I love cats so much that I cannot stay faithful to just one. Wilhelm knows! He 'senses' it....
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Monday, May 5, 2025
Video: Launching The First American into Space
On this day in 2021, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) uploaded the above video, a then 60th anniversary celebration of astronaut Alan B. Shepard's spaceflight — America's first. It was a great technical success, paving the way for the moon landings: with Shepard commanding Apollo 14, the third such mission to succeed.
Mercury-Redstone 3 "Freedom 7" launched 64 years ago today and its success was celebrated the world over, partly because the mission was broadcast/televised live, and not done in secrecy. (Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight a few weeks earlier was kept under lock and key — as per the Soviet way — till the Cosmonaut was safely back on mother Earth).
Alan B. Shepard, American Hero.
Alan B. Shepard — First U.S. Astronaut in Space
"It was really exciting!"
When I was a little one of five or six years of age my mother told me the story of an important event from just a few years earlier. It was the United States of America's first manned spaceflight, and the astronaut's name was Alan Shepard. Everyone had gathered around the television to witness an important part of human history.
This was the first time they were able to see a manned rocket launch. The Soviets had not broadcast to the world, or even its own citizens, the lift-off of Vostok 1 three weeks earlier, and only after Yuri Gagarin returned safely to Earth from his orbital flight did they announce this stellar and humanity-changing feat. The name of the hero cosmonaut then travelled around the globe.
Citizens of the Earth could not be made to feel as participants in a great adventure until the National Aeronautics and Space Administration got to show its stuff.
Mercury-Redstone 3 ("Freedom 7") was to be a suborbital mission: Shepard's spacecraft would follow a planned ballistic trajectory. A big arc. The Mercury capsule would be shot into space, then float at high speed for some time before Earth's gravity initiated its re-entry.
One interesting element of the mission was that, unlike Gagarin's trip, which was fully automated, Shepard would take some control of his spacecraft. While up there, free from our planet's atmosphere, he manually operated the attitude control system in order to test Freedom 7's pitch, roll, and yaw capabilities, proving them to be properly functional.
The fifteen-minute voyage was a great technical success: The capsule went 101 miles up and flew 263 miles "downrange". The splashdown took place in the Atlantic Ocean. Shepard and Freedom 7 were recovered by waiting U.S. Navy vessels. (John Glenn's orbital flight would not happen for ten more months. Two cosmonauts will have already orbited the Earth by that time.)
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr was chosen to pilot MR-3 some months earlier by Project Mercury head Robert Gilruth. Competition was fierce amongst the program's seven astronauts. Not only were these men skilled test pilots ― as were all U.S. astronauts in the earliest days of space flight ― but they were equipped with the latest in personality types: Gus Grissom, for instance, who would become the second American in space, did not say much minute-to-minute during training, but when he made it known he was about to whisper something to his fellow astronauts they would shut up, lean forward, and wait for the expected words of profundity.
Shepard, on the other hand, was more gregarious by nature. He not only spoke a more regular beat, when he had something important to relate you'd better be listening, and if you didn't take your work seriously or were at any time sloppy in your training, at least from his perspective, you were sure to hear about it.
They were of a special breed: Shepard, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton (who was grounded for medical reasons).
I know way too much about this whole subject. Before I go on any further I'm going to execute a deorbit burn. (See?)
But first:
On May 5th, 1961, sixty-four years ago today, NASA's star astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, became a trailblazer. The world watched as his Redstone rocket sat on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral:
"... light this candle!"
When I was a little one of five or six years of age my mother told me the story of an important event from just a few years earlier. It was the United States of America's first manned spaceflight, and the astronaut's name was Alan Shepard. Everyone had gathered around the television to witness an important part of human history.
This was the first time they were able to see a manned rocket launch. The Soviets had not broadcast to the world, or even its own citizens, the lift-off of Vostok 1 three weeks earlier, and only after Yuri Gagarin returned safely to Earth from his orbital flight did they announce this stellar and humanity-changing feat. The name of the hero cosmonaut then travelled around the globe.
