It would be “only” a gesture — but what an important one. The Washington Post, yesterday:
… Today… there is growing sentiment inside the White House that President Obama, who in his first year envisioned a world without nuclear weapons, should cap his final year with a grand symbolic gesture in service of a goal that remains well out of reach.
No final decision has been made, but aides have begun exploring the possibility of Obama spending several hours in Hiroshima in May, after attending the Group of Seven Summit in Ise-Shima, halfway between Tokyo and Hiroshima. One senior Obama administration official, in an interview, suggested that the president could potentially deliver a speech there that evokes the nonproliferation themes of his address in Prague in 2009. Such a move would draw international attention in a more emotional fashion than did his nuclear security summit in Washington last week…
White House aides say they are confident that Obama can pay respects to the victims of the war — on both sides of the Pacific — without provoking a major political backlash in the United States. The feeling within the White House is that a Hiroshima visit, while not crucial to the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance, would offer the president another opportunity to recognize history without being, in his words, “imprisoned” by it…
The Post, today:
HIROSHIMA, Japan — Secretary of State John F. Kerry paid an emotional visit Monday to a museum and marker near ground zero in the city where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in the waning days of World War II.
Kerry and his fellow foreign ministers from six other powerful democracies first toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum, where exhibits display the aftermath of the bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” — from charred tricycles and melted roof tiles to cancerous tongues and models of people with melting skin.
Then they walked solemnly to lay wreaths of white and pink carnations at a cenotaph that frames an eternal flame and the skeletal ruins of the one, dome-shaped building left standing. They approached the marker past about 800 elementary schoolchildren from neighborhood schools who cheered and waved the national flags of the visiting diplomats, in a calculated effort to keep the focus on the future and efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons….
“While we will revisit the past and honor those who perished, this trip is not about the past,” Kerry said before a meeting with the Japanese foreign minister. “It’s about the present and the future particularly, and the strength of the relationship that we have built, the friendship that we share, the strength of our alliance, and the strong reminder of the imperative we all have to work for peace for peoples everywhere.”…
***********
Apart from appreciating, once again, how fortunate we have been to have Barack Obama as our President, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
Baud
I didn’t even know Hiroshima was still a thing here.
raven
@Baud: Sure it is. I always sparks big debates right here. Some of us had father’s who fought at Okinawa where 200,000 people died and don’t think the Japanese would have surrendered without many more KIA’s on their mainland. Others don’t think so.
NotMax
For any who have never heard of it or have but haven’t experienced it, highly, highly recommend Barefoot Gen.
raven
@NotMax: And then read “With the Old Breed at At Peleliu and Okinawa by EB Sledge.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: One of the great known unknowns of history. Those who were in it just wanted it over and didn’t really care what it took. I find it interesting that in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the fire bombings of Tokyo are completely forgotten. IIRC far more people died in those.
Little known fact: Due to the near total destruction of the Japanese air force (still facing a few kamikazes) the higher ups decided to remove all guns and machine gunners from the air crews so they could carry a few more pounds of napalm
billcoop4
@Baud:
Unfortunately, most discussions of Hiroshima/Nagasaki lead to more heat than light. Or just yelling and frothing at the mouth.
It’s worth noting that the firebombing of Japanese cities and the strategic bombing of German cities had killed far more people (probably even on a per-raid basis) than either of the Bombs dropped in August, 1945. Most of the morality had gone out of the war effort by that time.
I’m convinced that (a) dropping a Bomb on an uninhabited island as a ‘demonstration’ of what we could do would not have had the effect on the Showa Emperor that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did, (b) the Emperor’s decision to direct the surrender was crucial, and (c) in the cold calculus of war, the destruction of those two cities by two weapons saved hundreds of thousands of Allied lives and millions of Japanese lives–and possibly the existence of a Japanese nation today.
I’m not sure that millions of Japanese lives saved weighed at all in the considerations of summer, 1945. But I suspect they knew that history had its eyes on them. And that factor surely should be part of the lens by which we view their actions.
WMC
*first post here
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: My dad was of that mind as well. I’d say a lot of folk have the benefit of hindsight now, but at the time those in uniform fully expected to be shipped to invade the Japanese home islands.
