{"id":5437,"date":"2022-03-20T08:01:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-20T12:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5437"},"modified":"2022-03-20T08:01:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T12:01:54","slug":"far-from-the-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/03\/20\/far-from-the-front\/","title":{"rendered":"Far From the Front"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today in History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is the 20th Day of the Third Month of the 22nd Year of the 21st Century.  I always have to think carefully about that:  the very first century was the \u201c0\u201d century, but it still counts.  And the \u201c00\u201d year (2000) is technically the end of the last century, not the beginning of the new one (though we celebrated like it wasn\u2019t 1999!!).   It just like a ten-year-old isn\u2019t considered a \u201cpre-teen\u201d, but an eleven year old is.  So it is the 22nd year, but it\u2019s actually one more century then Twenty.  Glad I got all that off of my chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Wireless World<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Folks born when I was, 1956 and thereabouts, thought the world would be totally different by now.  It\u2019s not \u201cThe Jetsons\u201d scenario, flying cars and robot housekeepers, but we really did think it would be altered more than it is.  Yes, I am typing now on a Macbook Pro that has more power than the computers that launched the Apollo Moon Missions, and carry another powerful computer with instant worldwide access in my pocket, my IPhone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 And I spent Saturday morning battling with electronic equipment and Spectrum (my internet provider), trying to determine why the multiple wireless devices around our home are running so slow.  Spectrum blamed my home network, I blamed their router. After lots of conversations and no conclusions, all of a sudden everything is back humming along again.  I don\u2019t think it was my futzing with the plugs, Spectrum did something that unblocked whatever was clogged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the scenes on the television (sure it\u2019s 55\u201d and 4HD and doesn\u2019t take fifteen minutes to warmup) are closer to the images my parents\u2019 generation saw.\u00a0\u00a0The Russian war machine is slowing chewing through Ukraine, killing civilians not as \u201ccollateral damage\u201d, but as targeted punishment to try to force the Ukrainian Government to beg for mercy.\u00a0\u00a0All our modern technology has given us the \u201cinsider view\u201d of war, down to the bombs falling on the children\u2019s hospital.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History Rhyming Again<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We are watching Manchuria in 1932 or Poland In 1939.  Regular people, just like you and me, with kids and pets and yards they took care of, are being swallowed up as \u201cspoils\u201d of war.  Three weeks ago they were watching the same internet sites, playing the same video games.  There was an interview with a young woman, who, like my son, is a DJ; developing and playing her own music in clubs.  She literally had to give it all up, not just the DJ-ing (obviously not a lot of night-life in a war zone) but the music.  No good listening to the music on her earpods \u2013 she might miss the air raid warning of the next bombing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are over a thousand women and children buried under a bombed out theatre in Mariupol.  The building was targeted, despite the word \u201cCHILDREN\u201d painted large in the parking lot.  It\u2019s like the words made it a \u201chigher value\u201d prize for the Russian bombers.  It\u2019s in the middle of a warzone, and still local firefighters and others are trying to pry folks out; but it doesn\u2019t sound promising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty years ago when I thought about the 2020\u2019s, I didn\u2019t think about the rise of Authoritarianism both here in the United States and overseas.  I didn\u2019t think that dictators would again try to build empires and wreak savage conflict on civilians, children; just to fulfill some long forgotten dream of their \u201cracial\u201d place in history.  That wasn\u2019t what the future was supposed to look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prophecy <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Oddly, much of the science fiction I read as a teenager actually did prophesize one more world cataclysm, somewhere towards the turn of the 20th century.  Even in the show Star Trek <\/em>there were the \u201cEugenics Wars\u201d, that ended in a world industrial collapse, recovered by the invention of the \u201cWarp Drive\u201d engine to introduce humanity to deep space.  In other books there was a final brush with nuclear annihilation.  I always read those as fatalistic, that mankind hadn\u2019t learned the lessons of World Wars the First or Second time.  Now, looking at Ukraine, maybe those guys were right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a front yard conversation with our neighbor the other day.  He asked an interesting question:  what are WE doing to prepare for war?  I was a little taken aback, I don\u2019t anticipate Russian T-57 Battle Tanks coming up Broad Street to take control of Dairy Hut and McDonalds.  But that\u2019s not what he meant.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All our life is connected through that same internet I was fighting with this morning.  There\u2019s but a single paper dollar in my wallet.  The water, gas and electric meters aren\u2019t \u201cread\u201d anymore, just a signal picked up by the utility.  Almost every aspect of our life is now controlled through web connections.  It wouldn\u2019t take a physical invasion to disrupt American life, just someone running a computer program in an obscure building in St. Petersburg.  Our \u201ccards\u201d would stop working, our electricity stop flowing.  That would be enough to change everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prepping<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He suggested that we be ready to go back to a \u201ccash\u201d society;\u00a0\u00a0maybe stick $1000 in twenties in the fireproof bag hidden in the house.\u00a0\u00a0We should stock up on food supplies, in case the electric doors and check-out lines at the Kroger\u2019s fail.\u00a0\u00a0And maybe we need to make sure there\u2019s an extra can of propane for the grill, an extra five gallons of gas for the generator, in case this conflict goes \u201ccyber\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0After all, the Russian ruble is almost worthless, Russian retaliation against the US dollar might just be in the virtual world we all live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does my neighbor sound a little like a \u201cprepper\u201d, one of those folks who head for the woods with their hunting rifles to take care of themselves when the \u201capocalypse\u201d arrives?  Sure, and he admits that\u2019s true.  But something to keep in mind.  Did we ever think we would see what\u2019s happening in Ukraine?  Wasn\u2019t that all in grainy black and white films late at night or in some history classroom?  It was something we learned about, but never expected to experience ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today it\u2019s real.\u00a0\u00a0Who knows what the next \u201creality\u201d might become.\u00a0\u00a0I’m no \u201cprepper\u201d either, but there are a few more cans of soup and vegetables in the pantry, some extra gas in the shed.\u00a0\u00a0And maybe there will be more than just one dollar in my wallet for a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essays on the Ukraine Crisis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n