A Day of Remembrance

On the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

An illustrated recounting of the first Decoration Day.

3 June update: Hawaiians fought in the Civil War.

Chernobyl: Thirty Years Later

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

How Chernobyl shook the USSR.

Chernobyl's Literary Legacy, 30 Years Later.

No literary response to Chernobyl deserves a wider readership than Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster. [Svetlana] Alexievich, the Belarusian journalist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015, represents the broadest range of a society whose alienation makes them “a separate people. A new nation.” In these pages, harrowing stories of lost loved ones sit alongside litanies against technological hubris; the history of ideas—“the era of physics ended at Chernobyl”—contrasts with spots of black humor; science collides with superstition. The cumulative effect is not the absorption of Chernobyl, but rather an unlimited expansion. More than any other work, Alexievich’s provides a direct, vertiginous glimpse of Chernobyl's abyss.

The Tsunami: Seventy Years Ago

Tomorrow is the seventieth anniversary of the tsunami. The two big tsunamis affected different parts of coastal Hilo. There used to be many buildings along the makai side of Kamehameha Avenue. When the 1946 wave hit, most of them were smashed up, but the mauka buildings largely escaped damage.

This is perhaps the most known photo from the tsunami, of people running up Ponahawai Street.

And this is one of many buildings along Kamehameha wrecked by the tsunami.

Ten Years

Today is the tenth anniversary of the founding of Poppa Zao. Sometime in the afternoon of 14 March 2006 I posted a simple welcome to this blog, which has come this far. When I started, the issue of peak oil was widely discussed. James Kunstler's The Long Emergency laid out a future where oil scarcity changed every aspect of American life. Since then he has explored the post-oil world in another book Too Much Magic, and a series of novels, World Made by Hand. Fracking and other techniques for extracting unconventional fossil fuels have fostered the illusion of a superabundance of natural gas and oil. I've never bought into that.

YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have soared, sometimes to the detriment of blogs and traditional websites. I've used YouTube as a source of music, and I have shared a variety of music videos. What all these music videos have in common, whether they're old favorites, or songs I've heard of for the first time, is that they interest me. You might be interested in them too, or not. I also embed tweets in my posts. I'm not on Twitter and don't see going on Twitter anytime soon, but I look at various Twitters, sometimes out of reflex (even if they're beating a dead horse). Blogs are still vital and afford ways to share material that social media can preclude.

I've never explained the name of my blog but might as well do so now. At the time, Britney Spears's then-boyfriend Kevin Federline released a Brazilian-flavored dance song, "PopoZão." I've never heard it until today. As you'd expect, it's pretty lousy. But I liked the sound of the song title. More importantly, there was a character named Zao from Die Another Day, the last James Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan. Thinking it over, I came up with Poppa Zao as my name and the title of this blog.

One of the blogs I avidly follow is Hattie's Web. I know Hattie in real life and often comment on her blog, sometimes as Poppa Zao, sometimes under my given name. She began her blog a few months before I did, and it followed from a traditional website she maintained for years before that.

The last three years have been busier than ever for me but I post something at least every other day, even if it's a YouTube video or some tweets. There's a lot I have to say about what's going on now, but I want those posts to be considered. I've known people who started blogging with a bang, then tail off. The important thing is regularity.

The Month of Janus

January derives its name from the two-faced god of beginnings and endings, and of portals. In this month we look back and ahead. In March this blog will mark its tenth anniversary. Instead of a retrospective of 2015, I have to think about a retrospective of this decade. Hattie observed her blog's tenth anniversary last fall, and Nancy Nall's fifteenth anniversary of blogging is drawing close. Social media gets the glory now, but blogs allow for posts to be as long or short as the blogger likes. More soon.

This Blog's Ninth Anniversary

Nine years ago today I began Poppa Zao. So much has changed since then, and so much has stayed the same.

Thirty Years Ago

Thirty years ago.

A Belated Acknowledgment of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Broadcast of The Day After

The Day After first aired nationally on 20 November 1983, on the ABC network. (There was a special screening a few days earlier in West Germany, for an audience of dignitaries.) I was in the second grade and the teacher said we ought to watch it. My mother said no, so I didn't. When I saw it a few years later (1989?) I'm glad I wasn't allowed to watch it as a seven year old.
















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All Aboard the MLK Bandwagon

Richard Land was inspired by Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Do tell!

He's the same man who cast aspersions on fellow clergymen Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as "race hustlers" for their protests of the handling of Trayvon Martin's killing. (25 September update: More on Richard Land's controversial, plagiariazed rant, for which he has never apologized.

The MLK Memorial, a slab of stone built w/$1 million donation from weapons manufacturer @BAESystems: http://t.co/sRpUoW6QpX #IHaveADrone

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) August 28, 2013

I saw part of tonight's Piers Morgan, where Tavis Smiley told the host that Martin Luther King opposed racism, poverty, and militarism. On a day when pundits and politicians both liberal and conservative mouthed platitudes about "the content of their character", etc., he reminded us that in the last five years of his life, MLK lost many friends and gained even more enemies as he stood against the Vietnam War and tried to organize poor people, even planning a Poor People's March.

2 September update: MLK is not around to dispute how people use him and his image to give their causes legitimacy. So we get things such as, MLK: Proud Republican or MLK: Proud Zionist. (Found through Max Blumenthal's Twitter.)

Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons

On the sixty-eighth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (and three days from now, Nagasaki), here are Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, listed by Ward Wilson, in his book of the same title.

Seventh Anniversary

This is the seventh anniversary of the founding of Poppa Zao, a blog which I use to comment on and make sense of this immense world.

Elvis Presley: "Kentucky Rain"

Thirty-five years ago today Elvis Presley slipped the surly bonds of Earth. In tribute to the King of Rock n' Roll, I present one of my favorite Elvis songs, "Kentucky Rain."

The Sixth Anniversary of Poppa Zao

This blog is six years old today.

The Notorious B.I.G.: Fifteen Years Later

The Notorious B.I.G. died fifteen years ago today (9 March).

The video for "Sky's the Limit", apparently made after Biggie died, is inspired by Bugsy Malone.

"Thank God for the Atomic Bomb"? No.

I disagree with Paul Fussell on the necessity of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"Hiroshima's Genbaku Dome: Ground Zero of the Twentieth Century."

Walter A. Davis's book and play about Hiroshima.

In Memoriam

On this date nine years ago my maternal grandmother died.

Off the Wall

Off the Wall, released on 10 August 1979.