Baud
@raven:
I’m not learned in WWII by any means. The one theory I’ve heard that sounds plausible is that Hiroshima was probably the right call, but Nagasaki was extraneous (especially coming so quickly after Hiroshima) in terms of ending the war with a minimal number of casualties. YMMV.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: greatest war memoir ever. Better even than “Company Aytch”
Baud
@billcoop4: Welcome. I’ve also heard that the firebombing was far more destructive. Obviously, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have greater significance because of the Cold War, which I assume alters how we look back on those two bombings.
Immanentize
@BillinGlendaleCA: my Dad was in the Navy on a destroyer escort out of Norfolk, VA when the war in Europe was winding down. He and his mates were preparing to ship out to the pacific. Then, they didn’t. He hated the atomic threat that dominated the post-war world, but he used to credit the two bombs with probably saving his life. Very conflicted on that issue he was.
Mustang Bobby
No matter what Obama says in Hiroshima, it will be painted by the Orcosphere as his continuation of the Grand Apology Tour. (*sigh*)
BillinGlendaleCA
Being that rain threatened all day, but didn’t happen?; I tried some photo experiments that I found online:
Zoom Shot(changing the zoom while the photo’s being taken)
and,
Polar coordinate panorama.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: The polar shot looks like a picture of the earth’s butthole.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Heh, it’s what I call home.
ETA: I could probably do some cloning in the center part in photoshop and lessen that, eh, effect.
OzarkHillbilly
@billcoop4:
Hap Arnold said something to the effect of “We better win this war or we’re all going face war crimes charges.”
billcoop4
@Baud:
The Cold War lens (and the something-colored glasses we have for looking back at the Cold War) is indeed a factor.
@Mustang Bobby:
Indeed it will be seen as part of the apology tour. An acquaintance of mine, who works for the ADL, things the President should go only after the PM of Japan goes to Pearl Harbor and apologies (and apologies are due far more to the Chinese, if nations can in fact apologize).
WMC
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I too call the earth my home. ;-)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’m not sure that’s the case for some commentors here.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: what is at the center that causes that effect?
BillinGlendaleCA
@billcoop4:
The Koreans would disagree about that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It’s the deformation of taking a square and making it into a cone and then flatening it. I could clean it up in photoshop and give a less, eh, puckered look.
qwerty42
The book Downfall is about 15+ years old now, but it covers the end of the War. Not a lot of military history other than LeMay’s fire bombing campaign, but several mentions of the hard fighting on Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The invasion was scheduled for Fall, 1945 on the island of Kyushu. Planning seems limited in comparison with Overlord, but heavy casualties were expected. And more forces were moved to the island. Hence the desire of the US to have the USSR come down from the north.
qwerty42
@Immanentize: I worked with a guy whose division was sent to surround the French towns of St Nazaire and Lorient (the Uboat haven). The cities held out through the end. He said they would be sent from Marseilles to the Pacific to be a part of the invasion.
PurpleGirl
My father was 4F so he wasn’t in WWII. However two of my mother’s brothers were in the Navy. Uncle George was at Pearl on the day of the attack. He dove into the Harbor to pull some big brass out of the water. His name is supposed to be listed at one of the monuments for his fast action. Uncle Peter was in the Navy; I don’t know what he did though. Uncle George made the Navy his first career and was trained as a airplane mechanic.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
He doesn’t see Hillary Clinton as a former Secretary of State, or a former 2 term Senator of the 3rd largest state, no, he see her as a house wife.
There’s something really wrong with him.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: To make a panorama that doesn’t do that in the middle, you’d need to include a shot looking straight down, which can be hard to get using a conventional tripod. But faking it is an option, as stated earlier.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
That’s my girl.
Thoughtful David
Isaac Meyer of The History of Japan Pocast did a nice series on the nuclear bombings of Japan about a year ago, and I believe they’re still available. It’s a pretty balanced review and he leaves it as an open question whether it was a good idea and saved lives or not. And we’ll never know because we can’t run the experiment again in a world where we don’t drop the bombs.
My $0.02 is that it did save lives. I can’t see the Japanese as being willing to surrender until forced to by extraordinary circumstances, which the bombs were. Even with the Soviets coming into the war against them. The direct carnage of an invasion would have been terrific, and the collateral damage including famine and disease would have killed a lot of people.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s the problem. Everyone’s demanding an apology without having to extend their own. Every country’s f*cked over some other country at some point, but won’t own up to it. Everyone’s a victim; no one’s a perpetrator.
