Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air….
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
You might remember the first and last lines of this poem from President Reagan’s address to the nation after the Challenger disaster. But they were penned by one John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
John Magee, Jr. was the child of an American dad and British mom, both Anglican missionaries in China. The folks eventually rotated back to England, where John attended Rugby, winning the school’s poetry prize. He visited the US in 1939, and was unable to return to Great Britain due to the breakout of World War II. He was offered a scholarship to Yale, but turned it down to travel to Canada and enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Let me repeat that: he TURNED DOWN A SCHOLARSHIP TO YALE SO HE COULD MOVE TO CANADA, NOT TO AVOID THE WAR, BUT TO ENLIST.
He trained in Canada before finally catching a ship to England, where he qualified to fly Spitfires. One day in August 1941, he took his fighter up to 33,000 feet, and for the price of a few dozen gallons of His Majesty’s petrol, the most famous sonnet not written by Shakespeare was born. By then promoted to Pilot Lieutenant, he had a few sweeps over the Channel (technically combat missions, though the Germans, thoroughly whipped the year before, weren’t sending anyone up to play). Taking his plane in a dive through a hole in broken clouds on the morning of December eleventh of that year, he was involved in a mid-air collision over a little village in Lincolnshire, about a hundred miles north of London. Witnesses described him opening his canopy and attempting to bail out, but he was too low. His squadron mates recovered his body, and he’s buried in a simple parish church graveyard.
He was all of nineteen years old.
It’d be easy to take a cheap shot at today’s 19 year-olds crying in their safe spaces because the wrong person was elected President a couple of times in recent years. But I’d have to turn that light inward, as well. Would I have had the character, the bravery, the guts to do what Pilot Lieutenant McGee did? I like to think that I would, honestly. But I don’t know.
I do know that I’m really glad that rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do me and mine harm.
John Gillespie Magee died more than eighty years ago. But rather than mourn his death, be happy that men like him still live.
19. That’s hard to get over.
19
I knew it. You’re getting predicatable, Tedses’
Only 19:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95OnIyTThbU
Too much toxic masculinity obviously.
Happy kids, happy cat this Christmas. https://ibb.co/7dNrtVy4
Well done. I’m fairly certain I’ve never believed in something enough to proudly volunteer for military service to defend it. I’m rather glad I’ve lived in such an UNinteresting time, devoid of (traditional) global warfare.
That repeat can air maybe a generation after I go.
I just wanted to First in foreign lands. For America.
I did.
It took Ma about a month on Ft Campbell after basic and AIT to realize that the vast majority of people that were either commissioned or enlisted were not like me and had joined for the benefits, wages, and power. Not god and country? Nope. My country actively hated my God.
Me. Not ma.
Ft Campbell and the south was such a culture shock for me. So much theft, rape, and random property crime compared to where I’m from, as strange law enforcement practices.
I posted this many years ago, always memorable, thanks
“It’d be easy to take a cheap shot at today’s 19 year-olds crying in their safe spaces”
I’m glad the draft is no more…
I’m just finishing a book, “Walk in My Combat Boots”. (James Patterson). There’s still some pretty tough people, both men and women, in the Real America.
33,000 feet? That’s mighty high for a piston plane, even if you have oxygen.
He was offered a scholarship to Yale, but turned it down to travel to Canada and enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Well done.
Service ceiling: 36,500
The pilot had O2.
It was supercharged. Turbos were still exotic. The carburetor was problematic in certain attitudes. The Germans because of their shitty gas had better fuel injection tech.
If you take a walk I’ll tax your feet
A federal judge’s ruling has cleared the way for Hawaii to include cruise ship passengers in a new tourist tax to help cope with climate change, a levy set to go into effect at the start of 2026.
U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake denied a request Tuesday that sought to stop officials from enforcing the new law on cruises.
In the nation’s first such levy to help cope with a warming planet, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed legislation in May that raises tax revenue to deal with eroding shorelines, wildfires and other climate problems. Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100 million annually.
Think of the planet.
Do please explain how an ocean that hasn’t risen perceptibly is causing more erosion than usual.
Appeal it Feds. Get it away from the lower courts and answer the question. HTF does Hawaii have any constitutional standing to tax anything not in their ports?
Keep it up dumb shits and even more people will find out there are other places with warm beaches in winter that are muy closer to continental landmasses.
