The Cuban Missile Crisis

They were the scariest days in my life, those seven days in October 1962 when the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war.

I was a senior at Northwestern University. In the autumn of 1962, I was in the honors seminar for political science, my major. My professor was Richard Snyder, head of the department, who had built it into one of the best in nation. We met every Tuesday night at his home on Orrington Avenue in Evanston, just a few blocks north of the home where I rented an attic room. We also met a couple of more times that week to discuss the latest developments in the crisis.

On Oct. 22, we saw President John F. Kennedy address the nation about the severity of the crisis and tell Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev to remove all the missile bases and their deadly contents from Cuba. President Kennedy wasn't kidding. Everyone knew he meant business. But it took Premier Khrushchev a few days to back down.

This crisis unfolded on television and radio and in newspapers and magazines everywhere. The whole world was watching. For seven days, everyone sat on the brink.

There have been wars and crises since then, but for me at least, nothing has been scarier, not even Sept. 11, 2001. We all had to imagine what our cities and our towns, our families and friends, would be like in the aftermath of a nuclear war. And what would the rest of the world be like? What would happen to them?

No one knew what would happen. The uncertainty, the anxiety haunted everyone. Finally, on Oct. 28, thinking better of prolonging his challenge to the United States, the Russian Premier conceded to President Kennedy's demands by ordering all Soviet supply ships away from Cuban waters and agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was over.

Where Are You?

Yes, you!

I don't know why people are so reticent about posting entries to this or any blog.

When I walk down the street these days, I see so many people walking or driving and blabbing away on their cell phones at the same time. Clearly, people have things to say.

So maybe it is writing about whatever that people--that you!--find so daunting.

Get over it! Write, talk about anything you wish on this blog. Don't be afraid!

Never On Friday

A week has passed since I opened my Never On Friday blog to anyone who ever attended a parochial school, Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or whatever.

I launched Never On Friday a year ago for my grammar school classmates at St. Leonard's in Berwyn, Illinois. We were looking forward to our 50th Reunion, which we held on June 5th of this year. But not many of my classmates posted entries on Never On Friday, so I decided to open it to others who went to parochial schools.

I invited the nearly 300 members of my "swingera" Yahoo! Group.

I invited the nearly 750 people on my Tuxedo Junction mailing list.

No one accepted.

One man wrote to say he didn't attend a parochial school. Another wrote to inquire about the current schedule for the Duke Ellington Orchestra. They were the only two who responded to my invitation.

But no one seems to cares about a parochial school blog.

So, I'll have to come up with another use for my Never On Friday blog .

Or, maybe I'll just let my Never On Friday blog rest for a couple of weeks to see what happens.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

More Bit Depth, Please

Just found a good classical guitar site:

http://home.zonnet.nl/b.alink/

Unfortunately, the recordings are in MP3 format because of the limits of current technology. CDs and MP3s sure sound edgy by comparison with vinyl or 24-bit audio. I wish we had a way to get better audio (with the help of more bit depth) over the Web, though bandwidth and storage limitations would make it impossible in the near term, even if the will were there.

http://www.tweakheadz.com/16_vs_24_bit_audio.htm describes the difference between the three main digital formats if you're interested in a comparison.

Sensing Earthquakes From On High

Earlier this week in California we had the Parkfield 2004 earthquake, a 6.0 roller with an epicenter near Paso Robles in central California. Not much damage, fortunately. Paso Robles residents were grateful for that, especially considering that their downtown had been hit in 2003 with another more disruptive quake that leveled several older, unreinforced buildings. You can find out more on this week's quake at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041001090002.htm if you're interested.

I was on the 14th floor in an office tower in San Jose, chatting with a co-worker of mine, when the Parkfield quake hit. The building was built in the 1980s and designed to roll with the earth's movement. It swayed for a good thirty seconds, making the vertical blinds on the windows slap against each other. No one was hurt and there was no damage, but the movement was strong enough that it spooked everyone in the office. Here in the Bay Area, people remember the Loma Prieta 1989 quake, a shaker that emptied the kitchen cabinets and dumped everything on the floor in our place, and caused my in-laws' chimney to collapse. That one really felt to me like God had picked up the building and started shaking it, but structural damage to the building was nil. Others in places like the Marina in San Francisco (built on fill), Los Gatos (near a subfault and not far from the epicenter) or Santa Cruz (also close to Loma Prieta) were less fortunate we were.

