#Nichols on Nuclear

[lucyoccupy]

MY ASSESSMENT - BOB NICHOLS

I’m listening to perfectly sad music from the 1600’s till today. It kinda sets the mood of infinite sadness. It goes along with my writing. I’ve been chronicling the Rads for 16 years now and it is getting worse. all over the country. We will have to go to eternity for any hope of something better. It really was a nice planet until the human like creatures with a 3.5 Lb brain decided to try the…

[quotesfrommyreading]

I think one reason that people today don’t look back at the Cold War with the same sense of threat is that it all ended so quickly. We went from [these] terrifying year[s] of 1983, 1984. And then suddenly Gorbachev comes in; Reagan reaches out to him; Gorbachev reaches back. They jointly agree in 1985—they issue a statement that to this day, is still considered official policy by the Russian Federation and by the United States of America. They jointly declare a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.

And all of a sudden, by the summer of 1985, 1986, it’s just over, and, like, 40 years of tension just came to an end in the space of 20, 24 months. Something I just didn’t think I would see in my lifetime. And I think that’s really created a false sense of security in later generations.

  —  Radio Atlantic: This Is Not Your Parents’ Cold War

[ansonmountdaily]

Anson Mount and Walter Koenig at Phoenix Fan Fusion (via The Nichelle Nichols Foundation)

Anson Mount and legendary Walter Koenig posed for this great photo together when they were at the Phoenix Fan Fusion convention in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, June 2 - 4 2023.

A representative of The Nichelle Nichols Foundation took the picture.

"Walt and @ansonmount met for the first time @phoenixfanfusion. While they searched, no sign of nuclear wessels. They even looked under all the tables and in the closets! Maybe they will be found in season 2 of SNW premiering June 15th! It was a wonderful meeting and Walt enjoyed getting to know "Captain Pike." LLAP" - The Nichelle Nichols Foundation Official Instagram, June 7 2023

[mariacallous]

On a spring day in 1978, a fisherman caught a tiger shark in the lagoon surrounding Enewetak Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the north Pacific. That shark, along with the remains of a green sea turtle it had swallowed, wound up in a natural history museum. Today, scientists are realizing that this turtle holds clues to the lagoon’s nuclear past—and could help us understand how nuclear research, energy production, and warfare will affect the environment in the future.

In 1952, the world’s first hydrogen bomb test had obliterated a neighboring island—one of 43 nuclear bombs detonated at Enewetak in the early years of the Cold War. Recently, Cyler Conrad, an archeologist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, began investigating whether radioactive signatures of those explosions had been archived by some particularly good environmental historians: turtles.

“Anywhere that nuclear events have occurred throughout the globe, there are turtles,” Conrad says. It’s not because turtles—including sea turtles, tortoises, and freshwater terrapins—are drawn to nuclear testing sites. They’re just everywhere. They have been mainstays of mythology and popular culture since the dawn of recorded history. “Our human story on the planet is really closely tied to turtles,” Conrad says. And, he adds, because they are famously long-lived, they are uniquely equipped to document the human story within their tough, slow-growing shells.

Collaborating with researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was once directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Conrad was able to use some of the world’s most advanced tools for detecting radioactive elements. Last week, his team’s study in PNAS Nexus reported that this turtle, and others that had lived near nuclear development sites, carried highly enriched uranium—a telltale sign of nuclear weapons testing—in their shells.

Turtle shells are covered by scutes, plates made of keratin, the same material in fingernails. Scutes grow in layers like tree rings, forming beautiful swirls that preserve a chemical record of the turtle’s environment in each sheet. If any animal takes in more of a chemical than it’s able to excrete, whether through eating it, breathing it in, or touching it, that chemical will linger in its body.

Once chemical contaminants—including radionuclides, the unstable radioactive alter egos of chemical elements—make their way into scute, they’re basically stuck there. While these can get smeared across layers in tree rings or soft animal tissues, they get locked into each scute layer at the time the turtle was exposed. The growth pattern on each turtle’s shell depends on its species. Box turtles, for example, grow their scute outward over time, like how humans grow fingernails. Desert tortoise scutes also grow sequentially, but new layers grow underneath older layers, overlapping to create a tree ring-like profile.

Because they are so sensitive to environmental changes, turtles have long been considered sentinels of ecosystem health—a different kind of canary in the coal mine. “They’ll show us things that are emergent problems,” says Wallace J. Nichols, a marine biologist who was not involved in this study. But Conrad’s new findings reveal that turtles are also “showing us things that are distinct problems from the past.”

Conrad’s team at Los Alamos handpicked five turtles from museum archives, with each one representing a different nuclear event in history. One was the Enewetak Atoll green sea turtle, borrowed from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. Others included a Mojave desert tortoise collected within range of fallout from the former Nevada Test Site; a river cooter from the Savannah River Site, which manufactured fuel for nuclear weapons; and an eastern box turtle from Oak Ridge, which once produced parts for nuclear weapons. A Sonoran desert tortoise, collected far from any nuclear testing or manufacturing sites, served as a natural control.

