The Mosh Pit » Essays

70 years….

Mosh Pit Matt — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:41:27 +0000

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again...

On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars -- but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941.

NEVER AGAIN!

Stay vigilant…

We cannot hide. We must fight with a morally acceptable economy not one of greed and avarice, we must fight with cultural sensitivity and intelligent response, we must be prepared with a capable military, we must use diplomacy informed by history, anthropology, technology, geography.

A Day that will live in INFAMY… don’t EVER forget.

-MPM

Words Women Need to Learn to Use

Mosh Pit Matt — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:51:54 +0000

When asked a “yes” or “no” type question…

One should begin their answer with “yes” or “no.” They may later add more information, but answering such a question with commentary is both extremely confusing and somewhat rude. It implies that you do not care what the person asking has said.

So, ladies. Lets review:

When someone asks you a question (usually with the copula “to be,” or the verbs “to have,” or “to do” as in “Are you a god?” or “Do you like anal?” or “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”) You should start your answer with

YES

NO

And not with:

“Well, I went shopping today and I found this great sweater and it totally suits you, you should wear more brown, you know that? It really looks good on you…. and by the way, why did you not pick up the phone immediately when I called just now, were you having sex?? oh! are you free Thursday, my girlfriends want to go out and practice our Estonian at this great Latvian restaurant that serves only healthy grains and seaweed… some of them would like to talk to you in English for .0004 seconds…….”

That’s… confusing and irritating and it usually pisses us men off. So, instead of bitching about how hard it is to communicate with men, please learn to use the language properly first. If you are unable to answer at the moment, please say so. “I’m sorry I’m busy, I will answer in a moment.”

Its hard to communicate with toddlers too… shall men treat you like that???
Lesson concluded.

Please Pay Attention

The End…

Mosh Pit Matt — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:27:40 +0000

At one time in life, change comes and one day that change will be the passing away of someone or something…

You only live twice
Once when you are born
And once when
you look death in the face

(Ian Flemming from Basho).

Shakespeare wrote the best farewell that can be given among friends:

CASSIUS:
Forever and forever farewell, Brutus.
If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed.
If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.

BRUTUS:
Why then, lead on. Oh, that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.—Come, ho! Away!

Thus ends one stage of life, and begins another… come, ho! away!

-MPM

…and that has made all the difference.

Mosh Pit Matt — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:35:20 +0000

This bit of poetry has been applied to my life, usually somewhat erroneously as a statement of my unique and individualistic character.

Frost’s original intention however was to make a statement about paths NOT taken. It a lament over how his life may have been different had he gone down the more conventional path.

I have, however, always had an extraordinarily clear mental image of the natural environment that acted as a metaphor for these life choices.

It is below, followed by the poem here discussed.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

——————-

As I travel down life’s road, I am finding myself at a new crossroads even now. Facing the detrimental decisions I have made and searching for a way to understand better which path I should take when new crossroads are presented along the way.

Never again.

Mosh Pit Matt — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:15:57 +0000

On this, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, remember that nuclear war sucks for everyone. Thank you.

Always try to live by, this one motto I do…

Mosh Pit Matt — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:30:40 +0000

If comes the day that I pass before you all… remember… I always made the most of my life… DO! or do not… there is no “try”

MPM’s book of the random time period

Mosh Pit Matt — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:45:04 +0000

Greetings all. This month’s offering is a bit unusual in nature for many reasons, mostly it is of historical interest, yet it is simply a children’s book.

Original Author, later Edition

Yes, its Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car (1964), by IAN FLEMMING (1908-1964) of James Bond novel fame (most editions contain illustrations by John Burningham). It is a children’s book, but there is a considerable dark thread to the novelization that just wouldn’t fly with Dick Van Dyke playing the lead. Ian Flemming was a newspaper editor prior to his explosion on to the world stage with Casino Royale(1953). The book is really a fun read and the plot is far more twisting than the movie (though the movie is probably the best example of Dick Van Dyke’s acid-trip-like gloriously technicolor movies). I bought this book along with Ian Flemming’s two non-fiction works (The Diamond Smugglers (1957) and Thrilling Cities (1963)) after I had read the entire Bond series twice. It was a nice summer-time departure for me (I first read them in July of 2002).

It is interesting in that it reads a lot like Moonraker (1955), and not like the other works he wrote after his first heart attack in 1961. Also interesting is that other than his non-fiction works it is the only Flemming novel to contain illustrations (though Goldfinger (1959) contained a fictional map of Fort Knox, illustrator unknown to MPM). The novel also seems to serve a bit as a reflection of places Flemming encountered while as a spy and special forces operative during World War II. The original primary inspiration was as Wikipedia suggests:

“Fleming took his inspiration for the car from a series of aero-engined racing cars built by Count Louis Zborowski in the early 1920s at Higham Park, christened “Chitty Bang Bang”. Fleming had known Higham Park as a guest of its later owner, Walter Wigham, chairman of Robert Fleming & Co.”

