Radiatin’ A-Bomb Blues

A not-so-scary Doomsday Clock approaches midnight…

Here’s a YouTube link to an old song of mine: Radiatin’ A-Bomb Blues – a crazy upbeat sort of blues piece that expresses the potential result of a really scary cold-war period we went through in the late 1980’s when the nuclear Doomsday Clock got perilously close to midnight, due to a game of nuclear chicken being played out between the, then two, nuclear superpowers.

Russia – closely surrounded by American nuclear missiles pointed at its major targets – astutely realized that no merely human Russian premier could decide quickly enough whether it was under attack in time to launch a counter-attack. So its boffins invented a computer-driven system that would quickly analyze radar results and launch a huge retaliatory strike at US and NATO targets if this non-human apparatus decided it was warranted. This system was dubbed “launch on warning.” Human judgement became a non-factor.

Pretty wacko scary on both sides, I thought, so I wrote the above song and immediately felt a whole lot better 😉

I will also post this on my My Songs page. Finding appropriate pictures to accompany my songs is the main holdup to posting the rest of them. I’m too parsimonious to opt for the WordPress upgrade.

Any suggestions on how to easily find photos that aren’t encumbered by restrictions on use?

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DO Hug The Trees In This Park

Never noticed this sign in Our Woods before. We were in search of blue herons who we’ve observed for the last few days in the two small lakes NW of our house. Yesterday we saw one about 15 feet away with a 10″ trout or bass in its mouth. It just stood there. We wondered why it didn’t eat it straight away.

Possible heron hesitation explanations:

• It was put off its food by our sudden passing
• It was trying to decide whether food so close to human habitation was safe
• It was shocked to find anything other than big carp in the water
• It had babies but had forgotten where the nest was

Possible explanations for the above sign:

• Too many baseballs ending up in the lake
• Too many windows nearby
• There is no place to use a bat properly in Our Woods
• Some potential improper uses make the authorities nervous

Some suggestions for additions to the above sign:

• Do not use bows and arrows in the park
• Do not use catapults or land mines in the park
• Definitely do not drag huge, heavy objects, such as self-standing basketball hoops, into the park

One might assume that the above  sign suggestions are silly and unnecessary, but the third one might have actually prevented a real event. This, of course, assumes that the neanderthals that dumped their trashy hoop apparatus in Our Woods were capable of reading.

One positive suggestion for a sign:

• DO hug the trees in this park