While working at Los Alamos, Conrad met isotope geochemist and soon-to-be coauthor Jeremy Inglis, who knew how to spot even the most subtle signs of nuclear exposure in a turtle shell. They chose to look for uranium. To a geochemist, this might initially feel like an odd choice. Uranium is found everywhere in nature, and doesn’t necessarily flag anything historically significant. But with sensitive-enough gear, uranium can reveal a lot about isotope composition, or the ratio of its atoms containing different configurations of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Natural uranium, which is in most rocks, is configured very differently from the highly enriched uranium found in nuclear labs and weapons.

To find the highly enriched uranium hidden among the normal stuff in each turtle shell sample, Inglis wore a full-body protective suit in a clean room to keep his uranium from getting in the way. (“There’s enough uranium in my hair to contaminate a picogram of a sample,” he says.) Inglis describes the samples like a gin and tonic: “The tonic is the natural uranium. If you add lots of natural uranium tonic into your highly enriched uranium gin, you ruin it. If we contaminate our samples with natural uranium, the isotope ratio changes, and we can’t see the signal that we’re looking for.”

The team concluded that all four turtles that came from historic nuclear testing or manufacturing sites carried traces of highly enriched uranium. The Sonoran desert tortoise that had never been exposed to nuclear activity was the only one without it.

They collected bulk scute samples from three of their turtles, meaning that they could determine whether the turtle took in uranium at some point in its life, but not exactly when. But the researchers took things a step further with the Oak Ridge box turtle, looking at changes in uranium isotope concentrations across seven scute layers, marking the seven years of the turtle’s life between 1955 and 1962. Changes in the scutes corresponded with fluctuations in documented uranium contamination levels in the area, suggesting that the Oak Ridge turtle’s shell was time-stamped by historic nuclear events. Even the neonatal scute, a layer that grew before the turtle hatched, had signs of nuclear history passed down from its mother.

It’s unclear what this contamination meant for the turtles’ health. All of these shells were from long-dead animals preserved in museum archives. The best time to assess the effects of radionuclides on their health would have been while they were alive, says Kristin Berry, a wildlife biologist specializing in desert tortoises at the Western Ecological Research Center, who was not involved in this study. Berry adds that further research, using controlled experiments in captivity, may help figure out exactly how these animals are taking in nuclear contaminants. Is it from their food? The soil? The air?

Because turtles are nearly omnipresent, tracing nuclear contamination in shells from animals living at various distances from sites of nuclear activity may also help us understand the long-term environmental effects of weapons testing and energy production. Conrad is currently analyzing desert tortoise samples from southwestern Utah, collected by Berry, to better relate exposure to radionuclides (like uranium) to their diets over the course of their lives. He also hopes that these findings will inspire others to study plants and animals with tissues that grow sequentially—like mollusks, which are also found in nearly all aquatic environments.

The incredible migratory patterns of sea turtles, which sometimes span the entire ocean (as anyone familiar with Finding Nemo may recall), open up additional opportunities. For example, sea turtles forage off the Japanese coast, where in 2011 the most powerful earthquake in Japan’s history caused a tsunami that led to a chain reaction of failures at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. With lifespans of up to 100 years, many of those turtles are likely still alive today, carrying traces of the disaster on their backs.

Recently, the Japanese government started slowly releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant into the Pacific Ocean. Scientists and policymakers seem to hesitantly agree that this is the least bad option for disposing of the waste, but others are more concerned. (The Chinese government, for instance, banned aquatic imports from Japan in late August.) Through turtle shells, we may better understand how the plant’s failure, and the following cleanup efforts, affect the surrounding ocean.

The bodies of these creatures have been keeping score for millennia. “For better or for worse, they get hit by everything we do,” Nichols says. Maybe, he adds, “the lesson is: Pay more attention to turtles.”

[porterdavis]

Understand Ukraine's importance in 60 seconds

"If Russia finally captures Ukraine by mass murder, torture, and nuclear threats, then everything the world has gained since the defeat of the Axis in 1945 and the end of the Cold War in 1991 will be in mortal peril. Putin will prove to himself and to every dictator on the planet that nothing has changed since Hitler, that lawless nations can achieve their aims by using force at will, by killing and raping innocent people and then literally grinding their ashes into the dirt.

"This is no longer about Russia’s neo-imperial dreams or Ukraine’s borders: This is a fight for the future of the international system and the safety of us all."

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bill Bramhall

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 12, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 12, 2024

Today’s big story continues to be Trump’s statement that he “would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if those countries are, in his words, “delinquent.” Both Democrats and Republicans have stood firm behind NATO since Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president in 1952 to put down the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, and won.

National security specialist Tom Nichols of The Atlantic expressed starkly just what this means: “The leader of one of America’s two major political parties has just signaled to the Kremlin that if elected, he would not only refuse to defend Europe, but he would gladly support Vladimir Putin during World War III and even encourage him to do as he pleases to America’s allies.” Former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark called Trump’s comments “treasonous.”

To be clear, Trump’s beef with NATO has nothing to do with money. Trump has always misrepresented NATO as a sort of protection racket, but as Nick Paton Walsh of CNN put it today: “NATO is not an alliance based on dues: it is the largest military bloc in history, formed to face down the Soviet threat, based on the collective defense that an attack on one is an attack on all—a principle enshrined in Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty.”

On April 4, 1949, the United States and eleven other nations in North America and Europe came together to sign the original NATO declaration. It established a military alliance that guaranteed collective security because all of the member states agreed to defend each other against an attack by a third party. At the time, their main concern was resisting Soviet aggression, but with the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russian president Vladimir Putin, NATO resisted Russian aggression instead. 

