No, its not a monster truck rally. This Sunday from 10 AM EST to about 11 AM EST Cheryl Rofer, who retired from Los Alamos National Laboratories as a chemist and has worked on nuclear proliferation/clean up issues, has graciously offered to conduct an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session regarding the nuclear test conducted by North Korea yesterday. So since even if you’re not interested in nuclear war, nuclear war may be interested in you set your (atomic) clocks, grab your coffee or other morning beverage of choice, grab a slice of mushroom cloud cake, and join Cheryl in the comments!
(ADM William Blanding Celebrating a Successful Nuclear Test with Cake)
Also:
(like I wasn’t going to go there?)
Major Major Major Major
Cool! I look forward to reading it.
OT: I lucked my way into a Google recruiting puzzle, yay me! It’s hard lol.
SiubhanDuinne
Sorry to wrench attention away from NK for a minute, but, Adam, are you planning to comment/analyze on the announc3d Russia-U.S. ceasefire in Syria? Maybe later this evening?
redshirt
WE’LL TURN THE CIVIC CENTER INTO A
GIANT MUD PIT… Mud Pit… mud pit.
I’ve been to a Monster Truck rally. It was a lot of fun. Too loud though.
redshirt
Also too, who’s Cheryl Rofer?
SiubhanDuinne
By a curious coincidence, Mingobat (formerly Karen in GA) and I are going to see Dr. Strangelove on the big screen a week from Sunday. Cannot wait; I haven’t seen it in a proper movie theatre since first release.
Unless you live far from civilization, it’s probably at a cinema near you.
LAO
My big day is Tuesday, Opening Statements in the Oregon case against The Bundy bunch.
redshirt
@efgoldman: Everyone down below wants an update on the Mrs.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: As in if you solve it you get an interview?
rikyrah
LOL
Essence Magazine came out with a photoshoot of the First Couple and one picture in particular has gone like wildfire across Black Twitter. The reason for this post, IMO.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE FIRST LADY ARE TOTALLY, DEFINITELY FUCKING EVERYWHERE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Damon Young, 9/9/16
Of course, its extremely presumptuous of me — or anyone, rather — to speculate on the Obamas’ sex life. Who knows what’s happening privately between them? For all we know, they could have one of those arrangements like Claire and Frank Underwood where they both kinda do their own thing (and occasionally include secret service agents).
But come the hell on! Look at them! Look at our first lady! Look at that ass! Look! At! Dat! Ass! Look at that look on the President’s face. It’s the same look you have on Thanksgiving while you’re praying before the feast; a look of “God is great and yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda is the praying done yet cause I can’t wait to smash the fuck out of this dressing.” They are totally, definitely, 100% fucking everywhere at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. From the windows to the walls. Till the sweat drips down Barack’s balls. Skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet. The playlist proves it!
…………………………………….
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: If I get a chance. If not tomorrow. I’m still a week behind in trying to get to the Turkish V Kurdish problem we have with our allies.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Ear plugs. Concerts, IMAX movies, monster truck rallies, etc.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Cheryl is a regular commenter. She’s retired from Los Alamos nuclear labs as a chemist and has worked on nuclear disarmament/cleanup issues.
Roger Moore
@LAO:
Have you considered a 12 step program? I’ve heard they can be very effective.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: We have coverage planned. If you’re making any progress with raising funds to send me we have live coverage planned.
Mike in NC
Planning to avoid all TV on Sunday so as to avoid the inevitable 9/11 p0rn served up by the jackal media.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: What happened to the Mrs?
LAO
@efgoldman: Well, Ryan Bundy has gone full metal sovereign citizen, so I expect he’ll be stripped of his right to represent himself and possibly removed from the courtroom. It will be a full on shit show, that I will happily follow from afar.
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
The comments are great. “That same discipline that got him to Columbia Harvard and the White House made sure the world didnt have sixteen little Baracks and Michelles.”
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: I learned that lesson after an AC/DC concert. But I was young and dumb at the time.
