BERLIN
Germany on Sunday celebrates the 25th anniversary of the night the Berlin Wall fell, a pivotal moment in the collapse of communism and the start of the country's emergence as the major power at the heart of Europe.And here's a flavor of what that lighted balloon memorial looks like:
A 15-kilometer (nine-mile) chain of lighted balloons along the former border will be released into the air early Sunday evening — around the time on Nov. 9, 1989 when a garbled announcement by a senior communist official set off the chain of events that brought down the Cold War's most potent symbol.
VATICAN CITY—In the 500 or so years since the Sistine Chapel was decorated, it has never looked so good. That’s in part because no one has ever seen Michelangelo’s frescoes portraying the book of Genesis and “The Last Judgment” in quite the right light. Now, with the help of 7,000 light-emitting diodes or LEDs, the detailed work has emerged from the shadows.
The new lighting system was unveiled last week to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the chapel’s restoration and the 450th anniversary of Michelangelo’s death. The lighting project, together with a new climate control system, cost nearly $4 million, paid in part by funds from the European Union through a consortium called Led4Art, led by German light bulb giant Osram, which developed a special color temperature to best enhance Michelangelo’s hues at around 3,550 Kelvin units, according to the Osram explainer on the magical illumination. The rest of the work was donated either in supplies, expertise, or technology by firms who wanted to be involved in the project, meaning the Vatican didn’t have to spend any resources for the extraordinary enhancement.The best thing about the article? A link to a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel, about which, these:
Tour costs are surprisingly reasonable for what’s included, with the nine-day Silver Road Rally priced at £3,950 ($6,320) per car for two people and the nine-day SAFE Raid priced at £3,275 ($5,240) per car.Hell, I spent that much during the Great Divorce Tour of 1999 and I didn't have a car included in the price. I did have a few rides, though, and I'll bet my "rides" were a LOT more comfortable, not to mention entertaining.
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| Pro-union supporters celebrated in Glasgow as the result became clearer. (photo from the Beeb, more here) |
It hardly ever fails: what's old is new again. One wonders when the ol' "duck and cover" stuff will be re-purposed. Then again, given the administration's "it ain't there if I can't see it" approach to foreign affairs, little or nothing will be done. It'll be bid'niz as usual.
A 3rd Wing F-22 Raptor escorts a Russian Air Force Tu-95 Bear bomber near Nunivak Island, 2007. It was the first intercept of a Bear bomber for an F-22 which was alerted out of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson’s Combat Alert Center. (Courtesy photo, Wikimedia Commons) Two Russian strategic bombers conducted practice cruise missile attacks on the United States during a training mission last week that defense officials say appeared timed to the NATO summit in Wales.
The Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers were tracked flying a route across the northern Atlantic near Iceland, Greenland, and Canada’s northeast.
Analysis of the flight indicated the aircraft were conducting practice runs to a pre-determined “launch box”—an optimum point for firing nuclear-armed cruise missiles at U.S. targets, said defense officials familiar with intelligence reports.
Disclosure of the nuclear bombing practice comes as a Russian general last week called for Moscow to change its doctrine to include preemptive nuclear strikes on the United States and NATO.
Gen. Yuri Yakubov, a senior Defense Ministry official, was quoted by the state-run Interfax news agency as saying that Russia’s 2010 military doctrine should be revised to identify the United States and the NATO alliance as enemies, and clearly outline the conditions for a preemptive nuclear strike against them.
Yakubov said among other needed doctrinal changes, “it is necessary to hash out the conditions under which Russia could carry out a preemptive strike with the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces”—Moscow’s nuclear forces.
