Today at the Editor’s glance: On a day in 1972 when 101 people died and 75 survived the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crash of an L-1011 in the Florida Everglades, Nixon finally calls off one of America’s major war crimes–“a public relations mass murder from the sky,” as Christopher Hitchens described it–the Christmas bombing on and around Hanoi in North Vietnam. “Beginning on December 18, American B-52s and fighter-bombers dropped over 20,000 tons of bombs on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The United States lost 15 of its giant B-52s and 11 other aircraft during the attacks. North Vietnam claimed that over 1,600 civilians were killed,” history.com writes. “The bombings continued until December 29, at which time the North Vietnamese agreed to resume the talks.” The BBC notes that “some claim the assault may have helped bring about the deal signed a month later that led to an end to US involvement in the war,” though as the Pentagon papers proved, the military knew the war was lost in the mid-1960s, when hawks from LBJ to Ronald Reagan were fantasizing about na different outcome, and the terms of peace finally signed in 1973 were identical to those LBJ was ready to sign in 1968, before Nixon torpedoed the plan. In a 1965 speech, Reagan said: “It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.” When Henry Kissinger called up Saturday Night Live to get tickets for his son, Al Franken grabbed the phone and yelled, “You know, if it hadn’t been for the Christmas bombing in Cambodia, you could’ve had your fucking tickets!” (Franken’s geography was a bit off, but not nearly as off as Reagan’s morals. And the crime of the American bombing of Cambodia was as immoral as the Hanoi bombings.)
Now this:
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July 2025
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Al-Anon Family Groups
Flagler County Library Board of Trustees
Nar-Anon Family Group
Bunnell City Commission Meeting
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Food Truck Tuesday
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
For the full calendar, go here.
“This is the only one of all the confessions I made that I can remember almost verbatim. I knelt down in the confessional trembling with fear, “Father, I have committed a sin of impurity.” “How many times?” Three times, five times, I have forgotten the exact figure. “Was it with a boy?” This question startled me. “Oh, no, father.” “Was it with yourself or with another girl?” “Both, father.” The priest made a noise that sounded like a click of satisfaction. Then he settled back to draw out of me the details of what I had done, but I was so mortified that my admissions came very slowly. I had been looking up words like “breast” in the big school dictionary and in a medical book at home and discussing them with my fellow pupils. “You looked up these words in a book, you say, and talked to other girls about them?” “Yes, father.” “Is that all?” His voice sounded positively indignant. “Yes, father.” “You mean to tell me that this is your only sin of impurity?” “Yes.” Before I knew it, he had pronounced absolution, and the door of the confessional grate was shut almost with a bang, as though I had been imposing on his valuable time. This experience mystified and annoyed me; all through his sermon he had been dwelling on the terrible offense given to God by an impure thought. And what was it that he supposed I might have done with a boy? Or with myself or another girl, beyond what I had confessed ? My curiosity was awakened.”
–From “Memories of a Catholic Girlhood,” by Mary McCarthy (1957).
Jim says
“I love the poorly educated” – dt