Octopodial Chrome

There are no more known American veterans of the Great War: Frank Buckles, sometime corporal in the United States Army, has passed away. My dad has told us how when he was a boy World War One veterans were grandparents; I have in my possession a picture of my great-grandfather (an artillery officer in that conflict) with my grandfather, dad & me when I was roughly a year old. And now there are none left at all.

Makes one wonder how long until the last WWII vet passes away—and that was practically yesterday!

Josh Levs meditates on the experience of (accidentally) delivering his son. My only real critique of the piece—moving as it is—is that it’s awfully self-centered: unless I missed something, neither his wife nor either of his sons is named; in fact, the only proper name in the entire piece is Daddy. That’s a bit unfortunate in a father.

OTOH, perhaps it was intentional, meant to make the experience more generic and relatable to the reader.

A retired Ghurka fought 40 robbers on a train, armed with nothing but his kukhri. He killed three, wounded eight and drove off the rest.

I learnt this much from my study of the Western Front: Ghurkas rock.

This is pretty cool: one of the White House is a homebrewer, and so the President’s Superbowl party featured homebrewed ale.