The Green Fields of France

I've recently been working on something about WWI and these seemed appropriate

The Green Fields of France

Bits and Bites

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Put your arms around me honey

2012 watershed kisses

With the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, these are important photos for LGBT visibility in the US military. I don't have anything similar for 2012 in Canada since our history is different. Gays have been able to serve openly since 1992 and the first gay service member to marry was in 2004. The first wedding between two gay military personnel took place at Nova Scotia's Canadian Forces Base Greenwood in 2005.

Dalan Wells (l.) welcomes home his partner Brandon Morgan

U.S. Marine Corps Captain Matthew Phelps (l.) proposes to his partner Ben Schock at the White House

USN 2nd Class Petty Officer Marissa Gaeta (l.) kissing her fiancée, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell

Jonathan Jewell (r.) is greeted with a homecoming kiss from his boyfriend Sean Sutton

I must go down to the seas again

I have this thing about sailors. Perhaps because my family has a history of sea-faring. My grandfather, one uncle and a cousin were all master mariners; others in the family held various positions in the merchant marine. Even my father went to sea - once and only once - as a deck boy when he was 16. Then again, perhaps it's the uniform. Who knows.

All images have full size views. Just click on any one

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

---

John Masefield (1878 - 1967)
Sea Fever

Christmas past

All images have full size views. Just click on any one

A soldier carrying a Christmas tree, 1915

A woman returns home from the market with a Christmas tree, 1895

A Christmas tree in an Edwardian parlour, 1905

A young sailor buys a Christmas tree at a greengrocer's and a young boy
waits in a queue of children to buy some mistletoe, 1918

Source: Vintagephoto on Livejournal

In the midst of chaos

you may find unexpected kindness

Pic of the day

Royal Marines from their calendar

2013 Go Commando Calendar

F-35 Jets. What does the "F" really stand for?

This has been a fiasco for the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. The original cost for 65 jets was set in 2010 at $9 billion over 20 years. That's when it began to unravel.

The parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page estimated the costs would be $30 billion over a life cycle of 30 years because the original costs hadn't included appropriate "sustainment" costs and the lifespan was too short. But the government dismissed his report. Then the Auditor General also called the government on their estimates saying that they would be $25 billion over 25 years, but that life cycle was also too short.

The entire process was revisited by the newly-minted National Fighter Jet Procurement Secretariat who arrived at $44 billion over 42 years as more likely. The audit firm KPMG verified that - sort of. They added another 1 billion for lost aircraft over the life cycle. The cost, including "sustainment", now sits at $45.8 billion over 42 years - for the same number of planes. And that is by no means final.

But those are the Canadian implications. See the link below for the potential broader ones.

So what does the "F" stand for? Fiasco perhaps, but thanks to Stephen Harper and his sidekick Peter MacKay the song that Country Joe and the Fish performed at Woodstock comes to mind - "Give me an f!, Give me a u! . . .

Read Brian Stewart's analysis Super-costly F-35s, a global wrecking ball

Don't leave me, even for an hour

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

---

Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)
No Estés Lejos De Mí Un Solo Día
(translation)

Come a little bit closer

Come a little bit closer, you're my kind of man, so big and so strong.
Come a little bit closer, I'm all alone, and the night is so long.

---

Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart & Wes Farrell
Lyrics from Come a little bit closer

Pic of the day

Then he kissed me

'Tis when the lark goes soaring
And the bee is at the bud,
When lightly dancing zephyrs
Sing over field and flood;
When all sweet things in nature
Seem joyfully achime -
'Tis then I wake my darling,
For it is kissing time!

---

Eugene Field 1850 - 1895
From Kissing Time