Citizens of the Earth could not be made to feel as participants in a great adventure until the National Aeronautics and Space Administration got to show its stuff.
Mercury-Redstone 3 ("Freedom 7") was to be a suborbital mission: Shepard's spacecraft would follow a planned ballistic trajectory. A big arc. The Mercury capsule would be shot into space, then float at high speed for some time before Earth's gravity initiated its re-entry.
One interesting element of the mission was that, unlike Gagarin's trip, which was fully automated, Shepard would take some control of his spacecraft. While up there, free from our planet's atmosphere, he manually operated the attitude control system in order to test Freedom 7's pitch, roll, and yaw capabilities, proving them to be properly functional.
The fifteen-minute voyage was a great technical success: The capsule went 101 miles up and flew 263 miles "downrange". The splashdown took place in the Atlantic Ocean. Shepard and Freedom 7 were recovered by waiting U.S. Navy vessels. (John Glenn's orbital flight would not happen for ten more months. Two cosmonauts will have already orbited the Earth by that time.)
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr was chosen to pilot MR-3 some months earlier by Project Mercury head Robert Gilruth. Competition was fierce amongst the program's seven astronauts. Not only were these men skilled test pilots ― as were all U.S. astronauts in the earliest days of space flight ― but they were equipped with the latest in personality types: Gus Grissom, for instance, who would become the second American in space, did not say much minute-to-minute during training, but when he made it known he was about to whisper something to his fellow astronauts they would shut up, lean forward, and wait for the expected words of profundity.
Shepard, on the other hand, was more gregarious by nature. He not only spoke a more regular beat, when he had something important to relate you'd better be listening, and if you didn't take your work seriously or were at any time sloppy in your training, at least from his perspective, you were sure to hear about it.
They were of a special breed: Shepard, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton (who was grounded for medical reasons).
I know way too much about this whole subject. Before I go on any further I'm going to execute a deorbit burn. (See?)
But first:
On May 5th, 1961, sixty-four years ago today, NASA's star astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, became a trailblazer. The world watched as his Redstone rocket sat on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral:
"... light this candle!"
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Star Wars Day: It Was Some Unknown Force
"... It's called Star Wars. One set alone cost twelve million dollars."
That is how I first heard of Star Wars. It was the spring of 1977. I had the Grundig stereo on in the living room and as I walked from the kitchen into the dining room I heard an on-air host from Toronto radio station CKFM say the magic words. My reaction to the announced set cost must have been one of awe ― I later learned that the movie cost about ten million dollars to make ― but it was the name of this mysterious new flick that really intrigued me.
Star Wars not only hit the marketplace, but entered our culture....
That could have been the opening crawl to my two-part series recounting my introduction to Star Wars. It all started for me when I heard that radio piece. But everyone has a different story. And already I've read a few online; interesting stories, all.
In the pre-Internet age, it was a different game.
After learning of a new and anticipated movie going into production, one had to sometimes dig to learn more than what was readily available from the mainstream media outlets. For most pictures the wait was, more often than not, off our radars.
However, do not think for a moment that pre-release or pre-production hype used by the major film studios is a recently developed tool. Films from the 1970s were following an old model but with new tricks. Promotional featurettes, shot on 16mm film, were taken to a refined state during those years. Major studio productions like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and King Kong were promoted heavily while they were still in production. In the case of Kong the casting of the new beauty was covered in local and national newscasts. I remember watching Buffalo television station WKBW late one evening and seeing newsfilm of Jessica Lange on stage holding a bouquet of flowers (it was a press conference).
Who could forget watching the excellent and dynamic promotional film showing the production crew of The Towering Inferno doing their magic? Irwin Allen directing over John Guillerman's head by using a megaphone was exciting and memorable. ("Mister Newman!") Accompanied by an authoritative but not staid voice over, bulldozers dug down into a sound stage floor in order to give the already voluminous space even more fly. These promotional shorts were nothing less than recruitment films. "I want to do that!"
