Category Archives: Heroes, Comrades and Brothers

Kavanaugh!

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Alaska

Currently puffing a celebratory Undercrown Maduro and sipping some of my precious stash of Elmer T. Lee. It’s been 25 years since I saw the lonely flyer tacked up in a back hallway of UC Davis Law School, plaintively calling … Continue reading →

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel!, The Government is Not Your Friend | 2 Comments

Saving Western Civilization, One Mind at a Time

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Alaska

I’ve mentioned my high-school choir teacher David Pool once or twice before; a Juilliard grad, he was known for taking insecure nerds, geeks and social outcasts and turning them into self-confident young men and women, starting by treating us first … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | 1 Comment

7mm Dakota Specialty Pistol Article [Images restored March 2021!]

Posted on April 8, 2018 by Alaska

Who can argue with a 600-plus-yard pistol for elk? (And yes, I know about Elmer Keith and his .44 Magnum as a long-range elk gun. You and I are not Elmer Keith, and this is not about that.) Ages ago … Continue reading →

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | Leave a comment

Orville Bierkle’s War Diary

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Alaska

Somehow it seems I haven’t posted a direct link to Sergeant Orville A. Bierkle’s Korean War diary here — thought I had, but can’t find any such post. So here is the link. If I can figure out how to … Continue reading →

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | Leave a comment

L’Estro Armonico (and, tangentially, Gene Simmons)

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Alaska

Nowadays you can find even obscure pieces of classical music but a click away on YouTube (such as the Wolf’s Glen scene from Weber’s Der Freischuetz, I mean, that’s amazing really).   In the past, music majors such as my … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | Leave a comment

RIP Stephen Hawking

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Alaska

Steve Hsu has a nice post about Hawking, with good links to Roger Penrose’s obit and some reminiscences of Hsu’s personal encounters with the great man and his staff. (How many people can say they’ve carried Stephen Hawking?) Hsu recalls … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 2 Comments

Rest in Peace, Connie du Toit

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Alaska

via Traction Control: Connie du Toit, beloved wife of Kim du Toit, passed away this afternoon. Readers may recall Kim’s blog introduced me to the concept and importance of the American Rifleman, and inspired me to travel more than a … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 3 Comments

RNS Quote of The Day, 01/02/17 — Vice Edition

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Alaska

(He had done, he liked to say, all the vices.) —Larissa MacFarquhar, describing philosopher Bernard Williams in her endlessly-delightful New Yorker article on the late Derek Parfit, “How to Be Good.” I find her prose, BTW, to be both astonishing … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | Leave a comment

Stephen Hsu and Some Guy Who Played Bongos

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Alaska

To some of us, this photo has the same emotional resonance as the one of Bill Clinton shaking JFK’s hand had to a very different tribe: I still try to reread Feynman’s QED every year. You should too.  

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel!, Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Ray Carter

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Phil Kadath

I didn’t know Ray well. Heck, I’d only met him a handful of times. But he was a good guy. I first met him during the fight to keep the city government of Seattle from banning concealed carry on city … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 3 Comments