From the mailbag...

Well, I don't have the massive inbox of Bill Simmons, but I am trying to respond at least to emails and letters as they come in.
This week's letter is from E, whose younger siblings all sent me letters earlier:

Dear (me),
How are you? How is life wherever you are? I am good. I sprained my wrist a couple of weeks ago and now I have to go to physical therapy. It's not so bad though because I get to miss 45 minutes of school every week. Have you met any nice people. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo [I just approximated the number of O's] ready for the summer! School ends in about 3 weeks and the I AM DONE WITH THE LOWER SCHOOL. YAY! I am sort of worried about going to the upper school because my friend, who is in the 7th grade said it is really hard, how was the upper school for you? I can't wait for camp this summer. I also can't wait to go to England this summer and Norway. What is your job in the army and what has been your greatest experience yet? We all miss you a lot. I hope you are well and continue to be.

From,
E

Well, E, I hope your wrist is feeling better. I chipped a bone in my wrist once, but instead of treatment and therapy, my mom made me go to tennis camp for a month. Ask her about it.
I am serious when I say that based on your spelling and your use of punctuation, you are very ready for the seventh grade. It will take a few weeks to adjust to having a different teacher for every subject. There is a little more homework. But it is not that bad. There are now a lot more ways to get involved open to you. Enjoy.
My job in the Air Force is to forecast and track the weather, and to coordinate the efforts of the other forecasters working in our group. My greatest experiences have been making go/no-go calls for important missions and helping find ways to work around areas of bad weather to make missions doable. I am very proud of what I'm doing and feel fortunate to have this opportunity to contribute to this group in particular, but am very much looking forward to being home again.

That letter came in a package that included a Salami, some excellent home-made blondies (they came out like giant thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies), and some goodies from my neighbors, the M's. The M's have two children currently serving in the Navy.
They sent two magazines that I found particularly amusing. One was a magazine about the town of Bethesda. At first I thought it would be silly, but that publication earned my respect with it's top 67 things about the Bethesda, MD area. It included the Billy Goat trail at Great Falls, some of my favorite people watching areas, and Bruce's Variety (if they don't have it, you probably don't need it).
I disagree on the Chris Van Hollen decision, but, to be fair, he does seem to be more visible than Connie Morella was. Maybe I pay more attention now.
Which brings me to the other funny thing I found. If you know my parents, then you'll understand my shock at seeing a copy of the Weekly Standard in the box. Then I noticed the address label was for the M's, and I figured it out, but it was still funny.
Incidentally, it was the first time I've read an issue cover to cover. Interesting. While reading it I was reminded that one of our friends who used to live down the street from us but now lives in NYC teased my mom that I'll be a Republican. I liked Frederick Kagan's editorial, though it devolved into an emotional argument that mostly preached to the choir, and the analysis of the dissapearance of leftist hawks was interesting.
As a whole though, I'm not about to subscribe to it. I still prefer the Economist. Not for the editorial stance, but the variety, total world coverage, and the humor.
I still refuse to identify myself with either major party. I think the Republicans did a terrible job of governance when in control and it took a shamefully short amount to time for the absolute power to corrupt their ideals. The modern incarnation of the Best and the Brightest spent did a great job recognizing the confict as a global counterinsurgency and then proceeded to spend the next fiver years screwing it up. We're fixing it, but we disregarded many years of lessons learned in blood due to arrogance and overconfidence in the magic of technology.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are united in deciding that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq. I got furious at some forecasters for creating an excellent forecast for weather that happened two days before, but was irrelevant to the coming day's events. Imagine how I feel about a party that is proactively addressing a moot point of a policy issue from 2002.

I'm waiting for a candidate to convince me not to write in Barry Goldwater's name.

That is all for my mini-rant. I look forward to any comments on it.

I'd post the link here, but this computer is being annoying. If you go to www.af.mil or probably www.hurlburt.af.mil, there is a story on the dedication of the Special Tactics Advanced Skills Training Center. What impressed me about the story was the involvement of the families of the Airmen to which the center is dedicated. I know it is not completely unique to the Special Operations community, but it is important that the families are still regarded as important members of the community.
I remember reading about each of the people when they were killed. I ran along the road now named for Senior Airman Servais when I was at Hurlburt. I watched them build that center. Their memories will be an inspiration when I go to the center for training myself in the future.

I joked about it before I left, but I now really will come home to one more pet than when I left. Sparta, a stray kitten so named because she spent the winter barefoot in the snow, is pretty much adopted and living in the house. Bonnie and Clyde have adjusted better than expected.

I know this is a long post, but it's been a few days since I've had access to a working computer.