They're different…yet the same

Today is Memorial Day here in the United States. I like to publicly thank every veteran, as well as current military personnel for their service to our country. Without it, this country would never have grown to be what it has become, nor would we be enjoying the rights that many take for granted.

Recently a Facebook friend posted a photo which lambasted the media because

"…Memorial Day is not about Veterans. Memorial Day is about those that did not come home to become veterans."

The very first comment said, "Same Dif…semantics!" suggesting they were the same; which was followed by back and forth dialog on whether there was a difference between the two holidays.

After doing some reading on the subject, it's become obvious that it's not as crystal clear as that photo suggested.

* * *

Unofficially Memorial Day is the older of the two holidays. The exact origin of Memorial Day is somewhat clouded, with groups of people both north AND south of the Mason-Dixon Line, claiming to have been the first.

In those days it was known as Decoration Day because loved ones would decorate the graves of fallen soldiers who gave their all during that family squabble known as the American Civil War.

It wasn't until 1971 that Congress declared Memorial Day an official national holiday.

The day is generally filled with parades brimming with soldiers and floats, as well as air shows commemorating past conflicts, and the soldiers who took part. Unofficially it's also filled with BBQs marking the start of Summer.

California doesn't have the same fervor as the East Coast. That's probably because we have been lucky enough to have escaped military conflict on our soil, and invasion by foreign powers.

One of the most spectacular events takes place at America's National Cemeteries. But, it's a simple thing that probably escapes most people's thoughts today.

For several days beforehand thousands of volunteers go gravestone to gravestone making sure a small American flag graces the front of the marker.

If you have never visited Golden Gate National Cemetery on Memorial Day, you should. The utter silence with 140,000 tiny flags flapping in the breeze is awe inspiring.

Frankly, its more serene sight with quiet contemplation does more to commemorate our nation's sacrifice than any parade.

* * *

In 1919, WWI was fresh in the minds of many Americans. It's generally considered the first modern war due to many technological advances of the time such as tanks, airplanes and mustard gas.

On the one year anniversary of the end of WWI, President Calvin Coolidge declared every November 11th  a day to commemorate the end of hostilities.

(The official armistice went into effect 11-11-18, and because someone somewhere had a macabre sense of humor it took place, not at Midnight, but, at 11pm)

However, it wasn't until 1938 when Congress officially named it a Federal holiday.

Much to people's horror, WWI turned out not to be the War to End All Wars, to be joined in people's consciousness by the first true global war, WWII, and not to go unmentioned the Korean War.

Congress changed the holiday's name in 1954 to Veterans Day, to be inclusive of all veterans from all conflicts past and present.

What's forgotten by most, myself included until I was doing research for this post, was that Coolidge's original proclamation was not to celebrate those that returned live from the front, but to remember those that did not.

"To us in America, the reflections of armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

Arguably, Veterans Day is not observed nearly as much as Memorial Day. Probably, in part because of it falling two months after school has started, during the tail end of the Fall harvest and when BBQ weather has left much of the country.

Besides that, it's not part of a three day weekend, despite it originally becoming one under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Only four years after moving five holidays to Mondays; to create long weekends; Congress chose to move Veterans Day back to it's original date.

It should be noted that while Memorial Day is truly an American national holiday, "Veterans" Day is commemorated around the world in multiple nations, albeit under different names.

* * *

Today, I turned on the History Channel while having breakfast After all, it's Memorial Day. Surely they're going to have lots of historical goodness I could lose myself in today. Just ending was some program on WWII, only to be followed by episode after episode of Pawn Stars.

God bless Big Rick, Corey, Chumlee and the Old Man. But, little historical blurbs about items being pawned or sold just shouldn't cut it on Memorial Day.

I found a blog Tech Crunch editorial  frustrated by this as well, only to realize it was from 2011.

At least H2 (formerly known as History International), is running four episodes of Patton 360, a 2009 series on Gen. George S. Patton.

But, that's not even the full series.  They aired 3 episodes; then stuck an odd-ball episode of Target Earth about climate change, before repeating the same episodes! Thing is it's a 10 part series. Would it have killed them to have aired the whole thing today?

