Who say's Morse code is outdated?
Elderly couple escape Tennessee assisted living facility using Morse code training
Couple escaped in March thanks to husband's military training
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The couple, a husband and wife team who remain unnamed in public records, suffers from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but they had their wits about them as the husband used his military training with Morse code to figure out the facility's electric lock code, the Tennessean reported.
The husband would listen as staff punched the code in, and he was able to figure out the pattern. He made a break for it with his wife, managing just 30 minutes of freedom before a stranger found the couple wandering two blocks from the facility.
This is a poignant commentary on love, freedom, and mental health with old technology mixed in.
ReplyDeleteIt’s dystopia personified with real world people of today and this manufactured crap we have been going through.
It’s a short story on what’s reality and what’s not with the age old love being the driving force.
It would be interesting to learn what characteristics of dementia and Alzheimer's brought the family of this elderly couple to subject them to such confinement because of clinical diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult to navigate our legal system in order to secure a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer's when a parent shows signs of onset yet is primarily preoccupied with his or her physical appearance and appears to others still quite capable of convincing social skills.
On the other hand, a person who, later in maturity, choses a contemplative, reticent life can be suspected by well-meaning relatives of instead being withdrawn, reclusive, or, of having the onset of Alzheimer's though there may be no other indication.
If a person is a malignant narcissist, such as so many of our politicians, given to gaslighting, lies, deception, and flagrant abuse of others, and radical extremism, well, it could just be that they perhaps "just don't understand" what others are trying to tell them about their character defects, no matter how much of a danger they may represent to the well being of others. And, there is no diagnostic manual in the branch industry of medical psychiatry which would confine or isolate the narcissist from society.
Perhaps, after all, it was the Morris Code that Nancy Pelosi was after when she claimed President Trump was "unhinged" when she pressured General Milley to give her access to the nuclear launch codes back in January immediately following the deadly Capitol siege.
As we all know, the risk of health issues, including mental health issues and cognitive decline, increases rapidly with great age. For example, I found a study online which shows that of those 65 to 74 years old, 3.0% had probable Alzheimer's disease, of those 75 to 84 years old, 18.7% had probable Alzheimer's disease, and of those over 85 years old, 47.2% had probable Alzheimer's disease. Thus, between the ages of 65 and 85 and older, the risk of Alzheimer's increases by more than 15 times. And there are other causes of cognitive decline.
ReplyDeleteConsider:
Joe Biden will be 79 years old this year.
Nancy Pelosi is 81 years old.
Diane Feinstein is 87 years old.
Patrick Leahy is 81 years old.
Stephen Breyer is 82 years old.
Bernie Sanders will be 80 years old this year.
Maxine Waters is 82 years old.
Steny Hoyer will be 82 years old this year.
To be fair, there are a few older Republicans in government, too, but it doesn't seem there are as many in prominent positions.
Article in The Times UK:
DeleteWho’s really running Biden’s White House? Step forward President [Ron] Klain
"[Klain's] firm grip on the levers of government has enabled the 78-year-old president to cruise through his first 100 days in office without breaking sweat."
...
"Having achieved his life’s ambition by reaching the White House, Biden’s goal is to remain in office as long as possible — two terms, preferably. This means he is “pacing himself” in the job, as a seasoned official told me wryly."
...
"A former colleague and admirer of Klain told me he had only one downside: “Ron is so smart he doesn’t understand when he is wrong.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Klain
“Ron is so smart he doesn’t understand when he is wrong.”
ReplyDeleteA not uncommon liability among our rulers.
A related infirmity is the tendency to double down when they're wrong. Also known as 'not knowing when to quit'.
Can be very dangerous when combined with great power. We're about to find out how dangerous.
Or, When to stop digging. Yes, in important ways that characteristic--or character flaw--holds out the promise of a best case scenario.
Delete"Yes, in important ways that characteristic--or character flaw--holds out the promise of a best case scenario."
ReplyDeleteOr, in other words, often leads to disaster.
I've been reading Pat Buchanan's 'Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War'. One takeaway: A lot of smart guys, trying to outsmart each other, outsmarted themselves and then couldn't stop...leading to disaster.
Could it happen again?
Of course.
"A lot of smart guys, trying to outsmart each other, outsmarted themselves and then couldn't stop...leading to disaster."
