(no subject)

[benchilada]

Spent the weekend building a small privacy-fence just north of the porch we rebuilt last summer. Got a headache so bad this afternoon that I had to sleep for two hours to get rid of it. Suck.

Just watched the 1964 movie Fail-Safe. Surprisingly very good, I recommend that if you come across it that you watch it, but don't read too much about it, as they like to give away an interesting plot point even on the back of the DVD box.

The film takes place during the Cold War, when tensions with the Soviet Union were at their height. The movie starts with a dream sequence of a bull being killed by a matador. When the dreamer wakes, we learn that he is Air Force General Warren Abraham "Blackie" Black (Dan O'Herlihy), and he believes that the dream is some sort of personal omen. The scene shifts to the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), where a Congressman is being given a tour of the facility by General Bogan (Frank Overton). During the tour, SAC detects an unknown aircraft approaching North America from Europe. American bomber planes are deployed to meet the potential threat. As a fail-safe protection, the bombers have standard orders not to proceed past a certain geographical point without receiving a special attack code. The original "threat" is proven to be innocuous, and recall orders are issued to the American bombers. However, due to a technical failure, the attack code of "CAP 811" (rather than the recall order) is transmitted to Group Six, which consists of six Vindicator supersonic bombers. Colonel Grady, the head of the group, tries to contact mission control in Omaha to verify the fail-safe order (called Positive Check), but due to Soviet radio jamming, Grady cannot hear Omaha. Concluding that the fail-safe order and the radio jamming could only mean nuclear war, Grady commands the Group Six crew towards Moscow, their intended target for the day. At this point, a series of disastrous fail-safe orders come into play: the bomber crews are trained that upon receiving an attack code on the fail-safe box, there is virtually no way to supersede it; they are trained to ignore all communicated orders, on the assumption that once an attack is directed, any attempts to stop it must be Soviet trickery.

At meetings in Omaha, the Pentagon, and in the fallout shelter of the White House, American politicians and scholars debate the implications of the attack. Professor Groeteschele (played by Walter Matthau), who is loosely based on Herman Kahn, suggests the United States follow this accidental attack with a full-scale attack to force the Soviets to surrender. In contrast, General Black urges that every effort be made to either recall or destroy the American bombers before they reach their targets; otherwise the Soviet Union will respond with an all-out nuclear attack.

Still holds up, thriller-wise.

Also, new autobiography title via pensylvania_joe: There Goes Another Monkey.

Smooches,

b