Early flight tomorrow for points west. Took the S.O. to see UP in 3D tonight. It was a lot of fun to see. She enjoyed it-and it ended up being a good way to cap off a good day.

I came across some old pix of aircraft and a lot younger me. I tried to scan them-but no soap. Could scan them at work-but they came out as PDF files. Anybody got any tips for converting-short of shelling out 300 bucks for Adobe?

Its been a philosophical weekend this weekend. Will try to right more from destination USA tomorrow-God and the Internet connections willing. Wish me luck as I traverse the nations second busiest airport tomorrow. There is too much to say tonight and not enough time to say it. It is always that way I guess- a good analogy for life sometimes.

Have a great weekend-what’s left of it!

Even though it is needed.

Wonder how long it will be before the usual crowd, starts questioning Peggy Noonan’s party affiliation again?

I have no valid reason not to like Sonia Sotomayor from the evidence at hand. Its only a hunch-from short exposure to her on TV. However I would be justifiably castigated if I were a Senator and stated that as my only reason to vote against her confirmation.

Nonetheless, Peggy Noonan rightfully points out that is what a group Republicans is going to do. And in the process blow a major opportunity:

Some, and they are idiots, look at Judge Sotomayor and say: attack, attack, kill. A conservative activist told the New York Times, “We need to brand her.” Another told me a fight is needed to excite the base.

Excite the base? How about excite a moderate, or interest an independent? How about gain the attention of people who aren’t already on your side?

The base is plenty excited already, as you know if you’ve ever read a comment thread on a conservative blog. Comment-thread conservatives, like their mirror-image warriors on the left (“Worst person in the woooorrrlllddd!”) are perpetually agitated, permanently enraged. They don’t need to be revved, they’re already revved. Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think.

Peggy Noonan notes that if they would just beat the shit out of ignore the Glenn Beck’s, the Limbaugh’s, the Hannity’s and all the rest-they might actually be able to make lemonade out of lemons:

The choice for Republicans isn’t between “attack” and “roll over.” It’s broader than that, and more interesting. There’s a new and fresh opportunity here for Republicans in the Senate to be serious, and, in their seriousness, to be seen and understood in a new light.

Serious opposition to Judge Sotomayor is not only fair, it’s necessary: It’s your job to oppose if you oppose. But it should be serious, not merely partisan. Mr. Obama himself well knows he voted against John Roberts and Sam Alito only in essence because they were conservative. He was planning a presidential run and playing to a left-wing base. But that didn’t enhance his reputation, did it? Not with anyone who wasn’t part of his base…………..

Republicans can be liberated by the fact that they’re outnumbered and likely about to lose. They can step back, breathe in, and use the Sotomayor confirmation hearings to perform a public service: Find out what the future justice thinks and why she thinks it, explain what they think and why they think it, look at the two different philosophies, if that’s what they are. Don’t make it sparring, make it thinking.

Don’t grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges.

Obviously Ms. Noonan thinks they can do that. I don’t. Maybe twenty years ago they could have-not the crowd we have now. If for no other reason-no one dares to cross the fat blowhard
the “true believers” and get branded as a RINO. John Cole probably has it closer to correct that Peggy Noonan:

It seems like it is already out there and way too late. You’ve had Rush, Newt, Tancredo and others calling her a racist for days, you have all the groups that stand to do some serious moneymaking out there screaming radical activist (think Wendy Long and company), and the assorted right-wing magazines like Commentary and NRO and the Weekly Standard have already pretty much staked out a position on the lunatic fringe, and of course the WingNet has followed suit. How do you roll that back?

You can’t project an image when the messengers you use are not even grown ups themselves. Welcome to the 21′st Century……..where too many folks check their brains at the door and let other people do the thinking for them.

And I feel like it. Its been a while since I posted one of these:

Now lets all go have a beer!

Forget the Supreme Court- these are some appointments that are worth getting upset about.

There is considerable angst among the chattering class about the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. But while some of us may question the logic that says we have to deliberately limit the selection pool, as Once a Marine points out-at least she is qualified for the job. If she were male, and opposed to abortion-the Newt Gingriches and Rush Limbaughs of the world would love her.

