Today In Alternate History
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The Announcement
Monica patted her mother on the back. “Good job, mom. It'll be hard to edit that into something that'll bite you in the butt.”
Andrea looked at the reporter as he talked a couple of cousins. “I don't think he's that type. He seemed OK.”
“That's how they get ya,” Monica said, trying to sound wise beyond her years. “Tisha was sayin' that the cameraman was askin' for dirt on you. Nobody's given him any, yet, but I may see if I can get an exclusive.”
Andrea whacked her upside the head after making sure the camera was pointed elsewhere. “I'll give you an exclusive stay in your room for the next ten years, young lady.”
“You gotta let me out when I'm 18 – that's only 4 years.”
“And I'm counting the days.”
“Ain't we both,” Monica said. Her mother narrowed her eyes at her, so she added, “I love you, mom,” as sweet as a little angel.
“Go on back and talk to your cousins again.” Before Monica could head off, she grabbed the girl and whispered, “And let me know if they really do dig up any dirt, OK?”
“I got your back, mom,” Monica said, trundling over to a gaggle of young cousins.
Andrea walked over to the food and starting putting together a little plate for herself. Normally, she'd pile on the cookout food – she loved coming over to her father's parties because there was so much good food. But today, she felt nervous, so she stuck to lighter fare, heavy on the vegetables. Her cousin Marvin noticed and came over to talk. “What's with the rabbit food, Andi?”
“Got to look good for the cameras, Marv.” She tried to smile at him, but it didn't come out too convincingly.
“What, you feel like making the biggest accomplishment in the history of... history isn't enough? You got to look like a model, too?”
She moved a little closer to him so that she could talk more quietly. She and Marvin had played together a lot as children, had gone through high school together, and had even started their first year of college in the same school until Andrea got a scholarship to Cornell. There were few people she felt she confide in as much as Marvin. “Look, don't talk about this to anybody, OK?”
He looked a little surprised, then said, “OK.”
“We've been getting a signal from the probe for the last two days. It's weak – hell, three million years, you'd expect it to be non-existent. But anyway, it's a mathematical sequence; the language guy they have working on it thinks it's trying to teach us their language. He thinks it's just so they can leave a record behind. You know, three million years, they're long gone.” She took a sip of her soda and looked around at the crowd, making sure no one else was listening. Marvin leaned closer to her as she whispered, “But, my team just found another signal it's sending back to Wolf 359. And this one's much stronger.”
| DJ Jazzie B | "Back to life, back to reality Back to the here and now yeah.. Back to life back to the day we have"  ~ Lyrics to Back to Life (Click Note to Play Video) |
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| Dance Musician |
Born in 1963, Beresford Romeo's parents, who had emigrated from Antigua, raised him in North London, where he began working in sound studios at age 11. DJ Jazzie B (as he became known) and childhood friend Philip "Daddae" Harvey began Soul II Soul as a mobile sound system that played reggae clubs and parties in 1982. Through playing at various house blues parties, street parties and local youth clubs, they began to gain a steady following, and more members began to join Jazzie B and Daddae Harvey, namely 'Q' and Aitch B. As time went on the guys began to adopt a style which became known as 'Funki Dred', namely refering to the Dreadlocked hairstyle.
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| ~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge! | |||
| "Violence is the first article of my faith. It is the last article of my faith. I had to make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered has done an irreparable harm to my country or incur the risk of the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. | |
| Mohandas Gandhi | I am deeply sorry for it; and I am therefore, here, to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen." ~ Mohandas Gandhi |
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| Thuggee | |
| On the great trial at Abmadabad in 1922, at which Gandhi pleaded guilty. The sea change in attitude had occurred in 1890, after failing several university exams, Mohandas Gandhi met a Thuggee cultist along the road and became his disciple. Gandhi's new education and the violent movement he started years later after the massacre at Jallianwalla. Michael P. Kube-McDowell's classic biography "Because Thou Lovest the Burning-Ground" is described at Uchronia | |
| ~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge! |
| In 2009, TV networks ran episode six of So What If?. Mechanical failures and absence of surprise foil the raid on Entebbe, Yonathan Netanyahu and Israeli paratroopers are paraded the next day on Ugandan TV. Idi Amin said God told him in a dream that the Zionist were coming to relieve the Jewish hostages. Just as God had likewise told him to expel the Jews from Uganda in 1972. Across Africa, people started to rally to Uganda as a regional power, perhaps Dada really had defeated neo colonialist forces. |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!
