Flying Tiger Yee

The Denver Post has an intriguing story about John Yee of the suburb of Aurora, who claims to have been a translator for the American Volunteer Group in Kunming in 1941-1942. The burden of the story is that he was Claire Chennault's translator (which he wasn't), but it goes on to say that he worked in the aircraft warning and control system that protected Kunming from Japanese bombers (which makes a great deal more sense). At a time when the original Flying Tigers are dying off at an alarming rate, it's refreshing to discover another candidate for their number. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

$6.40 Flying Tigers

Here's a bargain: Amazon.com is selling some deeply discounted copies of Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942. Only twelve copies left! (Typically these are books that have been in a warehouse somewhere, have been returned to the publisher, and have been marked with a black line on the bottom edge so they won't be sold as new. They are new, however, though they may be a bit shelf-worn from their travels.) Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Let's all be sad for the libertine

As all the world knows, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has moved into a luxe Manhattan apartment in lieu of a cell at Riker's Island. As the BBC reports in a heart-breaking expose: 'A lawyer for Mr Strauss-Kahn said on Wednesday his client was "very bored" under house arrest.'

Evidently his host is not providing maid service. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

From Naples to Venice at 38 mpg

The New York Times had a clever idea: buy one of those ridiculously unAmerican Fiats that are supposed to rescue Chrysler Corp from bankruptcy, drive it from Naples in Maine to Venice in Florida, and report on the experience. Of course the report is mostly favorable: the Good People are eager for the rest of us to drive underpowered, undersized, and overpriced ($20,000 for a Fiat?) automobiles, while they continue to jet between time zones and be met at the airport by Town Cars and stretch limos. (Or, in the case of Barack Obama, airlift a land yacht to Ireland and let it get stuck on a speed bump.)

One other complaint about an otherwise commendable review: the author assumes that the Cinquecento was born with the 1957 model. Not so! I hitchhiked many a mile through Italy in 1955, catching rides in the true original, the Fiat 500 that originated in 1936. The NYT correspondent faulted the rather cramped back seat of the current model--hey, he should have tried those that came out of the Fix It Again Tony factory in the immediate postwar years! They had no back seat at all. If I was the third passenger in the Topolino (as it was also called), I had to sit crosswise with my knees up to my chin. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Lovett Forte-Whiteman meets the Gulag

Probably the most poignant story in The Forsaken (now bargain-priced on Amazon!) is that of Lovett Forte-Whiteman. He was born in Dallas, graduated from the Tuskegee Institute, edited the socialist magazine The Messenger, founded the American Negro Labor Congress, and--big mistake!--moved to Moscow in 1930 to work as a science teacher at the American School. After three years--even bigger mistake!--he changed his mind and applied for a visa to return to the United States. He was arrested for counter-revolutionary activities and sent to a labor camp in Kazakhstan. Beaten because he failed to meet his work quota, his teeth knocked out, he died of starvation on January 13, 1939, at the age of forty-four. So much for life in the worker's paradise. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Forsaken Americans

Here's the remarkable story of some hundreds or thousands of Americans who vanished in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and later. They took ship for Russia to escape the Great Depression in what they had been assured was a worker's paradise. Among them were some hundreds of former Ford Motor Company workers, hired to set up and run an assembly plant for Model A cars and trucks. (In a brilliant stroke, Henry Ford sold the plant just as he was phasing out the "A" in favor of the 1932 "B" model and the later and more streamlined V-8s.) In the end, many of them wound up being driven to prison in the very automobiles they'd helped to manufacture. Many or most were shot; some may have survived for years in the Gulag prison camps; at least one eked out his life in Kazakhstan, where Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did his time, and where my friend Basia was briefly exiled. See it at Amazon.com. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

The libertine

Gotta love the portrait of Dominique Strauss-Kahn after a night in the holding pen of a New York City jail. This may be the first time the head of the International Monetary Fund had to step momentarily outside his privileged cocoon, which includes a $3000-a-night suite at the Sofitel in Manhattan--and of course a first-class seat on Air France, from which the cops dragged him after he foolishly called back to inquire about his missing cell phone. France of course is up in arms, accusing America of hypocrisy., religious conservatism, and, most recently, of something called accusatory justice. A cooler head, the NYC judge, called Mr Strauss-Kahn a flight risk. Even if he didn't try to rape the chambermaid in her three major orifices, he's certainly that--a first-class flight risk. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford