WWII Marine

I found this old photo of my grandpa. He served on Tarawa and Pelielu (sic). He fixed aircraft.

10 Places for the Temporal Anthropologist to Visit (part 1)

Noted temporal anthropologist Dr. Wendell A. Howe is currently investigating the immigrant experience by traveling from Liverpool to New York on the RMS Umbria.  He debarked at Ellis Island with the rest of the steerage passengers, spent a couple of days processing through immigration, and most recently hit the slums of New York with social reformer and muckraker, Jacob Riis.  Not a bad trip for your average 27th century time traveler looking to learn about the details of one of the most famous immigration paths in history.

Dr. Howe's travels, along with a recent article on the "Top Ten" destinations for a a time traveler got me to thinking what would be my Top Ten destinations in time.  For the purposes of this list we're going to assume the Babel Fish has been invented (and thus that God has been proven not to exist). We'll also assume that my appearance will be suitably altered so that for example when I show up in Japan in 1281 I'm not instantly put to the sword for being an unwelcome foreigner in a closed land.

In no particular order here we go:

Off Trafalgar October 1805:
The greatest battle in the Age of Fighting Sail, Admiral Lord Nelson led 27 British ships of the line against 33 French and Spanish ships of the line under French Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve. Nelson was killed, but his destruction of the combined fleet saved Britain from invasion by Napoleon. Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, took numerous casualties so I probably don't want to hang out on the Admiral's flagship, but a perusal of the order of Battle of Trafalgar shows HMS Conqueror as having received three dead and nine wounded for a casualty rate of 2% amongst its officers and ratings. I'll take those odds.

The British casualties across the fleet were relatively light, but for the Victory and the HMS Royal Sovereign casualties were heavy with 20% of the men in each ship either killed or wounded. Of all British casualties at Trafalgar 80% were from two the first two ships in Nelson's weather line and the first six ships Vice-Admiral Collingwood's lee line. The combined French Spanish fleet suffered indiscriminately with an estimated 5000 dead and another 10,000 wounded or captured sailors and marines.

Alexandria circa 100BC and Baghdad circa 1100AD:
Eventually these two places would see two of the greatest crimes in human history committed. Once you've beaten the other side's army, kill the women and rape the cattle, but DO NOT destroy the largest compendium of human knowledge ever gathered up that point. Just don't do it.

The Library at Alexandria seems to have survived Julius Cesaer's unintentional burning of it, and it's later reduced history is clouded in mystery. The House of Wisdom was sacked after the Siege of Baghdad by the Mongol Hordes in 1258. It is claimed, perhaps apocryphally, that the waters of the Tigris ran black for six months following the the library's destruction from all the books and scrolls the Mongols threw in the river.

Whatever their later histories in 100BC and 1100AD the two libraries were at or near the height of their collections. Some temporal anthropologist could spend a lifetime at either of these two institutions, but as I'm more a temporal tourist I'd just like to spend a year or two at each surreptitiously scanning knowledge that's been forever lost to humanity. Though this list is generally without order, these would be the first two places I would visit.

Jerusalem circa 30-33AD:
We're gonna see what all the fuss is about. Basically this one is pretty simple. Was Western history worth it? It's pretty straightforward really. I'm gonna go back and hang with Jesus. If he is the Son of God, he'll know why I am there. If he looks at me like I just fell off the last donkey in the crazy convoy, well, sorry people, we've been had. Either way, I gotta know.

Come back for Part 2.

what?

I'm not doing this twitter thing right

Ok first off my real account http://twitter.com/mcsey 400 or so hard earned followers over what three years or so that I first started making noises on Twitter. 2400 tweets of varying quality, but for me at least exactly what I was looking for. I can scroll back through my timeline and find what I was thinking about or doing on whenever.

On Friday @ferris_bueller_ @cameron_ and @sloanepetereson_ started recreating "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" via twitter and foursquare. Thinking it would be a funny one off joke I made an @Prin_Rooney account, posted Principal Rooney as my profile pic and tweeted "I'm onto you @ferris_bueller_ I will catch you this time." And then started arriving at places they marked on foursquare just after they got to the next place, and generally tweeting like I was confused about the differences between 1986 Chicago and today (WTF is Willis Tower, and how do I get there?)

In a word... bullshit.

I got a few followers on Friday, and then went home for the weekend. I get in today, and well...

http://twitter.com/Prin_Rooney 510 followers in three days, now how do I leverage that? I should have just used a gimmick account to begin with.

Why Coakley Lost

A commenter on Balloon Juice nails it down tight.

Balloon Juice Blog Archive Like Deja Vu All Over Again: "And the reason this happened is very simple. The people handed the Democrats a tremendous amount of power and said “We want change.” And the Dems responded by saying that they like the status quo just fine so long as they’re in charge. It’s not surprising that they’re suffering consequences for this."

