John Mollison is an artist with a unique calling. To quote his website, he
interview[s] old guys and draw[s] their airplanes.
And he does a fine job of it. His website contains much of his work, including his current project.
His site also contains some unique historical artifacts. Notably, he has Read more
Last Friday Michael Weinstein sponsored a protest/picketing a few miles from one of the US Air Force Academy entrance gates. Ostensibly, the objective was to make USAFA pull down a link to a website Weinstein had called “homophobic” and “misogynistic.” This protest and the accompanying billboard (now a trend) were apparently the “action” he had ominously threatened.
The protest misfired on several counts, though the most entertaining by far was Read more
In 2010, Michael Weinstein took a small hit to the salary he pays himself from “charitable donations” to his Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He appears to have made up for that in 2011, the most recent year for which his financial data has become available. (Weinstein, who keeps the books himself, didn’t report his 2011 finances until November 2012.)
In 2011, the MRFF increased its income by more than $150,000 (which included a $15,800 grant from the United Way of New Mexico, $110,000 in cash from the Rockefeller Family Fund, and $20,000 from the Aspen Community Foundation). Weinstein’s compensation increased by just under $35,000, or about a quarter of the new donations, to just over $250,000 after taxes. That brings Weinstein’s pay to just over 36% of everything donated to his “charity.” Despite forlorn (and misleading) cries by his “research director,” Chris Rodda, that Read more
The Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mark Ferguson will be the “key note speaker” at the annual conference for the Jewish Welfare Board in April:
The theme of training will be Jewish Chaplains and Lay Leaders: Spiritual Resilience in Times of Transition. These courses will include distinct training tracks for chaplains and lay Read more
Warning: This official US Navy photo may be considered offensive in some US Air Force units…
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenneth Abbate
An official DoD article notes the continuing tradition of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders taking part in USO tours:
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have partnered with the USO for the last 34 years…
Two cheerleaders…[are] currently on a USO overseas Read more
Retired Col Lee Ellis, whose outstanding book Leading with Honor made the Recommended list here as well as General Mark Welsh’s professional reading list, recently addressed cadets at the US Air Force Academy as part of the 2013 National Character and Leadership Symposium.
A prisoner of war held in the “Hanoi Hilton” for five and a half years shared his compelling story of imprisonment and success with cadets…
Retired Col. Lee Ellis was held captive along with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others after his plane was shot down Nov. 7, 1967.
Col Ellis shared his perspective on purpose, passion, Read more
Dover Air Force Base, most famously known for its service as the military’s “port mortuary,” dedicated a new chapel facility at the end of February:
A meditation pavilion is among its amenities, said Chaplain Lt. Col. Dennis Saucier. Those families can also make use of the new chapel, which has 20 pews stocked with hymnals and the Holy Bible, an altar, a wood-paneled reredos and tall, stained glass windows featuring four white doves in flight.
The chapel center also has an “all faiths” room, a neutral Read more
If you’re not the “right kind” of Christian while you serve in the US military, it seems Michael Weinstein — frequent critic of religious freedom in the US military — really doesn’t like you so much — and he apparently wants the government to come after you [formatting original]:
The forced imposition of fundamentalist Christianity throughout our American armed forces is the perpetual “flavor of the day,” and has been for decades [sic]…
[There is] continual, systemic proselytizing among United States military personnel. This brainwashing results in widespread, brutal stigmatizing of those opposed or indifferent to fundamentalist Christian doctrine–a savage trampling of their Constitutional rights!…
How…does allowing this utterly reprehensible nonsense to continue not produce a greater threat than the handful of neo-Nazis still Read more