Nordstahl @Nordstahl@social.cleverlibre.org

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

On the Beach (1959)

Just a happy-go-lucky nuclear Armageddon film…

Three years before the Cuban Missile Crisis and about a decade and a half after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this film presented its story about the aftermath of global nuclear war. There were a couple of other movies made earlier in the 50s about nuclear war, and of course all those goofy scifi’s about giant insects, but this was the first major film. It starred Gregory Peck, Eva Gardner, Anthony Hopkins, and Fred Astaire, who were all big movie stars at the time. It was kind of a big deal when it came out.

News coverage of the bombings of Japan were highly censored as to the most gruesome parts of the bombings. Film and photographs produced immediately after the bombings by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey were classified until the late 60s, so although people had heard about radiation burns and radiation sickness, most people had not seen any graphic images.

The US didn't want people to understand just how horrible those bombings were, but they wanted to inform people about the possibility of all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union, which, with certain types of thermonuclear weapons, had the potential to kill most or all of the world’s population.

The result was this film, On the Beach (1959) which showed no dead bodies at all, it showed no destruction, no burned and leveled buildings, nothing. There's only one guy in the film who was shown to be sick in the entire movie and he was smiling or flirting with the nurse throughout the 45 seconds that he was on the screen. Everyone was almost always shown with smiling faces and having fun and the score was upbeat or silly most of time.

I think if you changed about a half dozen lines in the film, removed five minutes of the guy walking around in a hazmat suit, and adjusted a minute or two of score, people would think it was a romantic drama.

Contrast this with the TV movie The Day After (1983), which was released 24 years later, which showed shocking graphic images of just how horrible nuclear war could be.

The clips from the film that I’ve attached to this toot show just a few of the many upbeat scenes from the film. All the characters in the film knew from the beginning that a nuclear war had happened and that the deadly radiation was heading to where they were in Australia, but they just acted happy and didn’t appear to care at all. Very weird.

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#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #film #movie #AI #WWIII #NuclearWar #Australia #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #dance #the1950s #ColdWar #calamine

(fair use video clips)
Sorry, I messed up the aspect ratio on this video and cut off a little bit on the bottom.
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accessible video description:

Video opens with a submarine in the ocean with a number on the side that says 623, then a man in a lighthouse makes a phone call as a radio announcer talks about the nuclear war, then it shows a man and a woman on a bed talking, then it shows two military guys talking about a country club, then people on a beach where a man flicks a woman in the butt with a towel, then it shows Peck and Gardner talking and smiling, then sailors ogling at a pretty woman (Gardner) as she walks near their ship, then people dancing, then Peck and Gardner walking as she talks, then a bucolic scene of a horse in a field as the horse does a trick for a sugar cube, then a guy pretending to be sick lying in bed smiling and flirting with the male nurse with Peck and Dr. King giving him false hope, finally the closing title over an image of the same submarine moving on the surface of the ocean.

🔥NEW PAPER ALERT🔥
The latest Bailey Lab research paper examines ballast water compliance monitoring devices (CMDs) capable of testing both 10-50 and >50 size classes in a series of lab-based freshwater and marine tests.
🌊 💧 🛳 🚢 🔬 🦠 🌱 🪳

https://academic.oup.com/plankt/advance-article/doi/10.1093/plankt/fbad014/7161848?utm_source=authortollfreelink&utm_campaign=plankt&utm_medium=email&guestAccessKey=8e44a5a8-0074-4047-81ff-bec0dc25fbed&login=false

Pretty

Absolutely, without a doubt.

#news #politics

If you make controlling women’s bodies a litmus test for nominating and appoint federal judges, it is no surprise to end up with a an appellate panel like the one that heard arguments today in the mifepristone access case. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/17/appeals-court-abortion-drug/ #LawFedi #women #misogyny #AbortionRights

@barb

This is misogyny. That's what this is. And any doctor who sends someone home with an ectopic pregnancy should lose their license

I liked this just criticism of #NYTimes mostly poor, biased reporting on the #DebtLimit

"In the midst of this political battle, with one party using unconstitutional methods and the threat of economic catastrophe to try to kick people off social programs, a responsible paper of record might want to avoid mindlessly promoting a key premise of the economic terrorists: that government debt is a serious problem that we should be very concerned about."

https://fair.org/home/nyt-fearmongers-debt-as-gop-holds-economy-hostage/
#mmt #LearnMMT

Icelandic farmer with his "mousekeepers". Ca. 1940s. #CatsOfYore #Cat #Cats #History https://icelandmag.is/article/historic-photo-day-unidentified-icelandic-farmer-poses-his-kittens

MASTODON TIP OF THE DAY: If you, like me, are getting spammed on Mastodon with crypto offers, here's how to put a stop to that: on the web interface to Mastodon, click on the gear to go into your settings, then select Notifications, then check the box next to "Block direct messages from people you don't follow" under OTHER NOTIFICATION SETTINGS.

(Hat tip to Jerry Bell for this; more information on this problem can be found in this post by him: https://infosec.exchange/@jerry/110384254052694131)

For #Arizona people, #Cochise County.

🚨COCHISE COUNTY ALERT🚨
The Cochise County Sheriff's Office is on scene of a critical incident in the area of Camino Segundo and Camino Principal off Hwy-92 south of Sierra Vista.

We are asking for the public to avoid this area until further notice and a "Shelter in Place" notification has been issued to residents in the area.

Additional information will be released as it becomes available.

I've always been at home among the trees 🌳 💚

#Folklore #pagan #nature

Jikji, the oldest surviving document that was printed with movable metal type, 1377 in Cheongju, Korea, is currently on display as part of the exhibition “Imprimer ! L’Europe de Gutenberg” at the Bibliothèque national de France in Paris.

https://www.bnf.fr/en/agendaEN/printing-gutenbergs-europe

ENOUGH.

Via Brandon Friedman:

#Texas has become a nightmare under Republican rule.

"Police say the 12-year-old shot 32-year-old father Matt Davis with an #AR15 he grabbed from a vehicle."

Peyton Yager:

A 12-year-old is accused of murdering a Sonic employee over the weekend in Keene, TX.

The pre-teen was arrested along with a 20-year-old.

Police say the 12-year-old shot 32-year-old father Matt Davis with an AR-15 he grabbed from a vehicle.

#GunViolence

*The Weather Channel*

Jim: Conditions are deteriorating on the coast. How bad is it out there, Mike?

Mike: Jim, the effects of this storm have reached a critical point.

Jim: You don't mean...

Mike: Yes Jim. It's moist.

*gasps from Weather Channel*

Collins must be "very concerned," "learned her lesson"...

"Former #Hawaii Executives Plead Guilty To Sending Illegal Donations To US Sen. #SusanCollins

The Republican senator from Maine was the beneficiary of more than $200,000 in illegal campaign donations made by a Hawaii defense contractor."
#legal

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/05/former-hawaii-executives-plead-guilty-to-sending-illegal-donations-to-us-sen-susan-collins/

Europe vows it won't let US and Asia treat it as a source of museum-grade chip tech - With €43 billion at stake, Thierry Breton says that Europe should get advanced fabs Europ... - https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/05/17/eu_advanced_chips/

I went to look at Twitter for a minute and there was a great repost from @GreatDismal about Felicia Snoop Pearson and the nailgun scene from The Wire, so I had to dig up my treasured old photo from 2007 of myself and my daughters with Snoop at an end of season picnic in Baltimore. She is such an amazing person.

#TheWire #Family #Television