Ruminations 05/02/08

* The Rev. Jeremiah Wright cited Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples of how evil America is.

If Wright knows how to Wiki, he might have looked up a few figures.

Estimated casualties of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima:

Immediate casualties, around 70,000 killed. Post-attack figures rise to around 90-100,000. Delayed deaths from radiation effects may have risen to 200,000 by 1950.

Nagaskai:

Immediate casualties, 40-75,000. By 1945 they may have risen as high as 80,000.

Number of Chinese civilians killed by Japanese forces in the Rape of Nanking: est. 200,000 over six weeks. Iris Chang gives the figure of 300,000 and some US government estimates for Nanking and the surrounding area in the battle and the six-week looting are as high as 500,000.

Has anyone noticed that figure exceeds the combined casualties for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that the Japanese Army did it up close and personal by shooting, bludgeoning, bayoneting, burying alive and raping to death?

Gosh, it must have been America’s fault.

* About the foofraw about Miley Cyrus’ Vanity Fair pics, I think Annie Leibowitz did a great job. Beautiful, tasteful and sensual at the same time.

Just three observations:

1) Though Miley’s figure is mature, her face is that of a child, lacking any trace of experience or character. And don’t bring up her age (15.) My great-grandfather, or even grandfather would have said she was husband-high. And I suspect he’d have added that we’d better get her one.

2) Once you realize that the guy in those pics is her father, they go from artistic to creepy in a split-second.

3) Everybody is talking about whether they damn pictures set a bad example for kids, when the character she plays on ‘Hannah Montana’ is vain, self-absorbed, cruel and obsessed with trivialities. Some example.

* And also from the indispensable Wikipedia.

Ronald Reagan, age at his inauguration: 69 (he turned 70 within a month.)

John McCain (assuming): 72.

Two years gets to be a big difference around that age – and Reagan didn’t have the North Vietnamese working him over on a regular basis for 5 1/2 years either.

Maybe our best hope is that McCain chooses a decent running mate.

How about John Bolton?