Selection

I was reflecting this morning on the way we choose people for roles that are important. There's been a lot of talk about whether proposed upcoming officials are qualified or appropriate for the roles they are being nominated to hold. To some degree that represents the need for outsiders from the credentialling systems, just because those systems are in deep need of reform. You can't nominate traditionally qualified people, in other words: the only people who could do the job of deep reform must be people who aren't coming out of our traditional cursus honorum.

So we need another method. There are two basic methods that we use besides elections, although there are other options including the Athenian one. The first one is testing, and the second one is ordeal. Often we combine these.

Testing is preferred when you can identify a competency associated with success in the position, can effectively test for that competency, and don't much care about the character of the person as long as they can do the job well. This was Plato's strong preference to the Athenian option, assigning roles by lottery, which he detested. 

A testing system lets you skip the associated ordeal, which also allows for quick approval of qualified candidates when alacrity is needed. For example, you might let people test out of having to go to commercial drivers' school if they can demonstrate on a practical road test that they can safely handle a big truck, and on a written test that they understand the regulations of the road and how to operate it. If they've got all that, it's enough to go along with and they could learn the rest on the job.

Ordeals are preferred when the character of the person is the first consideration, and we want to make sure that we either (a) select only people whose character we have had time to be sure of, or (b) select people only after they have gone through a character-testing-and-shaping process. There are often tests worked into the ordeals, but the real issue isn't the tests or their scores, it's suffering the process.

All sorts of organizations use ordeals. Academia has the long Ph.D. process that subjects grad students to poverty, intense stress, and years of proving that they can get along with the academic structure well enough to be accepted and approved -- in addition to the various courses, tests, the dissertation, and the need to publish in approved journals. The Civil Service inducts people and then subjects them to its human resources' continuous monitoring, and its internal bureaucratic process of selection for promotion, to identify the most compliant and obedient candidates whose character guarantees that the organization's broader purpose will be pursued by its officers. Motorcycle clubs usually require prospects to spend a year or more on a probationary status, subject to service requirements and forbidden the prestige of full membership; only after a long prospecting period can they be voted on as members. Our fire department has a six-month probationary period during which you are expected to attend meetings and trainings, and to take supporting roles on calls outside the 'hot zone.' Following that, you can be voted on as a full member -- although there are still vast amounts of training courses, practical and written tests, before you will be certified as a 'Firefighter' or 'Technical Rescuer.'  

Indeed, as mentioned we often combine testing and ordeal. For example, if you want to become an Army Ranger, you will first be tested for basic qualifications; then, if you pass the tests, you'll go through the Ranger Assessment and Selection Process (RASP), which is an 8-week ordeal designed to test your character. If you pass that, there are more ordeals and further tests as you progress. The SEALs famously use 'Hell Week' as part of a difficult selection process; the Special Forces have an even more onerous selection process that entails significant service before you can even begin it.

There aren't good tests for the roles we are trying to fill. The traditional ordeals, meanwhile, serve to ensure that candidates are aligned with the organization's purpose -- which is what we don't want in a reformer. That leaves us with an alternative option, like the Athenian one; or with another sort of ordeal.

In our context, WF Buckley's '100 names in the phone book' concept is close to the Athenian approach. He doubted our institutions' ability to either test or set ordeals that would produce the right kind of people. Instead, he preferred to rely upon the common sense of Americans to assign jobs of importance -- at least in theory, and as a quip. Whether he would endorse it now, when it might violate his patrician sensibilities, is not as clear; but he endorsed the principle, once upon a time. 

What is really being done is the choice of an alternative ordeal. Each of these candidates has been subjected to the ordeal of torment by the state and the very thing they are being asked to reform. That guarantees someone who understands what is bad about the organization, and thus in need of reform. 

What this process may not do is select for people who understand what is good about the organization that might need to be preserved -- Chesterton's Paradox of the Wall. Maybe some of these organizations don't serve a sufficient good to justify the harms they cause now. Maybe all of them don't. That is the risk, though; it is the gamble. 

Starlink Waitlist

Over at Instapundit, Vodkapundit points out that Starlink is sold out again. North Carolina is one of the regions. 

No wonder! In the recent hurricane, Starlink was the only thing that connected us to the world. Phones were down— landlines were down as well as cell towers— and cable and therefore cable and phone-based internet. People were cut off for weeks, unless they had Starlink and a generator. Then you were just fine. 

One of the best things we had was a mobile Starlink attached to a brush truck. People could come up to the fire station and use the wireless network it projected, and we could take it out to the backcountry to help distant families let their loved ones know that they were safe. 

I’m a big fan. They really came through when needed. 

