I know it’s been a few years since the last post, but the rusty Fallout Shelter sign on my building prompted another trip to the library like in the olden days when I kept this blog up. Apparently the entire 7-county Kansas City Area Community Shelter Plan was published as an insert in Kansas City Star on May 17, 1970. The whole fallout preparedness thing was going on since the early 60’s when President Kennedy told the nation to get ready, but it never left people’s minds since the end of the World War II. However, in the 1983 movie The Day After you don’t see too many people using the extensive shelter network mapped out in the pages below. Maybe because people eating dehydrated food in the shelters are not good for a dramatic plot. Or maybe because none of them saved this plan like it begged them to do.

Each image should be linked to a pdf file I scanned from the microfilm; you should be able to zoom in and read the maps and locations. I tried to make the best scans, but if you don’t like the quality, you are welcome to visit the library on your own; Johnson County Library has microfilm and Kansas City Library may have the original.

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I bet you didn’t know that the famous song “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” had more lyrics than the title. If Argentina had a peso for every time a tourist quotes this song, no  one would ever have to work for living there. But until then Argentina just charges Americans $140 to cross the border and lets them walk around all day humming this song off-key for no additional charge.

After this trip to Argentina my non-existent bucket list got a lot smaller:

Checked Off My Bucket List: Argentina
Checked Off My Bucket List: Buenos Aires
Checked Off My Bucket List: Colonia del Sacramento
Checked Off My Bucket List: Cataratas del Iguazú
Checked Off My Bucket List: La Recoleta Cemetery

If you are looking for a an interesting destination and don’t mind paying the price, Argentina might be a place to consider.

Contrary to multiple tour guides and websites, nothing in Argentina is an extreme bargain, except for the public transportation. Your meals will probably cost you about the same as here, maybe slightly cheaper depending on the restaurant. Clothing is more expensive, and although you can find high quality leather products, a good leather jacket starts at $250. Vodka and vine cost about the same as here. Electronic items are significantly higher but most of them are  unusable here anyway. I have no idea how much precious stones cost in this country, but I’ve been told that they are cheaper in Argentina where many of them are mined.

Speaking about food. Although I’ve never seen a similar density of cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, sandwich stores, ice cream places, chocolate stores and whatever food establishments one can imagine, food was somewhat a disappointment for me. Not because it was bad – it wasn’t – but because it was so ordinary and somewhat bland. I was shocked to discover that Argentinians are not fans of spicy food. Their famous grilled meats served in omnipresent parrillas are usually just seasoned with salt and lemon juice. The quality of meat is excellent and the servings are huge with beef, chicken, pork, several kinds of sausages including blood sausage, chinchulín (chitterlings) and mollejas (sweetbreads) served in one huge pile on a plate.

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The Holocaust Remembrance day falls on May 2 this year and in the few following posts I will publish several documents concerning the treatment of the Jewish population in my hometown of Odessa, Ukraine issued by the Romanian Authority which occupied Odessa from 1941-1944.

At the beginning of the occupation there were 80,000-90,000 Jews who did not evacuate from Odessa. When the city was liberated on April 10, 1944 there were reportedly only 600 left. Somewhere in the Odessa Region my 6-year old Father survived in the ghetto with help from kind people and lots of  luck. The area where he lived with my Grandmother was occupied by the Italians who were not very enthusiastic about being in the war and their relative reluctance to torture and execute the Jews might have resulted in more survivors than in the areas controlled by Romanians who proved themselves to be ruthless murderers.

Many places in Odessa and the Region have memorial markers where the executions were conducted, such as a place where over 25,000 Jews were burned alive shortly after the occupation started. Unfortunately, I never stopped or paid attention to them, probably like most people. I saw more memorial markers today, while researching this post, than I remember seeing when I still lived in Odessa.

The Russian text is found in the National Archives of the Odessa Region, translation mine. If I have time and patience I will also try to translate a personal memoir written by a survivor; translation is a long and tedious process, and even though I start with a machine translation, it still doesn’t always come out right. Feel free to let me know if I can correct some grammar or spelling errors.

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Muslim Magomaev, one of the most popular Soviet singers of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s died today. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that 100% of the Soviet population knew and loved him. He was a huge star with a wide range of musical talents – from pop to opera, performing in many languages and winning many well-deserved international awards. Many times when Magomaev was on TV my Father would record his songs on our reel-to-reel tape recorder and little 6-year old me would sing along.

