75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A lot has changed. A lot hasn't.
81 thoughts on “December 7, 2016: Infamy”
Greetings from the Capitol City of ND. I flew in last night and it is, um, winter. Couldn't get a taxi because of the weather. Rented an SUV, needed it to make to the hotel. Plowed through two foot drifts. Lanes on major roads have drifts that are six feet high. In terms of fury, this is an awesome storm. Tons of snow and an unrelenting wind.
Winter? Tell me about it! It almost froze last night and I forgot to spray water on my orange trees to protect them!
DeineMutter8675310
Anna Merlan
12/06/16 12:34pm
For you, being trapped in a hotel in North Dakota during a blizzard in subzero temperatures will be a story you tell for the rest of your life. For midwesterners, it was Tuesday.
One of my great pleasures when getting to know native Southern Californians is telling stories of winters in the Upper Midwest. They have no idea.
I may of said this before, but Japanese winters are relatively mild. You're never to far from the ocean, so it rarely gets below freezing. When I was in school there, most Americans would walk outside in T-shirts, or at least not bundled in any sense of the word. The native students, all about to head to Minnesota for school, told us we were nuts. As we explained, oh, honeys, you'd better start getting used to this. This is nothing.
I regaled my friends both in Dublin and Austin with that.
My first month in Austin there was a huge ice storm. And I was like "Yeah, I know what I'm doing and we don't mess around with that. You all need to stay home today."
Funny, one of the most miserable winters I ever experienced was in NI, although it was a record setting winter there featuring lots of ice and snow.
Here in NOLA people freak out when it drops below 70, and I'm always amused. Lots of puffy jackets today as the temps were just at the 60˚ mark and will get down into the low 50˚s tonight. Maybe even a hint of frost on the north shore on friday
-46° /-105° wind chill
I still recall the coeds at Moorhead State laying out their blankets and starting to work on their tans when the temps hit the 50s in the spring
You are speaking the truth and that story, more than anything, explains what it's really like. 50 degrees? Sun tanning weather!
My favorite cold weather fact that shocks the Southern Californians is that it doesn't snow much in January and February, since it's often too cold. The concept of too cold to snow completely baffles my students. (Ok, it's really that when it's that cold the air is almost always too dry for snow to form, but too cold to snow sounds more impressive.)
I usually tell people the converse of that, that March is typically the snowiest month of the year in Minnesota.
When I hear people on the coasts complain that Midwesterners live in a bubble, I like to point out that the coasts control the media. If someone from the Midwest wants to learn about people on the coasts, it is easy to do so.
There aren't nearly as many stories about life in the middle.
Makes you wonder who lives in a bubble, don't it?
Only briefly.
I know that answer!
David Vetter and Ted DeVita
As someone from the Midwestern bubble who lives near a coast, I like to point out that there is plenty of "real America" outside of the Midwest. My librul National People's Radio station plays stories frequently that tap into all kinds of people -- North, South, East, West, Midwest, etc.
The coasts don't "control" the media. The media is driven by what sells advertising time.
People write and report on what they know/see.
and editors assign and select stories based on what will sell copy and cover their butts.
Of course. There is also the cost side. Much easier to talk to somene local.
Some college buddies and I once did a spring break trip to San Francisco. One day driving down by San Jose we saw some killer waves coming in, so we parked, stripped down to our cutoffs and went body surfing. The only other person on the beach was walking his dog, wearing a down parka and shaking his head in disbelief.
Now, THIS is truth. I see folks all the time wearing puffy coats, winter jackets, and stocking caps when it gets down below 50 60 degrees.
That said, winter chill air in San Fran can be bone-chilling. Thank God we it's a dry cold here.
I saw that yesterday. My favorite was someone in the comments apologizing for the subsequent "Northsplaining" that was about to commence.
To be fair: this storm was a real MFer, not just some run of the mill winter storm.
We got the cold and wind, but only a little snow. It was close to a white-out for about twenty-four hours, but at least we don't have a lot of digging out to do.
I saw this and thought of you, SBG.
He knew he loved Big Brother Luke Skywalker.
I mentioned several weeks back that I planned to visit Pearl Harbor on Veterans Day this year. I was able to make that happen, and am very glad I did. I got to visit both the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri (my second Iowa-class battleship) that day; the Pacific Aviation Museum & the USS Bowfin will have to wait until my next visit, which is hopefully not too distant. The Arizona Memorial is an excellent combination of public history and hallowed space.
