War crimes are back, this time in living color. I take the anniversary of Germany’s surrender in WWII to highlight how far we have come to a well developed international justice system to deal timely these crimes. … More Judgment at Kyiv
In the extremes of human existence, few compare with the experience of flight, and in particular, flight of an armed aircraft over long distances over enemy held territory during times of war. WWII has provided us hundreds of these stories; men lost in the Sahara desert due to navigational error, men lost in the Pacific … More Remembrance Day: Flight of the Stirling
My guitar mentor Ford Giesbrecht has created an adaptation of another work of Edgar Allen Poe, composed the music, the video, and encouraged me to record this chilling yarn. All editing is of course his. To reacquaint the listener to the horror of this tale, recall that revenge is a dish best served cold. Hence … More The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe
Don’t we want a warm feeling of respect to come over us when we refer to “The President”? A feeling of trust in his ability to do better than the common man? A sense he really does care about us ordinary people and we are in his thoughts in the midnight hour? We expect character … More Upon the President
It is coming on to Veterans Day in the United States, and Remembrance Day in Britain. Poppies are every where to remind us all of the sacrifices of World War One. The experiences of soldiers, sailors and airmen of all conflicts are drawn into sharp focus, even as the general public tends to forget what … More RAF Bomber Command; The Gallant Early Years
Catalonia Independence Referendum. Wow, what a mess. But entirely predictable. Spain’s government is and has always been an exercise in fragmentation. When this came down this past weekend I happened to be reading Orwell’s account of his fighting for the government in the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia. This past Sunday’s images from Barcelona … More Homage to Catalonia
The release of the film Dunkirk this summer recalls the summer of 1940, when Western Civilization itself was held in the balance. Caught in a narrowing perimeter by the Nazi Blitzkrieg, protected by their British rear guard, their French comrades and the RAF, over 300,000 mostly British, but also French, Belgian and even a few … More The Speech After Dunkirk: “We Shall Fight on the Beaches”
It’s a random war without front lines. All of us are soldiers. At stake is liberal democracy and our way of life. What is it Mel Gibson said in Braveheart? “They can take our land but they cannot take our freedom”. Today it is the other way around, they cannot take our land, but they … More Manchester. United.
802 years ago in a field at Runnymede, near London, England, King John was forced by his barons to place his seal on the first document ever known to curb executive power, Magna Carta, or Great Charter. Given recent events in the country birthed from England but with a more developed governing document, the United … More Magna Carta and the Rule of Law, Part 1
As a child we played “war” a lot. And why wouldn’t we? It was on television and in movie theaters. I was also given books about World War II. Somehow the Battle of Britain managed to be among the most talked about event. Perhaps it is our closeness to our mother country that brought their experience … More The Supermarine Spitfire: To Be, Or Not to Be?
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