Sir? Prize?

      We all seem to love surprises, well, as long as they're not the coming home early from work, type; or the FBI breaking down your front door type.  But that pleasant, unexpected gift or announcement (or promotion) is always --or at least if you're not too old and your ticker is still quite strong-- a welcoming bright spot to your day.  It's the same when you read something or are told something that you never knew, or didn't expect: Mabel did what??  My car will cost how much to fix??  You're pregnant??  But none of that here, although it is time for me to unload a bunch of miscellaneous tidbits from my readings or watchings.  And what better place to start than with a brothel...

  

Photo: Brotheler

      Back in the day, the Mustang Ranch was the premier, or at least most known, legal brothel in Nevada.  We high school teenagers fantasized of telling our buddies that of course we'd been there and had had the best sex EVER.  Of course, none of us actually ever went, or even really knew where it was (somewhere near Vegas, which is wasn't, since brothels are prohibited anywhere near Vegas or Reno).  As a matter of fact, only 6 of Nevada's 17 counties even allow brothels and only 19 such brothels still operate in Nevada, the only state to allow limited legalized sex.  As to sex work in general in the US, here's what then-Representative (now Director of National Intelligence), Tulsi Gabbard, had to say: If a consenting adult wants to engage in sex work, that is their right, and it should not be a crime.  All people should have autonomy over their bodies and their labor.  Well, like me in high school, that was then.  A more updated version comes from  Jannik Lindner, the cofounder of the data analysis web platform Gitnux, who told Our Town Reno: ...law enforcement estimates that nearly 90% of prostitution in Nevada takes place illegally in Las Vegas, not in legal rural brothels.  So wait, where was I going with this?  Somehow jumping back to my high school days I realized that I knew, and still know, zero about such places.  Or their prices.  But when I read that Jeffrey Epstein (yes, that Jeffrey Epstein) only "paid" his underage girls $100 (double that if they brought a "friend"), I did begin to wonder.  If billionaires would only pay chump change, how much more expensive could a "legal" place cost?  Any ideas?  Try $700 an hour, at least according to a recent article in Esquire.  More "experienced" workers can command $4000 an hour.  And yes, those high flying "whales" that Vegas treats like gold?  They toss around $20,000 an hour (and some stay for just 10 minutes, wrote the worker/author of the piece).  Surprise!

Photo: Rare Historical Photos

      Well, damn...er, dams at least.  There are 58,000 of them in the world.  And that's only the large dams, as in Aswan or Hoover.  And it turns out that those dams are apparently major factors of climate change.  Wait, what??  Wrote The London Review: Their reservoirs emit methane, especially in tropical regions, as the organic matter in the areas flooded to create them break down, and cumulatively they have interrupted a sixth of annual river flows, preventing the cycling of nutrients into the sea and undermining the food webs of carbon-sequestering phytoplankton.  In other words, technological lock-in has gone global, and the best we can hope for is planned chaos on a planetary scale.  My, my, lighten up.  Or not.  Dams do far more than block fish migrations or block nutrients heading downstream of course; they provide hydropower and secure future water for both drinking and irrigation.  And they also bury things like villages and temples.  Back in the 60s, this was the case in Egypt, the massive Aswan Dam almost uniting the world with an effort to move the Abu Simbel temple dedicated to the pharaoh Ramses II, and the smaller nearby temple honoring his wife, Nefertari (need I mention that this "temple" was carved out of a solid rock cliff?)  The engineering challenge (imagine moving Mt. Rushmore) saw cooperation and money come from many countries, along with a unified public awareness of the need to save such historic places around the world, which led to the creation of the UNESCO World Heritage Site list (wrote the BBC about the wording that stands for the United Nations: Education, Science & Communication: ...the organization initially formed in 1945 to promote a joined culture of peace and prevent the outbreak of another war; Iran has 29 UNESCO heritage sites).   And while I've never been to Egypt, who knew that along with the 3 pyramids of Giza (pop quiz, can you name them?), there are another 135 others up and down the "old" section of the Nile, although that number is highly debated, wrote Live Science.  Still, as you see on the map photo (Luxor and Aswan are way, way, way south of the area pictured), there are many more recognized pyramids than a tourist would see from the current path of the Nile.  Alas, such cooperation and desire to save such history, even within our national parks, now seems worlds away and eons ago, especially since the US and Israel are apparently destroying so many mosques and treasured buildings with its bombing campaign in Iran.  Mojtaba Najafi, a prominent Iranian scholar and researcher, told the NY Times: For me, ancient monuments are as important as human lives, because they connect me to my past, and their destruction means my memory is being demolished.  The destruction of such historical sites and buildings by Israel and the US is a surprise no one really anticipated, nor is their use of cluster bombs (think of a large shotgun shell filled with hundreds of individual "bomblets" that scatter and explode on impact; such "bombs" are banned by over 100 countries but still in use by Israel, Iran and the US...the US actually sells such bombs to Ukraine, wrote The NY Times).  Is anyone surprised?