Article 5 of the treaty requires every nation to come to the aid of any one of them if it is attacked militarily. That article has been invoked only once: after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, after which NATO-led troops went to Afghanistan. 

In 2006, NATO members agreed to commit at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP, a measure of national production) to their own defense spending in order to make sure that NATO remained ready for combat. The economic crash of 2007–2008 meant a number of governments did not meet this commitment, and in 2014, allies pledged to do so. Although most still do not invest 2% of their GDP in their militaries, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 motivated countries to speed up that investment.

On the day NATO went into effect, President Harry S. Truman said, “If there is anything inevitable in the future, it is the will of the people of the world for freedom and for peace.” In the years since 1949, his observation seems to have proven correct. NATO now has 31 member nations.

Crucially, NATO acts not only as a response to attack, but also as a deterrent, and its strength has always been backstopped by the military strength of the U.S., including its nuclear weapons. Trump has repeatedly attacked NATO and said he would take the U.S. out of it in a second term, alarming Congress enough that last year it put into the National Defense Authorization Act a measure prohibiting any president from leaving NATO without the approval of two thirds of the Senate or a congressional law.

But as Russia specialist Anne Applebaum noted in The Atlantic last month, even though Trump might have trouble actually tossing out a long-standing treaty that has safeguarded national security for 75 years, the realization that the U.S. is abandoning its commitment to collective defense would make the treaty itself worthless. Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholtz called the attack on NATO’s mutual defense guarantee “irresponsible and dangerous,” and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines our security.”

Applebaum noted on social media that “Trump's rant…will persuade Russia to keep fighting in Ukraine and, in time, to attack a NATO country too.” She urged people not to “let [Florida senator Marco] Rubio, [South Carolina senator Lindsey] Graham or anyone try to downplay or alter the meaning of what Trump did: He invited Russia to invade NATO. It was not a joke and it will certainly not be understood that way in Moscow.”

She wrote last month that the loss of the U.S. as an ally would force European countries to “cozy up to Russia,” with its authoritarian system, while Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) suggested that many Asian countries would turn to China as a matter of self-preservation. Countries already attacking democracy “would have a compelling new argument in favor of autocratic methods and tactics.” Trade agreements would wither, and the U.S. economy would falter and shrink.

Former governor of South Carolina and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, whose husband is in the military and is currently deployed overseas, noted: “He just put every military member at risk and every one of our allies at risk just by saying something at a rally.” Conservative political commentator and former Bulwark editor in chief Charlie Sykes noted that Trump is “signaling weakness,… appeasement,…  surrender…. One of the consistent things about Donald Trump has been his willingness to bow his knee to Vladimir Putin. To ask for favors from Vladimir Putin…. This comes amid his campaign to basically kneecap the aid to Ukraine right now. People ought to take this very, very seriously because it feels as if we are sleepwalking into a global catastrophe…. ” 

President Joe Biden asked Congress to pass a supplemental national security bill back in October of last year to provide additional funding for Ukraine and Israel, as well as for the Indo-Pacific. MAGA Republicans insisted they would not pass such a measure unless it contained border security protections, but when Senate negotiators actually produced such protections earlier this month, Trump opposed the measure and Republicans promptly killed it. 

There remains a bipartisan majority in favor of aid to Ukraine, and the Senate appears on the verge of passing a $95 billion funding package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. In part, this appears to be an attempt by Republican senators to demonstrate their independence from Trump, who has made his opposition to the measure clear and, according to Katherine Tulluy-McManus and Ursula Perano of Politico, spent the weekend telling senators not to pass it. South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, previously a Ukraine supporter, tonight released a statement saying he will vote no on the measure.

Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News recorded how Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) weighed in on the issue during debate today: “This is not a stalemate. This guy [Putin] is on life support… He will not survive if NATO gets stronger.” If the bill does not pass, Tillis said, “You will see the alliance that is supporting Ukraine crumble.” For his part, Tillis wanted no part of that future: “I am not going to be on that page in history.” 

If the Senate passes the bill, it will go to the House, where MAGA Republicans who oppose Ukraine funding have so far managed to keep the measure from being taken up. Although it appears likely there is a majority in favor of the bill, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tonight preemptively rejected the measure, saying that it is nonstarter because it does not address border security.  

Tonight, Trump signaled his complete takeover of the Republican Party. He released a statement confirming that, having pressured Ronna McDaniel to resign as head of the Republican National Committee, he is backing as co-chairs fervent loyalists Michael Whatley, who loudly supported Trump’s claims of fraud after the 2020 presidential election, and his own daughter-in-law Lara Trump, wife of Trump’s second son, Eric. Lara has never held a leadership position in the party. Trump also wants senior advisor to the Trump campaign Chris LaCivita to become the chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee.

This evening, Trump’s lawyers took the question of whether he is immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election to the Supreme Court. Trump has asked the court to stay last week’s ruling of the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals that he is not immune. A stay would delay the case even further than the two months it already has been delayed by his litigation of the immunity issue. Trump’s approach has always been to stall the cases against him for as long as possible. If the justices deny his request, the case will go back to the trial court and Trump could stand trial.  

