Mischief Reef

Mischief Reef. You couldn't find a better name for this place.

How do you make a mountain out of a molehill? You put half a dozen sand sucking dredges to work sucking sand from the floor of the lagoon and piling it up on the bits that are already above water. I was thinking that China was just making noise about the South China Sea in order to distract us from their conquest of Africa. Looks like I might have been wrong about that. Seems they are mounting an attack on multiple fronts in their efforts to secure an adequate supply of oil. Besides their escapades in the South China Sea and Africa, they are also working on a pipeline across Pakistan.

I've been hearing a lot of noise about how China is overstepping their bounds in the South China Sea, but this the first time I have seen a map that shows just how far over the line they have gone. Mischief Reef is in the Spratlys, about half way between the Philippines and Vietnam.

Malaysia Pushes Joint Development to Solve Asia Sea Disputes

There are several insignificant islands in Southeast Asia whose ownership is disputed. The islands themselves are of no particular use, but the territorial rights to undersea resources that accompany those islands are. This story showed up on Bloomberg today:

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called for claimants in the South China Sea to jointly develop resources to avoid conflict and prevent “extra-regional states” from becoming involved.
Najib cited a joint development zone in waters claimed by Thailand and Malaysia as a precedent that could be applied in the South China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines reject China’s map as a basis for joint development in the waters, part of which are also claimed by Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
“Agreeing to share prosperity, rather than let it divide us, is infinitely preferable to the alternative,” Najib said in a speech yesterday in Kuala Lumpur.
Competition for oil, gas and fish threatens to disrupt the estimated two-thirds of global trade that passes through the waters. China favors joint development of resources, while the U.S., Japan and the Philippines advocate international arbitration.
Najib said a code of conduct for operating in the waters would be a “good start” to prevent tensions from escalating. He warned that involving unspecified “extra-regional states” may “add yet another layer of complexity to the dispute.”
“For Asian nations, this problem is ours to solve,” Najib said. “Should we stray from the path of dialogue and cooperation, we may pave the way for other parties to take remedial action to protect the freedom of navigation and safe passage.”

“Extra-regional states”? I wonder who he was thinking of. And then there was this: China favors joint development of resources, while the U.S., Japan and the Philippines advocate international arbitration.

Of course it's hard to tell what China really favors being as they are so inscrutable (other than total world domination, bwah hah hah hah hah). Naturally the U.S. would favor arbitration. I mean we are a half a world a way, how else could we justify stirring that pot? And you can bet stirring it is our intention, because sure as shooting we are hoping to get our fingers on some of that pie.
     Now that it looks like we are finally starting to pull out of Afghanistan, I'm sure our national security advisers are looking for someplace else we can pick a fight. Isn't it about Southeast Asia's turn again? Otherwise it's gonna be Africa. I'm not sure which one would be worse.

H-6K

China bombing US Guam base
Original caption: 解放军空军“模拟轰-6K轰炸美军基地”视频
[Google translation: Video of the PLA Air Force "Simulated Bombing -6K Bombing US Base][You need to watch this in full screen, the aspect ratio makes it tiny on anything smaller.]encryptedpictures
The Chinese are beating the war drum. Not sure what they expect to accomplish, probably hope to intimidate their neighbors into letting them have free reign over the South China Sea.

I hadn't heard of the H-6K before, not sure whether I've even heard of the Soviet Tu-16 which is what they started with.

Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force Xian H-6K 

Based on the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 Badger

This is the only picture of this airplane that I found that shows the upper surface. There are any number of photos of it that show the bottom or the side, but apparently none from above.

The Chinese started a program to develop their own jet engines a few years ago, but I haven't heard any more about it. As far as I know, they are still using engines they are buying from other countries.

Woody Island in the South China Sea
Back in 2018, The National Interest reported:

For the first time ever, the PLAAF has landed Xian H-6K bombers on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel archipelago.

Woody Island

Woody Island wasn't much of a place until the Chinese decided to make an airbase out of it.

Via ZeroHedge, that bastion of clear-headed, foaming at the mouth conspiracists.