If folks want to get mad at Obama about some really lousy appointments-I strongly encourage one and all to get more than a little upset about his recent ambassador appointments. They suck.

There used to be an unwritten rule in the appointing of ambassadors-the big donors got to go to nice places that were not critical to US foreign policy-like being US ambassador to Switzerland. However you did not simply treat the Ambassador to the Court of St. James as just another political payoff.

Until now, evidently:

No doubt the new political appointees can handle the job. Roos, as CEO of a global, technology-focused law firm, understands trade issues likely to arise in Japan. Rivkin has international experience as a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy. And Obama’s appointee to Great Britain, Louis Susman, speaks fluent English.

Problem is-the Japanese take this idea of having a qualified US ambassador seriously. And with that in mind the idea of Roos simply getting the job as a political payoff is not setting well with the Japanese:

Roos is almost unknown among U.S. and Japanese officials and experts. Because he has no diplomatic and security experience, some doubt has been raised about his qualifications at a time when North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats are mounting.

And lest we forget, whoever is ambassador in Japan will be knee deep in the largest re-alignment of US forces in Japan since the end of the Korean war. 8000 Marines to Guam, moving CVW-5 from Atsugi ( where it should be staying) to Iwakuni ( where it has no business being), along with a whole bunch of ancillary moves that are causing more than a couple of political, financial, and strategic complications. The choice of Roos, described as an “virtually unknown lawyer,” is creating some angst in Tokyo. The Japanese press even has a dismissive term used to describe the Roos nomination and others like it: ronkokosho or “honoring past services,” referring to the funding support Roos provided during the campaign.

To be fair, Obama is not the only President to appoint political friends to ambassadorships. However, for a guy who made “change” his mantra-this is a funny way to go about it.

To be fair, there’s a long history of far less qualified people landing far cushier ambassadorships. In 2006, President Bush appointed his friend and fraternity brother Michael Wood to the post in Sweden. Ann Louise Wagner, former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, landed the Luxembourg spot in 2005. And President Reagan once appointed an ambassador to Australia whose chief qualification was selling used cars.

The swankiest gigs, according to former ambassadors, are the Scandinavian countries—Norway, Sweden, Finland—as well as Luxembourg and the Caribbean islands. But for the most part, any Western European country will do. Ronald Spiers, former ambassador to Turkey and Pakistan, remembers a conversation with a Navy admiral, who told him that after retiring he’d like to serve as ambassador to Spain. To which Spiers, a lifelong diplomat, responded that upon retiring he would like to command the Sixth Fleet. “He didn’t think it was funny,” Spiers says. The admiral did, in fact, become ambassador to Spain. Spiers did not become an admiral.

Ambassadors in paradise still have to manage their embassy staffs—or tell their deputies to do so. They also meet with leaders to discuss the ins and outs of, say, trade policy and report back to the State Department about what’s going on. But they don’t handle sensitive negotiations, like their counterparts in China and Afghanistan. One former nominee to the Bahamas, asked in his confirmation hearing what qualified him for the job, bragged about his golf game.

Over at Foreign Policy Magazine, David Rothkopf does not sugarcoat his feelings about these appointments being a self inflicted wound to the Obama administration-and I agree with the fundamental question he asks: Do we even need ambassadors anymore?

Of course, Obama is not the first to send unqualified fat cats off to be America’s face to the world (and there is a certain element of truth-in-advertising there that is refreshing amid the finally buffed bullshit of diplomatic intercourse). But this only underscores my core point. If a job is meaningless enough to be entrusted to someone who is unqualified to do it, do we really need to fill that post? This point is made especially forcefully when even the most important such jobs (like Japan) are being filled by political bag men. Further of course, anyone with much exposure to foreign policy knows that to our closest allies and most important enemies, dealing with ambassadors is often viewed as being at the bottom of the food chain. It is too easy today to pick up the phone or send ministers to speak to cabinet secretaries or sub-cabinet officials to meet with sub-cabinet officials or even to arrange exchanges among leaders than to entrust really important communications to intermediaries who need to pass it up through multiple layers in the State Department and/or the White House before they reach the eyes of anyone who is actually a policymaker. Furthermore, with the proliferation of special envoys in this administration…diplomats who report directly to the Secretary of State or the President…being a regular ambassador is rendered even more of a bag-carrier or logistical coordinator role.