NotMax
@Baud
Russia formally declaring war on Japan on in early August 1945 (as had been arranged at the Yalta conference), overrunning or destroying swaths of the Japanese forces stationed in Manchuria, had a major effect on the impetus for surrender
Keith G
Well, if President Obama makes a grand speech in Hiroshima decrying the evils of nuclear arms, it wouldn’t be bad if he would all spend some time decrying the harm done by a militant nationalism. It was such a militant nationalism that help with fuel aggressive Japanese politics last century and it is a bit of a return of an an offshoot of that same militant nationalism which is causing some issues in the political leadership of Japan today.
Seven of the ten uncles whom I grew up admiring served in the military during World War II. The only mail in my family tree of that generation who didn’t serve in the Pacific Theater was my dad. He spent the war Years traipsing Around Africa then Italy then France.
Those men weren’t inordinately bloodthirsty, but given the experiences they had fighting the Japanese military, to a person they were all very happy that both the military and the people of Japan were made to pay a severe price.
Nuclear weapons are awful. However they did provide an important service at the end of World War II and I do believe they kept the Cold War of the fifties sixties seventies and eighties from escalating to a major military conflict in Europe and probably a few other places.
Human beings are Petty and violent assholes. We are going to find ways to kill each other one way or another. Up until now, the cool thing about nuclear weaponry is that have been been too terrible for rational states to actually consider using them. That has kept a very imperfect peace. Course now, the question is what to do about the irrational non-state political actors.
PurpleGirl
One of the cities on the list to be bombed was Kyoto. The scientists at Los Alamos campaigned quite hard not to bomb it because of the temples and art in the city. (Source: a book about the Manhattan Project and Robert J. Oppenheimer.)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Thoughtful David:
My high school German teacher lived though the war and the aftermath. That’s pretty much what she said Germany was like(plus you had a lot of folk trying to leave the Russian Sector).
magurakurin
I’ve been to Hiroshima several times. It’s about a 4 or 5 hour drive from where I live now. Not weighing in on whether the bomb should or should not have been dropped, but ever time I was there I always had strange and conflicted feelings. The city is quite beautiful now. Peaceful and prosperous. The people are kind and friendly. But when you stand next to the Atomic Dome you can’t help but imagine nuclear fire ripping through your flesh and just envisioning the whole place engulfed in one huge blast. And yet, it is now a beautiful park, with flowers and trees, kids playing and old folks strolling. Fucking life is weird.
WereBear
Indeed, it would not have. Since after actually dropping one bomb did not do it, nor the second… It was only then then that Emperor convinced his High Command (who were in it until the last civilian died) that surrender was their only option.
magurakurin
@PurpleGirl: I remember reading once that when the discussion of where to drop the bomb Kyoto was brought up because of the perfect bowl valley it lies in. This perfect geographically location and the fact that it had never been bombed made it an obvious spot to test the effects of the bomb. But most resisted as it was an open city and such a treasure. But LeMay was just, fuck it bomb it. I guess he hated the Japanese on a visceral level. I have also always heard that General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove is supposed to be LeMay.
dr. bloor
@magurakurin: LeMay hated everyone on a visceral level. The feeling was usually mutual.
gene108
When Obama talks about eliminating nukes from the world, he should just keep quoting Reagan, who also advocated for total nuclear disarmament.
Baud
@gene108: Completely different. Everyone understood that Reagan was lying.
Snarki, child of Loki
Obama is visiting Ise-Shima?
Could get interesting. That’s really close to the Ninja homeland.
gene108
Question for folks here: I want to replace my windows. Seems like argon gas filled double pain Low-E vinyl windows are the industry standard on my budget.
What is a good way to figure out the differences in Windows, which to me are all basically the same.
Sales reps keep talking about things like sills, sashes, counterbalance systems, etc., and I am a bit confused about which of these are better (do 3 sills versus 2 sills, for example, make much difference).
I understand the differences between single strength and double strength glass, U values, air infiltration, but then there are differences in window costs based on things like sills and sashes for Windows with comparable energy saving performance.
raven
@dr. bloor: I am not LeMay fan but Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safetyhas some really interesting things to say about him that I didn’t know. Apparently he was instrumental in integrating the Air Force among other things.
