Dec 27 2014
Dec 27 2014
Bridgeport’s favorite son, Phineas T., is generally regarded as a fool, charlatan, and mountebank. A hopped up midway barker skimming pennies from shill goaded rubes in transparent scams.
Well, yeah, he did that, but he wasn’t foolish at all.
He was the epitome of a Gilded Age entrepreneur, perhaps the first person to truly grasp the power of mass marketing and if we remember him today as a mere traveling showman we are underestimating the complexity of the task and the popularity of the medium before the rise of mechanical performance reproductions.
Before the phonograph and the movie there was only only live performance and if you travel in certain parts of the country you’ll find many wide spots in the road that sport an Opera House, Concert Hall, or Theater, mostly crumbling or re-purposed now but once thriving oases of culture.
Traveling companies produced plays and burlesques. Visiting orchestras presented Art Music both Classic and Contemporary. Famous authors (including one Samuel Clemens, a former Mississippi steam boat pilot who happened to settle in Hartford) would read selections from their books.
I’m going to stop here a moment and recall a particular performance. At one reading Clemens stood to the lectern and plopped down a weighty and dusty tome with many clearly visible bookmarks and a sheaf of foolscap notes. He opened the book, perused it, consulted his notes, perused the book again, shuffled the papers and made as if to speak…
And then shook his head and opened the book to another mark and repeated the act.
So it went for 45 minutes or an hour when with a flourish and great dignity he gathered his notes, closed the book and exited (probably stage right as that’s usually the one closest to the street door), without ever having said a word. I’m not usually one for mime, but I think this probably the most brilliant comedy routine of the 19th Century.
I don’t reckon them times will ever come again. There never was a more bullier old ram than what he was. Grandfather fetched him from Illinois-got him of a man by the name of Yates-Bill Yates-maybe you might have heard of him; his father was a deacon-Baptist-and he was a rustler, too; a man had to get up ruther early to get the start of old Thankful Yates; it was him that put the Greens up to jining teams with my grandfather when he moved west. Seth Green was prob’ly the pick of the flock; he married a Wilkerson-Sarah Wilkerson-good cretur, she was-one of the likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a bar’l of flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don’t mention it! Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a browsing around her, she let him know that for all his tin he couldn’t trot in harness alongside of her. You see, Sile Hawkins was-no, it warn’t Sile Hawkins, after all-it was a galoot by the name of Filkins-I disremember his first name; but he was a stump-come into pra’r meeting drunk, one night, hooraying for Nixon, becuz he thought it was a primary; and old deacon Ferguson up and scooted him through the window and he lit on old Miss Jefferson’s head, poor old filly. She was a good soul-had a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss Wagner, that hadn’t any, to receive company in; it warn’t big enough, and when Miss Wagner warn’t noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, while t’ other one was looking as straight ahead as a spy-glass. Grown people didn’t mind it, but it most always made the children cry, it was so sort of scary. She tried packing it in raw cotton, but it wouldn’t work, somehow-the cotton would get loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children couldn’t stand it no way. She was always dropping it out, and turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and making them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped out, being blind on that side, you see. So somebody would have to hunch her and say, “Your game eye has fetched loose, Miss Wagner dear”-and then all of them would have to sit and wait till she jammed it in again-wrong side before, as a general thing, and green as a bird’s egg, being a bashful cretur and easy sot back before company. But being wrong side before warn’t much difference, anyway; becuz her own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was yaller on the front side, so whichever way she turned it it didn’t match nohow. Old Miss Wagner was considerable on the borrow, she was. When she had a quilting, or Dorcas S’iety at her house she gen’ally borrowed Miss Higgins’s wooden leg to stump around on; it was considerable shorter than her other pin, but much she minded that. She said she couldn’t abide crutches when she had company, becuz they were so slow; said when she had company and things had to be done, she wanted to get up and hump herself. She was as bald as a jug, and so she used to borrow Miss Jacops’s wig-Miss Jacops was the coffin-peddler’s wife-a ratty old buzzard, he was, that used to go roosting around where people was sick, waiting for ’em; and there that old rip would sit all day, in the shade, on a coffin that he judged would fit the can’idate; and if it was a slow customer