14th Street
The people at 44W 14th street in New York have been up to something. First I saw this a few weeks back:
and now this week:
I had to look up the Latin phrase which means “I struggle and emerge.” We’ll see what the door has in store for us next.
Recommended Reading: In Harm’s Way
The sinking of the USS Indianapolis is a gut wrenching story of WWII that is perhaps not as well known as some of the other historic war time stories. It happened in the shadow of the atomic bomb, the Japanese surrender and the end of the war so when it did make the New York Times, it was burried in a 2 inch column below the fold.
But this was biggest Naval disaster in history and the soldiers accounts are terrifying. After delivering the components of the Atomic Bomb, the U.S navy ship was sunk by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine. In 15 minutes the Indy would be at the bottom of the Philippines sea. The explosion killed 300 of the crew instantly and the remaining men jumped into the sea where they would remain for 5 days.
Escaping a fiery death only brought on other dangers “from dozens of probing bacteria and organisms which, as the men drifted, began gnawing at their flesh. The salt water itself was a caustic brew…not unlike immersion in a mild acid bath.”
And then there were sharks. Hundreds of them. They would circle beneath the soldiers day and night. Perhaps as many as 200 men were eaten alive by sharks. Morning and evening were the sharks feeding times. Twice a day for five days the men were preyed on.
Many faced hypothermia and mental and physical exhaustion; for others suffering was in the form of hallucinations and delirium which caused them to swim away to an imaginary rescue or giving up, they drank down sea water which only guaranteed an agonizing death.
Of the 900+ that abandoned the ship, only 317 would endure the ferocity of the open ocean.
The author puts it best when he says what this tragedy means to the survivors; “the disaster of the Indy is their My Lai massacre or Watergate, a touchstone moment of historic disappointment: the navy put them in harm’s way, hundreds of men died violently, and then the government refused to acknowledge its culpability.”
I could never imagine myself against those kinds odds, fighting those kinds of emotional and physical obstacles. For those reasons I couldn’t put the book down.
Florence, Italy 2010
The Careful Cat
In Japan I saw this great cat and kitten logo everywhere. It was as common as Pepsi and Coke are in New York. Curious, I asked one of my friends what the cat logo was all about. I think I may never have guessed the answer.
Yamato Transport Co. A moving company.
I liked it even more.
The visual is of a mother cat carrying her kitten in her mouth, symbolizing the extra care taken in moving and how the company would treat the items as though they were their own.
A great logo. I’d like to see it on a t-shirt.
