not rebelling against anything?

Yves Klein’s live presentations of anthropometries took place on the 9thof March 1960. The artist asked women to be covered in blue paint (Klein Blue). ‘In his anthropometries Klein used models as living brushes. They smeared themselves with blue paint and pressed against a canvas piece of paper to make an imprint, according to his instructions’[7]. This dramatic event is seen as early performance and body art, and does not seem to have any political functions, and in fact in my opinion seems to unnecessarily sexualise the female body. This performance is not protesting against anything, and is generally only showcasing the Klein blue that the artist was so obsessed with. This allows me to consider if this is performance art, also because he instructed the models where to go, it takes away the ephemeral element of performance art and controls the way they move. This performance is solely about the marks made, and the colour of the marks. This causes me to reconsider my view that, perhaps, performance art does not always have to have a political function, and can alternatively be completely concentrated on drawing.

Perceptions of what constitutes performance art will obviously differ from person to person. To me, performance art feels like one of the purest forms of expression, just as dancing is. One’s own performative actions will influence this. For example, perhaps, a dancer could identify a piece of performance art with movement involved, or a chef could argue that cooking is a piece of performance art. For me, someone who studies art, I feel that my time over the past Foundation year has allowed me to reconsider and examine what I think performance art is. For me now, it is the artistic intention behind an action and the desire to be performative in the process of creating the art. To me, the process is equally important to the outcome within my own art, I have been recording each performance on a camera, looking at the way my body moves to different types of music with a range of different sounds within them. The way the music affects the marks I made fascinates me, which lead me to draw while listening to do more abstract sounds with emotional connotations, such as the sound of a waiting room at a Doctor’s surgery or the sound of my Mother’s laugh. This led me to see what marks I would make when there is silence. Similarly, the performative art I have been making seems to be about the concept of the loss of time and nothingness. While I am performing, I sometimes feel as if time moves very fast, and an hour can feel like ten minutes. I am interested by the fact that the more time I put into the performance, the darker and more interesting the image becomes. Currently, the process and what it teaches me is more important than the end result in this year of exploration that I’ve had. Presently, my work does not hold any political function, and is not revolting against anything. It is largely focusing on different types of mark making. Does this lack of protest limit it as protest art?

When reading Viktor Shkolvsky’s work[8], and considering how it related to the artistic process I found myself disagreeing with his fundamental points that art must have artistic intention. I believe that an actress warming up her voice, a private ritual in preparation for her performance, is as valid as the performance with an audience. Additionally, I believe the interpretation of the audience is just as important as the interpretation for the artist. Someone can consider someone else’s actions, as art.

Serbian performance artist writer and art filmmaker, Marina Abramović, in a video created by The Museum of Modern Art specified the difference between theatre and performance. Her work is largely body, endurance and feminist art. She states in the video ‘this is not a theatre. A theatre will repeat’[9]. She also states that ‘Performance is real. In a theatre you can cut with a knife and there is blood. The knife is not real and blood is not real.In performance the blood and the knife and the body of the performer is real.’ She explains that to her, performance is real life and makes reference to the white box of gallery space. I disagree with her argument, that for performance art to occur, there must be a ‘white box’ or ‘gallery space’, and I believe that performance art can occur anywhere. Performance art is an imitation, and perhaps heightened and purer version of the emotions we experience in real life. Marina Abramović states that,‘performance is the kind of unique form of art and is very temporary and comes and goes.’ Our actions in real life are similarly temporary, unpredictable, and all depend on a range of things that inform our choices. In more recent years, the Draw to Perform: An International Community for Drawing Performance, headed by Ram Samocha, holds an annual International Symposium for the world’s most influential and important Performance drawers. This Symposium looks at the links between performance art and drawing.

In addressing the question considered, the range of ways that performative art presents itself shows the limits of what can be described as performance art are not very strong. Although performance art was originally a process that was in response to times of political turbulence, it is clear from both the Draw to Perform International Symposium and Yves Klein’s anthropometries that the idea that politics and rebellion need to be at the heart of all performances, has been challenged. My own work, can be considered performance art, and there are no political intentions behind it at this moment. This has allowed me to see what are the limitations on my own work, and that the limitations exist, but they are flexible.

The idea that performance art is real life, a point which Marina Abramovićmade, and is not like theatre because it cannot be repeated, makes it clear to me this is another limit to what can be described as performance art. Although I previously believed that anything can be performance art. From a dancer stretching their muscles, to a drag queen applying their makeup before a performance, I now see that although I don’t think there needs to be artistic intention behind a performance, I believe someone has to have an audience for it to be perceived as performance art. I believe there has to be an ephemeral quality to all performance art.

[1]https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-performance-art

[2]Bratu Hansen, Miriam. Benjamin and Cinema: Not a One-Way Street. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 25, No. 2, "Angelus Novus": Perspectives on Walter Benjamin (Winter, 1999), pp. 306-343.

[3]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/angry-space-politics-and-activism

[4]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/angry-space-politics-and-activism

[5]https://www.sleek-mag.com/article/feminist-performance-art/

[6]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performance-art/angry-space-politics-and-activism

[7]Thames & Hudson, Art the Whole Story, London, Thames and Hudson,pp.498-499, 2010

[8]Shklovsky, Victor,‘Art, as Device’(1917) and Ferdinand de Saussure “excerpts” Course in General Linguistics (1916)

[9]https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/conceptual-performance/v/moma-abramovic-what-is-performance-art

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travelworldnetwork · 6 years

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Thirty years after the wall fell, Berlin has become one of the world's greatest destinations. Photo: Alamy

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The first barbed-wire coils of what would become the Berlin Wall were rolled out in August 1961. Soon, this barrier would become infamous for creating the cut-off enclave of free West Berlin inside socialist dictatorship East Germany, and slicing Berlin's city centre in two.

The Berlin Wall stood, in several different forms, for 28 years until the evening of November 9, 1989, when Berlin's citizens rose up and, with hammers, pickaxes and their bare hands, consigned to history their contentious, reinforced-concrete border. It was a peaceful revolution and scenes of Berliners dancing atop the Wall provided one of the great media moments of the late 20th century.

The Berlin Wall was more than just a wall. By the 1980s it was two walls, a string of watchtowers and fences, a series of anti-vehicle trenches and a barren "death strip" where escapees could be – and were – shot on sight. There is no official figure on how many lost their lives – perhaps 200. More than 5000 people managed to escape, some in ingenious ways, including the use of zip-lines, tunnels and even a stolen army tank.