Eric S.
Opening day at Wrigley Field. Nothing saysWelcome to the Friendly Confines like following it up with, “Now take all the shit out of your pockets!”
To be fair the Cubs are trying to comply with MLB security requirements.
Cermet
Many millions of Chinese died solely due to the Japanese and the deaths were absolutely needless and utter war crimes on a par with the Germans (most the Chinese deaths were through starvation); also, the Japanese high command were utter cowards and determined to use the Japanese people as shields.
Yes, millions of Japanese were ready to storm US forces with bamboo sticks (not a joke since these are deadly spears) and the slaughter of Japanese men, women and children (yes, they were being actively trained for these massed attacks and most said, afterwards, they would have) would have been horrendous had we been forced to invade. These are facts (the level of US deaths would have not been, I think, as large as often claimed but still would have been significant.) Whether any, one or if the second attack was too fast are issues and much is now hindsight. Would more Japanese starving to death out weigh a wait for the first bomb to really sink in? Maybe/maybe not. Again, an exercise in hindsight. Would more fire raids instead (proven to kill far more people than the atomic attacks) been more moral so Japanese would pay a higher price but the nuclear threshold not be crossed (doubt the Japanese would think yes) -maybe.
As some Japanese officers said afterwards that if they had the atomic bomb they would not have hesitated at all using it against the US. Does that justify our using it? Not really but all out war (which Japan fought) is a terrible mentality and glad we get to use hindsight and not have done both – invade, stalled, and then used atomic weapons. Yes, that was possible, too, don’t forget (and most everyone does.)
aimai
@Cermet: Very good points.
I think people have a hard time imagining deaths as a trade off, especially when those deaths happen off of the battlefield. People want to believe that a certain death was deserved, or at least inevitable, or happened in the heat of the moment before they can comfortably put grief/horror/regret/shame away. Hiroshima and (definitely) Nagasaki seem like deaths that didn’t have to happen–but other deaths almost certainly would have. But we have a hard time weighing those hypothetical deaths on the scale with the real ones. Its human nature.
ThresherK (GPad)
@gene108: I sorta remember the Freezeniks (yeah, I guess I was one even, at that age) being credited with getting Reagan to feel the need to say this out loud. Don’t know if Reagan gave the credit or an admin member.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: In my 35 years of carpentry, I have never seen a window with more than 1 sill, the sill being the ledge (tilted down on the outside) at the bottom of the window. On the interior, the sill is a trim piece added on after installation, (or not in the case of picture frame trimming) WTF are they talking about?
A sash is the frame that holds the glass. Double hung and single hung windows have 2 sashes, an upper and a lower, the difference being in double hung both sashes can move up or down where as in single hung only the lower slash is movable. In awning windows there is a single sash which hinges at the top and moves out at the bottom. Casement windows again have only one sash but are hinged on the side (L or R). Picture windows have one immovable sash. All of these windows can be combined to give one a multiple sash effect (and are in bay and bow windows).
I don’t know enough about the various gasses and window tints to advise you on them as my past 20 years experience has been only in the installing of them, BUT in my opinion tho, most of it is just marketing BS. (there are a few that make a difference- like solar glass, which cuts down on the amount of solar radiation entering the home)
When it comes to quality, any of the big names are comparable (Marvin, Anderson, Pella, etc) My last big job we were installing Quaker vinyl windows (single hung) which I think are on the lesser expensive side. Their quality was good. (and I really don’t like vinyl windows, for esthetic reasons mostly)
Sorry I can’t be of any more help.
MoxieM
I recommend The History Wars, by Ed Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt. For anybody who doesn’t think those bombs are still controversial, read the story of what happened when they tried to commemorate the event (of dropping them) at the Smithsonian….
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: It’s a rather sore point among Koreans. In fact they put a comfort women memorial across the street from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. There’s an exact copy of that sculpture here in Glendale(our Japanese sister city was NOT impressed).
PurpleGirl
My bad… the name was J. Robert Oppenheimer. (J for Julius)
gene108
@efgoldman:
I am stuck with Windows 8, for work. I need Internet Explorer for a couple of customers who have compatibility issues with Edge.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
Your post helps clear through the marketing noise.