My buddy & I were staying in an Airbnb that had private rooms & shared communal spaces. We shared the place with a middle-aged guy from the Marshall Islands and his 90 year old Japanese father for much of the stay. Over beers (Maui Brewing, Primo, & Asahi) one night, the son told me their story:
His father had called earlier this year and told him "I want to visit Hawaii before I die." He's in pretty good shape, but his son booked the tickets anyway because 90. After they landed, his dad immediately asked to go to Pearl Harbor – he said he wished to apologize. Thing is, since he was in his mid-teens during most of WWII he wasn't old enough to be drafted into the Imperial military. Instead, he was forced to work in a Mitsubishi factory, building Zeroes. He felt that forced labor merited an apology. After the war he became a math teacher. I told his son the generations of kids his dad taught far outweighed what he was forced to do during the war, which of course he knew. Turns out they were at Pearl Harbor at exactly the same time we were, but I didn't see them since we were on different boats out to the Arizona.
A friend of mine from grad school – who is from the Big Island and now teaches at the U of Hawai'i – is defending his dissertation today.
I feel like I could just read accounts like this all day long. Thanks for the share.
The band at the school that Philosofette did her student teaching at last year was selected as the MN representative to play at the ceremony, so she knows a good number of people there today.
I helped facilitate that band's participation in the state Pearl Harbor Commemoration last year (along with 85% of the rest of the program.) was basically a warmup for HI this year. They did a fantastic job.
This year, being the 75th anniversary, most of the event was planned and executed by our Comms dept., the Memorial Rifle Squad for Fort Snelling National Cemetery, and help from the Navy's Minneapolis Recruiting District. Lil' old me basically just showed up today and took it all in.
I just read that Shinzo Abe is going to be visiting Pearl Harbor with President Obama later this month.
I think it is today. They visited Hiroshima together and now this.
I'm sure such conciliatory diplomacy will be the hallmark of U.S. relations with the rest of the world for years to come.
Bigly.
Ugh. I know that's a thing, but ugh.
Ughly.
Goddamnit, where is that awful like button.
Time heals wounds? Eventually.
Time wounds all heels.
My brother-in-law was born on December 7, 1961. A day that will live in infamy! (I kid.)
Cassini has begun its ring grazing orbits, and the first results are pretty spectacular.
The next day, just before Cassini made its first close encounter with the F-ring, it looked back and captured this money shot of the bizarre hexagonal storm engulfing Saturn’s north. A six-sided jet stream of unknown origin, each of the hexagon’s walls is as wide as our entire planet.
I bet marketing-savvy meteorolgists on Saturn name their storms after the planet closest in size.
Actually, they're named alphabetically by Plant genera names. Northern Hemisphere gets woody plants while the south gets herbaceous. The hexagonal storm is Quercus as it was named after Pinus but before Rhus and Salix.
Bewbs.
Yes, I am a 12-year old boy.
Your 2016 Best Of schedule. We managed to fit everyone into December.
I'll try to send a reminder before the week starts, but that's about it most likely. You're free to start setting up the posts whenever you'd like. And free, you're free too.
Can I get bumped to the end of the line please? I'm getting my tonsils out Monday.
Well, I suppose you could set it up in the intervening days between now and then, but if that works best for your schedule, I'll change it.
I could, but I do have a lot of homework and house projects to get done between now and Sunday evening, so I appreciate a little cushion. Thanks, man.
Tonsils? I thought you were adulting.
Yea, that excuse is tough to swallow.
He could recuperate while watching the first half of the nbc crime show. If you watch the second half you see order, but if you watch the first half you view law.
Remind me. Is this suppose to be the video of the day?
yep. don't forget to set the "Format" to "Video" as well, or else they'll be starless skies.
Until hj fixes it.
Major League Baseball and all 30 Clubs have organized a charity
auction benefiting youth baseball and softball in Little Ferry, NJ,
the hometown of former New York Mets Senior Director of Media
Relations Shannon Forde. A dedicated Mets employee, Forde lost her
battle with breast cancer earlier this year and the funds from this
auction will help in building a field in her name that will ensure that
her legacy lives on forever. Bid on more than 75 unique baseball-related
experiences or memorabilia packages for this worthwhile cause.
