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posted by martyb on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the Gooooooooooood-morning-Vietnam! dept.

Adrian Cronauer, the real live DJ portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie "Good Morning Vietnam" just passed, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44897634 (many other obits also available).

Keen to travel, Cronauer says he actually volunteered for a transfer to Vietnam, where he was hired initially as a news director for Armed Forces Radio there.

After his morning presenter left, he took up the 06:00 Dawn Buster show mantle, greeting troops with an enthusiastic yell of: "GOOOOOOOOD morning, Vietnam!"

Cronauer soon found out while interviewing troops that his ironic salute was often met with "the GI equivalent of: Get stuffed Cronauer" on bad days, he recounted at a veterans event in 2008.

"On one occasion, a guy picked up his M16 and blew away his radio," he told the Americans Veterans Centre conference.

Did any Soylentils hear him — live — in Vietnam?


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:56PM (25 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:56PM (#710747) Journal

    ...wait, are you telling me Reagan *wasn't* a national disaster? That senile fucking clownshoe, to borrow a friend's memorable phrase, is responsible for all the economic hell we're in with almost 40 years of his trickle-down bullshit. Trump was not the first moron President, nor Dubya, nor Clinton: it was Reagan.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:14PM (23 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:14PM (#710755) Journal

    *ho-hum*

    Clinton "fixed" all of that, remember? He "fixed" it by continuing the same damned thing. NAFTA is just more "trickle down" - the rich bastards piss on all of us. Bush did more of the same, Obama did more of the same, and the Orangutan is doing something different. Not sure what the hell it is, but it isn't "trickle down".

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:34PM (10 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:34PM (#710800)

      So first he didnt do worse, then it is worse but you can blame Clinton and avoid addressing the fact that Reagan was shit. Is he your version of "dear leader" and the neighbors will lynch you if you badmouth him?

      You are the worst apologist because you pretend to be better.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:46PM (7 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:46PM (#710805) Journal

        Not apologizing for anything. Remember Jimmy Carter? That man was the laughing stock of the world. No one outside the US took him seriously. Reagan came along, and people outside the US offered up respect, however grudgingly it might be offered.

        Reagan wasn't much of an economist, but the world stopped laughing at the US and it's spineless leader.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:10PM (4 children)

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:10PM (#710934)

          I may be qualified to reply to this, as someone who not only lives outside the US, but can remember Reagan:

          Remember Jimmy Carter? That man was the laughing stock of the world

          This statement is incorrect. Carter was viewed as someone who the World could trust, after the criminal Nixon and his lickspittle replacement Ford.

          Reagan came along, and people outside the US offered up respect, however grudgingly it might be offered.

          This is also incorrect. Reagan was viewed as a fool. You may have assumed he had the respect of the world because of Margaret Thatcher's relationship with him, but she loved him precisely because he was a fool, and she knew she could play him. Which she did.

          Ordinary people in Western nations thought of Reagan as exactly the sort of provincial, small-minded American we avoid at airports.

          I am sure the average Nicaraguan has a much pithier opinion of him, given how many Nicaraguans he had murdered in his illegal war there, but that's another story.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:20PM (3 children)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:20PM (#710939) Journal

            Ordinary people in Western nations

            "The world" and "ordinary people in Western nations" are not equivalent.

            • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 23 2018, @12:16AM (2 children)

              by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday July 23 2018, @12:16AM (#710957)

              "The world" and "ordinary people in Western nations" are not equivalent.

              Not sure what point you're making there. Do you think Nicaragua have a higher opinion of your wonderful Mr. Reagan after he had so many of them murdered?

              Perhaps you think Filipinos have a high opinion of him, due to his strong support of Marcos?

              Anyone else you can think of who may have had a good opinion of him?

              • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @12:26AM (1 child)

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 23 2018, @12:26AM (#710965) Journal

                One specific group of people would be Israelis. Or, if I need to be even more specific, Israelis who immigrated from WW2 era Europe. YMMV, but I happened to serve during Carter's administration. Pretty much everywhere I went, people scoffed at the man. I was actually embarrassed over our president. There was no shortage of embarrassment when I visited England, or France, Italy, or Spain. But, Israel stands out in my memory.

        • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday July 23 2018, @07:03PM (1 child)

          by DutchUncle (5370) on Monday July 23 2018, @07:03PM (#711393)

          Spineless? You mean the submarine commander who was part of the pioneering work in developing nuclear powered submarines? He wasn't all about peanuts.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @07:34PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 23 2018, @07:34PM (#711407) Journal

            Carter was never a submarine commander. Carter was a nuclear power plant specialist. Carter answered directly to Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy. Carter's primary job, and accomplishment, was to ensure that reactors conformed in every respect to their plans, and that they met performance standards. Among other things, Rickover required, and Carter enforced, the X-ray inspection of every single weld in the reactors, as well as the support equipment of the reactor. Carter reached the rank of lieutenant, and his highest position aboard subs was executive officer. Arguably, his positions as inspector were higher than that of an executive officer, but he never commanded any ship or boat in the US Navy.

            http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/jec/jcnavy/ [jimmycarterlibrary.org]
            https://www.military.com/history/lt-jimmy-carter.html [military.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:22PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:22PM (#710829)

        This has to be the weakest DNC apology I've seen in a while. Trump has his own problems, and I think he's pretty awful. Maybe you folks shouldn't have fucked over Bernie Sanders.

        Runaway diagnoses the problem accurately. I mean, good god man, you've got the propaganda machine calling for a military coup in the USA! In the USA! Where we have a procedure that allows our democratically elected representatives to remove our democratically elected president from office!

        If you have good evidence of treason, throw the book at him! Do it on principle. Remove the jackass from office. Prove to all of us that this OMG Russia bullshit is principled.

        You folks have gone completely insane. I didn't buy Trump Derangement Syndrome at first. Calling for a military coup in a democracy is deranged.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:16PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:16PM (#710868)

          HRC probably had some "regime change" plans already pre-made for when she'd be president, targeted at some other unfortunate country. Seems only fair to eat your own dog food.

          From the outside, it certainly is fun to watch Trump fumble on every step he takes on the world stage. I rooted for him as the lesser of two evils (and the more entertaining one at that). I just hope I'm right and he neither starts more wars nor tries to push the apocalypse button. TBH though I doubt the humans involved in the button pushing would let him.

          Good luck getting rid of him next term, I do hope you Muricans remember that you can trust neither of your ridiculous two establishment parties when it comes time to cast your ballots.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:51PM (11 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday July 22 2018, @07:51PM (#710856) Journal

      ...diiiiidja miss the posts I've made calling for everyone from Nixon to Trump inclusive, with the possible exception of Carter, to swing from a rope? Clinton was another goddamn Republican, Reagan 2.0, and he did more to shift the Overton Window right than Nixon could ever have dreamed of. I hope they all burn, Democrat and Republican alike.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:27PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:27PM (#710874)

        Interesting, never heard that term before. Could you clarify what you mean by "shifting right"?

        From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

        Overton described a spectrum from "more free" to "less free" with regard to government intervention, oriented vertically on an axis, to avoid comparison with the left-right political spectrum.

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 23 2018, @03:52AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday July 23 2018, @03:52AM (#711050) Journal

          Socially right, then, what Overton refers to as "less free." Authoritarian.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:04PM (#710890)

        It's like so:

        1. Trump, obviously, though he still has 6 years in which he could screw up. The biggest failure is not prosecuting Hillary and Obama, though I can imagine that DC-area juries make that awkward.

        2/3. Tie: Ford and Reagan. Ford was kind of boring. The worst was when he abandoned South Vietnam. The worst of Reagan was amnesty and the 1986 machine gun law.

        4. Nixon. Hey, at least he wasn't a crook. (and Obama makes Nixon look saintly) His worst mistake involved China.

        5/6. Tie: Carter and Bush Jr. Carter was a failed joke, but mostly harmless. Bush Jr. was pretty boring, but did the PATRIOT act. Carter fucked up the economy, and Bush Jr. was unable to get congress to undo the Clinton-era stuff that led to the housing crash.