The Berlin Wall didn't just separate friend and families. It was also an ideological barrier, the physical incarnation of the Iron Curtain that divided western capitalism from eastern communism. It was the Cold War in concrete, and a symbol beloved of spy movies and novels.

Today little remains of this monument to the Cold War in Berlin, since most of it was either destroyed or souvenired. Cobblestones and metal strips mark its former location in the city centre, and small (yet still sinister) sections remain. The city recalls its Cold War past, however, in various museums, memorials and sites around the city.

Throughout this year, which marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, there will be added levels of interest as key sites host special exhibitions, events and commemorations that provide an even more compelling look at this paranoid, politically charged and – from the perspective of passing time – utterly bizarre period in European history.

To Germany's credit, Berlin today has a gracefully restored and reunited city centre and is one of Europe's most multi-ethnic, youthful, tolerant and energetic cities. Yet it doesn't whitewash its past, and continues to grapple with legacies of its Nazi and Cold War eras. It preserves these memories at informative, interesting and often unflinching historical sites. Few cities are as pleasant and vibrant to visit, and yet as insightful and sometimes confronting too, making this one of the world's great destinations for the thoughtful traveller.

THE MONUMENT BRANDENBURG GATE

Photo: German National Tourist Board

WHY SEE IT

This neoclassical triumphal arch is Berlin's symbol. The square around it sees festivals, celebrations, marathons, rallies and New Year's Eve fireworks.

THE HISTORY

Brandenburg Gate was completed in 1791 as a monumental entrance to Unter den Linden Boulevard leading to the Prussian royal palace. The Berlin Wall ran close to the Gate, which became the symbol of a divided Europe. Reopened after extensive renovations in 2002, it now stands for freedom and German unity.

WHAT TO SEE

The Gate itself, the Quadriga statue at its summit depicting a horse-drawn chariot, and surrounding Pariser Platz, an elegant square of embassies, town houses and the famous Adlon Hotel.

DON'T MISS

The Room of Silence in a flanking guardhouse, with its wall-hanging depicting light penetrating the darkness of a forest.

ESSENTIALS

Always open, free admission. See visitberlin.de

THE MEMORIAL BERLIN WALL MEMORIAL

Photo: Alamy

WHY SEE IT

This surviving 60-metre section of Wall (and watchtower) was the scene of several significant Cold War events. Escapee Ida Siekmann became the first known casualty of the Berlin Wall here just nine days after its construction.

THE HISTORY

The memorial was created in 1998 on Bernauer Strasse, a Berlin street made famous in August 1961 when images of East Germans leaping from apartment windows into the French sector were beamed around the world. This was the first part of the Wall to come down in November 1989.

WHAT TO SEE

An open-air exhibition details the Berlin Wall's appearance in the 1980s and how the border was organised. A visitor centre outlines its construction.

DON'T MISS

The Chapel of Reconciliation, a striking, contemporary commemoration of the 130 people who lost their lives crossing the Berlin Wall.

ESSENTIALS

Exhibition and grounds open 8am to 10pm daily, admission free. See berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de

THE TOURIST SITE CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

Photo: Alamy

WHY SEE IT

This infamous checkpoint between Berlin's American and Soviet sectors is a kitschy reconstruction, but does provide a sense of deja vu for aficionados of spy movies and espionage novels.

THE HISTORY

This was one of few Berlin Wall crossing points and the only one permitted to westerners. American and Soviet tanks famously faced off here in 1961. The original checkpoint and guardhouse was entirely removed in 1990.

WHAT TO SEE

This is a place to capture some Zeitgeist rather than sight see, though information boards outline the checkpoint's history. A pseudo-guardhouse fronted by sandbags is a tourist magnet, but bears scant resemblance to the original.

DON'T MISS

Private museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (mauermuseum.de) documents the inventive, dramatic and sometimes fatal escapes across the Berlin Wall by East Germans.

ESSENTIALS

Always open, admission free. See visitberlin.de

THE FESTIVAL 30TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR

WHY SEE IT

If you hanker to see Berlin or investigate the Cold War years, do it this year, as special events highlight this peculiar period in the city's history.

THE HISTORY

Thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city is commemorating by taking a new look at the Wall's history, East Berlin's struggle for freedom and the German reunification process.

WHAT TO SEE

There are events all year, so check what's on during your visit. Among them are exhibitions on the Berlin airlift, Stasi (secret police) operations and East Germany's once boarded-up "ghost station" metro stops.

DON'T MISS

The million-strong German Unification Day street party on October 3, an annual family event of live music, food and carnival rides that promises to be bigger than ever this year – although unification's 30th anniversary isn't until 2020.

ESSENTIALS

See visitberlin.de

THE MUSEUM GERMAN SPY MUSEUM

CCTV at the Spy Museum. Photo: Alamy

WHY SEE IT

Put the Berlin Wall and Cold War into context in this excellent interactive museum, which details many of the era's political dramas and the dealings of its shadowy agents.

THE HISTORY

The museum was opened in 2015. It focuses on the Cold War period and some of its most notorious spies and assassins. As a reminder that history repeats itself, though, the museum also traces several millennia of spycraft, from ancient Babylon and Tudor times to World War II.

WHAT TO SEE

The collection of Cold War weapons, transmitters and recorders concealed within everyday items such as umbrellas and telephones is particularly fascinating.

DON'T MISS

If you have kids, they'll love the laser room. The aim is to wiggle through it, like Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment, in record time.

ESSENTIALS

Open daily 10am to 8pm, admission €12. See deutsches-spionagemuseum.de

THE ART EAST SIDE GALLERY

Fraternal Kiss, a recreation of an actual 1979 embrace between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker. Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

WHY SEE IT

This chunk of concrete along the Spree River is the longest surviving section of original Berlin Wall (1.3 kilometres). Now covered in some 100 artworks, it's billed as the world's longest open-air art gallery.

THE HISTORY

Artists started daubing the Wall almost immediately following the border's opening in November 1989. Soon, graffiti was ruining the originals. The site was declared a protected memorial in 1991 and its artworks restored or repainted.

WHAT TO SEE

The best artworks comment on the Wall's fall and subsequent social changes in East Germany. Take an informative guided tour at 10am on Saturdays with the Berlin Wall Foundation, if you can.