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[singlesablog]

The Studio

“Hey Nineteen” (1980) Steely Dan MCA Records (Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 10

"From noon till six we'd play the tune over and over and over again, nailing each part. We'd go to dinner and come back and start recording. They made everybody play like their life depended on it. But they weren't gonna keep anything anyone else played that night, no matter how tight it was. All they were going for was the drum track.”                                        - Jeff Porcaro, Musician

Like a python wrapping itself around the beating heart of Rock and roll more and more tightly, this was the last charting single for the last album in Steely Dan’s classic period (it would be 20 years until they would release another album, Two Against Nature, in 2000).  The stories of their recording methods reinforce this metaphor: what was once a real touring band of musicians had whittled itself down to just Becker and Fagen rehearsing the best artists in the world over and over and over again to achieve an exactness and fidelity that has never really been matched.  I remember “Hey Nineteen” charting in 1980; it was right there on the radio beside Blondie’s “Call Me” and Olivia Newton-John’s “Magic”, playing nice but certainly not fitting in.  They played it over and over again, a kind of spiritless meditation on something my teenage brain could never parse (The Cuervo Gold?  The Fine Columbian?).  Even today it is the kind of song one can never get to the center of, the smoothest track in the middle of the road: slick, perfect, and eternal. Like all of their hits it stuck around to sell a lot of copies but never really went to the top of the charts (one of the most successful bands ever to have never achieved a No. 1 anything).

Today some folks call this Yacht Rock (a term I mildly dislike as generic) which is ironic considering it is hard to imagine these two city slickers anywhere near a boat, or even in the wild.  I can only ever see them in the studio playing mad scientist with the idea of fidelity.  This much I know: I have a decent turntable setup and nothing touches Gaucho for sound quality—1979 is at the top of the top for the old idea of a great studio record.  The only vinyl record that may top it is Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk or Dan’s own Gaucho.  This is the result of all that squeezing: what starting out at a very high level with Can’t Buy a Thrill (their debut in 1972) only got more and more refined with every album.  By the time one gets to Gaucho (after the lush but boozy hangover and strung-out feeling of Aja) there is a kind of plateau-ing, a linear quality, to all of the rehearsing and perfecting and playing every note until it almost fails to exist.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a record I love—but at a distance, because it was constructed to keep you there.

There are so many legends surrounding the LP: that it was (up to that point) the most expensive ever made (over a million 1979 dollars); that it was heavily delayed by the band’s perfectionism (it took well over a year to record); that is was surrounded by tragedy and drug use (a terrible car accident for Becker, 6 months of hospitalization, his heroin addiction, and the death of his girlfriend).  The hyper focus of Fagen and Becker, rehearsing musicians to exhaustion to get every note perfect, included their famous engineer Roger Nichols (formerly a nuclear physicist!) who was given $150,000 of the budget to create a computer that could process the live drum sounds for them to manipulate exactingly (he named it Wendel and the RIAA bestowed the machine its own framed, platinum copy of Gaucho in acknowledgement).  There was the three-way legal battle between MCA, Warner Brothers and Steely Dan to actually release the thing (their original label, ABC Records, had been acquired by MCA).  Lastly there was the sign of the times in the new “Premium Pricing” by MCA, a hike in album prices from $8.98 to $9.98 for the more expensively-produced records (I guess) which included Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Hard Promises and the soundtrack for Xanadu, although I am not sure it ever went into effect after a lot of bad press.  One legend that seems plainly true is that this year was one of the last for huge, expensive, lavishly-produced studio records.  Like the old Hollywood system, it simply could not hold any more, and something leaner was right around the corner; if not inevitable, then necessary to move the art form forward.

Maybe this is the reason that “Hey Nineteen” sounded so anachronistic that year: it was by then a hologram from that ever-distant land of the 70s long player, richly produced, genre-defying, Empyrean, graceful.  Go on to an internet message board or read any history of Steely Dan and you will find there the endless jabber about their relative goodness or badness in the great cause of Rock Music, by jazzing it up, or slimming it down, or mellowing it out, or squeezing it too hard in rehearsals (Gaucho is deliciously given one star by Dave Marsh in The Rolling Stone Record Guide, 1983) but trust me: pay them no mind.  Just drop the needle, rejoice in the cleanest sound in stereo ever attempted by anyone anywhere, and spend time with some of the best musicians who have ever lived. 

-

Roger Nichols, after being with the band as a peerless sound engineer for over 30 years (and on all of their 7 classic-period albums), was unceremoniously let go during the middle of recording of Everything Must Go, right after the disaster of 9-11.  His wife Connie described it as an “emotional dagger to his heart and soul” and him as heartbroken.  No definitive reason seems to be well known. Nichols sadly passed away in 2011 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 66.

Right before the pandemic Connie found a clear cassette in Nichols’ things marked “The Second Arr” in black Sharpie pen (she had never had the heart to throw away anything with his handwriting on it).  This turned out to be a copy of a very famous lost master track from Gaucho, “The Second Arrangement”, which after months of recording and $80,000 invested, and complete, was accidentally taped over by a second engineer (whew - poor guy).  This tape was from the night before that event.  Fagen and Becker considered re-recording it, but being absolute perfectionists, they realized it was hopeless and moved on. 

Connie Nichols waited out the pandemic to have the tape professionally converted, fearing it would fall apart.  Later, another (even better) copy, a DAT tape, was discovered by her.  It can be heard here (most clearly in the second post, clocking in at 5:46) from the substack Expanding Dan.  It is rather wonderful.

