Once more, the missing man formation.

 I'm not one to idealize people. Everyone, boyhood heroes included, puts their pants on one leg at a time. 

But because my childhood was not more special than anyone else's, I'm not going to bother you with stories from my childhood. One man I knew of from my childhood was Gen. Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager. Yeager didn't just cultivate the image of a maverick, he was one. He was of the breed of pilots who learned to fly by instinct, by the seat of the pants. He flew combat missions over Europe in WW2, flying a Lockheed P51D mustang, "Glamorous Glenn" (for Glennis, his girlfriend and later his wife.)Yeager would go on to become "An Ace in a Day" shooting down 5 enemy aircraft in one day. If there was an aircraft type in service with the United States, odds were Yeager flew it. In a now-famous incident, with a broken arm and using a sawn-off broomstick for extra leverage, Yeager climbed down into the cockpit of a Bell X-1 ("Glamorous Glennis"), levered the canopy shut and in a few minutes was released into the air from the B-29 "Mother-ship" and shot off on a rocket-powered flight that broke the sound barrier. A first in aviation. (others may or not have exceeded mach 1, but Yeager did so under controlled circumstances.) In another well-known, possibly apocryphal incidence, Yeager is said to have declined participating in the Mercury Astronaut program, believing that the astronauts would be mere passengers, which was not his bag. In 1997 then-retired General Yeager would repeat his mach 1 flight in an F-15D Eagle fighter ("Glamorous Glennis III"), escorted by longtime wing-man and friend Bob Hoover, who had been Yeager's chase pilot on the day in 1947. Yeager's wife Glennis passed away in 1990 of ovarian cancer. The General re-married in 2007, much to the consternation of his family, who believed the woman was alienating his affections in order to make off with his money. I make no judgement on that, only to say a judge in California found in Gen. Yeager's favor, ruling that his daughter Susan had misused her authority as Trustee. Charles Elwood Yeager passed away on December 8, 2020, in Los Angeles California. He was 97. 

Another hero passes into those gates which all must enter.

Some Thanksgiving Thoughts.

 Way back in the 1600s, a group of people landed in the lands of the Wampanoag people and set up a camp.

Their camp rapidly became a village with log buildings. In that first winter, the invaders suffered much from the harsh winter and lack of proper food. In the spring, some of the locals found them and took pity upon them. They were not Christians, but they still had the spirit of charity within them and they made peaceful contact with the newcomers. The first nation people probably would have driven the whites into the sea at the point of a spear had they been "real Christians" but they did not. They took pity on the newcomers, and helped them to learn how to live off the land. How to catch fish, and to fertilize their crops with it. How to plant and grow maize. How to hunt the local animals and which ones provided the best meat. Somewhere in there, the locals found how to hunt the local wild turkeys and geese. (There are variations on this story where they brought the newcomers birds and maize but I'm going with this one.) The next fall, a hunting party of Wampanoag were in the vicinity of the white settlement and decided to check up on them. In gratitude for having been saved and aided by them, the Europeans invited the visitors to stay for the harvest feast. This then became known as the First Thanksgiving. If only the people of the First Nations and the European immigrants had learned from this example. But they did not. In the fullness of time the prediction often attributed to various leaders, that "in 300 years my people will be a vanishing breed, a footnote in the story of the continent." They did not vanish, but are less today than they were. Today the holiday is one in which we traditionally gather our families and celebrate the holiday, at least ostensibly giving thanks for the good things that came our way, and for having family to celebrate with. I am reminded of the time, some 50 years ago, when my Dad and my Uncle both finished eating at about the same time, and both had the same idea to make for the couch in the den at the same time. They both tried to be nonchalant about it, but this lasted about 4 paces, as my Dad went thundering into the Den, steps ahead of my Uncle. Dad got their first, but it would not have mattered, as it was Dad's house. Meanwhile, I just quietly asked my Mother if I could be excused (in the early 70s, table manners were still a thing, and kids who sat at the grownups table had to ask to be excused.) and then quietly went into the living room and took over the couch in there. Everyone else was too busy trying to find suitable seating in line of sight to a television and never considered just napping in the nice, cool, quiet of the living room. Funny how memory comes back like that. I will close by saying that I wish any who read this a happy holiday, and a quiet, safe, and healthy weekend.