Update July 2022 replaced missing video.

South China Sea

Why do 12 marines guard this WWII shipwreck 24/7?
Thornton's History Club
Wikipedia page about USS Harnett County A. K. A. BRP Sierra Madre

Other posts about the South China Sea

Girls with Guns

Female soldiers celebrate the International Women's Day by taking part in a drill on the Yongxing Island, the Xisha Islands on the South China Sea, March 8, 2015. (Xinhua/Zhao Xianghu)

Communists were always in favor of equal rights for women, hence women in the army. And they are celebrating International Women's Day, which I suppose is a good thing for women to do. But celebrating by 'taking part in a drill'? Not my idea of a celebration, but then I'm not part of the same demographic as these folks. You may not notice the canteens hanging from the pistols (it is kind of a busy picture), but filling those canteens with water could make it a bit of a challenge, especially if you were trying to shoot and hit something.
     But the best part about this picture is the location:

Right in the middle of the South China Sea.

Contrarian

Stayed up late last night watching The Yellow Sea, a brutal, Korean crime thriller. Only the cops had guns, which they used ineffectually. The bad guys, and there were a lot of bad guys, used knives, hachets and clubs. The knives looked like the big kitchen knives you can pick up at any housewares department. The clubs were whatever was handy. It reminded me of Old Boy.
    Well, now I'm wound up, I'm not ready for bed, so let's see what we can find to amuse ourselves on the net.

• Decline and fall: how American society unravelled, by George Packer on The Guardian.
• Clinton’s no liberal hero. The former president is suddenly at the center of the 2012 race. Have we forgotten how he screwed the economy? By Matt Stoller on SALON.

I heard Clinton blamed for setting up the situation that led to the great economic disaster that happened during Bush's term. I didn't want to believe it then, I mean, Clinton was a good guy, and Bush was a bumbling fool. Except they are both part of the system. So all this made perfect sense at 2AM this morning. I'm afraid to look at it now.

Yellow Sea locations

Primary locations in the movie The Yellow Sea: Busan and Ulsan, South Korea and Yanji, China. 500 miles of the Sea of Japan separate the two areas. The Yellow Sea itself is on the other side of the Korean Peninsula. Note that Yanji is right near the intersection of China, North Korea and Russia. There is a river along the border between Russia and North Korea, so it looks like China has access to the ocean there. Tenuous, but access. Ulsan is home to Hyundai, as in the biggest shipyard in the world and the biggest automobile factory in the world.
    So. A 500 mile sea voyage to get to South Korea, then sneak into the country in order to find work. That's a little thin. But Ulsan is a booming industrial town, so that makes it a little more believable. Update: Yanji is populated by ethnic Koreans so they would probably be able to fit in better in South Korea than they would in Japan, which is approximately the same distance away, but, well, Japanese.

Update October 2016. Adding a mention of Vladivostok here because it's the nearest Russian city to this intersection.
Update August 2020. Replaced missing map, added link to map of the intersection of the three countries.

Con Son Island

Côn Đảo Archipelago - Con Son Island is the largest

Con Son Island is a small (10 miles long) island off the coast of Vietnam. My Daily Kona got me started. I had never heard of the island and that's not surprising because it is tiny and way off the coast. Look at Google Maps at a scale large enough to see all of Vietnam and it disappears.

Vietnam to Con Son to Manila - 1,100 miles

Mr. Garibaldi's post talks about the USS Kirk escorting the remnants of the South Vietnamese Navy from Con Son to the Philippines. The South Vietnamese Navy ships were carrying 20 to 30 thousand refugees.

Con Dao Prison

Con Dao Prison was built on Con Son Island in 1861 by the French colonists. It was used by whoever was in charge to house political prisoners until it was closed in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam war. This is the site of the infamous Tiger Cages.

