Taxi Driver: The Movie which nearly killed a President
Dear Jodie:
There is definitely a possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. It is for this very reason that I am writing you this letter now.
As you well know by now I love you very much. Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. Besides my shyness, I honestly did not wish to bother you with my constant presence. I know the many messages left at your door and in your mailbox were a nuisance, but I felt that it was the most painless way for me to express my love for you.
I feel very good about the fact that you at least know my name and how I feel about you. And by hanging around your dormitory, I've come to realize that I'm the topic of more than a little conversation, however full of ridicule it may be. At least you know that I'll always love you. Jodie, I would abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever.
I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I'm doing all of this for your sake! By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into your heart and at least give the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your love and respect.
I love you forever,
John W. Hinckley
Monday March 30th, 1981. John Hinckley after writing this letter to Jodie Foster attempted his infamous assassination bid on President Reagan. Reagan was shot in his left chest, but fortunately survived.
Hinckley always had an affinity for firearms, and his obsession for Jodie Foster, began after the actress played a teenage prostitute in the Robert De Niro flick ‘Taxi-Driver’.
De Niro’s character in the movie, Travis Bickle, in an attempt to win the admiration of Betsy, his love interest, attempts to assassinate a Presidential Candidate, for whom she worked. Later in the plot, in a bid to rescue Iris (Foster), a 12-year-old prostitute, Travis (De Niro) shoots her client, pimp and a hotel Manager, emerging a hero.
Hinckley is said to have seen the movie fifteen times, and read and re-read the book on which it is based, numerous times. Influenced by the movie, he began to identify and imitate Travis Bickle in real life. He dressed up like him, drank the same peach brandy. He in fact moved to Yale, where Jodie Foster was pursuing a course, and his attempts to be-friend her, was in his mind an attempt to “rescue” her, the way Travis rescued Iris in the movie.
During his trial, the defense actually showed the movie to the grand jury, arguing that his identification with the psychotic Travis Bickle was unconscious. The trial, which lasted almost a year, found Hinckley not guilty on grounds of “insanity”. He has been in Mental Hospital ever since.
"Could you please fill up this form?" Like NO!!!
There is stuff, which I just can’t do!
Doesn’t everybody have these teenie-weenie things, which they abso-bloody-lutely suck at! Stuff which are in fact easy and mundane, but one just cannot do it.
My Achilles heel, are Forms!
I just get totally freaked out filling up forms. Its strange I become a bundle of nerves, start seeing double, my palms get sweaty. It’s always been this way, ever since I remember filling forms up.
I get jittery about the smallest of things; dates for example, birth dates, months in the year, departure date when filling up travel forms. Determining which is my first and which is my last name becomes particularly tricky. And boxes, which I have to leave blank, kind of induces a crawly feeling behind the neck. Middle Name? Oh god! Don’t have one…so darn ill have to leave this one blank. Children? Wish I could pencil in a number like 10 or something! Instead of leaving an ambiguous hyphen sitting around the place.
The ones, which come with those rectangular little boxes, to pencil in names, letter by letter. My god! Are they infernal or what.
Online forms have their own curve balls to just knock me down.
Fill in your business goals for the current fiscal (limit 1000 characters).
Jack! I may have business goals, which run into 1010 words. So why should I prune my sentences, and abbreviate stuff? It’s MY Business Goals, for chrissakes! Can’t I at least decide how long my paragraph will be!
Forms, which have multiple-choice Questions, are particularly tricky, they often give you tones of options but none of them seem to be your answer. Like,
How would you describe yourself as a lover?
a) Romeo reloaded
b) “Love” a four-letter word!
c) Oasis in the dessert
d) Been there “DONE” that!
I mean, cant they have an option like “normal/regular”?
I just don’t “fit in” with the whole form thingy. I mean the guy who created forms and me; we must have been born with warring constellations shining on our respective posteriors.
Phew!
One of my Goldfish, Caviar died last night.