The Eleventh hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month.

 

Today, in 1918 the First World War came to an end. The living hell that began in 1914 and threatened to end human society ended in November 1918, with little of the root causes of the War to End All Wars resolved. But, at 11 AM, the guns fell silent. people on both sides joyfully stopped shooting at each other.  The final American killed in the war was recorded by General John Pershing as one Henry Nicholas John Gunther. Gunther had been a supply Sargent in the 79th "Liberty" division's 313th Regiment until he ran afoul of Army censors by writing a complaining letter to a friend back home, telling him to avoid military service at all costs. Demoted to private, Gunther felt that his courage had been called into question, and began volunteering for dangerous assignments, including that of message runner. He was killed in the final minutes of the war, attempting to assault a roadblock occupied by a German machine gun squad. It would have been a pointless gesture, as the war would be over in a few minutes, and Gunther was aware of this. It has been said that the Germans, when they saw him coming, yelled for him to go back, that the war was going to be over in a few minutes, but Gunther kept coming. One of the German gunners fired a burst, which struck the soldier in the temple, killing him instantly. Posthumously, Sargent Gunther was counted as the final casualty of the "War to End All Wars." 

(source: https://www.history.com/news/world-war-i-armistice-last-american-death ) 

         It should be  the default position of all rational human beings that war should be the last resort. War should only be used to rid the world of insane nations, criminal nations like Nazi Germany, who wage wars of oppression against their neighbors. Aggressor nations who refuse to listen to reason or to sit down and talk. Bandit kingdoms who rape and pillage their own people. Talk, first and last. Keep talking, even while you're fighting. *sigh* there is no good way of putting it. Never go to war because you want to. 

No more for now. But never forget why we fight. To preserve freedom and liberate the oppressed.

 Pray for the future of our nation. Now is the time when the Republic needs everyone to come together and reach across the divide, heal the wounds, stop the divisive, violent rhetoric. Let us go forward together, hand in hand, heads held high, as family. 

 

The Great Divide

 

 The political divide did not happen overnight, was not created by Donald Trump, and will not be made to go away by Joe Biden.

Newt Gingrich created the divide with his late night speeches in the well of the House, where he had a no cost cable TV presence. He spun the fable that there must be no compromises. That it would be his way or no way. Not many people saw him, but the right group of people did. Young, politically active republicans. They took Gingrich's message to heart, and went to war. No holds barred, stop at nothing to gain power. The first power grabs were not in the Federal legislature alone, but in state houses, governorship and other state-level offices. Thus the first of the big lies were told. "I'm against fraud, waste, and abuse! I'm a fiscal conservative! you can trust me with your money." Except they were not simple fiscal conservatives. They were die hard right wing christian conservatives, who wanted power not for what they could do for the people, but for what they could do TO the people. They Gerrymandered as much of the political map as they could. Then again in 2000. and again in 2010. The left were stupidly complacent. They had controlled the Congress off and on but more on than off since the 1970s, and saw no reason why things should change. The Supreme Court was carefully stage-managed. The lower courts were allowed to start to run empty. In fact, during Obama's time they were intentionally kept empty by McConnell. Now there are some 50 or so seats in the House which are, and will be for some time to come, absolutely safe GOP seats, and they are filled with Ideologues who, like Gingrich, insist it be their way or no way. At least the GOP are out of the Majority in the House, for now. But it's another census year, and Despite strenuous efforts by former President Obama, the political landscape won't change much.  Then comes 1987, and Reagan-appointee Dennis R Patrick's decision as FCC Chairman to undo the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC rule that demanded that broadcasters, both radio and television, who use a federal license, include in their programming a certain number of hours of coverage of public affairs and of controversial issues, and that said coverage be, in the FCCs view fair, unbiased and represent both sides of an issue. This rule was in place from 1944 until it was removed. But the thing is, the Reagan argument was that rules are unnecessary in a civilized society, where the free market will see to it that the battle of ideas carries to those who wish to watch. The problem with that idea is that people will, if given the choice, avoid ideas that don't flow with our own. We self-select for information that agrees with us. Information no longer is non-partisan. Presentation of news is politically driven. People become so familiar with the news that suits their biases that things that run contrary to them are seen as alien,or other. Those who cleave to other ideas are seen as Alien. Politics goes from being the marketplace of Ideas and becomes the Battleground of Ideas. But then comes someone like Trump, who has no connection to truth. He comes and lies to us, and those whose biases are more ideologically of the same polarity as the Trump lies decide they will believe the lie, even if somewhere in their mind they know it's not true. Trump has become like a cult leader, stringing lies together, getting people hooked on the lie. This is why they chant at Trump rallies. It's a form of group affirmation. They need to know they are not the only one who buys the lie. And so it goes. The political divide has gotten wider to the point it's causing families to disintegrate. It's breaking up friendships and causing fights. Please that it not cause worse violence. I'm not a big fan of Joe Biden, but by damn we need someone to pull us back from the brink.

