From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V6 #118 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Thursday, May 10 2001 Volume 06 : Number 118 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: cold war stuff [Paul Baily ] Alloy: "Silk Pyjamas" In Its Natural Habitat [Barbara Cohen Subject: Alloy: cold war stuff Hi y'all, Thought I'd add my observations FWIW on the whole cold war thing. I've been really fascinated by people's varying perspective on this. Particularly interesting is the Shingle Street glimpses (thanks so much to Thomas for giving us a personal look into this community!) as well as how it looked/looks from a John/Jane A. Citizen of the US viewpoint. Being a thirtysomething myself, I was also really interested to read others POV on this period from their context. When I was growing up in this time I was in New Zealand, but whilst irresponsibly young, I do sharply remember the tension of this time. At the time NZ was going through a bit of a crisis of conscience in that we (I guess now being an Aussie I should say 'they' - you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy...) had, shall I say a point of difference with the US. Said point being that whilst we as a country formed a part of the ANZUS defence treaty, there were vocal minorities that questioned this: we were essentially neutral. Allow me to explain a tad. Back in this 'brink' time, NZ never saw itself as anything more than just a fledgling country trying to make it's own way in the shadow of more prominent international entities. The point of contention was when a US naval ship/boat (submarines are boats not ships as my RAN buddies will point out) wanted to visit an NZ harbour, the US defence force would 'neither confirm nor deny' that they were carrying nuclear weapons. I'm sure it was a tactical policy thing. Problem was that it was pretty much public knowledge/lore that for every nuclear capable ship/boat visiting our shores, you could bet the farm on there being a similarly capable Soviet ship/boat shadowing it at a respectable but in range distance, ready to strike at a moments' notice if the balloon went up. In this scenario the first thing in all-out war would (assumedly) be for each ship to attempt to take out it's shadow and vice versa. In fact my RAN friends said that if such an event did happen the average life of a naval asset would be 15-30 minutes. The matter-of-fact manner in which they say this is more than slightly chilling. With nuclear weapons at disposal the potential was to take out a good third of the island at which the ship was currently docked. Primary and secondary tactical targets are not necessarily stationary ones. Brings a whole new meaning to guilt by association, doesn't it? Because of this, strong (strictly non-violent) protests broke out whenever a US military ship/boat was to visit. The 'we can neither confirm nor deny' stance from US DoD on the visitor's loadout continued. In the end (I believe) there was a standoff of sorts between the US and NZ in that the US wanted NZ as a safe harbor but NZ didn't want to be a nuclear target by proxy. Tense times in more than one sense. There were calls (and I /think/ they were actually enacted) to not admit US Naval assets that could/would not declare themselves nuclear free. It was quite a knife-edge. Having been away from the country a good 15 years now I'm not sure what their current stance is but I can guess given the beautifully frank common sense of the average New Zealander that it's pretty much the same. Last I heard was the NZ was declared a Nuclear Free Zone (as is Brisbane, I believe/hope). best, Paul. This message powered by Big Bang Backwards off TGTTME/Thomas Dolby. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 07:19:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Barbara Cohen Subject: Alloy: "Silk Pyjamas" In Its Natural Habitat >From: hubcity@exit109.com > >Ultimately, after rounding through various Iberian and Latin American locales >(how's the poor girl going to manage / doesn't speak a word of Spanish), it hit >me that it could be Los Angeles (where she could easily "wander off into the >smog" and where knowledge of Spanish might be an asset) but that it was >rendered slightly anachronistic after it was written by the opening of L.A.'s >subway, which was certainly running by the time the record was released. I guess I assumed it was L.A.; where else could you get a Slurpee AND a tofu dog? :) The L.A. "subway" certainly is not the caliber of the London Underground, or a dozen American cities' transport systems. There are many places you could live and/or want to go in LA without ever being near a subway line; also I think at the time this was released there was only the one line running, the one that goes toward the airport but ends 2 miles prior because the cabbies lobbied so well; you have to get off the train and take a taxi the rest of the way.... *B* ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 17:03:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: Robin's home email address change More internet mayhem unfortunately... yesterday we were unexpectedly told that our local phone # for accessing our email account was being changed as of today, and switched for a long-distance one. Therefore, we have to change email service providers. It isn't even Friday the 13th this time!! We're setting up new email accounts tomorrow evening and leaving worldshare.net. Please consider rthurlow@worldshare.net no longer valid. I'll post again once I have a new home email address which will be right away, meanwhile the account I'm writing from now (robinthurlow@yahoo.com) is always a reliable all-purpose place to reach me. Thanks everyone & sorry for all the confusion. xxxx Robin T Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V6 #118 ***************************