I was up watching the Euro Cup last night in my den. And subsequently, dozed off on the couch. Bleary eyed when I returned to my room in the morning, I found the puffed up body of Caviar. Not swimming in circles, but still – half sunk, half afloat.
I have had Champagne (the second of my goldfish) and Caviar, for over six months. Frankly one doesn’t develop a conventional emotional bond with ones goldfish, like one does with his dog or even cat. Goldfish don’t hurtle up to you and paw all over you when you get home, nor do they curl up at your feet.
But my goldfish have given me great many days of joy. Every morning, the first thing I do is to feed them their dry food, as soon as I come up to the bowl, they rush towards the circumference closest to me. Their mouths puckered in gasps of breath. I used to smile to myself, Marilyn Monroe deep sea diving!
The identification, the adhesive, is derived from the fact that Champagne and Caviar and their fishbowl, is very congruent to my cubicle and me. Stuck in the same time-space warp. Where every day, seems the same?
A few months back, I decided to educate and familiarize Champagne and Caviar to the good life and the wonders of the world. I carried the fish bowl to the den, and we watched the 9 ‘o’ clock news together. Even gave them a quick update on News features on Israel and Russia, and anything else, which was before their time.
I spent couple of weekends exposing them to good music, we listened to western classical. Chopin, Bach and Handel mostly. I would like to believe they liked Chopin, because I do.
We listened to the singles from the 50’s and early 60’s. Ricky Nelson, Righteous Brothers and the lot. Stuff like Judy, Raindrops keep falling on my head, Love Potion #9. Lovely cute songs, without a care in the world.
We listened to other stuff too, my usual bunch of favorites Springsteen, Genesis, Sting, Dido, Simon and Garfunkel. Nothing fancy, just nice music.
I always wondered which of the numbers, they really liked? If they did like any of them at all? When I played “Groovy kind of love” in loop for hours, did their heart yearn for a “Homeward Bound”, say?
I guess ill never know.
When Red Indians die they are said to “move on” to the “Happy Hunting Grounds”. Where the days catch is easy. The Nordic warriors were said to move on to “Val Halla”, the battlefield where one all ways emerged victors.
I dunno where Caviar will go, but am sure it will be to pacific waters with lots of other goldfish, plenty of food and Chopin playing in the background.
Ill miss you buddy.
A drive back home - Abe Maslow Navigating, Me Driving.
Was dropping a friend home a few days back, she recently finished her graduation-post graduation rigmarole. So is officially now on the job-market, seeking gainful employment.
This particular friend is nice and sorts, but she is not one who is (I don’t know how to say this) evolved. You know?
I mean she is one who is comfortable and content with catching a movie, going to a discotheque. Not necessarily one who would philosophize, analyze or hypothesize on say an event, a movie, a piece of music or a book. But of course, she is talented and accomplished in her own way(s).
I mean she is more Sarat Chandra’s Rajlokhi than Kamal Lata.
More earthy than ethereal, more gut feeling than cerebral musings.
So at a traffic snarl, I asked her “So what you planning to do, now that your course is done?”
She: “I think the O&M job will happen”.
Me: “Okay that’s great then, I mean you couldn’t want better, in your line of work can you?”
She: “Yeah”
Me: “What you glum faced about, got a great job around the corner, getting married next year?”
(To fairly long time boyfriend I must add)
She: “Then what?”
Me: “Then what…meaning what? Good job, good money, happy married life. Kids. What else?”
She: “Is that it? What’s great in that? That can happen to everybody and anybody”
“Great” + “Woman”. I think Martina Navaratilova. I have this mental-map thing, a woman talks about “greatness”. She must want to be like Martina Navaratilova!
I mean the woman ruled the courts for decades in probably the Golden Era of Woman’s Tennis, made a comeback when everybody, from John Mc in the press box to the guy who sweeps the stands, had written her off. And second only to Billie Jean King by way of being the public face of the Women’s tennis movement. Yes there was Steffi Graf and Chris Evert, but they relegated themselves to star-invitees at the Grammies after they hung up their rackets. There were a couple of designer brands thrown in too. Brand Ambassador monkey business.