Bidding will end on Thursday, December 8 at 9 p.m. ET.
And weirdly, the Rockies are going to put the former CF/SS at 1B.
That makes zero sense. Desmond's UZR/150 was 27.4 in left (251 innings) and -5.7 in center (1109 innings) last season, which suggests he's well above average in a corner, even in Colorado. Meanwhile, CarGo was slightly below average in right (-0.7 in 1261 innings) and was worse (-1.9 over 1230.1 innings) in 2015.
I suspect another shoe will drop, with the Rockies landing either a legit first baseman or trading an outfielder (CarGo? Blackmon? Parra?) for pitching help.
Cubs certainly have a surplus of outfielders, but man Wade Davis smells like he's on the decline and this seems like a steep price. That said, Soler may not turn out to be more than a league average corner outfielder, and I'm guessing that's what the Cubs believe.
Notable that the current Cubs FO didn't sign Soler.
Hoyer addressed Davis' arm issues this season, but if their analysis is wrong...
Edit: Whoops, I conflated Soler's signing with Báez's.
Well, they also didn't sign Rizzo. But yeah.
Dozier to the Dodgers for Jose DeLeon and some minor leaguers? That's the buzz this afternoon.
I've seen the main part of that rumor for a week or so, that seems like a smart move. And if the Twins manage to get some minor leaguers as well, that would be nice.
Santa came early this year and delivered me a thermopop and a leave in temperature probe. Thermoworks are certainly the best in the business, i only wish I had the cast for the thermopen...
ooooh. Now I know what needs to be on my wish list.
The DOT is the leave in variety I chose. It's cheaper than the smoke / chef alarm and really I only need one channel and one probe. The probe is extremely fast as I just tested out both in an ice bath, and both read within seconds and recovered air temp just as fast. Worth the price doc.
They're must haves. We have the pen and it's invaluable. The wife is a stickler about getting things fully cooked (something about children) so now I can get it at the right temp.
If you don't cook your children long enough they'll catch cold!
And spread disease!
So, what do the Nationals know about Lucas Giolito that the rest of us don't?
Are the White Sox blowing the whole operation up? Is Jose Quintana next? What about Jose Abreu?
Greetings from the Capitol City of ND. I flew in last night and it is, um, winter. Couldn't get a taxi because of the weather. Rented an SUV, needed it to make to the hotel. Plowed through two foot drifts. Lanes on major roads have drifts that are six feet high. In terms of fury, this is an awesome storm. Tons of snow and an unrelenting wind.
Winter? Tell me about it! It almost froze last night and I forgot to spray water on my orange trees to protect them!
It was below freezing last night! Extreme!
Here's a nice story from someone that had no idea what she was facing. http://jezebel.com/a-few-things-i-have-learned-about-going-outside-in-nort-1789729037
One of my great pleasures when getting to know native Southern Californians is telling stories of winters in the Upper Midwest. They have no idea.
I may of said this before, but Japanese winters are relatively mild. You're never to far from the ocean, so it rarely gets below freezing. When I was in school there, most Americans would walk outside in T-shirts, or at least not bundled in any sense of the word. The native students, all about to head to Minnesota for school, told us we were nuts. As we explained, oh, honeys, you'd better start getting used to this. This is nothing.
I regaled my friends both in Dublin and Austin with that.
My first month in Austin there was a huge ice storm. And I was like "Yeah, I know what I'm doing and we don't mess around with that. You all need to stay home today."
Funny, one of the most miserable winters I ever experienced was in NI, although it was a record setting winter there featuring lots of ice and snow.
Here in NOLA people freak out when it drops below 70, and I'm always amused. Lots of puffy jackets today as the temps were just at the 60˚ mark and will get down into the low 50˚s tonight. Maybe even a hint of frost on the north shore on friday
-46° /-105° wind chill
I still recall the coeds at Moorhead State laying out their blankets and starting to work on their tans when the temps hit the 50s in the spring
You are speaking the truth and that story, more than anything, explains what it's really like. 50 degrees? Sun tanning weather!