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| Air Frame: Capt. Andrew Glowa, lead, and Capt. William Piepenbring, both with the 74th Fighter Squadron out of Moody AFB, Ga., launch flares from two A-10C Thunderbolt II over the skies of southern Georgia, Aug. 18, 2014. (Air Force photo by SSgt. Jamal D. Sutter) |
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Still More From the Archives - Moscow
It came to pass in 1993 that Electronic Data Systems (now defunct, the old company currently doing bid'niz as HP Enterprise Services) decided it would be a Good Thing to get their foot in the door of the former Evil Empire, seein' as how the Russian gub'mint was privatizing former state-owned enterprises at a most astonishing rate. And they were, Gentle Reader, yes they were. EDS felt that there might be some serious opportunities there and began pursuing bid'niz in Russia... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.One such newly privatized company was Rostelecom, an analogue to the old monolithic AT&T for all intents and purposes, in that the company provides long-distance telephone services for all of Russia. It also came to pass that Rostelecom released an RFP early in 1993 for network management consulting services; EDS bid on the RFP and won the contract. Shortly after that the company released a call for volunteers to staff a team that would go to Moscow for on-site surveys and evaluations of Rostelecom's network management infrastructure, said team further being required to recommend technical improvements and a strategy for implementing the recommendations.
Cutting to the chase... I was the technical team lead for that project and made two trips to Moscow, one in early July 1993 and the second in September of that year. What follows are some snapshots from the last Moscow trip. I didn't take all that many still photos when I went, what with having bought my first video camera for the sole purpose of documenting the experience. And I shot a LOT of video. At some point in time I'll get those old VHS tapes converted into digital format, but that remains a task on my To Do list... and it's pretty far down that list, actually. So, without further ado...
Shelly, an EDS sub-contractor and YrHmblScrbJust meTwo shots of me on Red Square and one of the changing of the guard at Lenin's tomb. Yep, the mausoleum that holds his waxy ol' cadaver is still one of the biggest tourist attractions in Moscow or was, at the time. Watching those immaculate goose-stepping troops gave me a world-class chill, believe me. Click for larger and note how they carry those rifles. Impressive.The very FIRST thing we did after unpacking and sleeping off the arrival drunk (more on that phenomenon below) was to walk over to Red Square. The sole saving grace of the flea-bag hotel EDS booked us into was the fact it was within walking distance of one of the most famous squares in all the world. We'll digress just a lil bit more to say EDS was doing this deal on a shoestring and doubled up everyone on the team, two to a room. That was the first and only time that ever happened in all the road trips I made with EDS and it was ugly, given my roommate snored like a proverbial buzz saw. I MIGHT have gotten all of four hours uninterrupted sleep during the two weeks of that first trip. Back to Red Square... my one lasting impression of my first view of the place... and it IS most impressive... was turning to one of my co-workers and casually mentioning "there's at least three MIRVs sitting in a hole somewhere in North Dakota with these EXACT geo-coordinates programmed into the warheads." He looked at me like I was insane.
About the drinking... we were met at the airport by a welcoming delegation from Rostelecom and the first thing we did upon leaving the airport was whip into a hotel parking lot and consume two large bottles of vodka. Amongst the six of us on the team and our two Russian hosts. That lil event set the tone for the remaining two weeks. After we'd finished with the welcoming toasts we were driven to our hotel and given a half-hour to shower and change, whereupon we were off once again to a welcoming banquet. The food was very good and the vodka continued to flow throughout the two-hour ordeal. I say "ordeal" because we had just decamped from an approximately ten hour flight between JFK and Moscow... we were DEAD tired. And then we were drunk. Dead drunk. But it was one of those deals you could NOT refuse.
So, we drank a lot. Early and often, too. An example: my project counterpart was a Rostelecom director who summoned me into his office every morning at 1000 hrs for his daily briefing. I'd be ushered in to his office by his secretary who would seat me in front of the guy's desk and then proceed to his wet bar where she would pull out a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. We'd have a drink, I'd brief him, and then we'd have another drink... sometimes two. When we left the country after the first phase of the study was complete one of my team members said to me "Thank God that's over. Another week and I'd need a new liver." That's not much of an exaggeration.
Some shots of the hotel room on my second trip. This time only two of us went over to do final reviews and we each had our own rooms... in a MUCH better hotel.
My bed
The sitting area
The bathroom
The bathrooms were the BEST thing about Moscow hotel rooms, at least in the two hotels I stayed in. The tubs were long and deep, deep, deep... just the thing for a full body immersion experience after a trying day. And most days were trying, Gentle Reader.
The conference room where we did our final reviews; note the ashtrays. I LOVED that aspect of doing bid'niz in Russia... most everyone smoked and NO one looked down on you if you indulged. My kinda people. At the time.