After the Parkfield quake, I called my wife, who was outside when it hit. She didn't feel a thing. We're 160 miles from the Parkfield area. Being high up in a building designed to move really exaggerates the quakes.

Our firm will be moving out of this building we're in at the end of the year, and we're all grateful for it. Even though it seems earthquake-friendly, it has other problems. A month before the quake, someone's window on our floor began to splinter without apparent cause on a Saturday when he was working long hours; he moved away from it, and then it broke entirely. Pieces of the glass fell out, and could have hit people on the sidewalks below if anyone had been down there. We've been told that this isn't the first window in this building this has happened to.

Do you remember the John Hancock building in Boston back in the 1970s? The wind whipped around that new building and sucked window glass out of it on a regular basis. The owners had to install awnings around the entire perimeter of the ground floor to protect pedestrians from falling glass.

Our building's owners, by contrast, don't seem terribly concerned about the windows or public safety in general. There's still a piece of plywood where a new window should have been installed. The elevator safety inspection certificates are long expired, and the landings by the elevators have signs that instruct people to use the stairs in case of fire, but these areas are closed off from the stairwells unless you're lucky enough to have a key card. If there were a fire and someone got stuck on the landing without a key, they'd have nowhere to go--the elevators are brought automatically to the ground floor in such a case.

Ironically, the building (from the sides that don't have plywood on them, anyway) looks very impressive on the outside; like many of the oversized, contemporary office towers around it, it was built during one of the Silicon Valley booms. It's half empty like the rest; there may still be 60 million square feet of vacant office space here in the Valley.

I've told people I have a nice view from my office on the 14th floor there, and some tell me they envy me for that. It's then that I feel the need to explain why they shouldn't be quite so envious. Not to mention that our firm's decreasing everyone's office space when we move, and that I'll be in a cubicle in a couple of months, in a building where the HVAC system recently caught fire and the occupants had to evacuate. But from the outside and even in the hallways, the building we'll be moving to is really very impressive looking.

Should I be grateful for what we have? We never have to worry about hurricanes--just the threat of the Towering Inferno, spontaneously shattering window glass, or another shaker like the 1989 one. Most of the time, I don't even think about it.

For A More Peaceful World

Now that we have all this great technology and this fantastic inventory of beautiful music, I think there is a way to calm down the hate and violence that has been getting out of hand lately.

We need to pipe this music into every prison, hospital, ghetto, refugee camp, church, mosque, synagogue, school, elevator, bus station, combat zone, aircraft, supermarket, phone, shortwave radio, satellite, FM, AM, XF, TV, police radio, taxicab, submarine, mountain valley, cave, and office building. Bounce it off the moon! Put it in the water and air! Even let the animals in the zoo groove!

Nice idea?

Sitting In The Audience

Los Angeles (Oct. 1)--Yesterday, I hopped on the bus and rode about two miles to the studios of G4TechTV to see "The Screen Savers". Audience members were asked to arrive between 2:30 and 3:15 p.m. for the live show at 4:00 p.m. (all times PDT). A line formed outside the building, mostly male, mostly under 40. Being 64, I was the outlier.

A female audience relations person coached us. She also said that anyone who wanted to stay for the taping of "Unscrewed" with Martin Sargent and Laura Swisher could do so. Before we knew it, we were inside the building, but we still had to wait awhile to go into the studio.

Once we were inside, we saw Kevin, Alex, Sarah and Yoshi dressed as Star Trekkers and rehearsing their opening scene. The behind-the-scenes staff couldn't have been nicer to the audience. The show, under Paul Bloch's guidance, went smoothly.

Our audience relations person asked questions about Star Trek and gave away Star Trek DVD sets and other prizes for correct answers during the commercial breaks. Andy interviewed Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on Star Trek. She shared some pleasant memories.

We met the entire cast after the show. They were friendly and answered every question.

Many of us remained for the taping of "Unscrewed". We were treated to soft drinks and pizzas from Domino's. This time we had a male audience relations person who kept everyone laughing as we waited.

Martin's wit was as amusing as ever, and Laura Swisher is even more beautiful in person than she is on TV. Martin surprised me in one way: he read all of his comments on a teleprompter. I would have thought he would have been more spontaneous. Don't get me wrong. He was still extremely funny and entertaining.

I had a great time, thanks to the friendly and warm G4TechTV staff. If you live in Los Angeles or plan to visit, try to catch a live show. You'll be glad you did!