Mart
Love how the lady’s headpiece is mushroom cloud as well.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: probably?
gogol's wife
@Mart:
Right! So funny/scary.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Funny (well, sort of funny) story:
I had a roommate in college who had a tendency toward nervous depression. One night, she really wanted to shake it off by going to see a funny movie. (At the UM at the time, we had a number of film societies, in addition to the commercial movie theaters, so any night of the week there was usually a half-dozen movies available – and this was just before the birth of the VCR, so people actually went out to movies). It was Saturday night, and my friend wanted to see…”Dr. Strangelove”.
I had seen it before, and I earnestly tried to dissuade my friend. The exchange, as I recall, went something like this: “But it’s a COMEDY!” “Yeah, but it’s not *that* kind of comedy…I mean, sure you’ll laugh, but it’s not going to be belly laughs, all right? It’ll be more like ‘heh heh heh’ nervous laughter”.
Well, long story short, she insisted that no other movie would do, it had to be “Dr. Strangelove”…so I said, “well all right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I don’t remember what we did afterwards…knowing Christine it probably didn’t involve alcohol, but it probably involved ice cream. Because she *really* needed cheering up after going to watch a funny movie to cheer up!
redshirt
@Mart: The cake and the hat are awesome!
LAO
@Roger Moore: it’s a harmless hobby, right…RIGHT?
@Adam L Silverman: If I’m sending anyone, it’ll be me!
Adam L Silverman
@Mart: Wait till tomorrow’s reminder post: mushroom cloud swimwear!
redshirt
@efgoldman: So great news, right?
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
I concur with the authors assumption, that they’re knockin boots every chance they get.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I see how things are going to be…
WaterGirl
You made me google Cheryl Rofer.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
LOL but I am totally getting that copy of Essence the minute it hits the newsstand, I don’t care what the checkout clerk thinks about an aged white woman buying it. (In fact, for a white person, I might have one of the finest collections of Obamaiana in the South.)
Felonius Monk
@LAO:
I fear the Bundy opening statement is likely to be “Duh”.
JPL
@efgoldman: Good.. Catch up on your sleep.
LAO
@efgoldman: Glad to read Mrs. EFG’s doing better.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: You can’t possible be surprised.
Mart
@Adam L Silverman: How dare you tease like that.
raven
That’s an ad for US 30 dragstrip in Merrillville, IN. It was the strip in the Chicago area when I was a kid. Big Daddy Don Gartlits actually lit up his rail on the deck of the USS Lexington during the Vietnam War.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: “mushroom cloud swimwear”? Are you serious? Would that be like, what all the hot lifeguards on Bikini Atoll would be wearing?
raven
@efgoldman: I’ve been up ever since them.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: yay yay yay yay yay yay yay!
what a scary ride, has the relief truly kicked in yet? oh and let me throw in a few more days.
ps. so why do they think she was short of breath and in pain?
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
LOL, great story! I do recall that when I went to see it the first time I was completely expecting some sweet laff-riot of a harmless comedy, not the dark, edgy (and infinitely funnier) Kubrick masterpiece.
Pretty sure I turned to Scotch, not ice cream, after that first experience.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Emergency rooms suck the most on third shift.
Glad everything seems OK now. Too bad you both had to go through that.
hovercraft
@efgoldman:
Good news about the Mrs. efgoldman
Now both of you go get some rest, and have a nice chillaxing weekend.
raven
@efgoldman: Yea, I’m up watching the dvr of the game and YOU let the cat out of the bag! Fortunately, when I saw “Denver” I ran away and got to watch the end without knowing who won.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oooooh! The Big Board on the big screen! Enjoy!
hovercraft
@srv:
So Trump has been consulting with Michelle Bachmann ?
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: joke’s on them, I’m moving.
Crap, they can read this.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Miriam might have been better, but it sounds like you had little choice.
Yarddog
Wish I knew what the acronym AMA stood for.
raven
Frog Frenchie Fun French Bulldog Puppy Argues Bedtime
debbie
@rikyrah:
Yowsa! Someone should send that photo to Drudge and watch the Internet explode.
Felonius Monk
@raven:
I guess the USS Forrestal wasn’t available. :-)
Lizzy L
@srv: His voters already believe this, and some of the folks who hadn’t yet decided to vote for him will think, “He’s right, she will do that” and make their tiny minds up right then and there.