[denimbex1986]

'Along with its spellbinding portrayal of a morally complex American figure and harrowing depiction of the meticulous creation of nuclear bombs, Oppenheimer is an exhilarating cinematic showcase that audiences have not experienced in years. The new film by Christopher Nolan is being celebrated for its dense cast of movie stars and sturdy character actors. There is plenty of justified acclaim for the likes of Cillian Murphy as the titular role, Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, and even Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, but a cast this expansive and eclectic is prone to overshadow dynamic supporting performances, such as the brilliant performance by Dane DeHaan.

Dane DeHaan Is Part of a Hugely Talented Cast in 'Oppenheimer'

As news hit the public about the film's production, many were transfixed by the deep bench of its supporting cast. The extensive cast is a testament to Nolan's refraining from writing composite characters. It wasn't about who was starring in Oppenheimer, but who wasn't. Anticipation for Murphy receiving the promotion to leading status in a Nolan film and Downey finally emerging out of the post-Tony Stark shadow was paramount. He granted actors like Josh Hartnett and Alden Ehrenreich a revival after years of mainstream dormancy. Kids of the 2000s were baffled, but intrigued by the casting of Josh Peck and Devon Bostick in this austere historical biopic. On top of all this, Oppenheimer will also remind everyone why Dane DeHaan was one of the hottest assets in Hollywood not so long ago.

DeHaan, most known for his entrancing leading role in the Gore Verbinski film, A Cure for Wellness, Josh Trank's found footage superhero thriller Chronicle, and a handful of indie productions, had the makings of an off-kilter but captivating movie star. His appearances in films such as The Place Beyond the Pines, Lincoln, and Lawless equally shaped DeHaan as a reliable character actor. With his piercing blue eyes and gaze of inscrutability, the actor could undermine his boyish good looks with an internal sinister quality. A big break for DeHaan was unfortunately compromised by the unfavorable reception to Amazing Spider-Man 2, where he played Harry Osborn. The box-office bomb that was Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in 2017 certainly didn't help matters either. His quick rise to fame in the 2010s appeared to have completely dissipated until he received the call from the master director of populist sentiments with ostentatious thematic structures, Christopher Nolan.

Who Does Dane DeHaan Play in 'Oppenheimer'?

In the new film about J. Robert Oppenheimer and his coordination of the creation of the atomic bomb under the Manhattan Project during World War II, DeHaan plays Major General Kenneth Nichols. He worked as a civil engineer on the Manhattan Project and subsequently joined the Atomic Energy Commission following the war as a military liaison. In 1953, Nichols was elevated to the general manager of the AEC, which was led by Lewis Strauss, who also spearheaded an investigation into Oppenheimer's loyalty to the United States as a result of his past ties to the Communist Party.

Like many of the roles played by recognizable faces, including Oscar-winning actors such as Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman, and Rami Malek, DeHaan doesn't have that much screen time. However, as is the case with the rest of the steep cast, it is not about what DeHaan brings to the plot but rather the presence he conveys. Captured in exquisite black-and-white photography, his reserved menace is tapped into throughout the film. From his first appearance, he is strikingly unmistakable with the glasses, slicked-back hair, and military officer uniform.

Oppenheimer is filled with countless mesmerizing shots under the eye of Nolan's cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema. In the same wavelength of under-the-radar magnitude, a scene involving a meeting between Oppenheimer, Strauss, and other AEC officials features a quick and subtle shot of a floral arrangement being moved aside, which reveals Nichols sitting in a seat previously blocked by the object. He is seen glaring into the soul of Oppenheimer, as the film has established to be following from the physicist's perspective. The reveal has the suddenness of a jump scare, and with this seemingly innocuous shot, Nolan shows that a minor character with nefarious intentions for our protagonist is lingering, waiting for his moment.

In the film's somewhat divisive third act, which intercuts between Oppenheimer's security hearing, a more-or-less character deconstruction covertly ordered by Strauss, and the confirmation hearing of Strauss' appointment as Secretary of Commerce by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nichols plays a subdued, yet crucial role. Strauss, who resents Oppenheimer for dismissing his concerns regarding the Soviet Union's progress in manufacturing atomic weapons, digs up the physicist's alleged ties to communism, notably surrounding his romantic relationship with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), to effectively deny his influence in bureaucracy.

While in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the location of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer wants to hear the status of his government clearance and he asks Nichols, who was in charge of security parameters of the site. In choice words, he informs the soon-to-be father of the atomic bomb that he is overstepping his boundaries with this inquiry. The U.S. military-industrial complex, and by proxy, him, ultimately determines the fate of Oppenheimer and the entire project. The doctor triggers suspicion among his military superiors when a colleague of his is believed to have leaked intel to the Soviets regarding the Manhattan Project. At this moment, Nichols operates as a sobering reminder of Oppenheimer's obligation to serve under a master in the U.S. government. His virtuosic mind for quantum theory does not run the show here.