Okay, digression apart.
What my friend said, made me think
(a) Is greatness an attribute of “others”, men/women who we read/read about/see on TV, will we never appropriate “greatness” for ourselves?
(b) And ever since Abraham Maslow, decided to study human need/evolution/motivation patterns, and put all of us into convenient segments of his famous little triangle. We seem to be comfortably numb in the little psychological pigeonholes he placed us in, and you know what? We like it that way!
It helps us calibrate, our degree of association/attitude in regard to other people. He/She is a “Cretin or a Moron”, so I will talk to him about the English Premier League or even better Baywatch! He/She wouldn’t understand Chopin would he/she? I can get away with something sarcastic and nasty maybe, he/she wouldn’t dare retaliate!
Alternately, he/she is this outstanding creative genius, a classical musician or a poet or something like that; we would balk at the thought of talking to him/her about “Wet and wild”. Oh gees! No. We should talk Dali or Freud, shouldn’t we?
Its incumbent upon us to be in awe of him/her, kiss the very ground he/she walks on.
Hmmm…I did the pigeonhole thing for a moment there, she is more the “Rajlokhi”, and so a job and a family life should be enough for her? Makes more sense, eliminates the possibility of a paradox or a fallacy. Rounds of the digits, balances the equation.
A “starving artist” is a social oddity, remember? Someone from the other side of the tracks.
Bottom line - our own little subconscious/conscious pigeonholing and straightjacketing, makes us more comfortable, more secure, eliminates the unknown and the unexplained. Does not bring forth questions, to which we have no answers. Fits in neatly with the axioms and first principles, which govern OUR world.
Maybe that’s why, “WE” ...can never appropriate, far less attain ...“greatness”.
Hemingway and the Brothers Bacardi!
The Bacardi brothers, Don and Jose setup their first commercial distillery in Cuba on the 4th of February 1862. In the rafters of the building lived large bats, hence originated their famous "Bat" logo.
After the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950's, the Bacardi Company abandoned its operations in Cuba and moved to nearby Bahamas. The Bacardi Company and Fidel Castro, shared a not too pleasant relationship, Castro seized all of Bacardi's assets in Cuba. The company is reported to have counteracted, by financing many anti-castro groups along with the Americans.
Okay, the reason why I embarked on this small trivia-digging endeavor on the Brothers Bacardi is because of the lesser-known Hatuey beer. For those who have read Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" will remember the fisherman drinking "Hatuey Beer'.
Apparently Hatuey Beer is a Bacardi Brothers produce, and when Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1956, the Bacardi family held a week long festival in his honour!
Cheers ...literally!
Read an article on “Metrosexuality” earlier today.
According to which, a metrosexual would be a man, who generally is,
1. Someone who color co-ordinates his clothes
2. Listens to Kylie Minogue
3. Goes to “independent” movies
4. Cares deeply about exfoliation or even perhaps manscapes.
The Merriam Websters and other online resources, reliably inform me that “exfoliation” is removing of dead/old skin cells from the face and body, to give oneself a “younger” look.
Yeah it does strike a chord now, was out of town awhile back and was staying in this hotel, had nothing to read and neither was there anything worthwhile on the telly. So out of absolute boredom, I began reading up the packaging/instructions on the freebie toiletries.
A face wash tube had told me something to the effect of “exfoliate the skin with a scrub or a loofah, and then apply the face wash”. I didn’t proceed to use the freebie face wash. The thought that "exfoliate" might mean the mundane "rub", did cross the mind. But I really was'nt mentally and psychologically upto "exfoliation of the self". Maybe some other time, I had told myself.
The more interesting thing is “manscaping”, which the Internet informs me, is men shaving off their body hair. I have known swimmers and cyclists do that, makes them more “aero/hydro-dynamic”. But this manscaping is apparently for cosmetic reasons.
