[Kzyxtalk] The curve of binding energy.

[Marco McClean]

Subject: The curve of binding energy.

/"In peacetime Fitch would be hanging around a pool table giving the 
cops trouble. He was perfect for war. Tibbets had chosen his men 
well—most of them, anyway. Moving back past Haddock, January stopped to 
stare at the group of men in the navigation cabin. They joked, drank 
coffee. They were all a bit like Fitch: young toughs, capable and 
thoughtless. They were having a good time, an adventure. That was 
January's dominant impression of his companions in the 509th; despite 
all the bitching and the occasional moments of overmastering fear, they 
were having a good time. His mind spun forward and he saw what these 
young men would grow up to be like as clearly as if they stood before 
him in businessmen's suits, prosperous and balding. They would be tough 
and capable and thoughtless, and as the years passed and the great war 
receded in time they would look back on it with ever-increasing 
nostalgia, for they would be the survivors and not the dead. Every year 
of this war would feel like ten in their memories, so that the war would 
always remain the central experience of their lives -- a time when 
history lay palpable in their hands, when each of their daily acts 
affected it, when moral issues were simple, and others told them what to 
do—so that as more years passed and the survivors aged, bodies falling 
apart, lives in one rut or another, they would unconsciously push harder 
and harder to thrust the world into war again, thinking somewhere inside 
themselves that if they could only return to world war then they would 
magically be again as they were in the last one -- young, and free, and 
happy. And by that time they would hold the positions of power, they 
would be capable of doing it." –from The Lucky Strike, by Kim Stanley 
Robinson/

Here's the recording of last night's (2022-08-05) Memo of the Air: Good 
Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA):
https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0500

Thanks to Hank Sims for all kinds of tech help over the years, as well 
as for his fine news site: https://LostCoastOutpost.com

Thanks to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which provided almost an hour 
of the above 8-hour show's most locally relevant material, as usual, 
without asking for anything in return. Just $25 a year for full access 
to all articles and features (TheAVA.com). While you're feeling 
generous, go to KNYO.org and click on the big red heart and give like a 
champ, or not. It's a free country, or rather as free as you can arse 
yourself to make it be. You can always email me your work on any subject 
and I'll read it on the radio the upcoming Friday night.

FURTHERMORE, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh 
batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless 
worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. 
Such as:

Hornets.
https://theawesomer.com/hornets-vs-ants-in-slow-motion/675933/

Record jackets. (via TackyRaccoons)
https://americandigest.org/hells-jukebox-drink-up-its-date-night-start-now/

"U is for Undine, pursuing Ulysses and Umberto, who flee her damp, 
death-dealing kisses." (via NagOnTheLake)
https://flashbak.com/an-alphabet-of-celebrities-by-oliver-herford-1899-454173/

And 15 minutes with Laurie Anderson.
https://boingboing.net/2022/07/30/laurie-anderson-sits-down-with-anderson-cooper.html

-- 
Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com