Britain is supposed to be our most important ally. Japan is the centerpiece of our security relationship in Asia. I heard that ad-nauseum during almost 9 years there. I even sort of came to believe it. (All the while inside my head, the little voice inside me kept reminding me: ”Don’t fool yourself. We need the Japanese more than they need us.”).

So of course, it makes perfect sense to appoint someone to the Court of St. James: “Louis Susman, another big time fund-raiser whose credentials include having been a vice chairman of financial invalid Citibank (who knew overseeing the decline of an American financial institution would become the great path to top government jobs that it has been in this administration?) and a director of the St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball team. To France, the decision is to send another fund-raiser, this one whose most notable credential is having been the President of the Muppets. (He once ran the Jim Henson Company.)” With those qualifications-what could possibly go wrong?

Too bad I don’t have a lot of money. If I had some-it might have been my one sure ticket to get back to Asia.It would appear that except for the money part- I meet the other qualifications:

Reagan’s appointee to Norway, Mark Austad, was known for getting drunk and chasing women around. “We had to get rid of him,” says Spiers, who handled State Department personnel at the time. Another ambassador, this one to Denmark years ago, was asked to resign after it became known that he kept two prostitutes in his residence. But deep embarrassment is rare. “You usually develop a protection around them, to kind of isolate them from damage,” says Spiers.

Is Thailand still open?

Do yourself a favor-don’t read blogs that simply recite neo-con tripe, or wishful views on foreign policy. Head on over to GI Korea for the straight word:

In fact since 1991 the North Koreans have publicly declared they no longer recognize the Armistice Agreement.  Probably the most symbolic violation by North Korea is the fact that they refuse to allow for decades the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission composed of Swedish, Polish, and Swiss officers to inspect North Korea for military build ups outside the Demilitarized Zone.

So this threat to not respect the Armistice Agreement is nothing new and being used by North Korea to legitimize any response to any South Korean attempt to board and inspect North Korean ships.  As I have stated before joining and actually enforcing the PSI are two different things and North Korea is letting it be known that there will be consequences if the PSI is enforced.

He’s also got a link to One Free Korea’s plan to hit back at the NORKS without losing our heads or doing something stupid:

At the same time, we should offer the North Korean people food aid, conditioned on strict monitoring and independent distribution by the World Food Program. We should also tell the North Korean people that we stand ready to help them by broadcasting into their country 24 hours a day. We should tell them about the depraved opulence of Kim Jong Il’s life, the corruption of their government, and the prosperity of South Korea. We should demand that the Red Cross be given access to the concentration camps, and that the World Food Program be given access to the hungry. The P.R. battle has great power to constrain or support our options. Bad P.R. for Kim Jong Il can deter leaders, investors, and candidates from defending policies that have prolonged Kim Jong Il’s misrule, and the misery of the North Korean people.

Start preparing for reconstruction.  Unless Kim Jong Il believes that we’re prepared to accept the collapse of his regime as an alternative to verifiable disarmament, he won’t disarm.  We should also understand that rebuilding North Korea will be a task of incalculable scale that we’ll eventually have to face, one way or another.  Even if South Korean and Chinese aid continues indefinitely, it’s probably just a matter of time before Kim Jong Il’s regime collapses or dissolves into chaos.  Kim Jong Il is over 60, his health is said to be bad, and he has no suitable successor.  The economic system is in steady decline, resistant to reform, and probably incapable of reform.  Information is leaking indiscontent is spreading.  The food situation, which had recovered to more-or-less subsistence levels after the Great Famine, has worsened again following Kim Jong Il’s rejection of international aid and severe floods.  North Korea is a failed state — stripped, gutted, and traumatized.  Its reconstruction challenges could dwarf those of post-Saddam Iraq.  That’s why we must wrap our minds around how big a problem we’re facing, financially, politically, diplomatically, militarily, and psychologically.  Legislation such as the the North Korean Refugee Relief and Reconstruction Act would be a good start toward preparing to deal with those problems.

