moon traveller herald

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer is about a desperate sea battle that took place in the Samar Gulf off the Philippines toward the end of the World War II. The fighting was a key part of the much larger Battle of the Leyte Gulf. The Last Stand focuses primarily on the destroyers and destroyer escorts that urgently took the fight to an ultra large Japanese incursion force trying to hold (or reverse) advances to (or in) the Philippines. As such it is an in-depth assay on tactics and valor; those looking for more big picture strategy best turn to other tomes. Which is not to say Hornfisher’s book dismisses strategy altogether. The driving forces that lead to this battle – often pictured as the likely the last big naval battle in history – are discussed. Moreover, the scene is set with detailed portraits of Japanese and American participants, somewhat on the order of the writing of Cornelius Ryan. While strategy may not be exactly clean, it can be said that...

In humanitarian move, Trump will equip Wall with doorbell.  Meanwhile, National Guard dispatched to remove Guatemalan family above bodega in Chelsea. Mexican president cancels Washington visit. "Peking is nice this time of year."

Trump Day 2: Goes after the Native American tribes in Lakota territory. Thinks they will be good target, like handicaps, or woman kind. This is first of many huge mistakes he will make. Native Americans in 2017 will not take it - and his hedge will begin to crumble. On top of that, so many of his white supporters have Cherokee blood... sad to resort to in-kind Trumpish putdown, but worse is ahead for his likes. The site of his tail between his legs..I see it now and chorttle. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/24/trump-gives-green-light-to-dakota-access-keystone-xl-oil-pipelines

Underlying the larger discussion of Fake News is the fact that it has been a central element of Donald Trump's manner of gaining the White House. The Fake News ploy has been one of the trusted irons in his fantastic golf bag as he has run amok without replacing divots. Evidence now shows that Trump re-tweets anything that helps his point - if it is planted misinformation, he doesn’t care. *He took time out of his busy life style in 2011, to tweet that Obama wished America Happy Kwanza, but not happy Christmas. A lie. *In 2012, Trump tells us Obama's birth certificate is a fraud. A lie. (Full disclosure: I was born at the same hospital as our first Black president, and I have a stat-foto replica of my own birth certificate, and heck if doesn't actually resemble Barak's.) *Ted Cruz's father was part of the Kennedy Assassination. *He didn’t lose the popular vote because the popular vote was a fake. And on and on. Link Trump up with the retired KGBers over...

During the inauguration hoopla, I read that Michelle Robinson Obama, back in Chicago in the day and before she had been too very long originally dating Barak, asked her brother to play basketball with him and give a report. As the Obama era ends, I thought I would run the piece again. Jake helped create the art. The thinking was that if Obama had genuine character flaws of any kind they would probably surface in a pick up game. I think that is a sort of street smarts; I like the idea. The idea that you study a person this way - it's almost Shakespearian to ask your brother to run the ploy. With that in mind I asked old buddy pick-up game all stars of yore for their take on suspect traits in a pick-up game player - traits that could divulge deep inner traits of character - ugly ones - ones you wouldn’t want to endure for a lifetime. How did they gauge other players? I invited my b-ball buds to forward the question to their team mates too. This ran on MoonTravellerHerald in Marc...

10 am - Listen to John Faney - write poem 5pm - I pick the horse that places, Art Sherman's SceneStealer. 7 pm - Cook Japanese Curry Stew Thing https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AVDG3n8erx5IwVcQOo8rSYMMJWBkBMTJaNAmO7J9_ksG2UtjZKzs_SA/ 8 pm - Comment on big thing I learned recently... that is... Sir Tim Berners-Lee-My thought: WWW unleashed massive scale - and that is changing course of human evolution. Also recall WWW inventer Tim Berners-Lee is one of the famous people that I met (or saw) - I ran up and questioned him after a conf keynote in Boston at Hynes. All flustered was I. Send the question via email he said, it is much better for clarity. So true, not least of all because he talks fast. I saved the email- it's around here somewhere... 8:30 pm - Forgo Pats playoff game, and listen to Symphony live on FM radio. Not in one hour...this starts now... Terry Reilly music performed by BSO! It's a new age! https://t.co/RNggxvkJbq — Jack Vaughan at TT ...

Kremlin-financed media outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) is little more than a propaganda machine controlled by Russian intelligence agencies. yet...Anyone shocked by the Kremlin-funded news station RT in all of this probably never heard of Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded news service that broadcast the American response to Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.  The Ruse seem quite able actors in this field - The US seems a ready audience. This stuff is taking me back to college days. I took a class on World Press at BU led by Larry Martin - actually L awrence Martin-Bittman , a former Czech Intelligence Agent - who had a unique view on "News". Martin-Bittman later wrote a memoir The KGB and Soviet Disinformation. There he wrote "Deception is a relatively easy game, particularly against anyone willing to be deceived. " One of Martin-Bittman's acts as part of Czech intelligence was to forge a letter from Cardinal Spellman to a W,German Anti-Commun...

The crystal hit the waves. The clarinet played the lattice.  The jack the knife sprang. The V.U. meter measured amps of micros. The crystal hit the waves.  - Jack Vaughan

We will pay for the wall, then we will bill Mexico. Trump knows the art of the deal. I have gotten tired with rednecks, excuse me, rural americans to the point where I wonder: Wont they spend their time in gyms with weights and Fox News (on Trump Gym vouchers, in case you didnt hear about the replacement for Obamacare)...and leave it to Trump to drive over to Walmart parking lot and get some migrant day workers to build the wall? 