My favorite cold weather fact that shocks the Southern Californians is that it doesn't snow much in January and February, since it's often too cold. The concept of too cold to snow completely baffles my students. (Ok, it's really that when it's that cold the air is almost always too dry for snow to form, but too cold to snow sounds more impressive.)
I usually tell people the converse of that, that March is typically the snowiest month of the year in Minnesota.
When I hear people on the coasts complain that Midwesterners live in a bubble, I like to point out that the coasts control the media. If someone from the Midwest wants to learn about people on the coasts, it is easy to do so.
There aren't nearly as many stories about life in the middle.
Makes you wonder who lives in a bubble, don't it?
Only briefly.
I know that answer!
David Vetter and Ted DeVita
As someone from the Midwestern bubble who lives near a coast, I like to point out that there is plenty of "real America" outside of the Midwest. My librul National People's Radio station plays stories frequently that tap into all kinds of people -- North, South, East, West, Midwest, etc.
The coasts don't "control" the media. The media is driven by what sells advertising time.
People write and report on what they know/see.
and editors assign and select stories based on what will sell copy and cover their butts.
Of course. There is also the cost side. Much easier to talk to somene local.
Some college buddies and I once did a spring break trip to San Francisco. One day driving down by San Jose we saw some killer waves coming in, so we parked, stripped down to our cutoffs and went body surfing. The only other person on the beach was walking his dog, wearing a down parka and shaking his head in disbelief.
Now, THIS is truth. I see folks all the time wearing puffy coats, winter jackets, and stocking caps when it gets down below
5060 degrees.That said, winter chill air in San Fran can be bone-chilling. Thank God we it's a dry cold here.
I saw that yesterday. My favorite was someone in the comments apologizing for the subsequent "Northsplaining" that was about to commence.
To be fair: this storm was a real MFer, not just some run of the mill winter storm.
We got the cold and wind, but only a little snow. It was close to a white-out for about twenty-four hours, but at least we don't have a lot of digging out to do.
I saw this and thought of you, SBG.
He knew he loved
Big BrotherLuke Skywalker.I mentioned several weeks back that I planned to visit Pearl Harbor on Veterans Day this year. I was able to make that happen, and am very glad I did. I got to visit both the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri (my second Iowa-class battleship) that day; the Pacific Aviation Museum & the USS Bowfin will have to wait until my next visit, which is hopefully not too distant. The Arizona Memorial is an excellent combination of public history and hallowed space.
My buddy & I were staying in an Airbnb that had private rooms & shared communal spaces. We shared the place with a middle-aged guy from the Marshall Islands and his 90 year old Japanese father for much of the stay. Over beers (Maui Brewing, Primo, & Asahi) one night, the son told me their story:
His father had called earlier this year and told him "I want to visit Hawaii before I die." He's in pretty good shape, but his son booked the tickets anyway because 90. After they landed, his dad immediately asked to go to Pearl Harbor – he said he wished to apologize. Thing is, since he was in his mid-teens during most of WWII he wasn't old enough to be drafted into the Imperial military. Instead, he was forced to work in a Mitsubishi factory, building Zeroes. He felt that forced labor merited an apology. After the war he became a math teacher. I told his son the generations of kids his dad taught far outweighed what he was forced to do during the war, which of course he knew. Turns out they were at Pearl Harbor at exactly the same time we were, but I didn't see them since we were on different boats out to the Arizona.
A friend of mine from grad school – who is from the Big Island and now teaches at the U of Hawai'i – is defending his dissertation today.
I feel like I could just read accounts like this all day long. Thanks for the share.
The band at the school that Philosofette did her student teaching at last year was selected as the MN representative to play at the ceremony, so she knows a good number of people there today.
I helped facilitate that band's participation in the state Pearl Harbor Commemoration last year (along with 85% of the rest of the program.) was basically a warmup for HI this year. They did a fantastic job.
This year, being the 75th anniversary, most of the event was planned and executed by our Comms dept., the Memorial Rifle Squad for Fort Snelling National Cemetery, and help from the Navy's Minneapolis Recruiting District. Lil' old me basically just showed up today and took it all in.
I just read that Shinzo Abe is going to be visiting Pearl Harbor with President Obama later this month.
I think it is today.They visited Hiroshima together and now this.I'm sure such conciliatory diplomacy will be the hallmark of U.S. relations with the rest of the world for years to come.