I'm reading a lot of "we lost because we're too liberal" from Democrats. That's bullshit. Coakley lost because in 2008 the American people said "Change please", and they didn't get it. They didn't get it from a lily-livered spineless Congress, and they didn't get it from Obama. Remember his slogan was "Hope"? Maybe it should have been "Wish" or "Pipe Dream".

Rafa or Hicks & Gillett

There are legitimate complaints about Rafa. His selections and substitutions often leave me mystified. We spent 20 million for Aqui to bring him in as a 80th minute sub?  We have by various estimates 47, 52, 62 or 913 senior level players, and what we saw against Stoke is the best line-up that we can produce regardless of injuries?  Not pretty.  Not pretty.  But, and this is huge, Rafa is not the one that forced Liverpool to use its profits to service its debts instead of buy players, and Rafa's not the one with the history of running sports clubs into the ground.  

Hicks and his company destroyed Corinthians in Brazil.  They went from a FIFA World Club Cup championship shortly after Hicks' purchased them to relegation and financial ruin before Hicks sold them.  The Texas Rangers are nothing special, but after Hicks defaulted on $525 million in loans to the Rangers and his NHL team the Dallas Stars, the Rangers couldn't even make payroll twice last year and MLB had to loan money to the Rangers just to pay the players.  Rangers fans want Hicks just as gone from their team as we Reds do from ours, and the Rangers stunk even before Hicks took over and okayed the single dumbest contract in sports history.  The Dallas Stars are the only team he's ever owned that's won anything well into his tenure as owner, and what do they have to show for it -- one Stanley Cup -- a single championship.  Outside of Liverpool Hicks has owned mediocre teams, and now that mediocrity is starting to show up at Anfield.  Hicks is one half the problem, and I bet you can guess what the other half is.

George Gillett until recently owned a franchise that is the Liverpool FC of its league.  The Montreal Canadiens are the most decorated franchise in NHL history.  The team has won 24 Stanley Cups.  They have won at least one Stanley Cup per decade every decade of the team's existence going back to the second decade of the twentieth century -- except for the last decade when they were owned from 2001 till earlier this year by George Gillett.  Since Gillett took over the Canadiens have missed the playoff three times and never made it out of the second round when they did qualify. If hockey had a table without conferences and divisions, Montreal would've finished in following positions:

08-09 -- 14

07-08 -- 3

06-07 -- 17

05-06 -- 15

04-05 -- (No season. NHL lockout)

03-04 -- 11

02-03 -- 22

01-02 -- 18

Save for the 07-08 season those are not inspiring finishes in a 30 team league and with those early playoff exits the Canadiens didn't get a whiff of the Stanley Cup during Gillett's tenure as owner. To be fair to Gillett those performances are actually an improvement  over the three previous years before Gillett took over (the club was at a historic low point); however, he certainly didn't get very far towards his "vision is to restore the franchise as the greatest team in hockey."  Does that remind anyone of a certain joint statement issued by Gillett and Hicks?  "This is truly the largest sport in the world, the most important sport in the world, and this is the most important club in the most important sport in the world... Liverpool is a fantastic club with a remarkable history and a passionate fanbase. We fully acknowledge and appreciate the unique heritage and rich history of Liverpool and intend to respect this heritage in the future."

We all know what happened next.  The most important club in the most important sport in the world proved no more important to these men then breakfast cereal.  The "blueprint of what not to do" as Hicks described the Glazers' purchase of ManU turned out to be exactly the plans used to purchase Liverpool.  Debt has mounted.  Not securing stadium financing before the recession has left the stadium in limbo for the foreseeable future.  And now the mediocrity that has been the hallmark of all previous franchises owned by Gillett and/or Hicks is starting to seep from the boardroom onto the pitch.

I may not agree with or understand some of Rafa's football related decisions, but I trust that he is making decisions that he feels are the best for Liverpool FC.  I trust the he is working his hardest at "coaching and training" his players, and doing his all to make certain that LFC puts the best football team it can on the pitch.  I certainly cannot say the same about the business decisions made by Hicks, Gillett, and the rest of the boardroom.  They've already proven that Liverpool is worth no more to them than a bowl of bland unsweetened cereal.  They'll do whatever they can to wring a dollar out of the brand, and if they happen to win while doing so so be it. If they don't, oh well...

A simple comparison of records -- Rafa's teams have won La Liga twice, the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup during his tenure at the top of the bootroom.  Hicks and Gilletts' teams have in all sports have won one Stanley Cup and one FIFA World Club Cup between them at the top of the boardroom.  That World Club Cup came the same way our only success (CL Runner's Up) has come since they purchased the club... namely right after they did so, and before they could screw the club up.  Hicks and Gillett, not Rafa, brought mediocrity to Liverpool.  The longer that they stay the lower that we will sink regardless of who the manager is.