None of this requires us to close off our diplomatic channels to North Korea.  We should keep talking, but we should also be realistic about our approach to those talks and widen their agenda.  Even if negotiated disarmament seems exceedingly unlikely, we should express our willingness to talk any time, even if only for P.R. reasons.

And besides-look at the bright side-it gives me an opportunity to trot out this clip. As GI Korea notes, how can you ever get tired of it?

My two favorite things in the world are women and wine. Having dinner in a nice restaurant allows you to enjoy both at the same time.

Thus on Sunday, after perusing the S.O.’s tour book, I informed her that we were skipping the hotel’s “breakfast” ( cereal, coffee and donuts on a counter), to partake of a real breakfast-at a place that lots of people raved about.  I was on vacation dammit!- I ought to eat like a vacationer at least once.

It is not that the S.O. does not appreciate a good meal-she simply cannot reconcile that sometimes, you have to spend money to get one. I’m not talking about every day of course-one has to save money-but sometimes, you just have to relax and enjoy the moment.

Sunday was one of those times.

Up and showered, shaved-face put on-we set out to discover a restaraunt called Eggspectations. It was near our hotel-about five or seven blocks walking. They pried themselves on their Eggs Benedict.  After having tried it-I agree that they should. It was good:

Yes, it is not a “heart friendly” breakfast!

I love Eggs Benedict-but making it at home is just a pain in the posterior. Plus I never really get the hollandaise sauce right-which is the key to a good Eggs Benedict. Not to thick, not cold, just the right consistency. Its better to go out for it-in my humble opinion. This particular set had some good seasoning and some good cheese mixed in. Even the S.O. liked hers:

Prices were not bad either!

We then spent the day exploring Mount Royal and the Oratorie that is on the back side of it. Weather was great-and we worked up an appetite. Considering dinner had been at a McDonald’s in Drummondville the previous night, I felt a decent semi-romantic dinner was in order.

So we went by Metro up to the stop at Laurier. That also allowed me to explore the Montreal metro-one of the “checks in the block” for me:

A short but pleasant walk, led us to BU Bar a vin. It came recommended and I’ll have to say I liked it.

Because the S.O. hates to eat late in the evening-we arrived for a 6 PM reservation. We had the place to ourselves. That did, however mean we were able to get a table with a view:

It also meant that we could take advantage of the happy hour special prices on appetizers, e.g. you could get three for one price. A good bargain. We settled on Caprese:

Prosciutto with mushrooms:

And a Cheese Tort:

As I mentioned in a previous post the place had a very well stocked wine cellar-the wine list was ten pages long-in French and English. Rather than go through it we talked with the server-who as it turns out is from France and also had trained as a Sommelier. He did not push the most expensive bottle on us-he gave us some good choices in each price range and his ideas about how it would go with our meal. We finally settled on this particular wine, Pierre Galliard Syrah-2007.

I am definitely not a wine connoisseur so-I can’t say for sure how great it is. However, we both liked it. It was very smooth and had a great flavor. I wanted to get another bottle I liked it so much! ( Usually my two criteria for fine wine are : “open” and “free”). However we only had one and enjoyed with veal:

Truth be told the actual entree was something of a dissapointment, compared to the appetizers and the wine-but it was still pretty good. And the ingredients were very fresh.

Another thing I liked about the place was that they were not pushy. Because we were there early, the waiter asked us when we wanted dinner to go in, so it would come out hot and on our schedule-which let us soak in some of the atmosphere:

Which was fine with me.

Not cheap-but not too bad for a dinner with a bottle of wine and appetizers. BU Bar a vin is located at 5245 St. Laurent Blvd in Montreal. We walked back the whole distance to our hotel-which was in and of itself an adventure. That walk takes you right past Schwartz’s delicatessen where people were lined up the block to get in and get one of their sandwiches. I gather it’s something of a Montreal tradition.. It sure smelled good!