GOTV GOTV GOTV.
redshirt
@hovercraft: Bachman is one of his “foreign policy advisors”. If you can believe it.
I assume the advice boils down to “REPENT! THE END IS NIGH!”
humboldtblue
Cheryl Rofer may be a brilliant scientist and extraordinary human being with whom I will not converse electronically on Sunday because I will be watching English football at that hour. And that leads me to my next question, where the hell is Randinho’s soccer thread?
Goddamn Silverman with his science and facts and goddamn information related to the wider world and all important and shit is one thing, but it’s the Manc derby and league champs Leicester are at the new and improved Anfield. Where the hell is the wannabe Brasiliano?
Goddamn smart people and your goddamn smart subjects.
raven
@Felonius Monk: That’s a Corsair like the one John blew up.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Hope the weekend is restful for you both.
Eric U.
@Lizzy L: not that it’s any surprise to anyone that reads BJ regularly, but between the dead people and the illegal immigrants that ACORN has been zombie-registering, the Republicans will never win again. Nothing left for HRC to do on that score. She’ll be working on filling the FEMA camps.
WaterGirl
@humboldtblue: Will it be the use of 4 goddamns or the “Randinho” that summon our soccer front pager, she wonders.
hovercraft
@redshirt:
Of all the disqualifying things about Trump, having her as an advisor is near the top.
raven
@redshirt: That’s a drag strip not a monster truck rally. If you’ve never hung on the fence when an A Fueler goes by give it a try. Nothing smells like that nitro and the noise sucks the air out of you lungs.
redshirt
@hovercraft: That’s like 368 out of a 1000 reasons, I think. There’s so many.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC:
I get your aversion to disaster porn, and most years I would agree with you, but I understand that NPR Weekend Edition (Saturday, though, not Sunday) is doing a feature which includes an interview with a friend of mine. Very short TL;DR version: Atlanta-bound Delta Flight #15 was diverted to Gander, Newfoundland and all passengers ended up spending several days in the little town of Lewisporte. Locals offered extraordinary hospitality, wouldn’t take a cent. On flight back to Atlanta days later, passengers and crew collected money, put together a scheme to give scholarships to Lewisporte H.S. grads. A friend of mine manages the fund, which grew from $15,000 to nearly a $million. In 15 years they have awarded over 250 scholarships. Another friend was in the first year of recipients. The money helped her through university and med school, and she is now in practice as a family M.D. in Newfoundland. (She was also featured on the cover of People magazine on the first anniversary of 9/11.) I got involved five years ago because of the Delta/Atlanta connection, when we put together an event that reunited crew, passengers, and Newfoundland residents.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
A “Competitive Congressional Districts Near You” interactive map by Sharon Machlis (with inspiration by Sam Wang at PEC). It is a neat tool.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who wishes more of them were “competitive”, but it’s a good start.)
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: You are giving people a strange impression of what I look like!
WaterGirl
@humboldtblue: I just used the Quick Link to contact a front pager and sent Randinho an email message asking him to give you some soccer threads.
I don’t know if it will help, but you made me laugh, so I tried!
Miss Bianca
@raven: Aww…who’s a good puppy?
Frenchies are really cute.
raven
@Miss Bianca: They are!
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: Wait, that’s not you in the hat?
redshirt
@raven: Drag strips don’t do the “SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!” ads. Monster Trucks do though.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I am not kidding. There was a huge Atomic Age component to popular culture in the early 1950s. Mushroom cloud cakes, a mushroom cloud variant of the beehive hairdo, swimwear, hats, etc.
raven
@redshirt: I beg your pardon. That video is from US 30 dragstrip and those commercials ran in Chicago in the 60’s and 70’s when there was no such fucking thing as a monster truck. They just stole the line for their stupid redneck bullshit. Watch the video.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I’m up to speed. Glad she’s feeling better. We’ll keep good thoughts.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: The bikini swimsuit was named for the Pacific island on which nuclear tests were conducted.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: @raven: raven is correct.
raven
Cheryl Rofer
@Miss Bianca: Nope
Adam L Silverman
@Yarddog: Ask me anything. My apologies. I’ve updated the post by writing it out.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: There was also the great Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove.
