Some of us are tired of rehashing September 11, 2001. “It’s been more than a decade,” some say, “why can’t you just let it go?” There are, after all, so many things to be concerned about. People die every day, and in a country of nearly 300 million souls, even the death of 3,000 at … [more]
Heirloom china
7-September-2012 by 1 Comment
So there’s a meme going around (as memes will do), poking fun at Mitt Romney’s new campaign button. It apparently reads “Believe in America” on its face, and has “MADE IN CHINA” stamped into the back. I have no idea whether this is true. So many scurrilous things are mumbled about national candidates these days. … [more]
What is this worth to you?
19-June-2012 by Leave a Comment
Happy Juneteenth, the celebration of my country finding its soul at great cost. The Civil War cost us more lives than any conflict before WWII — and was perhaps the most worthwhile expenditure of American lives and treasure since the Revolutionary War. It was that rarest of things: a war actually fought to ensure the … [more]
Dream Boyz
3-March-2012 by 2 Comments
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had dreams, they were visions of a better future for all humankind. When I have dreams, they’re just very strange narratives that leave me lying awake, wondering who it is that lives in my head at night. Last night’s entry in the annual Academy Awards for Political Unconciousness went … [more]
Real Americans
17-January-2012 by 3 Comments
Real Americans don’t beat each other down. We help each other up. If someone else needs a beatdown, real Americans stand ready to administer it — and then offer the same hand up that we offer each other. Real Americans don’t break up American companies for a living and call ourselves “job creators.” We found … [more]
“G-D Was Busy”
13-January-2012 by 8 Comments
Here’s a parable that confuses me a bit. You can find it all over the place, not just on Christian web sites and socially conservative blogs but sprinkled around Facebook and MySpace and really, wherever glib ideations go to spawn. It goes like this: A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. … [more]
Photo contest!
20-December-2011 by Leave a Comment
Get your camera. Stuff a big, BIG memory card into it, and move out smartly. Your charge is to document American life as we live it today. With the demise of LIFE magazine, no one’s really making a good job of this on a regular basis and I’m a lousy photographer. It thus falls to … [more]
A few of my personal veterans
11-November-2011 by 8 Comments
Thanks, Dad. Thank you for ferrying those air-sea rescue birds back from Da Nang, for rescuing that family in Alaska, and for letting me wear your retired F86 helmet — that rubber-faced sorting hat of dreams — when I was four years old. Thank you, Paul, my other dad. Thank you for exemplifying quiet professionalism, … [more]
"Jack Lewis takes the overall literary crown with his new book...there’s a lot more to Lewis’s work than what it feels like to ride motorcycles.” — Ultimate Motorcycling
"Insightful and from the heart ... a driven and much recommended look into the mind and conflict of the next generation of war veterans. " — Midwest Book Review (Reviewer's Choice)