Peeking Behind The Curtain

Well, here we go with the top news stories of 2016.  Yesterday, we covered the various passings that have marked the year that was, from the great to the small.  Today, we want to focus on the more entertaining parts of pop culture, namely the headlines.

Our take on things is, of course, a bit different.  We focus on the stories that will likely have far-reaching impact on the future, and believe it not, we don't think the Trump presidency is one of them.  In fact, the entire election cycle of 2016, while being wildly entertaining and providing gobs of grist for the mill, will like a Hollywood blockbuster have little or no nutritional value for the brain.

Instead, we will focus on some stories that flew in under the radar, but which will likely come back to haunt us in major ways in the near-to-far future.

The first thing we focus on also happens to be one of the most recent: the assassination of Andrey Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey.  Likely related to that event was the downing of a Russian jet over the Black Sea with a Russian military choir on its way to Syria to entertain the troops for Christmas and New Year.

This event is a fire starter - a slow burn in the coal scuttle that will eventually leap into dramatic flame, much like the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo that touched off World War One.  To any aware observer, this event couldn't be more obvious.  It was meant, as so many other events over the past two decades, to goad Russia into war.  The provocations include the Ukraine mess, NATO camping out on Russian borders, "friendly fire" incidents in Syria, and the overt acts of war generally called the Economic Sanctions set in place because 98% of Crimean people voted to rejoin the Russian Federation and Russia accepted.

And all this against a country that just a few years ago was America's best buddy in Asia after the Wall Fall.  In fact, Russia was seen as the foil by which the West could keep China down on the farm.

Well, it didn't work out that way.  Instead, Russia and China teamed up to form the BRICSA group, who announced their intention to start an alternative financial clearing system that threatens the Dollar Hegemony and the SWIFT cabal.  Since that time, the Western media, mouthpieces for the Shadow Government, have been steadily driving Russia's image into the dirt - or at least trying.

Despite all the humiliations and public trashings the West has heaped on Russia, they have shown remarkable restraint, preferring instead to fight through media and public relations, figuring the "whipping boy" image garners sympathy and admiration from the rest of the world, which it certainly seems to have done.  However, their patience is not boundless.

Certainly, the murder of a top diplomat in a key nation, plus the jet downing, must be pressing on the Kremlin's last nerve.  We can assume that investigators will thoroughly document proof of Western involvement, and then take their case to the world in the hopes of stirring significant ill will towards the US, and most definitely put it on the table when negotiating with the Trump administration, which has promised to lighten up a bit.  In any event, a significant story to watch.

Another important story, and one that will have long-lasting effects on all our daily lives, is the so-called "fake news" phenomenon.  In addition to being used to tar and feather Russia (again), it is also part of a much larger effort to take full control of the internet, a process that was begun with Obama's signing over ICANN to the UN in October, plus rise and empowerment of WIPO, have touched off a rapidly growing effort to shut down free speech on the internet.

There is nothing more dangerous to human liberty than giving any government body the ability to control how and what its opposition can say.  This ability is especially powerful when "intellectual property" rights can be used to control people's ability to cite reference materials in their writings and speech.  This combination can literally shut down free inquiry, independent reporting and academic research all in one fell swoop.  The associated rise of "fact checkers" and "information arbiters" is a very dangerous game in which almost everyone loses.

Every discovery ever made in human history came from rearranging existing facts and applying novel interpretations to them.  If one can control the facts that are widely available and the interpretations that are deemed "acceptable," one effectively controls the mind of humanity and certainly shuts down any voyages of discovery in the general population, not to mention political opposition.

One to watch, and fight tooth and nail, going forward.

The next major story is one that is truly bubbling just under the surface, and there is a full-on effort to stifle it, as it could literally destroy the global ruling class.  The story is, of course, Pizzagate.

Wikipedia immediately labeled this story a "conspiracy theory" and says it has been debunked.  The now-discredited Snopes jumped all over it and declared it a non-item.  "News" outlets have all but shut the story up, except to rant on about a "lone gunman" who walked into Comet Ping Pong in an obvious attempt to discredit the story.  In other words, it's a very dangerous story to certain groups who desperately want it to go away.

The story broke during WikiLeaks' release of John Podesta's email during the presidential campaign.  There were numerous references to "pizza" and other code words that are known to be pedophile jargon.  The email mentioned several pizza restaurants around the US, specifically Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C., and the references were connected to other mentions of "spirit cooking," a truly sick form of black magic

This story is a huge deal.  Dozens of researchers have spent decades documenting child-sex rings at the highest levels of power.  Though nearly snuffed out, the Jimmy Seville case almost blew the lid off of the story.  Before that, researchers have been tracing this practice since the 1950s, showing that Child Protection Services, kidnapping rings and other sources provided thousands of children each year to service high-level clients.

