Living as I do a pretty abstemious life – more out of economic necessity than moral rectitude – I nevertheless must admit to a few guilty pleasures.
One of these is watching “The Apprentice”, the show that honors the worst in American capitalism: greed, over-consumption, vanity, selfishness. I guess I enjoy watching Donald Trump squash the thoroughly unlikeable young mogul wanna-be’s, both directly and through his acid-tongued alter egos, Caroline Kepcher and George Ross.
Another less sadistic one is the consumption of an occasional bottle of good but reasonably priced wine, like the chardonnay from Bonterra Vineyards, a multi-flavored delight that is a far cry from the usual bland cocktail party cliche.
A third guilty pleasure is my absolute delight with hearing and watching the fighter planes from the Otis Air National Guard Base which occupies 3 towns on the Upper Cape, mine among them.
I know that these planes were built for no other purpose than to wreak havoc, and as deployed by the draft-dodging lunatics in the Bush Administration, these magnificent war machines would visit death and destruction mostly on innocent civilians, children included.
That part of the history of F-15’s I don’t admire or condone. Rather, I respect the technology of the planes themselves and the grace with which their pilots move through the airspace over the Cape.
Perhaps some day these noble machines will be put to a better use. It seems like the very least that they, their inventors and their operators deserve.