One of my favorite amendments

From DC Draino on X:

We had free speech on 1 social media app for less than 2 years and won the White House, Senate, House, and the popular vote

This is why they freaked out when @elonmusk bought Twitter

Their regime can’t survive without censorship

Living into the Intentionality of what Openness Can Be

Clarity of thought and clarity of expression are often linked. It is striking how elaborate the elocutions become when you don’t just want to speak the plain truth, in this case, “Our principles were getting in the way, so we disposed of them.”

Beware what you're a magnet for

Though I had a hard time sustaining attention during the extended football analogy at the beginning of this article, I was rewarded with some eye-popping statistics about the Nobel Prizes awarded to legal immigrants to the U.S. First, there was this pithy observation from the guy who so closely resembles our Bad Orange President:

When hundreds of Jews left Germany, including 16 who had been awarded the Nobel Prize, Adolf Hitler declared, “If the dismissal of Jewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a few years!”

Your terms are acceptable, as they say these days.

There follow some observations on recipients of Nobels in economics that I will pass over in dignified silence on the ground that competence is no more associated with prizes in that field than in the field of world peace. The article then gets to the real meat:

Of the 117 Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans in chemistry, medicine, and physics since 2000, 45 went to immigrants. Since 1960, nearly a hundred immigrants have won the “hard science” Nobels. Legal immigrants. In some years, such as 2016, the majority of people in the entire world recognized by the Nobel Committee were American immigrants.

As the author argues, we might want to look harder at EB (employment-based) green card policy while we're tightening up the border obstacles to Tren de Aragua members in the next four years.

Hey Good Lookin’

“I’ve got a hot rod Ford and a two-dollar bill…”

Killing is the Business

A hiker writes an opinion piece for the Washington Post.

As I walked that day, I thought a lot about what we’re doing when we elect a president of the United States. This country is the most powerful and arguably the most violent empire that has ever existed, and to the extent that we have an emperor, it’s the president. Through policy choices at home and military action abroad, every president kills people. It could be thousands of people or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions, depending on circumstance and their inclination. Killing people, choosing who will die both here and abroad is a fundamental part of the job. It is the job. Whatever else the president does, they do on their own time. Is “Emperor of the Violent Hegemony” the kind of job that’s possible to be a good person in? Is it the kind of job where anyone, however well-intentioned, can effect positive change?

Is it possible to be a good person while being a farmer?*

Killing is what happens on farms. Seriously. I'm saying this as a farmer.

City people think that farms are "where life happens." Nonsense. Farming is about killing stuff. I don't even raise livestock or poultry and I have to kill stuff.

I can get crops to grow by simply putting seed in the ground. The rest of my job is to kill, kill, kill. Kill weeds. Kill insect pests. Kill vertebrate pests. Whether by herbicide, pesticides, shooting, trapping, stomping, you name it — I spend far more time killing than I do making something grow. Mother nature takes care of the growing. I have to remove the competition. There have been days when I've trapped 50+ pocket gophers and shot 100 ground squirrels - before lunch. They needed killing, and the next day, more of them were killed because they needed killing. At other times, I've shot dozens of jackrabbits at night and flung them out into the sagebrush for coyotes to eat.

And none of that starts in with helping neighbors slaughter steers, lambs, chickens, etc.

That's farming: killing. Lots of it.

I suppose one could make an argument about the USA being 'the most violent empire that has ever existed,' although one would have to argue both that it was "an empire" and also that it was more violent than some obvious alternative contenders. Still, there is a point to be made that a whole lot of killing is necessary for cultivation -- of a civilization, or a culture, or of a field of crops. 

Killing is inevitable for life; that is one of the basic facts of reality. The question isn't whether you kill, but whether what you killed for was worth it.

*The citation on that from 2008 is dubious; Cassandra posted it here and ascribed it to me, but the dead hyperlink points to National Review; I think it sounds like VDH. I've only ever written one thing for National Review, and it was not on this subject; and we don't have jackrabbits or pocket gophers, so I'm sure I didn't write it.

Anna Ruby Falls

Glorious Morning

The FEMA Scandal

In my ongoing reporting on the hurricane efforts here, I've mentioned that I haven't seen a FEMA person. I still haven't, though I'm told they've got a place in the county seat you can go to and talk to one if you want. I have also heard reports from other areas of the state that FEMA is more active there, and that may simply mean that they have been triaging their reaction to the worst zones. Triage is normal in emergency operations, and not the sign of anything untoward. 