The practice has been tied to the Roman Church abuse of children dating back to the 1800s in Canada, the Bohemian Grove antics of the US power elite, black magic rituals, and the use of pedophilia as a means to ensure silence among the participants.  There are also long-standing rumors that Stanley Kubrick was murdered for the subtle and not-so-subtle revelations in his films The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.  If proof of this practice were ever to see the light of day, it would cause a global and violent backlash against the ruling classes that would change the course of history.  Naturally, it must be squelched with every possible effort.

The Podesta email provided one of the biggest breaks ever in research of the practice.  It named places and people, gave code words, and have led to the discovery of all sorts of corroborating evidence, such as advertising, that clearly imply nefarious activities of a most grotesque nature.

Needless to say, the people who research this subject are tireless and stay on it for decades.  With this kind of information coming to the public, it has reinvigorated them in a way that Jimmy Seville's story did and shows the global nature of the problem.  This story will not go away anytime soon, and there are likely to be more revelations coming to light over the coming year and beyond.

Finally, the major story of the century will most likely be the weather, and this year the New Ice Age started to become apparent.  Over the year, oddly cold spells, strange snow events, heavy rains, record frosts, and other events signalled the coming Big Chill, though the constant brow-beating of Global Warming over the past three decades, combined with repeated scandals of data manipulation, have either got most people unable to see it, or simply burned out on the whole climate debate.

As the story goes, this past solar cycle has been unnervingly quiet.  The sunspot counts are way down and solar activity of all kinds have been waning for the past three years.  This has caused Earth's magnetic shield to weaken and destabilize, with the poles wandering closer to the equator on their way to converging sometime over Indonesia.

At the same time, the weaker shield has allowed much higher levels of cosmic radiation to penetrate Earth's atmosphere resulting in higher evaporation rates from the oceans.  This higher moisture content in the atmosphere meets with rapidly cooling temperatures due to reduced solar output, causing vast flooding and snow events worldwide, including the most recent heavy snows in North Africa, one of the hottest regions on Earth.

Careful reading of food quality and price reports shows a steady decrease in food quality combined with a steady increase in prices across the board for grain, fruit and leafy vegetables.  Harvest outputs have been declining over the past three years due to flooded fields and frost damage.

This story will become increasingly visible over the coming couple of years as the Sun enters a periodic minimum causing global temperatures to drop rapidly and a whole host of problems to crop up as a result.  Though attempts are and will continue to be made to blame Global Warming and human activity.  Cooling is, however, a far worse problem that warming and has nothing to do with anything humans are doing.

The extent of this story depends entirely on the Sun.  A severe minimum combined with Earth's magnetic poles reversing would likely be catastrophic.  Because so much time and money has been wasted on the Global Warming fairy tale, we are ill-prepared for what's coming, with declining food supplies, large areas becoming uninhabitable and the possibility of ocean levels dropping precipitously resulting in toxic salinity levels for marine life.  No one really knows how severe the situation will be, but higher food prices and political instability are certainly the least of the problems to come.

Obviously, the stories the Corporate Media want us to focus on pale in comparison to our top picks here.  Oh sure, the election made good theater, Brexit was chat-worthy and WikiLeaks stole a lot of headlines, but all of them will fade in weeks or months, replaced with more entertaining "news."  The stories that will affect most of humanity going forward are the ones being assiduously kept under wraps.  We are not meant to bother ourselves with real issues, and that distracts from our ability to be controlled.

Stay tuned tomorrow as we release our world-famous Predilection Issue 2016, looking at the most likely headlines for 2017 - good, bad and indifferent.  That will be followed by a little break for us Far Siders as we welcome the New Year and get roaring drunk in the jungle of Borneo.

Sampai jumpa, Y'all!

Life In The Rear-View Mirror 2016

Editor Note - to the following we can now add George Michael and Carrie Fisher with a few days left in 2016.

Today we begin our three-part series wrapping up 2016, and culminating in our world-famous Predilection Issue for 2017, in which we follow the trends to their natural conclusions.  In this column, we track all the famous, or infamous, faces that disappeared during the year.  Part 2 covers the major news you missed because of the wall-to-wall election coverage.  Then Part 3 looks ahead to what's in store during our next trip around the Sun.  After that, we'll be on holiday deep in the jungles of Borneo for a well-earned respite with our four wives and trained monkeys, coming back on 2 January 2017, sunburned, refreshed and ready to roll!

