We spent the better part of the past week on the Alabama Gulf Coast. Since there was lots of rain, we did the geeky homeschool thing and spent time in museums, among them the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola (one of my all-time favorites and worth a detour for anyone within a few hours) and the Museum of Mobile, just off I-10, as is the U.S.S. Alabama (one or two exits to the east).

In addition to a very fine exhibit about Mardi Gras (invented in Mobile), there was a rather nice piece about Mobile’s role in WWII. (The short of it: they built a lot of ships down there.)

If someone from the Obama Administration were to pay the museum a visit, he’d learn that the royal road to socialism passes through total mobilization for war. But, fortunately or unfortunately, the instinctive talkiness of Obama and his krewe (they’d not be out of place throwing government checks from a Mardi Grad parade float--and the checks would be worth as much as many of the "throws" on display in the museum) precludes this approach.