and kind of uncertain, he’d fetch his rations and a blanket along and sleep in the coffin nights. He was anchored out that way, in frosty weather, for about three weeks, once, before old Robbins’s place, waiting for him; and after that, for as much as two years, Jacops was not on speaking terms with the old man, on account of his disapp’inting him. He got one of his feet froze, and lost money, too, becuz old Robbins took a favorable turn and got well. The next time Robbins got sick, Jacops tried to make up with him, and varnished up the same old coffin and fetched it along; but old Robbins was too many for him; he had him in, and ‘peared to be powerful weak; he bought the coffin for ten dollars and Jacops was to pay it back and twenty-five more besides if Robbins didn’t like the coffin after he’d tried it. And then Robbins died, and at the funeral he bursted off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the parson to let up on the performances, becuz he could not stand such a coffin as that. You see he had been in a trance once before, when he was young, and he took the chances on another, cal’lating that if he made the trip it was money in his pocket, and if he missed fire he couldn’t lose a cent. And by George he sued Jacops for the rhino and got jedgment; and he set up the coffin in his back parlor and said he ‘lowed to take his time, now. It was always an aggravation to Jacops, the way that miserable old thing acted. He moved back to Indiany pretty soon-went to Wellsville-Wellsville was the place the Hogadorns was from. Mighty fine family. Old Maryland stock. Old Squire Hogadorn could carry around more mixed licker, and cuss better than most any man I ever see. His second wife was the widder Billings-she that was Becky Martin; her dam was deacon Dunlap’s first wife. Her oldest child, Maria, married a missionary and died in grace-et up by the savages. They et him, too, poor feller-biled him. It warn’t the custom, so they say, but they explained to friends of his’n that went down there to bring away his things, that they’d tried missionaries every other way and never could get any good out of ’em-and so it annoyed all his relations to find out that that man’s life was fooled away just out of a dern’d experiment, so to speak. But mind you, there ain’t anything ever reely lost; everything that people can’t understand and don’t see the reason of does good if you only hold on and give it a fair shake; Prov’dence don’t fire no blank ca’tridges, boys. That there missionary’s substance, unbeknowns to himself, actu’ly converted every last one of them heathens that took a chance at the barbacue. Nothing ever fetched them but that. Don’t tell me it was an accident that he was biled. There ain’t no such a thing as an accident. When my uncle Lem was leaning up agin a scaffolding once, sick, or drunk, or suthin, an Irishman with a hod full of bricks fell on him out of the third story and broke the old man’s back in two places. People said it was an accident. Much accident there was about that. He didn’t know what he was there for, but he was there for a good object. If he hadn’t been there the Irishman would have been killed. Nobody can ever make me believe anything different from that. Uncle Lem’s dog was there. Why didn’t the Irishman fall on the dog? Becuz the dog would a seen him a coming and stood from under. That’s the reason the dog warn’t appinted. A dog can’t be depended on to carry out a special providence. Mark my words it was a put-up thing. Accidents don’t happen, boys. Uncle Lem’s dog-I wish you could a seen that dog. He was a reglar shepherd-or ruther he was part bull and part shepherd-splendid animal; belonged to parson Hagar before Uncle Lem got him. Parson Hagar belonged to the Western Reserve Hagars; prime family; his mother was a Watson; one of his sisters married a Wheeler; they settled in Morgan county, and he got nipped by the machinery in a carpet factory and went through in less than a quarter of a minute; his widder bought the piece of carpet that had his remains wove in, and people come a hundred mile to ‘tend the funeral. There was fourteen yards in the piece. She wouldn’t let them roll him up, but planted him just so-full length. The church was middling small where they preached the funeral, and they had to let one end of the coffin stick out of the window. They didn’t bury him-they planted one end, and let him stand up, same as a monument. And they nailed a sign on it and put-put on-put on it-sacred to-the m-e-m-o-r-y-of fourteen y-a-r-d-s-of three-ply-car--pet-containing all that was-m-o-r-t-a-l-of-of-W-i-l-l-i-a-m-W-h-e-”
Now consider the current nature of the music industry. With a glut of digital material flooding the market (interestingly enough, CDs were introduced because the profit margins on Vinyl were deemed insufficent and so they introduced a new medium that was easily duplicated and virtually indestructible because they thought they could charge a premium) RIAA mega-corps are reduced to squeezing pennies from “pirates” (arrgh) and plotting and scheming to seize some of Google’s zillions in corrupt courts where they will simply be out-bid (an honest politician? one that stays bought).