     And finally, food.  In jumping back to Vaclav Smil's book (mentioned in the last post), he counters the theories of previous scientists and anthropologists who chart our history of farming and domesticaing animals as advancing human society, although what struck me more was how far back such practices went.  In the days of the Roman empire, he noted that Romans were already moving grain to different parts of their empire, and that we were already winnowing down the grains and animals that we felt were necessary to survive (we now commercially "raise" only 7 main grains and about the same with animals, making us vulnerable to a single virus or fungus --such as is happening to the Cavendish banana-- decimating a part of our food chain).  Ancient Rome at the start of the Common Era (once termed AD in earlier historical books) required 200,000 tons of wheat each year, all of which required coordinated planning to harvest, ship, store and distribute such amounts to its citizens (jump to 2021 and China amassed more than 50% of the world's grain stocks).  But professor Smil asks why, with 20,000 plants being edible, fewer than 20 account for 75% of what we harvest, with cereal grains dominating the list.  

      Little has really changed over the centuries: the prostitution, the building of churches and sacred temples, the logistics of growing and distributing food, the going to war for seemingly little reason.  But one thing that has now stepped up a level is our power to destroy, not only with explosive power but with cellular decay.  Sonic waves, microwaves, radiation, targeted gases & chemicals, nerve blocks & viruses.  And "leaders" saturated with fleeting power as age catches up with them.  To give a bit of perspective, my area of Salt Lake City houses a major military air base, and the US has far more military bases than you may have imagined (click on the Military Base Guide map to view the publicly released views of air bases, then jump to the army, marine, navy, and other bases and see how the map changes).  Of course, this leaves out many areas such as intelligence and those massive hidden bunker/missile installations (an earlier issue of Scientific American displayed a few of those) but you get the idea that our base installations are more numerous than most of us know, which is not much of a big deal since they tend to house and employ many people and have done so for decades, even around the world.  But the other night, my wife and I began hearing the steady rumble of heavy bombers or cargo planes (their sound is quite distinct from that of commercial or fighter jets), their drone coming from a distance then nearing our area before seeming to turn back.  This would occur about every 20 minutes, 2 sets of aircraft lights turning, 2 loud and thunderous rumbles as if the planes were struggling to gain altitude, then silence until it would repeat.  This went on for nearly four hours (there was even one this morning as I walked my dog).  And again the next night, and the next.  Perhaps this was practice, a refresher course for the reserves and backup pilots who had little reason to do takeoffs and landings more often than annually.  Or perhaps the aircraft were moving weapons and cargo to other locations.  Or perhaps this was a level of "alert" that we civilians had (and would have) no knowledge about.  Whatever it was, it was disturbing to hear, snapping us out of our all-is-normal routine.  And then came the news that Pam Bondi had followed in the footsteps of Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth in being moved to protective military housing, away from their homes and offices, away from "danger."  It made us wonder if while we consumers worried about gas prices going up, there could be far more serious changes in the works.  

