Just Show Up

This had to be one of the prettiest mornings of my life.



Don Brown
July 17, 2014

Fate and Fear

I had no idea Lockerbie, Scotland was along our route through the United Kingdom. It felt like fate to find it. Not a good fate. But fate nevertheless.

When you're younger (or at least when I was younger) you don't dwell on the enormity of a disaster like Pan Am 103. You don't realize the enormity of losing a parent, much less a son or a daughter. You recognize that it's a horror. But you don't know the full weight of it.

The town of Lockerbie has done a good job of dealing with it. The Garden of Remembrance is a beautiful place, in a beautiful land. Hopefully fate will be kinder to the town in the future. The fear should stay to keep us vigilant. Hopefully a distant memory. But a memory still.



Don Brown
July 6, 2014

A Post From Afar

Fate reaches across the ocean. My friend that I'm touring the United Kingdom with has family in Brechin, Scotland. Brechin is the home of Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt -- the man that oversaw the creation of the Chain Home at the start of World War II. You can read on your own, but, in short, he's the inventor of the modern radar system. The town has just erected a new statue of him.



I guess it's appropriate that the sky was overcast.

Don Brown
July 6, 2014

In Good Hands

Let's face it: I don't get to write like I used to. Part of that is that I'm no longer a Subject Matter Expert (God help me -- FAAisms still infect my brain). Air Traffic Control moves on and I am left further and further behind.

But for these last few days, I have been forcing myself to catch up on Krugman. And then, this morning, while I was trying to find a piece from Fareed Zakaria, I got lost on James Fallows' page for an hour. Or two. I was really struck by this one. Find me another author with an audience this bright, willing to debate in civil language, and I'll give them a read. I'm sure there actually are others. Just as I am sure we all don't have the time to read them all. We have to choose. And the older I get, the more I realize how important the choice of whom we give our limited time to is.

Which is what inspired me to write this. Looking back, I'm proud of the choices I have presented to you. Paul Krugman. James Fallows. Robert Reich. I think each has held up well over these years we've spent together. Looking over my blog, I see that I will have to update it. (Big DUH.) Podcasts have become my main media these days. I can't read as I walk and take pictures but I can listen. Rachel Maddow and Kai Ryssdal's MarketPlace are a daily routine now. Bill Moyers' podcast is becoming almost a weekly spiritual ritual. All I can say is he appeals to our better nature. There are many others but these are the best.

By the way, here's the segment on Farred Zakaria's Global Public Square I was searching for.



In closing, I'll remind you that in the archives here at Get the Flick is a review of the book "A Peace to End All Peace" about how the borders of the Middle East were set after World War I, a review of James Fallows' "Blind Into Baghdad" detailing our foolish rush to war and a review of Thomas Ricks' book "Fiasco" about the disastrous implementation of our foolish policy. The disaster of our involvement in Iraq didn't "just happen", it wasn't fate and don't let anyone tell you that no one saw it coming. It was a choice. A bad one.

Choose the voices you allow in your head wisely.

Don Brown
June 21, 2014

Add A Little Heat

A really nice sunrise this morning. This was only the start.



Don Brown
June 7, 2014

Still My First Love

Rodeo is fun but my heart still belongs to the sky.



Don Brown
June 5, 2014

Rodeo Addiction

This might get out of hand.



Don Brown
May 31, 2014

Sound Familiar?

A fellow controller put this on Facebook -- an episode of Frontline that was filmed in ZTL, A80 and ATL. I'd almost forgotten about it and can't understand why I've never put it up before. Then I remember: I'm old. And this happened a long time before YouTube, blogs and Facebook.

Yes, I know virtually everyone you see in the Atlanta Center sequences.

Anyone indelicate enough to mention hairstyles or clothing will be reminded of how thin we all looked.



Don Brown
May 28, 2014