Nope, the only way to actually make money, at least for the musician, is a live performance tour.
There are incredible logistics that go into producing that spectacle, the Gaffers and Grips, the Lighting and Sound, the Pyro Technicians, Caterers, Bookers, and Travel Agents.
P.T.’s Circus Train was an idea perfect for the time, and the Circus Parade as the Tents went up a master stroke of marketing. Nor was it unique, indeed Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show was kind of the benchmark to which P.T. aspired.
The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.- P. T. Barnum
It’s not that Phineas didn’t aspire to a more erudite audience. After all he introduced Jenny Lind and bought and expanded the American Museum
Barnum opened his museum on January 1, 1842 to create a place where families could go for wholesome, affordable entertainment, but his success drew from the fact that he knew how to entice an audience. Its attractions made it a combination zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theater and freak show, that was, at the same time, a central site in the development of American popular culture. Barnum filled the American Museum with dioramas, panoramas, “cosmoramas,” scientific instruments, modern appliances, a flea circus, a loom run by a dog, the trunk of a tree under which Jesus’ disciples sat, a hat worn by Ulysses S. Grant, an oyster bar, a rifle range, waxworks, glass blowers, taxidermists, phrenologists, pretty-baby contests, Ned the learned seal, the Feejee Mermaid (a mummified monkey’s torso with a fish’s tail), midgets, Chang and Eng the Siamese twins, a menagerie of exotic animals that included beluga whales in an aquarium, giants, Grizzly Adams’s trained bears and performances ranging from magicians, ventriloquists and blackface minstrels to adaptations of biblical tales and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
At its peak, the museum was open fifteen hours a day and had as many as 15,000 visitors a day. Some 38 million customers paid the 25 cents admission to attend the museum between 1841 and 1865. The total population of the United States in 1860 was under 32 million.
This way to the Egress
In some ways the circus has always been an egalitarian institution, in Roman times it was one of the few entertainments not segregated by sex and to those who claim Astley the founder of this particular entertainment, fancy horse tricks, freaks, and trained animal acts have an ancient lineage indeed.
Traveling troupes of Troubadores, Actors, and other performers were quite common in Medieval Europe. Lenin wanted “the circus to become ‘the people’s art-form’, with facilities and status on a par with theatre, opera and ballet.”
Mel Brooks says-
If it wasn’t for Jews, fags, and gypsies, there would be no theater.
In European Circus there’s a little more attention to overall structure and narrative than mere displays of athleticsm and while the setting of Pétrouchka is supposedly a Shrovetide Fair the atmosphere conveyed by Michel Fokine and the Ballets Russes has a decidedly ‘circus-like’ feel from the Midway, Carousel, and Ferris Wheel, down to the dancing Bears (Bears! Godless killing machines!).
Punch is not a sympathetic character, “Whatever his name, he is a trickster, a rebel, and a wife beater. He enforces moral justice with a slap stick, speaks in a high-pitched, squeaky voice, and argues with the devil. His plays were formulaic and subversive. They repeated key scenes from one play to another. The plays usually ended with a dog, a policeman, or the devil dragging him away.”
Pétrouchka lusts after the Ballerina and resents the Charlatan who is always pulling his (ahem) strings. He interrupts the Ballerina seducing the Moor (women in theater being nothing but whores all too willing to have sex with brown people) who chases him and eventually splits open his head, showing the sawdust and rags with which it is filled (he’s a puppet after all). The Charlatan exposes this to the audience who feel no empathy for the real performer and the ghost of Pétrouchka appears to thumb his nose from the roof at him. The Charlatan flees with the angry (stage) audience in hot pursuit leaving you, the (real?) audience wondering-
And I paid $150 for that? Not including dinner, drinks, and transit? What was I thinking?
Of course if you’re in exile in Moscow like Snowden you can pay in devalued Rubles to watch the Bolshoi-
Today’s edition is offered strictly for entertainment value, post holiday ennui has left me, uninspired-
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
–Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
This Day in History
Dec 27 2014
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
December 27 is the 361st day of the year (362nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are four days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1932, Radio City Music Hall opened in New York City.
The 12-acre complex in midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center was developed between 1929 and 1940 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on land leased from Columbia University. The Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. Rockefeller initially planned a new home for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the plans changed and the opera company withdrew from the project.