I did not realize there were so many bells and whistles on windows.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108: Win 10 ships with IE.
Dan Garfinkel
Besides being correct on its merits, the actions and words of President Obama (and Secretary Kerry) have the extra-special bonus of peeing into Trump’s soup by making clear what is at stake. Well played, sir, well played.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: Happy to help where I can
OzarkHillbilly
Has anybody heard from Amir of late? Can we be sure he hasn’t been eaten by a 500 lb snake?
Chris
Pardon the OT, but would I be wrong in thinking that this is a Big Biden Deal?
The director of the CIA says his spy agency will not engage in waterboarding or other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques even if ordered to by a future president.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve been a bit under the weather this past week; but as far as I can recall, I haven’t been eaten by a python.
Sssssssssssss.
Chris
@billcoop4:
Well, not to go all “HE. DIDN’T. EVEN. TRY.” But – yeah. Would there have been any harm in trying? If it doesn’t work, which I agree it probably wouldn’t have, then fine – we go ahead and nuke Hiroshima. It’s not as though being forewarned would’ve helped them stop us, given the state of their military at that point.
sapient
@Chris: We didn’t have enough bombs to do demos.
phein55
@Chris:
The US had only two bombs at that time.
PJ
@Baud: The Emperor only made the decision to surrender when it was clear the US had more than one bomb; i.e., more were on the way, but he didn’t know that the US only had two bombs ready to go at that time.
PJ
@NotMax: I’ve never seen any documented evidence of this. The Japanese were prepared to arm every man, woman and child to fend off an invasion of the main Japanese islands, and, judging from the fighting on Okinawa, would have gone through with it. The loss of Manchuria, or the Japanese army in Manchuria, is a drop in the bucket when they’ve already lost the war militarily.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
yellowdog
@Baud: Nagasaki was a backup target. Another city was supposed to get the second bomb because it had major munitions facilities. So, a second bomb had some kind of rationale. Nagasaki had munitions factories, just not as big as the other city (which I have forgotten the name of).
Capri
Something I find absolutely fascinating was the push to find peacetime uses for nuclear weapons after the war. One of the first such projects was to detonate 6 atomic bombs off the Alaska coast in order to create a deep water harbor. Teller, one of the H-bomb creators was behind this push and had the ear of powerful politicians who could OK the plan. The local Inuit population and a handful of biologists were against doing it, but Teller minimized their concerns. The very first environmental impact assessment was done as a result. The book, The FIrecracker Boys, details the story.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s not just the possibility of a POTUS visit to Hiroshima. Obama may be playing some eleven-dimensional chess.
Germy Shoemangler
Uh oh. I knew this day would come: The Hamilton Pushback
I haven’t seen the play but I love the soundtrack. I don’t know enough about the actual history to know if this is correct…
Is the author right or is he just pissed because (as one commenter teased) he couldn’t get tickets?
Germy
@Chris: I’ve heard people joke that if Sanders won the White House there’d be a military coup, but it seems more likely with a president trumpf.
Chris
@phein55:
@sapient:
Oh, well, that pretty much settles it.
Paul in KY
@BillinGlendaleCA: My Dad was on his way to West Coast when they surrendered. He was a very happy man, at that point!
JR in WV
There’s a window evaluation site which has test results for every window made. I can’t remember but I think it was a government site. Google is your friend.
I’m using my phone so can’t really search now.
Eta… first post via my Android phone!
Amaranthine RBG
Yes a lovely gesture by the president who has authorized more drone strikes than George Bush.
Amaranthine RBG
@Germy Shoemangler: @Germy Shoemangler:
Of course, anyone who looks to Broadway to learn history is a fool, but the thing that has troubled me about Hamilton is the absence of a single historical African American character.
Hamilton is a clever bit of minstrelry but little more.
Miss Bianca
@PurpleGirl: Wow, wonder who he saved…my grandfather was the commanding officer of the Marine Barracks (3rd Defense Battalion) there, but I’ve since found out he was out on maneuvers on the Indianapolis at the time of the attack. My grandmother was on site, tho’, and had to be evacuated. My father was a student at the Punahou School (where President Obama went, too), and volunteered for the Navy even tho’ he was underage at the time, served in the Pacific theater. I’ve always wanted to visit Pearl Harbor, maybe someday I will…
All that to say that my father probably wouldn’t have liked the President’s proposed gesture, but I do.
