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
What was Glacier Peak Brewing, then the Flying Pig, and then the late Majestic Diner is now a pool hall in the middle of our town. What is the world coming to? Well my friends you have trouble, right here in River City, right here on Colby Avenue. Look what it says on the sign … More Trouble in River City
Occasionally world events bring to the forefront remarkable people who write their experience large upon our own. World War Two, for example, brought out many who may have otherwise lived in obscurity. Poet and Spitfire pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr. was such a man. Born in China to missionaries, his father an American and his … More High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee Jr.
Consider if you will a Europe still dominated by fascist governments like Nazi Germany. Or a Pacific ocean where Imperial Japan remained the dominant force. Or a step further, what if communism had prevailed? In this podcast I take up the selfless heroes we remember at this time who made the way it is possible. … More Memorial Day is for the Fallen
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.
Federico Garcia Lorca was a poet and a play write. He said what he thought at a time when people were willing to kill over ideas. I post today a podcast about his view of what the road means. Some metaphor for my own perhaps, “there is refuge in the road”. A statue of him … More Poet Martyr Federico Garcia Lorca
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
A reading from the book of Genesis, 11:1-9 The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words. They said to one another, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the … More Why There Are Lawyers
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
We like to think of the Battle of Britain, now 75 years ago, as all sort of Spitfires and Hurricanes, but the truth is several other aircraft designs had been in production during the interwar period. The crews of these far less than adequate machines, as Churchill called them, faced certain death, but no one … More Not all Spitfires and Tweed Jackets
