Is That a Teratoma in Your Pocket, or Are You Glad to See Me?

How do you like my new eyePhone? Grotesque, no? It makes me think of teratomas, those legendary tumor-like growths that contain hair, teeth, and bones (sometimes even eyes). I don’t have a valid reason for showing you this photo other than to disturb your dreams. You can thank me later. I write book reviews and post […]

Paul’s Book Reviews

“There’s the imperative to keep secrets, and the imperative to have them known. How do you know that you’re a person, distinct from other people? By keeping certain things to yourself.” —Jonathan Franzen, Purity     Purity Jonathan Franzen People I follow on social media no longer like Jonathan Franzen. He must have said something […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review Lookback: Looking for Alaska

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News In the last YCRT! I mentioned a Canadian comedian who is being investigated by a Quebec human rights commission over a joke. Well, get a load of this: a German comedian is being prosecuted for mocking Turkish President Erdogan. And no, not in […]

Road Trip Photoblog

Last Thursday Donna and I loaded the truck and trailer and drove to Las Vegas for a long weekend with the kids and grandkids. Polly didn’t come with us, so not all the kids (we did bring the doggies along, though). In the truck, out of sight, are our first bicycles, the matching hybrids we started out […]

Definitely Something

On Monday, one of the other air museum docents told me we had Amish visitors. I said something like “Really? Amish?” and he said, “Well, they’re definitely something. Maybe they’re Mormons.” I was bemused. Don’t the Amish consider museums frivolous? And unless a pair of them in neckties show up at your front door, how do you […]

Saturday Bag o’ Tweets

I tweeted Rachel Maddow last night. She’d just run a segment on John Kasich opposing statehood for the District of Columbia because DC voters are Democrats. It was kind of funny that Kasich would come right out and say so, and made me think of my father’s one-man battle to have the mule named the Missouri state animal: […]

Air-Minded: Cookin’ with Gas

When you’re flying fighters, or any kind of aircraft, fuel is everything. You have to know not only how much fuel you have remaining at any time, you have to know how far you can go on it and how much you’ll need if things turn to shit and you have to divert. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a short training flight in the local area or part of a multi-jet package flying a 12-hour long overseas deployment with air refueling tankers as escorts, fuel is never far from your mind.