2016 has got to be one of the weirdest years on record.  It had some of the highest highs and lowest lows of any we can recall, and we've been through some Doozies.  Taking a look back just 12 months or less reminds us of just how much news has passed our desk, most of which got lost in the churn and burn of election campaigns and natural disasters.

As a reminder of what we have survived - thus far - we've compiled a short list, with links to much longer ones, of some of the biggest events of the year.  The dear reader may be shocked at what has already been forgotten, or even missed altogether.

2016 was not kind to celebrities.  Even as Carrie Fisher lies ailing in hospital from a heart attack in a galaxy far, far away, much closer to home where those we lost.

In the world of music, some titans passed.  Leonard Cohen passed on and David Bowie checked out leaving us with a rather dark and foreboding album called Black Star.  Not to be outdone, the Prince whose name shall not be mentioned died in a rather mysterious elevator scene, as if leaving us with some post-mortem symbol to ponder.  We also lost Glen Frey (Eagles) and Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane), and Merle Haggard for the line-dancing crowd, among a constellation of other names big and small.  A note of interest, Frank Sinatra, Jr. and Ricci Martin, sons of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, both went down.  And we can't forget Leon Russell who walked the Tightrope of fame.  Finally, we can't forget Sir George Martin, known for some reason as the Fifth Beatle, which must really irk Peter Best.

In the world of writing, we lost Harper Lee, who some might remember as the author of To Kill a Mocking Bird.  There was Earl Hamner, who gave us The Waltons.  We can throw Morley Safer in here, since he was one of the last real journalists and long-time anchor of 60 Minutes.   Michael Cimino checked out, as well, best remembered for Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate, which is frequently listed as one of the worst films of all time.

In sports, some giants fell to time if not to rivals.  Mohammad Ali/Cassius Clay went down for the last time, as did Arnold Palmer and Joe Garagiola.

Star Wars deserves its own listing, since the franchise is seemingly resurrecting itself by killing off its original stars.  Harrison Ford died on-screen while Carrie Fisher ails in hospital, but Kenny Baker got bit.  You may remember him as the every-present mini-actor who was always on-screen, but never seen.  More famously, he was Fidget in Terry Gilliam's brilliant Time Bandits.

Politics was not kind to anyone.  Hillary Clinton can be said to have metaphorically died, but a number of major figures passed on this year.  Shimon Peres and Janet Reno, both butchers in their own right, show up on the list.  Fidel Castro and King Bhumibol of Thailand both checked out after more than a combined 120 years of ruling their countries.  We can include Elie Wiesel even though he wasn't a politician, but he did plenty to politicize the Holocaust.  And why not include Jim Delligatti, since there is no real telling how many people his Big Macs have killed.  Finally, we include the murder of Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court justice of note.

2016 saw the demise of a whole slew of A-, B- and C-list actors.  The most notable among them were Alan Rickman, famous for his voicing of Marvin the Robot in the film Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and for lesser-known roles in Die Hard and the Harry Potter series.  We also lost Larry Drake (Darkman) and George Kennedy (Airport series).  Patty Duke and her twin sister died at the same time on the same day, interestingly enough.  How can we forget Alan Young, the horse-bit Wilbur on Mr. Ed?  We also lost The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Robert Vaughn, and Florence Henderson, most remembered as the Virgin Mother (so who was the daddy?) of The Partridge Family.  Of course, the ever-glamorous Zsa Zsa Gabor passed on - famous for...um...being famous and living on a farm.

And always in competition with Star Wars, the Star Trek universe lost Anton Yelchin, who will now forever be known as Chekov II, since he won't have a chance to get un-typecast.  And exactly why did Bones raid his Enterprise locker for booze at the beginning of Star Trek Beyond?

We note the passing of Bernard Fox, who along with Terry-Thomas and David Niven, formed the Holy Trinity of typecast British comedic stuffiness for generations of American audiences.

Finally, we wipe a tear for the passing of Gene Wilder.  If ever there was an iconic comedic actor, he was it.  With his bushy red hair and unique delivery that always implied much deeper context and irony, Gene owned his own niche in American comedy.  Husband of Gilda Radner, partner of Richard Pryor, and mainstay of Mel Brooks films, he delivered characters that will never be surpassed.  Even Johnny Depp and Tim Burton could not outdo Gene's Willy Wonka, and his sidekick role in Blazing Saddles stole the film, surrounded by masterful and memorable performances.  And who can ever forget his turn as Frederick Frankenstein (that's Fawnken-STEEN!) in the brilliant spoof Young Frankenstein?  An entire era of comedy died with him.

