Notes from an Environmentalist. Ship loses power swerves and destroys Baltimore's "Key Bridge. Life Imitates Art??
Chapter 19
Ghost Ships and Soft Gold
Shanghai
June 17, 2022
Sylvia always felt the best way to see any new city was from a boat. It was especially enticing after Shanghai’s two month long lockdown. Twenty five million people wanted to get out, see friends, breathe some fresh air.
She walked through the tall modern buildings of Pudong to the Shanghai Ferry Company that ran ferries back and forth across the Huangpu River. After boarding she made her way to the bridge where the captain had invited her for a glass of Shaoxing wine.
“You are allowed to drink when you are working?”
“Oh I’m not going to drink, you are. Besides we residents of Shanghai have always been a bit of a thorn in the side of the Beijing authorities.”
“How so?”
“See those colonial buildings over there? Beijing has nothing like that. They were built by British merchants after the Opium Wars.”
“I’ve never quite understood the Opium Wars.”
“Well the British were mad as hell because we had tea, silk and porcelain, and they didn’t have anything we wanted to buy. So they started shipping poppies from their Indian Colonies to get us hooked on opium so they would have something to sell us.
Our celestial leader confiscated fourteen hundred tons of their opium to protect us, but the British used that as a red flag to start the war. It was a humiliating defeat for China but it opened up Shanghai to the West whose merchants built all those beautiful buildings over there on the Bund.”
“Why its beautiful. What’s that Victorian building with the green glowing light tower?”
“It used to be the Cathay Hotel. The authorities renamed it the Peace Hotel because in its day it was the epitome of colonialism, greed and capitalism.”
“Sound interesting. Who built it?”
“Victor Sassoon. He was the second baronet of Bombay. He came from a banking family in Damascus who set up shop in Shanghai in the Twenties.
“And I thought he sold hair products!”
“Wrong Sassoon!
This one was a capitalist dog but he invested millions of dollars in Shanghai. Most of the beautiful old buildings that make up our skyline were built and financed by him. They are what makes Beijing feel so inferior.”
“Can’t you get in trouble for saying such things?”
“As I was saying he was the worst sort of running dog playboy capitalist pig who hung out with whores, drunks and movie stars.”
“Are you sure you haven’t been having a few nips behind my back? But tell me about what happened to you back in 2019.”
“It was a hot summer night and just as I was pulling into the Bund for the last trip of my day, an American container ship pulled out on her way back to your Long Beach in California.”
“Know it well.”
“Her crew was maneuvering it very carefully. You know this is the busiest port in the world?”
“Didn’t know that.”
“I was watching another large ship that was also steaming up the channel but all of a sudden it disappeared off my GPS screen. But a few minutes later my screen showed it back on the dock, then back in the channel then back on the dock again before it disappeared for good.
I picked up my binoculars and went out on deck to scrutinize the waterfront. There was the ship lying in her berth. She had been there the whole time.”
“Incredible!”
“Hundreds of other captains have reported similar experiences. On one occasion a container ship slammed into the Bund scattering pedestrians in all directions.”
“Hmm, years ago I was aboard an oceanographic vessel and suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a midnight naval operation. We hadn’t picked up the signals of any of the ships on our radar. Their commanding officer radioed us to leave the area because they were doing secret maneuvers for a covert mission. Never knew what that was all about.”
“And I’ve heard Russia jammed the Ukrainian GPS systems when they attacked Crimea and that Russian mobile electronic warfare units disrupt GPS systems during Putin’s public appearances.”
“But why would someone jam GPS signals here in Shanghai?”
“Some people think it is a secret government plot.”
“But what do you think?”
“I think it is sand pirates. We have hundreds of them.”
“Sand pirates? What do they do?”
“At night they drop huge pipes to the bottom of the Yangtze River and suck up tons of illegal sand. They can make $80,000 for a few hours work. We call it ‘soft gold’.”
“What happens to the sand?”
“See all those ugly buildings on the new side of the river? All made out of cement made with sand, most of it illegal.”
“Cant the authorities find and arrest them?”
“That’s where GPS jamming comes in. The sand pirates have figured out a way to spoof the GPS signals of all the boat traffic in Shanghai.”
“How do you know this?”
“My father was a sound engineer before the authorities shipped us off to be re-educated. They had us sing, dance, turn in our neighbors and learn communist songs. We called it ‘Commie Camp’.”
“Why I went to Commie camp as well. It was in Poughkeepsie New York!”
“Sylvia you must tell me about your commie camp over some more Shaoxing wine. Can you meet me at the Yu Garden teahouse tonight at 7:00? I have someone you should meet.”
Accdg to an investigative reporter that the Baltimore bridge collapse was "absolutely catastrophic" and "a structural nightmare and a logistical nightmare."
The collapse is expected to shut down the affected corridor for four to five years, with immediate effects on the movement of hazardous materials and oversized loads. The attack not only affects ground transportation by shutting down the I-95 corridor but also impacts sea transport by closing the shipping corridor. "This is what you call death by a thousand cuts. It is an absolutely catastrophic attack on critical infrastructure, and you cannot see it because a CYBER ATTACK is unseen."