The Explorers Club
№ CCLIX - Igor Gouzenko (1919-1982) & the Gouzenko Affair (1945), described by some as marking the beginning of the Cold War.









Urbi et Orbi
I had a jones to watch the videotaped inaugural Indian Grand Prix this morning, & did so in lieu of attending Mass at eleven o'clock. I paid a hefty price for attending the five o'clock Mass: the "contemporary" music, featuring no use of the usual hymnal. I always forget just how much I loathe that acoustic guitar-driven, too-hippie-by-half cacophony. Let us hope this time I've learnt my lesson. Achtung, Dummkopf! Verboten!

The Savage Wars of Peace
The tyrant is dead—& three cheers for that—but 'twould be an error to end N.A.T.O.'s mission in the Libyan skies when the future of that benighted country is so very much up in the air: cut & run-link. American leadership in this instance could turn the tide, but President Obama, "leading from behind" as ever, will be eager to beat a hasty retreat, just as he has in Iraq, where his administration's failure to negotiate in good faith with the Iraqi government has lead to the decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Mesopotamia, which might yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Crossing our collective fingers & hoping for the best is neither a foreign policy nor a national security strategy.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Orson Welles & the Mercury Theatre on the Air players, The War of the Worlds from The War of the Worlds: Original Radio Broadcast (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Broadcast seventy-three years ago to the day, 30 October 1938. At fifty-seven minutes in duration, this is far & away the longest yet R.B.D.S.O.T.D.

"This is Orson Welles, ladies & gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be, the Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet & jumping out of a bush & saying, "Boo!" Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows & steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night; so, we did the best next thing: we annihilated the world before your very ears & utterly destroyed the C.B.S. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, & that both institutions are still open for business. So, goodbye, everybody, & remember, please, for the next day or so the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, & if your doorbell rings & nobody's there, that was no Martian, it's Halloween."