Its originally planned name was International Music Hall. The names “Radio City” and “Radio City Music Hall” derive from one of the complex’s first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America. Radio City Music Hall was a project of Rockefeller; Samuel Roxy Rothafel, who previously opened the Roxy Theatre in 1927; and RCA chairman David Sarnoff. RCA had developed numerous studios for NBC at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just to the south of the Music Hall, and the radio-TV complex that lent the Music Hall its name is still known as the NBC Radio City Studios.
The Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932 with a lavish stage show featuring Ray Bolger and Martha Graham. The opening was meant to be a return to high-class variety entertainment. The new format was not a success. The program was very long and individual acts were lost in the cavernous hall. On January 11, 1933, the Music Hall converted to the then familiar format of a feature film with a spectacular stage show which Rothafel had perfected at the Roxy Theatre. The first film was shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra’s The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck and the Music Hall became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio. The film plus stage spectacle format continued at the Music Hall until 1979 with four complete performances presented every day.
By the 1970s, changes in film distribution made it difficult for Radio City to secure exclusive bookings of many films; furthermore, the theater preferred to show only G-rated movies, which further limited their film choices as the decade wore on. Regular film showings at Radio City ended in 1979. Plans were made to convert the theater into office space, but a combination of preservation and commercial interests resulted in the preservation of Radio City and in 1980, after a renovation, it reopened to the public.
Radio City Music Hall is currently leased to and managed by Madison Square Garden, Inc. Movie premieres and feature runs have occasionally taken place there but the focus of the theater throughout the year is now on concerts and live stage shows. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular continues to be an important annual event. The Music Hall has presented most of the leading pop and rock performers of the last 30 years as well as televised events including the Grammy Awards, the Tony Awards, and the MTV Music Awards.
Dec 27 2014
Get spirited away in China’s Ghibli-esque tourist complex
Cara Clegg
Studio Ghibli’s acclaimed film Spirited Away is beloved around the world for its touching story and beautiful animation, and the whimsical setting has a real-life counterpart. Jiufen, a mountainous area of New Taipei City in Taiwan is said to be where creator Hayao Miyazaki drew a lot of his inspiration for the film, and many tourists visit the area to feel like they’re stepping into the magical world of Spirited Away. But it turns out there’s also somewhere similar in China! Check out these photos and videos of the incredible place.In Sichuan province, the area famed for its pandas and delicious mapo tofu, is a place called Hongyadon situated in the heart of the city of Chongqing at the point where the Yangtze River and Jialing River meet. There you’ll find a tall, towering structure accessed by a bridge that looks just like a Japanese castle. It looks like something copied straight out of a fantasy movie, but it’s actually a traditional style of building from an area steeped in 2,300 years of history.
Dec 27 2014
Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
I used plenty of oil in this week’s recipes, but not as much as latkes require. The theme here is skillet-cooked vegetables. For most of the dishes my oil of choice is olive oil, as I instinctively turn toward the Mediterranean when I am working with produce. However I can easily imagine all of these dishes reconfigured for an Indian palate, with Indian spices and a neutral oil like grapeseed oil or ghee, or both, used as fats.
I chose vegetables that will brown a bit in a hot skillet – winter squash and brussels sprouts, carrots and potatoes – and in several of the dishes I sneaked in some greens that had been previously blanched or wilted in the pan. They won’t crisp up or caramelize, but I love the way they enrich and contribute valuable nutrients to a recipe. From time to time I throw in some red or black quinoa as well, not as a main ingredient but almost as a garnish. In one dish, spaghetti squash served on a bed of spinach, I used two different oils, olive oil for cooking and walnut oil for drizzling.
~Martha Rose Shulman~
Mint gremolata adds another layer of flavor to this combination.
Sautéed Potatoes With Black Kale and Nigella
A dish with just a bit of what we love so much about latkes: the delicious crispy edges.
Sautéed Spicy Carrots With Black Quinoa
A spicy mix of carrots, cumin, coriander and chile inspired by a classic Moroccan salad.
Sautéed Winter Squash With Swiss Chard, Red Quinoa and Aleppo Pepper
Bright orange squash is sweet and beautiful against chopped chard in this dish.
Baked and Sautéed Spaghetti Squash on a Bed of Spinach
Spaghetti squash gets a delicious nutty accent.
Dec 27 2014
–Isaiah 11:6
With all the hacking attacks recently, it was bound to happen that someone would try to hack Santa’s mail and share it with the world.
