Thanks to Andrew Wilkow for having me on his show to talk about America 3.0 yesterday

Andrew is the host of the awesome Wilkow! show on The Blaze. We had a good conversation yesterday about our book America 3.0 and, inter alia, how the current crisis is part of the transition phase between the fading America 2.0 and the newly dawning America 3.0.

I had a blast and I hope the folks watching the show enjoyed it.

Thanks to Andrew’s helpful staff, Brett and Chelsea. Chelsea saved the day by calling in the nick of time to remind me that 4:00 pm EST is 3:00 pm CST! And special thanks to my incredibly aggressive cab driver, whose name I will never know, who got me across the Loop in record time to be on camera. Friends, remember to tip well when the cabbie makes it happen for you.

Archive Post – Military Rites, Practices & Legends: BX & Commissary Privileges

(An archive post from [gasp] 2004, wherein I attempted to explain and demystify certain military practices and establishments to a strictly civilian readership. I was reminded of this series, as one of the chief effects of the fed-gov shut-down is that just about all of the military commissaries at stateside bases will be closed from about midday today. The resulting effect on the retiree and active duty population at stateside bases probably will be rather minor, especially for those bases in or near larger cities, since Walmart, Target, Costco, Sam’s Club and local grocery chains provide alternative sources.)

The main attraction of these privileges – access to the military base Commissary and Exchange – lies mostly in the fact that such access is forbidden to the usual run of civilians, and so they tend to think of them as vast Aladdin’s caves of riches and materiel things, to which they do not have the magic key! Alas, while I am fairly sure that the gold-plated bases in the military pantheon probably are pretty well stocked with the luxury goods, and may very well resemble Aladdin’s cave, at the ordinary level they are as Cpl. Blondie observed “full of stuff you don’t need.”
When I was giving the school-kiddy tours at Mather AFB, to kids who had never been on a military base before, I would have the school-bus driver take a circuitous loop around the base, and point out the various establishments: “A base is just like a city or a town– this is the Headquarters building, it’s like the Mayor’s office and the City Hall, over there is the housing area, where everyone lives with their families. There is even an elementary school for the kids. That is our grocery store, only we call it the commissary. We even have our own gas station… this is the Exchange, it is just like a small department store, with a little bit of everything…”

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