A 133 Sailors don’t need to be in too much of a hurry to sew on the First Class Crow.

Details here.

I’m going to start hating the new Supreme Court nominee now.

Sitting here in the lounge in Dulles on the way back to Shopping Mall. I’ve been watching her on TV. There is something in the way she talks-something of a pompousness in the gait of her speech, that has set off my alarm bells.

Not to mention, that I really don’t like the logic that deliberately limits the gene pool by saying the new justice has to be a woman and Hispanic. That’s more diversity nonsense that just does not pass the logic test.

I think the confirmation hearings ought to prove interesting to say the least. But, I’ve got a feeling abou this pick and its just not good. Same feeling I had when I first heard Sarah Palin talk. I was right then-and I think I am right now.

Captain Renault: Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects.

I have known you as a gallant adversary. It is now my pleasure to make your acquaintance as a friend.
And I yours, Monsieur La Marquis.-From the movie Last of the Mohicans……..

Uh, how’s that getting out flanked thing working out General?

We made the circuit up to Quebec City yesterday. The drive was fine-the car ran great and I had no problems negotiating the Canadian roads on the way up and back. It was a little farther than I had expected-and he journey home was more than a little boring from Quebec to Drummondville-but such is it when the land is farmland all around.

I’ve got plenty of pictures-just no good way to upload them here. Watch this space come Tuesday for some great food recommendations in Montreal.

We treated ourselves to a sinful breakfast and an even more sinful dinner. I feel no guilt about it at all.

To do so, however, I had to kidnap the S.O.- I tricked her into going with me on the premise that we were going somewhere else. I had spotted this particular restaurant earlier this week while prepping for the trip. At first she was not happy with the prices-when I told her I was either spending the money here, or taking her back to the hotel and going out by myself, she calmed down. When the food and the wine came she changed her tune considerably. This restaurant has 500 wines on its list.

Pix of that to follow too. I wish I could post them here-but the connection here at the hotel has been so intermittent-sometimes quick, oftentimes slower than Canadian Maple Syrup. I’ll just wait till we get home.

The S.O. did not seem to like my observation that Montreal is just like Tokyo. Physically, of course, its very different. ( It reminds me of San Francisco-but a hell of a lot safer and cleaner.) No, my reference was to the language thing. It finally dawned on me as we walked the entire distance back from dinner. (2.4 KM). We had taken the Metro up to the restaurant-but the S.O. had suggested we walk back. After, I finally convinced her that-yes-I have figured out my way around. She still cannot picture where she is on a map. I’m glad she did, because it too was a fun thing-details in a later post.

However, it has occurred to me, that the issue with language is about belonging to the club. In Japan-you can only belong to the club if you are Japanese and of course, speak Japanese. The Quebecois don’t have an obvious discriminator like eyes, facial color and height-so they have to rely on the spoken language.

And, since even if you can speak French, your inflection of the words are probably different-then it’s a surefire way to keep the “insider” list manageable. Works the same way in Tokyo I have observed-even if you speak very good Japanese.
I suspect it’s probably easier to breakdown the walls to entry over here though-if you take it over time.

Which leads to a trivia question: Is a person of color up here, an African-Canadian? Enquiring minds want to know.

One more day tomorrow-then off to the home fires. Pix are coming-Tuesday night.

Or whatever it is one says in French.

The S.O. and I arrived here in one piece-no worse the wear for having to traverse America’s worst airport (IMHO) Dulles International. We arrived in Montreal via a route of flight that brought us right over the city and we could see the whole city as we did a descending turn into the airport. Pretty cool.

We found the hotel OK and it’s a pretty ok hotel with one big drawback-the internet connection here is slower than those turtles you see on the COMCAST commercials.

Went to Jardin Botanique today. Pix to follow when it won’t take two weeks to upload them. It is a nice park-and evidently today was “school field trip day” in that we had to fight our way around herds of elementary school kids being led by some surly French speaking women.

