News on the new title ……

Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne

I have been asked as to the reason titles and bye-line have changed.   Best explained by a passage of a parable, “no man, when he hath lighted a lamp, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but putteth it on a stand…”

The MOSAherne is a contraction of Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne in loving respect to both sides of my family. It is a useful moniker and also fits the name of a remote grandfather and J. Joyce lookalike Moss.  I refer to physiognomy and not latters global renown.

All three of us may have had a shared interest…..

My good eye is always looking for beauty.

Rich but poorly loyal Harriet was back in Blighty probably making the payments for this trip.  Poor Nora was doing the washing.  As Joyce sits with Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris in 1938.  From author Gisèle Freund.  Source. Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. 

 

I digress.   Reason for new title.

Even on this planet someone named we’ll say Hieronymus Bosch will have a namesake not so far away.    I have decided to change bye-line and title for the sake of clarity. I was slow to notice that Latin is not the language of the day.  “Questia Omnia”  didn’t exactly describe the page.   I have had no criticism of Seamus the Wolfhound barking sane. Now he barks “Really! Ye don’t say” because maybe it’s about asking  questions and having a BS radar tuned in!  Better late than never!  I do like sports or did .  That’s why I don’t pay much attention to what has replaced it.  I will write more on this soon.  When asked about a ‘favourite’ book by another site I authentically said ‘autobiography, and that would be mine’.   It’s on hold until bookstores clear shelves of celebrity gossip and pubescent biography.   As that might not happen until a nuclear winter, I might require  more incentive ……

My personal journey patiently awaits paper, much greater focus, and time.   The good shall be named and the bad or worse, corrupt (you’re ahead of me here) shamed!  Upon a night sometime past dark thirty if fickle Fate doesn’t finally terminate my subscription to this temporal sphere, I’ll settle before the blankest of pages and by force of will if nothing else consign to parchment events that changed everything irrevocably and for the worse.

It might require large doses of humour to make it readable or of interest which shouldn’t present a problem for me.

Either way  it won’t matter because for once quite ironically it’ll be for me.

   

 

Or as Stephen King wrote….. “The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them: words shrink things. “   

 

So this Web Journal is a figurative toe in the ocean.  Part memoir, travel writing, and personal essays.  Many may even be photographic.  An exercise which might wander at stages into the realm of bio. The fetal kick as it were to something more substantial. Each opinion can be viewed as a cell. Cells of sense and erudition. A zygote of….! That’s enough metaphor!   Well just one more.   An embryonic exercise for a cathartic autobio to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDEX

 Web Journal is……

WORTH REVISITING……

 Putting Descartes before the Cheval. 

 0.0000069%

So How was It for You?

Time, Place and Being.

How Do I Love Thee

Fifty shades of Greenbacks$ and why it’s all…..Bulle!

Woe men for womens wiles

News on the new title ……

Hard Work. Hard Play. Many States including one of Fatigue!

Mr.Mojo Rising. Light My Fire!

No matter where you go….

Abra Abra cadabra…I wanna reach out n grab ya!

Every Picture Tells a Story…

Reno to Las Vegas

Last word on the SR-71

Are you ready for your close up?. We’re lighting the candle of the lowest bidder!

Not rocket science? Yes-it is!

Just 2000 mile to cover first 5 States. No time for state of chassis. Let’s roll!

A Star in California……

That’s Valet parking!

Taxi for…..Shuttle!

SUPERFINE 289

‘don’t make em like that enmore’

LOCKHEED MARTIN

California (or some parts of the whole of)

USA, and us.

THE DISTRICT

On the fly….

en savoir sur mes gouts

我在哪裡註冊？Go East Old Man!

Musicality? Taste is either great or not at all!

NOT ONLY …BUT ALSO…in a few of many pics….

Influence

Yung as you Feel, Sense, Know.

News of Today?

Power, Plumbers, and Paranoia,

Is there no pleasing you?

Ranking

Just back! Quick post

In case I forget……

Cogitationes

Above the Parapet

Miss Cel·Lane O Us

Say what you will……

Dis n Dat

Karine’s place.

What’s Up Doc?

Documentaries/Remark-able

Pride came before the fall.

Belgian girls are so…….

Barcelona y Barça

Regular News!

 ad-ver-teasing

Keeping it real…….

Lifting the mood?

aRT WORk

Parody or Reality?

The ‘bleedin’ obvious or is it?

It’s not just …….

The main thing is….

D PRESS

IMPRESSIVE!  the technology in the background as well ;-)

Reality Writes More Rivetting Narrative

“One of these nights when the birds aren’t even walking”

Guess where?

Feeling Jung

 Plus additions via link              

http://mauriceaherne.tumblr.com/

https://mauriceosullivanaherne.wordpress.com/

 https://mauriceaherne.wordpress.com/

https://mosaherne.wordpress.com/tag/maurice-aherne/

https://plus.google.com/106900394721317656329/posts

https://suedenemakesausefulpun.wordpress.com/               local yokels

 

If there are duplications you must remind yourself you can never get enough of a good thing.

 © Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne 2013. All rights reserved.

The following articles are however

copyright of my friends at Lists of Note

Fumblerules of Grammar

The Bookshop

For Characters Who Don’t Dig Jive Talk

New Years Rulin’s

DON’TS FOR WOMEN RIDERS

A Decalogue of Canons

Belief & Technique for Modern Prose.

Rescue Etiquette

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments

Utopian Turtletop

Better than a dog anyhow

The Don’ts and Be Carefuls

Titles in search of a script

Thelonious Monk’s Advice

The Seven Blunders

The Anti-Flirt Club

When I come to be old

A little bill of fare

Orwell’s Rules for Writers

Hemingway’s Favourites

Reno to Las Vegas

UNMISTAKABLE geology

I must find time to upload shots from the Reno to Las Vegas flight .

Here’s a map to stop you from fidgeting in anticipation!

 

 

 I see from this LV tourist map that here is a Berlin -I Park and further north the Humboldt river, in Nevada.  I didn’t notice at 31, 000 feet.  Coincidental for the fact that  I was in the Humboldt University Berlin (Alma Mater of Al Einstein & Co) a year or two later.  

While  most of the wonderful names of cities, towns and hamlets, across USCON are a product of imagination rather than significance; I’m guessing that the people of this area gave the river and park it’s nomenclature as a nod to the history of Physics.  There are many  folk around these parts who make their living by knowing quite a lot about it’s Laws

Flying from Reno to Las Vegas Nevada in the same airspace of historic flights such as the BellX1, Bell x2, and the remarkable X-15 was significant for me.

Speaking of which………

Here’s just ONE photo at the Smithsonian on the Mall in Washington DC.

COMPOSTION IS IMPORTANT FOR THE 3 MOST ICONIC AIRCRAFT and capsule IN AVIATION HISTORY.   X15-foreground.  Apollo 11 re-entry module at 7’oclock.  Lindbergh’s Ryan aircraft at 11o’clock and Yeager’s Bell X-1 at 1o’clock.                                              copyright Maurice Aherne 2007.

That’s history right there!    The 1920s;1940s;1960s

The Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly Virginia is a companion facility.  I was there as in the Mall DC in 2007 and somehow drawn back in 2008.

Here the Concorde (first operational and French aircraft) is parked up beside the Boeing DASH (1950s prototype for the future viz. 707, 737 and indeed the future of Boeing Corp)

Around the corner is the Wright Flyer.  You’re looking at 1903.

Six decades later a cadre with the ‘right stuff”  Mr. White; Walker; Armstrong; Adams; Crossfield et al,  left their breakfast tables, drove to the base, jumped inside the X15,  flew up to 120,000 feet at 2, 500+ miles per hour and returned***.If asked about their day I would imagine it was in their nature to say   “Just routine work honey.  How was your day?Where are the kids?”

***Some had longevity and drew a pension.  Others hadn’t and didn’t

The area beneath the Reno-Las Vegas sky route is littered (and that’s literally) with singe marks on an already naturally scorched terrain.  It’s testimony to the fact that bright shiny fast jets do not look well when they augur into ground.

Map showing the location of Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada, to the west of the Nevada Test Site (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our commercial flight however was on approach much more sedately at 380 knots over the sprawling suburbia of Vegas. The approach meant a run down one side and then a  180 degree turn which  afforded the paying customers a better view of the Strip.   Appreciated!

McCarron airport has a small Aviation Hall of Fame that’s worth anyone’s twenty minutes. It ought to divert attention from the banks of slot machines there.  Mind you if you find yourself with a lever in your hand at this stage of the visit you may be in trouble!

Maybe you ought to turn back and spend the greenbacks on an addiction specialist in LA.

Nellis AFB by the way is at the other end of the Strip- NE of downtown Vegas.  And for good reason!  You don’t want to mix B.1 Lancer’s with 737s  too often!

  http://sdrv.ms/S89T78

The shots in the Skydrive link above are just a few of many.  (Besides the folder of Belgique and Maroc) the order as it runs from the top if I  recall begin with the Mall in  Washington DC ; then humid Cape Canaveral Fla; to scorching  Edwards AFB in the Californian High Desert; then a year later at Cape Canaveral Fla.  Finally across USCON once more to Nellis AFB. Nevada.

Los Angeles  is best left as an impressionistic blur.  A blur like much of the city at night.  Daytime is hazy too by the way!

Next (in shot order) is up the Pacific coast to San Francisco and some of it’s hinterland.  Last shot is south of San Francisco Bay at the Ames Research Facility in the neighbourhood of Mountain View, which is essentially the epicentre of  Silicon Valley.

Below is old work horse, the McDonnell Phantom.

Doesn’t the F-4 look magnificent?  It’s like a woman with an unusual feature such as a attractive aquiline nose. That’s simile not sexism.

Very striking!

 Nellis AFB by night and the  F-16. 

Simile Alert

This would be a confident ‘IT’ girl going out with stilettos as if she were the first girl ever to do so!

Besides plane speaking

After the third or fourth day in Las Vegas, tear yourself away from the blackjack tables and join a 5 hour excursion to the old atomic sites.  You’ll be radiating with wonder. The dose comes free if you give the Nevada Energy Commission enough notice.  What more d’ ya want?

It would take extra days to enjoy the remote towns of Rachel and Tonopah on the periphery of the ranges.  There are reasons I would like to live here but only for a few weeks a year.  It’s the location of battle-hardening aerial manoeuvres including that consummate test for AF aviators worldwide, Red Flag.

That’s Nevada.

Later in distance, time and energy, the Canyons, National Parks and towns below.

Then back once more to  California’s Mojave’s High Desert where a NASA F-18 displays her finery at Edwards.  Tough 10 hours in the searing heat.  Billions of dollars worth of technology made it worthwhile.

Last word on the SR-71

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3tvBRs8_qU

 

There are many great museums along the Mall of Washington DC.  The Air and Space Museum is one to glide through slowly.

The Udvar Hazy Museum is a companion facility.  It’s a short drive over the State line into Chantilly Virginia.

SR7I looking more like a caged cat in a museum than a Mach 3 Super Machine.

 

 The SR-71 was polished and shining like a new large toy.  It’s pristine look betrayed the operational wear it had to sustain during it’s service.  Even before it was consigned to this museum, it was set a task- to fly from California to DC- in record time.  

http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19920072000

 

 

Incidentally, the room in the background (above) at the time I was there ca 2007 -housed the drop test STS Shuttle Enterprise *.  This has been replaced at this museum by STS Discovery post-Operational Service.  The engineless Enterprise has moved to New York on the Hudson aboard the Intrepid floating carrier museum beside 12th Avenue. 

 

 

Another 71 is a stationary star in Merced California.   It’s retirement home is a titanium preserving sun-baked plot at Castle AFB 5050 Santa Fe Drive, Atwater, California, 95301, in the San Joaquin Valley, one hour from Fresno, two hours from Sacramento, and three hours from San Francisco. 

 Castle AFB is itself decommissioned.  It was the home base of B47’S and B 52’s since the 1950’s.

The fastest and highest global Blackbird. “Fear no evil for we are at Mach 3, 80,000feet and  climbing“

 

Less than two decades earlier this aircraft was flying 2000mph at almost triple the altitude of  regular commercial flight. The classified figures are even more impressive I suspect.

 This bird was the most operational SR-71 and even from Santa Fe Drive, it had the subtle allure of a raven-haired woman in a well cut-dress.

 

I emphasise that it is the aesthetics of aircraft, and the skill of crew (here and elsewhere) that I commend. 

The politics are another thing!

Incidentally residual pride in ‘Irishness’ is rekindled by knowing that some of the elite crew who were involved with this great airframe were connected to the ‘ol sod’. Pat Halloran was one of a few , and moreover had command of the Wing, at a time when classified assignments were at their height.

Here is the SR 71-roster. Check the paternal names here.  As is the case elsewhere in the USA,  the maternal lineage might provide as much connection with others.

http://www.sr71.us/Supp_BBook.htm

Copyright © 1996 Leland R.  Haynes.

SR-71 Blackbird

 

 Communication to Tower

There were a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane—intense, maybe, even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.

It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet.

I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn’t match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace.

We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot who asked Center for a read-out of his ground speed. Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground.” Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the “Houston Center voice.” I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.

Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed in Beech. “I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.” Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren.

Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. “Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check.” Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a read-out? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: “Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.” And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done—in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn.

Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it—the click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request.

“Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.” I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: “Ah, Center, much thanks, we’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money.”

For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A. came back with, “Roger that Aspen. Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one.” It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

Written by Brian Schul former ‘sled’ SR-71 Blackbird pilot

END

A SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance aircraft. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Say what you Will

Vertinskaya as Ophelia, 1964. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No person has ever said more, about so much, with so few words

 

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d!”

 

Will the Shaker.

Musicality? Taste is either great or not at all!

Style comes and goes but with a little substance might even linger awhile.

Check out Chill Downtempo

at

 http://www.jango.com/stations/263763501/tunein?l=0

for 21st century music sublimity.

I recommend

Kaskade   with     ‘4 AM’

Air                            Cherry Blossom Girl and Femme de L’argent.

Zero 7                        Most of their oeuvre

Boards of Canada       ‘Left Side Drive’

Climatic                              L’horrizonte

Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino Variation) by Dougan

Did I mention

 

Underwater Love

by Jerome Isma-Ae on Croatia

Overtones of a 1960’s mood

Indulge yourselves again with Teardrop from Masive Attack and the wonderful last base note reminiscent of Isaac Hayes. Try their Black Milk on Mezzanine

Smashy n Nicey might have said “here’s a climber riding up the charts” ‘It’s Personal’ by The Radio Dept on Pet Grief.

Before I found the new century of musicians, the old ‘sound’ reliables were more like…….

 

 

 

In the late decades of the last century one of many aural treats  ‘Aja’ from the canon of Becker & Fagan set a standard  .  They are one of few acts, performers,  I would pay to hear and DID!

Listen to the sound or view the film.  The ear often outweighs the eye for impact and impression.  Actually do both!

  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oDWOwAu_z8

 

 from BBC’s Classic Album  AJA

 

If you want a taster then here’s the eponymous track (again skip the commercial)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWfQTY_K-_o

 

 

Humour or humor is not confined to lyrics with these amigos.  Fagen ”  …with Jerry Lewis?”    Becker  ” a fertile period for you”

preferential tracks from their oeuvre

The Boston Rag.

Dr.Wu

Do it again

Haitian Divorce,

Josie,

FM.

 

Lend an ear to Fagen’s solo album ‘The Nightfly’

 

The Nightfly (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “I wait all nite for calls like these”

 

 

 Other recommendations towards 20th century musicianship

The Doors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIagV6hUQAM

The Band

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzrf3XAWTfY

 

And……

 If you can ignore the public school preambles which interrupts their musical skill…..

