Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Cab Thoughts 5/28/14


 "I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment, and yet -- I can't help it -- I enjoy every second of it." -- Winston Churchill,  First Lord of the Admiralty, writing to Prime Minister Asquith's wife about World War One






Farmers decrease fighting among roosters by putting rose-colored glasses on them. It cuts their aggression for some reason. Now a bureaucrat would generalize from that. So...this week's entrepreneurial idea: A non-profit for the mandatory wearing of rose colored glasses for anyone with an anger management problem.



You can't go home again--literally: Leila Hatami, the Iranian actress at the Cannes Film Festival, has been reported to the country’s courts by activists who are seeking a public flogging as punishment for violating Islamic laws. Hizbullah Students, a group of university students with links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, filed a complaint with Iran’s judiciary for the prosecution of the film star who starred in the Oscar-winning, A Separation. Miss Hatami was condemned by Islamic Republic officials for kissing Gilles Jacob, the President of Cannes Festival, while attending the event as a member of the jury. Iranian conservative media have claimed the greeting “was an affront to the chastity of women in Iran”. Hossein Nushabadi, Iran’s deputy minister of culture, declared Hatami’s appearance in Cannes “in violation of religious beliefs”.



Who is .....Paul Ehrlich?
 
Wearing rose-colored glasses can also make you blind. 400 Billion dollars in gas trade between Russia and China gives the lie to any Western idea of "isolating" Russia. It gets worse. China proposed a brand-new continental security system to include Russia and Iran--Iran!--and exclude America. These ancient and regressive powers are reestablishing a bipolar world reminiscent of the old Cold War time. This is serious stuff and will be hard to overlook when Obama's presidency is finally reviewed. Obama is looking more and more like a guy by the side of the road watching the traffic.
 
Every once in a while.... Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne spoke recently about Fiat's electric car. Decrying the federal and state mandates that push manufacturers to build electric cars, Marchionne said he hoped to sell the minimum number of 500e cars possible. "I hope you don't buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000," he said to the audience at the Brookings Institution about the 500e. "I'm honest enough to tell you that."
Amazing.



Golden Oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/09/dark-fields.html  




A very interesting therapy is emerging in the field of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Plays and reading of ancient writings of the behavior are being performed, sometimes by the soldiers themselves.  This is the summary of the play "Ajax:" A soldier returns home from battle but has brought the war with him. He stares off into the distance (with a “thousand-yard stare”), is unable to take joy in his family or friends, and is still hyperalert to threats he no longer faces. Unable to heal his invisible wound, he takes his own life. The author of “Ajax,” Sophocles, was himself a warrior — an elected general who led men against Syracuse.
 
In a policy statement, the VA commissioner for Connecticut  said that applicants to her department are screened to ascertain “minimum qualifications.” “Applicants who meet the essential level of preparation,” writes the woman, “are not excluded. The Human Resources Administrator must work to bring as many protected members into the system.”  Minimum qualifications? Protected members?
 
Petulant: adjective: Bad-tempered; cranky. [From Latin petere (to seek, assail). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pet- (to rush or fly), which also gave us feather, petition, compete, perpetual. Earliest documented use: 1598.
World War I unleashed destruction that would kill 8.5 million and wound in excess of 20 million more, many times the casualties of all the Napoleonic wars combined. Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo with an army of sixty thousand men. In the first war, Russia put 4 million men in the field.
 
The third season of "Sherlock," the BBC produced modern Sherlock Holmes take, has become the UK's most watched drama series since 2001. In 2013, Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Holmes, was ranked in fifth place in the "Most Fascinating People in Britain" list of Tatler Magazine, higher than the Duchess of Cambridge and just below Queen Elizabeth II.
 
Sam Staples was the local tax collector and arrested Thoreau for not paying his poll tax. Interestingly, Staples offered Thoreau a neighborly loan just in case. Thoreau refused. The next morning, to Thoreau's regret, he heard that his tax had been anonymously paid for him.
 
AAAAaaaaaannnnnndddddd........a picture of a bombing raid in Russia, 1941:

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