My interest in the Wright Brothers’ flyer (see below) is part of a larger interest that I’ve held in early aviation. The technologies themselves are fascinating, but equally so is the way they captured society’s imagination. Back when I was a grad student in English, I wrote a paper about early dirigibles and the part they played in the race to the North Pole. As nations jockeyed for scientific supremacy, the airship became both a literal and figurative vehicle for national pride.

All that nonsense aside, airships produced some pretty cool early science fiction, as well. One gem is Rudyard Kipling’s short story “With the Night Mail” (1905), the first-person account of a transatlantic ride on “Postal Packet 162.”

As it ferries the overnight mail from London to Quebec, 162 encounters bad weather and a handful of other airships, giving Kipling opportunity to showcase his highly detailed imagination and sometimes transcendent prose.  What is arguably the best single sentence in the work comes during his description of the maelstrom:

We were dragged hither and yon by warm or frozen suctions, belched up on the tops of wulli-was, spun down by vortices and clubbed aside by laterals under a dizzying rush of stars in the company of a drunken moon.

“Wulli-was,” indeed. I think I’ve been through a few myself. The story includes detailed descriptions of “pithing rods,” jeweled bearings, and the otherworldly “Fleury’s Ray” that provides the propulsion of tomorrow. And yet, the whole piece is washed in Edwardian ethos, offering up the dignified reportage of an erudite observer, as though recounted over a brandy in a walnut-paneled drawing room.

Equally fascinating is the second section of the story, in which Kipling has produced several adverts, letters to the editor, and other content magically swept back to us from the airship magazines of the future.

I suppose part of the fascination is that this work offers us a vision of the future that, by our day’s standards, is already hopelessly outmoded. The today we might have had is, in many ways, quite quaint next to the today we wound up with.

Have you ever noticed that Italian food names are misleading? It always sounds like you’re going to get several of something — e.g., “biscotti,” “panini.” But you get only one. So why not ”biscotum” and “paninum?” The octopi and I demand truth in advertising.

PS: It’s called “linguini” because it’s broad and flat, like a tongue.  (At least that’s what I’ve heard.) Answers.com cites a couple of myths in which tortellini was (were?) inspired by various beautiful navels, which is just as well since whatever it is, the Italian for “anus pasta” couldn’t be as mellifluous.

Last month marked the centennial of military aviation. In September of 1908, Orville Wright demonstrated the latest version of the Wright Brothers’ flyer to the U.S. Army at Fort Myer, Virginia.

On September 17 , Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge joined Orville aboard the flyer. Minutes into the flight, a propeller snapped, causing a crash that made Selfridge the first powered-flight fatality. Wright survived with injuries.

Speaking to the New York Times, Army General Luke Wright expressed his regret, then noted, “I see no reason why this accident should give any serious setback to the experiments in aeronautics being made by the army.”

Why should it? Even though they hadn’t yet invented YouTube and the heavy-metal sound track, they could still see that the flying machine was going to totally rock at killing people. Of course, it was ultimately preferable to kill enemies on the ground than to entice them into free rides, but there would be time to work out the details.

I can’t say the death of Selfridge was a good thing, but there was a certain undeniable poetic justice to it. If mankind was going to fly, of all things… and if, having divined the sacred knowledge, his first impulse was going to be to paint the damn thing olive drab, then the gods of air warfare would take their sacrificial offering up front, thank you very much. It was their way of giving us a moment to think again and change our minds.

But we didn’t, of course. There’s no proof of rightness so compelling as early blood. It frees us to move forward twice as fast, with half the thought, so that the departed “shall not have died in vain.”

Don’t get me wrong. Air power has played a key role in maintaining freedom and fighting oppression around the world. It’s kicked a lot of asses and saved a lot of asses. Every story has two sides (at least), and we can’t tell only one side if we want to respect ourselves in the morning. One of my former classmates flew Chinooks in Afghanistan, and I have to think that both he and Afghanistan are better for his service. But we have to acknowledge that the very first time the military played with airplanes, a guy got killed. That’s important.

If they could swoop down on us today, I’m sure the Wright Brothers would be astounded at how far their technology has come in 100 years. They would be captivated by the engineering and aerodynamics, by the sheer weights and speeds and forces involved. We put the tails in back now. We use metal instead of canvas. It would blow their minds.

I’m sure, for old times’ sake, the Air Force would even give them a ride.

It was a mixed week for Addie Polk.  On Wednesday, the 90-year-old Akron resident fired two bullets into her chest as sheriff’s deputies arrived to evict her from her foreclosed home.  That was bad.  But she survived, which was good.  And then, when she made the national news as the tragic embodiment of our real estate crisis, mortgage holder Fannie Mae found it in their hearts (or at least in their PR playbooks) to forgive her loan. That, of course, was best of all.

It was not such a balanced week for Karthik Rajaram.  Sometime during the weekend, the 45-year-old Los Angeles MBA killed his mother in law, wife, three sons and himself in their upscale Porter Ranch home.  He was reportedly distraught over his unemployed status and impending financial ruin.

It’s not just the raw, tragic violence of Rajaram’s act that strikes me.  It’s also blatantly obvious that he made a lousy business decision.

Polk, after all, was able to secure full debt forgiveness with two non-lethal shots to the chest. (And, at risk of appearing callous, I remind you that she was 90.)  With 500% more family members, plenty of remaining productive years and an MBA education, Rajaram had miles of headroom to work with here.  Frankly, underneath the horror, I’m pretty disappointed.

With more deliberate action, Rajaram might have helped us probe the outlines of the new math.  One child for your mortgage.  Throw in the mother in law, and you get a nice timeshare on Nantucket.  You can pay down points with non-fatal injuries, as long as they produce lifelong disabilities.

As it is, Rajaram cashed in too soon, and in the process he not only locked in his own losses, but he also blew the curve for the rest of us.  We have many months of hardship and tragic tales ahead; we need to pace ourselves.  Be patient, friends; with enough time and taxpayer subsidies to sort it all out, the markets will eventually let us know what we’re worth.  That’s what they do best.

October 3, mere hours after the Wall Street bailout became law, the Associated Press reported

Stocks ended a volatile week with another sell-off Friday while credit markets remained strained after enthusiasm over the government’s $700 billion financial rescue plan gave way to worries about obstacles still facing the economy.

Did you miss the enthusiasm, too?  For $700 billion, I hoped it would last a bit longer.  At least post a party pic of Bernanke licking tequila salt off Hank Paulson’s head, or give me a tumescent little spike on the Dow or something.  (Is that your share price, or are you happy to see me?)  What’s a taxpayer got to do for some love around here?

I’ll give them a few days to absorb the news, but by mid month, the markets had better be happier than Cheech & Chong and so flipping liquid they slosh when they blink. If not, this Halloween, I’m going door to door as The Dow. I’ll say, “Trick or treat,” and then when they give me candy I’ll kick their dog, water their shoes and set fire to their porch.

I bet the Treasury will even reimburse me for the match.

My colleague said I should start blogging, but she didn’t warn me that I’d need a master’s degree in computer science to configure the MySQL database.  They call this progress?  In the old days, all a guy had to do was whittle himself a set of movable type.