When Arnold quotes Lincoln to Trump, I listen - The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the cause of our union. https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/arnold-schwarzenegger-fires-back-donald-172626379.html

I came Twitter as I was.. as I was asked to by my employers. That is how JackIVaughan on Twitter happened. Later I adopted a Smiling Jack persona there. I gathered followers, many related to technology. It spread out over time to encompass sports, music etc too. Thereafter my employers asked me to create a Twitter account that explicitly named them. So I had two accnts, and the new one like the former, gained technology related followers. Then I formed a third account, dedicated to Tom Paine and politics. (I shut it down after the 2016 Democratic election debacle, which social media, I think, had a hand in.) I didnt and still dont think it is my place to inflict my political point of view on people that followed me for technology chatter. I feel somewhat similarly about Facebook - it seems more a place to show pics of the grandkids and recall high school schenanigans, rather than do politics (to a point). And there are some folks who use Facebook that way that I would like to pie. So...

When the September Employment numbers came out they were an "Absolute Disaster." When the same numbers come out in February they will be 'Fantastic" and "Huge." That per the Snake Oil Salesman who made it big time.

Wednesday will be a real world, brick and mortar DoS assault on the news-cycle itself. It's a code the GOP has learned from watching the Russians.  http://nydn.us/2iPaovu

No more ‘paper of record’: McGrory offers more details on the Globe’s reinvention https://t.co/k3OUREdDjC via @wordpressdotcom — Jack Vaughan (@JackIVaughan) January 5, 2017

[ View the story "Spot: The Fake" on Storify ]

The back story is that once there was a Chinese Food Restaurant in Hong Kong and the proprietor wanted an English name on the marquee. He needed a translation of something like ''Noble Lotus Noodle''. So he searched the term on the WWW and got a 404 as a result, and it ended up in neon out front. [Click to Enlarge.]- Jack Vaughan

On hearing Getachew Mekurya and the Ex i. I had a little girl total sweetness dont you know like the bakery* in the night baking sweetflour dough She told me she loved me someday I will see she's got the dougth will get a rise from me Riding around the town the girls like that yknow I keep my eye on the donut and not upon the hole. ii. Life is a trip you float, rise and dip you step on the gas you slap her on the ass you try to stay off the dole - like tommy told keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. *The Kappus Bakery was on about 16th St. Brusha and Peterson worked there among others.

My father had a few home library shelves fulled with self help books. Perusing one today on habits.  Self help is timeless.- Jack Vaughan

The Children's Library was such a nice little place. A feast of pictures and words. Big print! And in the stacks they had old Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and all. (And stacks were good for making out with my girlfriend who worked upstairs. The meetings were fun until one of them old librarians chanced upon a tryst. Enough of that! nicely said Supervisor) One night (one night only) they assigned me to cover the Bookmobile as it was stationed on Melvin Ave. Had one patron. Remember that. The books on wheels idea was, well it was like the Internet! On Friday nights while J.S. read at the desk I reinforced and glue bound childrens' periodicals and discarded withdrawn childrens’ books (cutting out good drawings and so on for future ref). - Jack Vaughan

Remembering a recording of Hubert Sumlin playing acoustic guitar and talking at my house (1 Eldora) on Mission Hill. WMBR DJ David Herwaldt and a friend in charge. Nobody thought to take the phone of the hook, so when I call from 'the road' the phone rings in the recording. David thought Hubert could be a great acoustic player – which would be the farthest thing from my mind.. and though he did it once and a while, I don’t think it was top of mind for Hubert. Someone brought the guitar for him to use…maybe it was a Martin. Hubert was very sensitive and could go in a cocoon while still talking to you – or playing – which I think he did at times that day. He liked David a lot, however, I should note. - Jack Vaughan

Remembering Sunnyland Slim at the Paradise in about 1978. It was the second week after the Paradise opened. (The first week featured Lou Reed, who everyone said was a schmuck and surrounded by schmucks.) Sunnyland opened for the Talking Heads. Neither their fans nor the band cared too much about Slim. He was happy to do his sets, and the spread backstage was really nice. He was in fine form. This went on for two or three nights. I recall a funny moment I think where Slim asks the audience to give a big round of applause for the Talking Hands. He could really fracture names. - Jack Vaughan

I am not sure what is going on here, but I'd say it is unfinished. For me, in a way, technology starts with Sputnik. I can recall adults pointing to satellites moving in the sky after Sputnik. Shock and awed 1. Viet Nam and cluster bombing via my beloved B-52 was another step, more sinister. Computerized probability in action. Some coming out of the Army Math Research Center in Madison when I went there. Shocked and Awe 2. Not sure what comes next.. Jack Vaughan http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/sputnik.wav

Claire Hickey Roche was born on an August day in 1920 into the household of Lawrence and Katherine Hickey who'd come over from Ireland. With Lonnie, John,  and Mary, they lived in Brighton on Corey Rd and elsewhere. Claire was first to be born in a hospital perhaps. The others at home. Kate still did some work as a domestic, Lawrence was conductor on the trolleys, and she and my mother would meet him at the end of the day at the end of his run. I've seen a picture of little Claire on a pony – they'd trot them around the neighborhood so the kids could have their pictures taken. I have a picture of Claire with her sister, my mother, and their mother, who's my grandmother. It's like the 1940s, you can imagine the big radio, and the swing music, and Claire is smiling, a young girl with the future ahead. As the other children went off, as far as Hawaii and Japan, Claire stayed home with mother Katherine, after her father's passing.  That was a bit tough, no doubt, b...