Adam L Silverman
@humboldtblue: Would you like some cheese with your whine?
humboldtblue
@WaterGirl:
Look, the front page and the comment threads are filled with some smart motherfuckers on what seems to be every goddamn subject on earth.
Want legal advice we have 13 fucking attorneys specializing in every sort of law you can think of.
Want a new book on how Einstein’s theories were key to the development of Legos, Tang and advanced toy water guns? We got a fucking brilliant science writer on the front fucking page who will break that shit down!
Need a goddamn daily breakdown on the intricacies of health care and the hospital industry in this nation? Check the fucking front page because that health care dude is fucking incessant and fecund when it comes to the family of issues in the health insurance industry?
The only fucking thing missing is a self-surgery tool that you can use to perform self-surgery while guided by some MIT doctor who guides you remotely while at the same time comments on pet threads.
We need more beer, it’s Friday. The fucking high-falutin’ cocktails and fine wines are great, but it’s Friday night and that means beer and football, the kind that comes with hooligans and pies and that means Randhino needs to step it up.
Throw some crumbs to we wannabe terrace members.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I was going to post a disclaimer: “Not Cheryl Rofer”.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m aware. That’s not the picture I’m referring to.
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: Sure they do. Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ was the classic.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: how to deal with existential anxiety…make a fashion statement out of it!
Actually, I wasn’t kidding either…my old band did a song called “Lifeguard at Bikini Beach”.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I just remember the ads on WLS.
redshirt
@raven: You win this round!
But Adam clearly references Monster Trucks in the first line of the post too.
Felonius Monk
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t think you were around then, but I was. Some of that stuff was pretty funny, but there was scary stuff too. Like being scared shitless after an atmospheric nuclear test because of the reported fallout. Strontium 90 and all that crap. Contamination of the milk supply, etc.
Yet, some long for the good old days of the 50s.
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: Dang…well, I will likely be out on a cubbing run on Sunday morning, so I will miss the party, which is a great pity. I did get to read your blog post, tho’.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
This morning I heard what I guess was a preview of this. What a great bunch of people. Doubt there would be a similar group in this country.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Drag or live?
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: I have a pretty good idea of the picture you are referring to. Thought I’d throw in a fact that may have gotten lost in history.
raven
@redshirt: Right, he’s a young pup and, like I said, the monster truck world adopted the phrase for their ads. When you grew up in Chicago in the 60’s and went to the drags there is no way you didn’t know. There was also Santa Fe Speedway that had stockers and bikes.
Only one speedway
has a track of clay
and you ain’t seen nothing
till you’ve been to Santa Fe
We’d ride our puny little 160’s down there and watch the big boys run.
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman: My ex contacted me via FB to “commiserate” me on Phyllis Schlafly’s death. (he remembers me in my Ladies Against Women drag days; my character, Mrs. Welland Dow, was definitely inspired by her). I took the opportunity to remind him that Antonin Scalia was still dead. Because that’s the kind of vicious jackals we are.
JPL
@humboldtblue: haha.. What kind would you like because that is important, since you can buy singles?
humboldtblue
@efgoldman:
I’m fucking dying over here.
Brilliant.
Cheryl Rofer
@Miss Bianca: I’ll be sorry to miss you. The blog post contains a lot of stuff, but Sunday I’ll be glad to answer questions. Got any now?
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Live. We’re not likely to scare anything up this early in the season, tho’; it’ll most likely be a glorified trail ride.
debbie
@raven:
Up here they used to say, “Fuel, Fuel, Fuel.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Felonius Monk: Duck and Cover (9:51). That’s from ’51 but we were still doing “duck and cover” drills in grade school in Georgia in the ’60s.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
humboldtblue
@JPL: A nice cold Pabst in a glass if you please. If we’re gonna get all maudlin about the 50s — long before my ass showed up — let’s drink a beer that was last good in the 50s.
