"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
Damn the torpedoes . . . full speed ahead!
Rather than roll over and accept that some of our fellow humans, equipped with brains at least biologically similar to yours and mine, can smell smoke and think it means there’s an iceberg nearby, or listen to Trump’s third-grade schoolyard taunts and hear a fourth-dimensional chess master at work, I trust my own powers of observation.
Donna visited a friend last night. Despite a mutual agreement to avoid politics, conversation turned to the administration policy of taking children from would-be immigrant parents crossing the southern border of the US. Her friend … not for the first time … came down hard on the racist MAGA side: it serves them right; the kids are being […]
And with it, spring cleaning here at Paul’s Thing. Although I won’t rule out minor tinkering with site design in the days ahead, I’m happy with the blog’s new look and hope you are too. I was going to say spring has brought us a fresh new war as well, but I see now Trump’s strike […]
From an article titled State of Terror, written by Keith Gessen and published by The New Yorker on November 6, 2017: Stalin soon began to receive warnings of an imminent German invasion. Despite the ravages of the Terror, his anti-Nazi spy network was still the best in the world. Hitler issued a top-secret order for […]
Ode to Mr. Moto! Six Mitsubishis — with bombs all set to slide — The sailor gave his guns a squirt — and there were only five. Five Jap bombers thirsting still for gore, Our N.A. blipped another burst, and now — there’s only four. Four grim and deadley Nipponese droned o’er the Eastern Sea, […]
In 1984 a KC-135 tanker squadron from the Tennessee Air National Guard deployed to Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. My F-15 squadron took full advantage of the visit, scheduling aerial refueling on every mission. The ANG tanker crews invited our wives to fly with them: that’s a photo my wife Donna took from the boomer’s compartment as […]
One of my few remaining moral absolutes: you don’t vote for the racist candidate because you don’t like the other one.
Last night we joined our friends Darrell and Mary Anne at the Mercado San Augustin, a hipsterish collective of shops and eating places in a Mexican-style enclosed patio a few blocks from downtown Tucson. The Mercado sits at the southwestern end of Tucson’s streetcar tracks, and after dinner we hopped on for a ride. It was […]