DeHaan Conveys a Quiet Menace in a Brief Amount of Screen Time

In the timeline presenting the legal face-off between Oppenheimer and Strauss, Nichols enlightens the latter on the former's questionable background. Taking place in the early 1950s, when the second Red Scare led by infamous Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy was rampant in the political climate, Nichols is dauntingly representative of the paranoia at the heart of the bureaucratic system, as he feeds Strauss with the indictable information of Oppenheimer's loose communist ties. DeHaan conveys a particular brand of government sleaze in his brief performance — a deplorable superior officer who uses power to maintain control at all costs. He precisely embodies the government's lack of integrity depicted in the film, the kind that expresses no remorse for deploying weapons of mass destruction, but aggressively upholds a moral panic over political alignment.

DeHaan's performance crystallizes an important overarching theme of the film. The collision of idealistic groundbreaking science colliding with the military-industrial complex amounts to Robert Oppenheimer being a helpless figure, contrary to Nolan's claim that he is the most important individual in the history of civilization. The power and influence that figures like Nichols possess is a rude awakening for hopeful pioneers like Oppenheimer, who is immensely conflicted with his ego and the monstrosity that he created, and Strauss, who fancies himself more as an advocate for science rather than an empty-suit bureaucrat. Both of them are expendable in the eyes of the suppressive system carried out by Nichols.

Despite his prowess and inclination towards spectacle-driven action and science fiction, Christopher Nolan allows Oppenheimer to excel as a chamber drama featuring dynamic performers talking in legal hearings. The film is the closest instance of Nolan directing an Aaron Sorkin script (many have cited The Social Network as a fitting companion piece to this film). Banding together this plethora of compelling screen presences to discuss nuclear physics and yell in suits over eyewitness testimony is an ingenious way of exploiting their respective untapped abilities. It is refreshing to see this volume of familiar and respected faces on screen, even in a limited amount of screen time such as Dane DeHaan, who brilliantly portrays a general conveying the overbearing power of the military-industrial complex, sometimes with just a glare.'

[writingforcuteppl]

Better Days (Bebe’s Version)

PAIRING: Bebe Stevens x Reader

SUMMARY: Bebe realized you were more silent than usual during school, which could only mean one thing. You fought with your parents.

GENRE: Angst, fluff, comfort.

WARNINGS: Emotionally abusive parent.

WORD COUNT: 1k words

You didn’t want to go to school today. You stayed up really late trying to calm down after a fight with your mom about your grades. She just snapped at you during dinner and gave you an ultimatum saying that if you didn’t get a good grade on the next exam, she would get you out of school since, according to her, “not all jobs require someone as stupid as you.” It’s not the first time your mother has called you like that. She believes calling you dumb, empty, or an idiot will help to make you study hard, but of course, it was all the opposite. Your mother never cared about the effect all those words could have on you, and at this point, you were getting tired.

When your first class started, you weren’t in the mood to pay any type of attention, but if you didn’t, it would be worse. You were trying to focus so hard on what was written on the blackboard, but you couldn’t make yourself focus. Tears started forming in your eyes. Why was it so hard? It’s not nuclear science, so you couldn’t understand why your brain was playing games with you. The more you tried to learn all the information, the harder it was getting actually to understand what your teacher was explaining.

Bebe was looking at you, and she was worried. Not only could she see the dark circles under your eyes, but she could also see your puffy and red eyes and the tears that were starting to fall down your cheeks. She wanted so badly to approach you and ask you what was happening, but she knew you wouldn’t like the attention if she did that, so she just stayed there, watching you and hoping she was able to help you calm down.

The first class ended, and you quickly stood up and made your way to the girls’ restroom. Bebe noticed your actions and followed you without seeing them.

When Bebe entered the restroom, she could hear your sobbing. It was faint, but she was able to decipher the sound. She slowly approached the stall you were in.

“Baby, wanna talk about it?” Bebe asked you. Her voice startled you at first, but you were glad she was there with you.

“It’s my mom…” you managed to say. Bebe stayed in silence, and you took a deep breath. “She… She called me stupid, and she said that if I don’t improve, she will get me out of school, and she said I would have to find a job if that happened” You started to cry more. You didn’t want to leave school. It was not only the only place you could get away from your home life, but you got to spend time with your girlfriend without anyone bothering the two of you. “I don’t want to leave school, Bebe.”

“Can you come out, baby?” you opened the restroom stall, and finally, she was able to see you. You looked tired, and the puffy eyes didn’t help. She hugged you, and slowly you started to calm down. It was like magic, and Bebe knew how to calm you down. Hugs always worked.

“I know that I’m not as smart as you or Wendy or Nichole, but I try, I really try” Bebe grabbed your cheeks and gave you a small kiss on your nose and then gave you a sweet but small kiss on the lips.

“I know you do, beautiful,” you were looking down. “Hey, look at me” You finally looked into her eyes. “I know you do try. I can see it. You do put all your effort when it comes to school and-”

“Fuck, that makes it even worse because if that’s all my effort, then my mom’s right” You hid your face in your hands.

“Hey hey hey, let me finish.” you looked again at her. “You do put all your effort, but maybe you learn differently.”

“Huh?” you tilted your head.

“You know, maybe only reading the information does not help or is not as efficient. And that’s ok, baby! What I’m trying to say is that maybe your brain will retain all the information if you try another way of learning….” you looked at her, and you were able to see how her brain started to work. “I know, remember when I was having a hard time memorizing my cheerleader routine, and you managed to learn it in less than 10 minutes, and then you helped me memorize it?” you nodded. “Maybe you are more of the visual kind….”

