Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!

José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

This week's topic: We just passed the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 space mission, the one where an oxygen tank explosion took out so much of the spacecraft's equipment that the crew ended up using a sextant, an analog wristwatch, and dead reckoning to get themselves around the Moon and back to the Earth. Dig UniverseToday.com's interesting and informative series about the mission: 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13, written by Nancy Atkinson, which explains how NASA and the astronauts pulled off several hundreds of thousands of miles of spaceflight with 16th-century navigation technology.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"