That said, everyone I know who applied for aid got turned down by FEMA. Publicly the Feds promised '$750,' but really it was an indefinite figure and you had to fill out an application and go through a long process, one that allowed them to reject you for many different reasons. One reason was 'we weren't able to meet with you to verify your claims,' which if they wanted to verify claims about your property losses presumably means they had to come out to your property. 

So when I hear that they just avoided houses with Trump signs, I wonder if voting maps were another resource for determining which areas to visit. Allegedly, avoiding 'hostile' houses is departmental policy -- and maybe avoiding 'communities' where the 'trend' was thought negative.

On "Fox News @ Night," Washington clarified that bypassing properties that sport Trump signs is part of a broader policy designed to protect the safety of FEMA personnel. So, staffers have the right to skip over houses displaying Trump signage if they feel "uncomfortable," she said, similar to the fear of aggressive animals that are unchained and running loose.

So, the policy isn't specifically about avoiding Trump supporters per se, Washington insisted. The guidelines instruct FEMA workers to avoid any situation that may make them feel unsafe — such as an off-leash dog, she suggested.... 

"So the people [with] FEMA were fearing the Trump houses like they were fearing people with vicious dogs in their backyards?" Fox News host Trace Gallagher pressed.

"Exactly," Washington replied. "Unfortunately, the passionate supporters for Trump, some of them were a little bit violent."...

"This was the culture. They were already avoiding these homes based on community trends from hostile political encounters. It has nothing to do with the campaign sign. It just so happened to be part of the community trend," Washington went on.

I don't claim to have any definite information about this beyond having never met a FEMA person in the whole rescue operation. As I said above, that could simply be understandable triage of the sort that is normal and necessary. Her testimony invites questions, however. I'm sure we'll all be interested in the answers. 

Carbon Mike

"It's time for these state and local officials to start paying a political price for stomping all over these constitutional rights -- these civil rights, for that's what they are[.]"

In the context the shift from 'constitutional' to 'civil' makes sense, as this is a black gentleman whose rights are being trampled by a state government. That's what the Federal civil rights acts intended to stop; the fact that it is his Second Amendment rights being trampled by a Northern state rather than his voting rights being trampled by a Southern state is immaterial. 

Gorge Passage

The I-40 repair in Pigeon River Gorge will still be quite a while. Asheville’s largest newspaper has photos.

UPDATE: Taking the opportunity to improve wildlife safety along the interstate— and drivers’ too. Try hitting an elk or bear at speed and you’ll appreciate the innovation. 

Name that Tune

I know I have heard another song to this tune, which is not unusual with tunes from folk music. I can almost hear it in my mind, but the words are garbled in memory. Perhaps one of you knows it?

Saving 'Our Democracy' in Europe

The Friday before the election, I wondered whether Democrats would be willing to destroy the Ring of the appearance of legitimate elections. It proved they were not, quite, and thereby they lost nearly everything.

The system could defend itself more powerfully by discarding the illusion, and like Egypt just openly stating that only certain candidates will be allowed to win. That would do away with the challenge, but also a major source of the system's power -- somewhat like destroying the Ring unmade Sauron and his challenge to the freedom of the age, but also destroyed the work of the Three and the ability of the world to sustain magical things like elves. The system seems to think of its challenger as being Sauron-like in evil, given their choices of analogies for him. Will they destroy the Ring to stop him? The loss of this illusion would protect the powerful, but they would retain only a shadow of their power, only what they could hold onto by naked force and coercion.

Lesson learned in Europe! Germany will outright ban its biggest right-wing party before its upcoming elections. 

The Logic of the Gabbard Pick

I had forgotten this story about TSA placing Gabbard on a watch list.

In the discussion of the post below about her nomination to be DNI, I had mentioned that she was not an intelligence officer but a medical one. Thomas pointed out that she'd served in Civil Affairs, though as a reservist (not everyone realizes that Civil Affairs is a special operations posting in its active duty component, and thus entails some SOF training). She was a military police officer. None of that really points up why you'd pick her as DNI. [UPDATE: see comments for further corrections from Thomas, who is apparently a fan of her career.]

If the purpose is to de-weaponize the government so it isn't used against its own citizens, which is a noble and proper purpose, then the TSA story explains the choice. She has reason to be personally offended by what was done to her, as Trump does himself. It makes sense of what the project really is.

National Popular Vote Compact

That hoary left-wing idea for functionally disposing of the Electoral College is still a terrible idea. It technically only comes into force if ratified by enough states to make it binding, but it’s still worth pointing this out. 

Tulsi for DNI

That's a stunning pick. This is definitely shaping up to be the anti-establishment administration. Hopefully, it'll be exactly what we need.

Jim Hanson is happy with the SECDEF pick, too, which is a good recommendation from where I sit.

