Nena – 99 Luftballons
An evening pause: This pretty 1983 German pop song so perfectly predicts the Biden administration’s silly overreaction to the Chinese spy balloons last month, and the really dangerous consequences that could have resulted.
The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a military General Officer to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of fire power. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the war ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves. In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor.
Hat tip Jay, who is still off in the tropics doing ham radio stuff.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
i remember that, the refrain is stuck in my head. i never saw the video until now. That is one pretty girl.
The English version was notably bad, changing the air-balloons into red balloons. This altered the intent, which concerned Cold War paranoia, into a concern for anticommunism.
Nena herself to her eternal credit disavowed the English version. To the Anglosphere’s credit we didn’t let this version chart. We just listened to the German.