Hmm, quite a lot of work this whole metrosexuality bit!
Anyways I have Joe Satriani’s “Home” playing on Winamp at the moment, and it sounds surreal.
Maybe ill listen to Kylie on the way home, or maybe ill play “Home” in repeat all night :)
Cheers!
When Time stopped at the edge of meaning
France v. England. What a match! One of the few times in recent sporting history that a big hype match/face off not only lived up, but in fact outdid, the anticipated excitement, adrenalin rush and general frenzy.
The last time a match so dramatically swung around in an Injury time situation was probably the England v. Cameron Tie in the 1990 World Cup.
Last night in the 89th minute, Zidane took the holy mother of all free kicks; it wasn’t just a memorable sporting moment or just a neat dead ball situation.
For Zsu-Zsu and his compatriots - Time literally stopped at the edge of meaning. It was a knifes edge - holding in balance - Val Hala and oblivion, the immortal and the quotidian, destiny and despair.
Mr. Zidane please take a bow.
A Cup of Tea, Please!
The origins of the word ‘Tea’ can be traced to ancient China. Various regions/dialects of China had different forms of the word; the most popular and lasting forms are “Te” as used in the Minion dialect and “Cha” as used by the Cantonese.
Now all over the civilized tea-drinking world today, how they refer to their cup of joy, is actually derived from either the Minion or Cantonese versions.
For example Britain and most of Europe (Tea, Tea Party, Tea Rooms etc) use derivatives of the Minion word ‘Te’.
While the Indian subcontinent, Japan and most of the Middle Easterners use derivatives of the Cantonese word ‘Cha’.
Okay, now a logical correlation that would suggest that we as Indians who use the word “Cha/Chai”, would actually have learnt/imbibed tea-drinking and tea-culture as a whole from the Canton Regions, or alternately from Traders/Trade Routes owing its origins to Cantonese China.
And by the same token, link Britain and most of Europe’s tea-drinking Culture to the Minion speaking regions of China.
But unfortunately, we aint in a perfect world and fallacies just never seem to run out. Figure this, though Britain sourced all its Tea from the Canton Regions, and more so all its trade routes ran through Canton. Yet Britain drinks “Tea” and not “Cha”!
Hmmm…interesting?!?!
Was listening to FM awhile back, the RJ said something to the effect of “The next song is by, probably today’s most respected pop group…Michael Learns to Rock”.
And they played Paint my Love.
The first gift I ever received from a “girl”, discounting those related to me by blood of course, was the ‘Paint My Love’ CD.
I was in class 10, she was in 12, and we had a “thing” going. She was the most beautiful girl I had seen till then, and I was thrilled to bits.
I got it on a Friday, I remember clearly, because I had Physics tuition at 7 in the morning on Saturdays. Friday evening we had met, she had given me the CD, we hung out for a bit and then I got home, in a hurry…cause I had to listen to the damn thing.
I listened to the CD on my Discman, mindful that I have to sleep in time to be able to get up the next morning, I listened to half the CD at least before I was asleep. And it must have been blissful sleep I am sure.
The next day, met up with my friends, and excitedly told them all about her giving me the “Paint my love” CD. Kunal had said “It’s a pussy CD man!”. I hadn’t protested, cause I would have reacted the same way if he had either bought or been given that CD, especially by a girl.
I dug out the CD, and am playing it now. Hope to listen to all of it, before I sleep tonight. And I hope it will be blissful sleep.
Carnations in a jute flower basket
At Lunch break today, I took a stroll down to the ATM. On the way back, I noticed a small little flower shop, operating out of a literally 2m by 2m space. Outside the shop, was this little boy, still a junior school-er, in a red basketball T and black shorts. The flower vendor was putting together an arrangement of Carnations, white, lemon yellow and a very light pink hue. The boy stood there, intently looking at the flower Vendors swift hands. The boy had his hands by his side, his fist clenched; I could see currency notes peek from the edge of his closed fist.