Thankfully, if a person has HBO or Amazon Prime Video, they have access to Band of Brothers and The Pacific; with NO commercial interruptions.

Sigh…

Happy 4th and Thank You For Your Service

As I write this I am about a half way through a DVD marathon of the HBO mini-series The Pacific.

In years past, any Patriotic themed holiday had usually seen me watching that other WWII epic, Band of Brothers. While at the Albany Public Library recently, it dawned on me I could finally see this other series.

Unlike Band of Brothers, through the first two episodes, this has been mostly surrounding combat on Guadalcanal. (In fact, the DVD extras said the first three episodes take place during that one campaign.)

However, despite all the attention to make this series as authentic/realistic as possible, it's still not the real thing, and so I want to stop and thank everyone who has ever dawned a uniform, domestic or abroad, in the service of our country.

Without your service I might be writing this in any of a number of other languages, unfamiliar to American shores today. That is, if I'd even be allowed to post my thoughts - unmolested by any government censor.

* * *

Many years ago, my father and I were attending a local monthly meeting of the East Bay Amateur Radio Club. It was some holiday weekend, though which one has faded from memory.

One member, who I think must have escaped with his family from southeast Asia in the early 1970s, decided it might be interesting to visit how other members had served their country over the years. He had proudly spent time in service to his adopted country, and wanted to publicly thank anyone else there who might have done the same.

One by one he went around the room point blank asking each member if they'd ever served. It was a rather uncomfortably long period as veterans, very reluctantly, shared little tidbits of their experiences. That is, if they said much at all.

After what must've been over 30-40 minutes we finally moved on to Ham Radio topics, and you could almost hear a collected sigh of relief throughout the room.

* * *

In my family I can probably count on one hand the few I know took part in actual combat. Thankfully, nobody died in the service of their country.

I don't recollect any of them sharing their experiences; apparently even to their most intimate connections (wives, children, etc.) it was too uncomfortable even after all those years.

One particular uncle had done service in the Army Air Corp many thousand feet over the country where his wife came from so it's easy to understand.

Presumably there's always one exception to this rule, and our exception was my great-grandfather, who serviced in the Austro-Hungarian Army.

My grandmother had stories of how he'd tell the family about how they'd fire the guns and cannons at the Italian soldiers on the other side of the front lines, only to trade rations and socialize with them at night.

Apparently, it was a more civilized war front back during WWI, though this didn't alleviate any fears my great-grandmother had because she would break down and cry every time she heard the sound of the big guns echoing down the mountain passes of the Karawanken Mountains.

My father never served. Depending on one's point of view, he was lucky or unlucky to have been born in 1935, making him too young for WWII.

Should he have been born at a different time, and been eligible to serve, I have no idea whether he would have taken up the opportunity.

We never really talked about service, though he was none too happy when I received a call at home from Sergeant Johnnie, of the local Marine Recruitment Center, during my Senior Year in high school.

Like several of my high school friends I had considered the military. This was back after President Carter reintroduced the requirement for 18-25-year-olds to register for the Selective Service System.

I'm not particularly sure why it was the Marines other than perhaps because one of my best friends was firmly intending to take that route virtually his entire high school career.

He'd always said he'd join the Marines and see the World. Ironically, after joining pretty much all he saw of the World during his three year hitch was the Concord Naval Weapons Station; 31 minutes drive time away!

Had my friend and I actually seen any armed combat it would have been limited if you compare it to service seen by the current generation.

* * *

As each new generation is introduced to war, they experience it with more refined technologies which are supposed to bring precision and clinical methodology to the art of war (was famed military minds Sun Tzu and Carl Von Clausewitz euphemistically called it).

But, in a nutshell, it's no different than many an American conflict from years gone by. Men, and now women, are forced into situations to do thinks they would never do under normal circumstances for their country. Blood is just as red, and a person's spirit leaves the body just as fast.

So, as you're out there watching some parade today, or taking in a fireworks extravaganza this evening, say a prayer for those who have served, as well as those around the World currently serving.

May they may come home safe and sound so their family cannot experience what it's like to make the ultimate sacrifice, as too many have during our country's existence.