DON'T MISS

The most famous mural is Fraternal Kiss, a recreation of an actual 1979 embrace between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker.

ESSENTIALS

Always open, admission free, tours €3.50. See eastsidegalleryberlin.de

THE DISPLAY BLACKBOX COLD WAR

WHY SEE IT

This flat, black building near Checkpoint Charlie is dedicated to Cold War artefacts, but also links to Cold War politics and events beyond Berlin, such as the Korean War and Cuban missile crisis.

THE HISTORY

Dark walls on this building are emblazoned with grey multilingual terms such as "Espionage" and "Democracy". It was opened in 2012 as a temporary exhibition space before the construction of a permanent Museum of the Cold War.

WHAT TO SEE

Large-format photos of Cold War events and the no-man's-land that ran along the Berlin Wall are particularly striking. Watch historical film excerpts in the cinema and listen to Berliners recalling Cold War memories at 16 media stations.

DON'T MISS

A Soviet radiation dosimeter used to measure radioactivity levels, which is a reminder of how close the world came to nuclear war.

ESSENTIALS

Open daily 10am to 6pm, admission €5. See bfgg.de

THE DISTRICT POTSDAMER PLATZ

Photo: Alamy

WHY SEE IT

No part of Berlin better symbolises its fall and rise. Corporate headquarters designed by famous architects rise from a former wasteland. Its few remnants of Wall seem surreal and inconsequential.

THE HISTORY

This square had its origins in the 17th century and its heyday in the early 20th before it was flattened in World War II. A location at the intersection of American, British and Soviet sectors saw it abandoned. In the 1990s an entirely new district arose.

WHAT TO SEE

Metal strips mark where the Berlin Wall once ran. Scan the QR code at Deutsche Bahn Tower for a look at the square's changing face through time. An old GDR watchtower lingers on Erna-Berger-Strasse.

DON'T MISS

Six re-erected segments of much-graffitied Wall stand outside the entrance to the train station, alongside information boards.

ESSENTIALS

Always open, admission free. See potsdamerplatz.de

THE ACTIVITY BERLIN WALL TRAIL

WHY SEE IT

Take to the flat, paved cycleway (divided into 14 sections) that follows the 160-kilometre former location of the Wall. Signs 3.6 metres high – the height of the Berlin Wall – point the way.

THE HISTORY

The trail follows the old East German patrol path and West German customs route along the Wall. It was completed in 2006.

WHAT TO SEE

There are various Wall segments, plus informal memorials to escapees, such as plaques and crosses. At times, you cycle through fields and woodland, along canal banks and through villages such as Lubars and royal summer retreat, Potsdam.

DON'T MISS

The Church of the Redeemer in Sacrow, infamous because the Berlin Wall ran straight through it. It now presents a pretty Italianate picture on a lakeshore.

ESSENTIALS

Bicycle rentals from €10 s day. Guided tour of a 15-kilometre segment €24 including bike hire. See berlinonbike.de

THE CELEBRATION FALL OF THE WALL

WHY SEE IT

The 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's demise will see seven city sites, all key during the events of 1989-90, feature special celebrations and open-air exhibitions.

THE HISTORY

The Fountain of International Friendship, Alexanderplatz. Photo: Alamy

Among the venues for the celebrations will be Brandenburg Gate, East Side Gallery, the 1960s East German creation Alexanderplatz, and Gethsemane Church in Prenzlauer Berg district, whose congregation played a central role in 1989 protests against the GDR.

WHAT TO SEE

A "Route of Revolution'" will connect Cold War venues, which will host concerts, film screenings, artworks and sound-and-light installations such as protestors' demands to abolish the GDR's secret police, beamed onto the facade of the former Stasi headquarters.

DON'T MISS

The culminating, city-wide music festival on the evening of November 9, featuring singers and musicians with connections to the Berlin Wall's fall.

ESSENTIALS

The festival runs from November 4-10, 2019. See visitberlin.de

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BERLIN WALL

1945 World War II ends. Berlin is divided into American, British, French and Soviet sectors.

October 7, 1949 The Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic (or East Germany) is declared.

1952 The border between the two Germanys is closed, but Berlin remains relatively porous. By 1961, 20 per cent of East Germany's population has departed.

August 13,1961 East Berlin's border is closed on Barbed Wire Sunday. Fencing and concrete blocks are erected.

1975 Following several incarnations, construction begins on a reinforced-concrete Berlin Wall – the one most people remember – and is completed over several years.

1987 American president Ronald Reagan challenges the Soviet president at Brandenburg Gate: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!"

1989 Chris Gueffroy is the last person shot and killed at the Wall. Winfried Freudenberg is the last person killed in an escape attempt when his hot-air balloon crashes. The Soviet Bloc disintegrates. There are mass demonstrations in East Germany.

November 9, 1989 East German radio announces its border are open. People stream towards the Berlin Wall, which is breached in places.

June 13, 1990 East Germany begins to officially dismantle the Wall, an 18-month task.

October 3,1990 Germany is reunified.

EAST GERMAN THROWBACKS

Nostalgia for some aspects of life in East Germany has given rise to the term "ostalgie". Look out for these classic GDR products.

AMPELMANN

The distinctive walking man on green traffic lights at pedestrian crossings was introduced to East Berlin in 1961 and brought back by popular demand after reunification. The cult figure now has its own shops and memorabilia. See ampelmann.de

TRABANT

The rattling, poorly designed East German car affectionately known as the Trabi ceased production in 1991, but some companies offer Trabi tours or rentals. Inspect the iconic car's many incarnations at the Trabi Museum. See trabi-museum.com

EINKAUFSNETZ

This classic waxed-string shopping bag with leather handles was a necessity in an East Germany short of plastic. The once-derided bag's nostalgic comeback has been helped along by newfound environmental concerns about single-use plastics.

VITA COLA

Vita Cola, less sweet, thicker, fruitier and more lemony than rival colas, was introduced to the GDR in 1957 but succumbed to western brands when the Wall fell. It's now back and outsells Pepsi in the former East Germany.

KETWURST

The name of East Berlin's answer to the hotdog is a portmanteau of ketchup and wurst, or sausage. It emerged in the late 1970s and is now only available in limited places such as Alain Snack Bar in Prenzlauer Berg. See ketwurst.com

BERLIN BEYOND THE WALL

Berlin isn't just a Cold War remnant but one of Europe's most vibrant, cosmopolitan and enjoyable cities.