By the time big pictures such as Poseidon, Inferno, Kong, Earthquake, and The Hindenburg hit the screens, an educated, of sorts, audience was awaiting. And I was an enthusiastic young member of that audience, in all five examples.
There was none of that for Star Wars. It just sneaked up on us....
That could have been the opening crawl to my two-part series recounting my introduction to Star Wars. It all started for me when I heard that radio piece. But everyone has a different story. And already I've read a few online; interesting stories, all.
In the pre-Internet age, it was a different game.
After learning of a new and anticipated movie going into production, one had to sometimes dig to learn more than what was readily available from the mainstream media outlets. For most pictures the wait was, more often than not, off our radars.
However, do not think for a moment that pre-release or pre-production hype used by the major film studios is a recently developed tool. Films from the 1970s were following an old model but with new tricks. Promotional featurettes, shot on 16mm film, were taken to a refined state during those years. Major studio productions like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and King Kong were promoted heavily while they were still in production. In the case of Kong the casting of the new beauty was covered in local and national newscasts. I remember watching Buffalo television station WKBW late one evening and seeing newsfilm of Jessica Lange on stage holding a bouquet of flowers (it was a press conference).
Who could forget watching the excellent and dynamic promotional film showing the production crew of The Towering Inferno doing their magic? Irwin Allen directing over John Guillerman's head by using a megaphone was exciting and memorable. ("Mister Newman!") Accompanied by an authoritative but not staid voice over, bulldozers dug down into a sound stage floor in order to give the already voluminous space even more fly. These promotional shorts were nothing less than recruitment films. "I want to do that!"
By the time big pictures such as Poseidon, Inferno, Kong, Earthquake, and The Hindenburg hit the screens, an educated, of sorts, audience was awaiting. And I was an enthusiastic young member of that audience, in all five examples.
There was none of that for Star Wars. It just sneaked up on us....
Star Wars Day: Admit One Repeat in 1977
The forty-eighth anniversary of the original release of Star Wars is coming on the 25th of this month, and for us older folks, the question sometimes comes up: "How many times did you see Star Wars when it first came out?"
The movie made a lot of money because it was what's called "a repeater". Young people, especially, went back to the movie theatres over and over to see what was then a new thing; a high-quality comic book on the big screen.
Perhaps due to my age at the time, sixteen, I saw Star Wars, enjoyed it, and did not rush back to see it again. This was not helped by the fact that it left town after just three weeks. No doubt it was 'bicycled' to another theatre waiting for such a precious print. (King Kong had played for a full month across the street at the Big House.) Once was enough for me, however, as there were other movies to see and I was interested in many other things.
In September of 1977 I became friends with a guy at my high school who was a huge fan of the film. He was a couple of years younger — it was through a school club that we first met. Two or three weeks later, Star Wars reappeared in Barrie, Ontario, this time at one of the exciting Bayfield Mall's two screens, and my fan friend and I, with colourful umbrellas in hand, trotted off one rainy night to see again the silver screen's smash hit of '77.
I saw Star Wars two times that year: First, in July at the "Imperial 2" in beautiful downtown Barrie; then it was a tinny movie house in stunning uptown Barrie.
My favourite film in 1977 was Annie Hall. I saw it once.
The movie made a lot of money because it was what's called "a repeater". Young people, especially, went back to the movie theatres over and over to see what was then a new thing; a high-quality comic book on the big screen.
Perhaps due to my age at the time, sixteen, I saw Star Wars, enjoyed it, and did not rush back to see it again. This was not helped by the fact that it left town after just three weeks. No doubt it was 'bicycled' to another theatre waiting for such a precious print. (King Kong had played for a full month across the street at the Big House.) Once was enough for me, however, as there were other movies to see and I was interested in many other things.