We bid farewell

This HotAir piece by David Strom is preaching to the choir, I know, but the final video is Schadenfreude in a bottle. Expert Dem analyst Dr. Arlene deleted her account shortly after the election, so I'm afraid we won't get to watch her updated post-election thoughts.

Her cackle rivals that of Harris and Clinton.

More Kilmer

A much less famous poem by Joyce Kilmer was featured in this Veteran’s Day piece at PJM. As noted in our earlier discussion of his poetry, Kilmer earned the right to express these sentiments by volunteering for hazardous scouting duty — duty that cost him his life. 

A Major Proposal

One of the things the incoming administration is proposing to do is to back national concealed carry reciprocity. In a way, this sounds simple. Exactly how your driver’s license is good in every state, your concealed carry license would also be. Crossing state lines wouldn’t matter; you’d be carrying legally in one state or another. 

And for most of us, it’s not that big a change anyway because most states already recognize each other’s permits. For example, if you have a permit in your home state of Florida, here’s the map of who recognizes your permit. 

That’s enough states to call a Constitutional Convention, propose and ratify an expansion of the 2nd Amendment. 

So for most people in all those green states, this is a minor change that would only slightly expand their functional liberty. 

The big change is that many states, including Florida, will issue permits to non-residents— for example, if you’re traveling there and your own state won’t. A strong Federal reciprocity law would effectively bring shall-issue concealed carry to all Americans. Even in California; even in Maryland; even in the District of Columbia. 

That’s a big deal. 

Veterans and Helene

A Washington Post photojournalist discovers what I've been telling you all along: veteran volunteers are at the forefront of the hurricane response. 

Their backgrounds make them well-suited for a disaster response of this magnitude. “This is what we do when we go to war. We go into bad scenarios with towns turned upside down,” said Mark Elkhill, an Army veteran with the relief group Christian Rangers. (The name Christian Rangers is taken from an exercise in Robin Sage, the nearly two-week special field “final exam” for would-be Green Berets.)

Most of the group with Elkhill are former U.S. Army Green Berets and this is exactly their mission: to train local people to recover, sustain and protect themselves, he said while taking a break from cutting firewood that locals will use to heat their homes this winter. “The only difference is we’re not getting shot at here, which makes it a thousand times easier,” Elkhill said.

I told somebody I was with during emergency operations that it was like 'the good-parts version of war.' It's all the eudaimonia without the downsides. It's small wonder that veterans are 'finding purpose' in it, to use the Post's chosen language.

Independence

I can't embed this YouTube short, but it's a fun one to click on.

Surprising shifts

Matt Vespa points out that this election was not just more of the "revenge of the white working class" dynamic. Some amazing precincts flipped red in places like New York's Chinatown and a Chicago ward.

You do that

I keep reading articles that flirt with awareness of where the Dem party went wrong, only to draw a laughable conclusion about the cure.

“Obviously this is a major reckoning for the Democratic Party in terms of, particularly as it relates to young men, Black and Hispanic voters and rural voters,” said Jef Pollock, a Biden and Harris campaign pollster. “If the economy were perceived by voters as swimming, things might be different. But for now, it’s clear these voters I’m talking about — particularly young men, Black men, Hispanic men, and rural White voters — do not see the Democrats as addressing their everyday needs, and that’s something we need to think about holistically.”

We certainly need to see a lot more political speeches emphasizing the holistic approach. More cowbell!

The linked article contains an excerpt from a WaPo piece, presumably behind a paywell, not that I'd go there anyway.

Veterans Day

A very happy day to all of you who served. 

Blinding insights

The Guardian notices that people hate leftists. They're still unclear on why:

Many of them, of course, have arrived at that conclusion thanks to outright bigotry.

Cast Iron & “Never”

Never and forever are neither for men.

You’ll be returning again and again. 

-Fritz Leiber, “The Circle Curse,” Swords Against Death

My wife of 25 years did something I warned ‘never’ to do: she put a piece of my cast iron through the dishwasher. This is the classic offense against Southerners’ sensibility that people from the north do after they move down here. This was a grill press rather than a skillet, but still  

Cast iron really is indestructible, though. It took some work to clean the rust and reseason it today, but it came out just fine. I shouldn’t have worried about it. 

It’s good as new, which is to say, not as good. But it’s good enough to get started rebuilding a new layer of seasoning. 

Happy Birthday, Marines

A message from the Commandant on the occasion of the 249th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. 

UPDATE:

Stolen from a friend. 