March of the Tin Foil Hat Soldiers

conspiracy theory (noun): a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

America LOVES a good conspiracy theory. If we didn't, life would be pretty boring around the newspaper tabloid offices.

Over the last few decades we've seen some whoppers (Kennedy Assassination, Watergate, 9/11, etc.) Some may yet prove to be true once enough time has passed and the Freedom of Information Act can be successfully invoked. Others will probably linger for all time because there's simply no way to confirm or refute them, the Lincoln Assassination being a perfect example.

Flying high and hard these days are dire warnings that if our country enacts any type of gun control, we're naturally heading into a Totalitarian state. It's really disgusting to see the photos cropping up these days showing Nazi soldiers putting a round to the back of the head of some person kneeling on the ground, or the caricatures of Obama with one of those all too familiar armbands (only with the Swastika replaced with the Obama presidential campaign logo).

It saddens me to see people I consider friends posting graphics of a Who's Who from Fascism and Communism, with Obama right along with them, and blatantly saying that if we stand by for any type of gun control the president will imprison and/or kill those who don't agree with him.

Last week one of them showed Obama, Stalin, Hitler and Mao, with school children, suggesting dictators love photo ops with children. I suppose they forget where President George Bush was when the World Trade Center was attacked, in a Florida classroom talking with elementary school children.

All of those dictators came to power because of the political climate within their countries, and were within democracies which were fledgling at best – not a country with over 230 years of democracy under its belt (albeit imperfect at times).

Not immune to membership in the Tin Foil Hat Brigade are the Liberal Left. One has to only go back a few years to when the Patriot Act was passed.

Make no mistake, there are parts of the Patriot Act which could easily lead to abuses of power and seem an unnatural expansion of government spying on its own constituency for the sake of spying. However, we have never seen the wholesale imprisonment and wanton disregard for basic American rights that some people were prophesizing would materialize within the first few years.

I suppose, with our country as deeply fractured on all sides of the political spectrum as it is, it's natural to see conspiracies popping up along political lines. Though I'd suggest a lion's share are there simply because some people need to claim the other side is doing, or will do, something if unchecked.

The Religious Right Agenda, the Gay Agenda, the Media Agenda, the Muslim Agenda, the Jewish agenda, the WASP Agenda, the New World Order, the Illuminati. The list seems to be endless.

It looks like some are burnt out on the political conspiracies so a new one has cropped up recently, that of the usage of Fluoride in our drinking water and tooth prevention products.

There's a particular graphic floating around suggesting all sorts of reasons why fluoride is toxic, and (put your Tin Foil Hat on folks) its usage to incapacitate an unknowing audience, and as a method of control akin to the most lethal Zyklon B used in Auschwitz. Another one supported these allegations suggesting it's never been tested for human consumption.

I'd suggest that if one of the goals was to make American society docile like cattle, that attempt failed miserably since two-thirds of all American citizens are receiving fluoridated water from their taps, and we seem to be an even more violent society than when we were in 1960, when water fluoridation became wide spread.

I seriously doubt the American scientific community didn't perform testing prior to it becoming wide spread in usage, as opposed to Nazi Germany, which used it against a class of people which it considered sub-human, and destined for extermination anyways.

One of my Facebook friends enjoys sharing links to conspiracies and anti-government positions. Anytime I see his name pop up in the far right column there's a 90% probability it's going to be some non-mainstream item. But, at least he's equal opportunity and bashes all colors of the political spectrum.

* * *

But, before I end this post, I want to share with you one very important message that keeps showing up in email every now and then. I find its source credible and so you need to do yourself a favor and bide its warning!!

To Endeavour is to Succeed

I hope everyone had the opportunity to see the last aerial hurrah of Space Shuttle Endeavour last Friday. It didn't matter that it would be hitching a ride on the back of a modified 747. It would still be amazing.

The local news had hyped up the flight for days. Rightfully so as once the shuttle hit the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport, it was destined for a slow ground crawl to its final resting spot, the California Science Center.

When I woke up I turned on KRON-4. I figured they would have the best news coverage, and not be hindered by network affiliation. Amazingly, they stayed live with the flight all the way from its take-off from Edwards Air Force Base.