Tiger Cages 7/70/20

Every once in a while, South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu flies down to Con Son Island with a plane load of friends to bask on sparkling, sandy beaches and swim in the South China Sea. And occasionally, special lights carry political prisoners and criminals to the national jail on the island. Despite its pleasant surroundings, the prison has for years had the fearsome reputation of being something of a South east Asian "Devil's Island." Last week, after two U.S. congressmen became the first Westerners to thoroughly inspect the prison since the French left Indochina, it was apparent that Con Son still lived up to its reputation-and that the visit would further strain U.S.-South Vietnamese relations.

It wasn't easy to search the aging penal colony. But the Democratic congressmen - Reps. Augustus F. Hawkins of California and William R. Anderson of Tennessee, both members of a House Select Committee on U.S. Involvement in Southeast Asia - had help from an expert. He was Don Luce, a 35-year-old researcher for the World Council of Churches and a longtime war critic. Armed with maps prepared by Luce and aided by Luce's fluent command of Vietnamese, the team proceeded through the prison. When they asked to see "Camp Four, the maximum security section, they were halted by the South Vietnamese warden and his American adviser. As they argued, an almost-concealed door swung open and the investigators slipped inside. There, they found some 60 "tiger cages"-tiny pits each housing four or five prisoners. "What I saw was the most shocking sight of my life," said Hawkins. "[The prisoners] were starved, often they were without water and forced to use their own urine. Boxes of lime were on top of the cages. It was scattered when-ever there was any protest."

Last week, however, the House team submitted its interim report, and the conditions at Con Son prison were mentioned only in a single paragraph. Angered by the document, staff member Thomas Harkin, who accompanied the prison investigators, quit his post in a huff, sold his color pictures of the tiger cages to Life magazine, and claimed the report was a "whitewash." Not surprisingly, that charge seemed excessive to committee chairman C.V. (Sonny) Montgomery of Mississippi, who had tried to confiscate Harkin's tiger-cage pictures before the group returned to the U.S. In Montgomery's view, his committee's mandate was to assess the entire U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, and not the conditions in one South Vietnamese prison. Still, the flap produced results far beyond the normal impact of a fact-finding tour. For after initial denials, the Saigon government admitted that some 500 prisoners were in fact being held in tiger cages at Con Son and promptly dispatched a ten-man Interior Ministry team to investigate the matter.

Newsweek, July 20, 1970

I copied the above text from Texas Tech as it looked like something that might just disappear. I vaguely remember hearing about the kerfuffle back when it happened.

USS Kirk

The USS Kirk was commissioned in 1972. At some point she was transferred to the Taiwanese Navy where it is apparently still operating.

WSP - West Philippine Sea

Atin Ito fishing boat finds itself between a Chinese Coast Guard ship and the Philippine Coast Guard. - Edwin Bacasmas

Remember how 10 years ago there was a big fuss about China claiming the entirety of the South China Sea? It's still an issue:

President Marcos Should Ride a Jet Ski and Plant the Philippine Flag in WPS - Kyle Dane Ballogan

 

Grants Pass Oregon Goes To Sea

SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 25, 2013) An Airman loads ammunition onto an F/A-18E Super Hornet on the flight deck of the USS George Washington. Photo by  Ricardo R. Guzman.

Looking through today's photos and I see GRANTS PASS, OR stenciled on the landing gear door of this F-18. Shoot, that's just down the road a piece.

Soong Mei-Ling

1943 Soong May-ling in White House Oval Office gave a press conference.

The clue for today's Jumble is "Eric Gugler’s 1933 Oval Office redesign was underway and things were —". Seems the oval office was an FDR thing. Here I thought it had been there forever. I go looking for pictures and I am not finding much, and then I trip over this one. Since China seems to be feeling their oats, building all kinds of infrastructure all over the 3rd world, stomping on personal freedom in Hong Kong, and pushing everyone else out of the South China Sea, this photo makes me think it might be time to pause and reflect on how we got here. It wasn't pretty. 

Soong May-ling has appeared here before, though she spelled her last name Mei-ling then.