Bad precident, Wayfair will likely be called in to do the heavy lifting backed up by the shitty interpretation of the commerce clause allowing total control of the market.
The cowardly judges of the 9th Circus will convolute themselves to allow it.
Look, you either want the planet to cook and everyone to die or you don’t.
Make your choice.
…prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports.
Well, when that number goes to zero, I don’t think they’re going to collect very much.
“he was involved in a mid-air collision over a little village in Lincolnshire”
What happened to the guys in the other plane?
Also killed apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee_Jr.#Death
U.S. airmen losses in WWII were staggering, just in training over 15,000 were killed. I’m not sure of the RAF/RCAF numbers.
My cousin is in a common grave in Arlington, with 3 of his aviation comrades. Messerschmidts are an anathema for B-17s.
With a little help from some bad tactical decisions by some of the theater commanders, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Schweinfurt_raid
My grandmother’s brother disappeared in a black cloud when flak hit the bomb load in his plane. His name is on the wall of the “missing presumed dead” USAAF monument in the UK. He was a 19-20 year old gunner.
The Brits had a scheme where young pilots would train in the U.S. before rotating back to the U.K. for combat. About 900 young Commonwealth airmen lost their lives in training accidents over here.
There are several collections of “British plots” in cemeteries near the training bases, particularly in Terrell, Texas; Montgomery, Alabama; and Arcadia, Florida. But that’s a post for another time.
The Eighth Air Force suffered 26,000 combat deaths, a 12.3% fatality rate topped only by submarine crews. “Every position in the plane [an American bomber] was vulnerable; there were no foxholes in the sky. Along with German and American submarine crews and the Luftwaffe pilots they met in combat, American and British bomber boys had the most dangerous job in the war. In October 1943, fewer than one out of four Eighth Air Force crew members could expect to complete his tour of duty: twenty-five combat missions. The statistics were discomforting. Two-thirds of the men could expect to die in combat or be captured by the enemy. And 17 percent would either be wounded seriously, suffer a disabling mental breakdown, or die in a violent air accident over English soil. Only 14 percent of fliers assigned to Major Egan’s Bomb Group when it arrived in England in May 1943 made it to their twenty-fifth mission. By the end of the war, the Eighth Air Force would have more fatal casualties—26,000—than the entire United States Marine Corps. Seventy-seven percent of the Americans who flew against the Reich before D-Day would wind up as casualties” (p. 7, Masters Of The Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany, by Donald L. Miller).
The National World War II Museum organizes tours of the areas mentioned in the above book from time to time, with some coming up next year. If I thought I could get away with going to the UK solo, I’d do it.
That’s almost in the same league as the Confederates at Gettysburg.
I read a book based on the lives of British airmen in WWI, Goshawk Squadron, and holy cow that was awful in lives lost. WWII was better, but still an abattoir.
Confederates killed at Gettysburg were about 6-7% of Lee’s 70,000 men.
Keep it up dumb shits and even more people will find out there are other places with warm beaches in winter that are muy closer to continental landmasses.
I keep pretending someday a judge will decline to accept the global warming argument at face value and require some sort of definitive proof of specific tangible harm.
I crack myself up.
Merry Christmas, straff!
https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/japans-ruling-coalition-agrees-on-income-tax-hike-for-defense
Appears they raised a bunch of resident alien fees too.
https://youtu.be/WNdI21F9Vhk?si=VBysUPx00AL_oX8P
Bonus language requirement.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16242597
And increased the amount of flair required.
OT: we now own a TO-ST1-T, per wife’s Xmas request. First step down transformer I bought was junk, waiting on a new one to try it out.
BOLTR: Mitsubishi Toaster | Japanese Engineering
We supposedly demand those things in the US too. How is that working out for us?
That’s the one. Mitsubishi apparently made a version in white but only the wood panel is still available.
“Amanda Seyfried is our forgotten female prophet”
“The Norwegian director stumbled upon Lee’s story while working on her second film, the historical drama “The World to Come,” a lesbian romance in the American frontier during the 19th century. ” <– I could get down with some of that.
—
"…(Kristen Stewart) feels the industry is a “capitalist hell” with a penchant for sidelining female-centered stories in favor of big-budget studio movies." <– *That's* why, yes.
—
"In the film (Ann Lee's) husband, a blacksmith named Abraham Standerin (played by Christopher Abbott), watches on in amusing horror as his sex life is sacrificed on the altar of piety. "<– I don't think I'll be getting down with that.