CULTURE

What bombed-out Berlin lacks in palaces and monuments it makes up for with museums. Museum Island alone presents a world-class congregation of museums whose collections range from Greek and Roman sculpture to Near Eastern antiquities, Islamic art and European painting. See smb.museum

SHOPPING

The city's main shopping district around Kurfurstendamm, commonly called Ku'Damm, sees department stores, chic boutiques and side-street speciality stores mix. Europa Centre is Berlin's biggest shopping mall and one of Europe's largest entertainment complexes. See europa-center-berlin.de

BEACHES

Landlocked Berlin has a great array of artificial urban beaches, especially along the Spree River. Why would an Aussie bother? Because they feature cocktail bars, nightclubs, samba dance evenings and other fun – or if nothing else, provide passing spots for a relaxing beer or two. See visitberlin.de

SIGHTSEEING

The madly ornate, baroque-era Charlottenburg Palace, sprawling Tiergarten park and the Reichstag or parliament building are three key sights. You should also visit World War II memorials such as the confronting Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. See stiftung-denkmal.de

NIGHTLIFE

Plentiful pubs, clubs and dance halls, cabaret and avant-garde theatres, year-round festivals and even fetish houses make Berlin a top city for evening shenanigans. Hit Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg or Friedrichshain districts and you won't be crawling home until the wee hours. See visitberlin.de

TRIP NOTES

traveller.com.au/germany

visitberlin.de

FLY

Etihad flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Abu Dhabi with connections to Berlin via Dusseldorf. See etihad.com

STAY

Lux Eleven Berlin-Mitte has big rooms with kitchenettes and sitting areas, and is well located in Berlin's trendy Mitte district. See lux-eleven.com

Brian Johnston was a guest of the German National Tourist Office and Visit Berlin.

from traveller.com.au

#Travel Guide

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thinkdash · 6 years

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For weeks now, Venezuela has been in the grips of a political battle between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido, who the United States and dozens of other countries have recognized as the country’s legitimate head of state. The plane spotting community is now among those intently watching the situation for signs of curious air traffic, or a potential U.S. military intervention. So, it certainly turned heads when a U.S. Air Force RC-135V Rivet Joint spy plane made an unusually public appearance recently in the Caribbean Sea. But Rivet Joint missions in the region are more common than many people might know and this sortie may not necessarily have been related to the crisis in Venezuela at all.

Expert military aviation tracker and friend of The War Zone @aircraftspots was first to notice the RC-135V, serial number 63-9792, using the callsign Gismo 84, in the Caribbean on Feb. 14, 2019. The airliner-sized intelligence gathering platform subsequently linked up with a KC-10A Extender tanker, Spur 57. This isn’t uncommon for Rivet Joint flights, which can be many hours long as the planes fly long tracks close to target areas gathering valuable intelligence.

GISMO84 is currently MARSA with KC10 SPUR57 conducting aerial refueling. pic.twitter.com/Ag3If2sxfJ

— Aircraft Spots (@AircraftSpots) February 14, 2019

Rivet Joints, which include the RC-135Vs, as well as the functionally equivalent RC-135Ws, are among the most capable aerial intelligence gathering platforms the Air Force has at present. The aircraft fly with crews of more than 26 individuals and can perform a variety of task simultaneously.

The aircraft have powerful signals intelligence suites that allow them to detect and listen in on enemy communications, as well as geolocate those transmitters. Among the Crypto Linguists onboard, there will be individuals who are fluent in various languages relevant to the mission at hand so that they can begin analyzing the content of what the plane’s sensors pick up immediately. Other personnel man stations to categorize the emitters and keep an eye out for anything new or unusual.

Lastly, electronic warfare officers can use the same signals intelligence systems to geolocate and categorize radars and other systems associated with integrated air defenses, allowing the Rivet Joints to help build a so-called “Electronic Order of Battle” of enemy or potentially hostile forces in a given area. In the lead up to the U.S.-led missile strikes in Syria in April 2018, Rivet Joints flew regularly off the coast of that country to grab the latest information about the Syrian military’s air defense posture. The information gathered is essential to allied combat mission planning, greatly enhancing the survivability of manned tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones.

A robust array of data links and communications systems allow the RC-135s to send information back to base, to regional command centers, or forces on the ground, in near real time. Altogether, the Rivet Joints have an impressive mix of highly-proven strategic and tactical surveillance capabilities.

So, it is possible that Gismo 84 might have been heading to a station off the Venezuelan coast to monitor the Maduro regime’s recent deployment of various air defense assets. There have been various sightings of Russian-made S-125 medium-range surface-to-air missile systems, among other anti-aircraft artillery, moving toward the country’s shared border with Colombia, a major U.S. ally that has routinely criticized Maduro. Venezuelan forces also recently conducted what appeared to be an exercise with their long-range S-300VM surface-to-air missile systems, which the country also acquired from Russia.

#UPDATE: S-125 air defence batteries with support equipment (radar, transloaders, fire control vehicles, logistics trucks) noted moving into position aound San Cristobal, Venezuela (drills near the Colombian border)- Via @M3t4_tr0n @ConflictsW pic.twitter.com/4MrKzx4hGu

— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) February 12, 2019

Another S-125 convoy spotted in San Cristobal de Táchira today. Full convoy including support vehicles, 2 transloaders, 1 mobile launcher and a Low Bow Radar system#Venezuela #15F pic.twitter.com/RTiYK6i5uV

— CNW (@ConflictsW) February 15, 2019

#Breaking: #Venezuela releases the S-300 from mothballs. Preparing for an #American attack? pic.twitter.com/T0dK2isvaH

— ImageSat Intl. (@ImageSatIntl) February 7, 2019

Venezuela’s very public displays of its air defense capabilities can only be seen as a signal to the United States, in particular, that the country’s military remains loyal to Maduro and is prepared to respond to any American intervention. It’s also part of a broader propaganda push to present the embattled leader as firmly in power.

The RC-135 could have been in the area keeping its electronic ears open for relevant communications chatter, too. The Rivet Joint passed near Cuba, which is one of Maduro’s few supporters in the region. While Cuban authorities are almost certainly advising the Venezuelan leader, some members of the U.S. government have accused Cuban authorities of more actively directing his actions and policies, but so far there is no hard evidence that this is the case. Regardless, the United States would have to be very interested in know what the two countries might be coordinating.