I love Pabst.
raven
@debbie: And then there was Art Arfons and the Green Monster!
raven
Here I am at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the summer of 66.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
I don’t know. I’d really like to believe that if Canada were attacked in a similar way, we would have communities that would open up and offer similar hospitality. For that matter, if it happened to Mexico. But I don’t know, and I hope to god we never find out.
Felonius Monk
@raven: This was our local contribution to drag racing.
raven
@Felonius Monk: She’s in that video above.
humboldtblue
And soccer, like all sports, is unique in its adaptability and malleability when it comes to human beings. Simply kicking a ball can be therapeutic.
raven
@Felonius Monk: From her site, one of the great tragedies in drag racing
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I was born in 1942, graduated from 8th grade in 1956 and from h.s. in 1960. I honestly don’t remember doing a “duck and cover,” ever. (I do have a vague memory of filing into a hallway, away from windows, once, but it didn’t seem to be connected to any existential threat.)
I don’t think I ever really took the Cold War all that seriously.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Khan!
Episode “Space Seed” is currently showing on the BBC America Star Trek marathon. I’m about 20 minutes behind on the DVR, so it just started for me.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m going up for the memorial service for my buddy next week and it turns out his widow went to OPRFHS.
humboldtblue
Huh, Aimai never even gave us a head’s up that a documentary on I.F. Stone was in the works.
But here it is, an upcoming documentary on I.F. Stone.
frosty
Waitaminute!! The ticket stub is for the US 30 Drag Strip? Is that the York US 30 Drag-o-Way I grew up with? I’m pretty sure they ran those Sunday Sunday Sunday ads on the local radio station. Or maybe all the drag strips did.
Anoniminous
@efgoldman:
Good to hear.
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: I was not around. I am aware that it was two sided and quickly gave way, as the Cold War progressed, to frightening not fun and exciting.
Mnemosyne
I can’t help thinking of this as a John Cole moment: I’m drinking the Ginger Brew soda at Tender Greens, and it’s so gingery that it’s making me sneeze. I still like it, though.
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman: FUNNY CARS!! That’s what was big in the Detroit area.
raven
@frosty: Given the time frame of York I’m sure they used the line. It is funny that there were two US 30 strips and there’s no way to tell which it is in the video. It is a fact that the first use of Sunday Sunday Sunday was at the Indiana strip.
redshirt
@SiubhanDuinne: I did “Duck and cover” exercises in Anaheim in 1978. I’m sure this isn’t correct, but I remember them being in case the Japanese attack again.
frosty
@raven:
OK, per #131 I was wondering if it was the US30 drag strip I grew up with. Now I’m wondering how many US30 drag strips there were?
Gin & Tonic
@frosty:
I think by the 70’s everybody used it, as I remember Sunday, Sunday, Sunday radio spots for Raceway Park in NJ (which is still in business.)
raven
@Miss Bianca: Funny cars supplanted the gas classes. “However, in 1971, NHRA decided to eliminate the Top Gas category”. The gassers were old Willy’s and such built on special frames with big ass engines. They were beautiful cars and have experienced a revival with the IHRA.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
A hallway away from windows sounds like a tornado warning, not a nuke drill. I think I’m too young for nuke drills, being a child of the 1970s. I do vividly remember the Time magazine cover about Jonestown, and I’m pretty sure I read the article, too, even though I was in 4th grade.
raven
@frosty: 2
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: My ignorance on the topic of atomic energy and nuclear weapons is so vast, I’d scarcely know where to begin! But one thing I have always been curious about is how the *hell* a podunk little dictatorship like North Korea (looks around fearfully to see if eemom is here to excoriate me for my choice of words) was able to score the technology and know-how for the bomb? Was it thru’ the Chinese?
SiubhanDuinne
@redshirt:
1978? I have wrinkles older than you.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
It was the “beverage that makes me sneeze” part that made me think of Cole. Not sure why, but at least Mrs ef is feeling better!
geg6
@raven:
LOL! Lovey will talk to you, defiantly, like that. So funny!
raven
US 30 Indiana Ticket
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: I’m sure Cheryl can respond more authoritatively than I, but you need to read about A.Q. Khan.
