Memorial Wings

It's a quiet Monday here in Los Angeles, with most of the city relaxing over one more barbecue with friends.

Or it would be quiet if there weren't the periodic drone of old piston-driven props overhead, as a squadron of WWII-era dive bombers or T-6 trainers make the Memorial Day requisite fly-by of military machinery.

Something about an old plane pleases me more than seeing a B-2 sneak its stealthy (but not that quiet) way overheard, but I still wonder why we have to beat the drum.

After all, this day is meant to remember the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in our wars - and the sacrifices made by their families, friends, and of the greater societies to which they belonged.  When one of our young men and women die in service, a ripple effect alters many lives.

It is that importance of every life and the dearness of the sacrificing of those lives that we should be honoring and remembering today, not the glorification of the wars and war machinery that took those lives away.

April Stumbles into May

A touch of rain... barely; then a foreshadowing blast of high Summer heat borne on the Santa Ana winds, then breezy cooling from the always chilly-'round-here Pacific.

That was how April saw us into May here in Los Angeles.

Or, at least that's how my memory pieces the time together. If I am getting it a little wrong, I should be forgiven. I had other things to think about: family mostly, with all the usual cares that parenthood brings, and work (and there's never been a time I've felt more grateful to be saying that), but also 'World Events'.

'World Events' is quite a bucketful of topics these days, right?  Russia dining on the Ukraine like a colossal mutant housefly dines on a lump of sugar. Syria - merging into the news background while Russia holds the stage, quietly (to us) continuing to destroy itself as the World watches nervously.  Our long-term houseguest Afghanistan keeps vomiting on our carpet but we can't seem to get him out the door, while our ex-roomie Iraq seems bent on erasing the meager few hopeful things we left for him to remember us.

And what would 'World Events' be without another Middle East Peace Snafu as part of the mix?  Just when Mr. Kerry is doing what passes as his best to reboot the reboot of the 'peace process', the Palestinian factions decide to kiss and make up, bringing in a partner Israel just can't get jiggy with.  Where it all goes from here is heartbreakingly predictable, and I'm beginning to think there is no real will on either side to find a solution that doesn't include either the utter annihilation or essential subjugation of one of the sides.  The impasse seems so very deep and wide that not even the ghost of Evel Kneivel on a winged and turbocharged Hayabusa could jump it.

But not even these weighty matters could overshadow the momentous news that Stephen Colbert was going to replace David Letterman on the Late Show.

When that news hit I found out by the flurry of texts I received from my wife.  She is all for it.  Me, I'm a little down since I've come to see the Colbert Report as one of the two non-sports shows I'd continue to watch even if it was broadcast by vampires and cost me a pint of blood per episode.  The change feels like an abandonment to me, and I fear the Late Show format will lobotomize the remnants of the Colbert character we've all come to love and laugh with.

In any case, April is over and we are stumbling through May.  There weren't enough April showers here to bring a real bloom of May flowers, but we can all hope this month will be chill enough to cool the heads of the World's decision makers, and we can make it into June with a little less worry and a touch more optimism.