Filed under: Emergency, Predictions, Preparedness, Society, Terrorism, Violence
…for ages that if someone *really* wanted to hurt our country, they could do so with a bunch of small-scale bombs at tourist sites and malls around the country. The bombs wouldn’t have to be big, or kill a lot of people – just scare people enough that they stop going to those places unless they really needed to. The economy would collapse in a matter of weeks, given that about 70% of our GDP is generated by consumer sales.
So let’s hope that this isn’t the first such instance:
Car bomb scares Times Square but fails to explode
NEW YORK – Police found an “amateurish” but potentially powerful bomb that apparently began to detonate but did not explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square, authorities said Sunday.Thousands of tourists were cleared from the streets for 10 hours after two vendors alerted police to the suspicious vehicle, which contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
So far, reaction to this event seems to be calmer than I would expect. But we’ll see what happens when it’s no longer the weekend and people start using it to try and score political points on one side or the other. Remember, fear sells.
Jim Downey
Filed under: General Musings, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff
This morning, as I was listening to the latest news about the impact of the Iceland volcano on European air travel, I had that classic science fiction notion: what if what we’re seeing in Europe currently were a simple fact of life all around the globe? And what if it had always been the case?
Think about how the history of flight would have changed if there was a functional barrier to flight at say 12,000 feet. Think about how the history of the 20th century would have changed – perhaps impacting WWII. Yeah, sure, you can fly a jet at 10,000 feet, but it consumes a lot more energy to do so – just that much of a technological challenge could have made a difference in the geopolitical structure of the world. Most cargo is transported by ship or trains, so that wouldn’t change too much, but would the world now rely on ships and trains for most passenger transport? Would we have developed high-speed trains earlier and more completely, perhaps even introducing trans-oceanic train technology?
Or what if something happened now to impose such a limit on jet transport worldwide as we’re seeing in Europe? How would that change our world in the present and going forward? Again, we’d probably find work-arounds – that’s what we do in this technological age – but how would those changes and challenges shape our reality?
There’s an awful lot of interesting fiction waiting to be written with just this one change . . .
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Politics, Publishing, Society, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, University of Missouri, Writing stuff
Earlier this year I got a nice note from the Director of Libraries at MU, asking whether I would be able to attend the Library Society annual dinner. As part of the evening’s event they were going to have on display some of the more noteworthy items from Special Collections Adopt-a-Book Program – work I had done, supported by donations – and they wanted to introduce me to their membership. Director Cogswell kindly offered to have my wife and I attend the fundraiser as guests of the Library Society.
* * * * * * *
It’s been a long week. I was sorely disappointed in the outcome of our local elections held on Tuesday, which saw a shift from Smart Growth advocates to a more “pro-development” slate of candidates for our city council/mayoral positions.
I’ve been involved in local politics at a very low level the last couple of years, mostly in trying to make sure that there was some balance between neighborhood interests and development. I’ve served as our neighborhood association president, and that has led to my participation in a variety of training workshops, as well as keeping a weather eye on development & rezoning issues in our area. I’m not against development – hardly – but I think it ought to be done with some intelligence and awareness of how it serves a community rather than just the bank account of a developer.
* * * * * * *
I confirmed that my Good Lady Wife and I would be happy to attend the Library Society dinner, though I preferred to pay the modest fund-raising donation for the dinner, and that I likewise would enjoy chatting with anyone in the Society who had an interest in my work. I’ve always been willing to do this sort of thing, meeting with donors, explaining the work I do and why it is important. In one sense, it’s self-serving – the donors are helping me earn a living – but beyond that my motivation is to help make sure the historically valuable books in these collections get the care they need.
It may sound a bit odd, but I’m actually fairly passionate about that. Yes, I do get paid for my conservation work, and it is a business – but I have always done a lot more work on rare books than I actually bill for. I don’t make a big deal out of this, it’s just my way of contributing something to the community and culture. If I were financially independent I would probably continue to do my conservation work, just as an in-kind donation to appropriate collections.
* * * * * * *
After Tuesday’s depressing election results, I had the last in a series of workshops scheduled on Wednesday to attend. The topic was “infill development” – a series set up by our Department of Planning to help explain why utilizing unused or neglected property within the city was a good strategy, and what the various issues pertaining to this kind of development were, and how development in cooperation with an established neighborhood could be to everyone’s benefit.
Let me tell you, it was damned hard to work up the motivation to attend that session. But I went, and was glad I did so.
* * * * * * *
The featured speaker for the Library Society dinner was to be Peter Hessler. Cool – I’ve read some of his work, heard him in interviews, respected his intelligence and humor. That alone would be worth the price of admission.
It was.