Aleta
@PJ:
That is what many in the US forces understandably thought at the time, but is not a statement of fact. My biological father, shipped out just before the war ended, was instead part of the first occupying forces to enter Japan, and his most-repeated story was how different the people and conditions were than what they had been told to expect. (I also had two surrogate fathers who were in the Japanese forces (Navy and Army; the latter ended up in Siberia for 7 years at a forced labor camp after being taken prisoner in Manchuria) and a surrogate mother who was living in the hills outside of Nagasaki at the time of the bomb. And a father-in-law (US Marines) who was part of the ‘clean-up operation’ in Okinawa. Again, his expectations were quite different from his experience there.)
Miss Bianca
@Chris: As someone wincing my way thru’ “Shock Doctrine” right now, I would be prepared to hail that statement as a BF-Biden-D.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
I mean, I mainly wonder to what extent this is real and to what extent it’s simply another manifestation of everyone in Washington losing their shit over Trump and expressing it by denouncing things that never bothered them before. Nobody important was objecting in the Bush years (though I believe at least a few interrogators quietly resigned rather than take on the thug duties that were now expected of them), and there was at least a little alarm when Obama was inaugurated to the effect that he might prosecute good American officers who were just doing a tough job (even though it was blindingly obvious that nothing of the kind would happen, and never mind whether it should).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Miss Bianca: OT: Did I remember to mention the Alias 2013 Merlot with some kind of ridiculously high Wine Spectator rating? I seem to recall that price point was on your selection checklist. It’s pretty tasty and quite inexpensive.
Paul in KY
@Chris: That is big/good news.
Paul in KY
@PJ: The whupping the USSR was putting on them from North did seem to help them decide to unconditionally surrender. Was afraid of losing key territory to USSR.
Paul in KY
@yellowdog: Kokura.
Aleta
@Miss Bianca: Last night I think you mentioned trying out an Andalusian horse. Seems like on rescue websites, it’s become more common to see horses that are listed as part Andalusian. Is this because of current popularity, or due to mislabeling, or because they are too strong for many riders? Are considered to be gentle by nature (if not abused, of course)?
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I’ll have to check that out – not a huge Merlot fan, but always ready and willing to be persuaded if the Price Is Right (cue Frank Zappa’s ode to “CHEAPNISS”)
Also O/T: Were you all getting into a heavy discussion of guitar/bass hardware after I checked out last night? How come I miss so much of the good stuff? ; )
Miss Bianca
@Aleta: I have no clue about regular Andalusians – gaited horses not being My Thing, really. The one I met yesterday (a cross-breed with a Tennessee Walker) seemed like a total sweetheart. If I had to guess, I’d say that horse-breeding, like dog-breeding, goes thru’ its fads with purebreds and cross-breds, and that for some reason Andalusians became hot. From what I’ve been able to tell, they are generally considered sensitive and intelligent and quite gentle – so maybe that’s why!
Miss Bianca
@Chris: I don’t know – I’ve always been cynical about the CIA and their methods and means, and nothing I’ve seen about them recently has tempered that cynicism in the slightest. But what i’d *like* to hope this means is that even the CIA recognizes that there are bounds beyond which we should not cross, and that even suspected “terrorists” might be subject to rights under the Geneva Convention. But then,for a cynic, I’m kind of a dreamer…
Aleta
@Miss Bianca: If you don’t mid another q, are Andalusians (and other gaited horses) born that way or does it have to be “reinforced” by training when young? And if the tendency isn’t reinforced by rider cues, do adult horses gradually shift out of it over time?
Feathers
I grew up in Northern Virginia, during the Cold War, when the air raid sirens were still tested every month. They were during school hours and I remember it being very creepy while we all sat there, just listening. My parent’s house, where I grew up, would have been in the Pentagon’s crater had it come to that. I went to college during the freeze years and took a class on Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear War, and Arms Control. (Only the 80s kids, etc…) I studied Russian in high school and beyond, planning to go into the Foreign Service. By the time career choices came around, it was clear the USSR was now pickings for the capitalists and I moved on.