In September of 1977 I became friends with a guy at my high school who was a huge fan of the film. He was a couple of years younger — it was through a school club that we first met. Two or three weeks later, Star Wars reappeared in Barrie, Ontario, this time at one of the exciting Bayfield Mall's two screens, and my fan friend and I, with colourful umbrellas in hand, trotted off one rainy night to see again the silver screen's smash hit of '77.
I saw Star Wars two times that year: First, in July at the "Imperial 2" in beautiful downtown Barrie; then it was a tinny movie house in stunning uptown Barrie.
My favourite film in 1977 was Annie Hall. I saw it once.
Book: The Rebel Christ (Coren)
The Rebel Christ
by
Michael Coren
Dundurn Press
2021
***
From a previous posting....
This atheist must keep an open mind, always. Right now I'm reading Toronto-based author Michael Coren's The Rebel Christ (2021). I actually bought the book last October, and read its "Introduction", but my reading queue is always pages long ― meaning it had to wait in line. The Rebel Christ is more than good, even at just a couple of chapters in....
The writer quotes G.K. Chesterton: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."
As readers here may have heard, members of the Christian right have been going barmy over the Reverend Coren's work. I doubt they've even read The Rebel Christ, or perhaps some have but find its reaffirmation of Christ's message of peace and love to be rebarbative.
Before I go back to coffee and reading, I must add: The author maintains a good sense of humour as he addresses certain concerns. This sent me funny....
"Personally, I prefer a nice card, a box of chocolates, and some roses."
Well folks, I have to say that The Rebel Christ is "required reading at the Academy".
So you know where I stand on Christianity and religion in general, I am a card-carrying atheist. As a matter of fact, I have the hard-to-acquire "Platinum Card". As I wrote in April of 2017, I rejected 'faith' very early in my life. "From a Dependent Brat: The Church of Me" goes into a little detail as to when and how this happened. I've not wavered since then.
Now that you have an IMF (Impossible Missions Force) dossier on me, here I go....
Non-believers and believers would have much to glean from Michael Coren's effort to set the record straight on a few matters; matters that have been hijacked and distorted by those who wrap themselves in the bible, even if they've never actually read it, to reaffirm what they believe were Christ's teachings. As Mr Coren states assuredly more than a few times in his work, Jesus never actually addressed certain issues, and if he did, it was ever so slightly. Too often his teachings have been perverted beyond all recognition: an interpretation of an interpretation, scrubbed of any chromatic scaling to fit one's already dichotomous thinking.
I would agree that Jesus preached love and forgiveness above all. (What's so hard to understand?)
This atheist has adopted a certain phrase, one heard a lot these days from non-believers such as myself: "Even I'm more Christian than many of these so-called Christians."
Final note: Travelling on Twitter/X, especially, introduces one to a lot of far-right anger, anger all too often suggesting violence. Check out a given bio and see "Loves Jesus".
Yeah, buddy, I believe you.
But I do believe Michael Coren. The Rebel Christ is outstanding, and highly recommended... take it from this "card-carrying atheist".
"Please believe me when I say that Jesus would not hurt or abuse,
would not reject,
would not exclude."
Friday, May 2, 2025
Athot for the Day: An Important Part to Play
Funny how what we call here in North America, "toilet paper", they call in the UK, "toilet roles".
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Card: Communist Party of Canada (2025)
I came home one day last week to find a card on my door, a two-colour card from the Communist Party of Canada. Fine, as Canada was in election mode political parties were promoting themselves and their policies... or lack of same.
This student of history, with a focus on those former "Eastern Bloc" states such as the Soviet Union (USSR) and East Germany, especially East Germany, has something of an opinion here....
"You tell 'em, Simon!"
"Oh, I will. You know me too well."
Communism does not work.
Communism does not work.
Communism does not work.
At all.
I'll just leave it at that.
"Feel better, Si?"
"Do I ever."
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