* * * * * * *
Thursday night there was another public event I needed to attend. It was the 2010 Neighborhood Leadership class. I had been in the 2009 class (the first one), and had been asked to sit in on a panel discussion about my actual experiences with building my neighborhood association. The other panel member is a fellow I know, like, and respect for the things he has done in his (much larger) neighborhood in this regard, and I knew that we would make a good team discussing this topic.
It went really well. I did a variation of my “don’t be afraid of failure” spiel in saying that each neighborhood would present a unique set of challenges and would need a unique set of solutions – that the neighborhood leaders would need to experiment, innovate, risk failure if they were to find the set of solutions that worked for them.
But like all such public speaking situations, it left me pretty much wrung out and a bit jittery after. Being an introvert is hell, sometimes.
* * * * * * *
We got to the pre-dinner reception, and it didn’t take very long to figure out that what I thought was going to be just a bit of a mention and some chatting with donors was actually a bigger deal than that.
These sorts of functions usually have assigned seating, with the ‘top table’ reserved for the emcee and featured speaker, a few Really Important muckity-mucks, right in front of whatever podium is being used. Well, my Good Lady Wife and I got our name tags, and discovered that we were assigned to table #2. And that our assigned seats were in perfect sight-line to the podium. And that we had the honor of sitting with the much-beloved chancellor-emeritus of the University, a couple of Deans, and assorted other Pretty Important People.
Furthermore the Director of Development caught me shortly after we got into the room, and pointed out that the centerpiece of each table was a nice flat cake. A nice flat cake which had “before” and “after” images of conservation work I had done, complete with the name of the donor who supported that work. And the cake on the #2 table was a book of Mark Twain’s “In Honor of James T. Downey”.
Huh.
* * * * * * *
Friday afternoon, before the Library Society dinner, we had another function to attend. A former employer of my Good Lady Wife’s, who is still a professional colleague and friend of hers, was celebrating his 70th birthday.
We got to the party late (it was being done as an Open House at the offices of his architecture firm), knowing that the evening event would take at least a fair amount of energy. This was a good decision.
Oh, it wasn’t riotous or anything, but there were a lot of people in attendance – current and former employees, other architects and engineers in the community. It was relaxed and informal, and I felt a little out of place in a suit & tie (we were going directly from this party to the Library Society event). I hate feeling out of place. But at least I wasn’t under-dressed for the occasion.
We chatted, enjoyed ourselves. People asked what we were doing these days. It was a good warm-up for me.
* * * * * * *
I went over to the display of the rare books, said hello to Mike Holland, who is the University Archivist, Director of Special Collections. One of his staff people was there as well, and they were doing a fine job of talking about the books on display. I joined in – introducing myself to the donors who were looking, explaining some of my working methods and materials, and so forth. It was exactly what I expected, and thanks to my previous socializing at the birthday party, I was already past my nervousness and in full “GalleryMan” mode. I had several very nice conversations.
Then we were called to take our seats so the evening festivities could begin.
The program listed my Good Lady Wife and I among the ‘sponsors’ of the dinner. I did indeed get a very nice introduction to the crowd, and a round of applause for my work. During the course of dinner several people came by the table to talk with me further, ask opinions and advice about books they owned, et cetera. We had delightful dinner conversation with our table mates. It was, all in all, a very affirming experience that helped me see that my efforts have been worthwhile and appreciated.
So, as I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation by Peter Hessler after dinner, it was easy to not feel any jealousy for his recognition as a writer and author. Yeah, I did flash on how fun it would be to return to that dinner in a couple of years as the “noted author and featured speaker” of the event, but I could see that as just a fantasy. Knowing that if I got hit by a truck tomorrow my life would not have been in any sense wasted was extremely rewarding.
We all need that, now and again.
Jim Downey
Well, this comes as no surprise:
About 20 percent of people are born with a personality trait called sensory perception sensitivity (SPS) that can manifest itself as the tendency to be inhibited, or even neuroticism. The trait can be seen in some children who are “slow to warm up” in a situation but eventually join in, need little punishment, cry easily, ask unusual questions or have especially deep thoughts, the study researchers say.
* * *
Individuals with this highly sensitive trait prefer to take longer to make decisions, are more conscientious, need more time to themselves in order to reflect, and are more easily bored with small talk, research suggests.
Previous work has also shown that compared with others those with a highly sensitive temperament are more bothered by noise and crowds, more affected by caffeine, and more easily startled. That is, the trait seems to confer sensitivity all around.