        7. Bush Sr. signed laws to tax us and ban various guns, and he was planning NAFTA.

        8. Clinton actually signed NAFTA. He also sold military tech to the Chinese, making him clearly a traitor. Our constitution specifies execution for traitors.

        9. Obama was shockingly corrupt, weaponizing multiple government agencies for political advantage. (IRS against tea party stuff, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fines as a slush fund, EPA fines as a slush fund, EPA settlements to bypass normal rulemaking, FBI/NSA/CIA targeting Trump, authorizing uranium transfers to our enemies...) He also colluded with the Russian president, caught on a hot mic. Clearly he too is a traitor, and again our constitution specifies execution for traitors.

        I'm sort of guessing you think LBJ was OK. He was roughly as awful as Obama. At least he was better than FDR, who seems to be the worst in the history of the USA.

        • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday July 23 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)

          by DutchUncle (5370) on Monday July 23 2018, @07:07PM (#711396)

          What color is the sky on your planet?

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:50AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:50AM (#711559) Journal

            Shit-brown, on account of he's got his head so far up his ass he can see the last thing his paternal grandfather ate before death.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:49PM (5 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:49PM (#710946) Journal

        OK - let 'em all swing. There are none that I would make any effort to save. But, let me ask, how are you going to get there, from here? Like many another liberal/progressive/democrat, are you suggesting an armed revolt? I have an interesting story for you, if you have the stomach, and/or the imagination to follow it. Tom Kratman's 'A State of Disobedience' In general, I agree with Tom's version of events. Specifically, I disagree with bits and pieces of it.

        If you get through that story, and learn anything from it, you might move on to a similar story, 'The Turner Diaries'. I despise that story, because it was written by a genuine fascist, in support of fascist and outright racist views. But, the story remains more 'realistic' shall we say, than progressive opinions on the subject.

        As suggested in other places, I have no objection to the blood of tyrants flowing. But, you should be aware of what you are wishing for. Review the laws of unintended consequences. And, keep in mind the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 23 2018, @03:51AM (4 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday July 23 2018, @03:51AM (#711049) Journal

          Do you truly think I haven't had nightmares about all this? I *know* what's coming, one way or another. We're past the tipping point. Since you ask, I've been getting what I'm pretty sure are pre-cognitive warnings of my own death in late 2019 due to the consequences of political instability. What I truly wish for, perhaps doesn't and can't exist in this world...

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @07:14AM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @07:14AM (#711092)

            You're quite intelligent but (please don't take this personally) more unstable than the political tensions in your country. There is no pre-cognition, dreams are just dreams. You can work on them getting better, instead of feeling powerless and doomed.

            The ruling class in your country has too much to lose, it will push hard against destabilization. There's still several decades of things getting worse ahead of you before the populace at large will say "enough is enough". It's not just your country though, the golden era of "The West" is coming to an end. The rich have extracted what they can and they are getting ready to bail.

            See this [medium.com] for an idea of what it is they fear.

            I've been where you are right now, but then I got older and I'm still here. And shit around me got yet worse. Since I don't believe in the political process to be able to stop the process any more I will just sit back and enjoy the show. I point the people I know at the signs of deceit and disinformation we're getting bombarded with by politics and media, they will eventually come to their own conclusions. It's the little I can do to speed things up so we can finally get to rebuilding a better world.

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 23 2018, @09:17PM (2 children)

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday July 23 2018, @09:17PM (#711445) Journal

              I'm not speaking of dreams. There is a perfectly valid scientific explanation for what people refer to as psychic phenomena; we just haven't found it yet. Based on what's happening to me, I am going to guess it has to do with probability, and for all I know may be just a really, really strong intuitive grasp of history, something like unconscious pattern-matching on a massive, massive scale. Think "right brain is constantly doing psycho-history graph analysis" maybe. That doesn't cover *everything* I've done/been able to do, but I would bet something similar explains the rest.

