Malaysian flight 370

This here video clip ('courtesy' of The Atlantic Magazine), taken from space several hundred kilometers from Earth, obviously, of a flight passing the world's tallest building brings the missing Malaysian Airlines' flight MH370 (a Boeing 777-2H6ER on its way from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members) in mind in a flash. It seems we, the humanity, can see what is going on in our airspace with amazing accuracy.

Note that in the video, the satellite's angular movement is quite fast, because its trajectory is at fairly low altitudes. Hence, the building is tilting noticeably away from the satellite's movement, and from us, the viewers in the sky. And also the aircraft's apparent trajectory seems to be moving away from us, the observers.

This is amazingly accurate picture, though!

Down here, on the ground, worth some nimble interpretation may also be what Jay Carney (the then president Barrack Obama's spokesman, who has resigned since) meant, exactly, in the first days after the flight disappeared, when stating in a White House press briefing that the aircraft is actually in Indian Ocean (south-west of Malaysia), while the search aircraft and vessels were at the time still deployed searching east of Malaysia. Sounds now, many weeks later, more than intriguing, doesn't it? What Carney said, after some unnamed Pentagon official had first hinted the same, is like this:

“It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean, and we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy.”

That statement precedes the later speculation that the aircraft's engines had been running up to 7 hours after the last contact over South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. INMARSAT calculated later on that the aircraft's probable course could have been along a circular route either northwest and southeast of Malaysian airspace

The problem with MH370 seems to be that, after the flight had levelled off at 35,000 feet, something/someone inhibited/damaged the aircraft's location (e.g. ADS-B that broadcasts certain location specific data 'continuously') transmissions and all other communications from the aircraft including the Secondary Surveillance Radar replies. What that something/someone was, is anybody's guess.

There are (unconfirmed, naturally) reports that MH370 had climbed to 45,000 feet, which is well above the maximum operable flight altitude limit specified for this type of aircraft, after it had disappeared from civilian radar at the time when its control was being handed over from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysian) ACC (Area Control Centre) to Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) ACC. The last radio communications where quite normal and innocent enough at 01.18 Malaysian local time:

Lumpur ACC: 'Malaysian Three Seven Zero contact Ho Chi Minh 120 decimal 9 Good Night.'

MH 370: 'Good Night Malaysian Three Seven Zero.'

After the flight disappeared from the civilian surveillance systems and reached 45,000 feet (again according to these unconfirmed reports), it had descended in sporadic steps to 23,000 feet, and had then climbed to 29,500 feet at the time when all radar contact was lost with the flight, including by military surveillance.

All that could imply that the aircraft was not flown by a functioning human being or an aircraft system. However, it has been widely interpreted as meaning that somebody/something was flying the aircraft and trying to avoid being detected by surveillance systems.

The plot thickened further, when, day after Carney declared that the search area will be moved thousands of kilometres south west of Malaysia in that briefing at the White House, a CIA admiral (can't find the name now) went public and angrily asked how the hell the White House can tell such a thing (that the aircraft is in Indian Ocean). And White House went quiet for awhile.

Meanwhile, the search continued Heaven knows where, until INMARSAT used, a week later or so, their expertise to calculate the probable locations and the search was moved eventually to Indian Ocean and intensified using military units from several States and an Australian general (ex-chief of their armed forces no less) was put in charge of the search (instead of SAR experts from one of the participating states).

So, that would be a good start for a beautiful conspiracy theory.

Of course, what happened could as well be explained in terms of technical problems and flying several hours until the fuel run out. But that would not be as interesting as a good, old-fashioned and solid conspiracy, would it?

Intriguing times we are living!?

Selina Meyer for President

She even looks the part...

Incidentally, I support the Veep in all its shapes and forms.

I, naturally, also support Selina Meyer's campaign to be the next president of the USA.

...and so does she!

In her absence, any woman with a degree from, say, the Wellesley College would do. Especially a one, who has this to show in her résumé from 1969, and who has always had an excellent dress sense.

Definitely, I would also support Julia Roberts for the same position (or any position, for that matter), if being the most powerful person on Earth can be called a mere position. Although, judging by her film Mona Lisa Smile (2003), it seems likely she would be more interested in finding a Red onion and being a beatnik in the Village than being President, and I can't really judge her harshly for that.

The Newsroom, series 2

http://hbowatch.com/the-newsroom-the-genoa-ti/

Just stopped watching Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom series 2 episode 1.

The bastards opened a whole bunch of captivating storylines without closing any just to make sure that, come next Sunday, I'll be sitting my nose on the TV screen and salivating like Pavlov's dogs into their empty food bowls. And shameful for not feeling any shame at all.

The biggest question: Why is Maggie looking like that red and spiky-headed girl with the dragon tattoo?

Of Mankell, and Hamlet, too

Picture from Mankell's WEB site.

Henning Mankell, an optimist even after 4 past marriages and 40 published books (first in 1973) of which only a quarter involve Wallander:

"...Too few writers accept they have a moral responsibility to take a stand".

The Guardian reports in an article called Henning Mankell: 'I shall not miss Wallander'.

