"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
You really never leave
In the 1980s DoD policy forbid airing partisan commentary on common area TVs and radios. CNN, which in those days was a pure news outlet offering around the clock international and domestic reporting, was authorized, and it ran in the background on TV monitors at military command headquarters and the Pentagon.
I don’t think of myself as a conformist, although I served on active duty and wore a uniform every day for 24 years. Even today, I feel proud when I put on my uniform shirt to go work at the air museum. I’m still me, but I’m happy to represent institutions I believe in and voluntarily join, and feel like wearing their colors … no different than a Hash House Harrier or Hells Angel … sets me apart.
Color me shocked to learn Trump has found a new way to prop up his money-losing businesses.
These are the best mornings. Up early, walking through the neighborhood while it’s still cool, policing the back yard for dog poop, coffee and a hot muffin for breakfast, a devoted dog by my side, the rest of the morning mine to write, read, or whatever I want to do.
Maybe we did dodge a bullet this time, but do you hear that metallic clicking? That’s the firing squad, reloading.
Latest update (10/3/25): added a link to an excellent hands-on tour of a B-58, including extensive information on the crew escape pods. If my fighter pilot friends are wondering about me after my earlier post on the F-101B Voodoo air defense interceptor, they’ll surely think I’ve lost my grip now, fetishizing over, of all things, […]
I grew up as an Air Force brat in the 1950s and 60s, and one trend or theme you may have noticed with my Air-Minded posts is that I keep coming back to the jets of my childhood, plastic models of which hung from the ceiling of my bedroom.
“All this virtue, and no witnesses.”