USNS John Ericsson

USNS John Ericsson

I thought this photo looked an awful lot like an oil painting. The picture was taken in stormy conditions in the South China Sea, part of the same exercise as yesterday's photo. John Ericsson designed the ironclad USS Monitor. Why is one ship designated USS and another USNS? USS ships are commisioned and crewed by the Navy. USNS are typically supply ships are crewed by civilians.

A-4C Skyhawk

A-4C Skyhawk

Photographer Don Fitzgerald provides some context:

A VA-144 A-4C Skyhawk operating as War Paint 312 (BuNo 149532) armed with Mark 82 Snakeye bombs receives a catapult ready thumbs up for a strike mission launch into North Vietnam from USS Kitty Hawk CVA 63 operating from Yankee Station, Tonkin Gulf, South China Sea in January 1967. 50mm with 2X extender from the 06 observation deck(Vultures Row).

Yankee Station

Back in the day, there was all this noise about Vietnam, but nobody ever mentioned the giant Chinese island of Hainan right there, 70 miles away off the starboard bow. There were two locations for Yankee Station depending on the year. The one shown on the map is the later one and is correct for the photograph.

Previous mention of Skyhawk here.

Vulture's Row above the flight deck of USS Ronald Reagan 2007

USS Kitty Hawk hangar bay Persian Gulf 22 March 2003

Mark 82 Snakeye bomb

Rare Earths from the Bottom of the Sea

A vast deposit of rare earth minerals has been found in the Pacific seabed within the Japanese exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the island of Minami-Torishima - some 1,250 miles south of Tokyo. Mud samples taken from the seabed about 18,000 feet down are of “superb quality,” registering a rare earth density of between 1,000 and 1,500 ppm (parts per million) - several times higher than rare earth depots found in China, whose density averages 400 ppm. The discovery was made by a team led by Yasuhiro Kato, an earth science professor at Tokyo University. - Yoshiko Sakurai Official Web Site (metric measurements deleted).

    Rare earths are essential for many of our modern electronical gizmos. Red China is the principle producer these days, and they have been restricting their export recently (surprise, surprise).
    "Superb quality". Well, they are 4 times denser than what you might find in China, but it's still only one-tenth of one percent. Not very stinking much, it still means you are going to have to process a thousand tons of ore to get one ton of metal. Plus this stuff is at the bottom of the sea, over 3 miles down. That's not as deep as some of the oil wells being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, but it's pretty stinking deep. I imagine they are probably going to use ROV (remotely operated vehicles) and maybe some really long hoses. It's going to be a major engineering effort to haul enough dirt up to the surface to make it worthwhile.
    The island is really in the middle of nowhere. Iwo Jima and Wake Island are it's nearest neighbors and they are almost 1,000 miles away.
    A story in the Telegraph got me started.

Update December 2016 replaced missing picture.

Water, Water

Island Malé and capital city of Maldives

There's a bit of a water crisis in the Maldives (or is it just Maldives? My conditioning prevents me from leaving out the the.) The population outstripped the islands' ability to provide fresh water some time ago, so they are dependent on desalination plants. A fire in an electrical control panel in a relatively large desalination plant in the capital city/island of Malé has shut it down.

Malé is about halfway up the eastern chain of islands. At this scale it occupies one pixel on your screen. The 'British Indian Ocean Territory' down at the bottom center is just a fancy name for Diego Garcia, a hot spot on every sailor's tour of duty. And look! There's Arthur C. Clarke's house, 15 pixels South of Sri.

My paraphrase of the Wikipedia article on the place gives us the basics:

Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, consisting of a double chain of twenty-six atolls, oriented north-south. The chain starts about 250 miles southwest of the Southern tip of India and extends 500 miles south. Most of the atolls are composed of a ring of small islands. There are roughly 1200 islands, only 200 of which are populated. The total population is something greater than 300,000.  With an average ground level elevation of 5 feet above sea level, it is the planet's lowest country. It is also the country with the lowest natural highest point in the world at 8 feet.

Highest point is 8 feet?!?! How is it that this place still exists? I would have thought that everything would have been swept away the last time a typhoon blew through. Obviously I'm missing something, but it's going to have to wait for another day. I've got enough on my plate right now.

