Look! Giant Penises in the sky!

I fucking hate the Blue Angels.

I'm not complaining, say, about the ear-splitting sonic whir heard overhead in San Francisco for an entire week every October. I'm not talking, either, about the thousands of tourists in their polluting cars congesting the City streets all week so they can catch site of the super-dazzling synchronized cock-fest in the air (a congestion that apparently brings $4 million in tourist revenue, it will be, and has been, argued.)

I hate the Blue Angels because they make war look sexy. I hate them because we pay for this super-fast, super-loud death-defying circle jerk with our tax money. I hate them because, in addition to paying millions of dollars annually to run this air show, we are also footing the bill for what is essentially an extraordinarily expensive and environmentally costly advertisement for rampant, unremitting militarism. I hate them because they spew thousands of pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere all year traveling from city to city for no legitimate reason.

According to the Blue Angels website, the squadron is currently made up of twelve planes, ten of which are F/A-18 A jets and two of which are F/A-18 B jets. Each of the F/A-18 A planes costs, at a minimum, $21 million a piece (other military-related websites put them at $28 million each) and that basic cost does not include any of the weapons-related systems that could easily double or triple the cost per plane. The Angels also fly a C-130T, nicknamed "Fat Albert." The cost of the C-130T is approximately $65 million, though I do not know how much the Blue Angels kicked down for it in 1970 when they originally acquired it.

The Angels burn an estimated 3.1 million gallons of jet fuel every year, which means a cost of about $3.3 million a year, and fuck knows how much carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. Add that to the 1.7 million gallons of fuel a day that the U.S. military is burning in Iraq and it's just insult upon injury upon death upon global environmental devastation.



San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly made a third attempt this year to ban the Angels, citing mainly public safety and environmental reasons. The move was blocked and didn't make it to the full board of supes for a vote, but hopefully Daly and the other progressives on the board will continue to work on it.

One of the specific reasons cited by Daly in the effort to ban the air show this year was the death of an Angel pilot in a crash last April in South Carolina. In addition to the death of 32 year old Lt. Commander Kevin J. Davis, the crash also injured eight bystanders and wrecked several homes. Apparently a minister emceeing the air show at Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina reassured the mourners that “the spirit of the pilot is in the arms of a loving God.” Fuck you.

Quit flying war machines for fun, for fuck's sake.