I went up to the kid and said a friendly, “Hi”, he didn’t acknowledge me with open arms; the whole don’t-talk-to-strangers bit was at work. I asked him whether he was buying that arrangement?
He said “Yeah”.
“Who you buying it for?”
“Its my Mothers birthday”.
And then he smiled, a silly excited smile, and then almost immediately aware that I was after all “a stranger”, he put on the dourest look he could muster.
I kind of waited for a while, till the flower arrangements was ready. Carnations in a jute flower basket. It really did look grand.
The Man who created the world as we see it today
A couple of years back, the BBC ran a show called “The Greatest Britons of them all”. Or something to that effect.
I did manage to see most of the episodes in that series, and it was very interesting, real good programming.
The important thing was the selection of candidates, who were on “show” literally.
Winston Churchill
Lady Di
Isaac Newton
John Lennon
Charles Darwin
William Shakespeare
Oliver Cromwell
Queen Elizabeth I
Horatio Nelson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
My personal favorite was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, probably the least “known” off the lot. He was the finest, visionary engineer of the Industrial Revolution.
If the Industrial Revolution could be compartmentalized into two distinct constituents. The social-economic factors/fallouts, and its associated politics. AND the real engineering itself. The Manufacturing, building, planning, visioning, Brunel was God. He was the nuts and bolts man who dreamt and created with the drawing board as his canvas.
He engineered the underwater tunnel across the Thames; he built over 1000 miles of Railways, and three steam ships each of which when built, were at their time the largest sea vessels in the world! And a lesser known fact is that, he was the Consultant Engineer during the building of the Railways in India and Australia.
And if that is not enough, he was the creator of the broad gauge railway as is used all over the world now and also created a fairly environmental friendly “atmospheric rail system”, which propelled trains using compressed air pipes instead of conventional rail tracks with fossil fuel guzzling engines charging up and down. But unfortunately this met with limited success.
The reason I admire the man most is for his bridges. He built over a 100 of them in his life time, from small corner stone ones measuring a few meters, to arch wonders half a mile long. The man was commissioned to extend the railways, and as he went about his task of building tracks and making stations, he encountered the pesky problem of rivers, rivulets and man made obstacles. And the “bridge building” he had to undertake, is the forerunner to the nearly all the bridge designs that we know and use today.
When he already was acclaimed as a pioneer in railway engineering, he set his eyes on steam ship building. The biggest problem at that time was building steam ships which could actually store enough coal to propel the engines, during a Trans Atlantic journey. Brunel designed a steamship “The Great Western”, which he argued could carry enough coal to fuel the engines for a Trans Atlantic journey. Though the Great Western wasn’t the first steam ship to actually make the Trans Atlantic journey, the Sirius first made the trip from London to New York. The Great Western docked at New York only two days later, but had taken 15 days as opposed to the Sirius ‘s 19, and the Great Western reached with over 200 tonnes of coal to spare, while the Sirius towards the end of its journey, had to actually burn its cargo to feed its engines, as it had run out of coal!
His last project was the steamship “The Great Eastern”, it was the most ambitious maritime project of the century. The ship was 700 feet long and weighed close to 20,000 tonnes! For the next fifty years no ship was conceived/designed on even paper to match “The Great Eastern”. Entire docks and ship building yards had to be extended to accommodate a ship construction of this magnitude.
After many financial problems, the ship did set sail, but on its second day an engine room mishap claimed five lives. An accident caused entirely out of human error as opposed to a design/manufacture flaw. Nonetheless the accident was tragic, Brunel died a week later.
Unclasped.
The sun disappeared unannounced; the world a drape of darkness. Trawlers out at sea crawled along the horizon; their small bobbing lights drew faint illuminated circles in the gloom, like small distant fireflies circumventing the night.
The cool of the night blew like the wind, slithering through my clothes and touching my self. The sea was a swirl of unrest, living almost incognito with a pacific self. Well almost.