I really can’t take seriously anyone who says Truman could have done anything else except what he did. What would have happened if we had invaded the Japanese mainland, at horrendous cost in human lives, and then learned that we had atomic bombs before the invasion and did not use them? I sometimes feel the urge to write an alternate history novel about the military dictatorship the US became after that revelation. It’s an interesting intellectual exercise to think about the alternatives, but at that moment in history I don’t think anything else was humanly possible.
It was one of the anniversaries, and there was an article comparing Japanese and US thinking about the bomb. I don’t have time to search now, but I’ll try to find it for a later thread. The basic idea was that Japanese historians, studying their own archives, were convinced that only the existence of the bomb gave the Japanese Emperor the room to surrender while saving “face.” And that the generals were insisting that they could keep fighting, even if the Americans did have this new weapon, even after the destruction of Hiroshima. It was only after Nagasaki that those in favor of ending the war were able to prevail.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Aleta: Not the person you asked, but the word on the street is that they are quite bright and sensitive. That combination is a (generally) very bad one (for the horse) for a novice and unsupervised horse owner.
I suspect a couple of things are in play in listings. What I mentioned above, creating the need to re-home. There was no doubt a trendy factor that created many of the bad matches. Just a guess though.
@Miss Bianca: I keep forgetting you are also a musician. Which I am not, though many of my best friends are, as they say. Also some casual acquaintances, some of whom many people have heard of. I’m hell on a mix board though. :)
Miss Bianca
@Aleta: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I would bow to Bella Q for infinitely superior knowledge on All Things Equine on this-here list. Perhaps she can answer your question? What I know about how gaited horses are trained and maintained would fit comfortably into a thimble. ; )
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Aleta: Again, not the person you asked, but “gaitedness” is movement that’s bloodline derived – a phenotype if you will. They’re born that way and while precise expression of those gaits can be adjusted by training and shoeing – e.g. for competition purposes, it can’t be really trained in or trained out.
I could get entirely more specific than you might find interesting, but feel free to ask.
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Any sound engineer who is not stone deaf is an incredible asset to musicians everywhere!
ETA: OK, you asked for it – get specific on gaiting! I’ve not only got the opportunity to ride this guy, but the BJ pup rescue lady I hooked up with in my ‘hood (long story) has two Tennessee Walkers and she’s made noises about inviting me over to ride. Never ridden a gaited horse – what’s it like compared to your standard walk/trot/canter?
Feathers
@Miss Bianca: The other real problem with permitting torture is recruitment. If you require people to torture, you’ll only get sick fucks willing to work for you. The CIA knows this. Maybe not everyone, but enough people know that there is greater danger in losing good employees than in being able to use a proven bad method of interrogation.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Miss Bianca: Combining our discussions, I was once reminded by a charming farrier that
when I asked him to look at a shoe that sounded a wee bit loose. And of course I often want to hear as well as see a jog for soundness so as not to miss subtle shoeing issues that could be a problem in the ring or the field.
Humboldtblue
@OzarkHillbilly: If you haven’t read Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester, you should. It’s a better book than Sledge’s but it’s also a far different book.
Also, every time this discussion comes up I recommend Paul Fussell’s essay on the use of the bomb
Aleta
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Thanks. (Specifics always very welcome.) So do most gaited horses, even non-show ones, also get some training in other aspects of their footwork when they are young? Or are the gaited ones who are intended from the start to be just for pleasure riding, trained the same way as other breeds?
Miss Bianca
@Feathers: I have never been able to figure out how *anyone* manages to kid him/herself that torture is a truly effective interrogation technique, given that the average person will say anything, anything at all, to make it stop. I have come to the conclusion that the PsTB know this, but don’t care – the decision to torture is more about spreading terror to the rest of a subjugated populace or a revenge thing than it is about getting actual “information”. That’s the only rationale that makes sense to me, anyway, and yeah – you’re either going to get sick fucks who get off on it to do it for you, or you’re going to gross out and traumatize good people who end up leaving. Either way, a bad personnel situation.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
I’d like to hope that, if nothing else, the government has enough real experts who understand that torture is rarely if ever the only way to get information, and rarely if ever the most reliable one. But that’s different from being willing to actually stand up to bloodthirsty politicians (and voters) and say “no, I won’t do it. Fire me if you have to.” As we saw in the last decade and a half. I mostly remember a whole lot of “yes, sir” during the Bush years, and a whole lot of preemptive ass covering during the Obama years.
