I may have blogged about this a year ago and if I did bear with me. It seems like we should remember this week every year to always be reminded how close we came to armagaeddon.
Where were you this week in 1962? I was in kindergarten at Franklin School blissfully unaware how close we were to nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Today was the day that the blockade of Cuba began. One of the best re-tellings of the story was a TV movie in 1974 called the Missiles Of October but even they didn't know the most important part of the story.
The name that all of us should remember is Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov. We learned much later that it was Arkhipov who refused to launch a nuclear tipped torpedo at the blockade from a submarine. The other officers on board were convinced that war had already started but it took all three officers to agree to launch. Arkhipov refused to do it and saved the world from nuclear anihilation. JFK was steady in this crisis but also took some strong calculated risks that could have backfired big time. He was being pressured by his generals to attack…an attack that he knew would put the Russians in a box so they would have no choice but to escalate. It's funny that the situation seems to be reversed now and its the generals who are the cautious ones. Is there an Arkhipov out there? American, Russian or Korean…will there be someone who will be asked to take the nuclear step and refuse? We can only hope.
Two teams that rely heavily on analytics are in the World Series. Does this mean that Dave Roberts and AJ Hinch are robots managing by the numbers. Not necessarily. There will come a time when the numbers will tell them to do one thing and their gut will tell them to do another. They will incure the wrath of the number-crunchers regardless if their hunch works or doesnt. That kind of criticism comes with the territory. The best managers understand this and ignore the outside chatter. Hosuton and LA should be a good World Series…it begins tonight.
I suppose we cant call this the “Fall Classic” since the temperature at game time tonight is expected to be in the high 90's.
Hard to imagine but it was this day in 2004 that the band Queen became the first rock act to get the seal of approval in Iran. Iran??
Happy Birthday to actor B.D. Wong who turns 57 today. You may remember him from Law & Order SVU but he's currently killing it as the transgender bad guy “White Rose” on Mr. Robot
Much has been made of the easy schedule for Wisconsin's football team this year. Penn State fans point out thet the Nittany Lions play Michigan-Ohio State-Michigan State back-to-back-to-back. As Zach Heilprin of Wisconsin Zone Sports pointed out yesterday, “Can't remember anyone outside Wisconsin making a huge deal out of Big Ten imbalance when UW played MSU-Michigan-OSU-Iowa-Nebraska to open Big Ten play last year”.
Lara Trump was modeling a new MAGA hat on Twitter yesterday. Its an orange Jack-o-Lantern hat. Yeah, bright orange.
Racism lives in Wisconsin. This week someone defaced a painted fence near Lambeau Field which contains the faces of prominent current and former players. The only players face that was defaced was…..Reggie White.
Elections have consequences….Read the Daily Beast article by Nico Hines this week detailing how the Trump Administration has apparantly been duped by Putin again and has revoked the visa for Bill Browder. Browder is a former investment fund manager whose whistle-blowing about Putin's actions regarding fraud and the death of Sergei Magnitsky who died in Russian custody after being tortured and not recieving medical care. Those actions led to American sanctions on Putin which, of course Trump would like to get rid of. Don't ever let the “collusion” story die folks. And don't let the right wing sqawk machine deflect you with the idea that there is nothing there………at the risk of feeding the trolls, CNN has decided to fight back over Trump and the squawk machine's “fake news” offensive:
Whenever Trump says “Fake News” just realize its news that he doesnt want you to hear. And news that you probably won't hear from the Trump house organ Fox News and the talk radio world where some of the “real” fake news gets disseminated.
Quotes Of The Day
“We have moved froma presidency that tried(sometimes unsuccessfully) to tune out cable news to a presidency that is driven by it. It is not an improvement”-Ezra Klein
“I find it the height of irresponsibility to be asked to vote on an unprecendented $3 billion dollar deal without first seeing the contract”-WEDC member Tim Carpenter refusing to vote on Foxconn without reading the contract
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it”-Mark Twain (quoted by David Letterman after being presented with the Mark Twain Award on Sunday)
“I'm torn everyday. I want to talk about sports, music, books, tv& movies….and then Trump opens his mouth or flexes his tiny Twitter fingers”-Tom King
Songs Of The Day
Thin Line Between Love & Hate-Annie Lennox ( 1995) a track from her album of covers called “Medusa” redoing an old soul tune originally done by “The Persuaders
A Thin Line Between Love & Hate-The Persuaders (1971) here is the original performed on Soul Train