Another amazing thing was that NASA actually delayed the flight by one hour because they wanted to make sure the any fog hand burned off here in the Bay Area. How cool is that?

Getting close to the estimated 9:30a appearance in the Bay Area, I grabbed my camera and zoom lens. I hadn't shot anything in months and couldn't find my tele-extender, which irked me a little. But, you make do with what you have.

I also didn't know from where the shuttle would appear because the FAA was keeping quiet the exact flight path Endeavour would be taking. Some armchair investigators had cobbled together approximate routes based on available info and people they knew. The most common route would have her fly out over the bay from Emeryville. Fortunately, I saw another one that showed her flying over land all the way up the East Bay to Richmond.

Due to delays coming up the Central Valley and parading around Sacramento, the shuttle didn't actually reach central Contra Costa County until around 10am.

I headed outside to take a position on the other side of the street from my house and then checked Twitter once more. Someone had just posted she was over the Rockridge BART station.

One of my neighbors was leaving his house and came over as his car was parked next to where I was standing. I told him what I was waiting for, nervous Endeavour would sneak up on me while we were talking.

Suddenly, I could hear the dull roar of the engines. But from where???? Then a gray blob appeared off in the distance, somewhere over Berkeley.

The plane slowly sauntered over the cities, lower than any plane of that size which I could remember. While I had a good view, it must have been stellar for anyone further up Solano Avenue. I can only hope teachers in the Albany schools let their students out to watch.

I was able to fire off, give or take, 20 shots. Many were garbage, with autofocus catching an errant wire or phone pole. Some people say it spoils to watch something through a camera view finder. In this circumstance it was a help, not a hindrance.

Just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone; headed towards Richmond, and then over to the Marin Headlands for a couple of loops before pointing South.

* * *

My first introduction to the Space Shuttle program was somewhere back about 1972. Every week I looked forward to receiving the newest copy of My Weekly Reader, a topical newspaper given out to students when I attended Fairmont Elementary School. The issue I'm thinking of talked about the upcoming Skylab program.

On the back was a diagram about future space programs and had Skylab (1973), Apollo-Soyuz Mission (1975) and the Space Shuttle program (1980). That seemed so far off at the time.

Fast-forward to April 1981, and the maiden space flight of Columbia. This was in the days before my family had a VCR. We had a movie camera though, and I had recently discovered a half dozen Kodak film cartridges!! I was determined to record this for prosperity (Ignore that fact it was silent film!).

I'd marked the living room floor with masking tape so I could set the tripod quickly. I thought I was all set. Everything was ready…except there were no nine volt batteries!! Mind you this was something like 3am. Not to be deterred I found a whole bunch of D-cells and some wire. The idea was to use electrical tape to create a circuit between the batteries and camera handle.

(It was probably fortunate that it didn't work as it probably would have shorted out my father's expensive Nizo-Braun S480).

Resolved to just watching the coverage, I received a reprieve when NASA delayed the mission due to weather conditions in Florida. I took this as a sign and silently snuck out of the house and took the Chevette in search of proper batteries. I let the car roll down the steep hill before starting the engine, and I can only imagine how my father would have freaked if he'd seen the car gone.

Scoring batteries from Jay-Vee Liquors, I returned home only to hear the mission was delayed yet again. It eventually flew, and I eventually filmed it. Film which is still sitting in a box somewhere, unprocessed.

* * *

Like most Americans I became complacent as shuttle missions became common and routine. Even broadcast television stopped carrying launches live after a while. Sadly, it took the Challenger and Columbia disasters for many of us to pay any attention to NASA anymore.

Now the Space Shuttle program has come and gone, with no immediate replacement. Adding insult to injury Astronauts are hitching rides to the International Space Station aboard Soviet designed rockets.

Hopefully, America's enthusiasm will be fired up once again by Curiosity's recent escapades, and we will endeavour towards eventual manned flight to Mars.

Doing the Lustrum Limbo

Last night I was surfing around Xfinity onDemand. After wasting ten minutes on the abysmal Meet the Spartans, I latched onto The Vow, a movie released last February, starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum as a couple who's marriage is divided by a horrific car crash.