It’d be interesting to use the protocols from this study on artists & writers. I bet the data would skew way out of the usual distribution, with a much higher percentage of such people being considered “sensitive.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Civil Rights, Emergency, Government, Religion, Society, Terrorism, Violence
. . . what sort of panic and chaos we’d have if there were religious nuts who killed a bunch of people because they were fighting a war of liberation:
Double suicide bombings kill 38 on Moscow subway
MOSCOW – Female suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 60, officials said. The carnage blamed on rebels from the Caucasus region follows the killings of several high-profile Islamic militant leaders there.
The blasts come six years after Islamic separatists from the southern Russian region carried out a pair of deadly Moscow subway strikes and raise concerns that the war has once again come to the capital, amid militants’ warnings of a renewed determination to push their fight.
Gee, I’m glad there’s nothing like that brewing here:
Militia members charged with police-killing plot
WASHINGTON – Nine suspects tied to a Christian militia in the Midwest are charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral in the hopes of killing more law enforcement personnel, federal prosecutors said Monday.
* * *
Once other officers gathered for a slain officer’s funeral, the group planned to detonate homemade bombs at the funeral, killing more, according to newly unsealed court papers.
According to the indictment, the idea of attacking a police funeral was one of numerous scenarios discussed as ways to go after law enforcement officers. Other scenarios included a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his or her death, or an attack on the family of a police officer.
Now, think again what would happen here if self-proclaimed “Islamic separatists” set off a couple bombs and killed a bunch of people. You’d have every Right-wing loon calling for concentration camps and martial law to deal with the threat. But since it was a Christian sect who was planning on killing gubmint agents, what do we get?
[crickets]
Exactly.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to dKos.)
I don’t think most people here in the US understand violence. They have too little experience with it. They think violence is a schoolyard fight, or gunplay in slow motion on a screen.
It’s more visceral than that. More basic. It is the unleashing of an older part of ourselves – a genetic memory of survival.
For decades I have watched reactionary forces strut and hype, threatening violence or implying the threat of violence. You see it with the rhetoric of the Tea Party in its latest incarnation. I’ve kept an eye on it, but never paid it too much attention – people fear change, and those fears sometime manifest as that kind of low-level violence. Oh, I don’t mean to deny the damage that a few lone loons can do – our history has shown repeatedly that political violence can indeed change the course of events for the short term. But even that is limited.
What worries me much more is something I have begun to see over the last few years, and in increasing amounts recently: rhetoric from the left which is starting to match the threats of violence from the right. It is always cloaked in terms of self-defense, or of ‘standing up to the right’ – but it is there, nonetheless.
And this is much more dangerous. Because then it is not a matter of just ‘simple’ violence. It is gang-war. It is tribal. It is the madness which erases civilization for a while.
We don’t think that it can happen here. Not again. We think we are too advanced. Too educated. Too secure in our democratic structures.
Bullshit.
When one side starts using the language of violence, even to the point of flaunting guns and invoking the Civil War, they’re crazy.
When the other side decides the time has come to take the crazies seriously, to the point of talking about arming themselves or de-humanizing the Right (both of which I have seen a lot of in recent weeks), then we’re playing with fire.
It’s not like I am a pacifist, or unwilling to defend either myself or those people and values I hold dear. I understand the need for taking a threat from someone seriously. But increasingly things feel like they are starting to spin out of control.
Jim Downey
. . . how anything could go wrong with this:
PARIS (Reuters) – Thrill-seekers in France tired of the usual array of white-knuckle sports are turning to a bizarre new service to get their adrenaline rush — designer abduction.
For 900 euros ($1,226), clients of Ultime Realite (“Ultimate Reality”), a firm in eastern France, can buy a basic kidnap package where they’re bundled away, bound and gagged, and kept incarcerated for four hours.
Alternatively, they can opt for a more elaborate tailor-made psychodrama, involving an escape or helicopter chase for example, where costs can quickly escalate.
Note – this is supposed to happen at a time and a place which the client/victim does *not* know, to add to the realism of the experience.
When in college, me and a couple of college buddies came up with how much fun it would be to stage a ‘mafia hit’ in some nightclub, preparing all the special effects (guns shooting blanks, small charges in walls to simulate bullets striking them, blood packs on the victim and one of the hit men, et cetera). We thought it would be hilarious to set up such a thing and spring it on some unknowing nightclub patrons who would only be told that they were going to be attending a “special event”.
Of course, we gave up on the idea shortly after having a good laugh, because we knew that it was insane. Exposing people to that kind of traumatic event – even as just a witness – was dangerous and irresponsible. Not to mention that there could be someone (off duty cop? actual gangster?) with a real gun loaded with real bullets in the audience who would react poorly to such stimuli.
And that was under the reasonably controlled conditions of one room.
Now, these idiots want to pull this kind of stunt in public?
Dipshits.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 