Me standing across a busy boulevard from one of the many Stalinist architectural monstrosities that litter the Moscow skyline. Present day Muscovites take a perverse sense of pride in these Gawd-Awful things. And they are kinda-sorta impressive in a bizarre way.
One last vignette. Something else happened in Moscow in September of 1993 and you might remember it, Gentle Reader. We were in the end-game of our outbriefs and had about three days left in-country when I was awakened very early one morning (like 0430 hrs) by a phone call from a VERY panicked wife who demanded to know "What the HELL is going on over there?" "What do you mean?" sez I. "Haven't you been watching ANY teevee?" she asked, incredulously. "Hang on," sez I. I walked over and flipped on the teevee (which was always tuned to the Beeb, the ONLY English-language station available) just in time to catch some talking head seriously intoning "... and it looks like Russia is on the brink of civil war. Back to you, Barbara." Say what!?! Russia? Civil War? THIS Russia? Shit! Damn!
Fast forward to later that same day. On our way to the office we noticed many busloads of troops strategically parked at various intersections around the capital and that afternoon we saw our first tanks on the way home from the office. I returned to the hotel to find numerous messages from EDS... in both the Dallas and Detroit offices... all of which said "Call IMMEDIATELY!" So, we booked a phone call and got in touch with our management, who informed us we were to leave the very next day, no questions, no ifs, no buts. Get the Hell out and get out ASAP... there are tickets waiting for you at the airport.
And so we did. Three days later Yeltsin ordered the Army to fire on the White House and the crisis was over. But it was sure exciting for a couple of American bid'niz men caught on the ground there... for a brief moment.
WHAT!!!??? No Bastille Day celebration? And for a guy who has lived in France?Mea culpa. This is doubly embarrassing coz I'd thought about this day several days ago, thinkin' "Well, we gotta put sumthin' up about Bastille Day." And then we woke up this morning with... ahem... a clean slate.
Shame on you, Buck! (or was your experience in France the reason you're skipping this day? :) )
And while you are in the mood for dancing, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Abba's Eurovision Song Contest victory in Brighton with Waterloo. This week's celebrations of their victory – they scored nul points from the UK – included a party at the Swedish embassy in London and a celebration at Tate Modern, which featured the mesmeric magic skills on Charlie Caper.That's from the Usual Source of the Saturday videos. And just so you don't have to click that link above, here's Mr. Caper doin' his magic tricks... from Stockholm.
And Eight Become Seven
President Barack Obama, who is in Europe for the Nuclear Security Summit, met with leaders of the G-7 (the US, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan) in the Netherlands Monday to discuss the situation in Ukraine. The seven nations, along with the Presidents of the European Union and the European Commission, expressed continuing support for the country through what is being called The Hague Declaration. The document denounces Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and once again makes a plea for a diplomatic solution. However, it also reaffirms that there will be "significant consequences" for Russia's actions. "This group came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities," states the declaration. "Russia's actions in recent weeks are not consistent with them. Under these circumstances, we will not participate in the planned Sochi Summit. We will suspend our participation in the G-8 until Russia changes course and the environment comes back to [one] where the G-8 is able to have a meaningful discussion … "
James: Air Force Ready to "Step Up" in Ukraine if Asked
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the Air Force is "ready to step up to the plate" in Ukraine if it's asked, noting the service already has "kicked it up a notch with respect to some of our training, particularly with Poland and the Baltic policing mission." Speaking to Stars and Stripes at Ramstein AB, Germany, during her first trip to Europe and Afghanistan since becoming Secretary, James said the Air Force is able to surge if necessary. "The situation between Russia and the Ukraine is not currently affecting our operations here in Europe, in terms of the way we project to reshape the Air Force in the future and our current operations," she said.
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| Air Frame: Four Air Force Thunderbird F-16 Fighting Falcons zoom by the visitors of the Lightning in the Desert Air Show March 16, 2014, on Luke AFB, Ariz. The event was open to the general public to view vintage aircraft and the F-35A Lightning II. (Air Force photo by SrA. Marcy Copeland) |