JPL
@efgoldman: I thought you and I were the same age.. I remember the duck and cover but more like 2nd and 3rd grade. I’m glad everything is okay with your wife.. /catch up on your sleep.. nag nag nag
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Definitely not tornado warning. We were tough in Oak Park (ask G), we weren’t askeert of no fucking tornados. I’m not even sure of the accuracy of the memory, but I’m quite certain it wasn’t weather-related.
I have a 60th h.s. reunion coming up in 2020, and our grade school (K-8) always gets together for a photo. I’ll find out if any of the others remember.
raven
York US 30 ad.
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: Pakistan, I think.
Miss Bianca
@raven: Damn. You raced at the Salt Flats? I’ve heard there’s some wicked motorcycle racing out there.
redshirt
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL. It was a long time ago, still!
raven
@Miss Bianca: Ever see “The World’s Fasted Indian” with Anthony Hopkins? Great film.
No, I didn’t race there. I was 16 in that picture and went in the Army 3 months later on my 17th birthday.
Lizzy L
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe it depends on where you were. I was born in 1946 in Manhattan, and I remember duck and cover drills under our desks and in the hallway all through grade school. The fear of The Bomb permeated my childhood. My friends and I were sure the world would end in fire before we graduated from high school. We all knew that if the bombs came, New York would be one of the first, possibly THE first target. The Berlin Crisis and the building of the wall in 1961 was almost reassuring, once it ended, because no one dropped the bomb.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Just saw your email and replied. I has been so busy all day. Thanks!
Adam L Silverman
Syrian Ceasefire thread is up.
Miss Bianca
@raven: No, but that movie is on my list. I’ve heard it’s really good! Plus, vintage Indians!
@Gin & Tonic: ooohh…! Thanks!
Cheryl Rofer
@Miss Bianca: It’s a good question, with several answers. I see that A. Q. Khan has been mentioned and linked upthread. tl;dr: He was in charge of the Pakistani nuclear program and thought that one way Pakistan (and he) might make some money was to become the world’s nuclear Wal-Mart. He did a lot of damage.
Another answer is that in some ways, North Korea is technically ahead of where the United States was when it made two different kinds of fission bombs from scratch in the 1940s. They know it can be done. They know the basics of the design. The Soviets helped them to build up a nuclear program. The phones we carry around have enough computational power to do the calculations that rooms full of women working adding machines did in the 1940s. Add to that the willingness to starve your people in order to build the plants that are necessary, and you have North Korea’s nuclear program.
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m a bit behind you. I sorta remember getting under my desk in 4th grade around 1960/61 and thinking it was stupid. I definitely remember filing into the hall in 5th and sitting with our backs against the wall. That would have been during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Yeah, let’s bring back the good oll’ days.
Felonius Monk
@raven: Art Arfons was from Akron, Ohio. I grew up near Akron, so I saw the Green Monster a few times. Never saw it run on a track at speed, but he would bring it around to fairs and shows, start up the engine, etc. When he switched from the Allison piston engine to the turbojet, we all got really fascinated with it. And when he started that baby up, it sure as hell howled. Good times.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: 1948 Vincent and Rollie Free.
hovercraft
OT In today’s worse than Bush news.
Obama’s Justice, Interior Departments along with the Army corps of engineers suspended the construction of the pipeline on corps land, pending further review of the tribes concerns. This was after a federal judge had denied the tribes request for an injunction to stop the construction. An unprecedented reprieve, but not a guarantee that the project be stopped.
frosty
@raven: My guess is Indiana since the ticket called it the Drag Strip and not the Drag-O-Way. Which apparently was the name of the strip from the beginning, according to these intertubes.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
I was born in 1958 and started kindergarten in1963 (a year too early as it turned out), but we had duck and cover exercises that are imprinted in my mind like it happened yesterday. I remember being terrified by the duck and cover stuff and by the Cubam Missile Crisis. Probably projected by the adults around me but little girl me had anxiety for years over possible nuclear annihilation. May have also been exacerbated by my living through the building of the first US nuke plant just about 10 miles from where I lived (and still do). We were required to have on hand in my workplace personal iodine doses as late as within weeks of 9/11 in case of a terrorist attack on the Shippingport plant only four miles from campus. And don’t get me going on the terror Three Mile Island engendered in my home just across the state. When you live with the danger of nukes every day of your life, it makes an impression.
