Loss of Tradition

I cruised over to Tailhook Daily today just to catch up on the latest Naval Aviation news and saw something that sort of disturbed me. Congress wants to name the next aircraft carrier the USS Barry Goldwater. I don’t know who Barry Goldwater is, but I’m assuming he isn’t that important.

I’ve been on two CVN’s, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and I don’t remember the other one. I always wondered why the naming system has sort of bugged me and the Tailhook guys actually put it in words.

There is a petition to restore the glory in the naming of aircraft carriers back to traditional means: victorious battles (USS Midway or long standing names (like the USS Enterprise).

A New “New Deal”

It has been 76 years since FDR started his New Deal. Truthfully, I have no idea what is fully covered in the stimulus plan, but I drive around all over and things are in shambles. I’m not talking about people losing houses, that plain sucks, but our country’s infrastructure, roads, bridges, highways, are falling apart.

Let’s use some money (what little the country has) and fix the roads and bridges and build more clean energy power plants. I know of a lot of area in Nebraska that could be used for wind farms because it’s a boring place.

I don’t think throwing tons of money into the pockets of companies who don’t need it because of bad decisions is an answer to our problems.

I actually think this New “New Deal” (as I’m calling it) would work. With unemployment the way it is, people would welcome any money they could get and probably do any work that is necessary; unless Americans have become so pompous as to not accept menial tasks even if it means food on the table. If the latter is the case, then there isn’t hope at all.

I’m currently watching CNN and Don Lemon is on and accepting tweets about the stimulus plan. I threw up a tweet in his direction, hoping to get it on the air.