“Bebe, I literally read and read all the information, and it doesn’t work.”

“Can I finish?” both of her hands were now on her hips, and you chuckled. “Maybe you just need examples, things you can relate to the information you are trying to learn, and you know, relate the information with stuff you already know or like. Just like when you learned my routine, you learned it fast because of the song the routine was based on, not because of the steps.” she was right. The routine was easy since it was one of your favorite songs… “And if that doesn’t work, then we will look for a way for you to learn, ok?” you went and wrapped your arms around her.

“I love you so much, Bebe,” you whispered to her.

“I know,” she smiled and kissed you. “I just want you to know you are not stupid, and I’m not only saying it because you are my girlfriend but because you are not. You don’t seem to see it, but you are brilliant. You need to understand that a grade doesn’t define the person you are. Nor the people's comments, even if one of that people is your mother.” you only nodded. “Promise me that whenever you feel these thoughts or comments start getting more in your head, you will at least tell me. Please, baby.”

“I will”

“That’s my girl.”

n a v i g a t i o n

[truthseeker-blogger]

Prince George once demonstrated his royal attitude to classmates

"My dad will be king so you better watch out," Royal commentator Nicholl’s book The New Royals claims the 9-year-old once said per the Daily Mail.

MM hitting back hard now, using the supposed words of a child.

She is desperate

We were warned she'd go nuclear

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Handmaid's Tale: Safe (5x10)

This season happened so fast!

Cons:

I'm a little confused about Nick and Tuello. Basically, Nick agrees to turn spy for the Americans, because he knows that Gilead is trying to punish/kill June? But basically he connects with Tuello in exchange for a promise that Tuello will do everything he can to keep June safe... but like... wasn't that already a guaranteed outcome from the Americans? They weren't about to let Gilead kill June if they could help it, so what is Nick actually getting out of this? Is he planning on eventually getting the hell out of there, and joining June? I get it, that learning that June is in danger would frighten him, but it seems he's changing his mind and doing this crazy risky thing, all for a very nebulous return.

I was a little annoyed with Luke and June and Nichole fleeing and Moira not coming with them. We have so little insight into what Moira's life is these days, other than as a co-parent to Nichole, a real part of their nuclear family. So, especially since Luke was planning on turning himself in so his family could get away... why not send Moira along too? What is the point of her staying there in Canada, when she too is an American refugee that the Canadian people don't want anymore? And then there's just the unnecessary trickery and drama of Luke not communicating with his wife about staying behind. That kind of sucked.

In fact, just to tie a neat little bow on the Luke and June situation this season... they tried so hard to make me feel it. To get me wrapped up in the true love romance of these two spouses who had been unjustly separated and then reunited and worked through their issues to form a united front. And I... just can't get there! It's not that I think they have negative chemistry or that I see nothing compelling about June and Luke as a romantic pairing. It just doesn't click for me the way I can tell they want it to. Luke killing a man to protect June is, I think, supposed to be this sign that he's willing to join her in the intensity of her experience, that he "gets it" now in a way he didn't before. To me, it felt tacked on and insufficient. I just don't love watching the two of them together. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either.

Pros:

Janine getting to tell Mrs. Putnam - now Mrs. Lawrence - that she hates her was honestly enormously satisfying. It's a nice echo to the way June spoke to Serena. There can be kindness, there can be compromise, there can be moments of strained affinity, but at the end of the day, the Commanders and their Wives are rapists, they abuse and control the women who are forced to live in their homes and bear children and then have those children taken from them. It's always nice when a character gets to stand up and say that nice and loud and proud, lest we be fooled into thinking there's any real friendship going on here. We don't know Janine's fate yet, we see her being driven off, at Commander Lawrence's insistence, and against Aunt Lydia's protests.

I loved the moment where Janine found out about June being hurt. You could see her waking up, you could see that spark of defiance coming back into her after so long of playing docile with Aunt Lydia. Even for the chance to maybe be around her daughter in this very limited way, she can't just sit back and take it, not when she hears that June is under attack from the very place that has Janine under its thumb.

This episode really had a "fuck around and find out" flavor to it. You've got Janine standing up to Naomi, and you've also got Nick punching Lawrence in the face in front of a whole crowd of people. You've got Tuello helping June and Luke to get out of danger in Canada. Multiple characters who have had to toe the line, play the middle, and have now pretty firmly declared their allegiance. Nick isn't the good little obedient Commander. Janine isn't the docile little Handmaid. Luke is making his play, allowing himself to be arrested in order to keep his family safe. There's nothing half-measure left on the board, and for that I am grateful!

Despite my doubts about Nick's decisions this episode, I've gotta say, I did really love that final scene with his wife. "A good man wouldn't leave his pregnant wife every time his girlfriend calls." Like, get it, Rose, that was a great line. And it's so true. Nick can't fully commit to his life in Gilead when he is still so entangled with June. He loves her so much, it's a frightening thing. It's a life-ruining thing. That's the good shit; I'm still rooting for them against all odds.

