Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Dec 6, 1951: Los Angeles was mock-tomically bombed by the L.A. Mirror tabloid in a piece they called "Operation Wake Up."

In 1948 the Los Angeles Times company launched a tabloid called the Los Angeles Mirror to take on the city’s other afternoon papers—the Daily News and the Herald-Express. The Mirror was not an immediate hit, but once publisher Virgil Pinkley and managing editor Hugh “Bud” Lewis started emphasizing the tabloid staples of sex, crime and human interest crusades, the paper’s circulation quickly grew to 140,000 readers.

One of the Mirror’s specialties was over-the-top “journalistic” publicity stunts that used the city of Los Angeles as an unwitting foil. Two of these stories caught CONELRAD’s attention because of their outrageous exploitation of Cold War fears. The first concerns a feature timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the second addresses the prescient concerns of the paper over the danger of suitcase nukes.

“L.A. MOCK BOMBED” was the screaming headline of the December 6, 1951 “extra” edition of the Mirror that came complete with a mushroom cloud background. A note from the publisher in a front-page box explained the noble goal of the newspaper:

    OPERATION WAKE UP

    Today’s Mirror, on the eve of the Pearl Harbor anniversary, is dedicated to the high purpose of alerting Los Angeles to the grave need of civilian defense. The Mirror and the Civil Air Patrol “bombed” the city with 2,000,000 leaflets asking all sensible citizens to wake up to the insistent, personal demands of home defense—one of the most vital elements of national security.

    -- VIRGIL PINKLEY, Editor and Publisher

Inside the paper the “bombing” was played big with several pages devoted to coverage of the wholly manufactured event. No self-congratulatory angle was left unexplored—including the very fact that an “extra” edition had been published in the first place:

    THE MIRROR REPORTS L.A.’s BOMB MISSION

    Scant minutes after “Operation Wake-Up” paper bombs hit Los Angeles, The Mirror’s civil defense EXTRA was on every “target street corner…”



At the center of all the breathless sidebars, though, was the more or less straight news story describing the actual “bombing.” It was headlined “38 CAP Planes Drop Grim Warning Leaflets” and it was reported by James Bassett:

    Thirty-eight planes of the Civil Air Patrol “bombed” Los Angeles today.

    Down from lowering slate-gray skies, exactly at 10:41 a.m., the first of 2,000,000 “paper block-busters” struck lower Broadway.

    Three minutes later these leaflets, carrying a stark message to inhabitants of America’s third largest city, reached the heart of the downtown business sector.

    Hurled from the CAP ships, which rumbled in V-formations over the unwary metropolis, the “bombs” inundated Civic Center, Boyle Heights, the Crenshaw district, Hollywood, the Miracle Mile, and a score of other key centers from Highland Park to San Pedro’s waterfront.

    Each demanded bluntly:

    “If the Civil Air Patrol, flying this warning mission in co-operation with The Mirror, had been the enemy, would YOU have been prepared?”

    While “Operation Wake-Up” leaflets were still falling, City Council quickly moved to commend The Mirror and the CAP.

    “Gentlemen,” said Councilman Ed Davenport, “Los Angeles is being ‘bombed’ right now!”

    Civic leaders joined in congratulating the cosponsors of this dramatic projects [sic] aimed at alerting Southlanders to their lagging home defenses.

    At Seventh St. and Broadway, a policeman declared:

    “It’s high time the people woke up!”

    Citizens scrambled for the crimson-colored “paper bombs” as they fluttered slowly earthward. In surprised queues, they gawked towards the morning skies to watch CAP squadrons pass overhead, puffs of leaflets trailing each speeding craft.

    Another policeman said gravely: “It COULD happen here.”

The article droned on for another two columns about Los Angeles’s dire need for civil defense. The next day, of course, the Mirror published follow-up stories on how “Operation Wake-Up” had improved civil defense awareness:

Continued at L.A. MOCK BOMBED



Dec 6, 1941: 3 sailors met for a drink at a bar in Pearl Harbor. Clifford Olds (at right), was on board USS West Virginia (BB-48) when it sank the next morning. When salvage workers found his remains months later, a marked calendar revealed he had lived for 16 days trapped within the ship. Damn!

The ship was later refloated and extensively rebuilt over the course of 1943 and into mid-1944. She returned to service in time for the Philippines Campaign, where she led the American line of battle at the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of 24–25 October. There, she was one of the few American battleships to use her radar to acquire a target in the darkness, allowing her to engage a Japanese squadron in what was the final action between battleships in naval history.
Decommissioned: 9 January 1947
Fate: Sold for scrap, 24 August 1959


We are so DOOMED!


Tom Cruise made a whole movie about it just last year. It made $1.5 Billion.


Speaking of doomed...That sinking feeling when you're working on a nuclear weapon and it goes *thunk* when you rotate it.


The things that go bump in the night: "unauthorized introduction of mechanical energy."

From the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board Resident Inspectors' report for Pantex nuke plant in Texas, week ending 17 November 2023.


Taylor Swift is TIME's Person of the Year.



That photo looks like it's taken from 'Cult Zombie Monthly' magazine. The dead-eyed, disconnected automaton look is exactly what they want from the public.

Swifties: "Leave Taylor alone, she isn't political!!!"

Taylor:


People mag Swifty photo.


Ho, ho, Hoooo, I been waiting for this...




Houston Chronicle

It’s real simple. Move the minefields from Ukraine to the US border.