Other interesting bits about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

The film adaptation was written by Roald Dahl, screenwriter, consultant, or co-writer of several James Bond film adaptations. Dahl also wrote several children’s books with similar tone and style to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, among them: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach and George’s Marvellous Medicine Most of which later became film adapted themselves, though usually not by Dahl.
The film adaptation was co-produced by Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, long time co-producer and producer of the James Bond film series.
The film adaptation featured Gert Fröbe as Baron Bomburst. Fröbe played the titular lead in the film adaptation of Goldfinger (film: 1964)as well.

That we shall not perish from this Earth…

Mosh Pit Matt — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:00:51 +0000

God Bless America

Today is the 4th of July. It is the anniversary of the day that the United States of America declared its Independence. The people who drafted the formal Declaration of Independence had absolutely no clue what the United States would do or become. It was irrelevant. The entire purpose was to create a body of governments and lands that worked together with the people to give them the choice of how their world would be shaped and how they could shape the world.

The first bits of the text (the full text is available here)of this brilliantly crafted (though using datable language) is as follows :

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[71] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Others have cited this and the following document or repeated their wording (the French constitution uses BOTH documents as referent.)

What follows is the text of another document… written in response to the most important July 4th in U.S. History. Perhaps the most important date in U.S. History two times.. was the 4th of July. December 7th, 1941 was a date that has lived in infamy.. but July 4th has decided not just the fate of our nation, but the fate of all nations of the Earth. It was twice the date when people stood up, offered their lives and livelihoods to state that “all men are created equal.”

July 4th, 1776 was the date on which the United States declared independence from tyranny and oppression. July 4th, 1863 marked the resolution of the high water mark of another struggle, more costly in terms of morale, humanity, property, and suffering than any in the history of the United States. One in which the United states was faced with the most confounding, and ironic, moral and political dilemma it ever faced… before or since. This was the American Civil War. A misnomer because the Americas have seen many civil wars, but this one marked the beginning of “total war” in which every person, man, woman, and child was deprived and forced to participate in a complete struggle for survival… a pattern that continues to this day… But to its credit, and in this case, the United States prevailed, and became a strong, and though sometimes flawed and misguided, powerful beacon of hope and potential for the world.

I am not the same caliber of orator or speech-writer as he who wrote and gave the following, so I will let his words speak for themselves. :

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Despite the fact that our current government and many of those before it have abused the rights, privileges, heritage, and spirit of these two works, they have stood the test of time. On this 4th of July let us remember that it is the unalienable right of every person to be free and let us pray that governments of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.

God Bless America

Some beliefs…

Mosh Pit Matt — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:17:34 +0000

Here is my expression of the Freedom of speech for this, the post of 3 July 2010:

Let me start by saying this: Ben Stein is a political observer and an economist, among other things, but he is not a “scientist” (in terms of physical/ natural sciences, or mathematics, he is at some level what is considered a historical scientist (history, political science, economics, anthropology, and even elements of geology are historical sciences). I am a scientist. I have been criticized by my peers as being too “sciency” and having no soul.

Interestingly, I am one of the few anthropologists an/or archaeologists I know that is also deeply religious (some may not know that I was a part-time pastor once) and i have a strong belief in a creator God…. I have on the other hand done a shitload of research on chaos and emergent phenomena and the like… I have come to the scientific and religious conclusion that creation by a god cannot be excluded hypothetically. The probability that all is due to random chance is extremely low, given the cumulative effects of emergent phenomena in the chemical and biological evolution of the universe… . It seems odd to me that a scientist would argue for random chances as a final solution to questions regarding the origins of the universe and of life within that universe (among other things). They deal with the probabilities of random chance in hypothesis testing all the time… why not apply that to the “big one?”

I also disagree with the notion that Darwinism is counter to the notion of creation by “intelligent design.” Darwin, and neo-Darwinist approaches all are, in practicality, open to a “creationist” interpretation. The evolution of matter, stars, planets, and life need not be “one or the other.” It is foolish to think that things do not evolve. Hell, I evolved! I started unable to cook or clean or pay bills, but I adapted. I failed to adapt at other things (like Physics 203) so, I was selected out of certain life paths (like being an engineer). The same applies less tongue-in-cheek to more serious scientific concerns.

The problem is absolutes…. “Creationists” who want to patently reject evolution and believe strictly in an in situ formation of all that exists are not really considering the broader picture that they themselves are offered and even experience daily. Likewise “Darwinists” who patently reject the notion of a greater intelligence behind the order in the universe are failing to recognize the rational beauty of the very order they seek to explain.

Thus, though I think the message here is a bit over the top, its really no worse than Stephen Hawking believing he can disprove the existence of God through solving the riddle of the Grand Unified Theory….

Time to go set off fireworks…

I mean, I’m just sayin’…

Mosh Pit Matt — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:00:31 +0000

Independence week post of July 2, 2k10:

I don’t like to get too political on current people, but I sometimes think that President Obama has crossed some lines….

Instead of counting the number of times Ben Stein has slaughtered Bush, Obama, and everyone that needed it… I will just post the following figure.

At least people are starting to wake up and realize whats going on and rejecting some of these schemes…

it only takes .22 seconds to find that many mistakes?

You suck!