This evening, my friend came by to see if I wanted to go for a run. I put on my beat-up shoes and we went for a jog around the apartment complex.
My friend and I decided to race to the end of the parking garage. Those beat-up shoes tripped me up and I went sprawling across the concrete. I skinned up my knuckles and knees. I already know that I will be limping tomorrow as my knees feel very bruised.
I am not as young as I used to be. Time to buy new shoes.
News outlets are reporting that President George W. Bush sneaked out of Texas last night and arrived in Iraq for a special Thanksgiving dinner. He surprised 600 soldiers who had gathered in the dining hall of the Baghdad Airport.
I have to say that I’m impressed by all of this. This was a right and good thing to do. I cannot imagine a greater morale booster for the troops.
I am also impressed by the logistics. According to the news reports, Bush only told four people of the trip about six weeks ago. His wife was aware of the planning but did not know the final decision until last night. Bush’s daughters were told a few hours before he left. His parents, however, did not know until they arrived at the Crawford ranch. As far as the public and everyone else knew, Bush was at his the ranch having Thanksgiving dinner with his family.
The small 13-person media pool included reporters, photographers, a television producer, and a camera crew. Bush himself cautioned the pool that any slip of secrecy would result in the cancellation of the trip. As an added precaution, they were asked to hand over their mobile phones, pagers, batteries, and other electronic devices.
I am assuming based on the following exchange that they all flew on a marked Air Force One. This seems a little odd yet bold.
Somewhere en route, a British Airways pilot thought he spotted an unusual plane from his cockpit.
“Did I just see Air Force One?” the pilot radioed.
There was a pause. Then came the response from Air Force One: “Gulfstream 5″ — a much smaller aircraft.
Another pause. “Oh,” said the BA pilot.
Source: AlertNet
Too funny. And too serious. I think the British Airways pilot had to know that he was in on a secret. It will be a nice sidenote to hear from this pilot. I’m sure some reporter has already tracked him down.
I am assuming that the Air Force One in question was one of the two planes painted with the distinctive Presidential seal and lettering which reads “United States of America.” Those planes are both Boeing 747s. Much larger than a Gulfstream.
An under-reported part of Bush’s trip to Iraq is his meeting with four members of the Iraqi Governing Coalition, Baghdad’s mayor and the city council. I would love to hear their reaction. I am thinking that Bush’s visit to them is a great sign of support.
As a footnote, I increasingly find that I am against the United States being in Iraq. Yet we are there. In my view, it would be a worse thing for us to abrubtly withdraw.
I was looking for a simple Thanksgiving Day quote. I found more than just that.
I thought I would search to see what Mark Twain had to say about Thanksgiving and American eating habits. Some of my favorite quotes are from Mark Twain’s writings.
Twain has been when of my favorites for some time now. He is a humorist and a satirist (a good combination in my view of things). His writings make me laugh. They sometimes make me sad. Above all, his words make me think and give me a desire to learn more.
In a 1905 New York World Sunday Magazine article titled A Thanksgiving Sentiment, reporter W. O. Inglis asks a simple question of the 70-year-old Twain: “How do you keep so well?”
Twain explains that he had not been well until lately because of “attacks of acute indigestion,” which he had discovered were the result of his “habit, of thirty years’ standing, of eating only one meal a day.”
Twain’s solution? “Three small meals a day, sometimes four, made a wonderful change. The indigestion and the pangs disappeared.”
Twain continues by saying, “Perhaps we Americans eat too much. If we do, I am convinced that the proper cure lies in dividing the food supply into several small meals a day rather than in overloading the digestive machinery at one fell swoop.”
“Aha!” I thought. “I have my quote for the blog.”
I thought that would be all that I would be posting here tonight. But there is more to the article than a simple funny statement from Twain. There is an admonishment. A challenge. A part of history that I was not aware of. A realization that history has repeated and that we have not yet learned from our mistakes.
From King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild:
“I myself knew almost nothing about the history of the Congo until a few years ago, when I noticed a footnote in a book I was reading. Often when you come across something particularly striking, you remember just where you were when you read it. On this occasion I was sitting, stiff and tired, late at night, in one of the far rear seats of an airliner crossing the United States from east to west.
“The footnote was to a quotation from Mark Twain. Twain had made this comment, the note said, when he was part of the worldwide movement against slave labor in the Congo, a system that had taken at least five to eight million lives. Worldwide movement? Five to eight million lives? I was startled.”
Read A Thanksgiving Sentiment and let me know what you think.
I am thankful for knowledge. For wisdom. For history.
Excerpts from Thankful
By Caedmon’s Call
I am thankful that I’m incapable
Of doing any good on my own
‘Cause we’re all stillborn and dead in our transgressions
We’re shackled up to the sin we hold so dear
So what part can I play in the work of redemption
I can’t refuse, I cannot add a thing
……………….
I am thankful that I’m incapable
Of doing any good on my own
I’m so thankful that I’m incapable
Of doing any good on my own
These lyrics are written by Derek Webb, formerly of Caedmon’s Call, who has embarked on a solo project with the release of his debut album She Must and Shall Go Free in March 2003. I just downloaded the song Wedding Dress from grassrootsmusic.com. I believe this is the only song I have ever heard about Ezekiel 16. Brilliant and wonderful. I thank God for songwriters.
My friend Curt of The Happy Husband as a great post today called Anything in the world.
I have a minor supporting role in the story as “roommate.”
Whatever happened to the flag?? You know, after all of the TV shows were done at the end of the night, there was a flag. And some patriotic music.
Now, there’s just the AbFlex or the Abdominizer or whatever it is that they are selling these days.
I hope you have enjoyed my play-by-play of tonight’s television viewing. Sorry the selection wasn’t greater. I only have seven channels.
NightLine is talking about lists tonight. Watch lists on campuses.
One of the college professors from my old journalism school is on the program and the list. Professor Robert Jensen has some interesting comments about being placed on the watch list.
I never had him as a professor. I wish I had. When I was in college, I would have disagreed with him in so many ways. It would have been fun.
I’m over on PBS now and watching a show about the world’s longest-burning lightbulb. Part of the Independent Lens series. Actually, the show is about Livermore, California where the lightbulb resides in the local firehouse.
The citizens of Livermore are currently singing Happy Birthday to a lightbulb. They would get along rather well with the folks in Peachwater.
See the bulb for yourself on the Bulb Cam. You can even sing Happy Birthday to it if you like.
OK, now they are just talking funny… the word “rodeo” is being pronounced “row-day-oh” instead of “roh-dee-oh”. Silly people. That sort of funny talk just doesn’t go over well in Peachwater.
I got to watch 24 on Fox. It’s not as good as the first season. But it is better than American Idols singing Christmas carols. Keifer Sutherland didn’t even utter a single holiday note.
For some reason, I am now watching commercials on Univision. But I don’t speak Spanish much less understand it.
