Posts Tagged ‘war’
“Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason”*…
All– and I do mean all— about the flags of the world: Flag Stories.
* Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
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As we stand and salute, we might recall that it was on this date in 1975 that a convoy of South Vietnamese navy ships, fleeing the homeland that had fallen to North Vietnamese forces, sailed into Philippine waters seeking asylum. The Philippine government would not let the ships land so long as they were flying the colors of a dissolved government; so the South Vietnamese performed a flag-lowering ceremony of their ensign for the final time, raising in its stead an American flag.
The final lowering of the South Vietnamese flag
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak”*…
The Boeing airplane factory in Seattle got the “fake neighborhood” treatment. The women shown are walking on a suburban landscape made of chicken wire and planks, positioned over the roof of the factory. Underneath, B-17s were being built for the war effort.
Military forces have used camouflage of one sort or another since antiquity. But with the advent of the airplane and the rise of aerial warfare, camouflage (to hide targets) and decoys (to draw fire away from real targets or to intimidate the enemy) became bigger and bigger: “Massive Wartime Decoys and Camouflage Operations.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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As we misdirect, we might send convincingly animated birthday greetings to Raymond Frederick “Ray” Harryhausen; he was born on this date in 1920. A visual effects pioneer, he became a writer and producer of films featuring the stop-motion model animation technique, “Dynamation,” that he developed. He is probably best remembered for the animation in Mighty Joe Young (1949, with his mentor, King Kong animator Willis H. O’Brien), which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958, his first color film); and Jason and the Argonauts (1963, which featured an amazing sword fight between Jason and seven skeleton warriors). His last film was Clash of the Titans (1981).
Harryhausen and one of the skeleton warriors from Jason and the Argonauts
“You know who’s going to inherit the earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other”*…
The United States is at the center of a great colorful pinwheel of death, at least according to the latest infographic from Natalia Bronshtein, a data visualizer who focuses on economic trends and political developments. She has worked to produce an interactive visualization of the world’s top 100 arms-producing companies.
Surprising no one, the United States makes more money on war than any other country. Really, it’s not even close. Using the 2013 arms production database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as her data source, Bronshtein shows that 40 of the top 100 arms-producing companies in the world are based in the United States, with Lockheed Martin and Boeing being the biggest of the bunch. The visualization represents each company as a circle within the larger circle of its nationality — the bigger the radius, the more money the company or country made selling arms…
The invisible elephant in Bronshtein’s chart ends up being China, which is missing from the SIPRI database, but it’s doubtful it would bump America down. According to SIPRI, China spent $188 billion to America’s $640 billion on its military in 2013, making it the world’s second most expensive military. If China’s companies are making as much money on arms as its military is spending on them, China still likely wouldn’t be enough to knock America from the top of the list…
Read more at “Guess Which Country’s Companies Profit Most From War?” and explore Brohstein’s visualization here.
* “Yuri Orlov” (Nicolas Cage), Lord of Wars
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As we give peace a chance, we might send ingenious birthday greetings to Clarence Leonard “Kelly” Johnson; he was born on this date in 1910. A storied aeronautical engineer, He contributed to the design of 40 aircraft, from the P-38 Lightning fighter and the Hudson bomber to the U-2 spy plane and the F-104 Starfighter interceptor.
But Johnson is probably best remembered as the founding leader of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, a development group that has become a model in the business, engineering, and technical arenas of an effective approach to innovation– a group with a high degree of autonomy within an organization, unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”*…
In January of 1942, as the U.S was entering World War II, a Pennsylvania dentist (and friend of Eleanor Roosevelt) named Lytle Adams submitted the design of a new weapon to the White House, suggesting that it could be effective against the Japanese. Adams’ creation was a bomb that would drop over 800 hibernating bats– to each of which was attached a small incendiary device… as the bomb descended from a high-altitude drop, the bats would awaken, disperse, and nest in structures– which in Japan at the time were largely made of bamboo, paper, and other highly-flammable material. Later in the day the incendiaries would go off, starting fires across a wide area. Adams estimated that 100 bombs might start as many a 1,000,000 fires.
The U.S. military developed the “Bat Bomb”; and while the yields were never quite what Adams predicted, they were impressive enough to drive investment of an estimated $2 million. The project was abandoned only when it became clear that the Manhattan Project would finish before the Bat Bomb was ready.
Read more about the Bat Bomb here.
[TotH to Quora answerer Tal Reichert]
* Albert Einstein
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As we try to find the ploughshare, we might recall that it was on this date in 1849 that Lewis Phectic Haslett was granted the first patent for a gas mask. In fact, Haslett was building on a long tradition: the ancient Greeks used sponges as make-shift gas masks, and the Banu Musa brothers in Baghdad described a rudimentary gas mask (for protecting workers in polluted wells) in their wonder-full 9th century Book of Ingenious Devices. Still, Haslett’s creation was the forerunner of the modern gas mask.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend…
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
– Groucho Marx
Your correspondent is departing for points South– for the dune-banked, hammock-hung, deep-fried seat of his youth. Consequently, (R)D will be more Roughly than Daily until the 16th or 17th of August.
In order to keep readers amused until regular service resumes, Five Books:
Every day an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic chooses five books on their specialist subject. From Einstein to Keynes, Iraq to the Andes, Communism to Empire…
For example, Peter Paret (of Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study) on “War and Intellect” (chosen as an example, your correspondent confesses, in part because it opens with your correspondent’s own most-recommended book: Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis)… or Pillip Vannini on “The Ethnography of Music“… or Carlos Eire’s “Time and Eternity” picks– which range from St. Augustine to Kurt Vonnegut… Or any of many, many more.
Read ’em and reap!
As we curate our own short shelves, we might recall that it was on this date in 1890 that Cy Young pitched his first professional baseball game, leading the Cleveland Spiders past the Chicago Colts. Over the course of his 22-year career, Young won at least 508 games (511 is the generally accepted number) and averaged more than 23 victories per season.
Denton True Young earned his nickname when a bystander watched him, as a boy, devastate a wooden fence with pitches, observing that the fence “looked like it had been hit with a cyclone.”
Young was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, in the first class inducted. The Cy Young Award, bestowed annually on the best pitcher in each professional league, was instituted in 1956.
Young’s 1911 baseball card (source: Library of Congress)
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