I find the fascination and preoccupation with the disappearance Malaysian Airlines flight 370 enlightening and disturbing. It is indeed unsettling that the unexpected is normal in the real world.
This morning there were over 800 million references to the “Malaysian Airlines flight 370” search on Google.
Bing only found 24 million matches. Perhaps at Bing they are more picky and/or know where I am?
After the Ides of March
On St Patrick’s Day, Courtney Love claimed to have found the missing plane and posted a picture on her Facebook page. That’s news…but I did not go look.
I’ll freely admit that I didn’t check on Twitter for Tweets either.
We expect our technology to work.
We expect our plans to work out.
We will create answers until we are again satisfied our personal world makes sense.
Expectations are a common core of the Human Gravity.
We too easily forget that God must be willing too.
The secular humanist says that form of thinking is an emotional crutch. It is an “irrational false belief” that exists only to sustain our preconceived internal illusions. They say,
“Why would a 'loving' God allow 237 people to vanish and die?”
The humanist’s implication is, of course, for “no reason”.
Reason has nothing to do with it. The humanist really doesn’t want you to acknowledge that.
Meanwhile in the Other World
Today by Executive Order of the President the US officially annexed British Columbia in spite of Canadian government and some scattered international protests. The President claimed that if the Russian President Putin can do it in Crimea so can he.
According to the official White House press release,
“The English, Spanish, and Chinese speaking populations of the province will no longer be discriminated against and ruthlessly controlled by a distant French speaking minority. The western US needs the water and clean hydroelectric power, but ultimately the US only seeks the freedom of repressed people everywhere.”
In other news
The government of Mexico today again repeated its official request that the US allow its northern states to petition for US statehood.
The latest official condition of Mexican federal government remains that the states of California, Arizona and New Mexico do officially declare Spanish to be an official state language.
Bills to consider this are currently before the Congresses of each of the states in response to an earlier request.
Last month the Texas officially denounced their inclusion in the previously released Mexican conditions list. The Texas governor’s only public and official statement in response to the earlier requirement,
“Hell No.”
Satire Can Be Fun
Is it more appropriate to be obsessed with the disappearance of a plane and 237 people or the conquest and seizure of part of another country? But both happened in far off places and have little to do with us on the surface. Sadly, this is far from true. History reminds us to take heed.
The last week of March 2014 was the 160th anniversary of the start of the Crimean War.
If you think Putin wasn’t paying attention to that date you are ignorant of Russian history.
In these days of history by sound bite, I suppose I cannot blame anyone for that, but you shouldn’t be.
Who cares about a war fought in the 1850’s?
Many call this war the “first modern war”.
The war was fought on multiple “fronts” all over Europe. Was it a world war? Oh never mind.
It defined the many of the modern borders for countries in the region.
It denied Russia and the Russian navy access to the Black Sea for almost 20 years.
The war featured the first use of “ironclad” ships.
It was the first war with photographic records combined with a press corps.
It was the first war covered by telegraph.
The far way public got a day to day and blow by blow account.
War become more personal thanks to a famous Poet Laureate.
It changed news, newspapers, and newspaper publishing forever.
Happily, the war gave birth and the initial heroic substance to the occupation of “nurse”.
Tell me you’ve never heard of Florence Nightingale?
The Crimean War is best remembered because perhaps you had to read Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem the “Charge of the Light Brigade”.
278 of 700 members of the British cavalry brigade were causalities (not the same as dead) in a single mounted heroic charge against massed artillery fire. The poem was published during the war. The contents and publication changed forever both public opinion and how people thought about war.
The war included the first mass use of rifled guns, cartridge ammunitions, massed “blind” artillery fire, and introduced what would later become the horror of trench warfare.
The aforementioned telegraphic and “modern” rail logistics played a significant role in the outcome.
Officers on the ground received commands from oversight at home for the first time.
The Crimean War in effect defined the state of the art of war for the American Civil War.
Some generals and politicians on both sides paid attention.
Many did not.
God Willing Someone Else Is
By the by…
Russia later sold the US Alaska to pay off part of its Crimean War debt.
Where do you think the fortune of the Nobels – the Nobel Prize - got its explosive start?