Dec 26 2014
A reprint from 2007 but as true today as it ever was.
As U.S. troops return to Iraq, more private contractors follow
By Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart, Reuters
WASHINGTON Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:17am EST
The U.S. government is preparing to boost the number of private contractors in Iraq as part of President Barack Obama’s growing effort to beat back Islamic State militants threatening the Baghdad government, a senior U.S. official said.
How many contractors will deploy to Iraq – beyond the roughly 1,800 now working there for the U.S. State Department – will depend in part, the official said, on how widely dispersed U.S. troops advising Iraqi security forces are, and how far they are from U.S. diplomatic facilities.
…
The presence of contractors in Iraq, particularly private security firms, has been controversial since a series of violent incidents during the U.S. occupation, culminating in the September 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqis by guards from Blackwater security firm.Three former guards were convicted in October of voluntary manslaughter charges and a fourth of murder in the case, which prompted reforms in U.S. government oversight of contractors.
…
The number of Pentagon contractors, which in late 2008 reached over 163,000 – rivaling the number of U.S. troops on the ground at the time – has fallen sharply with reduced U.S. military presence.
…
In late 2013, the Pentagon still had 6,000 contractors in Iraq, mostly supporting U.S. weapon sales to the Baghdad government, Wright said.But there are signs that trend will be reversed. The Pentagon in August issued a public notice that it was seeking help from private firms to advise Iraq’s Ministry of Defense and its Counter Terrorism Service.
From Wikipedia’s entry on the American Revolutionary War
Early in 1775, the British Army consisted of about 36,000 men worldwide… Additionally, over the course of the war the British hired about 30,000 soldiers from German princes, these soldiers were called “Hessians” because many of them came from Hesse-Kassel. The troops were mercenaries in the sense of professionals who were hired out by their prince. Germans made up about one-third of the British troop strength in North America.
On December 26th 1776 after being chased by the British army under Lords Howe and Cornwallis augmented by these “Hessians” led by Wilhelm von Knyphausen from Brooklyn Heights to the other side of the Delaware the fate of the Continental Army and thus the United States looked bleak. The Continental Congress abandoned Philidephia, fleeing to Baltimore. It was at this time Thomas Paine was inspired to write The Crisis.
The story of Washington’s re-crossing of the Delaware to successfully attack the “Hessian” garrison at Trenton is taught to every school child.
On March 31, 2004 Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah ambushed a convoy containing four American private military contractors from Blackwater USA.
The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague, were dragged from their cars, beaten, and set ablaze. Their burned corpses were then dragged through the streets before being hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates.
Of this incident the next day prominent blogger Markos Moulitsas notoriously said-
Every death should be on the front page (2.70 / 40)
Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly.
That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.
(From Corpses on the Cover by gregonthe28th. This link directly to the comment doesn’t work for some reason.)
Now I think that this is a reasonable sentiment that any patriotic American with a knowledge of history might share.
Why bring up this old news again, two days from the 231st anniversary of the Battle of Trenton?
Warnings Unheeded On Guards In Iraq
Despite Shootings, Security Companies Expanded Presence
By Steve Fainaru, Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 24, 2007; A01
The U.S. government disregarded numerous warnings over the past two years about the risks of using Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms in Iraq, expanding their presence even after a series of shooting incidents showed that the firms were operating with little regulation or oversight, according to government officials, private security firms and documents.
…
Last year, the Pentagon estimated that 20,000 hired guns worked in Iraq; the Government Accountability Office estimated 48,000.
…
The Defense Department has paid $2.7 billion for private security since 2003, according to USA Spending, a government-funded project that tracks contracting expenditures; the military said it currently employs 17 companies in Iraq under contracts worth $689.7 million. The State Department has paid $2.4 billion for private security in Iraq — including $1 billion to Blackwater — since 2003, USA Spending figures show.
…
The State Department’s reliance on Blackwater expanded dramatically in 2006, when together with the U.S. firms DynCorp and Triple Canopy it won a new, multiyear contract worth $3.6 billion. Blackwater’s share was $1.2 billion, up from $488 million, and the company more than doubled its staff, from 482 to 1,082. From January 2006 to April 2007, the State Department paid Blackwater at least $601 million in 38 transactions, according to government data.The company developed a reputation for aggressive street tactics. Even inside the fortified Green Zone, Blackwater guards were known for running vehicles off the road and pointing their weapons at bystanders, according to several security company representatives and U.S. officials.