The Maldives cover about 35,000 square miles of ocean. If it was land it would be about the same size as Indiana, South Carolina or Maine. Put all the islands together and the actual land area would only be 115 square miles, which is slightly smaller than Larry Ellison's Pineapple Island.

My first hearing of this crisis left me wondering WTF? An electrical fire shut down the water? What kind of desalination plant do they have? I mean any boy scout knows you can get enough fresh water to survive with a sheet of plastic by rigging up a solar still. Works even in the Sahara (maybe. I'm not going to bet on that.) Wikipedia disabuses me of that notion:

Solar Stills

In the direct method, a solar collector is coupled with a distilling mechanism and the process is carried out in one simple cycle. . . . Water production by direct method solar distillation is proportional to the area of the solar surface and incidence angle and has an average estimated value of 3-4L/m²/d. Because of this proportionality and the relatively high cost of property and material for construction direct method distillation tends to favor plants with production capacities less than 200m³/d. - Wikipedia

200m³ (200 cubic meters) is about 50,000 gallons. Okay, land is kind of at a premium in Malé (see picture at top), and while 50,000 gallons a day might enable the population (roughly 100,000 people) to survive in a temperate climate, Malé is on the equator. I think you might want a bit more.

Still, with water being necessary and scarce, you'd think they'd want some kind of backup plan that didn't require electricity. Like maybe a water tower and a battery of hand operated pumps. I dunno though, maybe anything that sticks up would get blown away in the next typhoon. Or maybe pumps are too sophisticated. Maybe what they need is a water tower with a set of stairs so people can curry buckets up of water to the top. After all, the electricity isn't doing any magic, all it's doing is running the pumps. Electric pumps might be more economical from a business perspective, but if you are running out of drinking water and it's a hundred degrees outside I think you might be persuaded to man the pump for a bit, especially if that is the only way to get a drink.


India and China have been shipping water there by the ton, but Malé needs at least a thousand tons a day (a cubic meter weighs a ton). Saudi Arabia and India have pledged a chunk of money to get the water supply fixed. It's a chunk, but it's only a fraction of what they need. Being the geeky kind of guy I am, I'm wondering why the electrician didn't just go in and replace the burnt up wires, but then I realized that even if that got it going, what they really want is a reliable machine that doesn't require any fiddling. Their big business is tourism, not engineering. Besides, it's kind of like a military campaign, or a movie production - everything has to be shipped in from somewhere else, including all the support staff and supplies for the people who are doing actual work. Kind of like a pyramid scheme. You only need one guy to turn on the switch on the new plant, but getting the new plant there and installed, well, that's going to take a small army, and as we all know, armies are expensive.

Sun.MV has a live blog on the Malé water crisis. It's kind of a cool format. What we haven't heard is anything from Hitachi, who built and run the Malé's desalination plan, though I might be the only person on the planet who knows this (puffy mcpuffery speaking).

On the plus side, I found a very cool back room tour of the Hyatt in Malé, and an English company that is building Seawater Greenhouses in Arabia.

Bows and Arrows, Cross My Heart and Hope to Die

I found this on Quora and I thought it was so great I decided to steal it.

Question: Why were crossbows not used in the 19th century, even though they could be reloaded way faster than the infantry guns of that period?

Answer by Roger H Werner

At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, an English army of 6000 soldiers led by Henry V, defeated a French army of 36,000. A crucial element in Henry’s victory was the longbow: He deployed C. 5000 longbowmen, WHILE the French used Italian crossbowman and their weapons have a shorter range. Largely because of this, the French lost by some accounts as many as 10,000 men to about 100 English. Yet, in spite of the clear deadliness of the longbow in war, it quickly became obsolete as firearms evolved. Within 200 years of Agincourt, it had fallen out of military use almost entirely.

In China, weaponry evolved in an entirely different way. Here, firearms were used much earlier. In 1232, the Mongol army used firearms as armor piercing weapons during the siege of modern Khai-Fun Fu, China. Firearms may also have been used much earlier: A picture dating from the 10th century CE depicts a demon wielding a form of gun. Nevertheless, Chinese armies used bows for another 800 years.

