A Giant, Called Home.

William F. Buckley, Jr., thinker, writer, conservative luminary: requiescat in pace.

National Review.

Human Events.

Redstate.

Rush.

Malkin.

Of all the people I want to look up and have a chat with in the afterlife, Bill Buckley resides right next to Ronald Reagan amid my top ten.

He died at his writing desk, "in the saddle" according to his son. This, more than any other detail, chokes me up today.

-Rich

Mooning About

For those of you that don't keep up with such things, tonight is/was a total lunar eclipse for most of North America. Amy and I sat outside and watched, despite forecasts of rain to come and rather daunting cloud cover as the event kicked off at 7:48 PM CST.

Patience paid off, though, as she and I sat, enjoyed some truly excellent tobacco (I succumbed to the lure of a gorgeous little briar pipe while in Gatlinburg, story to come soon) and a bit of Jamaican rum, and oohed and aahed as each progressively-larger rent in the clouds gave us a better glimpse of Luna as she coyly ducked behind Earth's shadow.

Finally, about half an hour into total occlusion, the clouds fell entirely away (leaving a clear-as-a-bell sky), and Amy captured a truly remarkable photo (click the pic to zoom in when you get there) with her several-year-old digital camera on a tripod.

Impressive for an amateur, no? My Princess is a woman of many talents--who knew that astrophotography was among them?

-Rich