Who else but Bill Whittle can so adeptly weave together the early history of commercial aviation, this month’s deadly Chinook crash involving members of SEAL Team Six, the end of the Space Shuttle program, the private space race, the November 2001 crash of American Airlines flight 587 in Queens, and the needless, gut-wrenching destruction of the recent London riots.
Don’t miss “The Deal”, Bill’s latest Afterburner, on PJTV:
I would add one minor adjustment, that I doubt Bill would quibble with: To me, it’s being willing to risk dying for something that’s the key. Excepting one who chooses to embrace certain death as the last and only possible way to save others (as a soldier diving on a grenade, using his body to prevent the deadly spray of shrapnel from killing his comrades-in-arms), in a culture that rightly celebrates and cherishes life, we achieve our ends by embracing risk and seeking to live through danger, not by dying. Dying is just what happens the one time the gamble doesn’t pay off, despite our best reasonable efforts to prevent it short of playing life safe and never daring to venture anything at all (which is an end far worse than dying in the pursuit of a meaningful goal).
Amazon has Ernest Gann’s “Fate is the Hunter” in paperback.
I’d probably have missed this if not for a post on Ricochet:
Hats off to the flying “Dudettes”, and Godspeed to all our troops and airmen, male and female alike, in harm’s way. I’ll just bet our guys on the ground calling in for air support are just a little extra happy to hear their voices. I love how they appreciate the positive effect that has on morale, while at the same time just doing their job the same as other airmen. My kind of feminism. Rock on.
UPDATE 2021-01-29: Thanks to BillWhittle.com member Jack R. for reminding me about the Wayback Machine! Scattered copies of Bill’s essays exist around the web if you search for them by title, but there’s also a complete archive of ejectejecteject.com here.
UPDATE 2016-04-17: As of a while ago, “Eject! Eject! Eject” went completely offline, with no clear word yet from Bill on what happened or if/when its content will be back. Bill’s “Silent America” essays are still available on Amazon in print form, and there is a copy of “You Are Not Alone” here. We’ll have to make do with those for now. Here’s hoping we’ll see the full catalouge of his superb essays republished again. Their insight and ability to uplift are timeless.
Tribes – September 5, 2005 (not part of first print edition)
(ps – Try setting your browser to ISO Latin 1 encoding If, like me, you see ‘?’ placeholder characters where much of the punctuation should be when viewing some of Bill’s essays. For Safari, this is “View” -> “Text Encoding” -> “Western (ISO Latin 1)”. Bill’s site is mis-declaring the content as UTF-8. Oh well. You can’t have everything.)
From previous incarnations of this post:
Bill Whittle’s incisive “Afterburner” PJTV editorials have brought his sharp thinking to a whole new audience, but it was Bill’s brilliant and uplifting writing on the history, character, and spirit of America that I and many others first encountered. Bill’s superb essays — which he published first online at ejectejecteject.com, and later in print under the title “Silent America” — lifted me up when I needed it most, and are far and away some of the very best writing about this precious American civilization of ours that I have had the good fortune of encountering.
Since I often find myself recommending Bill’s “Silent America” essays, and since attempts to do so are bedeviled by the fact that many did not survive Bill’s move from ejectejecteject.com to pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject intact, I’ve compiled a list of them, with links to the ones that made it over. Thankfully, Bill has begun republishing them one by one at his new Pajamas Media address, and I’ve linked to the newly published copies where available. The “Silent America” essays are, in order:
Unfortunately “(broken)” means there’s almost nothing there to read. Most of these essays are truncated after the first few sentences or words. I’ll come back and update these links as each essay is, hopefully, republished. Meanwhile, the previous, “(broken)” links are just for reference.
There is, however, hope! You can buy the complete set of essays in book form on Amazon, which I can almost guarantee you’ll want to do after sampling Bill’s unparalleled wares.
Bill, by the way, can be found on Twitter as @BillWhittle.
UPDATE 2010-09-06: I’m delighted to report that one of Bill’s very finest essays, “Trinity”, is now back online. Don’t miss it. Thanks to reader David B. for sending the updated links!
UPDATE 2010-09-09: Freedom is back up too! (Thanks again to David B.!)
UPDATE 2011-04-30: Sadly, pajampajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject started returning blank pages recently. I have an email inquiry out to the site admins about whether the Eject! Eject! Eject! archives can be brought back. Meanwhile, all of the following links are currently non-functional. I’ll try to keep on top of the situation and update this post when it hopefully improves. Thanks for visiting!
UPDATE 2011-08-13: I just noticed pajampajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject is back online, and the above Silent America essay links appear to be working again!
On the David Horowitz TV video podcast: Victor Davis Hanson on Iraq, Afghanistan, the 2008 presidential election, challenges facing the Obama administration, and history’s lessons.
Hanson’s “Restoration Weekend” lunch keynote, and the Q&A session that followed, are both packed with good discussion and well worth watching. Both videos can be viewed online here. Or, do what I did and get the latest episodes via the iTunes podcast feed.
Freedom is a tremendous and precious inheritance. To develop our potential, thrive in it, and pass it along to each successive generation is our highest calling. I write here to give my thanks, and to seek ways we can cultivate the resilience, independence, courage, and indomitable spirit necessary to sustain a culture that cherishes liberty.