I've always thought that every writer takes a stand, since, supposedly, the books are not published by accident, but, rather, by purpose. At least from a point of view of this, an eternally blue-eyed, reader.

Olivier as Hamlet in 1948

A problem may be how to make that 'stand' palatable to readers and not boring like the 'stand' most often is. But then, perhaps Mankell really means that the writers have a moral responsibility to take a stand similar to his. Looking at the Nobel winning writers, it may be that the Nobel judges have the similar stand to Mankell's. Which is Ok with me.

By the by, I don't read much crime at all and have only read a few of Mankell's books, although have watched with intense interest both the Swedish-made Wallander-films and the ones made with Kenneth Branagh. I liked the Swedish ones better. Branagh's version of Wallander was too angsty, Shakespearean sort of way, which, obviously, is no wonder at all. Branagh's Hamlet is probably as good a Hamlet as they have ever been. Recently I watched Olivier's (1948), Branagh's (1996) and David Tennant's (2009) versions back to back in one day. All are splendid adaptations and well worth watching.

Picture Hanhensulka: a Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) in Victorian Alps, Australia

Everybody knows that the Australian national poet, 'bush poet', is Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, who is well-known world-wide for the often misunderstood words of a poem called Waltzing Matilda, the unofficial Australian national anthem. It should, for all fairness, be the official anthem, too. Try to sing the current anthem, (by an order of the Queen Elizabeth II's representative in the Land of Oz, the Governor-General, since 1984) ‘Advance Australia Fair’ (you know: 'Australians all let us rejoice / for we are young and free...'), composed by a Scot, Peter Dodds McCormick, who called himself ‘Amicus’, and if you tried, you'd know what I mean.

Patterson is also, and rightly so, depicted on our 10-dollar note, perhaps partly to reflect the normally very low income of those, who step on the path to immortality by the way of writing poems.

The reason I started contemplating the 'Australia Fair' is that I took the picture of this Superb Fairy-wren in the Victorian Alps east of Melbourne, in an old prospectors' site, 8-mile Flat, on Howqua River not far from where the Australian movie, The Man from Snowy River, was made. The film is based on a poem of the same name by 'Banjo' Paterson. A part of the poem goes like this:

"...He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen..."

Superb Fairy-wrens, on the other hand, live in large groups and are very difficult to capture with camera due to their constant movement, swiftness and tiny size: full-grown between 10 and 14 cm. There are about 8 different species of Fairy-wrens in Victoria.

By the way, it may seem strange, when one considers how the two main political parties in Australia treat the asylum seekers, who come to these here shores to save their lives, literally, that the Australian national anthem has even these beautiful but so little truthful lines:

"...For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share...
---
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair."

Twain and a Mysterious Stranger

http://www.classicreader.com/book/1370/9/

Let's recall an angel, called Satan, from the pages of Mark Twain's posthumous (1916) story from 1590, the 'Austrian Middle Ages' as Twain calls the storytime, The Mysterious Stranger, Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug, and Freely Translated from the Jug, (Chapter 9) to tell us about just wars:

"...and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers...but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation...will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception..."

One would, perhaps, be forgiven to think that in certain types of thing, the times have not really been a-changin' that much at all.

Why to Get Rid of Chick Flicks?

Dear Reader would probably never have thought the kind of thoughts refered to in this posting and asked her/himself:

Why to get rid of Chick flicks?

 Chick flicks refered to above, of course, mean female-centric movies like, I don't know, On Golden Pond, Gone with the Wind, Legally Blonde, Ghost, Pretty Woman (OK, this might be better suited for certain types of men than women, although it, surprisingly, is a modern Cinderella story, no more, no less), Sex and the City (either), Black Swan...

Well, you know, chick flicks.

 Even though nobody may never have had a question about it, the Washington Post, as ever, has on answer (Roll the credits on chick flicks by Melissa Silverstein). And the answer seems to be: because they

"taint all movies about women, even ones that are not regressive and demeaning".

Autch.

 Is the same true for the chick lit? Surely not.

Anna Karenina and Other Hairy Tales

Picture:Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions

Anna Karenina is a book best gobbled when one is bound by one’s pubertal angst. It is more painful to swallow once one has tasted real life in great quantity. Funny that a writer like Leo Tolstoy got it so right for both.

Of course, it’s not the only such novel: think of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (for youths it’s an adventure, for adults a metaphor for the British Empire), or almost any of the Jane Austen’s novels (for youths the life’s passion is in the initial burning kisses, adults know that the real life starts only after).

If you havn't read Anna Karenina yet, here is a chance to do it on line. And check, if the most famous clichéd quote from high literature really goes:

"All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way..."

Of course, the translators always insert their marks in the original text, after all translators are really interpretors on behalf of those who don't read in many tongues.

Dreams and Angsts

Picture: Umberto Eco as seen by John Macdougall's camera in Chigaco Tribune on 14.11.2011

"Because now I am excruciatingly aware, each time I pick up a book, of all the books I am shunning in order to focus on the one in my hand."

The above quote is from an article, Umberto Eco and the guilty pleasure of re-reading, by a cultural critic Julia Keller in Chigaco Tribune on November 9, 2011.