Haydnseek
@efgoldman: I always wanted to be a legit radio DJ. Instead, I worked as a voice actor, among other things, for years. I must have done a hundred of those ads. You stand in front of the mic in the studio, and the guy running the show behind the glass keeps pushing you for a more over the top reading. Fun, but exhausting. Not especially lucrative, either.
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: ah…”dashed clear-headed way you have of putting things”, as Lord Peter Wimsey might say. I guess my next question would be how they got around the non-proliferation act…but I might get the answers to that from the Khan article. Plus, “rogue state”, duh!
geg6
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Been recording all of it. They are breaking up the TOS with the greatest two-parters of TNG. I’m an original fan of TOS, but TNG is my favorite iteration of the series. Piquard is, hands down, the sexiest captain. No question whatsoever.
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: I am DVRing away.
frosty
@raven:
Cool! I wish I’d gone to the races now, but I was a F1 snob and huge Jim Clark fan at the time. Couldn’t be bothered with cars that only went in a straight line. His Lotus was one of the prettiest race cars ever.
redshirt
@Haydnseek: Do you have a link to any of your copy? Would love to hear you hamming it up for a crash derby or something similar.
Miss Bianca
@geg6: TNG definitely got me into Star Trek. I have developed a deep appreciation and fondness for TOS, but that’s been a far more recent development than my love for Captain Picard and his crew.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Watch DS9. It has a very different feel because of how the show’s overall narrative was structured.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: DS9 is the best Trek by a mile. It took Rodenberry’s concepts and then twisted them into new stories, far more impactful stories.
geg6
@Adam L Silverman:
I hate DS9. Just hate it. Not real Star Trek, IMHO. A whole other thing, kinda like Stargate, which I also detest. I’m a utopia kinda girl. Hate most sci-fi with only a Star Trek and a Star Wars exception. The rest I find depressing dreck.
debbie
@redshirt:
My favorite too. There was far more character development than in the other series.
Remember when Dax tried to convince Worf to wear a Speedo for their vacation?
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: Picard is fantastic, especially considering he was following Kirk. Both are legends, but in distinctly different ways.
I loved Janeway. I know lots of people hate Voyager and while yes, the show certainly could have been way better, it wasn’t terrible. It was entertaining enough. I watched all the way through.
Enterprise, on the other hand, was painful. It was infused with 9/11. That poisoned it. Rodenberry’s utopia could not withstand 9/11. And Trek has never been the same.
Archer was W. It was so painful. I’m a life long Trekkie and to give up on a Trek show? I did, and I don’t regret it.
redshirt
@debbie: Worf is the under the radar hero of DS:9. His arc through the show is powerful. He had a great arc on TNG, but it was lacking at the same time. He got beat up so often. There’s a meme.
Haydnseek
@redshirt: Nah, this was in the 70’s and early 80’s when tape was considered expensive, so you just recorded over it until the oxide wore off to the point where it became unusable. I had a decent audition tape, but who knows where it is now………. Most of what I did was what the business calls “industrials.” “Before initiating the desired action, make sure that all safety interlocks are active, as indicated by the green lights on the panel.” That kind of stuff. Boring as hell, but that’s where the money was.
geg6
@redshirt:
Roddenberry would have hated DS9, based on everything I have ever read about him. Not at all his philosophy or vision or based on them in any way.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Is that the one with Captain Sisko? Yes, that one is on the list – I’m thinking a TNG re-watch and then DS9. Well, crap, I guess “Voyager” will have to get tossed into the mix, too.
ETA: “Cisco,” duh, spelling – our own Ben Cisco would shake his head at me, I’m sure!
Cheryl Rofer
@Miss Bianca: North Korea was a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but it withdrew in 2003. It had threatened to withdraw in 1994, but we managed to get it into the Agreed Framework, in which North Korea was to be given food and a couple of nuclear reactors for energy in return for not withdrawing. The Agreed Framework was fraying by 2003. The reactors had not yet been provided and looked like they wouldn’t be, and North Korea was starting a secret uranium enrichment program. Rather than negotiate, the Bush administration just let North Korea go. They have made most of their progress in nuclear weaponry since then.
redshirt
@geg6: True. But Rodenberry would have hated later TNG – like season 2 onward. He got removed from the show after season 1, and I don’t think anyone can say the show suffered for it. He was a kook in the end.