Map: Britannica

     While Iran supplies "just" 3% of the world's oil, the nearby nations produce 20% of that, but have to pass through the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz, the narrowest section of which is just 21 miles across (as a perspective, Catalina Island sits 26 miles off of the coast of California).  Looking at the map on the left gives you an idea of how many oil-producing countries sit across the Persian Gulf from Iran, and also how much of a bottleneck the Strait can be...mines are proving relatively easy for Iran to deploy, the country now allegedly using Zodiac speed boats and such to drop  mines on the sea bed (parts of the Strait are just 200 feet deep).  In addition, Iranian drones have been effective in targeting oil and gas facilities in countries across the Strait (Saudi Arabia has already shut down its largest refinery).  But prior to all of this, Iran had moved an estimated 90 million barrels of oil in ships stationed far outside the area, many of them on their way to China or scattered in various parts of the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, said Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.  In an interview on the podcast On Point, the professor noted that Iran had warned neighboring states months ago that they would be targeted if they allowed the US or Israel to use their bases in an attack...and Iran followed through.  Iran's new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in a statement published by Iran state media: ...by now they must have realized that America’s claim of establishing security and peace has been nothing more than a lie.  Iran has been taunting Trump, that Netanyahu "played" him once Israel realized that it could not sustain a long war without the help of the US (the US has already shifted to using updated WW II-style bombs which are far cheaper and held in larger supply).  The term TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) is once again making the rounds as heavyweights such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE put pressure on other countries in the region to force Trump to pull out of the war.  Iran seems to have recognized that it doesn't have to fight the entire US military; it only has to fight the reactionary egos of three of its leaders.   And if things go south, those leaders can head underground to deep bunkers (an updated Greenbrier?) although it may turn out to be a collection of jackals, what Dictionary.com defined as people: ...who perform dishonest or base deeds, menial or degrading tasks as followers or accomplices of another.  A true Jackal and hide.  With 2 of those US "leaders" already housed in protective areas in the US, Iran appears ready for a drawn out war (months ago it had allegedly moved thousands of its drones to remote areas).  The US apparently was not (in a bit of irony, Ukraine has been sending the US some of its drones as US munitions run low).  "They are toast, and they know it, or at least, soon enough, they will know it." Hegseth said* at a recent Pentagon briefing: And we have only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy, and defeat their capabilities.  Just four days in.  Starting last night and to be completed in a few days, in under a week.  Or maybe not since a week has already passed...

 

      None of this is to discount the strategy and capabilities of the US military.  The question is more one of would anyone in the current administration listen to what they had to say, especially if such strategies ran contrary to what Trump or Hegseth wanted (many generals and admirals have been fired or resigned under Trump due to disagreements)?  Regime changes aside, Iran now appears united, much as the US would be if the shoes were reversed.  Imagine if the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument were hit by an unprovoked attack by Iran.  No matter if we agreed or disagreed with our leaders, our political differences would vanish in an instant.  This was now an attack on our country and our defensive posture would easily become an offensive one, which is likely what is now uniting Iran.  Iran seems to have recognized that this could never be a war its navy or air force could take on, but that it could cripple economies, especially those which involved many of the trading partners with the US (bye-bye big investment deals with Trump's sons and their firms).  Already such commodities as fertilizer have spiked 25% for US farmers.  