Only, French is pretty cool when it is spoken by a woman. When spoken by a woman with a really nice rack-it is more than cool-I feel more than a little stirring within my loins. ( As happened when we went to lunch at a place up near Olympic park.)

When French is spoken by a man however? Forget it. Hit the bricks and take the express train back to loserville.

Which brings to an important point of order-that I’m not sure the residents of Montreal got the memo on. So in case no one has told you guys yet:

The French lost the Seven Years War.

Sorry about that. Just as I am sorry I chose to learn German rather than French in high school and college. It is what it is. As a result your city was cconquered by the British. Any chance of changing that historical development went away when Napoleon sold all of the Louisiana Purchase to Thomas Jefferson to finance his pillaging of Europe.

Which, by the way, is why it is so cool to see a statue to the Battle of Trafalgar right in the middle of the Place de St. Jaques……………
And in case anyone has never bothered to tell you guys-that particular historical development means that your province is surrounded on all sides by English speakers. ( Or in the case of the US-a large English speaking minority…..). English speakers who come here and have money to spend.

Maybe 40 years ago that “trying to be more French than the French” act might have had an impact. Now it just looks like you are slow to catch up. Even in France there are more English signs than here. How about looking into it will you? You are driving the S.O. nuts when she pulls her “Ugly American Japanese” act when she continually asks people questions in English.

You also score no points by asking her if she is Chinese. Sure its all fun and games for you Francophones-but I have to hear about it all the way back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, its in the car and up to Quebec City-so I need to go to bed.  If I can figure out a way to jumpstart this internet connection-I’ll pass along some pictures.

Bon Soir!

Looking for….Something.

Have not had the time, energy or wherewithal to blog the last couple of days. Actually that’s not a 100% true-I could have blogged, but truth be told, I-JUST-DID-NOT-FEEL-LIKE-IT. Not sure why.

Because there certainly was a heck of a lot of stupidity that deserved to be commented on. In a lot of places.

Lots to say-but what would it have mattered? People’s mind’s will remain unchanged, and they will believe what they want to believe, not matter how well you prove them wrong.

Call it writer’s block.

Or Blogger Blahs.

So, “what do we do about it“.

“Road trip.”

Accordingly I am taking the S.O. someplace she wants go. Hopefully it will make her happy. It was not my first choice of destinations-but I know they have cold beer and good food.

And that’s a good thing.

More to come!

Some good music to get quietly drunk and morose by-while looking at pictures of the “good old days”:

This is a video by Chitose Hajime-and its one of my Japanese favorites. This was the theme song to the NHK Asa Dora ( Morining Drama) “Sakura” in 2003. I used to watch it with the S.O. from time to time-or watch it on my own at work. I think she has a wonderful voice and the song is very beautiful-and haunting in its own way. Enjoy:

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.-Stanislaw Lem.

I woke up early this morning and decided to go to the 7 AM Mass-the one I like to refer to as the “golfer’s mass”. ( Which isn’t really true-dedicated golfers either worship at our holy mother of the 1st fairway at 7 AM or they go to 5:30 Mass on Saturday-after playing golf). So leaving the S.O. snuggled under the covers-out I set into the rain and the lightning.

Listen up kiddo’s-here is the only nice thing you are ever going to hear me say about my ex-wife: I’m glad she introduced me to the Catholic Church.

Now mind you, as I have pointed out before a couple of times, there is a lot the Catholic Church has to answer for-and its attitudes about sex, birth control, and a whole host of other things are not in line with my own beliefs whatsoever. In my youth, I also spent a fair amount of time sitting in Methodist and Baptist services-where the thinly veiled contempt of Catholicism is never far away in the words of the sermons.

Despite what my posts may convey or fail to convey, I do believe in God, his Son Jesus and the miracle of the resurrection. Most probably because no one has given me a palpable reason NOT to believe it.  Unlike Mr Hitchens, I cannot go into that dark place that says there is no God. To believe that way is to make life itself so totally futile-and pointless. I just cannot accept that. If the universe is so ordered that it allows death and suffering-then there has to be something beyond this mortal existence.