 

Pink Floyd.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AblT9tSy2M

 

 Talking Heads            

Stop Making Sense    ……..the only highlight of the 1980’s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qx1XDATyBI

 

 APOLOGIES for the encroachment of advertisements where it occurs before performances.  Google can no longer avoid the lure of extra cash.  That is fair enough.   However, do feel free to skip ad where you can after 5 second countdown.

  

 Specific tracks on Jango from the last century I gravitate towards………

Eagles               New York Minute (live version) and I Can’t Tell You Why!

America                Horse With No Name;  Sandman;   * Ventura Highway

*We passed on it as we moved from Vandenberg AFB  via Lompoc California en route east into Arizona.

Until I find a better shot, this one below is close enough!

 

Time for a stogie, while

California dreamin’     Mama’s and the Papa’s

 

 

Other sounds of the 20th century that appeal….

For What it’s Worth      Buffalo Springfield

Black Water                       The Doobie Brothers    

Ah! the black waters of the Mississippi river, and a few more besides, between the Atlantic and Pacific I dipped a hesitant toe in.  And those two oceans -too!

Here’s the Colorado, 

 

 

Quintessential disco…….

Chic            I Want Your Love;  Good Times

Patrice Rushen                    Forget Me Nots

 

 

A brief respite from ‘Americana’ as we move to Blighty.

Elvis Costello -Oliver’s Army;

Joe Jackson-Steppin’ Out;

Police King of Pain;

Al Stewert- Year Of The Cat

 

 

TransLan once more …….

 

MY IMPRESSION OF JACK NICHOLSON GRINNING!

Boz Scagg              What Can I Say

It would be remiss of me to leave ‘music’  without a nod to one of the few greats (still breathing) that is Mr. Zimmerman, Bob Dylan.  Again another individual I would pay to see; but I took my time about it.

Bob Dylan if for nothing else deserves his status just for ‘touring’ alone .  He could easily  have rested on laurels for 40 years. He found time on the circuit in Ireland an awful lot but I must have had other priorities at the time.

 

It took ’til 2000 July 14th, in Minnesota- for yours truly to catch up.  I was on Lyndale Ave and Lake St in south Minneapolis when I read that he was performing that night.  It took a little negotiation before my hosts changed their plans for the evening.

A few of my shots of the Twin Cities Minn /St Paul,  are on picture-perfect link elsewhere

–

 

I leave you for now with Wiki’s look at this interesting part of the Mid-West.

Main street looking north in Lyle, Minnesota circa 1910 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following some way behind Dylan but still in a division above the rest,-is ascerbic Neil Young.  His oeuvre is more often than not in stark contrast to the  ‘hippy’ optimism of The Byrds’ –   Turn, Turn, Turn, which is kinda nice all the same.  Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For what it’s Worth’-is very evocative of that era.

Crosby, Stills, Nash also within their changing configurations of CSN and CSN&Y are always melodically ‘listen worthy’.    ‘Just a Song before I go’  ‘Long Time Gone’  ‘Our House’  ‘Helplessly Hoping’

Harmonia maybe relics from a bygone era or so it seemed to me until I came across the following.

French duo        Air         with      Femme de L’argent

and FC Kahuna               Hayling

They’re all to be found at Electronic>Chill Downtempo

http://www.jango.com/stations/263763501/tunein?l=0

Dip into classical or cool jazz while you’re there.

 

I must go now but as I said to my Ukrainian friend Elizaveta

“I ain’t ‘russhing’ no more  and neither are you Liz!”

Are you ready for your close-up? We’re lighting the candle of the lowest bidder!

HEADS IN THE BLOCK ca.1960.
Person outside however had his head on the block (I speaketh figuratively)

 This technology monitored the lighting of a virtual bomb under the willing.

Time waits for no one! Block house as it would have been almost a half century earlier.
Mr Shepard: are you ready? It’s not the fall that hurts-it’s the sudden stop.

 

 

 

images/text Copyright © MOSAherne 2013 · All Rights Reserved

 

Some decades later……..

 

 

                                                                  pre-flight checks

THIS IS AS CLOSE AS ONE CAN GET WITHOUT FLYING AS CREW.

 

                                                                   post launch memories

                               

 

 empty space here

 

                                   though less so above

NOW!

 

                                        

Not rocket science? Yes-it is!

 Who said light it up?

 

                                                      Hot in here today isn’t it?  Who turned off the air-con?

 

From the 5 Saturn J1’s of the Apollo era

 

to 3 RS-25 Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). 

                                                 

 

  Here’s three we made earlier.

 

                           plus two solid rockets-

 

                                 for that little extra PUSH!

                                              

                                        So,

                                         

                                                 Keep in the oven until the night!

                                                  

                                                             Bring up the temperature!  

 

                                                What do you mean it only goes to 10?  

                                                                                                         

 

                                                              This IS an 11 situation here!

 

                                                                                     HOLD IT!          

 

                                                                                              Now let it go!

                                                                  

 

 Just a few shots.  I figured it was a time for the naked eye rather than a viewfinder. 

 Actually  I’d forgotten again my better camera

Update 6 years on.  Having photographed the International Space Station flying over a portion of Ireland this month June 2013; this last pic above in retrospect mimics the ISS.  One reason is the transonic-super-hypersonic speed down range gives an impression of some sort of solar panel attachment.  The actual reason of course is lack of a telephoto lens and some camera shake.

I can assure you the STS  above doesn’t have a solar panel configuration.

 Here’s the ISS passing from west to east on 6th/7th /8th June2013.  It did so for almost a fortnight.  It’s 255 miles up-moving at a leisurely 17,239.2 mph.  I feel the .2 is important here;-).  Yes-it looks like a speck.  What d ya expect?  Time Life or Magnum photography?  Somehow I feel my dependable tiny Nikon Coolpix camera without telephoto attachments gives the right feel of distance and vacuity of space; the aloneness of the void….the existential chasm

 ….OK ye get my drift!

These last 2 pics are a communication tower outside our dwelling.  Day or night they give the impression of rocket launch pads (albeit one fourth in size)

 

 

 

 3rd picture from top or the 11th up from here was close enough to have one concerned about liquid Nitrogen and a wayward stogie.  Atlantis was ‘pumped up’ for it’s mission to the ISS-International Space Station.

28 hours later and viewing further away, it made an expensive tax-dollar hole in the night sky.  Swirling masses of brown toxic fuel lingered in the darkness for some time.  As if in tribute to earlier times, the moon was out too.

The other STS shots elsewhere arose from a daylight flight by STS Discovery a year earlier as viewed from Cocoa Beach pier.   I had walked the beach with two women who were in  the industry.  They casually spoke about Apollo; Gemini; and Mercury launches.  I was a little envious.

There was nothing like that in Ireland 1960-73.  Living under the occasional flight path of a Vickers Viscount or an exotic Constellation,  several miles from Dublin airport,  wasn’t nearly by an ocean, the same.

Just 2000 mile to cover first 5 States. No time for state of chassis. Let’s roll!

Before riding out from Santa Clarita California  for Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada,  I  established co-ordinates!

 

 Incidentally these rock formations were formed by the San Andreas Fault.  In 1873  Tiburcio Vásquez  an alleged bandit, hid in these parts for a year.  His name is in stone while the posse are long forgotten. This area I understood later to be one of the more used locations for Hollywood’s cinematic old west.  Amusing to read too, that scenes from Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles were shot here!

I recall the sky being carpeted with stars and occasional strobe lights from jets.  Near dusk on one of the high bluffs, I swear I saw a giant owl looking back at me.   Now, I may have had a bourbon with a stogie, but normally that wouldn’t induce hallucinations. It was something wild!  I was hoping for a cougar! Speaking of which the lady companion at the time wasn’t.

 

 From a let down to a let up

 This is the  “Rhino”, “Flying Footlocker”, “Flying Brick”, “Lead Sled”, the “St. Louis Slugger”  “World’s Leading Distributor of MiG Parts” or “the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics”.

BLOODIED BUT UNBOWED. BOTH!

 Moreover we could have done with an F.4 Phantom to cover the square mileage and acreage to come.  

 

 

This one (above) was at Boron California beyond the North Gate of Edwards AFB.  A roadside attraction now.  It had done it’s service.

 

 

 Anhedral-dihedral wings is the  unique feature.  An imperfect analogy would be a lady with an attractive but curious physical feature like a slightly angled nose.  It’s simile not sexism.  

 Let’s move along….

 I’m here with folk at Edwards Air Force Base.

http://wp.me/p1ZmVq-n
They talk nowadays about ‘girl power’   Here’s a Riel deal from Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SLX0XiC-DQ

This first episode is a little saccharine and gung-ho fly the flag but the series Jetstream in it’s entirety is worth watching.  It has more character development and narrative arcs than your very average movie critic words speaking about fictional moovees.  It has a surprising ending too!

 Guess who fails to make the cut?  Wrong!  Guess again!

  Another real person is USAF. Major Malachowski with whom I spoke at Edwards AFB in 2006.

2011  Major Caroline Jensen took her place in the USAF demonstration-team Thunderbirds.  It goes against the anti-sexist leanings of this webpage and is wrong but ……..

mmmmmmMajor Caroline  YowsaYowsaYowsa  and Captain Gina Jennings

  

 pic credit USAF.

 and Captain (at the time of this photo) Gina Jennings

US Air Force (USAF) Captain (CAPT) Gina Jennings

 pic credit USAF

 Major Jensen and Captain Jennings and friends routinely fly at twice the speed of sound regularly while doing higher mathematics under negative 7, 8, or 9 G. 

 There are hundreds of similarly inspiring women from China to Chile in aviation who ought to be icons of inspiration for girls, ladies and women.  More so than someone called Madonna or Lady Ga Ga; but this evidently is not the case. 

 The same applies for women in other scientific fields.  Yet the culture celebrated by global media today is largely on the sporting field or on the pop stage. 

 Bizarre times. 

Basic flying rules written by another who knew……..

Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.

When a prang seems inevitable, endeavour to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity as slowly and gently as possible-attrib. RAF

If you’re faced with a forced landing; fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. (Bob Hoover, a renowned aerobatic and test pilot)  Bob was with Yeager on that first sound barrier flight in 1947

When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was forgotten.

Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there!

The only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire.

The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you. Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot.

You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3. Paul F. Crickmore test pilot

There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky.

The three most common last words in aviation are: “Why is it doing that?”, “Where are we?” “Oh S#!+!”

© Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne 2013. All Rights Reserved.

  

 Maybe someone in WP will remove the ‘Like’ button below and elsewhere.  If I was looking for approval, I’d be in politics!

Fifty shades of Greenbacks$ and why it’s all…..Bulle!

Someone is making ‘dungeons’ of cash by writing or typing and probably with two fingers a nonsense titled ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.

Much ink too has been spilt about someone called EL James and her competitor someone called Stephanie Meyer on an issue of plagiarism with this ‘work’.  Both are satisfied about where their creative genius stemmed from.

50 Shades of Gray!  Fifty shades of risible early 21st century Anglo-American pulp commercialism more like!

Or is it grays?  As 5 grays of gamma radiation is sufficient to cause sterility before the onset of death; this book however might damage only the redundant grey matter of its readership.

<pause for a thought bubble and some finger tapping>

Has no one read ‘The Story of O’ by the way which has been on shelves for over half a century?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O.

Has no one watched the humourous portrayal of this theme in Maîtresse (1976)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QVBYbmHrPs

It’s as capricious as it is entertaining with Bulle and Gerard.

Ogier has something.  I mean besides ‘the gear’ in this case.  Il est l’espièglerie d’une fille et  les exigences d’une femme,  à mon avis.

 

                                                                                                                                                                     ”  Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety ”

Of course she is not unlike many women on mainland Europe. Had the French electorate overlooked des fautes et des erreurs we would have had Ségolène Royal for 5 years to gaze upon.

pic credit:  politicaymoda.com

instead of the Franco-Hungarian chap. Although Carla played substitute-role well.

On the face of it, at least, Sego exudes refinement. I’ll let you spot the time when Segoline heard of Francois H and his new friend.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=segolene+royal&FORM=HDRSC2

Superb zygomatic and corrugator action on display don’t you think?  Even for a French woman this is an impressive range of expressions!   Anatomically there is no gender difference in the number of facial muscles but women in my opinion express emotion with greater variation, and often intensity!

Here’s the male spectrum

pic credit: BBC.

Not to obsess about it, but did you know that Marie-Ségolène was an au pair in Ireland ca.1971.   You might have passed her in Duke St after she escaped from some family in Sandymount or Howth.

Here she is in full bloom if not innocence ca. 1974-ish.

So Paris on Bastille Day 2007 when I was there after the election was a little less glamorous with Sarky at the Élysée P.

No apologies for what some might mistakenly view as ‘ more objectification of women’ and so forth.  It’s tongue-in-cheek ;-).  

 Incidentally for decades the advertising-marketing industry have written for and about women with no regard for subtleties. 

Here however is good copy.

apart from punctuation, it makes sense.

Where were we?

Ah yes!  Fifty Shades of Grey!  Really?

More like Fifty Shades of recycling, fifty years later-as the easily persuaded are stampeding to magazine shops.  Has anyone heard of libraries by the way?  Speaking of which my desk is full of library cards from California’s El Segundo branch south of Marina Del Ray to Florida’s Cape Canaveral  at Polk Avenue, Brevard County.

Somewhere Eddie Bernays is smiling at  the inability of folk to refuse buying ‘stuff’.

photo wiki: Bernays

If you put your ‘shell-like’ close to the photo above, Ed is whispering ” Shlemiel!  Ye vill buy till you die!  Even a schmuck vill learn eventually.  By de vey my uncle Sigmund was never as schmart as me”

Anne Duclois  (Pauline Réage: The Story of O)  elsewhere with the choir invisible, is shrugging her shoulders bemused at the procured nature of 21st century writing

                                              “Alors!. Je ne sais pas ce qui se passé”

photoWikipedia.

text:      Copyright © MOSAherne 2013 · All Rights Reserved ·

Abra Abra cadabra…..I wanna reach out n grab ya!

These two never refused a meal I’m guessing.  The one starboard may not even be an XX gal. Not sure!  What’s the male version of being bitchy?  Doggy! 

It’s Halloween October 31st 2006.  Though it’s hard to notice the difference that makes

 I’m  on West Hollywood

 Isn’t singleton behaviour a good case for marriage?  No?

Ah Marriage?  I imagine Groucho rolling his eyes head on hands

Time for gags. 

 or Horse sense.

I never knew what real happiness was until I got married.  Then it was too late!.

Before marriage man yearns for the woman they love. After marriage-the ‘Y’ is silent.

Man isn’t complete until married.  Then they’re really finished.

Marriage is a College where one loses a Bachelor’s Degree and the other gets a Masters

Marriage requires someone to undertake 5 rings  “Finger ring, Engagement ring, Wedding ring, Suffering, Enduring.

Marriage is the sole cause of divorce.

Wedding Anonymous for those times when you feel like getting married.  We send someone over to argue and burn the toast.

Love is an obsessive delusion finished by marriage.

Marriage is bliss. Ignorance is bliss. It follows …….?

Marriage Guidance window sign says: “OUT TO LUNCH – THINK IT OVER.”

Married people live longer than singletons; but married people are also a lot more willing to die…

 We all heard the variation on that last one….Married folk live longer than singles.  Really? No. It only feels that way.

Contracted bonded pair or casual polyamory ie  bookshop or library equation maybe?

To counterbalance cynicism …..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puu2Enbb4bs

Make sure of your intention.  Use sparingly!

Some folk who have dodged the bullet ……

http://singularcity.com/single-celebrities-who-never-married/

The restructured male

pic: feminspire.com  approve Mr Bailey

  http://www.womensradio.com/2012/04/mud-runs-for-fun-and-everyone/#comment-413

From another interesting town, Reno, Nevada

Reno
 The sight of the Sierra Nevada from a room here at the Atlantis was itself worth 80 bucks.

