Slow Jam - OWS

Hydro for acting! Audrey Franklin!

Vonage voicemail text transcription:

"Hi, this is assembly member Jim Brennan. I'm inviting you to a free screening of gas plant. The award winning documentary about the environmental dangers of Hydro for acting the film will be shown at 630 on Thursday, November 3 at the park slope Methodist Church on sixth Avenue and eighth Street after the film. They'll be refreshments and a discussion about how to respond to the government proposal to allow Audrey Franklin in New York State. I am opposed to Frank. Once again that's Thursday, November 3. Thanks so I hope to see you there"

And we are all about keeping Audrey Franklin out of New York State!

PURPOSE OF 1969 NUCLEAR ALERT REMAINS A MYSTERY

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2011, Issue No. 100
October 25, 2011

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

PURPOSE OF 1969 NUCLEAR ALERT REMAINS A MYSTERY

For two weeks in October 1969, the Nixon Administration secretly placed U.S. nuclear forces on alert.  At the time, the move was considered so sensitive that not even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefed on its purpose.  Still today, no conclusive explanation for the potentially destabilizing alert can be found.  Even with full access to the classified record, State Department historians said in a new volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series that they were unable to provide a definitive account of the event.

Previous historical scholarship has inferred from selected declassified documents that the alert was somehow intended to communicate a firm resolve to end the Vietnam War by whatever means necessary.  (See "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy" by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, National Security Archive, December 23, 2002; and "The Madman Nuclear Alert" by Scott D. Sagan and Jeremi Suri, International Security, Spring 2003.)

But based on the classified record, that interpretation remains unproven and uncertain, according to the gripping new State Department FRUS volume on "National Security Policy" (pdf).

"The documentary record offers no definitive explanation as to why U.S. forces went on this alert, also known as the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Readiness Test," the editors of the FRUS volume said (Document 59).

"There are two main after-the-fact explanations: first, that nuclear brinkmanship was designed to convince the Soviets that President Nixon was prepared to launch a nuclear attack against North Vietnam in order to convince Moscow to put pressure on Hanoi to negotiate an end to the war in Southeast Asia" along the lines that previous historians have suggested.

The second proposed explanation is "that the President ordered the alert as a signal to deter a possible Soviet nuclear strike against China during the escalating Sino-Soviet border dispute."  Consistent with the second interpretation, the FRUS volume provides new documentation of intelligence reports indicating that Soviet leaders were considering a preemptive strike against Chinese nuclear facilities.

Astonishingly, even the most senior U.S. military leaders were kept in the dark by the White House about the nature of the alert-- before, during and after the event.

"It is difficult to measure the success of this operation," wrote JCS Chairman General Earle G. Wheeler to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird on November 6, 1969, "since... the objectives of the test are unknown."

"It seems prudent if maximum benefit is to be gained from an operation of this type that at least you and I and the senior commanders are informed of the objectives and goals," General Wheeler suggested (Document 92).

In the end, the secret U.S. military alert -- one of only a few such cases involving U.S. nuclear forces -- had little discernable impact.  "There has been no reflection of acute concern by the Soviets...," the CIA reported in an October 27, 1969 memorandum included in the FRUS volume (Document 89).  "There has been no reflection of the US military alert posture in Soviet or Chinese news media or diplomatic activity."

Of the small White House group that directed the secret 1969 alert, perhaps only Henry Kissinger remains alive and active.  He did not mention the alert in his memoirs, the FRUS editors noted, except perhaps in an oblique statement that the United States "raised our profile somewhat to make clear that we were not indifferent" to Soviet threats against Chinese facilities.

Monster

On the counter at Cafe Fika on Pearl, not many blocks south of Zuccotti Park.
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The Recipe Project

One Ring Zero's The Recipe Project.

What is The Recipe Project?

"It's a 116 page hardcover cookbook book and full-length CD. The book features recipes, interviews, and essays from Mario Batali, John Besh, David Chang, Tom Colicchio, Chris Cosentino, Tanya Donelly, Mark Kurlansky, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Andrea Reusing, Michael Symon, Aaron Sanchez, Michael Harlan Turkell, Kara Zuaro, Emily Kaiser Thelen, Jonathan Dixon, Michelle Wildgen, Christine Muhlke, JJ Goode, Melissa Clark, and Matthew Amster-Burton. Plus online bonus tracks by Hubert Colson, Dave Wondrich, Jenny Morris, and John Currence.

The CD features recipes from the above chefs, set to music, and sung WORD FOR WORD! (In most cases, the musical styles were suggested by the chef.) Guest vocalists include Claudia Gonson (The Magnetic Fields), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, Breeders, Belly), and Allyssa Lamb (Las Rubias Del Norte)."

Mark Naison's "Communalism and Cooperation in Park Slope in the 1970's and 1980's "

DW forwarded the text of Mark Naison's post to us a week or two ago.  Here it is, on Naison's blog, With A Brooklyn Accent.

