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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True®
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Fornigate, Lindbergh and Hawaii
Ten years ago this week I wrote two full columns: the regular one, and one on the breaking scandal with President Bill "I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman" Clinton. I (and many others) dubbed it Fornigate, and it led to his impeachment. Me, I think he was simply stupid: why he didn't just say "This is between me and my wife" and refuse to say anything else, I just don't know, but he forced it into being An Issue. (And can you believe it's been 10 years already?!)
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You can still read both the special Fornigate issue and the Liberal Response I also released 10 years ago.
I mentioned last week that I was on the road again. I gave the clue that I had just visited Charles Lindbergh's grave; just a few readers correctly figured out that I was in Hawaii -- I was attending a conference for once, rather than speaking at one. Lindbergh's grave is in a remote corner of Maui.
The most interesting response was from a French filmmaker who wrote, "We are doing a major documentary about Charles Lindbergh and I was wondering why you went so far out of the way to visit his grave?"
 The leis and other flowers were there already, but I left the GOOHF card. |
Marc in Illinois said he was "surprised by your taking the time to visit Lindbergh's grave. While his solo Transatlantic flight was heroic, it was hardly in the same class as Columbus' voyage since the feat had been accomplished at least 14 times before by pairs of pilots. And, his heroism was forever tainted by his later embrace of Hitler and Nazism and his blatant anti-semitism." I think it's way overstating things to say he "embraced Hitler", and my reading of history doesn't support anti-Semitism, either. Lindbergh was an isolationist to be sure, taking after his father, a U.S. Congressman, who was an isolationist in World War I. For much more on the subject, his Wikipedia entry looks pretty objective.
Anyway, I had never been to Hawaii before. We started on Oahu, staying in Honolulu for a few days, then to Maui, and then to the Big Island. After landing in Hilo, we jumped on a helo -- a helicopter -- for an aerial tour of the Kilauea volcano. One of my personal "must see before I die" items is flowing molten lava. Check! Absolutely amazing to see -- see photo below, which of course doesn't really capture the feeling. Then we went to Volcano National Park to see things more close-up (but, alas, not flowing lava). Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983. I've also posted some details on another interesting activity the conference group did together: we went on an ocean night dive, which was fantastic.
 The lava river shown here is about 50 yards wide, and we're flying by at about 700' above it. How is the photo so clear? We asked them to take the doors off the chopper! Yes, we could feel the heat from the lava -- it felt pretty good, in fact, since it was a bit rainy that day. The flow is to the left, from the lava pool in the crater at the upper right. |
We're not quite home yet, though: as soon as we arrived back at our home airport we drove the opposite direction -- to a medical conference to get some "continuing education" for our EMT certifications. A full weekend conference goes a long way toward our renewal requirements. The things you have to do to volunteer! :-)
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Posted by Lori Jean, San Dimas, CA on February 4, 2008:
People for years have misunderstood Bill Clinton's famous statement: "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski" to mean that he was denying that he had sex with *Monica*. He was, in fact, speaking *TO* Monica regarding his sexual relations with his wife, assuring Monica that he had not had sex with his own wife. Men who are cheating on their wives often use the "my wife doesn't understand my needs" ploy and Bill was just making a public declaration of his loyalty to Monica. I'm sure he was hoping to keep up his relationship with Monica, the young hottie, knowing that his wife would never actually have the spine to divorce him.
Posted by Bandit, Albuquerque on February 5, 2008:
Lindbergh wanted to do what he could for the War Effort, but the govt would not let him into combat, because of the morale hit if he got killed.
So, mainly on his own, he flew to Pacific bases (with the tacit permission of some in the military). It was supposedly a morale tour, but he used his knowledge of tuning aircraft engines to help improve fighters and bombers to increase distance. Even 100 miles extra really helped. It made a difference and brought guys back home.
Sad about his child.
Posted by Rich, Baltimore on February 5, 2008:
The actual quote from Bill about Monica was "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinski". About a month later, the edition of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, was published with an article stating that some astonishingly high proportion, perhaps as much as 60%, of Americans didn't think that oral sex was "real sex". Of course, the JAMA board immediately fired the editor for meddling in politics.
The article was Would You Say You "Had Sex" If . . . ?
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It was actually "Miss Lewinski" rather than "Monica Lewinski" -- funny how our memories change things, eh? And it wasn't a month later: Clinton uttered the quote during a White House press conference on January 26, 1998. The JAMA article appeared in their January 20, 1999, issue. Still, a year is pretty darned quick for a refereed medical journal. -rc