Dark Winter Nights, Long Drives and AM Radio

Dark, wet two lane roads appearing in the headlights. Tuning the analog airwaves; WLS, WJR, KDKA, WCBS, WOWO, WSM and others fading in and out, faint Spanish and French in the mix. Remembering hearing rock and roll for the first time on late night AM radio-reliving the past. Is that the Wolfman spinning Buddy on XERF-must be my imagination.

73 de Rob

Tucson

Everyone seems preoccupied with the mindset of the shooter in the Gifford tragedy. My question is what motivated the three civilians that brought a chair to a gunfight. Two were not spring chickens and one was not in proximity to the shooting-he ran to the sound of the guns. My SO opined that real heroes do not think themselves heroic. From what was said in the news interviews these people did not. All to many were concerned with the shooter's motivations and quick to assign blame, not necessarily to the shooter. But what shaped the behavior of those that put themselves in harm's way. The retired army officer I can understand, when I was younger I heard those shots in anger and the reflexes, albeit slowed by time, still stir. But the others? No benefit of training or experience and unarmed, did what had to be done-these are the people we should learn from.

73 de Rob

IT

After the weekend I checked up on a report due asap, went to the que on our electronic document server and 90% was gone and the history said repeated actions had been taken on the documents long after I had logged off. After my diatribe about clay tablets still being readable after 6,000 years the IT boss lady was able to recover most of the text of the report-in ASCII format, with a +between each letter, no pagination, transposed blocks of text and blank spots. I got my copies of Gaines and Kahn and went to work-it was like a Bolshevik transposition cypher. Either the insurer should continue to provide payment to services or I have to attack the Winter Palace on October 25. Nuttin to do with ham radio, or maybe so, like listening to numbers stations, or hearing voices in the static, listening to the randomness......

73 de Rob

Read It!

Science fiction, when not entrapped in utopias, has presenteed remarkable essays on individual liberty, now L. Neil Smith's best is being released-Get It!
http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/?p=455

73 de Rob

P33W Cyprus

Busted the pile-up with a measured five watts, its 1000 miles a watt-QRP goal # 1, just had to snicker. 73 de Rob

The Discovery Channel and Sheepdogs

The stand off and manifesto at the Discovery Channel headquarters has resulted in speculation about the motivation of Lee, the hostage taker. I read his manifesto and, no surprise there, is was reflective of the species self-hatred that has become fashionable in some circles. Delusional people's delusions are a reflection of the zeitgeist-paranoids in the middle ages obsessed about witches not spiders from Mars. Fortunately these are rare but I will not be surprised if Lee's actions and manifesto resonates with some and he will be assigned some degree of martyrdom. Irrespective of his world model be based on a novel about a telepathic gorilla and a twelve year old saving the world.

Not that I do not have sympathy and do endorse some of the "Green" issues; The hunting of cetaceans is an abomination-they are sentient to at least the level of the great apes and most would be repelled by plastic wrapped Gorilla Burger in the meat department of the local Safeway.

All that aside, I want to know more about the people that evacuated the children from the day care at Discovery. A cited number was a hundred children. There is no way that caregivers alone could have accomplished this, there must have been others that exposed themselves to an unknown risk to accomplish the evacuation with no other obligation than moral.
R. A. Heinlein said something to the effect that when all the window dressing is stripped away the basic task of civilization is to protect children and child-bearing women. Mr. Lee did not believe this, it is magnificent that others did. One of the MilBlogs I frequent refer to such people as the day care workers as Sheepdogs, willing to stand between the helpless of the flock and danger. Those people were Sheepdogs and give civilization hope-Well Done!

73 de Rob

First Confirmed Light House

Just a little fun 73 de Rob