While it was unusual for the Rivet Joint to pop up on public accessible flight tracking software, at least historically, it’s certainly not unusual for the aircraft to be flying in the region. When it comes to Cuba, for instance, Rivet Joints have long flown routes from bases in the United States to gather strategic intelligence about that island, run by a regime that is a long-time American adversary, irrespective of any ties it has to Venezuela. These sorties were, at least for a time, were given the nickname Bitter Wind.

RC-135s, flying from sites in the United States and forward bases in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the Dutch island of Curaçao, also routinely take part in counter-narcotics operations in Central and South America. Beyond Bitter Wind, we know that intelligence gathering sorties as part of missions nicknamed Beach Wind, Seminole Wind, and Shula Wind have all taken place in or around Central or South America thanks to documents the author previously obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

RQ-4 Global Hawk flights nicknamed Beach Axe have occurred in areas under the purview of both U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command. The former oversees operations in Central and South American, as well as the Caribbean, while the latter is responsible for the area around the United States itself, as well as Canada and Mexico.

The Air Force has also nicknamed U-2 Dragon Lady sorties over Colombia, specifically, as Seminole Emerald and Seminole Game. With all this in mind, the Beach Wind missions most likely involved Rivet Joints operating in areas adjacent to the Caribbean, at least in part, while Seminole Wind missions may have involved flights directly over Colombia.

multi-intelligence" U-2 flights over Colombia, as well as Lake Game flights over Haiti and the Dominican Republic, from a 2010 US Air Force internal history. The Lake Game missions were in support of the humanitarian response to the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which also impacted the neighboring Dominican Republic to a lesser extent." />

Beyond intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, the U.S. Air Force also regularly deploys a wide variety of combat aircraft, even including B-1 and B-52 bombers, to the Caribbean to support counter-drug operations. These missions, which you can read about in more detail here, are billed as training exercises that give aircrews a unique opportunity to search for and track real-world targets in a maritime environment.

Also, on Feb. 14, 2019, @CivMilAir, another active online plane tracker and friend to The War Zone spotted a B-52 making a somewhat unusual flight over Florida. Gismo 84 and this bomber might have been part of a larger surge of assets to support a particular counter-narcotics operation.

???????? US Air Force B52 bomber at 24,000ft heading over Florida pic.twitter.com/kOAk0MA40A

— CivMilAir ? (@CivMilAir) February 15, 2019

In August 2016, the Air Force took part in a similar effort, known as Operation Big Week. This involved the deployment of B-1s, B-52s, E-8C Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) battlefield management command and control aircraft, among other assets, in the Caribbean.

None of this is to say that increased attention from plane spotters on the region due to the crisis in Venezuela hasn’t uncovered curious and suspicious aerial activity. But it has also shone a light on the extensive and routine, if largely unpublicized activities of U.S. government aircraft, including U.S. military planes, across Latin America, as well.

So, Gismo 84’s trip into the Caribbean could have been tied to the crisis in Venezuela, but it may well have been just business as usual.

Contact the author: [email protected]

http://bit.ly/2T0HQlu

Think-Dash.com

#ThinkDash

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science-criticaltheory · 6 years

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Jill Stein Breaks 'Russiagate' Silence, Gives Documents to Senate Committee by Eric Ortiz

Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, speaking at a December 2016 news conference in front of Trump Tower in New York, is overseeing a legal team's investigation of potential voting machine hacking in the 2016 presidential election. (Mark Lennihan / AP)

Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate, remains one of the targets of the “Russiagate” investigation. On Thursday, Stein broke her silence on the matter and announced that she has completed the handover of emails and other documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which requested information pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Stein reiterated her strong support for legitimate inquiry into alleged corruption, quid pro quo deals, money laundering, obstruction of justice and other illegal activity in the 2016 election. She cautioned, however, against overreach and misuse of Russiagate to promote warmongering, censorship and suppression of opposition to the political establishment. To that effect, she warned, Russiagate is both a symptom and further cause of our current state of rampant militarism that is harming American democracy.

Stein cited the explosive conditions in Syria to illustrate the danger of Russiagate warmongering. She emphasized that United States-Russia dialogue is critical now, as it was during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, with diplomacy being the only effective pathway to solving the expanding threats of war, nuclear confrontation and climate catastrophe.

Stein observed that concerns about election interference—whether by foreign governments, criminal networks, domestic partisans, voter suppression schemes or other sources—are not diminishing as the 2018 midterms approach. The Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal adds to growing worries. As a result, she called for a nonpartisan Emergency Commission for Election Protection & Voting Justice to ensure the right of every American to “a vote we can trust—that is accurate, secure and just.”

Stein herself is overseeing the only known post-election investigation of potential voting machine hacking in 2016.

While providing documents responsive to the committee’s requests, Stein objected to requests for constitutionally protected materials, including the request by the bipartisan committee for internal policy deliberations of her campaign, the flagship for an opposition political party. She declined to provide this material, noting the request intrudes into the First Amendment rights of political and associational freedom that are vital to political liberty for all Americans. Such constitutional threats add to the dangerous current climate in which progressive political opposition, social movements and the anti-war community are being targeted with censorship, surveillance and political intimidation.

In a longer statement, Stein addressed her proposals to protect elections, civil liberties and democracy without resorting to warmongering, censorship or repression. Read Stein’s complete statement below:

We are facing a precarious historic moment. Democracy is threatened by interference in our elections, and by interference in our civil liberties. Likewise we are endangered by warmongering, rampant militarism, nuclear confrontation and accelerating climate change. To solve any of these interlinked problems, we need a functioning democracy and a voting system we can have confidence in.

As first steps to restore trust in that system, we are calling for a nonpartisan Emergency Commission for Election Protection & Voting Justice, as well as international negotiations for an election non-interference treaty. These should be stepping stones toward broader international dialogue to address other urgent looming threats that endanger not only our democracy, but our very survival.

Handing Over Materials to Senate Committee

Today, cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, our campaign has completed the handover of materials in response to the Committee’s request. The information provided includes documents regarding my 2015 visit to Russia to speak at RT’s 10th anniversary conference on media and international relations, an extension of my trip to the UN climate conference in Paris, where I also spoke with international leaders and activists. The materials include records of the campaign’s payment for my trip to Russia as well as longstanding Green Party policy objectives of promoting dialogue and diplomacy as essential alternatives to war, nuclear confrontation and climate catastrophe.

