I used to be quite opposed to the Blue Angels, not on anti-War grounds or on cost grounds, but because of the discomfort they caused me. During the 1980s, I worked in some of San Francisco’s downtown office towers. In the days leading up to the Blue Angel’s weekend displays every Fleet Week, the Blue Angels would practice their manuevres, which involved zooming by the office towers. I have unusually sensitive hearing, and the noise would drive me absolutely up the wall. By the time of the actual performance, I was just frantic to get away from them.
Now that I’m no longer so closely tied to their practice flights, I’m able to sit back and enjoy the show — and a great show it is. Indeed, Fleet Week itself is wonderful fun. Every year, the kids and I tour a ship or two, which is especially enjoyable for my son who, since he could walk, has been fascinated by all things military. Then, along with thousands of other people from all over the Bay Area, we find a comfortable spot, dig out our earplugs, and watch a show that has us alternately gasping and cheering. (The trick that has me shuddering every time I see it is the one where two places fly directly at each other and then, seconds before each plane shears of the other’s wings, they both roll onto their sides, passing each other, belly to belly, with a comfortable margin of a couple of inches.)
Apparently this kind of fun is just too much for the wacko elements in San Francisco. Led by uberliberal Stupidvisor Chris Daly, the moonbats are trying to ban the Angels from San Francisco during Fleet Week:
CodePink, Global Exchange and Veterans for Peace, Chapter 69, are working with Supervisor Chris Daly on a Board of Supervisors resolution to address concerns over the Blue Angels.
Daly acknowledged he is considering a call to halt the flyovers because, he said, “they seem dangerous and unnecessary.” Daly said he plans on introducing the resolution as early as Tuesday, but is still drafting the language. A resolution is not legally binding, but states a board position.
Fortunately, all are not insane in San Francisco. Michelle Malkin posts several letters people have written to the San Francisco Examiner’s editor pithily exposing Daly’s actual agenda (it’s not about safety) and defending the Blue Angel’s right to fly over a mostly welcoming Bay Area.
Filed under: Military, San Francisco
Screw the Leftards. They’re not worth spit.
My son (5 and 9/12) is in love with all things military as well. But it is more than that…it is the hardware. I printed this image:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/178937main_07pd1393.jpg
on our ultra-high-res 11×17 printer at work…and it is his Bible ever since. The questions never stop coming.
I got him a subscription to Popular Mechanics and Smithsonian’s Air and Space last year…and he loves it (though, arguably, not more than I). He surprises me almost constantly with his understanding of it all. And I don’t have low expectations.
[...] The Blue Angels and San Francisco (where I have to admit to agreeing with Chris Daly that the Angels are noisy — but I was also hostile to them in those downtown years because I was a knee-jerk liberal) [...]