LA to San Francisco  below

Snooze or read?

or look at the great  view of the Pacific coastline.

Pacific-ation from LAX TO SFO in a 727

Every Picture Tells a Story…

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/9206583/Pictures-of-the-day-16-April-2012.html#?frame=2194539

Watergate, watershed, or water under the Arlington Memorial Bridge?

which reminds me to take some shots. 

 

  I mean photos…. officer!

 

Only method to take this angle  is atop the Washington Monument. Private use of a helicopter or plane not recommended under P56 Air Restriction stricture, nor arrest, jail-time, deportation or death. 

 If you turn your head 90 deg.  Go on, humour me

the Mall outstretched leading up to the Capitol.

 The dimming light has more to do with post-pic-fixing than actual elapsed time.  Although I did spend an amount of time as is my wont, in situ.  The tent above was a moveable feast (almost literally) if I remember correctly. 

 So…..

 if you turn your head another 90 deg or thereabouts, maybe 75.

and a tad more

 

Jefferson Memorial, Tidal Basin, and Potomac Parks. 

 

 swing those neck muscles again please, since the monument ain’t moving.  Who said why not?   

 

Yes, of course. Abraham has one two.

Some rough pointers.  The Pentagon(of which you heard) in this photographic exposition is over the river to the left (background) and within that region is the Arlington cemetery.  Sadly there has been a relationship between the two for centuries.

The JFK Center is background right.  The Watergate Hotel and Complex of R.M.N infamy not far away.  This is a town of connections in many senses!

 I was about to give you the Tour Guide of everything; but here’s the basics courtesy Mountain View Cal. friends

https://www.google.ie/maps/@38.8911639,-77.0391796,15z

 

Before we leave DC, or leave it once more,

 

Hey!  I came all the way from the old world…..the old sod!  What?  I need an invitation? Why I outta…..?  I’ll be back!!!

 

 

 Oct 2007.  I felt a need to get closer, to ‘touch stuff’.  It took another year to get inside that House yonder, in the Fall of 2008

 It is all very possible.  All you need is a developed and hard -earned level of perseverance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© MOSAherne 2013. All Rights Reserved

Have said it elsewhere but it bears repeating……..

Avoid media!

 

Or specifically that which passes for such locally, the Medi O’ Crity from deluded egos for lost souls here on a  damp little island off western Europe.

A toxic commercial blend where vapid, witless,  insincere, acquisitive types vie for ratings and whose existence revolves around selling ‘stuff’ to their target audience, and been remunerated princely for their ‘industry’.  Entertaining news or news that will entertain; they don’t know the difference.

Only an innocent visitor or immigrant would find Oirish media momentarily interesting, informative, or diverting.

If you really need an approximation to something resembling news, begin with a Google search ‘reputable’.  There is really no excuse in this day and age.

Al-Jazeera, Reuters, US-PBS Newshour, or just around the corner at Portland Square London.

http://bit.ly/1fB4jgr

 

 

If you need some harmonic distraction-take your pick from within Jango (one of a few of many but still usefully useful)

Chill Down-tempo, Classic Jazz, Exotica Lounge, Easy Summer Lounge, and if that’s not enough, maybe venture into the murkier depths of funk or fusion.

http://www.jango.com/stations/263763501/tunein?gcid=10&l=0

If it’s not there…….

 

maybe sound is not for you!

 

or try San Diego

at

Walrus 105.7.

But don’t forget who sent you there. Don’t get lost either!   Come back!  Ye know it makes sense.

Keep it classy!

into San Diego approach.

 

 

Herz der Europa, Deutschland

This gallery contains 50 photos.

Germany is fascinating. We’re outside the Adler Café in Berlin.   Had I been wearing a trench coat and a monocle I wouldn’t  have been out of place.   The building was tangibly and authentically Berlin as much as the neighbouring tourist shops … Continue reading →

IN THE DISTRICT OF C, WASHINGTON.

Who said Hollywood Boulevard? Please leave! I’m actually on the east, or right coast as they say, in the District of Columbia. My size 9 is at the virtual center or centre of western power under the Dome of the Capitol Building.  Abe Lincoln’s seat is at my 4 o’clock, so to speak. Halls of Executive Power               Incidentally, revised history and Hollywood interpretations have not allowed facts to get in the way of a good yarn. Let me put it this way…….. Abe I suspect would have blushed had he known somehow that he would be forever recognised as the great liberator of slaves. THEY DID WHAT? DID THE FOOLS MAKE ANOTHER FILM ABOUT ME?  I’M GREAT BUT NOT GOD! Moreover Abe might have been more concerned that people everywhere over the next century would choose to enslave themselves, by running like ostriches to a movie theatre for very light entertainment in the dark!       More interestingly in a half-light was the old US Senate   but before all that, I had to find the good Senator’s office. Excuse me Miss, which way to…….. Leaving 5 hours later, as the staff were expected to do too. A government worker with a beautiful face and a smile to go with it, is always memorable Copyright © Maurice Aherne 2014. All Rights Reserved.

50 Years on….

 

Tethered display at the KSC is an apt visual metaphor for current stalled US manned flight operations.  Surely a temporary hiatus.

 

A mile or more further along Cape Canaveral………

 

BLOCKHOUSE

 

 

in their natural setting as it were

 

ROCKET RETIREMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

TIME stops. It’s relative!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 years on, I must upload more photos from the Cape, and those at the Smithsonian up in Washington DC.

 

 

Another Irish connection at NASA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.J._O%27Malley

 

From the ground UP!

I did fly a Cessna but mercifully for all, only momentarily, on a journey from Merritt Airport over the causeways and both rivers to Cocoa Beach and then north as close a allowed to the iconic 1957-2012 Cape launch site.

I thought of the many vehicles over 50 years that rose along this corridor transonically, supersonically and hypersonically.

This Cessna 172 is the same make and model plane that crashed into the Bank of America Tower in Tampa, Florida. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reference to a bank in Tampa should be overlooked.  It is not the same plane.  Never went near Tampa, officer!.   Honestly!

_______________

 

 

My digitalized name on a microchip

 

is aboard this  infra.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=122049781

 

Admittedly there are > 750,000 but < 1 million other names on this human nail size silicon chip.   All are travelling with the most expensive ‘car’ ever built, in a capsule, on top of a rocket, at hypersonic speed, for 8 months!

There is the adage ‘if it ain’t broke-don’t fix it’.  The people at JPL though are always looking for options and they have chosen a more complicated multi-stage landing procedure (higher chance of failure) over the previous successful landing techniques.

 

Good luck.   ETA  August 2012.   UPDATE.  It landed perfectly ( the tiny section on top of the rocket ) All is well.  The Mars Rover is working like a beaver -(if it were a robot)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory

The mission as the world knows-was a complete success.  Curiosity is roving away with daily scientific tasks.  Mars today helps you work rest and …..stay!

 

Copyright MOSAherne 2013. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Icon of an Epoch.

The hardware at the Cape, too!

 

 

 

BLOCKHOUSE

 

 

 

 

The rocket booster stages and block houses at the Cape,

Command capsules are however placed at notable air force and navy base museums around the US, but many of the prominent ones are a  2 hour flight north  or 10 hours door to door to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC, which is always interesting to visit.

Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo 11 command module are the first exhibits you’ll encounter, as you step indoors, off the Mall.

Here’s a couple of  thumbnails.  Protective Perspex shell around Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules cause severe camera reflections.

I just reflected on 50 years and the passage of time.

 

Another Time, Another Place

Back at the Cape, the hardware and software had moved on too.

 

Yes! This Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne.

 

 

Near Enough? I’m getting too close to the LOX. Hold off the launch ’til I get away from this store of explosives! Second launch I saw.   The first was safely more distant on Cocoa Beach.

 

 

Copyright MOSAherne 2013. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

The Only Revolution…

 

the Irish will ever experience …….

is one which follows the Laws of Physics and least of all

democratic politics

 

Pic. from ISS.  credit: NASA/ESA.

text. Copyright MOSAherne 2013. All Rights Reserved.

What’s going on?

“Human society has become exponentially stupefied! WOOF”The author here has asserted that I bark.  I hardly ever do! Quite the opposite is the case. I’m adaptable to the existing conditions of life. I keep everything in proportion.  If only he were so phlegmatic, poor fellow! Canine bitches may check me out by pawing “Irish Wolfhound” into one of those human search engines. Here are a few people who obviously had taste.  Or should I say Styler?  Woof-woof Trudie! http://www.thewolfhoundconnection.com/FamousOwners.html     However here’s one Eye D I O Tango who’s letting the K9 side down by imitating humans!

NOT ONLY …BUT ALSO…in a few of many pics….

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/hd15f669#h17271900

You may have noticed that there are a lot of mug-shots of yours truly.  This could leave me open to accusations of solipsism or rampant egoism.   It would not only be very wrong but miss the point.  Some pics required amazing dexterity from ‘moi’.  Others required assistance.

I have only included myself to spare the innocent women.   Some are too shy, and others have gone into Protection Programs ;-).

Smashing person, Ms Cameron. 

Carpinteria California. Don’t usually have to bend my knees or indeed will.

Roberta was trying…

Ms Payne.  Mostly she was!

A world away in character and ability (or 310 miles precisely as I counted, and was prepared to run if the train hadn’t) a shining example of integrity; grace, talent with humility, and positivity…..

Ms Cameron.

MeDia O’ Crity Even more updated than the previous Update!

 

 

                                                  I am aware that the following might sound harsh even a touch misanthropic.  Please view it as a public service or maybe a  public health announcement

I might consign media comments to a new blog ( working title-Landfill ) just as soon as I find further time and patience and the will to live. 

 There are mercifully some exceptions to the mediocre.  Orla Guerin is one of possibly 5 Irish born who are actually good at their job without any apparent need to be greater than their story. 

 A future name to look out is Francesca Comyn.  She might save herself by moving to Al Jazeera or Auntie Beeb .

Where to begin?

                                           Those who ought to be publicly flogged are the self- aggrandising, self-enriching venal tarts commonly referred to as the media in Ireland and their exponential golden circle of ‘rent a cliché gobs’

In medieval times they would have been eviscerated, boiled for witchcraft and fed to four-legged animals.

 Newsreaders announce the latest road tragedy like some Disney event with a vocal range from happy clappy to brainlessly chirpy

 They phonate  “Dats all from us! You’re now up to daihet!.  Send us your comments on tw**ter.”, or join us now -on Face***k!  

 Print columnists when not prostituting themselves on telly have youthful looking byline pictures of themselves preceding their smug opinions.

 Surely no one reads or listens or buys it!  The luvvies must rely on

 

THE JNLR SURVEY US TOO!   WE BOOST IRISH TV RADIO RATINGS.  baahaaaaaaa

 

 Not s0 long ago that one could forget there was something called

 The Jacobs Award. 

ca. 1963-1993 Irish broadcasters took the biscuit (not in the literal sense unless they actually ate the fig rolls but close enough!) when they turned up in glitter, gowns and gormless grins to receive their coveted prize.  Women also were there!

  It wasn’t a Nobel or Pulitzer.  And it wasn’t work to find a cure  for diabetes or cancer.  

What’s the difference between this

firm of accountants Mssrs. Kenny Byrne and Tubridy.  

dailyedge.ie

and

Curley Moe and Larry. 

restlessknights.com

  

 Very little on the surface we all agree.  

 

 Note the car door lettering.  Have you ever seen the six in a room together at the same time?  I rest my case!

 

 However, one trio (b&w bottom) were in show-business, and the other trio (atop in color but colourless) are in their own business.

One trio are dead.  The other while ostensibly alive, die very often in public!

One trio passed over painfully and horribly (cerebral and cardiac complications)  The other trio haven’t sadly, but have been causing horrible pain for decades.

Where is Karma, I ask you? 

 

I voluntarily listen during ablutions in the morning to Ireland’s ‘serious’ stations.  The clichés and media speak is nauseating. 

 

Blame game                          is this news or sport or both?

 Step up to the plate           OK, we’re in the diamond.  Baseball and not culinary arts?

 

 From Left Field                   yes-it’s baseball all right!

When did baseball become so popular on this side of the Atlantic. Babe Ruth is smiling somewhere

Level playing field                we could be playing a few sports now.

On message                      Now it’s tactics!!!!!

Final analysis.                  Usually it is when analysed, until the next analysis. 

The rest is history          as senseless as ‘make poverty history’     Both without a hint of English grammar too

Sea change                                      is that a Tsunami approacing?

 We have a situation                       Sure do!   Was in a playing field some time ago

A ha moment                                    what has a Norwegian pop band to do with news

 Perfect storm           we talked already about the situation with the sea change!  Come On!

 Tipping point                 the waves…the waves….the waves….the waves?

 

 Be afraid, be very afraid        A Judge told me that mitigating circumstances for GBH would be taken into account if someone were to say this to me

 Thinking outside the box              I wish someone would try; either in or out, just once!

 

 

  This fatuous forty I’ll leave you to decipher….

 Between the lines
Way forward
Is what it is
Point in time
Up to speed
Having said that
Wake up call
Bring it on
Jaw dropping
Have issues
Bring closure
Show stopper
Time is running out
Make no mistake

Window of opportunity
Collateral damage
Raise the bar
Any way, shape or form
Game changer
Continue the conversation
Smoking gun
In a perfect world
Par for the course
Reinvent the wheel

 Tantamount to
At this moment in time
Wow factor
In all honesty
Take full responsibility
Those were the days
Zero sum
Resolve the issue
Defining moment
Hard earned money
Begs the question
One thing is certain
Hard look
On the same page
Post 9/11

 Pushing the envelope   ?  Really?

         This is a Aviator Test Pilot term which loses meaning in any other context!  Unless you work in a stationary shop.

  Not rocket science  and  Not brain surgery       

  Again, how would they know?   

 

Then the luvvies bleat

  “send us your feedback /twitter us /or on Facebook /or text us”

 Really?  I don’t think so. 

“There’s more” says PK .   An old comedian somewhere is appalledcthat his catch phrase is used by such a portentious clown.

 

 In case I didn’t make it clear

 

 

         WITHOUT THE SORRY BIT!

 

 —————————————————————————–

　APRIL 2013

 RTE.  ‘The Irish in America!  Sounds familiar!  This time we were promised a new slant  ‘ Da Oirish influence on fillums in Ameri Kay’. 

 Why didn’t they slap the picture above to the screen and save the licence payer several hundred grand? 

 “From Hell’s Kitchen to Hollywood”  The title must have been the deal maker.  Lugs Kelly and crew went on another jolly. 

 

 

 On the plus side,

 Orla Guerin as I said elsewhere is a shining example of a journalist.  There are a few who give the facts in a straight forward way.

 One who doesn’t and hasn’t been in  bloom for decades is Olivia O’Leary!.  She does a ‘Vocem Sapientis’  every so often when it seems she comes out of her widowed retirement to lecture all who might listen.  She’s not Alistair Cooke.   More Roger Cook!

If she must do the Urbi et Orbi  schtick could she desist from using the ‘we’ when referring to the nation and people

 

 

 

 

 

 More often than not during a link between gossip and more gossip in a News Department someone tries to be ‘funny’. I mean intentionally so.   7am-9am some fool injects a pun or talks drivel. Torrents of laughter.

  

 

 Has Larry David entered the room?

” Pretty Pretty Good  BAD” 

pic.  jewishjournal.com

 

 

 Little was ever original in Irish  broadcasting. I’m guessing a desk if not a door marked Programme Development exists to give an impression of originality

5 decades of  imports from the UK and the US-must have been a huge saving.  Why is there a need for a license fee?  That must be to pay the ‘talent’ a kings ransom

 Why?  In case a real World standard broadcast corporation signs them up!