Based on insurance claims there are only 25 confirmed deaths of Blackwater employees in Iraq, including the four killed in Fallujah. You might care to contrast that with the 17 Iraqis killed on September 16th alone. Then there are the 3 Kurdish civilians in Kirkuk on February 7th of 2006. And the three employees of the state-run media company and the driver for the Interior Ministry.
And then exactly one year ago today, on Christmas Eve 2006, a Blackwater mercenary killed the body guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi while drunk at a Christmas party (the mercenary, not the guard or Vice President Abdul-Mahdi who were both presumably observant Muslims and no more likely to drink alcohol than Mitt Romney to drink tea).
Sort of makes all those embarrassing passes you made at co-workers and the butt Xeroxes at the office party seem kind of trivial, now doesn’t it?
So that makes it even at 25 apiece except I’ve hardly begun to catalog the number of Iraqis killed by trigger happy Blackwater mercenaries.
They say irony is dead and I (and Santayana) say that the problem with history is that people who don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat it.
Dec 26 2014
On December 26, 2004 at 00:58:53 UTC an 9.3 earthquake deep in the Indian Ocean centered just off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, triggered a massive tsumani that wiped out the coast line of that island and effected 14 other nations in Southeast Asia and Africa. It is estimated to have killed over 250,000 people but the real death toll will never be truly known. It was still Christmas in New York City, when word started trickling in about the devastation.
Ten years later, much of Indonesia and the region has bounced back but for many the scars still remain and they still mourn.
People across Southeast Asia gathered along the shores of the Indian Ocean on Friday to mark the 10th anniversary of the devastating tsunami of 2004.
One of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history, it killed 230,000 people and displaced millions in 12 countries.
Services were held to remember the dead in countries including Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. Moments of silence were planned in several locations to mark the exact time the tsunami hit.
“I cannot forget the smell of the air, the water at that time … even after 10 years,” Teuku Ahmad Salman said at a prayer service attended by thousands of people in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
Sobbing, the 51-year-old said: “I cannot forget how I lost hold of my wife, my kids, my house.”
He said he refused to believe for years that his family had died, but eventually gave up looking for them.
There are some excellent before and after pictures in this article by Margaret Munro in the National Post:
Huge waves washing boats, vehicles, trees and bodies up streets and hillsides. Desperate parents and families searching for children and relatives who had been swept away. Heart-breaking images of missing tourists, last seen smiling under sunny skies and palm trees.
The Boxing Day tsunami off the Indonesian coast of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004 was one of the world’s worst disasters.
A magnitude 9.1 earthquake had unzipped a 1,300-kilometre subduction zone, heaving the sea floor and generating killer waves that took almost a quarter of a million lives (more than 230,000) in 14 countries.
Scientists knew the quake had occurred – it was picked up on seismographs half a world away – and suspected a tsunami was racing across the Indian Ocean. But there was no effective way to warn communities so people could head to higher ground, even though in some regions it took hours for the giant waves to arrive.
Dec 26 2014
On the day after Christmas…
Take your pick.
In the world of retail Boxing Day is the day everyone brings back all the crap they got for gifts that they didn’t want or is the wrong size or the wrong color or that they shoplifted and now want full retail for instead of the 10% that the local fence will give them.
Now fortunately for me I never had to work the counter during this period of long lines and testy, hung over sales people and managers dealing with irate customers who think that making their sob story more pitiful than the last one will get them any treatment more special than what everyone gets.
Bingo, have some store credit. Go nuts. Have a nice day.
What makes it especially crappy for the clerks is that you don’t normally get a lot of practice with the return procedures because your manager will handle it since it’s easier than training you. Now you have 20 in a row and the first 7 or 8 are slow until you get the hang of things.
As a customer I have to warn you, this is not a swap meet. If they didn’t have a blue size 6 on Christmas Eve, they don’t have it now either EVEN IF THE CUSTOMER RIGHT AHEAD OF YOU IN LINE JUST RETURNED A SIZE 6 IN BLUE!
It has to go back to the warehouse for processing and re-packaging. Really.
So if you braved the surly stares today you have my admiration for your tenacity. If you waited for the rush to pass my respect for your brilliance.
But don’t wait too long. It all has to be out of the store before February inventory so it doesn’t have to be counted.