At the same time, I do think that Mr Hitchen’s book captured well, that anger that any believer has to get past in order to be comfortable in his faith-namely that if the Deity is all powerful and loves us all -why then does He allow such unfair and indiscriminate suffering to go on and on and on? I call that the Job paradox, and I am in agreement with those who say that it is the one area that all religions, the monotheistic religions in particular, do a poor job of explaining. Because there is a corollary: If God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to save us from our sins-then it means he also so ordered the laws of the universe to unfairly require the sacrifice of a sinless being to atone for those sins. Which when viewed from a certain viewpoint can be seen as just more than a little mean-and quite unfair-to us and to His Son. That’s the point Christopher Hitchens makes. Where he and I part company is that just being angry at the Deity for being mean and unfair, does not necessarily mean that He does not exist. It just means that you do not like his ordering of the universe, is all. Problem is, He is still God……and we are not.

Which brings me back to the Mass.  God still needs to be honored-even if there are some “issues” that need to be worked through on my end.  I enjoy the mass and think its a far superior way to go to a church service than anything found in Protestant churches. Why do  I like the Mass? Several reasons actually.

1) Protestant services are built around the sermon. In a protestant church-sometimes fully 30+ minutes are given over to be alternately lectured to, or being cajoled and/or threatened.  The Mass is not so ordered and its to its benefit IMHO. Sure there is the Homily-but you will never hear a homily from a priest that has the same verve that protestant preacher can bring-nor does it have the volume. The Mass, on the other hand is built around the Eucharist-and I think that’s a very good thing.

2) The Mass has different parts-and it’s ritual. Contrary to the views of some evangelicals who see that as a drawback- I find the ritual parts of it, to be a feature, a benefit. Furthermore, unlike in protestant churches, the Mass is interactive and there are roles for the priest, the readers of the Word, and the congregation. The order of the rite of penitence, the reading of the word, the offering and the sharing of the sign of peace, followed by the liturgy of the Eucharist is a logical flow that makes a lot more sense to me.

3) Finally, the Catholic Church is, despite all its flaws,  more of an everyman church than most of the evangelical churches,  focused as much as on the here and now-as well as the hereafter.  That too is a benefit.  The ” we got ours-so to heck the rest of you attitude” has never set very well with me.

If you go to a mass, recite the various parts, kneel, rise, and sit when required it can be a refreshing experience. Even if, as Billy Graham once said: ” it is like the effects of a bath; they don’t last long-but its good for you and you need it“.

Do I go every week? No-but since coming back to the states I’ve gotten back to going more than I did in Asia-primarily because I was on the go so much while I was in Asia. Plus while I’m here-it helps me deal with the anger about not being in Asia.

This is solely my own opinion and what works for me. Recommendations for alternatives are neither required or desired. As always,  your mileage may vary.

There has been a lot of coverage of the Colgan 3407 mishap. I’ve watched it very closely because, living here in Shopping Mall, we are very much at the mercy of the commuter airlines. Unless you want to drive up to Nashville or over to Atlanta and those options are not very feasible.

Having a bit of “insider knowledge”- 5200 hours in military aircraft and having had a lot of contact in my last two previous jobs with commercial airline pilots, who also happened to be Navy reservists-I was kind of aware of the experience gap between the commuter airlines and the big ones. However I always sort of believed that the “aviation ethos” was the same between both. Now I am beginning to wonder. Seeing this is stomach turning and watching this is just as scary. (Watch the airspeed indicator in the upper left corner). Not the least because the S.O. and I are getting on a commuter plane in five days to  head someplace fun-and I have to get on another one a week later. I’d really like to hear what they are doing in light of this evidence.

Mile Obrien has written a pretty good analysis: namely we get what we pay for:

So why not allow the free market to prevail? Wouldn’t competition be a win-win for the American people and the airlines? Thirty years later, it is hard to find a winner – unless your only metric is your ability to fly roundtrip coast-to-coast for $200.

Well I have news for you: your mother was right…you get what you pay for. And tragically, Flight 3407 is what we ordered up back in 1978.

