I just got back from the dentist and I can't feel my upper lip at all.

A confrontation between

a pack of Seriously Serious You Guys cyclists protecting vets at the vet memorial

and

On the radio, first thing this morning, I heard our better Senator, Jim Inhofe, saying something to the effect that folks 'round these parts don't have much problem with the Federal shutdown, and i

Uncle Ed had marched across Europe, and was poised for the invasion of Japan in the summer of '45. He wrote it up in a private book.

Good post, good discussion. Can't add my 2c worthily from the cell, but I appreciated how the comments wove back through boomers, post-WW2,WW2, WW1, roaring 20s, into the 19th Century.

300th??

Mindlessly passingby again. Which wiseacre put these watercress sandwiches on the buffet?

"Not many of these guys left." After Mrs Ww and I watched the Chicago one (I won't re-post it; YouTube zSF0S50c9c0), we were noting the same thing, the all-too-rapidly dwindling numbers, all those wheelchairs & canes, and I recalled, when we were children, there were still a few Civil War vets alive.

Measured by short human lifespans, WW2 or the Civil War especially were a long time ago, but I remember, as a kid reading war comics, being impressed by how WW2 had only ended so few years back. Europe was still rebuilding! Lots of modern folks have a perspective about as long as the last TV season, if that, but I think we ought to have the perspective that the Cold War, the World Wars, historically, they just happened. The dangers are not long ago and far away. They're still here and now.

I've watched this three times now, and I just can't keep from getting all teary. Why try?

http://youtu.be/FgecqttxoQg

Of all the horrors of war and national division during my high school and college years, over Viet Nam and the Draft and all, one of the most lingering, sickening memories was the abuse heaped on returning soldiers. It's hard to convey to my kids, it's so unbelievable. I wasn't clear about all the issues (in an era when our main source of information was Walter Cronkite), but I was always clear on this: It didn't matter what you thought about the war or politics or the draft, these returning men and women deserved congratulations, thanks, and to be given good jobs, and they got spit, derision, and ostracism.

That abominable history just makes scenes like this all the more sweet to watch, though.

Years ago, in Chicago, we sometimes visited Toguri's, a Japanese import shop owned and operated by one of the so-called "Tokyo Roses."