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: Okay. Noted.
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: DS9 before Voyager please.
Randinho
@humboldtblue: Patience! I’ll have one tomorrow morning.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Season 3 was pretty good until the final episode. Had they had the Season 3 showrunners running Enterprise from the beginning, then it would have been a very different series and most likely gone longer than 3 seasons.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I’m a big fan of Avery Brooks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Randinho: I am just happy that proper rugby is finally getting TV play here. You guys have fun. I’ll enjoy the ruffians’ game played by gentlemen.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: What channel?
Haydnseek
@efgoldman: It’s a crazy business. I did an insanely frantic voice over for the trailer when they remade the film Gone in Sixty Seconds. They didn’t use my work, fair enough, but the final trailer was completely different from what I was asked to do. This happens a lot. All you can do is laugh…….
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: that is one crazy-ass photo. With the accent on the “ass”…
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Last weekend, it was on the NBC Sports channel. It better be there again.
Did you play?
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Yes. Berman and Braga are abomination.
*Spits
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: He went fast. For his time.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: No, never played other than at summer camp – nothing organized in leagues. Played baseball and soccer from the time I was five or six. Wrestled in high school, as well as learned to box in high school. Started doing aikido and tai chi in grad school in 1992. But I lived in Scotland from 92-95 (first grad degree) and got hooked on it then.
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
I loved that series. Brooks and Robert Urich were really good together. In one episode there was a car chase scene that they apparently filmed out on Route 2 near North Adams, MA. There is a very scary, steep switchback there that’s a lot of fun to drive if you have the right vehicle. I had just driven that road a week or two before I saw that episode and thought, man, I could never drive that piece of road like that. Good stuff.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I played A side wing and B side flanker for my club. I liked flanker better, but I was not big enough to play it A side.
ingrediorum
Way to light up the wayback machine ~ York U.S. 30 Drag Raceway, so many misspent hours tuned-in to the Mighty 910, Wonderful WSBA!
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Glad to hear the positive news.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Sunday 2 PM EST its on. Have set the DVR just to be safe. Thanks for the tip!
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: The movies they made with Joe Mantegna were very good too. They had Ernie Hudson as Hawk in one and Sheikh Mahmoud Bey in the others.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for specifics. I shall plan my day.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Like I said, got hooked on it when living in Scotland. Part of the reason I don’t/can’t watch American football. There’s no flow to the American game. Too slow. Too many stops.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Its Exeter vs Saracens.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Ha-ha, Spock is a “Vulcanian.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Should be a good game.
M. Bouffant
@Steeplejack (tablet): “Halfbreed”, too.
M. Bouffant
Chicagoland funny guys The Conception Corporation did a “Sunday Sunday” take-off.
Steeplejack (tablet)
MeTV is joining the Star Trek fest with a showing of the first episode of the series at 9:00 p.m. EDT Saturday, followed by the “rarely seen pilot,” “The Cage,” at 10:00.
humboldtblue
@Randinho:
Thank you, sir.
frosty
@M. Bouffant: “US Amphetamine Speedway!” Thanks, I’ve remembered that line and “Timothy Leary Super-blown Head” for years but never knew where it came from.
Uncle Cosmo
@raven: Same variety of ads for “Beautiful Capital Drag Raceway” in the DC burbs back in the day, including “Big Daddy Don Garlitz”. Used to get them in Bawlmer on WCAO-AM, the local top-40s station. They needed 2 voices (or an overdub of the first voice, taped) because the SUNDAY!!SUNDAY!!SUNDAY!!! came so fast the announcer would have passed out from oxygen deprivation.
Uncle Cosmo
@efgoldman: Preach, ef! Kids these days, I dunno, I fear for the genome…
No One You Know
@humboldtblue: This should be a sticky comment, or permalinked, or something. Just sayin’.