{"id":18498,"date":"2013-02-28T17:10:32","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T01:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=18498"},"modified":"2013-02-28T17:10:32","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T01:10:32","slug":"defense-cuts-may-mean-no-more-flyovers-at-sporting-events-oh-the-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/28\/defense-cuts-may-mean-no-more-flyovers-at-sporting-events-oh-the-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Cuts May Mean No More Flyovers at Sporting Events. Oh, the Humanity!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

You want an illustration of how devastatingly draconian the impending defense budget cuts are going to be? Try this on for size: no more\u00a0military jets flying over sporting events.<\/p>\n

Oh, the humanity!<\/p>\n

According to USA Today<\/a>, looming sequestration is forcing the US Air Force to put a hold on all such flyovers starting April 1st. Oddly though, Air Force spokeswoman\u00a0Wendy Varhegyi – even as she breaks the sad news about the temporary hold on sporting event flyovers – says\u00a0“It’s no additional cost to the government for support of any public events.”<\/p>\n

Huh. So…why are they affected by budget cuts? Oh, because those fighter pilots are usually on a training exercise when they fly over football stadiums, and we’ll have less of those after cuts. Pity. Kind of like President Obama last week getting upset<\/a> about having one less American warship patrol the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

But here’s the real sob story:<\/p>\n

The Air Force views the flyovers as a way to engage the public.<\/p>\n

“Even for just 90 seconds, it is awareness,” Varhegyi said. “It’s just a great way that we can have connection with the American people and have that awareness to large groups of people, not to mention how patriotic everybody is.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh no! Without the completely unnecessary flyovers, we’ll never be able to sustain the level of jingoism and ultra-nationalist adoration for killing machines that we have now!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You want an illustration of how devastatingly draconian the impending defense budget cuts are going to be? Try this on for size: no more\u00a0military jets flying over sporting events. Oh, the humanity! According to USA Today, looming sequestration is forcing the US Air Force to put a hold on all such flyovers starting April 1st. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-18498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18500,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18498\/revisions\/18500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18498"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}