Timo Nieminen, a physicist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, described the evolution of the Asian composite war bow, a device he describes as “the best bow available before the advent of modern materials and the modern compound bow”. The compound bow helps explain why the bow remained an effective weapon in China for centuries after it was abandoned in Europe.

When a bow is drawn, the surface closest to the archer compresses, while the opposite surface is placed in tension, placing extreme demand on whatever material is used for the limb. Nieminen noted that it’s very difficult to find a single material that provides sufficient strength under both tension and compression, whilw permitting a high degree of deformation.

The solution that Asian bow makers settled upon was the composite bow in which the compression surface is made of horn and the tension surface from resin-sinew composite, both joined to a central portion of wood. These bows were extremely difficult to make; some report the resin-drying process required more than a year. When finished however, the sinew-backed bow vastly outperformed other bows and it was a military mainstay for 2,000 years. It was adopted by the Mongols who effectively used it to decimate the mounted knights of Europe.

One key factor in the performance of any bow is size to draw length ratio. The draw length is about as long as an archer’s arm. Because wood cannot be greatly deformed before it breaks, a wooden bow must be at least 2.3 times its draw length. English longbows were as long as the archer was tall and Japanese longbows were 200 cm long. By comparison, the composite bow was only 110 cm long, while achieving a similar performance as the long bow. The composite bow was lighter and easier to carry than its European cousins but it required a long time to create.

The Asian composite bow had a weakness that prevented it from spreading to Europe. Its composite materials did not survive humid conditions. For that reason, the weapons never spread south to India nor would they have survived land or sea crossings back to Europe. Nevertheless, both East and Western bow designs were much more accurate than early firearms, particularly over longer distances. They had a much higher rate of fire, and, they required fewer materials and logistics to manufacture and supply. Yet the bow had one big disadvantage over firearms: Bows require a high degree of skill to use proficiently.The typical Chinese army had a large pool of skilled archers, while European armies did not. Europeans armies therefore trained their soldiers to use firearms because that could be done relatively quickly. For this reason, firearms quickly eclipsed the bow in Europe. Therefore, military effectiveness was not the primary cause for the bows demise as a military weapon: Economic (cost/time) and social factors, especially training of musketeers as opposed to archers, were far more important influences in the replacement of the bow by the gun.

Iaman Reports from Vacouver BC

Burnaby, Vancouver BC

Vancouver BC Monday 10/21/2019

Hi from Canada,

I’ve been in rain for the past week, but the temperature is cool not cold, not hot.  Pleasant if you are dressed well.

I have a basement Airbnb room,  quiet, warm.  The décor, paint and finishes were familiar, then I learned the owner is an Indian meditator family.  Yellow, gold and whites.  J who is the tenant rents out the 6 bedrooms to people like me.  J is cute Asian gal ~40? Disheveled sunglassed smiley solicitous spacey upon first meeting her, happy upbeat but looks like she stumbled out of bed at 4 in the afternoon.  J has had many careers including lead singer with a a number of small jazz bands.  J  is deep into the older VBC music culture.  Yesterday she had a invite to MC at a memorial to a Jazzman,  30 minutes later she shows up glamourous in black evening gown and  a wig. Modern, svelte and cool.  J  has pictures on the walls of her well attended house parties complete with live jazz bands.  I wondering if the sunglasses are to cover pinpoint pupil of an addict?

J wants me to stay and unilaterally without telling me first,  blocked the rooms off Airbnb for the rest of the month.  Waiting for her to get up at 4PM to discuss a reduction in rent or maybe trade work to stay (1 hour a day?) lots of simple maintenance to be done here.

Plan B is head back south, maybe into the rain shadow of the Salish sea. Or Portland area...or farther south to the 72 degree weather of Redding CA.

