"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
You really never leave
Today they call it SERE, for Survival Evasion Resistance Escape. When I went through the training in the mid-1970s, it was called Survival School. What prompted the memory was last night’s Netflix rental, the epic survival movie The Way Back, a story about escapees from a Siberian prison camp who trekked 4,000 miles across Russia, […]
First some background, from a post I wrote on 30 November 2010: Yesterday, listening to an NPR report on the DoD’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell survey of military personnel, it hit me that if gays are permitted to openly serve, the thorny issue of same-sex marriage will soon follow. I probably don’t know what I’m talking […]
Here’s a Facebook exchange from this morning. Everyone involved (including me) is from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, home town of local hero Rush Limbaugh. Apparently, this is how the folks in AM radio country are going to denigrate Obama’s leadership and great victory: We got Osama because George W. Bush put Afghanistan on the back burner […]
The news began to come in around 7:30 last night. I was losing interest in a violent, depressing prison movie, so I picked up my smart phone to skim the latest on Twitter. A few informed people, mostly news types, were just beginning to tweet about Osama bin Laden’s possible death. Over the next half […]
I took my last US Air Force physical this morning. No, I’m no longer on active duty, but for the last 13 years I’ve gotten my medical care from USAF doctors at the Davis-Monthan AFB clinic here in Tucson. When I turn 65 later this year, I’ll go on Medicare like everyone else and will […]
That Michigan state senator who wants to force foster children to wear only hand-me-downs because he personally “never had anything new”? Detroit journalist and blogger Nancy Nall has this to say about him: Caswell is 61. He “never” had anything new. So why should anyone else? Look what it did for him: He graduated from […]
It was enormously disappointing to watch Jon Stewart fluffing Mau Mau Mike Huckabee on Wednesday’s Daily Show. Oh, Stewart gently nibbled at him about his support for right-wing fundamentalist David Barton, but he didn’t challenge any of his evasive answers. He didn’t mention Huckabee’s advocacy of religious indoctrination at gunpoint, nor did he bring up […]
Donna and I are going to a Medicare seminar on base this morning. She turns 65 in May; I’ll get there in October. Gee, this is happening so fast! Military retirees have a pretty good medical insurance plan called Tricare. At age 65 we get booted out of the program, but it’s not as bad […]