HeroicStories

HeroicStories is a free mailing list and web site whose motto is "Restoring faith in humanity, one story at a time..." I've subscribed to it from near it's inception. Click on the link above and add yourself; you'll thank me for it.

Each time the latest edition arrives in my inbox, I get a little frisson of good feelings, knowing that I'm about to read another story about my fellow humans behaving in an admirable way. Don't seem to get enough of that from the usual news sources.

Edition #632 just hit my inbox, and (as expected) it delivered another uplifting story. This time it was about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. An excerpt:

In a really rough neighborhood, we came across five seemingly unsavory characters, one with gunshot wound scars. We found them at a recreational center, one of the few two-story buildings around. They broke into the center, then gathered as many people as possible from the neighborhood.

They stayed outside in the center all day, helping people into rescue boats. We approached them at 6:30 p.m., obviously one of the last trips of the day. Yet instead of getting in our boat, they sent us further into the neighborhood to get more people out of homes and off rooftops.

These five were on the last boat out at sundown. They were incredibly grateful, repeating "God is going to bless y'all for this". One even offered us his Allen Iverson jersey, perhaps the most valuable possession among them. We declined, but understood the depth of his gesture.

HeroicStories was founded by the talented Randy Cassingham (of ThisIsTrue fame), but is now published by Joyce Schowalter, who's carrying on the tradition most excellently.

A Break

In Jamul (south-central San Diego County) we have had weeks of absolutely unrelenting sunshine, dry air, and heat — in the high 90s or low 100s (°F) every afternoon. Today it looks like we're going to get a break. The upper chart (at right) shows the temperature (red line, left scale) and humidity (green line, right scale) for the past week. Note that these are 60 minute running averages, so some of the peaks and valleys are smoothed out. You can see that our temperatures have been following a pretty stable pattern, with a slight dip yesterday — but today, a major drop. Debi and I took a nice walk up the hill next to our property, and it was a crisp 49 °F and misty as we trekked — very pleasant walking weather. The dogs loved it, too (especially when we spooked a barn owl out of an oak, and it swooped down within a few feet of us on its way out).

The lower image at right shows solar radiation (basically, how bright the sun was) for the past week. It's been day after day of absolutely perfect, cloudless days. Hot. Dry. Bright. Hot. But this morning (the rightmost little piece of that line) it was different — instead of zooming nearly straight up (indicating very bright sunlight as soon as the sun pops up over the horizon), it's kind of drifting upwards. This is because (as I look out the window) we have a fairly thick layer of mist shielding us from our local star. This probably won't last more than an hour or two, but it means that the total energy deposited on us today by the sun will be considerably reduced — and unless a hot wind blows in from the desert, that means that our peak temperature will also be reduced, perhaps in the 80s (°F).

As usual, click on the images for a bigger view. These came from the web page for my weather station.

Tolkachev

The CIA's unclassified web site has a very interesting article about a cold war spy named A. G. Tolkachev, a Soviet citizen who volunteered to provide information to the U.S. He provided voluminous and detailed information — some of the most valuable received by U.S. — for years, but was finally caught and executed for high treason.

I found this article through a post on Bruce Schneier's excellent blog, which has long been on my daily reading list. He cites the descriptions of "tradecraft" as particularly interesting, and indeed they are. But also interesting is what a hard time Tolkachev had in getting the Americans to engage with him (he spent many months in repeated attempts before he was finally successful). Once engaged, he was incredibly tenacious and brave even in the face of possible detection, arrest, and (likely) execution. An excerpt:

When Tolkachev’s written notes from this meeting were processed, however, the CIA officers involved in the case were stunned to read that a serious security threat to the agent had occurred the previous spring—one that had frightened him to the point where he had been convinced that he would be arrested at any moment.

In his note, Tolkachev said that a major security investigation had been conducted in his office in April 1983, apparently regarding possible leaks of classified information about a particular Soviet fighter aircraft target-recognition system. Tolkachev said that security personnel in his institute had requested on a priority basis a list of all personnel having access to information on this subject. Because Tolkachev had passed information on this system to the CIA the previous month, he was convinced that any leak would almost certainly be traced back to him.

Tolkachev wrote that, after having been informed of this investigation, he had asked for the next day off. He had driven to a dacha, taking all of his espionage paraphernalia—including his SRAC unit, Pentax camera, and deaddrop and signal site instructions—as well as the books and money that had been passed to him. [4] At the dacha, he had burned everything that would burn. He had thrown the remaining charred metal parts out of the car on the drive back into Moscow.