Of course!

Audiences meanwhile  are ‘prone’ to shopping.

pic.polarismr.

 

 

 Random Tedious Effluenza and Newsquak!

If RTE are the flagship of Irish broadcasting or a Costa Con Dire if you will,  then start looking for lifeboats!

 “RTE  supporting the arts” a munchkin voice intones.  True, as many of the ‘talent’ managed to acquire a basic arts degree. 

 Speaking of accents when did Irish people start saying ‘Coirk’ for Cork?

 Where did that awful inflection at the end of sentences come from? Was it from a diet of  Australian TV  during the 1980’s. 

 Other vocal artistes fail to impress with US accents  ‘ must see moovee’. 

 2012

I tune in for a few minutes to hear if a cultural uprising has broken out against the message and messenger.

 No chance!  It’s La La Ireland.  People are easily satisfied!

Pat K one of the best chemical engineers in light entertainment 1980-20oo sounds more and more like an impression of himself of late.

The inflections and emphases often go into hyper-drive, . Any more PK-isms such as “the optics”, and ‘the law of unintended consequences’  and Apres Match satire team could be out of business.

19th /9/2012

I heard a health executive person (an executive of the Executive, or the top executive if you follow)  say “300,000 people on a waiting list is bad.  The good news is…we are now making a decision on what to do”.

“Vot a country”!

Oirish radio as ever followed all other broadcasters worldwide by having podcasts. The problem now is, it makes the miss-able……less miss-able! 

 

 Rte (cailin whispers another voice -over) “so bad we play it twice!”

 Oirish broadcasting. 

 You heard it a million times; you heard it once!

Judas wept!

 

 

 Daffy Duck requested not to have his picture associated with this subject.  He was overruled.

 

 

 

Media schools probably  urge herds of ‘wannabees’ to ‘be themselves’.    Being oneself is a problem in Oirish broadcasting.  So much worse with a microphone.

“The tree girls went the udder way (sic) “

This diction brings to mind several images, and has at least two meanings.   It could be women tree arborists milking a cow.  Or it could be something too explicit for WordPress.

Then we have ……

“Dats all ?        Who is Dat, and why is he/she,  all of it?

“Der you have it” –  Who is Der, and what have you given him or hercand why?

Or full-blown Lyric FM presenters*** -not only with the affliction mentioned but with with a risable pretence that they are polyglots just by the machination of over-phrasing foreign words.

 ” Dat was Beethoven der!”   They throw in ‘of course’ as in ” dat was Heydn der, of course ” when they get bored with their normal levels of condescension. 

 

 Now for sometime their play list was the height of complaisance as it accommodated the perceived musical knowledge of their audience.  From listening to a few of their podcasts (useful tool for condensing pain in byte sizes) -the Lyric troupe now ask for listeners to submit their choices.  How nice!

 G.Hamilton* sports commentator and cultural icon being the exception.  Although his liking of Elgar’s  ‘pomp & circumstance’ relegates him badly in my view to lower championship level.

It takes  all Oirish stations quite a bit of time to decide where the syllabic emphasis should be intoned for foreign names.   Just in the last decade alone, David Ginola, Thierry Henri,  et Sarkozy had their respective names  ‘chewed’.

Somewhere the clamour of an overworked producer-director is heard  “Never mind the Hungarian roots of Sarky- Pat!-just feckin say sumptin ’til ye get used to it”. 

 You’re as bad a Eileen and Una in the newsroom for asking”! 

 Update!    The French voted in another guy.  “just drop the ‘H’–and get on with it!  It’s all on da auto-cue!

The director will later go home, kick his pussy-cat and cry “If only the license payers knew the salary of these newsreaders”.

Speaking of which……

Any remote regard RTE might have for their audience rings hollow in the the license fee campaign.   The target audience are taught in a step by step way how to pay up.   It takes condescension to a new level.  Unlike their programmes.

So it’s a marriage of convenience; but guess who holds the prenuptial contract!

 Want more codology?

 A Newstalk commentator at a match between Wales and Ireland uttered—“crowd is well short of the expected numbers”.  His thick accent conjoined the syllables.  He was not aware of the pun!   Welshort!

 

There are some microphonies who think apeing the ‘foksy spake’ of Michael O ‘Hehir is the method to follow. G.Canning and M. Morrissey are just two.

However with the new rugby craze of the last few years someone called Corcoran has hitched a ride on the truck of hyper-crazed commentary.  This gob manages to outdo the  O’Hehiritis and  everyone before him.

    Down homesy verbal diarrhea and confused logic abound.  ” O’Connell literally sprang out from the depths of the earth”  Corcoran the cretin shouted

 Did he?

  Really?

 —————————————————————————————————–

Could anything be worse?  I’ll rephrase that!   Could anything be as bad in one small country.  Frankly yes!

 TV 3, or TV Tree as they would have it. 

 Not as beautiful as a Sequoia , but thicker than the thickest one.  A pen of folk who prefer to sit on sofas and lunch all day complaining in many different ways.  Where did feminism go wrong?  Why are men not able to multi-task?   It really is so…..

  ‘Looney’ 

TV 3’s wireless step-sibling Newsqualk FM meanwhile supports failed politicians; failed economists; failed U2 wishabe pop singers; and failed sports people

 Or maybe they are people in transition.  They may not have a Montrose contract but the ‘Sky’ is always the limit!!!

 How much will ya pay me ?  Shure!   Who needs a soul?

 A shower of unluvables whose only ability is to reverse the adage – ‘ye heard it a million times; ye heard it once’ .

Newsquak have some line they strap  “It’s not just news you know!” 

No!

 It’s diabolical nonsense, with a twist! 

The latest perversity is to have someone called O’Donovan (or donkey to his friends) read a prepared segment in ‘Gaelic’ on a random subject so badly that if that other smooth Gaelic speaker Gerry Adams  whacked him with an Armalite; he would be pardoned.  2nd degree manslaughter for cynical cultural destruction, a mitigating factor

 I wonder if this satisfies the commercial radio license agreement,  BCI-Broadcast Commission of Ireland?

 I asked.  They hadn’t a clue.   Nothing was or has been done

Dat’s all folks!

———————————————————————————————————

 The Me- D- Ya is the message!

I refer exclusively to the presenters-glitterati with the microphone phoniness. 

 The off-stage staff  are not a target.  Sound and vision staff while on decent money, usually deserve it, not least in the face of great provocation. It’s amazing how discreet they are.

 (A declaration of fact and certainly not jealousy as I know a little about the subconscious.   I had a flirtation and then a very brief unsatisfying affair with television and radio broadcasting at one time, having previously sabotaged a possible career in the Hades of ‘adverteasings’. 

 It was destined to end in divorce.  There hangs a tale for a less interesting paragraph from a chapter of a book yet to be written.  My autobiography will be in a bookshop when the shelves are cleared of ‘celebrity’.  As of now the latter is unlikely so the former is on hold!   Working title “Fate Falls Furiously”)

May I insert my latest profundity here ”  For every clown at the top (a surfeit of them in Oirland) there are at least a score who would be equally at home in a circus”

 

 Pronunciation of foreign nouns

FYUU-dur  Dahs-tuh-YEF-skee was a Russian writer -not a name drop of the chatterati  “dosstoyes ski”. 

  There was a lot of snow but little recreation time for Fyodor to ski.

POO-teen is the current pronunciation of the Russian Federation boss whether people like it or not!   PuTIN is not!

duh-GAH   Degas is one of many artists whose works are displayed at the LOOV-ruh

Duh-by oo               Debussy tinkled on the ebony and ivory.

SAR-truh et Duh-bo-vahrrr                 were philosophical intimates.

Loord                 where a miracle might happen to bring correct pronunciation to the angliscised world!  Not Lourdes!

 

AND

one for the mindless ‘moooveee’ reviewers 

 

 Scorsese is NOT Scorsaysee

  ‘It’s Scor sessi’    Marty said!

 

 

Let’s decompress at Jango website once more

Type in

In the Waiting Line, Red Dust, Comfort Zone, Red Eye, Hayling, Peaceful Day, Konkret, Blue Grassland, Sparks,

Treat yourself again to Adam K and Soha Mix of Kaskade

More from the last century…..

   New York Minute              Eagles

California Dreaming                    Mamas&Papas

 Just a Song Before I go                             CSN

———————————————————————————————————

 .

ADVER..TEASING!

A few years ago a high-end campaign for a high-end car had  incidental music,  ‘The Good Life’.    The lyrics were written originally in an ironic sense and by implication it would not be a positive endorsement for that motor

Nowadays every item can be sold without nuance or subtlety.  Why waste money and time selling with creative ideas when society has been primed to buy most things most of the time

pic: AngryDogDesigns.png

 

Don’t get me started on the Irish advertising.   The most offending one circa 2011-2013 was so bad it actually suited the show! 

  ‘Liveline with Lyons Tea. Richer tea for richer talk’

On what level does that make sense, I ask you?

 Infantile or Remedial?

—————————————————————————————————–

 Another thing….

If an alien had parked their hypersonic craft in Ireland over the last few years they might be forgiven for thinking that someone called Kathryn Of the Thomases was Queen   Or that another someone called Craig of the Doyles was King. 

Craig the Sincere out of a caste of professional ‘Dubliners’.  The Fanning of the Fakists,  D’ Murray the Piteous, and Tomas Dunne Scotus, previous servant of the Bono household.   All from a lineage of insincere Hibernians stretching to the McGurk dynasty!

 Breaking news!  

No  sensible extra-terrestrial would waste their time with such earth bound self-replicating reptilian life forms.

———————————————————————

I see one of the Seoige’s or is it Showages (the one who is not as pretty as the other 0ne that knows she’s prettier) had another excuse to make herself seem important or human 

 Seemingly she had the Big C.  Not a contract for Channel 4 but cancer.  Sadly it was the very benign type.  Harsh?

There never was a threat to her life as she would have Blackrock Clinic on speed dial!   A programme on her suffering was aired.  A series to come.  Look out for the box-set.

 

 

 

An Irish media comment on our Health Service Executive

” they are incompotent, (sic) when will situation improve?

Incompetence is lack of competence. Administrative incompetence is dysfunctional administrative behaviors that hinder attainment of organization goals.The other ‘potency’ needs a medical check-up. 

———————————————————————————————————

Before another award season in Ireland a luvvy is overheard to mutter

“Times are so hard. It’s difficult finding the right agent to get the right exposure. I’ve had my fill of panel and reality. OK!   Sure it pays for Saoirse and Dylan’s tutoring at Sion and Gonza, but it’s not the exposure level for ‘ME‘”

“It’s just appalling! The sheep-I mean our fans are too stupefied. It’s so hard to keep the pretence going that we care about them”.Why do the IFTA’s have to clash with Cloe’s wedding in Budapest this weekend?. Life is so unfair! ” Does my bum look too big in this” . If only it were the BAFTAs not the IFTAS.  Where’s the camera darling?

 

 

 

 There is always Radio4 and all the wonders of the BBC at Portland Square, where talent and pay is tolerably commensurate with each other.

 29.1.2015. My photos at BBC Portland Square are currently unavailable as pictureperfect below   I will digitalize prints and insert them.  

 

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/e310b91c3

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/e3ef92d04

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/e377f9b1c

 

No harm was done to winged creatures, fish, or four legged animals in making these comments, and that’s good!

 

 

text copyright MOSAherne 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Human-All to Human!

I  became aware of JPS as late as 1976, when I read Philosophy/Psychology at UCD.  Interesting individual all the same!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G4R_iAZWbQ

 This documentary was a useful visual primer on the person and his time. The narrator however could possibly (for her fee) have seen the need to pronounce  ‘Sartre‘ as his father and mother intended. She could have noticed Prof.Levi’s intonation and taken his lead.  Forget the last syllable for a start!

While I’m in this mood; most people on the archipelago of islands off Europe’s mainland have an inability not only to speak another language but pronounce simple words from that ‘other’ language.  How many times over the course of the last decade or three, have you heard some highly paid  **** review  “a fillim or  moo-vee” on some panel show and drop words such as “film noir” ‘or  “bete noir” or similar from a  limited repertoire, with  faulty abandon.

  Hint!   It’s not ‘noo-or.   Try  nooooahhhhrrrr-and you might be close…enough.   La langue française is a delicate beauty that needs a delicate touch!  Encore, mes enfants,

 SAR-truh et Duh-bo-vahrrr  étaient dans l’amour

Jean-Paul Sartre (um 1950) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

To conclude, as the commentariat in Ireland, UK,  and the US continually struggle with les mots élégant in some venal effort to sound cultive ; perhaps they ought to stick with the Moet, and leave the ‘mots’ alone.

 

 

Copyright MOSAherne 2013. All rights reserved.

Documentaries meant for you!

 A little exhortation for these titles …….

 

http://documentarystorm.com/the-2nd-assassination-of-jfk/

http://documentarystorm.com/the-bridge/

http://documentarystorm.com/woody-allen-wild-man-blues/

http://documentarystorm.com/mary-roach-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-orgasm/

http://documentarystorm.com/the-worlds-greatest-money-maker-warren-buffett/

http://documentaryheaven.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel-north-korea/

 

Not overlooking the gravitas of that last one, there is one facet of North Korea that is very appealing.  The women of PRNK are radiant!  They also manage to retain the art of good-natured flirting.

I’d risk deportation to NK for tea and table tennis, and that’s not innuendo.   Pun Yun Shi is so polite and dignified in the face of the sarcastic western interview.

Forget the empty dining area which is often a plus; these elegant ladies appear natural and unspoilt while stoically adapting to a regime with grace.  Good on them!.   I hope their lives will improve greatly soon.

After further evidence of Peoples Republic of North Korea:

http://documentaryheaven.com/inside-north-korea/

The conduct of the elite level of their society is heinous  It is a dire situation for the majority.

 

 

Other titles I recommended fell into a 404 swamp somewhere.   Have a look if you wish.

human-resources-social-engineering-in-the-20th-century

genius-of-photography,

the-magic-of-movie-editing

the-nuclear-comeback

lost-nuke

fighter-pilot-operation-red-flag

 

 

———————————————————————————————————-

 

A world away in the US,  the first radio broadcast voice I heard was in Boston, Mass was the original Howard Stern on syndicated radio from NYC.

His counterpart in TV a few avenues away is Letterman.

Speaking of which…….

I wandered up to the Sullivan Theatre 53rd and Broadway two years later.

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/e73cb277

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/h12255886#h12255886

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/e90ce114

Letterman Show was off-season but I took a snap with his harder working café owning  neighbours who had a running comic spot on the show.  I’m the one with the silly face.  The deliberate silly face, I add.  How can ye tell?

OK!  It’s one that’s sillier than usual.

http://www.pictureperfect.ie/mauriceaherne/e5f5d7f8

 

It was another hot NYC summer day walking from the Bowery to Hell’s Kitchen and up to 53rd I remember.

 

 

‘Anyhows’ if you need entertainment from big media stars then here are real giants of the talk format.  Their multi-million annual contracts are an abomination to most norms and to humanity but in the parallel universe of show business and compared to ‘da Oirish lot’  …….they maybe worth it.  Half a mil euro for an Oirish idiot or 10 mil for Dave.  The quality factor is at least twentyfold.

Get my drift?

 

David Letterman

David Letterman hosting President Barack Obama at Late Show with David Letterman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

and    Howard Stern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This next clip has left on the Infringement of Copyright Train between Google YouTube and possibly Dave’s accountant; but I’ll recover it soon.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmlZ_Bl7yMk

 

At 1minute .35 secs, I reckon 1 -nil to Dave.    At 2 mins 35secs  2-nil.   At  3 mins some secs  3-to zip.  Letterman is cruising on his home turf!

