You Can Call Me Mr. (Barely) Secretary. In the last 35 years all but one nominee for Defense Secretary has been easily confirmed.  The exception, John Tower, US Senator from Texas, was rejected in 1989 by a vote of 47 to 53 because of his drinking and carrying on.  The other ten were confirmed with […]

Does what we expect to happen influence our awareness?

Do we now live in a society where anyone, courtesy of technology, can cry foul at a word or a thought and demand change or retraction?

  The Big Squeeze  The current unfunded pension liability of five of Illinois’s state run pension systems is $96 billion.  The amount is so large that Standard and Poor, the credit rating agency, downgraded the state to A minus, making it more difficult for the them to borrow money in the form of bonds. Governor […]

Political Correctness Strikes Albany My gun frenzied friends no doubt know that New York recently passed a measure designed to inhibit the use of fire arms to commit crimes.  Its effectiveness will be long debated. The measure passed in the middle of the night, Albany style, because Governor Cuomo wanted his law, now. Yesterday, Republican […]

  Mayor Overrules Brigade Leaders London’s Mayor Boris Johnson is pressing ahead with cuts to the London Fire Brigade (LFB) which would result in a decrease of 520 firefighters.  A dozen stations and some 18 engines would be closed or placed out-of-service. The LFB is one of the world’s largest fire services, deploying about 5,800 […]

The rest is history though the lessons are widely applicable to firefighting and should not be lost:

Lincoln had a contemporary partner and it is fitting that he should have the last word.

We all must remind ourselves and those we care about to stay out of venues where fire survival is unlikely.

        I wrote a post Friday which caused quite a stir in my home IAFF local, 2068.  On the Local’s Facebook page it generated copious comments and was eventually removed by a local union official.  (The post can be found to the right, here,  in a box entitled, “Recent Posts.”) The reason […]