Intermittent sprays of water it through up, were warm pointed needles pelting my face. Even after its rage subsided to rest as droplets on my skin, it lingered on. The sensation of being alive, the taste of salinity coalesced on my lips!
I sat there living and reliving those same moments arranged randomly by the divine croupier.
Then almost unexplainably I got up, brushed the grains of sand of my clothes and looked hard at the picture I had just disturbed. I walked along the sea, the softness of the sand and water at my feet. I, me, myself - a part of this living canvas that just stretched on forever, not particularly striking but so wonderfully crafted that no gaze however long and pointed, could make a mental inventory of all its wondrous elements.
I walked along the shore, no path to follow, no signpost to lead me astray and time was a handful of moments strung out like pearls.
I saw the crowd, the faces, the colors, and the laughter, a brushstroke with the rainbow as its palette. The crowd moved like an autumn leaf fluttering in a confused breeze, slow, drifting and hypnotic.
For an instant the imagery paused, unsure, and ponderous…only for a moment, a moment which seemed to last forever.
I had known her for a long time, flowing locks of hair framed her portrait of a face, a sun kissed smile on her lips, eyes that shone like crazy diamonds. She looked so happy, content and excited, those slow determined steps around the rejoicing fire. The wind in her hair, the music in her ears, and the song on her lips. The leaping flames of the fire, highlighted against the depths of her eyes.
She smiled and she laughed, her eyes twinkled, it was magical. Then suddenly, she blinked and the moment for me turned into a rabbit hole of darkness…she was gone and the glow of the candle was extinguished, leaving rancid wispy smoke.
I slipped through the dark wretchedness of the rabbit hole, empty, cold and anguished.
Maybe I was asleep and dreaming and have now awoken, maybe it is the puff of the magic dragon, maybe I am awake but in someone else’s dream…
Hyperboloids of wondrous Light
Rolling for aye through Space and Time
Harbour those waves which somehow Might
Play out God's holy pantomime.
Alan Turing, 8th June 1952
These were his last words, he committed suicide. Leaving a half-eaten apple laced with cyanide, by his bedside. A loss of innocence perhaps?
In 1950, Alan Turing designed a test called the “imitation game”. Wherein, if a computer could induce a human interrogator to conclude that it was human. The Machine would be declared Intelligent.
The ‘imitation game’ has since come to be known, simply as the Turing Test.
Turing prophesized that within the next 50 years a machine would succeed at his ‘imitation game’. Today 54 years hence, no Machine has yet come close to passing his test.
And till that happens, the mantle of ‘playing out God's holy pantomime’ will continue to rest uneasily and inevitably on mans shoulders.
The King of the Coffee Machine and the Newtons Law of G!
At the Coffee Machine yesterday afternoon, two colleagues were discussing a recent astronomical phenomenon, which had found mention in the morning’s newspaper. I couldn’t help but “listen in”. Talk veered towards the stars, and these people being engineers, subsequently, to the Newton’s Law of Gravitation.
They remarked, that the universe was maintaining its stability because of the equilibrium, which existed between the various forces of attraction at work. TRUE
If the forces changed, bodies would fall into each other. PARTIALLY TRUE.
At this point, I decided to interject and make myself part of the discussion, albeit uninvited.
I pointed out that if the forces increase, the smaller body would in fact ‘Spiral’ into the larger one, as opposed to simply ‘fall in’. And if the forces increase, the force by which other bodies (say other solar systems/stars) attract bodies within our Solar system, will dominate. So what we will have are, elements of our solar system, our planets our asteroids moving towards other Solar systems.
At this point, they protested, but weakly. But yet, we ended up screaming “Bets! Bets!”
Back home, last evening, I dug out my Physics text from college, and read up the bit on Quantum Mechanics.
And yes I have won!
I haven’t forgotten all my Quantum Mechanics and specifically the Newtons Law of G, and this fact alone will enable me to lord over Coffee Machine Talk, for at least a week.
I can almost hear a friend of mine say “Small pleasures of a small man”, like she usually does.
