A Trumped-Up Space Force

Space exploration and exploitation isn’t what it used to be

W.J. Astore








Blurring Sports and the Military

af uniform

W.J. Astore

(For an extended essay on sports and the military, please see my latest at TomDispatch.com:  “Why Can’t We Just Play Ball? The Militarization of Sports and the Redefinition of Patriotism,” August 19, 2018, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176459.)

There’s a lot of blurring and blending of sports with the military in the USA today, but my service branch, the U.S. Air Force, has taken it to a new level.  The Falcons football team at the USAF Academy has issued a new “alternate” uniform in honor of air power and specifically the AC-130 gunship.  What this means is that cadets can now wear helmets that feature spooky, grim-reaper-like images together with images of the AC-130 firing on some indistinct enemy below.  Check it out above and below:

reaperThe fog and the shark-like tailfin in the background are nice touches.  Somebody probably got a promotion and/or a commendation medal for putting this campaign together.

Of course, the Air Force celebrates flight, using falcons as the team mascot, which makes sense.   But uniforms dedicated to and celebrating a specific weapon system — really?  The AC-130 gunship rains death from the sky; it’s a nasty weapon system and certainly one that I’d want on my side in a shooting war.  But putting it on football helmets with images of screaming skeletons is a bit much.

How did military academies like West Point and Annapolis play football for so long with just regular uniforms?  Without images of tanks or battleships adorning their uniforms?

I know: I’m an old fuddy-duddy.  This is the new military — the military of warriors and warfighters.  These new uniforms: so cool!  So sexy!  Dealing death is so much fun!

Why is it that these new “alternate” football uniforms of the AF Academy remind me, not of our citizen-airmen force of the past, but of some sinister, darker, force of the future?  Why does the Star Trek episode, “Mirror, Mirror,” come to mind?  (Hint: We’re no longer the “good” Federation.)

Knives and scars are in plain view in the barbarian “mirror” universe of Star Trek

(You can go to https://twitter.com/hashtag/LetsFly and watch an Air Force video that links AC-130 combat footage with the new uniform, complete with lusty music and stoked players.)

Readers, what say you?

On Mercy


W.J. Astore







Capt Kirk fights the Gorn captain in “Arena”





Trump, the Anti-Obama, Ends in Tyranny


W.J. Astore













Fire those phasers, America!
Fire those phasers, America!

W.J. Astore











Remember Color-Coded Threat Warnings?


W.J. Astore

Back in the ancient time of 2007, you may recall that color-coded threat warnings were constantly appearing on our TV screens.  Those “Homeland Security threat advisory ratings” fluctuated between yellow (elevated) and orange (high).   With the lone exception of the State of Hawaii in 2003, the threat ratings never dropped to blue (guarded) or (heaven forbid) green (low).

It was like we were in an old Star Trek episode with Captain Kirk, stuck on a bridge that’s constantly on Yellow Alert, phasers and photon torpedoes locked on target.

Thankfully, the Department of Homeland Security finally ditched the color-coded warnings.  But have we ditched the mentality that drove them?  Are we not encouraged still to be afraid?

Yes, terrorism remains a threat.  I’m sure there’ll always be terrorists of some sort who seek to harm us.  But we’ve made a lot of progress in the so-called global war on terror.  We killed Osama Bin Laden.  We devastated Al Qaeda.

Indeed, as we teeter on the brink of national financial default, one of the bigger threats we seem to face is our own divided and ineffectual government.  While it appears a last-minute deal is in the works, it’s one of those “solutions” that just kicks the can down the road a few months.  We’ll doubtless be dealing with the same governmental gridlock — the same hostage-taking — after the New Year.

Hmm: Maybe we should revive that color-coded warning system.  But let’s apply it, not to the terrorists outside our borders, but to our own politicians who continue to threaten us with financial default and societal ruin.

If they continue to insist on taking our government hostage, throwing people out of work, and threatening us all with financial collapse, I’d say that rates at least an “orange” rating.  And if they persist in shooting the hostage (that’s us), I’d say that counts as a “red.”

Come on, Homeland Security!  Protect us from those who’d destroy our government.  Or are you shut down too?