In a time of great anger at how things have turned out for the USA, in a time when we want an America back we think once existed, it is hard, at best, to watch one of the institutions of my childhood commit suicide. What used to be a reliable source for all things American, … More Tears for Sears; A Big Box Retailer Commits Suicide
Two years ago my wife and I traveled to Normandy for the express purpose of visiting invasion beaches. As is the case with many such places, the experience cannot be adequately conveyed in photos. Most dramatic of all was Point Du Hoc. I share my pictures here from the top of the beach cliffs our … More Visiting Normandy Invasion Beaches
These words turned out to be wrong when uttered by Stanley Baldwin, as he was referring to the bomber that flies over a city intent on killing, maiming and terrorizing the civilian population. Today we have a different kind of bomber, the bomber who walks through a city, intent on killing, maiming and terrorizing the civilian population. … More “The Bomber Will Always Get Through” British Parliament, 1932
A man is interviewed in his living room in Aleppo, Syria about the war. On the wall behind him hangs a velveteen painting of dogs playing poker. He wears a North Face jacket. The BBC interviewer seems oblivious to the odd aspects of this scene, and really wants to know more about how the man has survived … More The Absurd Optics of Globalization
Apparently Huey’s with “Starbucks” markings are landing in hot LZ’s in the central highlands of Vietnam and lifting off with coffee beans, 40 years after similar aircraft marked US ARMY made the same trip with soldiers. So this morning I had to try this java. I will seek to write about it in the style of men tasked … More Good Morning, Vietnam!
Democracy’s arm late. Much later than regimes run by strongmen. Because the rate of development of new war fighting aircraft in the 1930’s was a lot like the development of software in the last few decades; pre-war Britain saw lots of entrants to the market, few successes and a whole lot of loss due to … More Albatross of the Battle of Britain
I can’t really say I was there, but there seems to be a striking resemblance between the fall of Saigon in 1975 and going to COSTCO on a weekend 40 years later. The press of the people, the indiscriminate objects left behind, the palpable sense of panic all smells the same. It is as if … More COSTCO Weekend 2015
800 years ago this month King John was cornered by his barons in a field at Runnymede and made to place his seal on this document, the Great Charter, that limited his power. It was likely the first of its kind. He and the other chief executives have been fighting the issue ever since. Ab initio this … More Magna Carta
All the heroes have fallen; Lance Armstrong, Bill Cosby, David Petraeus , and Atticus Finch all disappoint. Some even say that Walt Disney actually hated children. The parade of shame inspired me to look around for a legend of the heroes that may remain, better people that may have lived a long, long time ago, a time when people behaved better, and had … More Return of the Jedidiah Knights
Its been a 100 years but the sting of it still rings through the telling. A German U-boat was able to approach and sink the Cunard liner off the coast of Ireland on this date 100 years ago because she had no destroyer escort, despite wartime conditions. There were not supposed to be any Americans on … More The Sinking of RMS Lusitania – May 7th 1915
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