Cheers!
“The Day After Tomorrow” 2004/Fox Pictures/Roland Emmirch
You watched the movie, here is the real dope.
Yes, global warming is indeed a reality. The temperature of the earth went up by about half a degree Celsius in the last century. That might not seem much really, but it creates quite a domino effect, affecting the whole climatic system.
Basically the atmosphere is like an insulating blanket, which maintains a comfortable temperature on earth (28-33 deg Celsius, yes what we generally and approximately refer to as room temperature). With automobiles and other energy guzzlers, continually burning fossil fuels, a lot of carbon gases are being added to the atmosphere, this addition is further accentuated by rampant deforestation. Effectively the burning of energy sources from below the earth surface (coal for example) is increasing the energy above the earth’s surface. (Remember the Law of conservation of Energy).
The increased temperature makes the water in the oceans expand; this raises the ocean levels, creating bigger stronger waves. The increased energy in the oceans, leads to more frequent storms, and storm like activity – unpredictable, rough and extreme weather.
Ocean water is in continual motion, it doesn’t move in random patterns. In fact it flows very much like a river, i.e. bodies of water flow from one region to another, so as to maintain a balance in the system. Environmentally 'Currents' are the whole system of water flow in our Oceans, which maintain a critical climatic balance.
One branch of this Current system is the North Atlantic Current, which dissipates heat as it travels from the tropics to the Polar Regions. Now because the flowing water continually dissipates heat, it becomes cooler and its effective salinity/density increases.
Focusing on the salinity, the currents salinity increases as its temperature decreases, and by the time it has traveled from the tropics to the Polar Regions, it reaches its maximum Salinity or “Critical Salinity”. This attaining of Critical Salinity(Increased density) is of vital importance, as it causes the current to sink to the ocean floor and flow back to the tropics. During this return journey it absorbs heat, effectively moderating the temperatures at the tropics. So as is evident, the attainment of this “Critical Salinity”, actually maintains a temperature/climate balance between the tropics and Polar Regions. Ensuring that the Polar Regions don’t get TOO cold, and the Tropics TOO warm.
Now with Global warming, the glaciers in the Polar Regions will melt adding FRESH WATER (Non-saline water) to the Oceans. This extra fresh water will PREVENT the North Atlantic Current attain “Critical Salinity”. Hence the North Atlantic Current will NOT sink to the ocean floor and will NOT flow back and forth from the tropics. Hence the whole Current system will go awry. This ‘failure’ of the North Atlantic Current will actually drive down the temperature of the Polar Regions greatly, and yes hurtle the earth towards an Ice Age.
The North Atlantic Current has failed twice in recorded/studied history of the world, 8200 years and 12700 years ago. And yes these were our two Ice Ages.
Acres Wild & Cream Cracker Biscuits!
It’s intriguing the way the mind works, how it stores scraps of time and space. Linking the most unrelated experiences into one cogent singularity.
The recollection of Acres Wild, the Jethro Tull song, is inseparably linked to the dryness of Cream Cracker biscuits. First year of college…I used to listen to my Tull CD and prep for my engineering exams. And yes munch away on Cream Cracker biscuits.
And even today, when I hear the song, what immediately flashes to mind is “Cream Cracker Biscuits”. Strange little memory map!
"Acres Wild"
I'll make love to you in all good places
under black mountains in open spaces.
By deep brown rivers that slither darkly
through far marches where the blue hare races.
Come with me to the Winged Isle ---
northern father's western child.
Where the dance of ages is playing still
through far marches of acres wild.
I'll make love to you in narrow side streets
with shuttered windows, crumbling chimneys.
Come with me to the weary town ---
discos silent under tiles
that slide from roof-tops, scatter softly
on concrete marches of acres wild.
By red bricks pointed with cement fingers
Flaking damply from sagging shoulders.
Come with me to the Winged Isle ---
northern father's western child.
Where the dance of ages is playing still
through far marches of acres wild.
