WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED This is the true memoir of one US Air Force navigator’s journey from the schoolhouses of Air Training Command to the nuclear alerts of the Cold War to combat in a 35-year-old anachronism called the B-52. It is a first-hand account of life during the last days of Strategic Air Command, the early days of Air Combat Command and the ensuing military drawdown of the 1990s. From peacetime training exercises across the globe to combat operations in Desert Storm, Jim Clonts takes the reader inside the cockpit where life and death are seconds apart. Often comical, sometimes heart-pounding, other times tragic, WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED takes you into the world of military aviation, a crucible where warriors learn the true nature of character, conscience and mortality.

Friends of Liberty VOL 3
by Jim Clonts, 2009

04/19/09

Friends,

After just two weeks I am already changing the format of the Friends of Liberty. I am getting a few responses to my editorials, however, my main goal for this "movement" is participation. Rather than just hitting your inbox once a week with a long-winded editorial, I will instead be sending shorter, pithier,and in some cases more controversial messages. In some cases I will be sharing my thoughts, in others I'll be playing devil's advocate. In both cases I'd like to know what you the American Citizen think and pass that on to the group. I'll try to keep my "new improved editorials" to one or two paragraphs. Please read it and tell me what you think in one to five sentences. In some cases they'll be a dozen reasons to love or hate something. Give me the one or two that rank at the top for you. I will send the initial editorial on Sunday evenings. Please email me your replies by Thursday night of each week.

A friend of mine suggested I start a blog, (Jim doesn't yet know that I started the blog two articles back... --bp the webmaster...) but I really like the personal email as a vehicle for this exchange of ideas. I want to electronically tap you on the arm once a week and ask you to take a position. Hopefully, people across the country are doing the same thing. In fact, we always should have been doing this.

As I said before, feel free to forward this to any of your friends, conservative or liberal. All voices are welcome.

JC

CEOs

The Government and Media are stoking the populist fires of anger against corporate executives. Frankly, I love these guys and gals. A company without a strong CEO is like an army without a commanding general. Most CEOs have sacrificed their family lives to pursue their dreams. They uproot their families every few years, work 14 hour days, missing most nights at the dinner table and then bring their work home with them. I would not trade my kid's little league games, school plays or Cub Scout campouts for their lives even at their salaries. Still, I'm glad they do it. Somebody has to make these sacrifices. Somebody has to be responsible for securing the jobs of hundreds of thousands of employees, ensuring company products meet consumer demand and to do it all while generating as much profit as possible to keep the share-holders happy. This is a huge job with far more ramifications than throwing a baseball 90 mph or acting in a motion picture.

Question of the Week: If a company lost $12 billion in 2007, got a new CEO in 2008 and thanks to him only lost $2 billion that year---is he a good CEO worthy of his salary or should the Obama Administration ask for his resignation? Is he worse than the CEO that kept the company barely in the black for both years?

JC

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