Pat @Pat@qoto.org

*****Spoilers: On the Beach*****

What I don't understand about this movie is why everyone was acting like nothing happened. I understand that some people might be in denial about the end of the world, but I think at least some of them would be expressing dread.

If they had five months before the radiation got there, wouldn’t they at least maybe dig a shelter or something? Maybe start storing up food?

Instead they put all of their effort into manufacturing and distributing those pills. I don't think people would act that way.

***** Spoilers *****

On the Beach and Twilight Zone...

The acting in this film, On the Beach (1959), was superb. Everyone gave great performances, with this dialogue that was very difficult. Fred Astaire, whom I didn't include in the trailer, was known for his dancing but in this film confirmed his acting talent. He was one of the greatest dancers on the big screen, perhaps second only to Ginger Rogers, who could dance as well as Fred Astaire, except backwards and in high heels.

Ironically, all of the actors in the film have died except for Donna Anderson, who played Mary Holmes (the one who got hit with the towel on the beach). She's the sole survivor.

In the film, which takes place after World War III, it's presumed that everybody is dead from radiation poisoning except for the people who live in Australia, and that there's intense radiation fallout in the upper atmosphere that is circling the globe and slowly making its way to the southern hemisphere to eventually wipe out all of humanity.

In actuality, fallout in the upper atmosphere from thermonuclear weapons would have a short half-life and within five months would not likely be producing enough radiation to cause acute radiation poisoning, although it would increase the cancer rate. However, a salted thermonuclear weapon could be produced with fallout that has a longer half-life. In this story I think it was a cobalt bomb, but such weapons have not ever been produced.

I mentioned that this was the first major film about nuclear armageddon but there was a Twilight Zone episode about a nuclear apocalypse that came out just one month before this film was released. That Twilight Zone episode was titled “Time Enough at Last”. It’s a very well-known episode about a bookworm who works at a bank and ends up accidentally surviving World War III while seeking solitude during his lunch break in the bank vault. That Twilight Zone episode starred Burgess Meredith.

Several other TZ episodes had themes about nuclear annihilation.

@lupyuen

>"#TikTok creators sue to block Montana’s ban"

Why bother suing? Just ignore the law. What can they do?

It's not even a legitimate law.

@LouisIngenthron

Kabuki theater.

@lupyuen

My god, I've heard this over and over again when new technologies come out.

"Any average chess player can beat Sargon."

"Personal computers are just toys."

"It will be hundreds of years before a heaver-than-air machine can fly."

"Electric cars can only drive 50 miles before refueling."

"Digital music is missing something, it doesn't sound as good a vinyl record."

"Portable phones are too bulky to carry around."

etc...

@LouisIngenthron

Wow!

I hope you have a garage for your car.

@freepeoplesfreepress

Was he talking to Trump? 😂

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

On the Beach (1959)

Just a happy-go-lucky nuclear Armageddon film…

Three years before the Cuban Missile Crisis and about a decade and a half after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this film presented its story about the aftermath of global nuclear war. There were a couple of other movies made earlier in the 50s about nuclear war, and of course all those goofy scifi’s about giant insects, but this was the first major film. It starred Gregory Peck, Eva Gardner, Anthony Hopkins, and Fred Astaire, who were all big movie stars at the time. It was kind of a big deal when it came out.

News coverage of the bombings of Japan were highly censored as to the most gruesome parts of the bombings. Film and photographs produced immediately after the bombings by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey were classified until the late 60s, so although people had heard about radiation burns and radiation sickness, most people had not seen any graphic images.

The US didn't want people to understand just how horrible those bombings were, but they wanted to inform people about the possibility of all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union, which, with certain types of thermonuclear weapons, had the potential to kill most or all of the world’s population.

The result was this film, On the Beach (1959) which showed no dead bodies at all, it showed no destruction, no burned and leveled buildings, nothing. There's only one guy in the film who was shown to be sick in the entire movie and he was smiling or flirting with the nurse throughout the 45 seconds that he was on the screen. Everyone was almost always shown with smiling faces and having fun and the score was upbeat or silly most of time.

I think if you changed about a half dozen lines in the film, removed five minutes of the guy walking around in a hazmat suit, and adjusted a minute or two of score, people would think it was a romantic drama.

Contrast this with the TV movie The Day After (1983), which was released 24 years later, which showed shocking graphic images of just how horrible nuclear war could be.

The clips from the film that I’ve attached to this toot show just a few of the many upbeat scenes from the film. All the characters in the film knew from the beginning that a nuclear war had happened and that the deadly radiation was heading to where they were in Australia, but they just acted happy and didn’t appear to care at all. Very weird.