| In 2007, at the Academy an Open Office spreadsheet grew to the spooky size of 665 kilobytes, just shy of the number of the beast. | |
| The file was none other than the collected "bobby dazzlers" of the Co-Historian, containing poor quality formulaic HTML that had on occassion caused great gnashing of teeth by creating frequent errors at the time of publication around 6am Central Texas Time thus spoiling the enjoyment of many a breakfast taco. |  Omen |
| Not to mention the piercing comments surrounding the "damned ellipses" (1)(2). It was a bad Omen forcing the Academy to send an agent to the "wilds of Canada" to dispatch the Co-Historian by using all seven of the sacred knives of Meggido, thus terminating his relentless cut and paste storytelling. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
| In 1972, the author Kurt Vonnegut predicted his own death at the end of the premier. The movie was of course a self-history of his capture in Germany and incarceration at the camp known as Slaughterhouse-Five where he witnessed the destruction of Dresden first hand. And so it goes. Another WWII POW Paul Lazzaro shot and killed the author as he left the theatre. Really it was all about Roland Weary - a weak man with dreams of grandeur who weakly 'saved' Vonnegut multiple times despite the self-proclaimed inept soldier's protests in hopes for glory. This lead to the capture of Vonnegut, Wear and Lazzaro in December 1944 as well as the loss of their warm winter clothing and boots. Eventually Weary died of gangrene while on the train to the camp, blaming Vonnegut with his final words. |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!
 Philadelphia Ex.. | In 1945, the stealth technology developed in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard known as Project Rainbow was put through final tests in the Philippines. A Carrier Group was fitted with the required generator equipment. |
| After a dozen recalibrations, the Carrier Group not only became almost entirely invisible to the naked eye, but vanished from the area in a flash of blue light. Concurrent with this phenomenon, the US naval base at Pearl Barbour reported sighting the Group offshore for several minutes, whereupon the Group vanished again and reappeared in the Philippines, at the site it had originally occupied, a successful test of both invisibility and teleportation. Now confident in the element of surprise offered by the super weapon, Harry S Truman authorized the invasion of Honshu near Tokyo, codename “Operation Coronet”. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
| In 1942, on this day occurred the Jerusalem Conference. This was a trilateral meeting between Wartime Leader Winston Churchill, Head of British Central Command Bernard Montgomery and Jewish General Moshe Dayan. The British were organizing Churchill's Last Stand in the remaining Theatre of War, the Middle East. Dayan brought .. |  British Central.. |
| .. to the table unified command of the combined Haganah Force/Australian 7th Division and the keys to the Jewish lobby in America. Churchill brought only blood, sweat and tears. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
 Gulf War | In 1973, a report from the hawkish defense expert Edward Luttwak “Seizing Arab Oil" rested uneasily in the Resolute Desk's out-tray in the Oval Office. Luttwak wrote the piece after discussion with several like-minded consultants and officials in the Pentagon, including Andrew Marshall, head of the Defense Department's .. |
| .. in-house think tank, the Office of Net Assessment. The assertion that "the only countervailing power to OPEC's control of oil is power itself -- military power." had been accepted, as had the recommendation; the document bore the Presidential stamp of approval. The Gulf War was about to begin. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
| In 1974, Christine Chubbuck became the first person to commit suicide on-air. During the first eight minutes of her program, Chubbuck covered three national news stories and then a local restaurant shooting from the day before. The film reel jammed and would not .. |  Chubbuck |
| .. run, so Christine shrugged it off and said: "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living colour, you are going to see another first: an attempted suicide." She drew out a revolver and shot herself behind her right ear. Christine fell forward violently and the technical director faded slowly to black. Camerawoman Jean Reed thought it had been an elaborate prank, rushed forward to see the twitching body and realized it was genuine. Madness descended to terror when Chubbuck arose and the demon Astaroth, Grand Duke of Hell addressed the television audience with his fell wisdom. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
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