              I'm also very familiar with what the Medium article outlines, and have been thinking that's been the plan of the ultra-wealthy since at least the 70s or 80s. Frankly, I think they're *trying* to make everything collapse, and the fact that it hasn't yet is only because they're not done preparing. And I'm not afraid to die in any case, for reasons that will probably make you think I'm nuts, but what can you do? *shrug* I did my best, left this world slightly better than I found it, and have very few regrets.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:02PM

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:02PM (#711740) Journal

                I can't explain anything about it, but shit's for real - at least sometimes.

                You've just arrived in Palermo, Sicily, by ship. The place is postcard perfect - it looks as beautiful as all the pictures you've ever seen. From the wharf you're docked at, the old city looks like it's been stuffed into a teacup, and you're at the bottom. You break away from all the shipmates, and head out to explore the terraces above you. Lots of beautiful girls, fantastic architecture, exotic food all around, vendors selling anything and everything. After a couple hours, you spy an indoor and outdoor restaurant. Take a seat under an umbrella, and browse the menu, which you only half understand.

                You're enjoying a delicious meal, when some asshole - probably a shipmate who has found you - says, "You've got to get out of here." You look around, and there's no shipmate. You look again, and you're not sure there's an English speaker anywhere near you. Hmmmm. Take a couple more bites, and you hear, "You've got to get out of here, NOW!" Look around with the same results - there are no Yanks in the vicinity.

                Think a couple seconds, stand up, throw a handful of money on the table, and walk. North, along the terrace, cross the street to the downhill side, then make a right down into the teacup at the first intersection. And, all hell breaks loose behind you - it's a frigging war zone. Stop, think, "What should I do?" "Well, whatever is happening, I have no orders, and it's probably not my fight."

                At the bottom of the teacup, go back aboard ship, and report what you've heard, without mentioning any guardian angels or anything.

                Next morning, the newspapers are filled with details of a Mafioso hit. There's the picture of your table, shot full of holes, upended in front of the shot out windows.

                Do I believe in this shit? Hell yes, and hell no. Can't explain it, can't even make any rational attempt to explain it - but it happened.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:11AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:11AM (#712046)

                GP here. No idea if you'll get to read this, but here goes:

                I'm quite acutely aware that there's a lot more to human perception than can be explained rationally with current models. Been diagnosed with schizophrenia after living with the symptoms slowly creeping in over years. It started with intuitions and feelings (of which enough turned out to be true to make me start trusting them) but progressed to full-time hallucinations and paranoia. I'm not saying that you might have that, you're probably too old (even though women usually get it later than men IIRC). But bear with me for a sec...

                A psychiatric working theory for schizophrenia is that that it's a breakdown of the consciousness' filtering engine, pushing raw sensory input to the brain instead of the high-level "executive summary" the mind has the capacity to process. From my experience, I'd say this sounds about right.

                I have a pretty good memory and I can remember my experiences in altered states of consciousness extremely well. Believe me, I've seen and heard (and done) some interesting shit :) It's not all just garbage input though and over some twenty years of living with this, on and off medications, I've learned to a) default to distrusting my perception and b) how to seperate signal from noise.

                Turns out not everything that seems to be a hallucination is just a brainfart. There is some useful signal, things I *shouldn't* be able to perceive but that my mind puts together from the raw stream, not always in the right order but some second-guessing gets me there. It's all still grounded in the laws of phyics though. FWIW, my right hemisphere also turned out a lot stronger in cognitive tests.

                Intuition and psychic-like perception in the present moment I can get behind. Predictions for next year as in your case I would not put off as complete horseshit, but not oracle-like powers either. There's too many variables at play and too much time in which conditions can change to even get in the ballpark, even if selection bias may tell you otherwise sometimes. Trust your intuition but don't fool yourself into making more of it than it is.

                I've had some pretty bad times (I'm much better now) and my fair share of confrontation with death. I don't fear that any more either and for obvious reasons, I don't think you're the nuttier one of us :)

                Still working on leaving the world a better place, lost some of my best years so I have some catch-up to do...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:57PM (#710888)

    Maybe you have heard about this book: "Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob" by Dan Moldea. Reagan was paying all the favors he got from the Mob. And best way is to change the laws in your favor (Mafia's, not Reagan's... so by extension big business) or even make legal was was illegal (deregulate, baby, deregulate!).