Simulated graphic: Forbes

     So what was the purpose of this post?  That despite all the monuments and natural wonders that remind us of earlier and even ancient times, we can no longer delude ourselves that today's times are the same, or that we have been through this before.  We are in a time of nuclear possibilities, a time of declining moral values when even a President refuses to remove his baseball cap to honor fallen soldiers (his cap was his newest promotional trinket, the proceeds of which go directly into his personal account), a time of police SWAT teams being approached with high-tech military outfits (the simulated photo shows the many companies pitching such products), and a time of our own bombers flying over US soil.  We do not appear to be in normal times, as if one can feel the shift from defense to offense by those administratively in charge (Dept. Of War??  Really??).  But for most of us, it's a time of feeling the opposite, a time of shifting into our own defensive position, to think of consolidating savings and jobs and homes, to think of filling up gas cans and pantries and stocking a few extra batteries and water bottles "just in case," to shift our thinking away from those Epstein files and wonder if we're really prepared for something far more sinister.   And on this occasion, Trump may have been outplayed, or so said professor Vali Nasr.  The stock market heads down while gas prices head up, and both of those are hitting people in the pocketbook.  And for those Middle East countries, they need to also consider that should their trapped oil container ships in the Persian gulf be hit, they could see an Exxon Valdez-type mess on their pristine beaches.  And should Israel or the US pursue the idea of targeted nukes against Iran, one need only remember that Pakistan (which initially and illegally sold nuclear enrichment technology to North Korea long ago), is Iran's neighbor to the south.  To say that the stakes are high would be an understatement, one which Iran seems to have thought out, but perhaps not so much Trump and Netanyahu.  It brings to mind the public challenge a young and cocky Dolph Lundgren issued to Bruce Lee in front of a filled arena (one should note that this trove of "recently discovered" Bruce Lee stories and photos are thought by many to be AI-generated click baits and may be true or may be made up).  Lee had no problem defeating the heavyweight karate champion, but stopped short of doing so, instead offering his hand to help him off the ground, telling him that he was an excellent, but young fighter, and that first strikes and power were not what martial arts were about.  They were about learning, and understanding...

 

     My wife and I have been watching the excellent remake of Frederick Forsyth's book, The Day of the Jackal starring Eddie Redmayne (you may remember him more from his roles in the Fantastic Beasts tales by JK Rowling).  The Forsyth story has been updated, Redmayne now portraying a professional sniper with a weapon that can deliver a precise shot from over 2 miles away, far beyond the typical perimeter of security details.  And perhaps that show has caught the eye of those who may now be running a bit more scared (Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, and perhaps more than a few members of GOP Congressional folk).  For the rest of us, there is one thing that we can do and that is to not let the tactics of fear and negativity overcome us.  United we stand is the motto, only now we are the 70% who are united at the breaking point of our patience, the 70% who are ready to stand up and say "no more," the 70% who want our children and our world to have a future, and peace, and normalcy.  Michael Jackson performed Man in the Mirror, a song written by Glen Ballard & Siedah Barrett.  That song conveyed the basic message how each of us can make a change, but only if we start: I'm gonna make a change for once in my life; it's gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right.  We are a majority now; we are those masses in the concert crowd listening and wanting a change; and the number or us are now more than double the number of those following the few government heads desperately clinging to power across the world, no matter the methods.  Jackson's energy is evident in the video, as is the message: If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.  During these turbulent times, it seems that more and more worried politicians are now finding that we masses may be looking at ourselves in the mirror.  And we just may be ready to make that change...

                        

*Wrote the Christian Science Monitor: Mr. Hegseth has repeatedly said that America would be hunting and killing its adversary without apology, hesitation, or mercy.  He has decried “stupid rules of engagement,” rejected “politically correct wars,” and criticized Europeans for “clutch[ing] their pearls” in the face of America’s decisive action.  Yet Hegseth feeding his manly ego with such wording pales to the princely appetite of his Pentagon spending: $15 million on rib-eye steaks, nearly $7 million on lobster tails, and $2 million on king crab, and that taxpayer money was spent in a single month wrote the government watch dog, Open the Books (keep on mind that two months later, the government would end SNAP benefits to millions because of the shutdown).  Anyone surprised?  For more on the disruption Hegseth is causing, listen to the On Point interview with Wes J. Bryant who served for 20 years in the Pentagon as a liaison of military rules of engagement.  His story of how violating no-go lists of people (civilians) and targets (churches, hospitals, schools, etc.) --once cause for immediate termination-- are not only now being ignored but are being encouraged by Hegseth's rhetoric.  Bryant turned whistle-blower, risking his career and reputation.  Remaining Pentagon lawyers rebuffed both Trump and Hegseth's efforts to charge him as a criminal.  It's a fascinating listen from someone on the inside, telling us what is happening there now...