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#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #film #movie #AI #WWIII #NuclearWar #Australia #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #dance #the1950s #ColdWar #calamine

(fair use video clips)
Sorry, I messed up the aspect ratio on this video and cut off a little bit on the bottom.
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accessible video description:

Video opens with a submarine in the ocean with a number on the side that says 623, then a man in a lighthouse makes a phone call as a radio announcer talks about the nuclear war, then it shows a man and a woman on a bed talking, then it shows two military guys talking about a country club, then people on a beach where a man flicks a woman in the butt with a towel, then it shows Peck and Gardner talking and smiling, then sailors ogling at a pretty woman (Gardner) as she walks near their ship, then people dancing, then Peck and Gardner walking as she talks, then a bucolic scene of a horse in a field as the horse does a trick for a sugar cube, then a guy pretending to be sick lying in bed smiling and flirting with the male nurse with Peck and Dr. King giving him false hope, finally the closing title over an image of the same submarine moving on the surface of the ocean.

@gricka

Last chance to respond...

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Did you know that a respirator helps with allergies?

If you wear your respirator when you are around pollen or pet dander, you most likely won't get your allergy symptoms.

Also, a properly worn respirator, like a N95 mask, prevents infection and spread of disease from all variants of the flu, as well as COVID-19.

Take care out there.

@stux

How polite of them to not correct our grammar. (actually, maybe they do and we don't realize it 😆 )

@stux

Thank you for this poll/puzzle. I found a video that explains the answer. It involves linguistics as well as physics!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPng94HHyQ

(the guy lead me on a very long sucker pull just so he could block me - boy, he put a lot of effort into that one - lol)

@TruthSandwich

I saw that coming from a mile away. lol

@TruthSandwich

That source says, "Trump's term in office saw over 25 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, over 400,000 of which resulted in death.
January 20, 2021
President-elect Joseph R. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are sworn into office."

Nearly a million more Americans died after Biden was sworn in.

What am I missing here?

If a majority of people had began wearing N95s instead of cloth masks at any time during the Biden admin, the epidemic would have been over in a month.

They are BOTH responsible; as well as the media, the CDC, the healthcare industry, big pharma, all of them.

I don't carry water for anybody, so I can see things more clearly. Please reread what I wrote at that link:

https://qoto.org/@Pat/109690264430646689

If you need more citations, I got 'em. Peer reviewed and well sourced.

@TruthSandwich

>"Biden didn't kill people; Trump did. Trump, in various ways, hampered our defense against Covid."

Got sources on that? Any proof?

@TruthSandwich

>"America as fascists want it is a plutocracy, and it's what they're trying to move us towards."

Plutocracy - government by the wealthy

Fascist - nationalist, racist, dictatorial, centralized economic and political control, maintained by force

>"People like Biden are moving us away from it."

Biden is from Delaware, the number one state for corporations. I don't know what Biden's goals are, but he just helped kill more than a million Americans during the pandemic. More people died during Biden's administration.

He actually gave a promotion to the guy who headed up the pandemic response. I judge people by what they do and that tells me that Biden is fine with killing a million Americans as long as it makes his cronies more money.

@TruthSandwich

>"It's not about one man. Trumpism isn't Trump. It's fascism that happens to be centered around Trump, just like Naziism wasn't Hitler, even though it was focused on him."

I don't think the Biden administration backs trumpism. I don't think the CDC backs trumpism. Big pharma is not behind that either.

>"I stand by what I said: don't confuse America as it is with America as it ought to be or America as these fascists want to make it. These are all distinct things and you can endorse some without endorsing all the others."

America as it ought to be: The founding documents plus all the amendments, integrity and expanded rights and compassion for all.

America as it is: A plutocracy willing to kill a million of its own citizens to make a dollar

America as fascists want it: I don't give a fuck; they're insignificant, irrelevant

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Sorry @TruthSandwich, I had to delete/re-edit my toot and it left your toot hanging...

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Why would anyone in their right mind support a country that just killed more than a million of its own citizens?

The US just killed more than a million Americans, which is why I no longer support the US.

After a very long life of loving my country, I'll likely support the next viable non-violent revolution that comes along in the US...

Read more as to why I've made this decision...

https://qoto.org/@Pat/109690264430646689

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#USPol #COVID-19 #corruption #revolution #misanthropic #BigPharma #OldMedia #pandemic #CDC #reset #MSM #media #biden #trump