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- Written by: Op-Ed Shaydee Lane
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While the new aces argue about the runway, the old crew still knows how to land a plane.
What if you could hold one single moment from your entire life, just one, to carry with you forever? Which one would it be? The answer may tell us more about who we are than any story we tell ourselves.
There’s a photograph in your mind, faded, perhaps, but alive...a moment from your past that never quite lets go. Maybe it’s the day you first rode a bike, the night you whispered secrets to a friend, or the first time you saw your newborn child. Why do these moments cling, while others vanish without a trace?
What moments shape us, and what will our children and grandchildren hold onto in a noisy world?
That is my question today. What memories are we leaving to our new generation? Lockdowns? Climate Change? Global Warming? Guilt? What have we allowed to happen?
Read more: The Flight of the Navigator - Old Pilots, New Aces, and Why Childhood Matters
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- Written by: Op-Ed Monty
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When a lifetime isn’t enough to be believed
I know a person... in her older years. She has a smartphone. She knows how to use it, She tries to keep up with the modern world..even when it changes faster than her knees can carry her. She can type faster than me and while she is drop dead gorgeous in my eyes, you can tell she is not 18 anymore.
She’s not stubborn. She’s not lost in the past.She’s just… older.
And this week, standing at her front door, she was asked to prove how old she was. Yes, by a delivery driver from the local adult beverage shop...... with a bottle of Irish whiskey I had ordered for her. What happened next was shocking. Welcome to E- Australia...
Read more: Expired IDs, Expired Lives? What turns older People into In Valids?
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- Written by: Op-Ed Ratty News
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RATTY NEWS SPECIAL BULLETIN
By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Editor-in-Cheese
It has been a busy week here in Dusty Gulch.
It all began with a report I filed a few days ago but held back from publishing due to rising duck-threat levels and escalating biscuit security.
But now, with the town in open uproar and the smell of conspiracy wafting stronger than Maude Elphinstone’s curried egg sandwiches, I can at last reveal the events that have shaken Dusty Gulch to its very poultry-plucked core:
“Mayor Abduckted!”
Read more: DUCKS, DECEIT & DUSTY McFOOKIT: The Marmalade Coup
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- Written by: Op-Ed Monty
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Before he was a U.S. Senator, Vice President, or bestselling author, J.D. Vance was just a kid in a holler in Middletown, Ohio - raised by his grandmother, shaped by chaos, yet grounded by a stubborn Appalachian pride. In Hillbilly Elegy, Vance wrote not just of poverty or politics, but of a cultural inheritance: the fierce loyalty, front porch wisdom, and the sounds that echoed through the hills and into his soul.
For many like him, Appalachian music wasn’t just background noise - it was the heartbeat of a people who had little, lost much, but clung fiercely to their identity. Carried across oceans from Ireland and Scotland, shaped by African, English, and frontier influences, this music tells a story that stretches from ancient highlands to the misty mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and beyond.
It is a story of survival. Of belonging. Of a people bruised but unbroken - still finding harmony amid hardship.
Read more: Music That Refuses to Be Forgotten: Grit, Ballads, and the Appalachian Soul
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- Written by: Op-Ed Happy Expat
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From the rat-hunters of age-old sailing ships to the black-cloaked Catalinas prowling the Pacific skies, cats have served the military with a quiet, enduring presence. Agile, alert, and unflinching under fire, they’ve been more than mascots - they’ve been symbols of readiness and resolve.
My favourite of them all flew under the callsign PBY: the mighty Catalina, a slow but unstoppable flying boat that saved lives, hunted submarines, and watched vast oceans with tireless eyes.
Whether curled on a warship’s deck or gliding through enemy skies on midnight raids, cats - furry or winged - have always stood ready to fight or fly. The question is… are we?
Read more: Some Cats Slumber While Others Hunt - Cats of War and Peace
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