 

Coup de grace was swift.  Howie looked a little stern.  He had met his match on the night.

Best advice for Dave is not to be lured for a rematch at Howard’s domain of radio.

 

 

—————————————————————-

 

Here are wealthy folk-without a sign of conspicuous talent.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_SjGaiuGoU

 

Pulling 9 g is less vomit-inducing than watching wealthy civilians imply that they are ‘cutting edge’ just by the fact that they will be paying a few hundred grand to reach lower Earth orbit (very low earth orbit ) sometime.

Fair play to  Richard Branson.   It’s just his awful potential clients.   Isn’t there a ski resort open somewhere to keep them amused?  Seemingly  the cachet stakes have risen exponentially.

Here in Ireland the nouveau riche (pre-2008) are also eager to become space cadets.  One for years thinks he fits the ‘Bill’.

Pimms,  Moet; or penny apples anyone?

 They will never be able to buy the ‘right stuff’!

——————————————————————————————————

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/home-truths/2012/01/27/do-you-have-a-flexi-address

So much for that!

Frances Scott Key Fitzgerald’s  ‘Carroway’ has a better perspective by far.

  I  lived at West Egg, the – well, the least fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. … …… it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. ……. My own house was an eyesore,  but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month”.

————————————————————————————————

 

 

 http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/theindex/2012/01/31/a-centenary-to-remember-titanic-on-screen/comment-page-1/#comment-37

Your opening liner Laura…I mean line, was sailing a wake of cliche.

I think the causality of  bad decisions by owner and captain and down the chain of command were the ‘nexus connexus-plexus, and ultimately wrexsus ‘ of this vessel

A century on, the tragedy of Air France 447 for example was sadly pilot error or maybe  ‘brain freeze’ under severe pressure.  Latest evidence is blockage of the pitot tubes in unusual weather which gave rise to ambiguities in air speed reading.

 

Correction; I may have been ‘taking on water’ regarding the Titanic.    I read of the use of second-rate rivets during the build at H&W.  Your theory Laura could be more watertight after all!  More than the ship was clearly.

Tragedies evolve out of many circumstances. Nothing is quite as it may seem.  Or as a former US Defense Sec. said soundly if not clearly enough for many

  ” There are known knowns; there are things we know we know……there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know……there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.”

—————————————————————————————————–

I read about the plucky Zara Phillips and what she did to a troublesome male!  I had to leave a comment under the article.  Tindall better take heed!

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/329978/Zara-Phillips-gets-set-for-the-Olympics

American Pilgrimage

https://mosaherne.wordpress.com/32-2/?preview=true&preview_id=32&preview_nonce=38055e1732

   Copyright © MOSAherne 2013 · All Rights Reserved ·

From one misty eyed nostalgic impression

to the reality, as it may be today

from Noam C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDkSwfTFNbo

7 Billion; and most are Tw*tters.

The BBC’s Emily Maitlis awhile back was sent to scout down the socially awkward social media guru Mark Zuckerberg.  It made for uncomfortable viewing.  The new inquisitorial voice of Auntie Beeb in high boots and tight jodhpur trousers (bad choice superficially) interviewed with hyper enthusiasm and breathlessness the young billionaire.  What was the news or attraction for the cougarish Maitlis to fly from London to Palo Alto Calif.

Face*ook

The greater mass of the globes population has one or rather a page in this book.  Moreover to compound the stupidity,  a Twitter account to boot.  Surely misplaced consonants in the former and a vowel in the latter,  are clues to the mentality of those who have either.

Way to go, Mark, and Jack (Dorsey).  Can’t shoot a grifter for stumbling on suckers!  Half a planet of suckers is scary though!

 

 

Speaking of numbers. The over-burdened planet has been boarded by a 7 billionth human during 2011.   That’s roughly twice the number that was of concern to me (sustainability wise) in the 1970’s

Half of them being Tw*tters!   ***It was my opinion ca. March 2006. The pejorative epithet is only used because Twitter is not called Cacker.  It would follow that subscribers in this instance would be C*ckers.

<***The Conservative PM’s use of Tw*atters in c.2009 was 3 years in the making.  Typical politician. >

As for the BBC Emily;  she is usually more professional than she was in this taped package.   What could have caused this?  Billion dollar madness or Closet Cougar Syndrome?

Don’t leave us yet Kirsty!

I say this despite viewing the BBC, including Newsnight,  Radio 4 et al. ‘trending’ for the last few years to the depths of the Twitter and Facebook influence.

© Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne 2013. All Rights Reserved.

“The difficult we do right away. The impossible, takes just a while longer.”

NASA heavy and uplifting!

 

I wonder how the world today has plummeted into a death spiral of celebrity fixation powered by cultural black holes of advertising and PR and their vast orbit of diabolical influence. Useless tribes of the glib-gob media are rewarded  in continual loops to bring to the world nothing more than the vacuity of their lives, and those of others .

How is this so?

Imagine for a moment if folk in any other line of work were paid for just ‘turning up and talking’.

A surgeon “Let me talk about your triple by-pass.  This is a stent!  Good-bye”  A plumber “This is a tap. Here’s a U-Bend, pal” . A pilot ” Woops! Would you believe it; I retracted the knob there too quickly. Your destination is not the one you packed your sandals for, folks.  It’s terminal!  We’re going to auger into the ground.  It’ll be at a fascinating speed all the same”

It’s no consolation that if such a tragedy were to happen, it would get the glib gob treatment too .  “Yes Brian. Devastation came to this small town in a shower of aluminium.  We will keep you updated. Back to you in the studio and sports” Thanks Mary!” Thanks Brian!  Thanks Mary!”  savage tribes of self serving TV glib chatter merchants

The chasm between work and service that is vital and of use; work of skill and demanding courage; work of nurses, ambulance personnel, doctors, surgeons, aviators, utility engineers and the rest, with that so called industry of the small screen and large screen -that chasm is so large as to be greatly disheartening.

 

 

 

In the High Desert of Mojave however the spirit sours with the skill of so many modest people.

at  Edwards AFB California and Nellis AFB Nevada.  From west or left coast

and points in between;  to the east or right coast at Cape Canaveral Ranges and Patrick AFB.

In more innocent times, a US President said on Nov 21 1963 (a day before fate intervined)

 “Frank O’Connor the Irish writer tells in one of his books how as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall; and then they had no choice but to follow them. This Nation (USA) has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome”.

 At the Naval Academy some time earlier he spoke

“Let me close with an Irish toast that often comes to mind at the end of a long day in Washington ? May the devil chase you every day of your life and never catch you. As I always mentally add to that toast, if the devil isn’t at least chasing you, you’re probably not doing it right? and you’re probably not Irish. Thank you and Erin Go Bragh! “end.

 

——————————————-

I have never seen U2 a  ‘popular’ band.

I had however the greater favour and liberty to be around the original U2 and it’s Lockheed stablemate the SR-71.

I advisedly say that it is the technology and design by human mind and hand which I admire, not the purpose to which governments did or do find use for them.  

 

The fastest n highest ‘world covering’ Blackbird. “Fear no evil for we are at Mach 3, 80,000feet n climbing”

THE U2 refitted for 2IST Century. Originally developed c 1955-or my year.

South Lawn in 2007.   A year later, I was inside!

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. I fear no evil for I am at Mach 3 80,000 ft and climbing.The remarkable titanium bodied EARTH COVERING history laden SR 71 Blackbird. No  bombs, only cameras. The McCartney song came to mind beneath the plane.  He was singing about a feathered bird I think.

Here the updated 2006

U2.

So many retro-fits since 1960.

 

   

 

 

 From sunny California to……..

 the District of C

 

  

The house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500.  I returned in 2008 for a look inside.   Cameras not allowed.

 As you walk in the small entrance a stairway to the left leadsup to the very private second floor world.  One wrong move here and there might be a close shave with a Remington automatic .

Straight ahead is the Cross Hall from where Presidents walk down to meet the world’s press at the East Room .  This is a multipurpose room where press, rock stars, royalty convene, but not all at once. The room iscompact-unlike the impression given by the worlds cameras.

 

 

The Blue, Green,and Red rooms to the right and then right again were slightly bizarre in my view. 

They appeared like large doll-house rooms.  They are effectively representations of how late 18c, into 19c,  and early 20 century rooms were in grand estates,  I guess.  Either that or George has been very thoughtful about porcelain figurines.  

 

 Quaint?  Yesiree!

 I did touch ‘stuff’ that are usually left untouched.   I do this routinely be it Redwood trees in California, Picasso paintings in Madrid, or pebbles in Rome. 

 The White House tour doubles back 360 degrees to the entrance hall and front door.  The place that every camera has captured since time immemorial or just the time I can recall on film c.1924-2008.

 

 I was intrigued that the driveway with the green eye-level hedge was very narrow.    Much narrower than expected for the parking space of limousines, 4X4”s and armoured  to boot.    

 

 The lantern fascinated me even more.  I thought of all the ‘heads’ that ever passed under it (or most of them).

North Portico White House

 <No inside photo images as cameras are verboten .  Full screening!.  *No bags, small or big.  The very famous Hotel second down adjacent mercifully took them for the duration after the first less famous and rude hotel didn’t!

*Incidentally bags were allowed in a criminal Court in San Jose.  I was a guest of the lady Court reporter though. Maybe that helped!>

 Across the Potomac 2007 and 2008 I felt the urge to drop in to inspect the Pentagon folks . 

 The US had been trillions in the red from some dubious practices at the time of the 2001 attacks; and events were going into a greater ‘pear’configuration in 2008.  

 

 

 “There are known knowns.  There are known unknowns; there are knowns we know about; and there are unknowns …….!”

 That’s a most reasonable statement from Donald R.   But he and his administration contributed greatly to the list of ‘unknowns’ and never to be ‘knowns’

  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN BE SEATED.  LISTEN UP!   

 

 BEHAVE YOURSELVES! 

 

                                                        

 

 The US presidential schedule for a week in 2010 was comparatively slow. 

Monday 9:15 receives the Presidential Daily Briefing 9:50 departs the White House en route Andrews Air Force Base departs Andrews Air Force Base en route Greensboro, North Carolina 11:05 arrives in Greensboro, North Carolina Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina, Winston-Salem 12:20 deliver remarks to workers, Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina, Winston-Salem  1:55 departs Greensboro, North Carolina en route Andrews Air Force Base 2:55 arrives at Andrews Air Force Base  3:10 arrives at the White House 3:15 meets with senior advisors 6:10 statement to the press on tax cuts and unemployment insurance Tuesday10:05 receive the Presidential Daily Briefing 1:30 The President participates in an Ambassador Credentialing Ceremony Ambassador Tunisian Republic; Republic of Colombia; Swiss Confederation; Argentine Republic; Montenegro; Kyrgyz Republic; Kingdom of Thailand 2:00 receives the Economic Daily Briefing 2:20  holds a news conference. 5:20 meets with senior advisors Wednesday 9:30 receive the Presidential Daily Briefing 10:15 holds a bilateral meeting with President Komorowski of Poland 10:30 holds an expanded bilateral meeting with President Komorowski, Oval Office 11:05 with President Komorowski deliver statements to the press and take questions 2:15 meet with Secretary of State Clinton 3:30 Cabinet meeting 4:50 meets with senior advisors 5:30 signs the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 Thursday Friday – No public schedule.   credit:D.O’Loinnsigh

 

 

Meanwhile in Ireland at the Aras……..

Mary will be arranging flowers.

She will speak with the cook later.

The Shankill Association for the Continuation of Sectarianism, Bigotry, Racism, and Olde Attitudes are due to call in mid-week or whenever they feel like it!

Comparison – Cost Benefit Analysis

1. President of the United States $400,000   President of Ireland $433,000

2. Secretary of State , America $191,300 Irish Foreign Minister $270,000

3. Senator, America $174,000 Member of Parliament, Ireland $136,000

4. Top Department head U.S. government $150,000 Top civil servant Ireland $400,000

5.Salary CEO head of Pacific Gas and Electric serving 15 million people $1.1 million Salary ESB serving 4.5 million people $1.1 million

6. U.S. Secretary of Heath and Human services $131,000 CEO  Health Service Executive Ireland $422,00

7. CEO  of Dublin Airport Authority: $748,000 CEO New York Port Authority (handling La Guardia, Kennedy, Newark) $286,000

Comparing a country with 320 million people and fifty states to one of 4.5 million people or the size of the state of Maine!

Any wonder the Irish are in trouble?

credit:Irish Central for stats!.

The Irish Presidential 2011.

 …….. or the less than natural desire for the Aras.

The count has started they say.  I’m sure there’s a superfluous vowel in that word so favoured by politicians and servile media.

The simple question that ought to be asked of candidates is; “Why are you seeking this position?  Apart that is from a salary, benefits, and pension that exceed those of elected officials from more powerful nations?

All candidates for future elections should be subject to a clause 22 . “if a person seeks office they would by doing so,- de-select themselves”.

When a candidate acquires a seat on that larger gravy train laughingly referred to as the Oireachtas  (Irish Parliament Upper and Lower, House and Senate for overseas readers) they ought to be directed to state “I am grotesquely overpaid for this job.  I’ve no clue about it!   In that regard, I’m  like all who went before me”

I WANT MORE YE HEAR ME! MORE!!!
MUCH MORE OF EVERYTHING, AND ALL FOR ME!!!

 

Specific to the 2008 economic debacle….

To the foreign press, someone ought to have said   “The Republic of Ireland has not been ‘bailed out’ but given a loan which we will pay back with great interest.  Our  hearts are warmed by the 6 billion euro from the British Exchequer, but it’s not necessary!

Whose idea was it to make the Republic of Ireland the Blanche Du Bois of nations?

 

In all seriousness, why was the sovereignty of this country permitted to be dragged over a further ‘bog’ for such a miniscule figure viz UK loan. Could Dept of Finance not have got the shortfall of ‘spondulicks’ from just the one source, the European Central Bank,  without this token from ‘Blighty.

It was an aberration of the Finance minister (dead and eulogized) to have ever asked for it.  He should have said “We are grand, thanks all the same !”

Incidentally UK politicians are better at their jobs.
——————————————————————————————-

What could be done to promote Ireland without producing stereotypes such as  friendliness (largely a myth) and the gift of the glib gob (sadly true).

The drinking image makers of Guinness reached the apotheosis of marketing dark arts by it’s pernicious presence around the British Monarch.   Her Madge stricken by the sight of the Royal Standard Harp replaced by a brewery one refused to imbibe the dark brew.

Ingestion of it by the US President days later restored the joy of *Diageo and it’s shareholders.

  *Diageo plc Registered Number: 23307 Registered office: Lakeside Drive, Park Royal, London, NW10 7HQ Place of Registration: England and Wales

 

————————————————————————————————

 

 Tourist Board missed an opportunity to start a ‘Schadenfreude’ Tourism since September 15, 2008

Along the lines…..

‘Come over from the valleys of Cymru and lowlands of Caledonia and see how old stereotypes of the ‘stupid Oirish’ were not without some truth, begorrah!.

‘Let us show you our Parliament with gombeen semi-intelligible but a wealthy political class going personally forward.  We’ll take our leave for a visit to the other national parliaments of the Irish Fourth Estate at  NewsQUAK FM and aRsTE.

 

 

From the Loathsome to the Ludicrous. 

 RUGBY WORLD CUP 2011

My reply to a comment on a website which had a welsh person spout ethnic if not racist views against an Franco-Irishman. Mr. Rolland was completely correct according to Rugby Union law in dismissing the fouling player!  Bravo!

The Welsh who used one ball more than rugby union regulation normally permit to cheat and win some months ago, were not able to accept another law of the game

The list of rugby infringements overlooked by ‘mainland ‘ referees since 1964-to 2000-against Irish teams would fill a few coal mines. Perhaps the people who ranted abuse at the Franco Irish referee would prefer to have nations play with themselves.