While Leo (Tatum) makes it through with just some bumps and bruises, his wife Paige (McAdams) loses her memories from the last five years. At first she wakes up and it appears all is normal. That is, until she recognizes her husband as her doctor.

As Leo saying the in the film, "(I need to) make my wife to fall in love with me again."

This is loosely based on the true story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter. VERY loosely based when comparing the Carpenter's story vs. what's portrayed in the movie. Sadly, in real life, Krickitt never regained her memory. I won't spoil the ending of the film by saying what happened in case you want to watch it.

* * *

While I was watching it, I started thinking about my last five years. If I was in an accident what would I not remember? Would I miss anything?

Jumping into the Wayback Machine and dropping myself off in August 2007, I still would have been working at my last job at a school photography business.

This would have been eight months before, what I consider one of my pivotal moments in life, going on pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan.

After the longest plane ride of my life, we landed in Amman, Jordan exhausted. Despite that, some of us took a quick walk looking for what was supposed to be the BEST knafeh shop in Amman. I can still remember the sugary aroma and sweet sights when we wondered in. The half dozen locals, ALL Jordanian men, looked at us in puzzlement, especially our Amerikiya that stood out like a fish out of water.

After sampling way too many sweets for way too late at night, we beat a hasty retreat back to the Golden Tulip Grand Palace Hotel.

There are too many wonderful memories from that pilgrimage to share in this blog entry, as it would be 2000+ words if I tried. Suffice it to say, every few days I think back to walking in the Holy land, amongst all the special places in human history.

That's probably my most precious memory that I would have lost in the accident.

Just as Paige remembered her first engagement as if it was just yesterday, I would still be grieving over the loss of Glacier, probably the smartest dog I have ever known. She was in our family basically all her 16+ year life, and she'd been caring enough to go around and thank everyone in the room with a weak nuzzle when she probably knew she was going to die in the next couple of days.

And Jake and Sally, my current Constant Canine Companions, would be total strangers to me. That hurts just typing it.

A not so happy pivotal event occurred sometime in March 2011. Our parents died in 2000. Despite good intentions we'd basically kept their stuff in the old house. While not being a hoarder in any way, shape of form, I also had a ton of memorabilia from childhood days gone by in my old bedroom.

I guess criminal elements in the neighborhood noticed nobody coming around the house much and so decided to see what they could scavenge for a quick fix in their vein, or to numb their brain. Lots of items were taken. Unique items that can never be replaced.

My father and I were members of a model train club. He'd always planned on building a home layout, and I can still remember him telling me a few years before his death, "these will be yours someday.

I can also still remember the creepy chill that went down my spine when he said it, and how it bothered me to think he'd die. Little did we know it'd only be a scant few years later.

I had always intended to carry through on that plan for a layout. However, that's pretty much all gone now. The thief took everything, including some that were in broken and in shambles. All I have left is one locomotive and a couple cars, which happened to be at my grandmother's house for whatever reason.

Not a week goes by that I don't tell myself I need to run over to their house and grab something I need, only to rudely wake up and realize it disappeared in the robbery.

I also think of the gorgeous ring/pendant which my mother's mother got when we was a young woman in Russia. Family lore was that it was given to her by a representative of the Czar. It saddens me to think it adorns some crack head, rather than my sister, as is my mother intended.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the thieves also saw fit to turn the place upside down. The place was a total wreck. It took us months to go through some of the rooms, and to be honest, there's still more that needs to be cleaned up.

Those are just some of the memories, good and bad, that I realize I would have lost. Everyone should do the same exercise and remind themselves what they should be thankful of.

* * *

A Lustrum was an Ancient Roman term for a five year period of time. However, it's more likely you're familiar with the term from when Rooster Cogburn was in front of Judge Parker, in True Grit.

600 channels and nothing to watch???

Recently, I've had to make some changes with my Internet service provider. I'd been sharing a connection with someone for over 12 years. However, it was time to get something of my own.

At the same time, I had been reviewing my cable television bill. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area changes are extremely good that your provider is Comcast. I've had Comcast at my current residence since April 1994, when the San Jose Sharks made their first NHL Playoff run.

