We actually don’t know if we are between them, or whether this is all really one big surprise. Creative Team Leader DeMille directed us to have a focus group to ascertain expert opinion, since Thursdays, like many other days, has a challenge in that act. Focus, we mean.
Thursday are vulnerable due to traditional Wednesday evening indulgences celebrating the breaking of the current week’s back. Bad vibes are dispelled and we are headed downhill. If we coast through the Thursday BD meeting we can start planning for the weekend.
DeMille told us that the surprise we thought was coming- the one where some US Navy ships had just launched a dozen SM-3 rockets at ones hurtling through the atmosphere and seemed to indicate that we might actually be in a shooting war in the Middle East with the shooting already started.
That was a sort of surprise, though that matter is still unfolding. We decided to select a working term to avoid the cliché of the day, which not surprisingly was the word “surprise.” He also said that timing might be a factor, since the Iranian strike was in response to the Israeli strike on Hezbollah in Beirut, and will likely provoke another Israeli strike closer to Tehran and more personal in nature. Like the ones in Gaza and Lebanon.
So, it is not surprising that is on the list of possibilities.
The LawFare thing isn’t over either, to no one’s amazement. We were surprised it was back, since the track record wasn’t much better than the Iranians. Aside from music producers, there was a resurrection of some old charges specifically timed to enable the media to replay the previously sealed testimony with all sorts of sordid details less than five weeks from the election, It is clear this surprise isn’t much of one and has been in the stack for a while.
The single term incorporating the words “Law,” “War” and “Fair” covers the entire gamut of courtroom shenanigans. Today, for example, is the anniversary of OJ Simpson’s acquittal in a famous double homicide. That one was surprising at the time, but an indicator of what was to come.
Some of us were underway on a floating airfield that day, walking past the mess decks when the verdict was announced and the people at the tables inside performed various dances of jubilation. We did not share it, or at least not completely, but recollection of the nine months of arguments and mountains of evidence that failed to prove anything was a bit surprising. Like the volume of reaction that echoed off the steel overhead.
The part we remember best is that Justice is sort of fickle. We saw that in two of the other ongoing cavalcades of courthouse chaos. One of them is that thing about the Music Mogul accused of all sorts of salacious stuff. We will stay away from names and descriptions due to the memo from Legal about limiting liability to the company for opinions of independent contractors. But the description of how a 9 year old boy was involved and how his parent’s were conned into thinking it was about a record contract surprised even us.
Which is the nature of surprise, you know? Like the VP Debate. Or the appearance by a candidate who is governor of the state of Minnesota. He showed up in Ann Arbor to make an appearance at the Minnesota-Michigan game. It is a Big Ten staple, but his appearance during an election in which the Governor’s team played at the home-field of 100,000 die hard swing-state Wolverine fans was surprising. He got a round of boos, to no one’s surprise except the people who claim to be running the whole endless campaign.
So, no surprise this week, with some of the routine election amazement, awe, bewildered astonishment, consternation or shock. Or not exactly. Here is the span of them today. How would you feel as an Iranian military planner who had just launched a couple hundred medium payload rockets at the agents of an inimical religious foe? Initial satisfaction, certainly, but when they all were defeated, regardless of money and technology invested, there might be surprise.
The reaction this morning to the selfies taken by Israelis posed atop the carcass of one of the missiles? Priceless, and not surprising considering it was taken just before sunset yesterday that marked the second New Year we are celebrating this week. We talked about the change in the American fiscal year at Midnight last Monday- there are some stories about that- but the one that started yesterday as the sun sunk is the 5,785th observance of Rosh Hoshana in the Hebrew calendar year.
We try to avoid direct reference to religious holidays, or at least keep them at a middle, non-zealous distance like we did when planning to blow things up for good and honorable purposes. A couple religious calendars, normally the ones of the three Patriarchal faiths, would be posted on cubicle walls as a means of avoiding some sort of surprise from one of them perpetrated on another. We generally are aware of the Christian ones, it is useful to keep a general idea of what other people might be observing, marking, celebrating or as opportunities for interference while others are distracted on spiritual matters.
So, we will keep mention that Rosh Hoshana commenced will go for two days, and signifying the run-up to Yom Kippur, could signify other things as well. The traditional new year’s greeting is the phrase, “Shana Tovah!” We understand it means something along the lines of “have a good year!”
Considering what they just got through with minimal human loss, it is not a surprising greeting. But sometimes the word “”u’metuka” is added. That means “sweet,” by some accounts, which is not surprising considering the two recent Iranian rocket barrages accomplished nothing. But of course, we are sort of in the middle of several surprising strings. We may see more of those today.
That would not be a surprise. Shana Tovah!
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