I always thought he was old, only 66…

httpvh://youtu.be/pQaUx9D3VI8

httpvh://youtu.be/hL50MdycGn4

httpvh://youtu.be/kRt_UVHZ094

httpvh://youtu.be/5m7DO1f3Qck

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Some time ago I decided that this blogging thing is becoming too much of a burden and not as much of a recreational activity I envisioned it to be, so I relied on Forrest Gump to convey my feelings on the subject and stopped. Surprisingly the Earth didn’t stand still, and, according to a humorless fellow Pitch commenter, everyone is probably better off without me “spouting some inane half literate garbage off the top of (my) head, without offering a single new fact, based on things (I) read courtesy of the hard work done by the good folks in the “dead tree media”” . In the meantime, I entertain myself trading one-liners on Twitter and mostly keep my opinions to myself. Once in a while I see a subject, an image, a story and just like in the old days I think: “This could make a good post”, too bad I don’t feel like writing it. In the past weeks for various reasons I thought about death and dying, love, P&L made-up controversy du jour, almost typed something up in defense of Nadia Pflaum, who I don’t even know and rarely read, almost wrote something about Obama, auto industry, weather, movies and pickling of a watermelon (that may still show up some day). I thought about writing about these things but I didn’t because no one really cares what I have to say and to prove that, my blog is still getting about the same number of clicks I used to get when I posted something every day.

I guess nothing prompts me to actually sit down and write something like a cattle-like public support for the Iranian opposition, complete with blogs, facebook messages, re-Tweets, green-tinted avatars, etc.  Here is a video of the public racing to support the “democracy” in Iran.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzvO9x2H7ZA

For the record I don’t care who gets elected in Iran because in Iran “…Supreme Leader … has the final say in all matters”; Iran’s current president may be an angry Holocaust-denying degenerate with a potential access to nuclear weapons and no love for America but I can make a similar case for many other world leaders and, to some degree, for many people in the US congress and some former presidents. Let me make up some facts for you.

1. Until last week you’ve never heard of Mousavi.

2. You think he is better than the current president because an angry demonstrator with a green mask on his face told you so.

3. You have no idea what his platform is and if he is planning to stick with it.

4. You found out from Twitter that there was election fraud.

5. You felt that the opposition needed your personal support.

6. You painted your avatar green and now it says “where is my/their vote”

7. Mission accomplished.

8. This doesn’t seem ridiculous to you at all.

I am sure after being beaten and sprayed with tear gas the Iranians come home and find satisfaction in the “sea of green” faces on Twitter. You played an important part in the supporting of democracy, give yourself a good pat on the back.

It’s no secret that the tactic of indiscriminately supporting pro-American opposition didn’t always work out in the long run. One doesn’t have to look back 30 or 50 years to find another failed example of a misguided American foreign intervention. Both the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia were enthusiastically supported, encouraged and financed by the United States but produced neither the expected results nor any significant political and economic improvements. Few years later the new opposition is clashing with yesterday’s revolutionaries demanding their removal from power. Today, Ukrainian and Georgian people resent the United States for interfering in their affairs and egging them on into hasty action.

That’s why President Obama should continue with the policy of leaving Iranian people to resolve their election problems for themselves, while making sure that their Twitter is in perfect working order.  United States’ support of the Shah is in no small part responsible for the current situation in the country so if there is a time to stop interfering – it is right  now. It is painful to watch the beatings, bloody clashes and murders but there is no guarantee that if the opposition wins they will not kill and loot like their neighbors in Iraq. Who will you support then? So far the number of casualties is comparable to an average year in Kansas City, I don’t recall  a huge wave of Twitter indignation for our local beatings and murders.

In the meantime all the clueless do-gooders can continue their self-gratifying support for the Iranian demonstrators and protesters, changing time zones for conspiracy and painting their faces green. Election fraud and stolen elections apparently happen to the best of democracies (just Google “2000 election stolen“), no reason to get hysterical about it. Especially if you live 7,000 miles away and it takes you 3 tries to point Iran on the map.

In the famous words of Klaatu:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNu1Bj3oR00

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