After considering non-cable options for Internet, I finally decided it was best to go with Comcast's Triple Play. I was able to get a deal that was a little more than what I currently pay for cable only, and yet I didn't have to sign up for a long term contract, something that I'd have to do if I switched to another carrier. A Win-Win IMHO.

* * *

It amazes me when I hear people say, "There's nothing good to watch on TV these days!!" Now, granted some of the shows are pretty abysmal (Jerseylicious, Big Brother or Housewives of <fill in the blank> are perfect examples of TV gone wrong). But to say there is nothing to watch when you have between 200 and 600 channels to choose from if you have cable is astounding.

As I sit here watching all sorts of programs that I didn't have before last Saturday I started thinking back to when my family first signed up for cable television.

We could say with pride that our family was among the first houses to get cable in the San Francisco Bay Area. I can't speak for what was available here in Albany back then as we were next door, in Richmond. Our service provider was Bay Cablevision.

I think I must've been at school when the cable man came because I don't remember seeing him install it, and just know that's something I would have been sitting there watching get done.

On top of the old TV sat a gray-brown box with two rotary dials that would make a loud clicking sound as you turned them. This WAS the cable box of its day and you manually switched channels by the use of the two dials. One dial had numbers on it, while the other one had letters. The differing combinations would offer different channels.

(The remote control never entered my house until many years later. After all, it was only a few years earlier that we bought the first color television ever in our family, a Hitachi. I still have that TV in storage, and the colors were just as good the last time I hooked it up, as the day we brought it home from Dale Sanford Television, in Alameda.

Back then it seemed you got multiple channels for each of the THREE networks. This was way before Fox, WB and other newcomers came to play. All your news coverage was local, unless you happened to catch the evening national news, presented by Walter Cronkite (CBS), John Chancellor (NBC) or Howard K. Smith & Harry Reasoner (ABC). CNN wouldn't show up until I was in high school. And I can remember when Atlant's WTCG, proclaimed itself the first super station, being seen Coast-to-Coast thanks to cable TV.

TV Guide was something like 10 cents, and was a real guide, not the magazine you see these days. Beyond that, Bay Cablevision used to release a heavy paper guide that showed what was on HBO and the other special movie channels they had. There were three colors, Green, Red, and Yellow. Each one was a higher priced package. I remember us having the Red package, which included Green, but the Yellow package must've been financially out of reach because I remember looking at it and seeing what we wouldn't be getting. Also, movies were on, generally, for three months, before something else rotated in.

To get HBO, there was a special filter you connected to your cable box by way of a patch cable, and then the outside cable from the telephone pole. It was apparently very important not to disconnect the filter because if you did, the cable man had to come out and set it back up. Not sure if that was real, or not, but that's what we were told. Also, there was a $50 deposit on that filter, which is comical because I think it was nothing more than a low or high pass, filter which probably cost $3.

* * *

But now we've reached another metamorphosis in the world of television entertainment, which will make today's television offerings seem as antiquated as my first experiences were in their day.

Though traditional broadcast channels and cable networks has the largest variety ever, it's also the hardest for a new producer to get into. It seems that networks will spend most of their production dollars on what they think are sure hits that will get them a high rate of return. That's why you're seeing so much Reality programing. It's relatively cheap, and fills what they perceive as being the viewer's most common wants.

However, in steps the Internet to fill a need. With higher and higher streaming speeds available, and storage costs plummeting, anybody can become a programmer. I'm a tech news junkie and more often than not I'm watching one of the TWiT.TV shows streaming on YouTube.

Leo Laporte has to be one of the most successful producers who has made a jump from traditional media to the Internet. After having his career controlled by others, he took the plunge and started netcasting his first show, This Week in Tech, in 2005, from an outbuilding on his property. Last year he made a move to a major production facility in downtown Petaluma, producing 29 shows, as well as maintaining a live 24/7 streaming channel. 

Chances are good that if there's a subject you are interested in, there will be some type of netcast about it. If not, there probably will be one shortly. And if you feel so inclined, you can start a program yourself. Most of today's smartphones have a good enough quality camera, which shoots high-definition video, which can be used till you decide to upgrade your equipment.