I’d be the first to admit that my cynicism is almost pathological, but I don’t think it’s unwarranted.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
I think it was about the politicians showing off how badass and willing to take the gloves off they were. That, and introducing something controversial enough that they could use it to make themselves stand out against the weak kneed liberals who thought we should give terrorists therapy.
In other words, like the Iraq War, it was 90% campaign commercial.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Miss Bianca: Depending on your taste, it’s kind of like riding a mixmaster to me. In terms of the gaited saddlebreds, certainly – the walk trot ones are like any other horse with variation – entirely too much knee action for the hunter ring, but some can jump (as you know) and be solid in the field if they’ve got the right brain.
The five gaited (in the ASB world known as “gaited horses”) do the slow gait and the rack, which are really weird variations of a pace -four beats rather than the 2 of the pace. i.e.,a pace with staggered landing times, and a rack is a really fast slow gait. Performed to show form, each foot is supposed to land independently. G*dawful uncomfortable to my large ass, even though the memory is decades old when said ass was in the low 2 digit age range.
I don’t care for the TWH movement, though I get how it could be sort of less tedious over distances to some. My sense of the baroque gaited horses, if you will is that it’s sort of like all their gaits have a pacing action. So there’s not the same beat, even at the canter. Though I’ve only sat on one once, and only at the pacey gait.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: It sounds as if we are in agreement. A (virtual) glass of wine with you, sir, now that the sun is over the yardarm in my part of the world!
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Wow, sounds like the ride is going to be An Experience, indeed! How different are the Andalusian and TWH gaits?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Aleta: The horses intended for pleasure riding get trained just like any others. For pleasure riding more intensive gait training isn’t necessary as what the show training focuses on is getting the fashionable “look” at each gait.
I couldn’t tell you at this point what a good gait for an ASB/TWH looks like if I had to! And I never knew the show specs for the baroque gaited horses. I could however, go on at some length about what I like to see when I judge classes under saddle in the hunter ring. But I think that would be tedious even for Miss Bianca.
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Ha ha! That conversation may have to wait for a non-virtual glass of wine! Someday, I hope! : )
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Miss Bianca: I sat on each may years (double digits) apart, but I found the Andalusian funky beat less jarring in some kind of way, if that makes sense. I’m eager to hear what you think. I could be completely off base (or simply incompetent) in my descriptions, given the passage of time since the experience!
Feathers
@Miss Bianca: I think some of it is that there are people who are skilled interrogators who happen to throw a little violence in, either because they find it helps or they have a taste for it. Those who observe then attribute the effectiveness to the violence, rather than the skill of the interrogator.
There’s a very good post from a few years back over at Making Light on a variation of this topic: Fruit Punch Czar.
I’ll quote two bits, one from the beginning, the other from the end, but recommend it all:
Hoodie
We recently hosted some teenage guests from Hiroshima. We took them to the Dulles branch of the Air and Space Museum, somehow forgetting that the Enola Gay is there. We were a bit trepidant about that, but they were excited and took many pictures. They also were intrigued by the kamikize flying bomb planes on display. One of our guests noted that she gets in vigorous arguments with some of her classmates about the virtuousness of kamikaze tactics. They argue that they were noble, but she’s thinks they were wrong and that they unnecessarily prolonged the suffering of the Japanese people because those kind of tactics (started in 1944) extended Japan’s ability to continue the war even though as US military superiority was clear. When thinking about Hiroshima, there were multiple parties that bear responsibility for it beyond Truman and US decisionmakers.
Miss Bianca
@Feathers: Fascinating – never thought about the issue from that angle before! Thanks for the link!
wenchacha
Just found out yesterday that my son and his wife of one year will be visiting her folks in Japan this summer. We have talked a bit about her family history, and she said that one of her grandfathers was so small and sickly that he was rejected for military service during the war years!
Fortunately, he lived and had a family, which then gave us our beautiful Harumo. I have great respect for her family, who were very happy to welcome our son into their fold. They will have a traditional Japanese wedding, complete with the proper kimono for our 6’5″ son. Wish we could be there, but her folks missed their wedding ceremony atop Buffalo’s City Hall, last year. They can share video, like we did with them.
AxelFoley
@Amaranthine RBG:
Oh look, a troll.