The year Liz and I moved to Park Slope, 1976, was a tough time in New York City. The city had just been saved from bankruptcy by an Emergency Financial Control Board that just mandated draconian cuts in all city services, especially parks, education, fire and sanitation, a policy, which, coupled with the wave of arson and abandonment that had swept through the city’s poorer neighborhoods, created the atmosphere of a city under siege. Buildings and neighborhoods which could afford it hired their own security forces, others, like ours on West 99th Street created volunteer security patrols to protect residents during evening hours...

I fixed my pen. Maybe everything will change, again?

About six months ago I broke the most expensive pen I'd ever bought - a yellow Aurora.  When I did that I stopped writing a long-hand diary, and switched to writing at a keyboard - my diary entries got longer, more daily, and I also just about stopped any sort of posting to public sites.  About an hour ago I borrowed some crazy glue and reconstructed the pen.  (I should have taken photos, but didn't think to.)  And I have an urge to post about it.

That reminds me: I brought an old pair of Clarks into the shoemaker today to have new crepe soles put on. 

Not since the civil war... (Simon Schama)

Every day at Opryland, the staff arrange my shaving gear a different way

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Bikey likes the new NYC lockups!

The mechanical meters replaced by the Muni Meters are being replaced by new lockups in the hood. Bikey likes it! (Why didn't they just alter the meter posts that were already in the ground? Or are these new things sleeves that fit over the old posts?)
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Street pig

Portland, Maine, at Pleasant and Maple.  Pebbles in concrete.

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First fireflies of the year, and something smells dead

First yesterday morning in the back yard one flew drunkenly into a flowerpot.  Then last evening, a couple sparking under the shad bush out front.  Meanwhile, there's the smell of something dead in the front of the house.  First, a couple of days ago, from behind the radiator or under the floorboards as you walked into the house.  Now, this morning, closer to the wall by the entry way, between the door and the living room.  I can smell it while sitting in the big chair we've promised to the silver fox.

Realizing that posts with long titles and little content are like Twitter

So, what's the problem?

Waking up to things that everyone else already seems to know

The Books are my personal musical, Oh, hello!, so far this year.

The Bottom Line presents New York On My Mind

Next Wednesday. River to River.  Friends will be there. Like a high school reunion if you went to school with Rosanne Cash, Marshall Crenshaw, The GrooveBarbers, Garland Jeffreys, Willie Nile, Martin Rivas, Suzzy and Lucy Wainwright Roche, Catherine Russell, Vin Scelsa, Loudon Wainwright III, Dar Williams,  John Leventhal, Mojo Mancini, Meg Griffin and a bunch of other people.  And, of course, Alan Pepper, the dude in the Ray Bans.

Freedom Riders

Tonight is Hal Willner's Freedom Riders project at Celebrate Brooklyn.

Jaume Plensa’s Echo

A few weeks ago we hit the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.  I hadn't been around the park for months, so hadn't seen Jaume Plensa’s Echo.  Wow.  There are many pictures of it on the web, but few give a real sense of how luminous and hovering and present it is.  The pic below is by Noel Y. C.

 

Happy Worst Day Ever!

Terry Moore has just made my life better

Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!

Her name, I believe, was Sally Ann James, and as Representative Pallone read “no person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” Ms. James stood and shouted, “Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!” Then the Speaker directed the Sargent to remove her from the chamber. Rodriguez and I each took one of her elbows and led her away.

Some news reports said she had a placard, but I did not see that. “Help us Jesus,” however, I heard her say that in the Chambers, and she said it quite a few more times as we led her away and through the tunnel that connects the Chambers to The Pen, and then over and over as we turned from the tunnel and passed through the gray metal door that leads to the Room, “Help us Jesus!”.

In the Room we beat her, not too much, but about the face because most people find that very upsetting, and then generally. We broke a few bones but did not do anything crazy. We did not sexually abuse her, and we have not sexually abused any female hecklers since early in the Pelosi tenure. Every speaker imposes his or her own limitations or additions on the actions of the Sargent’s arms, and that was Pelosi’s. This far and no further. This far the Lord has helped us. What will Weeper Boehner want? Nothing kinky, I hope.

Then I broke her neck, Ms. James. Rodriguez laid her body down and in a single stroke severed her head with the large, heavy blade we keep in the Room just for that purpose. We put the head in a plastic carrying case, like an old style gym bag, really, and I walked with it out to the garage, where I got into one of the idling Federal cruisers.

We drove to the White House. Someone had already fetched a stepstool and put it along the fence on the Pennsylvania Avenue side. I climbed up, opened the bag - I hate this part because my balance isn’t great and I can’t hold on to the fence to steady myself - grabbed Ms. James’ head by the hair and ears with both my hands, let the bag drop, raised her head up above my own and brought it down hard so one of the spikes of the fence jammed up her neck and into her the skull. Properly impaled, right there next to the others, some of which were in very poor shape, while the crows flapped up and waited.   If she had had a placard, I would have hung it below her.