At that point, Tolkachev said that he had started carrying everywhere with him a poison pill that he had obtained. He reasoned that the most likelyscenario for his arrest would be a call to his boss’s office, at which point he would be seized. As a result, for the next several days, any time he was called to this office, he first placed the poison pill under his tongue, so that if seized he could immediately bite it. Given these circumstances, wrote Tolkachev, he would have to stand down on any document photography for the time being. He said, however, that he would continue to provide written information about sensitive documents.

Tokachev's story is an amazing tale of bravery, determination, and moral force. It's a longish read, but well worth it. Makes me wonder what other gems might up up on that CIA site...

Rhea

The Cassini probe, continuing its long-term mission to explore the Saturn system, has recently returned this spectacular photo of Saturn's small moon Rhea. From the Cassini official web site:

Saturn's moon Rhea is an alien ice world, but in this frame-filling view it is vaguely familiar. Here, Rhea's cratered surface looks in some ways similar to our own Moon, or the planet Mercury. But make no mistake -- Rhea's icy exterior would quickly melt if this moon were brought as close to the Sun as Mercury. Rhea is 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across.

Instead, Rhea preserves a record of impacts at its post in the outer solar system. The large impact crater at the center left (near the terminator or boundary between day and night), called Izanagi, is just one of the numerous large impact basins on Rhea.

This view shows principally Rhea's southern polar region, centered on 58 degrees South, 265 degrees West.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 1, 2005, at a distance of approximately 255,000 kilometers (158,000 miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 62 degrees. Image scale is 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) per pixel.

As usual, click on the photo for a larger view.

This mission is returning excellent science work every day. Mankind's knowledge of our neighbors has been expanded tremendously by robotic explorers: the many Mars missions, Galileo's explorations of the Jupiter system, and now Cassini-Huygens and its explorations of the Saturn system. Often these missions last for many years, even decades, and thus fade from the public's view. It's a source of continuing frustration for me that a manned "adventure" like the scientifically useless International Space Station can always gather more public interest and support than these relatively cheap and far more scientifically productive robotic missions.

Sigh.

Irish Perspective

Newton Emerson, writing in the Irish Times:

By Newton Emerson

As the full horror of Hurricane Katrina sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if this is the end of George Bush's presidency. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that every copy of the US Constitution was destroyed in the storm. Otherwise President Bush will remain in office until noon on January 20th, 2009, as required by the 20th Amendment, after which he is barred from seeking a third term anyway under the 22nd Amendment.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if the entire political agenda of George Bush's second term will not still be damaged in some terribly satisfying way.

The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that the entire political agenda of George Bush's second term consists of repealing the 22nd Amendment. Otherwise, with a clear Republican majority in both Houses of Congress, he can carry on doing pretty much whatever he likes.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if the Republican Party itself will now suffer a setback at the congressional mid-term elections next November.

The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that people outside the disaster zone punish their local representatives for events elsewhere a year previously, both beyond their control and outside their remit, while people inside the disaster zone reward their local representatives for an ongoing calamity they were supposed to prevent. Otherwise, the Democratic Party will suffer a setback at the next congressional election.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if an official inquiry will shift the blame for poor planning and inadequate flood defences on to the White House. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody admits that emergency planning is largely the responsibility of city and state agencies, and nobody notices that the main levee which broke was the only levee recently modernised with federal funds. Otherwise, an official inquiry will pin most of the blame on the notoriously corrupt and incompetent local governments of New Orleans and Louisiana.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush contributed to the death toll by sending so many national guard units to Iraq.

The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody recalls that those same columnists have spent the past two years blaming George Bush for another death toll by not sending enough national guard units to Iraq. Otherwise, people might wonder why they have never previously read a single article advocating large-scale military redeployment during the Caribbean hurricane season.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnist are asking how a civilised city can descend into anarchy.

The answer is that only a civilised city can descend into anarchy.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should be held responsible for the terrible poverty in the southern states revealed by the flooding.

The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody holds Bill Clinton responsible for making Mississippi the poorest state in the union throughout his entire term as president, or for making Arkansas the second-poorest state in the union throughout his entire term as governor. Otherwise, people might suspect that it is a bit more complicated than that.

As the full horror of this sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if George Bush should not be concerned by accusations of racism against the federal government.

The answer is almost certainly yes, provided nobody remembers that Jesse Jackson once called New York "Hymietown" and everybody thinks Condoleezza Rice went shopping for shoes when the hurricane struck because she cannot stand black people.

Otherwise sensible Americans of all races will be more concerned by trite, cynical and dangerous political opportunism.

As the full horror of that sinks in, this columnist is simply glad that everybody cares.

Interesting that I find this bit of perspective in the foreign MSM and not in our own...