Bigly.
Ugh. I know that's a thing, but ugh.
Ughly.
Goddamnit, where is that awful like button.
Time heals wounds? Eventually.
Time wounds all heels.
My brother-in-law was born on December 7, 1961. A day that will live in infamy! (I kid.)
Cassini has begun its ring grazing orbits, and the first results are pretty spectacular.
JPL showing off now. Seven minutes of terror, the rover that won't die, and now going very close to the rings.
I bet marketing-savvy meteorolgists on Saturn name their storms after the planet closest in size.
Actually, they're named alphabetically by Plant genera names. Northern Hemisphere gets woody plants while the south gets herbaceous. The hexagonal storm is Quercus as it was named after Pinus but before Rhus and Salix.
Bewbs.
Yes, I am a 12-year old boy.
Your 2016 Best Of schedule. We managed to fit everyone into December.
12/12 - Pepper
12/13 - CarterHayes
12/14 - AMR
12/15 - Philosopher
12/16 - freealonzo
12/17 - nibbish
12/18 - MagUidhir
I'll try to send a reminder before the week starts, but that's about it most likely. You're free to start setting up the posts whenever you'd like. And free, you're free too.
Can I get bumped to the end of the line please? I'm getting my tonsils out Monday.
Well, I suppose you could set it up in the intervening days between now and then, but if that works best for your schedule, I'll change it.
I could, but I do have a lot of homework and house projects to get done between now and Sunday evening, so I appreciate a little cushion. Thanks, man.
Tonsils? I thought you were adulting.
Yea, that excuse is tough to swallow.
He could recuperate while watching the first half of the nbc crime show. If you watch the second half you see order, but if you watch the first half you view law.
Does this mean you get it, or you don't?
Yes.
Then that was the perfect gif.
Remind me. Is this suppose to be the video of the day?
yep. don't forget to set the "Format" to "Video" as well, or else they'll be starless skies.
Until hj fixes it.
You can bid here.
So, who else was predicting Ian Desmond would sign with the Rockies?
batting title here we come!
And weirdly, the Rockies are going to put the former CF/SS at 1B.
That makes zero sense. Desmond's UZR/150 was 27.4 in left (251 innings) and -5.7 in center (1109 innings) last season, which suggests he's well above average in a corner, even in Colorado. Meanwhile, CarGo was slightly below average in right (-0.7 in 1261 innings) and was worse (-1.9 over 1230.1 innings) in 2015.
I suspect another shoe will drop, with the Rockies landing either a legit first baseman or trading an outfielder (CarGo? Blackmon? Parra?) for pitching help.
Dang it. The wrong teams in the AL Central keep getting young talent: the Cubs have traded Jorge Soler to the Royals for Wade Davis.
Cubs certainly have a surplus of outfielders, but man Wade Davis smells like he's on the decline and this seems like a steep price. That said, Soler may not turn out to be more than a league average corner outfielder, and I'm guessing that's what the Cubs believe.
Notable that the current Cubs FO didn't sign Soler.Hoyer addressed Davis' arm issues this season, but if their analysis is wrong...
Edit: Whoops, I conflated Soler's signing with Báez's.
Well, they also didn't sign Rizzo. But yeah.
Dozier to the Dodgers for Jose DeLeon and some minor leaguers? That's the buzz this afternoon.
I've seen the main part of that rumor for a week or so, that seems like a smart move. And if the Twins manage to get some minor leaguers as well, that would be nice.
Santa came early this year and delivered me a thermopop and a leave in temperature probe. Thermoworks are certainly the best in the business, i only wish I had the cast for the thermopen...
ooooh. Now I know what needs to be on my wish list.
The DOT is the leave in variety I chose. It's cheaper than the smoke / chef alarm and really I only need one channel and one probe. The probe is extremely fast as I just tested out both in an ice bath, and both read within seconds and recovered air temp just as fast. Worth the price doc.
They're must haves. We have the pen and it's invaluable. The wife is a stickler about getting things fully cooked (something about children) so now I can get it at the right temp.
If you don't cook your children long enough they'll catch cold!
And spread disease!
So, what do the Nationals know about Lucas Giolito that the rest of us don't?
Are the White Sox blowing the whole operation up? Is Jose Quintana next? What about Jose Abreu?