Interference in Our—or Any Country’s Elections–Is a Blow Against Democracy.

We take very seriously the issue of interference in our elections, as demonstrated by our continuing efforts to conduct the first and, according to public information, the only 2016 post-election examination of vulnerable U.S. voting machines, a critical cross check on election security that should be routine.

Interference in our—or any country’s—elections is a strike against democracy—whether the intruder is a foreign government, criminal network or domestic actor.

While Pursuing Concerns About Foreign Interference, We Should Not Ignore Domestic Interference in Plain Sight

Concerns about foreign interference should not distract us from interference in plain sight originating from within our own borders. That includes the actions of the Democratic National Committee, which biased its party’s own primaries, effectively disenfranchising millions of Bernie Sanders’ voters; corporate media that gave Donald Trump billions in extra free airtime because he was “damn good” for network profits, in the words of CBS’ CEO; or voter suppression schemes like voter ID laws, Interstate Crosscheck and felon disenfranchisement that systematically deny millions of Americans their constitutional right to vote.

New Election Threats Posed by Big Data/Microtargeting/Psyops Tower Over Primitive Russian Social Media Strategies

Recent revelations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal underscore the expanding scope of election interference. The scandal represents a disturbing convergence of a massive data privacy violation with a “military-style,” “full-scale propaganda machine,” as described by whistleblower Christopher Wiley.

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#2018 midterm elections #big data #cambridge analytica #climate change #progressive issues

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jfklibrary · 8 years

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Public Opinion in the JFK Library Archives: The Eisenhower-JFK Transition and Alcohol in the White House

By Dana Bronson and Stacey Chandler, Archives Reference

Presidential transitions always make news as the press and the public adjust to changes in everything from policies and staffing to leadership style and communication methods. But in the transition from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to President John F. Kennedy in January 1961, one change prompted a flurry of letters to the newly-minted President: the shift from the Eisenhowers’ cocktail-free White House to the Kennedys’ alcohol-serving White House.

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This moment of change, and the public reaction to it, isn’t the subject of much historical scholarship; without a handful of archived newspaper articles and the occasional footnote, it could easily have been lost to history. But while working on the vast White House Public Opinion Mail collection, JFK Library archivists recently preserved and described a box of letters from the public to the President on this subject, ensuring that the documented voices of people who felt strongly about this issue are accessible.

The letters protesting alcohol at White House events started to arrive shortly after journalists published descriptions of the first Kennedy-hosted event: a reception for new Presidential appointees in January 1961. A Washington Post article explained that “for the first time, there was a bar in the State Dining Room, with waiters to stir up martinis or pour vodka, Scotch, bourbon, or champagne.” The picture painted by the Post represented a stark contrast from Eisenhower-hosted events, where (according to historian Jean Edward Smith) drinks were tightly rationed.

Some concerned citizens worried that the White House would lose its dignity in the eyes of the world:

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Others expressed alarm at the idea that civil servants, diplomats, and other government officials could be operating with impaired judgment because of the new White House party customs:

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Many of the letters also make references to the religious practices of both the writer and the President:

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The Kennedy administration described the reaction to the change as “moderate,” and indeed, the single box of letters on this issue demonstrates far less interest than the hundreds of boxes of letters sent about the Birmingham Baptist Church bombing, the integration of the University of Mississippi, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Though the Kennedy administration continued to serve alcohol at White House functions, these letters document the opinions of individual Americans at one moment in the cultural history the United States – and prove the power of public opinion letters in filling in the gaps of history!

#john f. kennedy #kennedy white house #public opinion mail #jfk library #archives #1960s #temperance

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thegoldwater-blog · 8 years

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Nearly 13 million pages of declassified files have been published online by the Central Intelligence Agency. Previously, the documents were only accessible from the National Archives College Park, Maryland from four terminals. The declassified documents contain information on UFO sightings, Human telepathy, Nazi war crimes and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's taken a while for the documents to be released. During Bill Clinton's tenure, he ordered the agency to release all documents at least 25 years old with historical value to be declassified. Fortunately, the CIA complied, however access to the documents was limited since anyone who wanted access had to make their way to the US National Archives in Washington D.C. In a report issued by engadget, back in 2014, a nonprofit organization called MuckRock filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit pressing the CIA to post all of its documents online. However, the agency stated that it would take up to six years to scan all its content.

#http://thegoldwater.com/

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yesweweresoldiers · 5 years

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What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup 2

Every summer, TeachingAmericanHistory brings together scholars and teachers from around the nation to our campus in Ashland to enjoy week-long seminars on focused topics in American history and government. These courses can be taken for graduate credit, or simply for your personal enrichment — some participants describe the experience as an “intellectual retreat” where they can enjoy both conversation and collegiality.

If you aren’t able to join us in person this summer, we hope you’ll consider joining us in spirit by checking out some of the myriad texts we’ll be discussing. If you’re reading along, we invite you to join the conversation using #TAHreading to share your thoughts!

James Stoner, THE AMERICAN FOUNDING (online)

The title I recommend won’t cost you anything but the time and effort to read it and understand it—and then relate it to its better-known friends. It is the “Declaration and Resolves of the [First] Continental Congress,” promulgated on October 14, 1774. To see its importance, go to the middle of the more-familiar Declaration of Independence and read this charge against the king:

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation….

Whatever in 1776 did Congress mean by “our Constitution”? What we call the Constitution was drafted eleven years later, and even the Articles of Confederation, sometimes called the United States’ first constitution, was not drafted for another couple years.

But you won’t be perplexed if you’ve read the Declaration and Resolves, which make clear Americans’ claim to the unwritten English constitution as their own, including their entitlement to the common law and its privileges, especially the right to trial by jury, and their right to pass their own legislation on matters of taxation and “internal polity.” Compared to the Declaration of Independence it is a moderate document, calling on the king and parliament to respect constitutional rights. Only when that call is repudiated do the colonists resolve on Independence, and even then, they prove their case not only by appeal to abstract principle, but by reference to the inherited rights of which they were dispossessed. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

David F. Krugler, GREAT AMERICAN TEXTS: JOSEPH HELLER & KURT VONNEGUT

The MAHG class Great Texts: The Novels of World War II has, in the interests of full disclosure, a deceptive title: thousands upon thousands of World War II novels have been published in English, but we only read two of them! Granted, they are probably the two best-known American novels about the war, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, but there are others to recommend. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, inspired by his combat experience in the Pacific Theater, provides gripping, sometimes harrowing descriptions of one platoon’s fight to oust Japanese forces from an island. Mailer also uses so-called Time Machine flashbacks to tell readers about the prewar lives of his characters. Another classic: From Here to Eternity by James Jones, which is notable for depicting an infantry unit stationed in Hawaii just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Eric Pullin, AMERICA DURING THE COLD WAR

Carole Fink, Cold War: An International History, Second Edition (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 2017).

