Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Wanderers 2017.06.13

WILPF on UN Nuke Ban

That's June 13, a Tuesday night. Carol of WILPF (my mom) updated us on the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, slowly making its way to passing, by enough of a majority to warrant the ratification phase, wherein each nation takes a copy home to debate about.

But will they debate? Some pundits only mock the UN as some globalist nonsense they never agreed to, and they're right, they had no direct exercise of veto power.  People made this stuff up.  The UN framework.  They didn't ask us about ketchup either.  So many of them, only one of me.

The New York Times has given it some serious press.  It fits, it's news.  I operated the laptop (the olde Air) while Carol talked, mostly flashing up Wikipedia pages on the various treaties we went over: non-proliferation; comprehensive test ban; arms trade; and now this new one, with most nations supportive.

The discussion was lively, with our currently youngest attending member reassuring us there'd be other ways humans could commit mass suicide even without their beloved atom bombs.  As anyone who watched Wonder Woman recently well remembers, we have our gases and simple diseases.  "We" being collective humanity, some of whom we can't completely explain.

I helped field questions as Carol is hard of hearing, and I could repeat from up close.  She had a lot of information about the history leading up to this point.  She has a lot of perspective.  I invited her to bring up the Kellog-Briand pact, but by that time we were pretty think tanked.

My day was somewhat complicated in that I'm immersed in preparing a next lecture series, printed textbook, while plowing through a Coursera Mooc.  Dr. Harris I think it is does an excellent job guiding us through his Internet of Things world.  I'm talking to my Arduino.

At the same time, I'm bouncing down to the viewing room monitor and immersing myself in Gettysburg, a dramatic reenactment of a deciding battle in the US Civil War, a defining chapter in the region's history.  The topic is more than I want to dive into in the context of talking about Carol's presentation.

The conversation twisted and turned.  As projector operator, I could jump to my Photostream with recent pictures of a Little Red Riding Hood looking character, our friend and former house guest Lindsey Walker of Nepal, Oregon, Georgia, Florida (reverse chrono).  On her way to Corvallis.

Don reported on Steve Mastin's health and promised to post where we might visit him, given the weeks of recuperation he'll need following a medical intervention.  I think I know the place.  Not where Tom Connolly was, but a similar facility.

Gettysburg came to me from Glenn Stockton as a two-sided DVD and as of this writing I'm still on the Last Day. I've listened to a long commentary track full of illuminating insights from several perspectives (historian, director, cinematographer).