A short bit about Flat Earthers. (uh well, it got bigger.)

I am and have been a man of science, reason and fact-based life. 

Unlike some, I do not care if you yourself hold religious views. 

                    I used to. I used to rail against religion the way some people rail against smoking cigarettes or eating red meat. I've given up on it, having realized that religion is one of those things you can't argue people out of. So, I don't bother. If you wish to continue believing I can't stop you. But you can still hold religious views, express religious faith and worship in the manner that suits you without eschewing science and reason. While the two are not wholly compatible, they can and do co-exist without friction. Some consider there to be non-overlapping magisteria, that is to say, the two things each have their own provinces which they do well in just so long as they stay within their realm -- keep to their own lane, so to speak. A prime example of what happens when religion attempts to speak to a question of science is when religious zealots attempt to define the fundamental nature of our home planet. For anyone who has studied science it's a settled issue - - the earth is a very slightly oblate spheroid some 12742 km in diameter, that turns on it's N-S Axis once every 24.025 hours, and orbits it's primary star at a distance of some 151.42 million km once every 365.25 days. These facts are not conjecture, or suppositions, they are known. They are observations, made using instruments from the primitive  -- a pole of known length -- to the incredible -- a ring laser gyro, or focused light prism gyroscope. The first attempt to divine the circumference of the earth was done by Eratosthenes in 245 BC; see Wikipedia's explanation of how, here : Wikipedia on Eratosthenes

The Equinox

 Tonight, a small bit of my brain will be given over to the imagery of a man in a grey cloak and a stag's head helmet standing in a stone circle with a branch of holly in his hands. 

This version of me, contained wholly within my imagination, comes from my Celtic roots, and no doubt is influenced by my studies. But, tonight marks the Equinox. A day with mystic significance to many, and of only passing mathematical curiosity to the rest of us. From today, the days will grow shorter, the nights longer. The Atlantic will see the Equinoctial Gales. The cool winds will blow, and turn colder next month. Summer is on the way out, Fall is coming on, and Winter is coming up the drive. All too soon, for many in the Northern Hemisphere, the old man in blue will be among us, nipping at our noses, chilling our feet, and making us wish for Spring to come dancing in. But for now, I see a darkness. I can hear ancient words in my head that come unbidden. I'm not superstitious, but the mood is changing. 

A small part of me, the part of me in the grey robes and the stag's head, it says back to the void : "Yes! Bring it! The Darkness is my friend!" But then so is the light. And there is still light, even in the darkest night. There is still hope.