Bubble Boy Takes to the Air

Last week Jon Stewart weighed in on the Republican/Fox News hissy fit over the White House inviting the rapper Common to a poetry reading.  Stewart’s segment — especially his  masterful takedown of the deeply stupid Sean Hannity — was brilliant.  If you missed it, here’s a link to the video. Then, last night, MSNBC’s Ed […]

Friday Odds & Ends

A friend lent me two hard science fiction novels, one sword & sorcery fantasy novel, and one Arthurian romance. I thought I’d enjoy the hard sci-fi (and I do) but her brand new paperbacks are in such perfect condition I’m afraid to open the pages wide enough to read because I’ll crease the books’ spines […]

Air-Minded: Survival

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, […]

Friday Morning Grab Bag

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 […]

Air-Minded: Cycles

No, not bicycles or motorcycles . . . I’m thinking of a different kind of cycle this time, as in: noun: a complete alteration in which a phenomenon attains a maximum and minimum value, returning to a final value equal to the original one (source: dictionary.com) When I entered the F-15 training program in the […]

Martians on Motorcycles, Elizabeth Taylor, Eagles & Strike Eagles (Updated)

I’m packing for a motorcycle trip to Nevada and Utah, tomorrow through Monday.  In Las Vegas I’ll stay with a friend, visit with the kids and grandkids, and take some day rides around southern Nevada; on Sunday my son and I are going on an all-day out & back ride to southwestern Utah, with Gregory […]

Well, I’m Not Pessimistic-Pessimistic …

… but I am, these days, a little more down than up.  Particularly over the union-busting going on in so many states, and peoples’ refusal to see what lies behind it.  Republican governors and Republican-dominated state legislatures aren’t trying to save money by busting public employee unions and cutting back on education and services funding.  […]