Yes, it was a tough year to be famous.  Father Cronus was busy collecting his souls, some marked by headlines, others quietly passing in obscurity.  Hell, half the cast of Barney Miller died (Abe Vigoda and Ron Glass), though most folks would have no idea what that means.  Fear not, Barney and Wojo are still going.

Michael Douglas put us on warning about Kirk Douglas, though followers of the Mandela Effect thought he passed on years ago.

Fortunately, depending on your personal point of view of course, we are still here and will continue assaulting the internet for years to come, God willing and the creek don't rise.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2.  Sampai jumpa, y'all!

A Far Side Christmas 2016

We've got ourselves in full-on holiday cooking mode here on the Far Side.  I've just completed a 3-kilo/8-lb. batch of my world-famous Spaghetti Bolognese a la Funghi, made entirely from home-grown vegetables or fresh from the pasar.

I'm also whipping up a massive pot of my equally world-famous mashed potatoes, complete with gobs of green onions, butter, sour cream, egg, rosemary, and a dash of salt and pepper for good measure.  I didn't churn the butter or sour the cream, but pretty much everything else is from the garden.

I'd be doing some baking, as well, but only the most modern, upper middle class homes have ovens, and mine ain't one of them.  Most Indonesian homes only have 2-burner propane stoves, and what passes for an oven is a big box that you place on top of it and control the temperature by turning the flame up and down.  I just don't have the patience for that.

Even though it's the end of December, and we are careening head-long into 2017, it is hot as hell today, with the sun blazing and the barest whisper of a breeze.  Hard to get into the Christmas spirit, especially when the FPI is running around destroying mall decorations and gift displays in the name of some f**ked up interpretation of religious texts.

Three idiots trying to plant holiday bombs in Tanggerang yesterday blew themselves up while running from police, so it's not all bad.  At least us normal and reasonable people get some entertainment value out of the deal.

Mother-in-law is coming in from Tegal Saturday, to stay for a week.  This typically means she stays for 2-3 days, and then wants to leave the Big City and go back to the kampung.  Of course, once back in Tegal, she immediately calls and says she's afraid of all the ghosts in her house and wants to come back to Jakarta.  This goes on for about a week or so.

All part of Life on the Far Side.

It was one year ago today we were sitting in Houston, my first trip home in eight years, and my wife's first trip ever.  She's spent the past year pushing me to move us to Texas, since like any reasonable person, she realized what a great place it is.  I told her as soon as the Yankees get the hell out, we'll be on the first plane home.

This year has just blazed by.  On January 1, it seems like a long haul to Christmas, but at Christmas, it seems like just 10 minutes ago we were thinking how far away it was.  You'd think it would take more than a year to go nearly a billion kilometers.  Hell, at that speed we could be at Pluto in three years, instead of the 15 it took the New Horizons probe.

And so the Christmas of Fear 2016 gets into full swing.  So much for Silent Nights and seasonal joy.  The world has taken a sharp detour into the booby hatch.  From a certain perspective, and one that we here on the Far Side subscribe to, it's all great fun and priceless theater.  Enjoy the show and remember, there ain't no refunds.

All sales final.

REVIEW: Star Trek Beyond (film)

Title: Star Trek Beyond
Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban
Runtime: 120 minutes
Language: English, Bahasa Indonesia subtitles
Tech Spec: Dolby Atmos, 2D/3D, 2.35:1
Bintang: 4/5 for action, characters, performances

Time out for a little mindless escapism.  In fact, if there's a fault with Star Trek Beyond, that's it.  One of the long-standing pillars of the franchise has been its ability to hold the mirror of the Final Frontier up to our society, without threatening or blaming anyone in particular.

That said, this should have been the second film in the current iteration.  It truly goes where no one has gone before, and does so with far more subtle nods to its 50-year history and some great fun.  The only fault I give the film - in and of itself - is that the pacing is so frenetic, there is hardly a moment to catch your breath and arrange all the pieces of the story.

The film opens where the original series left off, three years into a five-year mission.  Malaise and routine have got everyone in a funk.  In a moment taken directly from the original series' first pilot (with Tab Hunter as Captain Pike), Kirk and Bones mull over the weight of command and self-identity while enjoying a Saurian Brandy.  Anyone who has been around since the first show first aired, as I have, will recognize the scene immediately.