Dowie Copernicus says “wales is the centre of the universe boyo”

 

That would allow France and Italy and England and Ireland to have The Four Country Championship with the bonus of avoiding two dull cities.

Commentators and professional broadcasters take note.  Nations are not countries definitively.

The England rugby team to their credit ‘turned up’ to play in the early 1970’s as the aforementioned two colonial teams made excuses to hide away .  It prevented a probable Grand Slam for Ireland.

While I’m here; could all broadcasters familiarise themselves with foreign names.

It took years before Monsieur David Ginola was called by the name his father gave him.  Similarly for Thiery Henri.  It might be unimaginable for UK or Irish broadcasters to learn another language but pronouncing Thair-e for Thiery-not Tee air e is not asking too much of them!.  Is it?  Exception being George Hamilton who speaks German and French and probably Ulster Scots)

 

At 39B…again!

ad-ver-teasing

The art of convincing Clint or Cliona to consume in these days has become so easy that so called creatives are not required evidently. Traditionally advertising had men selling products to women with a very patronising attitude.  In subsequent decades progress in advertising meant men sold to women products with the less than subtle premise that ladies were ‘calling the shots’

From dishwashers to detergents the woman would cynically manipulate and often in combination do some light hearted ridicule for good measure.  The women in the role of  ‘smart ass’ and the male in the the role of ‘schmuck’.   This was progress in advertising.  In effect doing nothing for domestic situations  in the real world.

That both genders allowed this is another thing.  Insidiously the teasing art induced a universal ennui and or an arrest in critical thinking. Men also sold products for women to women.  It has to be said they probably invented and manufactured them too.   How on earth did the ostensibly liberated  ladies allow themselves to be patronised and dare one say infantilised in so many scenarios.

Portrayed as surfing volleyball loving skydivers at a certain time of the month.  Future anthropologists will have much material to study. But wait a minute!   Gone are the days when Madison Avenue and their siblings across the western world were gentlemen clubs.  Decades on,  women, ladies, and girls have paid like the menfolk for their diplomas and joined the ranks of adver-teasing Marketing and PR.

Why no change?  At least on the feminine products front.   The dancing prancing high kicking women has replaced of late- the more adventurous skydiving volleyball girl.   The liquid was always blue instead of it’s natural colour.  That should give a clue as to the artifice of the message  Yet that’s the way it was and is.

While in these depths of mediated manipulation here’s some observations I previously omitted due to ennui.   Media Positives. The BBC.  Specifically Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zj367

and if you need some World class but grotesquely overpaid celebrity the best interview on the web with two media giants

Media negatives is

medi o’ crity in Oirland.

The opposite in every sense of BBC’s Radio 4 unaffected presentations is the Irish version from Rte Lyric FM.

Here the dispensers of sonic culture do so with a preternatural skill for patronising their audience.  Yes that word again.  They might as well be selling sanitary products too. Lyric FM presenters rare skill to read the sleeve notes of classic albums verbatim and aloud and so obviously and so unashamedly  is  extraordinary.  Some do so with elaborate pronunciation, be it German; Czech; French; Italian; or Mandarin.  They might be tolerated but I doubt they would be survive for long in Bejing, Bologna, Bordeaux, Brno, or in Berlin.

Phrase book language undoubtedly works in the acquisition of high end hotel rooms on a jolly.

The haughty hyper pronunciation and frenzy of someone called Liz Nolan Knowless is unbearable.  She sounds like some sad or mad Aunt who is dying for a visit.  Trying hard to be liked but incapable of self -reflection, she whimpers a need.   From her photo release there is a definite equine look too.

THANKS A MILL! DO CALL OR EMAIL OR TEXT OR TWITTER. DON’T BE A STRANGER. PLEEEEEZE.
MUSIC DER WAS DAT INDEED. INDEED DAT WAS MUSIC DER! I AM GREAT AT PRONUNCIATION BY THE WAY.

Her colleagues are a short head behind her

Somebody called O’ Carroll strives to hide the tedium of working cliched classics for the herd whilst in an Irish hypocritical way asking for their requests.

Somebody called Kelly who brings esotheric self-service to a new level.  Experimental music for the masochists and lug lovers.

IT’S EASY TO BE HIP SOUNDING WHEN YOU’RE IN THIS LYRIC FM COMPANY.

Someone called ?????  like a brown nosing Hibernian toff during the Regency Period implores his audience to join him …….somewhere.

Someone called ?????? whose intonation and delivery of late night jazz is like a parody of all late nite jazz jocks.

Someone called ??????? A token imported english accented if not english born jazz dispenser is cut price compared to his compatriots in Bristol or London.

More from the 21st century Zeitgeist

I hear  modern celebrities, fashionistas, and the similarly idea-less say  ” to die for” and ” light must be right for photograher to shoot us”.  It would be ideal if for once they used the phrase literally in it’s correct sense.

 

 More idiots of the Idiom

 

 Isn’t it about time that those sad ‘fillum moovee’ reviewers who sit in the dark and whose whole waste of space in corporeal presence revolves around such trifles and artifice learn that Martin Scorsese would actually appreciate his name to be pronounced as his good mother and father had wished it to be.   All together  skôr-SES-ē.      

 

 Many clowns do not a circus make……. but it’s a close call sport

Marty Morrissey when not been naturally ridiculous adds in his commentary ‘he has his hurl with him’ Does Mr M. prepare a meal by cooking in a cook?

DON’T EVER FORGET THAT IF YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR AUDIENCE AND SOUND LIKE THEM, THEY WILL LISTEN AND THEY WILL OBEY. OK-THAT’S SOME TURDBRIDY SHIT BUT IT WORKS I TELL YA. AT LEAST DO WHAT COMES NATURALLY. PRETEND! SAY LOTS OF STUFF LIKE ‘GOD BLESH YA. REMEMBER THE BIG CONTRACT. WE ARE THE MOST TALENT LESS  B’STARDS THAT EVER ROAMED! ALL TOGETHER NOW- MEEEEEEEEH

The media herd who are salaried to specialise in such matters ought to know. I thought that ‘hurl’ was a verb.  Wiki admit that ‘hurl’ is an abbreviation of a hurling stick but only in Leinster or Ulster; . Hurley being the noun.

I can admit now.  I saw Charlie Hurley play football but he never played hurling. I saw Liz Hurley in South Kensington and cheekily asked,  if she would like to hurl”

Longevity doth not bestow infallibilty.

The octogenarian Michael O’ Muircheartaigh is not without blemish either.  When concluding a documentary (ostensibly on football trophies of all codes) he referred to the Jules Rimet trophy as the “Jules Verne Cup”. Was he suggesting that the garrison game of AF could be science fiction?  ( I admit I see it now as some type of fiction) Now I admit Jules Rimet and Jules Verne were both French citizens but that is all.  Somewhere, Pele is confused and is looking for scuba lessons.

 

 The format of informality  

Such as when George Hook with his irritable vowal syndrome amid the bombast and distended discourse.

WILL THEY EVER COP ON THAT I AM A …………….

OF THE GREATEST DIMENSIONS.

meets with Sh** for Brains Colemanballs and Dr Ciara yummy something K.

It appears they are talking  amongst themselves but in reality they are talking at you.  Each waits to talk and when listening are selling you something. Their thought or some slight idea,  if not a product.  The latter of course will come thick and heavy in between the gob slurry.

Speaking of which

Tturd    bridy

As Bill Shakespeare might politely say if he were still with us and had a telly  “a slight, unmeritable man.”   …..this Tubridy fellow”

SUPERFINE 289

 

Superfine 289. That makes one of us.  Superhot  me-under the sun for 5 hours. Both bloodied but unbowed nonetheless!

 

This F-4E is 1966 vintage though the first Phantom was developed through the fifties into many series.  I’m the all weathered superhot Irish December 1955 vintage human here.  I got to sit in this F-4 which grants one a feeling of possession and liking since then for this mega powerful McDonnell machine. 

 The 289 here began with the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida in 1967. In 1969 it began its transformation into an Air Force Thunderbird assigned to the Air Demonstration Squadron at Nellis AFB Nevada. It earned it’s sobriquet “Super-fine 289″ 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7D7cArR-Os

 

Now I know what you’re thunking!.  Am I a two-timer  in Boron?(North of Edwards).  Actually this was the introduction to the model. Seriously if you happen to be as unlucky in love and other ways as myself the machine here was the only thing to caress.

 

 

Since we’re here at 5050 Santa Fe Drive we might as well look at the other machines.

 

‘don’t make em like that enmore’

I think we might do better with the window protector removed. Lodestar ready?

 

LOCKHEED MARTIN

 

NOT AN AVERAGE WORKPLACE  if you look closely.

 

exceptional

One of many Lockheed Martin facilities in the US.

Maybe best explained here

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/

 

light rail system passes by what looks like a wind tunnel. It’s not a rocket silo that’s for sure.

 

Just to orientate ourselves here.  South of the Bay!

bout der!

 

Few hundred miles further south at Castle AFB (on an earlier California visit) were some of Lockheed’s more original works and most original work.

 

 

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird obviously needing pushback.

Nothing beats that!

 

UNDERCOVER BENEATH THE FASTEST AND HIGHEST AIRPLANE THAT EVER EXISTED. THIS ITSELF WAS AN UNDERCOVER ESPIONAGE PLATFORM FOR 3 DECADES SINCE 1964

 

 

at one time this beauty could have set off from here in California and be in UK or Germany local time 5 hours before it took off. Mach 3 plus or a tad over 4 times the speed of your coffee and biscuit flight

 

Before the 1964 introduction of the Blackbird above, Lockheed had a pedigree in the field of innovation.  Here’s a few they cooked up earlier

 

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

P-80B Shooting Star

Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star

 

Lockheed Lodestar

California (or some parts of the whole of)

A mere glimpse.

(t to b) through Antelope Valley on way back from Lancaster and Palmdale and Edwards Air Force Base, from Union Station.  West Hollywood.  Up the coast generally.   Going north.  SF, Sacramento, Mountain View, Silicon Valley, Redwood, as you can see.  Geez! another 18 States to upload.  If I get around to it-might be as demanding as some of the travelling.

Incidentally the last snap is looking across the bay as commercial jets navigate their way into SF airport.

 

Dis n Dat

 

Immune from influenza? 

http://www.cracked.com/article_16656_6-brainwashing-techniques-theyre-using-you-right-now.html

What about using some sense.  Right? 

  Wrong!  More human hubris!

http://www.cracked.com/article_17142_5-ways-common-sense-lies-to-you-everyday.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_19468_5-logical-fallacies-that-make-you-wrong-more-than-you-think.html

 ————————————————————————————————

 Why Roy Rogers should not be mistaken for Will Rogers . One had a horse-the other horse-sense.

“There’s only one thing that can kill the movies, and that’s education.

——————————————————————————————–

 

 More food for your neurons at Goodreads where you may search authors

 http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/23924.Martin_Luther_King_Jr_

 or generally search concepts

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/ignorance

 

 

 Military thinking.

“Are we winning?” So long as we have moral authority, reason, and truth on our side!”

Feminist alert!

The US Navy has had a very unique way to ‘grade’  the pulchritude of women.  The term ‘helens’ was used,  Yep!  You guessed it. 

  Let me think, a Barbara Hershey or her lookalikes

 

 

 might be rated at 920.

 That’s highrating.  A 1000 would launch a  ship!     

————————————————————————————

 

 To balance out any mistaken misogyny from the US Navy item before

 Next up…… The neighbours to the north is not all about stunning vistas, wonderful animals and fishing.  Canada has a proud history of airplane development and manufacture.  It also has and requires a well equipped air force to defend it’s vast borders. 

The following is an engrossing documentary even if you don’t like fast jets.  Drama with a tiny bit of sexual tension and very complex maths at MACH 1.8 while inverted!    Is Ms. Erickson the Riel deal?    

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq5WWrKcsAk

 The full series of Jetstream has more character development and twists (other than aeroplanes)than a fictional Hollywood blockbuster.  Guess who has the right stuff and who hasn’t?  Guess again!

 

Feminist alert 2.      Navy carrier pilots referred to Air Force landing techniques as

  “Flaring is squatting to pee”.

  Less controversially some gallows humour remind them  ….. of their mortality

Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death …I Shall Fear No Evil . For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing   Sign over the  SR 71 operations office door.

You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3. (attr. test pilot)

If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it’s probably a helicopter and therefore unsafe.

When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you will always have enough power to get you to the scene of the crash.

Without ammunition the USAF would be another expensive flying club.

What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up, the pilot dies.

I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous.

Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there!

If you’re faced with a forced landing; fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. (Bob Hoover – renowned aerobatic flyer and test pilot)

If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; ride the bastard down. (Ernest K. Gann, author & aviator)

Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you.

There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime. (sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB 1970).

The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and, a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time. (Author unknown-or just wishes to be unknown)

Basic Flying Rules Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.

You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.

 

 Musical interlude

 

http://www.jango.com/stations/263763501/tunein?l=0

Listen out for…….

AIR,

Massive Attack,

Zero 7,

Kascade    especially   ‘4 am’

 The Album Leaf      especially        ‘Red Eye’

Groove Armada.               especially          ‘ At the River’

Barcelona y Barça

I was at the  Camp Nou (without camera again) but I did get my hand on the European Cup. I have a tendency of late to touch fossils, fissures, statues, and historic symbols across the western world.  As an ageing mortal, I reckon it must be a search for some sort of permanence.

Touching the EC of EUFA  is not hard if you pay an extra fee.  I did so without extra taxation by smiling at the lady guide and by doing so, I had a quick one.  I mean I touched the cup.   

Across the city to the Olympic Stadium (all the rage in 1992-but not so much in 2012)home of rival city club RCD Espanyol.

Either early or too late.

 Photo taken by kind tourist of me and stadium.  I modestly spare you of my image

 

 

 

 Still on a sport…..

How did London win the O bid?

     http://www.cracked.com/article_19932_5-creepy-things-london-did-to-prepare-olympics.html

 

 

 Was it the promise of urban renewal or of feral youth converting to track athletics? 

The first O event  I was aware of was in 1964.  Chewing-gum packets included collectible tin badges of Tokyo.  It was fascinating.  The world together!  We were all one in sports .  As glory has been replaced by glitter I’m much less captivated in the last few decades.   I watched Los Angeles 1984! 

I had the chance as late as July 10 2012 to buy what looked like sensibly priced tickets for a London Olympic  event.  No it wasn’t table tennis!   It was in fact volleyball.  Women’s volleyball!   Not beach volleyball but still it was balls and athletically earnest women. 

 The ticket being £20 would hint that a telescope might be needed but hey it’s all about being there.  Right?

Then I read the regulations for attendance.  Hours of security checks and then nothing to eat or drink unless you like your burger and fries paid by credit card.

No thanks! 

 

London is super and vibrant and always worth a visit.  I didn’t need it served up with the hulabaloo of Olympic big business. The first O event  I was aware of was in 1964.  Chewing-gum tin badges of Tokyo.  It was great to know the world and it’s nations were together!  We were all one in sports .  

 As glory has been replaced by glitter in the last few decades I’m much less captivated.   The last time I watched with any measure of enthusiasm was Los Angeles 1984! 

 Alas it’s largely the same for other sporting events. 

 

What’s Up Doc?

More docs anyone? 

 

http://documentary.net/roctrip-china-2011/

http://documentary.net/sf-to-paris-flight-in-two-minutes-with-aurora-borealis/

http://documentary.net/the-well-covering-capitol-hill/

http://documentary.net/hollywood-and-the-war-machine/

THE DISTRICT

The WC. White House. One year before I got inside.

looking up to the Capitol

Jefferson Memorial

jewish museum

Basin

Lincoln M from Washington M

Kennedy Concert Hall vies for space with Watergate

The WH.