The older one becomes the more angsty urgency there is to read those books that should have been read a long time ago but never were for reasons of laziness, inattention, carelessness, active avoidance and other human failings. We all have only this finite time. As always: When one turns to embrace somebody, one's back is turned to all others.

I may have mentioned this already, Dear Reader, but my dream has been for a long time to read Dostoyevsky in Russian. I’ve even started learning Russian, several times in fact, just that particular dream in mind. Variations of the dream include Pushkin, Turgenev or Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina but funnily enough not his War and Peace.

I mention this in passing here because an angsty urgency has hit again and out comes the Russian learning material. Ludmila, a second-hand book dealer in the Saturdays’ book market in Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art-building, one of the post-modern buildings in an important Melburnian landmark, the Federation Square complex, has already got a request to look for a new Russian text for a desperate beginner.

Days and days

Kuva Hanhensulka 2012, A sun sets in St. Kilda.

February 17 was like any other day, only different.

Obviously, Dear Reader, there are dates in ones life that are more important than some others. This one is used to mark the passing of one lifetime. One tries to ignore it as much as possible.

It was easy when there was a cushion of parents to rely on. Funny thing is that even at a mature age, as long as they are there, one is still a child, well, to a certain extent at least, feeling protected against one's fate.

Of course, the fate always wins at the end.

Fortunately for the individual, they will not know about it, since life is without a start or the end. For the person, there is no birth nor death, only the existence and its opposite, which we will never know, in person.

The Artist of Disappearance

The reading year 2012 has started. The first finished novel (actually a collection of three beautiful novellas) is by Anita Desai called The Artist of Disappearance.

Book's three novellas fit in 156 pages (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and share some big themes like problems of modernisation of society, solitude, social alienation, nature of art, role of artists and such things somewhat familiar from her previous books.

Whitman, Shakespeare and Company

Picture by Hanhensulka

The picture is of Walt Whitman and is located on a wall next to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in St. Michel on the left bank of Seine opposite Notre Dame in Paris, France. The previous owner, an American called George Whitman, died in December 2011 in Paris at 98. The text (translated into French by León Bazalgette about hundred years ago) is from from Walt Whitman's poem 'To A STRANGER' from his life's work "Leaves of Grass":

"Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you..."

The Shakespeare and Company is presently owned by George's daughter, Sylvia Whitman. Neither she nor George is related to Walt the Poet.

Tilda has no errors, or does she?

Aargh! Apparently there is an error in this, if one can call it like that. The photo is linked to the image sharer site imgur.

The picture depicts Tilda Swinton as 'Orlando' in film by the same name, which is based on Virginia Woolf's book Orlando: A Biography. The book tells a tale of a woman (or a man) who exists through space and time starting in the Elizabethan England.

Aurora Borealis 70N, 30E

The Aurora from TSO Photography on Vimeo. Video is by a Norwegian nature photographer Terje Sørgjerd from TSO Photography

Ah, nostalgia. Here, it's been three days close to plus 40 deg, today was better but we'll get the heat back shortly.

On the other hand, through the warm, flowing tears or nostalgia I do remember the frost biting my cheeks, fingers and toes. Oh well, there it is...

It is no Stradivarius, just a naughty violin

Picture: Satu Vänskä of Australian Chamber Orchestra plays her million(+)-dollar Stradivarius, taken from The Age

It is a truth most likely that World is full of judgements governed by Wanker Index (WI).

I don't know how the index works but can give wine tasting by us ordinary mortals, who don't carry a dog's snout to smell things, as an example, or food tasting, appreciation of poetry, hiphop or music in general for that matter. It seems that judging violins also falls under the spell of WI.

Today's The Age reports of a finding by Dr. Claudia Fritz of University of Paris that modern violins are indistinguishable from, or better than, the Guarneris or Stradivari raped by time and lauded by hordes of opera and symphony loving rankers (like this blogger, by the by).

I wonder if WI also governs the use of plural with an 'i' for all instances of nouns ending with '-us'. Naah, most unlikely.

Read more in 'Million-dollar Stradivarius loses out in play-off with modern violin' by Ian Sample and Gina McColl in The Age

Facebook celeb

Want to be a Facebook celeb? This is how.

Cheers

Nothing is so cheerless than an old facebook entry (apart from an old, unchanging blog posting, maybe).

2012

The morning stirred up
like yesterday and before
Still, it’s a new year

Arab Spring and another wisdom

The still continuing 'Arab spring' shouts loudly 'al shaab yureed asqat al nitham', or in English 'the people want collapse of the system' or something like that.

Perhaps they get it and more permanently than intended; this 2012 is, after all, the last year in history (according to some interpretations of Mayan wisdom).

A Twenties Memory

Not my memory, mind you. But a short story by Woody Allen, "A Twenties Memory" in his 1971 book "Getting Even", turns into "Midnight in Paris" in mere 40 years.

The "Midnight", his best picture for quite a while, might still rescue Allen's battered reputation from the gutters. I loved it.

The linked article, "Woody Allen's First Stab at 'Midnight in Paris': A 1971 Short Story", is from The Odds by Steve Pond.