This Week's Triple Planet Conjunction

Our Internet friends at Spaceweather alerted us to the spectacular planetary triangle now forming on the western horizon at sunset. Here's your chance to see Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury emerging out of the twilight. The best triangle occurs on May 26. Venus and Jupiter pair up only one degree apart on May 29. This NASA video shows you what to expect:

You can follow the story here at Spaceweather. Expect that site to post some fine photographs and videos of the event over the week.

Don't Be Cowed - Words Will Never Hurt You

John V. Fleming has an entertaining post on the evolution of language at his blog, Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche. As my title says, don't let the subject lead you to think this is another heavy discourse from just another college prof. No way, for Fleming will have you smiling in no time. Then the ahas start to flow.

If only all of our  formal learning could be this enjoyable!

"I'm Waiting For The Second Coming ... Of John Dean"

Those who remember Watergate know that the story smoked for a long time until it reached the flash point known as John Dean. Once linked to the Watergate crime, he was the insider who did "the right thing" by cooperating with prosecutors thus helping to bring down Richard Nixon. President Nixon had been cultivating the attribute "tricky" since 1950. Fast forward to the unpleasantness surrounding the White House today and we have this from psychiatrist, Jory Goodman:

Notwithstanding the political bent, or bent politics of the MSM, Fox, talk radio, the internet and Drudge, most of what we have now is speculative and circumstantial. So I await the second coming. Will it happen? That's an absolute maybe. But, I'll betcha, among Benghazi, the IRS, Justice, the White House, et. al., there are many people who know the truth and can prove what they know. Will there be one, or a few, with the the cojones to come out, for any of the above reasons, or others (maybe just because they know right from wrong and care about America), and take the savage attacks and accusations they will face?

Thanks to William Katz/Urgent Agenda we have his always astute commentary as well as a link to the rest of Goodman's brief but powerful statement on tipping points and the cost of moral behavior in a hostile world.

New Thoughts About An Old Airplane And New Wings Over The World

My son called me from Yemen today. His journey there was neither the best nor worst of trips, but was a bit of a challenge given a series of weird layovers. His assignment is fresh and I am left with few questions other than asking about his trip. After some years of this routine, we talk about hotels, cabs and restaurants, but mostly we talk about the airplanes. There will be more news later. I would be much happier having him living in Prague. For one thing, my wife and I would have a place to stay while we visited a new world.

Today's conversation brought to mind a much earlier post about our mutual admiration for heavier-than-air, controlled, powered flight presented in its finest engineered aesthetic, the Boeing 307 Stratoliner:

Airplanes have fascinated me almost from birth. If you read my Fall Tradition entry in October, you know I had the good fortune to spend my childhood summer vacations and frequent weekends next to a small airport. I'm happy to report that the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. Unexpectedly last week, my son called me from the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport during his company's Christmas party. He said he was standing next to a gleaming gem of an aircraft from the 1930s. He thought I would like to hear about it. The aircraft was the Boeing 307 Stratoliner, Pan American Clipper Flying Cloud, the only surviving example of the world's first pressurized commercial airliner.

Indeed, the 307 is a beauty. Thanks to photographer, Kaszeta, and Wikipedia Commons, we can enjoy this shot of the glittering Clipper in her exhibit mode. The aircraft went into service in 1940. Built on a B-17 airframe, only ten commercial aircraft came off the line before World War II ended production.

My son had no way of knowing that I knew this aircraft, inspected her in numerous walk arounds, visited the cockpit, and had a lengthy tour of every inch of her stunning art deco interior. It was 2003, and I was in Oshkosh at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture, the world's largest fly-in. I visited Pan Am Clipper Flying Cloud every day for a week. When I watched her lift off the runway to begin her final trip to Dulles Airport, it felt like a summer love had come to an end.

When I realized which aircraft had my son's attention, I got a big lump in my throat, maybe even teared-up a bit. It was for two reasons. First, he shares his father's appreciation for the flying machine. Second, he has a rare eye for the engineered aesthetic. There are scores of aircraft - unique, record-breaking, historic - in that center and he called me about the one I knew well and admired, perhaps loved. There was a time when I would have analyzed a call like that at great length. These days, I smile and let the moment embrace me. Good apples!

In my humble opinion, the Super Constellation is the only aircraft to give the 307 some competition in the world of commercial aviation. My son has suggested I need to look harder these days. Seems some airlines are restoring luxury to the skies, especially in the Middle East and the Pacific. What goes around comes around.

The bulk of this post was first published in October 2008.

College Lacrosse Championship 2013

With the first round of Division 1 play behind us, the pursuit of the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship 2013 continues this Saturday (May 18) when Ohio State faces Cornell at 12:30 pm and Syracuse plays Yale at 3:00 pm.  Watch the games on ESPN2 and WatchESPN. The next day, North Carolina squares off against Denver at 12:30 pm and Duke takes on Notre Dame at 3:00 pm. Watch these games on ESPNU and WatchESPN. The winners play in the semifinals on Saturday, May 25 at 2:30 pm and 5:00 pm.  These games are broadcast on ESPN2 and WatchESPN. The championship follows on Memorial Day, Monday, May 27 at 1:00 pm. The championship is available on ESPN.  All times are Eastern.  

From all indications, lacrosse continues to be the fastest growing sport in the United States, even outpacing soccer, in my opinion a much slower more restrictive and far less entertaining sport. Just thirty years ago, the game was a virtually exclusive sport still heavily anchored in the Ivy League and in the prep schools that supplied them with players. Today, there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the flyover country. Each year that number grows by one or two teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the middle and high school levels is much greater. There is a fine future in store for lacrosse.

Unfortunately, my beloved Maryland Terps will not be in contention this year, but I'll still be entertained by this native American sport descended from our "first" inhabitants. If you like fast and continuous action, high skills, and team play this sport will not disappoint whether you are on the field or in the stands. Check it out.

The Job - Is It Time To View Work As A Human Right?

Engraving encouraging industry                                                      English, 1749

When a man sat at his loom in 17th century England, he wasn't too worried about having a job and a life, meager as they may have been, because he owned his craft and the labor of his hands. Move forward a hundred years and the weaver's life was, as with the political revolutions of that age, a world turned upside down. His worth was no longer in the cloth he made but in the labor of his hands. His pay no longer came directly from the buyer but from the merchant who bought his labor.

For the worker the Industrial Revolution brought both hardship and liberation in the wave of romanticism that swept across the early 19th century West.  By the end of that century the new freedom and sense of selfhood had redefined citizenship and statehood. The United States, a constitutional republic, was identified more as a democracy.  Our weaver's descendants more often than not found themselves on our teeming shore and organized into the earliest labor unions. Those unions would have their greatest national influence  in the first half of the 20th century.

Today, as unions continue their slow decline, the battleground has shifted from the conditions and benefits derived from the work to the work itself. There's no question a discussion about the current economy will end in a discussion about jobs and the origin of jobs. Work has never been a human right, but has the time arrived philosophically to think in those terms?  After all we've come a long way from Marx and Engels. Walter Russell Mead explores this question in his blog at The American Interest.

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Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.

Spring Is Here

What better way to start a weekend than some neat jazz - neither cold nor hot and nothing added. Today, who knows about Bill Evans and his trio, his pain, and his brilliance? Are we too busy to look back a generation and experience one of the finest jazz pianists ever? If we are to have anything to say today, musically or otherwise, we have to stop talking and listen.