WM before the climb

Aviation history in one pic. Can you spot the machines?

0-5 times the speed of a very fast bullet.

X-15

bell x-1

Mercury capsule below the Bell. Not easy this selfie from 18 inches beneath the neck

Glenn’s mercury

Gemini

Gemini

inside the two seater Gemini

two seater

Perspex protected modules make photography difficult

another look maybe?

Heat shield of Apollo11

hoy hot hot….40 years ago

re-entry to earth is the cause!

THE J79. TWO OF THESE TO POWER THE F-4. AS IF ONE WASN’T ENOUGH.

MORE COLD WAR rocketry

even more COLD WAR rocketry

COLD WAR missiles from both sides Soviet and US.

COLD WAR ballistic missiles

COLD WAR rocketry

COLD WAR rocketry

COLD WAR rocketry

Détente. Apollo and Soyuz come together over me

WORTH REVISITING……

WASHINGTON DC PLANES OF FAME down to CAPE CANAVERAL ROCKETRY

Yung as you Feel, Sense, Know.

“There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.”

“The fact that a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing…He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths…There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing. In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. “You are no different from anybody else,” they will chorus or, “there’s no such thing,” and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as “morbid”…He is at once set apart and isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within. “His own law!” everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law…The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization–absolute and unconditional–of its own particular law…To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being…he has failed to realize his own life’s meaning.

The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way “Tao,” and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfilment, wholeness, one’s destination reached, one’s mission done; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things.”

“Every man carries within himself the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or that particular woman, but a definite feminine image. This image is fundamentally unconscious, a hereditary factor of primordial origin.”

“the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

“The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites – day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.”

“I don’t aspire to be a good man. I aspire to be a whole man.”

“Nobody can fall so low unless he has a great depth.If such a thing can happen to a man, it challenges his best and highest on the other side; that is to say, this depth corresponds to a potential height, and the blackest darkness to a hidden light.”

“Naturally, society has an indisputable right to protect itself against arrant subjectivisms, but, in so far as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is completely at the mercy of ruthless individualists. Let it band together into groups and organizations as much as it likes – it is just this banding together and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator. A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hand of a single madman.”

“Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.”

“Instead of the concrete individual, you have the names of organizations and, at the highest point, the abstract idea of the State as the principle of political reality. The moral responsibility of the individual is then inevitably replaced by the policy of the State (raison d’etat). Instead of moral and mental differentiation of the individual, you have public welfare and the raising of the living standard. The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in the individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself. The individual is increasingly deprived of the moral decision as to how he should live his own life, and instead is ruled, fed, clothed, and educated as a social unit, accommodated in the appropriate housing unit, and amused in accordance with the standards that give pleasure and satisfaction to the masses. The rulers, in their turn, are just as much social units as the ruled, and are distinguished only by the fact they are specialized mouthpieces of State doctrine. They do not need to be personalities capable of judgment, but thoroughgoing specialists who are unusable outside their line of business. State policy decides what shall be taught and studied.”

“Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?”

“The more critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life becomes. When reason is overvalued, the individual suffers a loss. Relying more on facts and rationality than on imagination and theory detracts from the quality of a person’s intellectual life.”

“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not. ”

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”

“I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears.”

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole”

“To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.”

“Nature has no use for the plea that one ‘did not know’.”

“I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. I was also surprised to find many intelligent and wide-awake people who lived (as far as one could make out) as if they had never learned to use their sense organs: They did not see the things before their eyes, hear the words sounding in their ears, or notice the things they touched or tasted. Some lived without being aware of the state of their own bodies.

“There are others who seemed to live in a most curious condition of consciousness, as if the state they had arrived at today were final, with no possibility of change, or as if the world and the psyche were static and would remain so forever. They seemed devoid of all imagination, and they entirely and exclusively depended upon their sense-perception. Chances and possibilities did not exist in their world, and in ‘today’ there was no real ‘tomorrow’. The future was just the repetition of the past.”

from The Red Book:Liber Novis Carl Jung wrote these extraordinarily beautiful lines

“My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you – are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.”

He continued….

“I indignantly answered, “Do you call light what we men call the worst darkness? Do you call day night?”
To this my soul spoke a word that roused my anger, “My light is not of this world.”
I cried, “I know of no other world!”
The soul answered, “Should it not exist because you know nothing of it?”

“The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts that I could still think, I should think.”

“Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers.”

Carl’s succint view on society (evidently some time before 1961) when it wasn’t as hideous as it is today

“The individual is increasingly
deprived of the moral decision as to how he should live
his own life, and instead is ruled, fed, clothed and educated as
a social unit, accommodated in the appropriate housing unit,
and amused in accordance with the standards that give pleasure
and satisfaction to the masses.”

But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”

“My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.”

“Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.”

“We are always human and we should never forget the burden of being only human”

“Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.”

Now moving from the great physician and mystic C G Yung to a contemporary of his Henry Louis Mencken

“You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.”

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

“The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.”

“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”

“the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.”

“Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops”

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

“The average newspaper, especially of the better sort, has the intelligence of a hillbilly evangelist, the courage of a rat, the fairness of a prohibitionist boob-jumper, the information of a high school janitor, the taste of a designer of celluloid valentines, and the honor of a police-station lawyer.”

“The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 per cent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.”

“It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.”

“I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved, which a cow enjoys on giving milk.”

“We must respect the other fellow’s religion but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”

I would replace the word ‘religion’ with the word ‘opinion’. The de rigeur post modern notion that 7 billion plus bipedal evolved apes have opinions on much at all, let alone that such be singularly entitled to respect is sheer idiocy. I have a feeling that this admission might sound like a Pol Pot rally cry; but this one ultra liberal tenet is dung

—————

“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”

Sun Tzu

People are aware that this low-bred fellow, who deserves to be pilloried, has, by the dirtiest jobs, made his way in the world; and that the splendid position he has acquired makes merit repine and virtue blush……….

But for all that, his bowing and scraping are welcome everywhere; he is received, smiled upon, and wriggles himself into all kinds of society; and, if any appointment is to be secured by intriguing, he will carry the day over a man of the greatest worth

said Moliere back in the day, …….

but it could be used today as a critique of that sad breed,

such as  a Ryan Turdbridy

Woe men for womens wiles

This conversation between Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp would do nothing to disprove the view (of some) that ladies are a law unto themselves.

Everyone knows the story about BJ. Clinton and Monica.  The main issue of abuse and lies gets fogged up (for the eavesdropping listener admittedly) as the two ladies chat moves from Mills and Boon romance to Tie Rack particularities .   The closing advice so dubious on ‘how not to dry clean if one wants a future’ as to be down wrong devious!

No wonder King Lear had problems!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/lewinsky-tripp/

So How was It for You?

By some quantum fluctuation 13.7 billion light years ago(plus or minus just a few hundred million years) we are here on a minor planet in a tiny solar system in a smallish galaxy. It was a trillion times a trillion trillion that we are what we are, and are where we are. Note the exact technical description.

I refer you then to a more specialist mind in Harvard who calculated it to be about one chance in 400 quadrillion (or 4 x 10^17). Not happy to be laughed at by all (proper order)he went further by postulating that it was (I paraphrase) “an imperative that the reproductive age of each of our ancestors going back had to be reached and that string of probabilities multiplied together would leave the odds of existence of any earthly human being at an astronomical     10^2,685.000 “.

Illustrative art copyright of Crille.

Do incredible odds such as that not confer miracle status on our more prosaic earthly endeavours?  Yes I think it does.

Does that make up for the slings and arrows of desultory fate?  Great personal losses, loss of face, lost loves, loss in general, scorn, and then some? Does that assauge the pain of it all?  Unequivocally it does not, I think!

But some knowledge of this perspective in times past would have helped make the unmerciful challenges more acceptable.

Web Journal is……

part memoir; part travel writing, and photographic essays. An exercise in reflections for the most part, which might wander  at stages into the realm of bio. The fetal kick as it were to something more substantial. Which means that each opinion can be viewed as a cell. Cells of sense and erudition. A zygote of…….! Ok enough metaphor! Well just one more.

The derided blogosphere of the everyman is an embryonic exercise for a cathartic autobiography to come.

LIGHT on some HISTORY

Under Yeager’s X-1

1947 vintage over 1955 in 2007.  Time flies!

Oh, Pa-he-ggy, my Pa-he-ggy Sue

Long days journey. A cuppa tea? Nothing over easy!

The thought had passed my mind to re-enact a slice of ‘Five Easy Pieces’.

I’d like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.

Waitress: A #2, chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?

: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules.

Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?

: I want you to hold it between your knees.

But this is real life and not Hollywood a few hundred miles west. These women were working long-hours at the Peggy Sue Diner.

Here’s one they made earlier

http://www.peggysuesdiner.com/

the Wronged man

DO YE SERIOUSLY THINK THIS WILL STOP ME?

Who said using ‘gate’ as a suffix for some minor intrigue……

Getting up my nose!

is a useful journalistic device?  It gets up my nose!   See!

Could all who have done so or do or will continue to do so, jump off a high bridge.  There are many to choose from over the Potomac.

Leaving Sacramento!

We gotta go now Bonnie!

PACIFICation. Impressions of a coast.

pacific coast during my Kandinsky period

Bourdain? Sisley? Non! C’est O’Sullivan Aherne bien sur!

 

 

 

 

van gogh?

A SIGN?

 

 

while sorting through old photos, this one over Nevada, somewhere between Reno and Las Vegas, is unremarkable.

Wait a darn minute!  Is that a spiritual manifestation?

 

or an acrylic-plastic window maintenance problem.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Professional expertise?

So what’s your opinion on kissing?

A  software specialist’s view might be  “A kiss is a few bits of love compiled into a byte.”

A mathematician  might say  “A kiss is two divided by nothing.”

A physicist might comment “A kiss is a contraction of the mouth due to an expansion of the heart.”  That’s more like the explanation of a biologist or biochemist though.

 I think a Physicist might be more inclined to say that a kiss is the ever closing space between two masses which with careful docking and spatial awareness will conjoin two distinct parts of each mass.  It wouldn’t go down well with the fragrant significant other if she were to hear it so prosaically explained.

A chemist                      “A kiss is the reaction resulting from the interaction between two hearts.”                         very lame!!!

a philosopher             “A kiss is persecution for the child, ecstasy for the youth, and homage for the old.”

a theologist                “A kiss is divine.”

an ecologist                 “A kiss is a clean green renewable energy resource that works best when recycled often.”

physician       “A kiss is an oral stimulant taken by mouth that can often cure what ails you.”

aviator          “A kiss is the next best thing after you landed with no fuel or wheels”

equal opportunity

but it takes the useless professions to cynically say………

lawyer solicitor                “A kiss is when the party of the first part and the party of the second part have reached a mutually beneficial understanding that two (2) pair of lips shall co-exist in, for all practical purposes, the same space and time for a temporary period”  ……” and for that advice they would ask for 21 per cent of all future fiscal benefits, that arise from such a  mutual understanding

banker               “A kiss must be considered an investment that is profitable when returned.”

economist                  “A kiss is one of those things for which the demand is always higher than the supply.”

politicians                   “A kiss will cost you a very lucrative career if experienced with anyone other than your spouse.”

and finally I’ll let it up to your imagination as to what an estate agent might say.  You might as well imagine: -they do!

Emphatically the last 5 species are worthless

A Foreign Eye Sees Clearly……

our Oirish rogues gallery, our Oirish usual suspects, our Oirish ‘persons of interest’.

or just those who went before our current shower of money-grubbers. 

 

from Michael Lewis

The first thing you notice when you watch the Irish Parliament at work is that the politicians say everything twice, once in English and once in Gaelic. As there is no one in Ireland who does not speak English and a vast majority who do not speak Gaelic, this comes across as a forced gesture that wastes a great deal of time. I ask several Irish politicians if they speak Gaelic, and all offer the same uneasy look and hedgy reply: “Enough to get by.” The politicians in Ireland speak Gaelic the way the Real Housewives of Orange County speak French. To ask “Why bother to speak it at all?” is of course to miss the point. Everywhere you turn you see both emulation of the English and a desire, sometimes desperate, for distinction. The Irish insistence on their Irishness—their conceit that they’re more devoted to their homeland than the typical citizen of the world is—has an element of bluster about it, from top to bottom. At the top are the many very rich Irish people who emit noisy patriotic sounds but arrange officially to live elsewhere so they don’t have to pay tax in Ireland; at the bottom, the waves of emigration that define Irish history. The Irish people and their country are like lovers whose passion is heightened by their suspicion that they will probably wind up leaving each other. Their loud patriotism is a cargo ship for their doubt.

—————————————————————

‘the strangest consequence of the Irish bubble: to throw a nation which had finally clawed its way out of centuries of indentured servitude back into it’.

—————————————————————

In any case, if the Irish wanted to save their banks, why not guarantee just the deposits? There’s a big difference between depositors and bondholders: depositors can flee. The immediate danger to the banks was that savers who had put money into them would take their money out, and the banks would be without funds. The investors who owned the roughly 80 billion euros of Irish bank bonds, on the other hand, were stuck. They couldn’t take their money out of the bank. And their 80 billion euros very nearly exactly covered the eventual losses inside the Irish banks. These private bondholders didn’t have any right to be made whole by the Irish government. The bondholders didn’t even expect to be made whole by the Irish government. Not long ago I spoke with a former senior Merrill Lynch bond trader who, on September 29, 2008, owned a pile of bonds in one of the Irish banks. He’d already tried to sell them back to the bank for 50 cents on the dollar—that is, he’d offered to take a huge loss, just to get out of them. On the morning of September 30 he awakened to find his bonds worth 100 cents on the dollar. The Irish government had guaranteed them! He couldn’t believe his luck. Across the financial markets this episode repeated itself. People who had made a private bet that went bad, and didn’t expect to be repaid in full, were handed their money back—from the Irish taxpayer.

In retrospect, now that the Irish bank losses are known to be world-historically huge, the decision to cover them appears not merely odd but suicidal.

 

 

excerpts from Michael Lewis article in Vanity Fair 2011.

 

 

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103

 

Strange how years of glib gobbing on national airways and several forests of newsprint haven’t conveyed so succinctly and coherently the latest depths of ineptitude of local politicians as the above article .   I say ‘latest’ advisedly.  There’s always more to come.

 

 

It used to be …….

THE ORIGINAL DUBLIN AIRPORT TERMINAL where a 12 year old peered at steel behemoths with  piston engines. Travel by air was beyond the pocket but not the imagination.
I never pass by now decades later without stopping to gaze at the building itself.

 

Nowadays compressing oneself inside a Boeing 737 more commercial than a Ronald McDonald’s eaterie, is regarded as travel.  It isn’t really.  The plane travels all right.  The passengers mostly arrive. Unless they  bring some imagination and a plan they’d be better off looking at maps on a sofa and reading history.

So a flight from a once old aerodrome to another in Berlin.  60 years after the Airlift.

Here’s a few memories from ILA 2008

Not overly impressed by the A380. The VIP’s might have been charmed with the interior tour

Nothing near as impressive as the C-17.

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster. Note the homage to the Berlin Airlift 60 years earlier.

The USAF permit the ordinary citizen to the flight deck

 

 

 more than IT skills are necessary to sit in either seat.  The HUD display for each pilot is a sign of how busy things get when judging distances on landing and taking off in these heavy transport planes. 

 

ONLY A QUARTER OF THE GLOBE I covered. Balloon flight over the other three-quarters might be out of the question but surely there is something better than hops around  hub airports which today is regarded as travelling.

 

Had I fallen out of love with the spirit of Hera, Iris  and Atahensic. Or have I

had enough of the  interminable stop-go-process at airport terminals.

Instead of ILA in 2014, I chose Gatow.