Kirk is morosely questioning his purpose in space after a less-than-stellar diplomatic mission where, finally, humans don't look like the all-wise, all-knowing beneficent Keepers of the Universe, which one might believe from all previous hours spent in the Trek Universe.

We are then treated to Space Station Yorktown, which for hardcore Trekkers/Trekkies, is the original name of the Enterprise when Gene Roddenberry first conceived of the show.  After the introductory montage, one is convinced that all the Klingons and Romulans be damned, space exploration looks pretty damn cool.

Shore leave is cut short in order to go find a missing ship somewhere in the middle of a nebula.  The crew saddles up for a search-and-rescue gig, but on arrival, find a bit more than they bargained for.

The crew ends up marooned on and scattered across an alien planet after a pretty spectacular battle, where we are finally shown what it's like to be in the rest of the ship while all hell breaks loose.  Once on the planet, the crew slowly reassembles itself while trying to figure out just what hit them and how they are going to get back into space and save the Earth.

This allows for some fun pairings and much needed character insights and development.  There are some genuinely good moments as unlikely pairs try to get to the rally point.  Of primary focus are the Bones/Spock team, and Scotty with (presumably) new alien character Jaylah.

There are some fun nods to Things We've Always Wanted to See, like alien mouths not synched to the Universal Translator, or less-than-enlightened break-ups between couples.  The much-touted Sulu-is-gay scene is so generic that one could be forgiven for thinking it was a reunion between old friends.  In all fairness, the Indonesian Censorship Board may have cut out a scene, but I have no way of knowing until I can see an uncensored cut.  By the end, though, we feel like we have truly been someplace new and seen things not seen before.

The plot centers around a McGuffin introduced in the opening scene.  Kirk is presenting a new race an ancient artifact as a peace gesture.  Turns out, a la Joseph Farrell's Cosmic War, that the object is a piece of an ancient weapon of incredible power that was scattered across the galaxy way, way back.  The crew is marooned by an alien (Krall), who is seeking to reassemble the device and destroy Earth to settle an old score - that is really never too clear.

In some ways, this is a rehash of the Wrath of Khan plot, in which the Enterprise is lured by the titular character to obtain a powerful weapon, while at the same time exacting revenge, though it is done with some fresh perspectives.

As mentioned before, the one key element missing from this film, and really from the entire three-film reboot, is the commentary on current events.  One thing that made the original series (half a century ago) so popular was that it dealt with issues, not just action, and took place in the head, not the heart (and adrenal glands).

While the J.J. Abrams rethink has done a fairly credible job of capturing the Next Generation's flair for interpersonal relationships - something set up in the first pilot scene recaptured here - it fails to show us ourselves, in all our faults and glory.  The original series left the viewer with something to chew on, whether it was a commentary on racism, greed, freedom, geopolitics, or any of a number of other moral and ethical issues.

Star Trek Beyond glosses over several ideas that would have made for some very interesting aha! moments.  It could have explored an ancient progenitor race, or Spock's imperative to breed now that his race faces extinction, or even the wisdom of humans mucking about in things that don't concern them.  All of these and more are left dangling, with us hardcore Trekkers/Trekkies begging for some meat on the bones (pun alert).

The original episode that introduced Khan dealt with eugenics and human intervention in genetics.  One episode had two aliens battling to the death of their race because the white and black halves of their bodies were reversed.  Another episode dealt with the wisdom of robotics and greed.  Why can't one of these reboots deal with how a race like the Vulcans deal with near-extinction and the serious choices they face to survive.

Instead, we get popcorn-munching action and adventure light.  All eye-candy with little real substance to take away after the credits roll.  I know it's a summer tentpole blockbuster franchise (and all those other Syd Schienberg mogul phrases), but the one thing that has always distinguished Star Trek from all the other swashbuckling westerns (to mix genres) was its ability to use outer space as a mirror on ourselves.

It is said that no matter how far the traveler goes, he always comes back to himself.  The genius of Star Trek has always been that no matter how many new worlds and new civilizations humans encountered, in the end it was humanity's own strengths and failings that we found.  In this way, the show/films were modern retellings of the ancient hero stories of Man vs. Gods.

Star Trek Beyond stands on its own.  You don't need to be a fan of any stripe to enjoy it with a tub of popcorn.  It leaves us with the impression that this may be the end of this iteration, though there is certainly plenty of Universe left to explore.  The future is open, as it always is  Let's hope that future installments, in whatever form they take, will return to the spark that made Star Trek one of the most enduring pop cultural phenomena ever.