A “Sully” was not at the controls that dark and misty night. If he were, I would not be writing this now because it would have been just another routine arrival on a cold, misty night at BUF. There was no reason this airplane should have crashed – and yet it makes perfect since when you understand how stressed the system has become.

You will hear all kinds of spin and posterior-covering as the NTSB continues its hearings, but here it is in black and white for you: the flight crew was overworked, overtired, underpaid, undertrained and inexperienced. Period.

Who is to blame? A lot of people-ourselves included. The spiral started in the mid 1980′s as guys like Frank Lorenzo discovered they could take an airline into bankruptcy in order to break its union contracts. It accelerated in the 1990′s as big airlines consolidated and also “orphaned” cities like Shopping Mall. They were also busy screwing over their own employees and outsourcing jobs:

First and foremost, the reason we have chosen to use third- party providers for some of our work is because the costs are significantly lower. In this part of the world, as in the Philippines (where we will be headed in a few weeks), the cost of living is far lower than it is in any of our existing United locations. Because of this, the wage rate is low. That means we can accomplish some of the same tasks for far less money, which makes good sense for us if the quality can be comparable. In the queue work we saw last night, I can assuredly tell you that the back office work is progressing with a high degree of quality by educated, intelligent agents.

The second reason is that we stand to gain from the expertise of the service providers. Because they provide many of the same or similar services for other companies, we can learn from what the other companies are asking them to do, and we can also rely on their flexibility to cross-train the staff to match the ebbs and flows of our demand. Since the suppliers are experts in the contact center area, we are able to learn from some of the technology they have applied, the training tools the y have pulled together, and the process improvements they have evaluated. This is good for all of us, so that we can continue to learn and and so to continue to improve.

A long winded way of saying, ” We don’t give a shit about our American employees-or training them properly. Their cost of living is too high.”

And the difference between Glenn Tilton and a Chinese industrialist is? Nothing. ( Tilton by the way is the guy who walked out on United’s pension obligations leaving the employees-who had made big sacrifices to keep the airline afloat-with nothing.) Instead of holding himself accountable for a 73% loss in United stock value and a proportionate loss of revenue, Glenn Tilton continues to blame external factors while creating additional wealth for himself. ( He got 40 million when he f**ked over his own employees).

And finally, as I have noted before, the “pilot pool” from the military has begun to dry up-thanks to the war and lousy pilot salaries, as well as reduced number of pilot seats available. Flying still holds an attraction for many-but as one pilot explained it: “Now we’re a step above bus drivers. And the bus drivers have a better pension.”

The only good that can come from this mishap is if people wake up and smell the coffee-and demand the airlines go back to a higher standard. I stand by what I wrote three months ago:

Better business guys like Glenn Tilton lost sight of that. And if you look at the demographics of today’s pilot population it should make you nervous. I still maintain that people will pay for higher levels of service-and if anything, we could do with a transportation infrastructure that was not totally dependent upon the airplane-particularly within the Northeast.

Having a trained cadre of good pilots is one of the benefits of investing in military aviation. Of course, with the changes that are happening within the military these days-sometimes I wonder about that-but there is still no other place to gather a grunch of hours quickly. In 1984 at the end of my first sea tour I had almost 1400 hours. Those days have come and gone however.

I submit that airlines can offer both service and timely arrival , even if it means a little more money for a ticket. What the traveling public must understand is that cheap airfares come with a hidden “fee,” and that fee is the cost of not having the right folks in the right places.

Unlike some-I do believe high speed rail is a good alternative and should be invested in. However pilots are worth investing in too-and I’m for that right now, even if it means higher ticket prices.

There is no shortcut that works here. You get what you pay for.

At the 2009 Japan Miss Universe pageant.

Speaking of good looking women on display, here is an HD of the pageant showing the winner-Emily  Miyasaka. (The Miss Universe site writes her name in English as “Emily,” but the kanji for her name is actually read “Emiri.” On her official blog, she signs most of her posts as “Emily,” but “Emiri” is also used in one post and in the title banner of the blog.)