A cake?

No.

Gatow the old abandoned air-base.  I felt much the same. I mean not an airbase, but old and all the rest.

It turned out to be one of the finest museums of it’s kind in Europe in my view.

An interest in aviation isn’t necessarily required, just history.

Machines here were much used and truly historic. From Cold War anti-artillery nasty stuff  to classic WW2 airframes, such as a 1943 Bf 109’s.  As interesting a display as any I have seen with the added frisson that Gatow was an actual site of WW2 and subsequent tensions.

Gatow museum in the borough of Spandeau is like a lady of a certain age living a quiet thoughtful life.  Though I could have done with an offer of cake (Gâteau possibly)and tea at her house during the 3 hour visit.  Cafeteria was found before leaving behind the hanger which was behind another hanger.  Never mind, I was happy.

Here’s a well-produced amateur clip shot in winter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-cRwycbkCE

 

 

Here’s a new aspect of Berlin.   Nice restoration.  Hard to imagine that no-one here would have imagined what would befall their city in the next 100 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1IGNLg-RSU

 

 

 

Are your curtains closed? Or …….

 

 

 

……. would you prefer to be the subject of Arne Svenson and be mounted in a Manhatten gallery.  Some might view it as stalking, while others might see it as opportunist and intrusive.   My initial impression was that it was tastefully staged.

 

 

 

According to the Tribeca photographer,  these photos were taken from his apartment, and are candid.   Incidentally the specific lens was inherited from a late ornithologist friend.

 I suggest he might use in mitigation if he was ever brought to court

‘Your Honor, I was only watching the birdies’  ‘Besides the windows are too big not to notice’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all photographs herein this post are copyright of

Arne Svenson

 

 

 

A lot of Russian around…..

here in 1968.

  

Now a Warsaw Pact tank track painted in peaceful lilac lie around for the curious visitor.    Art out-stallation and great recycling. Or is it a mulberry colour?   Historically more accurate, Soviet Russia had their Soviet satellite armies invaded.

I was in Prague in 2008 forty years after this intervention or a ‘fraternal assistance against anti-social forces’ as the Soviets described it, occurred

The Russians are onside now and will never invade anyone ever again.  Ever!  Eh!

Woops!

A decade before World War 2 when neither Russia nor Soviet Russia had a bear hug around here, Prague might have looked a little bit like this photo below.  Illusion courtesy of a vintage car.

A blink in cosmic time, but 70 or so years forward and the automobile motif and indeed the city itself has a new look.

Beautiful!  Czech beer adds a few pounds.

Oh! the car.

a Maserati.

One of the more sober models from the 1899 Bologna company with the Trident insignia.  Now under the holding company Fiat Chrysler Netherlands, previously Fiat S p A, and before that Fiat Group (yawn!)

more visions

from

Praha

 

 All photos are copyright of Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne

Prague Czech Republic. Opera House missed by tram.
copyright. Maurice Aherne

Goodreads

If you find yourself empathetic to,  or in agreement with Bukowski then something sometime probably went wrong in your life. While he believes himself to be a soft person with just an ugly exterior, one can’t help but see some ugliness in the way he treats women now and again.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/13275.Charles_Bukowski

 

Seriously I would wish at 58 to have more in common,  in sensibilities I mean, with Woody Allen, Noam Chomsky, or Martin Scorsese, but the quotes from Mr Bukowski do strike a chord or have some resonance in a man’s life.

LIFE is still popular……

 

 despite cost of living.   I’m not speaking monetarily.

 

 Some heavy hitters of the ‘thinking’ game have said

 When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden”

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”

from the remarkable Victor Frankl  “Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen”

 

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”Herman Hesse

 

 

“Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with”  …………….

Ernest Becker  The Denial of Death

 

 

 

 

Or to paraphrase another writer  ‘ a billion dollar brain within a 98 cent body’

 Short Intermission for Reflection…..

but no relief as we are reminded

 

  

 

Trust Woody Allen to be more prosaic on this issue.

 “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live in my apartment”

 

  Here are few of many aphorisms of my own

“Ireland is a good place to be buried.  If you’re lucky it will happen post-mortem” 

“Most people lose sight that they are less than a grain of sand in the Grand Scheme.  Many see themselves as the entire beach.   More fail to see the larger desert that surrounds it! 

 “If you win all of your battles except the last one; you lose!  That’s Fortūna at her most fickle.” 

 “Life would probably be a longer process without processed food” 

 “Deja vu is not what is used to be” 

 “First impressions are important they say.  Who are ‘they’ by the way?  Subsequent ones too I suspect.   Yet the shape from the mould ought to be more worthy than the impression!  

 “Consciousness if conceded to the consortium has consequences.  Many cons, you see.   Therein lies a clue.   Contagia!  Don’t be controlled ! Contest it! ”

” Controlled consciousness consumes consumables but ultimately is consumed itself.  Ask yourself thi0s  “Do you want to become consommé?

 Maurice O’Sullivan Aherne

 

 

Some lighter thoughts from the worldly wide web

If it’s true that we’re here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?

If 4 out of 5 people suffer some affliction,  does the fifth one enjoy it.

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning.

We are born naked, wet, and hungry.  Then it gets worse!

Eat right, exercise daily, live clean, die anyway.

Today is the last day of some of your life.

What a wonderful life! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.

  Maybe life isn’t for everyone

Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening, or causes cancer in poor lab rats.

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it’s true.

 

 

 

 

 

 I cut this gag to it’s essence ‘cos that’s the way they should be told!

Lawyer* I have good news and bad. Client. give me the bad.  Lawyer.  DNA tests showed that it’s you.   Client: No!!!! what’s the good news then? Lawyer.  your cholesterol is down

By lawyer I mean those who justly practice law and not those who unjustly profit by it you’ll understand. 

 

 Some ‘facts’ below with my response.  (It has been a slow day)

The average human produces 25,000 quarts of spit in a lifetime, which is enough to fill two swimming pools.

Best reason to avoid public bathing areas.

 Human brain weighs around 3 pounds.

 That’s just packaging!  200 billion neurons, 125 trillion potential synapses in the cerebral cortex alone.  Remarkable! Are your lights on?

If you gave each human on earth an equal portion of dry land, including the uninhabitable areas, everyone would get roughly 100 square feet (30.4 m).

 The current population being 7 billion plus+, the statistics seem wrong .Only 100 sq ft?. Who choses whether it be a jungle in Borneo or Casino Square Monte Carlo?

Only one person in 2 billion will live to be 166 or older.

They’ll inherit the land above and will breathe possibly breed with the other 3.  Illogical but it’s a gag!

1/4 of the bones in your body are in your feet.

Ouch! I always knew that.  Too late…. again!

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.

   Makes evolutionary sense!  Economical too regarding socks!

You blink over 10,000,000 times a year.

  Is that 20 blinks a minute?  Seems excessive!

Women blink nearly twice as much as men

could suggest women are blind twice the time, but make up for it by multi-tasking.  I think both conclusions are wrong by the way

The average human blinks their eyes 6,205,000 times each year

Humans are blind a lot of the time!

The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.

Never the right ending. 

Sneeze travels out of your mouth at over 100 miles (161 km) an hour.

At least!

Stressed is Desserts spelled backwards—

Don’t get your ice-cream served backwards.

 

Some outsourced advice from Sages of the Web.

Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of repayments

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you’ll have their shoes.

If you lend someone 20 euro and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.  Nothing to lose except some cash possibly

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

Never miss a chance to shut up.

There are a few theories to arguing with women. None works.

Experience is something you don’t get until after you need it.

By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator.

 

I conclude here but ask you to bear in mind….

 

 What not to do at your next Interview.

10.Challenge the interviewer to arm wrestle.

9. Wear earphones explaining you have a talent to listen to interviewer and music at the same time.

8. Bring large dog to interview.  I’d say a small dog might be a problem too!

7. Refuse to sit down and insist on being interviewed standing up.

6. Excuse yourself and return to the office minutes later wearing a hair piece.

5. Say you would show loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on your forehead

4. Doze off.  When awoken, exclaim “I didn’t rob THAT bank”

3.  Interrupt to phone your therapist for advice

2.  Explain that a long-term goal would be to replace the interviewer.

1.   Say you never finished school because of a kidnapping.

 

Just remember even moreso than last time I advised you……

 

This last illustration could be copyright of the late Dr. Sagan’s estate.  I hereby acknowledge. 

 NASA I expect had a role too.

I still hope GOD or the Supreme Entity who was around before the Initial Singularity has overall copyright.

 

Curbing……

 

Doesn’t contemporary society suck Larry?  It’s a suckciety.   Buy! Take! Dump!   I tell ya!  No! we’re not Aspergers whatchacallit!  It’s not anti-social!   It’s straight dope!  It’s da truth!

 

 

 Above are jokes folks!   Some truth probably lies therein.    Warning.  Not a medical diagnosis!

Achtung!

 

“Consciousness if conceded to the consortium has it’s consequences.  There are a lot of cons out there!  Try not to be controlled by contagia inasmuchas you can!  Contest it!”   O’Sullivan Aherne

” Controlled consciousness consumes and ultimately is consumed.  Do you want your mind to be consommé” O’Sullivan Aherne

 

 I considered placing my quotes under the triumviri beneath but hey it’s my spot!

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful” Chomsky

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society“. Bernays spin-master Eddy.  Ya gotta admire his longevity all the same!

 “Madison Avenue is a very powerful aggression against private consciousness. A demand that you yield your private consciousness to public manipulation”.  McLuhan

 

 

ps. above pic is not that avenue.

For Madison Avenue, say Dublin.4, or D.2, or D.6 of the Irish golden triangle where Satan’s triplets, Advertisia, ,PRonia, and Me D eye A, meet their elder cousins Legalia, and Estatia Agentia for afternoon tea since time immemorial or sometime before 1940 for argument sake.   

 Decades of their decadence have passed, and some have ventured beyond the Pale, to mix with their target audience, or the savages in the wider wilderness.  Times are hard.  Cachet is secondary to cost these days

Thanks to NASA AND ESA for showing  luminence down there.  The lights are bright, but it’s only the electricity grid.

“It’s so easy to manipulate an audience, but it’s nearly always clear that you are being manipulated. I think even people that are not critically attuned are aware of cynical manipulation in film”.  John Boorman being very generous in his adopted tax friendly for artistes country.  From where a slurry of pedler bubbleheaded reviewers of ‘da moovies’  have emerged mouthing nonsense about ‘da fillums’.  The slang word movie implies to move… moving… emotions.  It certainly moves popular  corn in a darkened room.

  Though Mr Boorman set a decent enough standard, some harsh truth would be appreciated John!

 

More insidiously, extra corn is served in living rooms by broadcast  ‘Mee D YA’.  The daily ritual of bathing and breakfast is shared by the unwary with corporate shills spewing shibboleths every hour on the hour.  Soap and Toast with a Host (my facility for aphorisms has no bounds).

These networks from where clowns speaketh down with clichéd forked-tongue

“What part don’t you understand? Road map Moving forward Tipping point. Facebook Twitter! Tweet us!”

Exercised           as a verb for a mental process such as in ‘are you exercised enough about our manufactured concern to tweet us about it, or find us on Facebook’>  Answer to that should always be NO!

 

“do the math”

There was a time when such a phrase would prompt sniggering.  Now the American ‘math’ singular is all the rage on this side of pond.

” above my paygrade”   used by rent a mouth opinion-twats who heard Barack O say it

“touching base -left field-stepping up to the plate” used by Oirish and Brits who probably never were inside a baseball park.  It’s unlikely that all three phrases will be used at one sitting.  If you do hear someone say all three in a segment; consider it a home run!   Reward yourself by turning off the wireless.

“you guys”       In a parallel universe where Matriarchy is perceived; there may be men who refer to themselves in a group, as gals. 

To finish off , and believe me I wish it was legal to do so with them ALL

Let me be clear.              I wish you’d try

Let me be honest with you.              For a change,-go on Pepe!

Let’s agree to disagree.    Let’s agree you try a long walk off a short pier.

Kick the can down the road.        A can takes 50 years to disintegrate, pal, recycle waste!

Haircut.       usually followed by trench and troika    This use of a WORD normally understood as cutting of hair in the course of a decade has co-existed to mean taking a severe penalty.   It’s use should carry one.  (Are you listening readers of news in your trench with a troika.)

 

Amazing

Meme

Viral

Robust

Iconic

Benchmark

Closure

team player

Bling

Unacceptable                  it really is

Anyways/Schadenfreude/Transparency/Downsized/Move on/Metrosexual/Kerfuffle/Track record/Game changer/Cutting edge/Bottom line

State of the art/Best practice/On the same page/Silver bullet/Out of the box

 Strategic plan/Mission Statement/Business model/and much, much more /That being said/As a matter of fact/Outside the box/Between the lines/Way forward

Is what it is/ or we are were we are.                Would that be the ball park where you step up to the plate and see an object from left field perhaps?

Point in time/Up to speed/Moving or going forward    Albert Einstein would like to know what ye mean by that!

 Wake up call/Bring it on/Jaw dropping/Bring closure/

Vision statement/Paradigm shift/Exit strategy

Money shot/Not rocket science/Sea change/The rest is history/Absolutely/In harm’s way

 Happy accident/A ha moment/Perfect storm

Be afraid, be very afraid/Mistakes were made

Tipping point          ———sadly not of the garbage spoken

 

Now the chance of one person using a high percentage of that nonsense let alone ALL of the above in a typical show, is unlikely.

Yet as I wrote those earworms, a voice echoing in my superior temporal gyrus was that of an early morning Oirish chat merchant*. Remarkably, his whole on-air schtick consists of this verbiage.  It’s preternatural!

 

 Zero sum/Law of unintended consequences/and there’s more

 

 

 While these Id10Tangos and Egos are ‘having their cake and more besides’, people such as emergency response workers do indispensable work anonymously . They don’t need a morceau from the gateaux because they have a soul.

Just as a clear day might be in sight, a fog descends as some NonCommunicorp studio stooge asks

“That’s all very well, but the laws of unintended consequences, going forward could very well be ……..Your mission statement looks like blue sky thinking to me. At the end of the day, I would have thought………the optics are…..”

Dilbert’s is bemused!  His more assertive friend empties a chamber from a concealed .45 into this micro-phony.  Not actually, but there might be mitigating factors if it were so.

A Star in California……

Maybe they should send this over to do a job on Hollywood

The F104 Starfighter

On 7 May 1958 U.S. Air Force Major Howard C. Johnson, flying YF-104A 55-2957, broke the world altitude record by flying to 91,243 feet (27,811 m) at Edwards AFB.

On 16 May 1958, U.S. Air Force Capt Walter W. Irwin flying YF-104A 55-2969 set a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph over a 15/25 kilometer course at Edwards AFB.

Essentially the F104.Starfighter could climb in a minute to an altitude that modern commercial airline level off at and serve the coffee . The 104 was comparably unstable and deadly.  50 years on, here I am, where it began at Edwards.

Hours up and down the flightline taking snaps in the desert heat, this momentary refuge inside the main hanger was a relief.  It might take another 8 hours to process snaps so I’ll just do a multiply insert later.

By the way this base is so ‘classified‘ that following such ‘hospitable’ open days, very large guard dogs are used to coax ‘Joe and Josephine Public’ to return to civvy street by way of a long desert traffic jam.

Note.  Impressive data from Wiki on all aircraft if interested. Here’s the 104’s CV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter

Inside the Shuttle carrier.

Taxi for…..Shuttle!

747 Shuttle Carrier

That’s Valet parking!

THIS IS VALET PARKING AT EDWARDS. U2 NEED APPLY!

Edwards AFB. California

Just a few of many photos during 10 hours and as many miles walking the flightline in a rather warm 85 degrees.