If there is one book to read as an introduction to the entire global history of the Cold War, then it is Fink’s broad and succinct work. Although neither a collection nor an analysis of primary source material, the book blends the most recently declassified documents from around the world with the most significant and recent historical scholarship on the subject. One of the book’s virtues is its readability. Despite covering nearly a century of international history, the book reads like a novel. Fink writes with elegance and fairness from start to finish. One can easily read it cover to cover, beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917 and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Alternatively, one can examine in detail specific episodes or topics such as the U.S. decision to use the atomic bomb; the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War; the role of third party players (Britain, China, India, France, Vietnam, etc.); the Cuban Missile Crisis; the Sino-Soviet Split; Détente; or the end of the Cold War itself. Perhaps the greatest strength of Fink’s work is that, while it presents arguments and opinions on controversial subjects, it does not force the reader to draw conclusions. Many subjects are intentionally left open-ended, precisely so that readers may feel free to disagree or investigate further. Indeed, Fink provides a valuable service by providing background on history and historiography and by encouraging the reader to read further. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Natalie Taylor, THE ADAMS FAMILY

Democracy: An American Novel by Henry Adams

Henry Adams, the great grandson and grandson of two American presidents, was a historian of the early republic. His works include the biographies of Albert Gallatin and John Randolph, as well as his nine-volume History of the United States during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Through these works, Adams hoped to impress “a moral on the national mind.” However, it seemed to Adams that the influence of great statesmen was declining as the American regime was transformed from a republic to a large-scale democracy. And, so, Adams looked to other means by which the national mind could be shaped. During the years in which Adams was hard at work on his histories, he also wrote Democracy: an American Novel. It is the story of Madeleine Lightfoot Lee’s political education and courtship by the powerful, but corrupt, Senator Silas Ratcliffe. If statesmen could no longer impress “a moral on the national mind,” perhaps American women could. Published anonymously, the identity of the author and the identity of the ostensibly fictional characters became subjects for speculation in post-Civil War Washington. Teachers of history will recognize some of the era’s leading political figures on Democracy’s pages. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

The post What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup 2 appeared first on Teaching American History.

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#IFTTT #Teaching American History

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racingtoaredlight · 5 years

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Opening Bell: April 26, 2019

In a development which surprised absolutely no one, former Vice President Joe Biden entered the race for the Democratic nomination for president yesterday, becoming the 20th Democrat to join the field of candidates. In 2016, the size of the Republican field, which topped out at 16 or 17 candidates, was lampooned by pundits and critics and the conflict among them is credited with creating room for Donald Trump to gain a foothold among the noise and ascend to the top of the field the time that primaries and caucuses began in early 2016. But Trump’s lack of popularity—he is the first president in the modern era to never poll above 50 percent since entering the White House—and the peeling off of moderates from the GOP have inspired Democrats, who see many paths for defeating Trump. But, and many pundits have pointed this out, it is entirely possible that Democrats mishandle this enthusiasm and either end up nominating a candidate who is substantially bruised in a nomination fight or one that is simply not able to compete with Trump to attract moderates and political independents who voted for Trump in 2016. In 1968, Richard Nixon was a candidate for president for the second time in eight years. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of California in 1962 following his narrow 1960 loss to John F. Kennedy, was a two-term Vice President for President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, and had been a high-profile Republican Congressman from California since the late 1940s. In short, Nixon was a widely-known political commodity among the American public and he inspired stark opinions among voters; even after he secured the Republican nomination in 1968, he would have faced stiff opposition from a good Democratic nominee. Unfortunately for Democrats, their best candidates either fumbled badly, were too closely connected with the extremely unpopular outgoing President Lyndon Johnson, or were assassinated (i.e. Robert F. Kennedy). I am not saying that we are due for another political assassination, but the point is that a large field of candidates creates an echo-chamber, with the subsequent white noise turning off voters who may seek out a simpler choice; in this case the incumbent president. We are 558 days away from the next presidential election. Buckle up.

Last fall, President Donald Trump abruptly announced, after a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that he would be immediately withdrawing all of the approximately 2,000 American soldiers than deployed in Syria. The move—both for its impetuousness and on its merits—appalled the foreign policy community and the policy and military leaders in the Pentagon. Defense Secretary James Mattis, long on the outs with Trump, took the opportunity to resign in protest of the move. Trump accepted Mattis’ resignation and then advanced it from Mattis’ proposed date of the end of February 2019, to instead have immediate effect. In the aftermath, Trump named Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to be Acting Defense Secretary. Since then, Trump has not named a nominee to be the next Pentagon chief and no coherent list of potential candidates—aside from rumors that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton were angling for the position—has emerged. This gives the appearance that Shanahan may inhabit the “acting” role, a status which Trump has embraced for cabinet officials, for quite some time. In light of that, Shanahan’s ties with aerospace and defense contractor Boeing—where he was a senior vice president before he entered government service—became more relevant. Yesterday, the Defense Department’s Inspector General released a report which cleared Shanahan of any ethics violations for actions taken in relation to Boeing contracts that are before the Pentagon, of which there are many. Because he is an acting department leader, however, that means Shanahan has no congressional approval of his current role and this exposes him to continued scrutiny by Congress, including and especially the Democrat-controlled House Armed Services Committee.

Meanwhile, as House committees ramp up their investigations and inquiries into the Trump administration and Trump’s alleged continued ties to his personal business interests and the Trump administration digs its heels in only further—this week Trump signaled that he did not want any White House officials testifying before Congress in any capacity—the question remains for House Democrats: how do you leverage an administration that refuses to respect the traditional checks and balances between the Executive and Legislative branches and the investigative authority of Congress. When a Republican-controlled Congress sought to restrain what it considered executive overreach by the Obama administration, Congress passed contempt citations and filed lawsuits against the president. Democrats, who have highly-experienced committee chairmen and women, have nonetheless not wielded congressional power in eight years and dealing with an administration that flouts all previous conventions of relationships between the two co-equal branches of government is a challenge with an answer that is not readily apparent. Democrats would be well-counseled to continue their investigations and to pursue their legislative agenda rather than engage in an existential political mud-fight, something this president excels at.

