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National Vietnam Veterans Day!

Dear Alleged Editor & [Actual] Vietnam War Veteran, I just learned that today (March 29th) is National Vietnam Veterans Day. According to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Facebook page: “Today, on National Vietnam War Veterans Day, we honor the strength, service, and sacrifice of Vietnam veterans and their families. Their stories are etched into the landscapes we protect, places of memory, reflection, and healing.” I just now looked out my window, but I don’t see any stories etched in the landscape around here. Moreover, I looked it up, and unless I want to go find a Mission BBQ restaurant, where they will give me a …

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How’s That Cross of Iron Treatin’ Ya?

What a difference a fortnight can make. As this one began we had to decide: should we start working on the next newspaper, or just write a will? Admittedly, when it comes to assessing threat levels in various situations, our worst-case scenarios may be particularly vivid. That can happen when your prefrontal cortex matures under circumstances in which continued existence is clearly a matter of chance. We would argue, though, that our sense of looming dread was hardly without foundation. Thousands of Marines were already in the Gulf. More were on their way. The 82nd Airborne got orders to join them. What the future might …

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Volume 270, No. 15

This fortnight’s rant looks at our current Crusade. One might hope that with a half-century of perspective on Vietnam, 35 years on Bush père’s Grand Adventure, not to mention Bush fils’ debacles, one might have hoped that this could have been avoided. But to entertain that hope, one would have to have been an idiot. This notable absence of coherence in current events, however, did not prevent us from publishing. To read our latest issue, just give this link a click.

Fri, April 3

2014—Sen. Jerry Moran [R-Kan.], whose top contributor is Koch Industries, reads into the Congressional Record a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which Charles Koch defends his right to spend millions buying elections. 2004—Asked to name his biggest mistake, George W.[MD] Bush is unable to supply an answer. 1996—Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski is arrested in his Montana cabin. 1974—Hit by 148 tornadoes, 13 states lose 315 people; 5,484 are injured. 1973—The first mobile phone call is made, on a 2.4 lb. device, by a Motorola employee to a rival at AT&T. 1968—“I may not get there with you,” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. says, to Memphis sanitation …

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Thurs, April 2

2025—Liberation Day! Americans get a bunch of new tariffs taxes! 2014—In McCutcheon, SCOTUS makes sure rich folks have more electoral influence than mere proles. 1982—Hours after the Falklands invasion, UN Amb. Jeanne Kirkpatrick dines at the Argentine embassy. 1974—Governor Ronald Reagan’s former speechwriter Robert Opel streaks the 46th Oscars ceremony. 1969—President Dwight D. Eisenhower is buried in an $80 G.I. coffin. 1963—Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a voter registration drive in Birmingham, Ala. Police Chief “Bull” Connor responds with dogs and fire hoses. 1958—San Francisco columnist Herb Caen introduces his readers and the world to the term “beatnik.” 1942—Three soldiers, two black and one white, …

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Wed, April 1

2013—In Portsmouth Harbor, the tanker Harbour Feature allides with the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge. 2004—Britain declassifies “Blue Peacock,” a 1957 plan to bury nukes in Germany with live chickens keeping the electronics warm. [No, this isn’t a joke.] 2003—Bush administration propagandists claim Special Forces have “rescued” PFC Jessica Lynch. It’s a lie. 1994—Steve Bannon, accompanied by federal marshals, arrives via limo to manage Biosphere 2, an ecological experiment in the Arizona desert. A break-in, lawsuits, and failure ensue. 1982—Top suits at Exxon get a memo saying that use of their oil was jacking up CO2 in the atmosphere, which might irreversibly damage the climate. 1974—Sitka, …

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