Happy Birthday

Today is the two-hundred and thirty-third birthday of the United States Navy.  Much has changed since the 13th of October in 1775 and much has remained the same. The Continental Congress authorized the outfitting of two naval vessels to search…

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Drilling out

Friday night as I sat waiting for dinner at Kabob Kafe in nearby Ellicottville, New York with my wife and daughter my Blackberry buzzed. I picked it up and looked and I had been “poked” on Facebook by my nephew,…

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Veterans for Massa

I was happy to see in tonight’s Olean Times Herald that Eric Massa is pulling 5 percentage points ahead of the incumbent, Congressman Randy Kuhl of Hammondsport. I am a signer of Eric Massa’s Veterans Pledge.  Just yesterday a gentleman…

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Loving their own noise

Loving their own noise. Tonight’s presidential debate seemed like a lot of noise to me. I listened to perhaps thirty-five minutes and then I turned it off. Debates usually lack substance and this one seemed more devoid than others. It…

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Then we win

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” –Mahatma Gandhi Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency reminds me of this quote. Conventional wisdom had anybody Obama being in the spot he’s in…

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A heart of flesh

This quote came in SoJo Mail today. I like it and it’s what animates my life. I cannot be still when I hear the forces of injustice railing against us. The us in U.S. is what I’m speaking of. A…

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No vision

The stock market plunged 800 points today. News yesterday that the 700 billion dollar bailout may do nothing to improve the economy unless the value of real estate begins to rise. Iraq is teetering. Afghanistan is going backward and all…

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A question of relevance

Are monks and hippies and poets relevant? No, we are deliberately irrelevant. We live with an ingrained irrelevance which is proper to every human being. The marginal [person] accepts the basic irrelevance of the human condition, an irrelevance which is…

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Letchworth Gorge

Vistas like this is why I continue to be fascinated by powered flight. Just 25 nautical miles north of my home field at Olean Airport is the Genesee River gorge that makes up New York State’s Letchworth Park. Today after…

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