Histories of the Cuban Missile Crisis have focused entirely on one narrative of how the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles were detected in Cuba in 1962. In that historical narrative, the missile installations were discovered in photographs taken by reconnaissance planes flying over Cuba in increasingly risky operations. The discovery of these missile sites allowed President John F. Kennedy to formally accuse the Soviet Union of placing missiles in Cuba before the United Nations Security Council. This in turn gave Kennedy the justification to implement a naval quarantine—so-called because a blockade is an act of war—of Cuba and impose restrictions on any Soviet cargo vessels attempting to enter the quarantine zone. While a series of tense confrontations, both military and political, occurred, any one of which could have sparked World War III, the crisis was ultimately defused and the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for a promise by the United States not to invade the island nation. It is a highly-compelling story and one of the milestones of the Cold War. But a key part of the story is not accurate. Air Force reconnaissance flights did provide photographic evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, but the high-flying U-2s were steered towards flying over and photographing particular sites in western Cuba only because a secret CIA supplied intelligence network, the creator of which was infiltrated into Cuba in early 1962, discovered evidence of the missile sites through on-the-ground, covert surveillance. The CIA paramilitary officer who organized this intelligence network and recruited its leaders from among Cuban dissidents, was lost to history, his role completely unknown until 2005. That year, the CIA decided to posthumously recognize the work of Tom Hewitt in running Operation Cobra, the intelligence project which actually discovered the Soviet presence in Cuba. This story is the very first time that a media outlet has put together a new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, using Hewitt’s papers, declassified CIA documents, and interviews with Hewitt’s colleagues.

In July 1945, the Manhattan Project successfully tested the first atomic weapon when it exploded a device code-named Gidget in the New Mexico desert in the culmination of Project Trinity. In the weeks after this test, customers of Eastman Kodak sent complaints to the company that highly-sensitive X-ray film, had been corrupted before it could be used. The X-ray film had somehow been exposed to atomic particles which created fogging in the film, making it unusable. This was a known phenomenon and Kodak scientists assumed that the films had somehow been exposed to radium. Subsequent tests, however, showed the radium was not the culprit. It is unclear whether Kodak scientists knew of the Trinity test in New Mexico in July 1945—it seems highly unlikely that they did, even after the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in August 1945—but even if they had, the two plants which manufactured the protective packaging of X-ray film were located thousands of miles away from Alamogordo, New Mexico; one plants was in Iowa and the other was in Indiana. What both had in common, however, is that they manufactured packaging that was refined from farm-raised straw and both facilities were located next to rivers. Using this information, Kodak scientists determined that some new radiological element was traveling across the continental United States in the wind and being deposited over farms and in rivers; they essentially discovered the concept of nuclear fallout dispersal before anyone knew what that was. In the late 1940s, after the Trinity Test had become public knowledge and the U.S. government had decided to cordon off a large test site in Nevada for further nuclear testing, Kodak approached the government with its evidence of radiological contamination. What happened next presents an ethical conflict which could conceivably make up a follow-up article of its own.

In the newspaper world, there are essentially two types of pieces: dailies and features. Examples of the latter would include the long-term pursuit of particular topics like Woodward and Bernstein reporting on Watergate or the Boston Globe’s Spotlight staff reporting on the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sexual misconduct by priests (as seen in the movies All the President’s Me and Spotlight), while an example of former would include the pursuit of a high-profile crime story (best seen in the extremely underrated movie The Paper). In the world of magazines, there are three categories: weeklies, monthlies, and quarterlies. There are advantages and disadvantages to working in each format. Quarterlies have the luxury of featuring long-form stories that run into the thousands of words, but because they only publish four times a year, there is a low-ceiling on the number of articles and essays which can be run in a given year. Monthlies have more flexibility, but still have to make editorial choices about which articles get published in a given month. Weeklies have the most flexibility in terms of stories to publish, but are a voracious beast which, at the conclusion of one successful publication, must be satiated anew the following week; publishing 52 issues a year gives less time for 10,000 word meditations on the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine that was ardently anti-Donald Trump thus putting it in an odd niche (given the current state of the Republican Party, anyway) was of the last category; a weekly that did not struggle to find content, but did struggle to fund its operations. This essay is about what it’s like to work in different types of print media, but is ultimately a reflection of the current economic state of print media and its increasingly corporate ownership.

The Chateau Marmont is one of the most famous hotel landmarks in Hollywood. Its construction, on a bare hillside that sat adjacent to newly laid-out Sunset Boulevard, in 1929 signified the beginning of a scene that would become known as the glitzy Sunset Strip. Originally envisioned as a condo-residence, the 1929 stock market crash and subsequent Great Depression undermined the market on luxury residences and so, instead, the Chateau Marmont became a hotel, albeit one that entertained long-term visitors; celebrities were known to check-in, intending to stay only a few nights, but instead staying in the cozy confines for months or even years. Its relatively small-size—with only 60-plus rooms and bungalows—and privacy, made it a haven and a refuge for actors, artists, musicians, and wealthy individuals looking to escape from the public gaze in the middle of Hollywood. It is only in recent years that the Chateau Marmont has become a place which endured the unwavering focus of the paparazzi. As it enters its 90th year, the Chateau Marmont has a fascinating history, the surface of which is barely scraped here.

To round out where I started above, the candidacy of Joe Biden adds another dimension to the 2020 presidential race. Biden is undoubtedly one of the most experienced candidates to run for president in modern history; he is up there with John McCain in 2008, Bob Dole in 1996, and George H.W. Bush in 1988 (notable, because 1988 was the first time that Joe Biden ran in a Democratic primary….don’t ask how it went). Biden is likely to leverage this experience on the campaign trail, along with an appeal to return to how things were before Trump, but the question remains of whether these things are assets, or things which can be used against him (along with many others). Kyle Kondik of the Center for Politics examines the candidacy of Biden in 2020.

Welcome to the weekend.

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pope-francis-quotes · 7 years

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