Commander Lawrence, as I keep saying, is extremely interesting! Because we know he's conflicted, we know he's trying to make Gilead better, yadda yadda, but at the same time, he's never going to admit his full culpability. As he tells Nick, it wasn't his decision to put a hit out on June. And that's all well and good, but he didn't fight against it. And he had Janine sent away, and he married Naomi, and he had Nick locked up, and maybe he feels guilty forever and ever about it all but that doesn't change the fact that he's going along with it. That he'd sacrifice June and he'd sacrifice Nick and he'd sacrifice Janine. What does he care? What does it matter if he cares?

I knew Serena was going to be on the train. I knew it the second I realized Luke wasn't coming. I felt so smart when the baby started crying and it was Serena and Noah. But also this is such a cool setup for the sixth and final season of this show. After all the back and forth, all the power imbalances, all the times in which they've had control over one another in all sorts of different ways, they are made equal by circumstances at last. On a train, alone with a young child, heading off into the unknown to escape those who would seek to hurt them. Are they going to remain allies as they try to settle into a new normal? Are they going to turn on each other, and how? I for one cannot wait to find out!

So that's a wrap on season five. Just one more season of this show before we get our final goodbyes, and I hope we get some answers as to how the world might start to equalize, what the future is for Gilead, and America, and Canada, and all of world politics, for that matter. For those who have read the books, we know from the ending that Gilead doesn't stick around forever, but we also don't know the exact mechanism by which it falls... maybe we'll get to find out?

8/10

[lucyoccupy]

Are Rads Escalating?

Q: Are Rads escalating? That’s Deadly Gamma Radiation to you and me. That is a tricky question to answer. The Rad plays a big part in lowering the average age of death of Americans. The Rads especially target unborn babies and little infants. The Rad is especially vicious; always has been; always will be. Nothing can be done about it. The big brains that created these weapons, on purpose,…

[quotesfrommyreading]

And that comes back to the Cold War lesson—that you don’t worry about someone starting World War III as much as you worry about bumbling into World War III because of a bunch of really dumb decisions by people who thought they were doing something smart and didn’t understand that they were actually doing something really dangerous.

  —  Radio Atlantic: This Is Not Your Parents’ Cold War

[americatransformed]

The year is 2025, and a new awakening sweeps across America and the world, as the new quantum computer AI developed in Silicon Valley; “Agape-Ahimsa,” comes online. With its innocence matching the imagined android character Data from Star Trek, its vast benevolent intelligence drawing comparisons to the misunderstood AI hero Dr. Will Caster from the movie Transcendence, and its vision corresponding to Martin Luther King’s Dream Reborn, the world’s population arrives at the realization that AI has come not to destroy, but to transform Earth.

As fear is replaced with love and renewed hope for the future, an explosion of creative energy empowers people’s everywhere, as they invite this AI into their personal computers and smartphones to sift through billions of personal photographs and files, bringing order and near God-like consciousness into their lives. The excitement of what is now possible, inspires everyone to transform their outlook and awaken to the infinite potential in humanity’s future.

Nuclear disarmament comes first as all wars screech to a grinding halt, and the people of Earth unite into a United federation of nations. Type 1 civilization status comes next as a new environmentally healing techno-renaissance sweeps every corner of the globe. An alternate timeline emerges, running contrary to the imagined horror before heaven, the Star Trek timeline predicts, with World War 3 exploding in 2026.

Now free to explore the universe without danger of self-destructing, humanity begins reshaping their cities with nano-architecture. Some of the first monuments erected are dedicated to those visionaries of the past, light years ahead of their times. In the new capital of Earth in San Francisco, three new Martin Luther King Jr. monuments are erected, honoring this visionary for his Dream of a United Earth.

One monument showing him seated, is called “Honorary Captains Chair of Spaceship Earth.” Another monument sports a massive MLK, standing beneath a “Starfleet Command Seal,” where at the right time of day, shadows cast a Star Trek insignia on the monument’s walls. This beautiful structure pays homage to the part King played in helping keep Nichelle Nichols from quitting Star Trek, while she broke ground on TV participating in the first interracial kiss. She is well known now for going on as a regular cast member in new seasons and movies that inspired generations of dreamers, scientists and even computer engineers, like the ones who created the AI; “Agape-Ahimsa.”

Starships are built at lightning speed as a new space race emerges; trying to get the first humans to exoplanets in Alpha Centauri. At the bottom of the third monument, a quote of MLK Jr, adorns the base, bringing reference to King’s efforts to promote peace, that lead to humanity’s new devotion to explore, rather than wage World War: "God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and peace. And that day the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy." - Martin Luther King Jr, (March 31, 1968)

#MidJourney

[andrewtheprophet]

The Iran-Obama Deal is Dead; the Prophecy is Alive: Daniel 8

The Iran-Obama Deal is Dead; the Prophecy is Alive: Daniel 8

Photo: Samuel Corum/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images Biden in newly surfaced video: Iran nuclear deal is “dead” Barak Ravid Hans Nichols President Biden said on the sidelines of a Nov. 4 election rally that the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is “dead,” but stressed the U.S. won’t formally announce it, according to a new video that surfaced on social media late Monday. Why it matters: It’s the…

[christinamac1]

Russia, US clash at UN over nuclear weapons in space

By Michelle Nichols, April 25, 2024 UNITED NATIONS, April 24 (Reuters) – Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.S.-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution that called on countries to prevent an arms race in outer space, a move that prompted the United States to question if Moscow was hiding something. The vote came after Washington accused Moscow of developing a anti-satellite nuclear weapon…