"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
If we keep funding Social Security and Medicare at present levels, America will be broke in eight years. So said a Republican congressman on NPR. It’s ooga-booga, no different than stirring up poor whites with lies about inner-city blacks coming for their women. You know how Republicans always say we shouldn’t enact new programs without making sure they’re paid […]
President Truman ordered the integration of the military in 1948. It didn’t happen overnight, but by 1953 and the end of the Korean War it was reality. My dad was Air Force and I grew up going to integrated DoD schools in Germany. My one exposure to official segregation came when we rotated back Stateside […]
Donna hosted bridge last night. I had planned, as soon as I finished a post about aerial refueling, to go to the local cineplex and watch Get Out, but in the end I stayed home and watched MSNBC with the sound turned down low. Note to self: go see Get Out, it’s supposed to be good. […]
Aerial refueling: also called air-to-air refueling and in-flight refueling. You can’t send a B-2 from Missouri to hit a high-priority ISIS target in Libya without it; nor can you deploy an expeditionary air wing to a combat zone in Afghanistan or the Middle East. Aerial refueling allows receiving aircraft to fly long distances or stay on station […]
Between tram tours at the air museum, I sneak into a mostly-empty storeroom behind one of the exhibit galleries. It’s quiet and out of the way, a perfect place for a break. I thought I was the only one who knew about it. For at least the last two years, these two boxes have been sitting against one […]
Donna’s sister Robin is here for a few days, and she’s helping Donna put my Hash House Harrier T-shirt quilt together. That’s Robin in the photo. All you can see of Donna is her hand. Donna has made a few of these for friends in the hash, meanwhile saving some of my old shirts for […]
We’re going to the annual volunteer appreciation dinner at the air museum this week. Yesterday the organizer sent a list of last-minute instructions. One item stood out, and not in a good way: “This is a nice dinner, so please refrain from wearing blue jeans, shorts and such.” It was a crappy thing to say, and […]
Our daughter Polly asked for my help moving her stuff from the ex-boyfriend’s house in Ajo, Arizona, to her new apartment in Tucson. Specifically, she needed me to hook the trailer to the truck and meet her at the ex’s at 1 PM today. I backed the trailer into the garage yesterday, pumped up the tires, […]