Fellow roomers; M & Irene. M is a 76 singer & P&P (pension & a paper route).  Has TV music videos of himself singing professionally in the early 1970s,  very professional and good.  Then went on to MC at dinner & strip clubs.  Strippers never excited him, being as they are  "paper and paste", he volunteered the only time he was aroused by a performer was on a amateur night a regular normal unadorned woman stripped to her natural self, he liked that. M still sings & strums guitar at church and small events. He is embarrassed about his bad and missing teeth, but is on a government waiting list to remedy that.

M’s wife Irene is a simple dumpy gal who was once beautiful.  Her mind wanders and tends to bore others with astrology theories. M is tolerant, mostly. I wonder how they will get on, especially if Irene is in early dementia?

M & Irene are financially strapped, hence the paper route when they are 75 & 69 YO.  They had lived in the same apartment for 40 years then after a long eviction fight, settled for $10k to move out, now they are here in a room for $1200 a month and sharing the house with travelers that pass through.  They like me, they are not happy with their situation.

Another roomer-tenant is Tony who everyone seems wary of.  I finally met him big black strong young guy with a scowl.  I introduced myself and shook hands, and he opened up with a smile and a hello.  The other residents seeing this later expressed their amazement,  in the 3 years Tony has been here that is the first smile and most words they have heard him speak.  His accent is Dominican.  They say he works construction,  but I suspect more of a underground profession.

Unitarian Church

Clarence had a card table set up in the Unitarian Church hallway during the after-service-coffee-klatch.  76 and wheelchair bound he expressed a happy demeanor, was neatly dressed with spiffy cap and manly necklace and rings.  He was offering to sharpen peoples knifes for free, my chisel and screwdrivers would take more than a honing. Asking about his conditions he related he was a mine mechanic (like me) deep in the Canadian Rockies,  had a nice lake house with a 3’ diameter fir tree that had fallen across a ravine.  Cutting it into sections, the trunk shifted and fell breaking his back.  “It is what it is, I’m happy to be alive and functioning.”

I’m going to call him today about a Shark Tank episode I saw today about Knife Aid (mail-order knife sharpening $10 a blade)…. Well…. I called Clarence,  he has no PC nor smartphone, not interested in my story, he was written up in the newspaper as a interest story and the police called him to enquire about his Biz, then the landlord in his subsidized housing reminded him he couldn’t have a Biz in his apartment. So he doesn’t charge people, does it for free, "it was never about the money".    He invited me over to see his themed subsidized housing décor, complete with a camouflaged out door machine shop on his patio porch.

Swimming

Big 50 meter pools here in VBC,  and many swimmers, mostly Chinese.

Differences; unisex locker rooms- similar to Amsterdam,  wanting clarity I asked a attendant about the etiquette of coed sharing the locker room,  they said there are privacy changing booths but sometimes people strip in front of everyone…unusual but there is not a rule against it. I'll need to try that. ;)

Showers, one is labeled “cold shower” with warm side spray. Strange,  high entry walls below the dive blocks,  kids can scamper up, but I need to swim to ladder.  Signs in shower say "no spitting or other personal hygiene allowed in shower."  Apparently Chinese like to spit,  a lot.

Chinese.  Burnaby was a sprawling suburb now has a high rise city center like I imagine Hong Kong, mostly Chinese signs, all pedestrians Chinese.  Not racist,  but what happens when you are suddenly surrounded in your home town by people who don’t look like you speaking a language you don’t understand.  Just so many of them. ..  I had a preview of this in Croatia, when Chinese cruise ships loaded in Dubrovnik and I was suddenly transported from a Dalmatian mindset to the land of China.

And  coincidentally the housing market became unaffordable for the average Canadian, many like M & Irene.

Burnaby’s 20 year old houses are being raised for incoming high rises.  Mostly Chinese I am told.

C-130 Hercules Lands at Daulat Beg Oldi

IAF C-130J landing at Daulat Beg Oldie, Ladakh
Shiv Aroor
Indian Air Force C-130J landing today at Daulat Beg Oldie in Kashmir, 10 miles south of China. At 16,700 feet above sea level it is the highest airstrip in the world.

Update June 2026 replaced missing video.