—
With confidence, will not watch.
(Kristen Stewart) feels the industry is a “capitalist hell” with a penchant for sidelining female-centered stories in favor of big-budget studio movies.”
She was in that amusement park movie, wasn’t she? Rawr.
How dare they like making money. I’m sure she donates every cent.
That whooshing sound…
The Biden administration tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness to student loans, but those efforts were eventually stopped by courts.
Persis Yu, deputy executive director for the Student Borrower Protection Center, criticized the decision to begin garnishing wages, and said the department had failed to sufficiently help borrowers find affordable payment options.
“At a time when families across the country are struggling with stagnant wages and an affordability crisis, this administration’s decision to garnish wages from defaulted student loan borrowers is cruel, unnecessary, and irresponsible,” Yu said in a statement. “As millions of borrowers sit on the precipice of default, this Administration is using its self-inflicted limited resources to seize borrowers’ wages instead of defending borrowers’ right to affordable payments.”
Uncle Sam wouldn’t be the debt collector if the credentialism mob hadn’t put him in the loansharking racket.
A degree in Grievance Studies doesn’t pay like it used to.
Maybe I was wrong, maybe there a place for a draft/unpaid college loans. I have an idea the bills would start being paid.
borrowers’ right to affordable payments
Say what now?
Fourscore:
I… I kind of love that idea.
Draft.
They all want government jobs. Don’t give them one as ‘punishment.’
“…(Trump’s) Administration is using its self-inflicted limited resources…
Yep. All ~$39 trillion were Donald’s fault. How dare he have been so reckless with other people’s money!! MAKE PRINTER BRRRRRR!
We all know the next Dem president will do exactly this for our young scholars. It’s only fair.
Thanks for sharing this poem and the story behind it, SHPIP.
Merry Christmas to all!
A degree in Grievance Studies doesn’t pay like it used to.
ROI is Nazism, straight up.
No shit.
America’s Seniors Are Overmedicated
https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/americas-seniors-are-overmedicated-f397bb1d?st=DTs3MX&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Also, no shit.
You’re gonna have to pry my gabapentin from my cold, dead, neuropathic hands.
Tried gabapentin.
I had to keep upping the dose for it to keep working.
Made my mind foggy and difficult to make new memories. Went cold turkey. Nearly 20 years later I know I’m not as quick or have as good of a memory as I did before I took that poison.
I paid off my $20k student loans off in ~6 years. I fucking *love* how my fleeting rationality is being actively punished, as others’ dereliction is rewarded.
As to useless degrees, I majored in Psych with minors in Animal Behavior and (barely got a Gentleman’s C- in) German.
Firmly in the ‘getting a degree means ya get a job camp,’ I’m upset I fell for that trap and just studied things that interested me, without ever thinking of future finances. Far too many kids go to college, and those that do, like me, likely need to be pushed to help ‘figure out’ what they’re good at to earn a living.
Parents and students were stupid for falling for it, and schools and The State were dumb for pushing it so hard for so long. Whoops. Honestly the German model makes more sense to me than what we do, though I’m not pushing for that, either.
The Chump Effect.
The chump effect.
I didn’t know I could hate farmers more.
The German model, at least my decades past understanding of it, would be superior to our current model in every way.
Early tracking, lots of trade schooling, internships, etc.
Chilling with a nice saison https://store.pfriembeer.com/pfriem-saison-p/saison.htm, listening to some nice music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=forgWBh-4Dg&list=OLAK5uy_mIR9qKA0yExOrctqGFPwSH30NdtnRiKME&index=2 and waiting patiently for the lamb shoulder roast.
Merry Xmas, you miscreants!
At my sister’s place, French 75s were the starter, before switching over to beer. Reasons I’m happy with my family is the lack of drama, and my sister being upset at herself for not thinking to make lavender simple syrup ahead of time, and only having regular simple syrup on hand.
Oh la la!
Ooh la la indeed
Sigh. Must I do everything for y’all? The only reasonable response:
https://youtu.be/7wK94mIycAk?t=8
You know my thoughts on the French 75… huzzah!
Sean’s late again, how long is he going to milk this ‘Holiday Schedule’ bullshit?
Morning, Glibs.
Who besides Ted is ready to go back to the office today?
Wait, that’s Hyper Bee. Sorry, Ted, you two sound alike when I first wake up.