Oh, one more thing: the lens flares are gone!  Hallelujah!

Kudos to the team that handled the Jakarta premier.  It was well-done and having Justin Lin on hand to discuss his experience was great.  Who knew he spoke Bahasa Indonesia?  I saw the 3D version, which honestly I wouldn't have paid extra to do, since it really adds nothing to my experience of the story.  And thanks to Epicentrum XXI for hosting the event.

Deja Vu Once Again

It's rather spooky really.

I have these memories burned into my brain from a year called 1968.  I was an impressionable 7-year-old with a father in politics, so I was in the center of a lot of things I didn't really understand at the time.

That year, the Republican National Convention was in Miami, FL, and my dad had just been elected to the Texas Senate after switching to the Republican Party (a revolutionary act in 1960s Texas controlled by the Johnson Machine).  Richard Nixon was the nominee and Eisenhower was one of the key speakers.  The date was August 5, so the notorious Democratic Convention was still two weeks away in Chicago.  But even still, there were violent protests, tear gas and plenty of unrest.

That year, it wasn't the Iraq/Afghanistan War, it was the Vietnam War.  Instead of five cops getting killed in Dallas, it was four students at the Kent State May 4th Massacre.  A month before that, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed, and a month after Kent State, Robert F. Kennedy was shot dead.

That year, there had been huge race riots in parts of Baltimore, MD, and the governor of Maryland, Spiro Agnew, had done a fair job of calming folks down.  That brought him to Nixon's attention and he ended up being the Vice President nominee.

The entire US was embroiled in the anti-war/pro civil rights movements, with one of the largest demographic groups in history - the Baby Boomers - coming of age and causing a major disruption to nearly every segment of society.  America society was dealing with significant issues on nearly every front - social, political, racial, religious.  The year 1968 was one of great upheaval.

A number of well-known writers and pundits, including Dr. Benjamin Spock, were indicted for telling folks to burn their draft cards.

The USS Pueblo with 83 souls on board was captured by the North Koreans for violating territorial waters.  Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong prisoner captured during the Tet Offensive and the photo goes viral (see above).

Walter Cronkite declared the Vietnam War unwinnable.

US troops kill 500 men, women and children in My Lai, Vietnam.

Violence breaks out during King's March on Memphis, with a black boy dead and 60 people injured.

LBJ announces he won't run for president.

In Paris, the Student Revolt flares with violence and the infamous Bloody Monday riots.  The revolt spreads with nine million workers going on strike.  Eventually, de Gaulle calls out the military.

Andy Warhol is (mercifully) shot dead.  RFK is shot by Jordanian Muslim Sirhan Sirhan.

Prague Spring heats up in Czechoslovakia and Soviet leaders begin planning an invasion to suppress the movement.  Later in the year, 200,000 Soviet troops cross the border on the way to Prague.

LBJ gives his "guns and butter" speech while announcing a 10% hike in income taxes to pay for the war.

Abbie Hoffman calls on Yippies to come to Chicago to disrupt the Democratic National Convention.  During the convention, Chicago police cause a riot by beating protesters and launching tear gas into the crowd, forcing Mayor Daley to try and explain their actions to the world.

Women's libbers and NOW join forces to "burn" their bras at the Miss America contest (presumably before Trump owned the brand).

Mexican troops kill student protesters in Mexico City.  The Olympic Games in the same city are boycotted by several African nations to protest apartheid in South Africa, and two US athletes make headlines by giving the "black power" salute during their metal ceremonies.

LBJ halts the bombing of North Vietnam.  Richard Nixon beats Hubert Humphrey by less than 1% of the vote, while George Wallace pulls 14%.  The election is followed by national draft card burning and South Vietnam finally agreeing to join the Paris Peace Talks.

The year ends with one of the lowest unemployment rates for two decades and three men orbiting the Moon for the first time ever, making an immortal Christmas broadcast to the world.

As you read all that, you may hear some echoes with 2016.  The parallels are rather spooky, really.  Sure, the names have changed, but the currents and eddies seem familiar.  About the only thing the world hasn't seen yet is a wave of assassinations (gods forbid).

If we take the time echo as an indicator for the remainder of the year, we are likely to see some wild events in the coming months.  It's likely the conventions will be tumultuous, racial tension will remain high and a lame-duck president will try desperately to salvage his place in history.

As George Ure is fond of saying, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

Buckle up folks.  Here comes the big dip!