DeleteSounds a lot like WW1. Except I'm not convinced just how smart the Kaiser was.
Buchanan--whose mother was German--maintains that the British policy of thwarting any dominant European power was to blame for repeated Euro tragedies and that the Third Reich was just the inevitable German takeover of Europe--as we seem to be witnessing today with the EU. 1870 - 2020 being pretty much one long timeline of the Reich's march to dominance.
The other villains of the piece, according to Germanophile Buchanan, are the Untermenschen to the east of Germany.
Or maybe I'm missing something?
The alternative would have been for the Germans to simply exercise economic dominance and tell the Austrians to scale back their pretensions of dominance in the Balkans.
Lots of moving parts, but I'm not sold on Buchanan's family oriented worldview: foreign policy based on German mother, domestic policy based on sympathy for slave owning ancestors on his paternal side. Ride to the sound of the guns!
Mark...
ReplyDelete"Or maybe I'm missing something?"
Respectfully, I think so.
You should read the book. Whether or not Buchanan is a Germanophile (which I frankly don't see from what I've read), the point I was making is that, according to Buchanan's factual recounting, a lot of 'very smart people' (my term for the entire leadership of Europe...whether or not you include Hitler in the list of 'smart' people is irrelevant) made decision after decision which inexorably led to utter disaster. At the end of the day, it almost doesn't matter who was on the side of the angels...so many blunders were made.
By 'very smart people'.
PS I believe many other historians (including Britain's highly regarded AJP Taylor, who did not have German or Confederate ancestry) have chronicled the disastrous decision-making which led to WWII...
Taylor's views, and I have read some of his work, are not entirely different from my own, at least as far as what the overall goals of German foreign policy have been since the unification of Germany:
Delete"Taylor's thesis was that Hitler was not the demoniacal figure of popular imagination but in foreign affairs a normal German leader. Citing Fritz Fischer, he argued that the foreign policy of the Third Reich was the same as those of the Weimar Republic and the Second Reich. Moreover, in a partial break with his view of German history advocated in The Course of German History, he argued that Hitler was not just a normal German leader but also a normal Western leader. As a normal Western leader, Hitler was no better or worse than Gustav Stresemann, Neville Chamberlain or Édouard Daladier. His argument was that Hitler wished to make Germany the strongest power in Europe but he did not want or plan war. The outbreak of war in 1939 was an unfortunate accident caused by mistakes on everyone's part and was not a part of Hitler's plan."
"Taylor portrayed Hitler as a grasping opportunist with no beliefs other than the pursuit of power and anti-Semitism. He argued that Hitler did not possess any sort of programme and his foreign policy was one of drift and seizing chances as they offered themselves. He did not consider Hitler's anti-Semitism unique: he argued that millions of Germans were just as ferociously anti-Semitic as Hitler and there was no reason to single out Hitler for sharing the beliefs of millions of others."
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"Taylor held fierce Germanophobic views. In 1944, he was temporarily banned from the BBC following complaints about a series of lectures he gave on air in which he gave full vent to his anti-German feelings. In his 1945 book, The Course of German History, he argued that National Socialism was the inevitable product of the entire history of the Germans going back to the days of the Germanic tribes. He was an early champion of what has since been called the Sonderweg (Special Way) interpretation of German history, that German culture and society developed over the centuries in such a way as to make Nazi Germany inevitable. Moreover, he argued that there was a symbiotic relationship between Hitler and the German people, with Adolf Hitler needing the Germans to fulfil his dreams of conquest and the German people needing Hitler to fulfil their dreams of subjugation of their neighbours. In particular, he accused the Germans of waging an endless Drang nach Osten against their Slavic neighbours since the days of Charlemagne."
I've always felt that Buchanan's glorification of his beating up cops in his youth was distasteful, and that his visiting a Confederate war cemetery while campaigning was foolish at best. Refighting the Civil War, while a popular pastime for amateur historians, is not a good strategy for a politician. It's the kind of decision that informs many of Buchanan's views. Not that I disagree with everything he says.
DeleteI don't disagree with everything Buchanan says, but enough of it I pay no attention to him.
DeleteSame with George Will. He was not nearly as smart as he thought he was.
There are some - like Buchanan - who are interesting to read, but - due to their own biases - where they are coming from - are not reliable sources.
DeleteGeorge Will is a pompous, suprecilious, insufferable…. (fill in the blank).