Helene's Wrath: A Visual

The Washington Post has an interesting satellite view that expands slowly out into a map of the area northeast of Asheville, and then to all of the nearby areas centered on that region. Most of that area is National Forest, sparsely populated in part because it protects Asheville's reservoir lake. The down side is that lake has been murky and full of sediment since the hurricane, complicating the recovery for Asheville residents whose water system is not set up to handle heavy sediments. Normally that water is pristine, at least for city water.

AVI will have seen a lot of those worst-hit areas on his trip down here, the one where he and family went up to Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway. That road overlooks the North Fork Reservoir, the lake I was talking about above. 

Old Fort, on the map east of Asheville along the I-40 corridor, is still said to be in bad shape. Asheville itself remains troubled. 

UPDATE: 

As you would expect, the drying downed trees create a fire hazard that exactly maps to the worst of the hurricane strike. 

Rabbit/Duck

Illinois just lost its assault weapons ban, based on a philosphical argument about the famous rabbit/duck graphic. 

Always nice to see philosophy used for the good. 

MarsLink

Now you're talking.

In a move that feels straight out of sci-fi, SpaceX has proposed “Marslink,” an adaptation of its Starlink satellite network, to deliver internet connectivity on Mars. 

Presented to NASA, Marslink aims to establish a high-speed data relay system—capable of transmitting 4 Mbps or more—across 1.5 astronomical units, the distance between Earth and Mars.

The concept envisions multiple satellites in Mars orbit, leveraging Starlink’s advanced laser communication tech to maintain a constant, near-instantaneous data flow between planets. 

This network could serve Mars missions, allowing real-time images and data streams from Mars to Earth, as well as supporting future ground operations and Mars orbit assets.

Let's go to the stars. 

Grownups

I saw a pithy GenX explanation yesterday, basically "You tried to shove a Nanny State down the throats of a generation that didn't have a nanny, that was barely supervised by parents." Apparently a whole swath of the population has some pretty solid libertarian leanings, which is a great relief to me after watching all the infantile tantrums by the "leave me alone but support me from a distance you rich jerks" crowd.

The meltdown brigade would do better to worry about the newest outbreak of pogroms, this time in Amsterdam. Israel, in any case, is alert and on the job. Not much infantalization happening in Israel these days.

The devil you say

CNN worries about how the second Hitler term will be even worse than the first:

[T]he staffing decisions this time around will be designed intentionally around individuals who will not work to undermine his agenda from within. . . .

The People Shifted to Trump

There are an endless number of election post-mortems today, focusing on how Trump overcame his 'baggage' (mostly people didn't believe the media's tales about him) and why he won. I'm going to talk briefly about why Democrats lost. 

The clear evidence of the vote was that the people shifted towards Trump almost across the board. College-educated? Up four points. Over 25% black? Up four points. Over 25% Latino? Nine points. Large population over 65? 4.9 points. Large population 18-35? 5.6 points. Literally not one county in America voted for the Democratic candidate at higher rates than in 2020.

Why did this happen? Because the Democrats refused to trust democracy. They had the chance to admit that the public had serous doubts about the age and mental stability of their candidate, Joe Biden. They could have held a primary to consult the people about who they should run instead. Had they done so, that primary would have produced a candidate with broad popular support among Democrats, who could contest the general electorate for its approval. 

Instead, they did everything they could to avoid democracy. The elites decided that no primary was to be held, and they did everything they could to prevent one. This included extensive lawsuits to keep opponents off the ballot, including the scion of the Kennedy family, RFK Jr. If they had let him compete against Biden and lose, he would have endorsed them after it was clear he had been fairly beaten in an election. Because they did it with trickery, lawfare, and even the infiltration of his campaign, he went over to Trump and threw his support there instead. 

Then, when it became crystal clear that Biden wasn't up to another term, the party once again refused to solicit popular opinion or input, and forced a replacement without debate or any sort of election. She lost because she never had any public support to begin with, because she never won a single election -- not a primary, not a single delegate to be a Democratic Presidential candidate, not this year and not ever. None of the process of building public support, working out what the people want and need from their candidate, none of that ever happened. They just tried to ram it through without consultation. 

Having done that, of course, she didn't really campaign. She hid from the press and from the people, took scripted questions that were designed to protect her from scrutiny, and didn't do the work of getting out there and getting to know the ordinary people, finding out what they need, winning their support. 

Meanwhile, that's all Trump did. He did democracy better than them. Much better, because he was the only one who even tried it. 

UPDATE: Or possibly there's a simpler explanation: ~15MM votes just evaporated from 2020, compared to other recent elections. 

Freedom of Speech is Back on the Menu

 The NYT's Editorial Board today:

The founders of this country recognized the possibility that voters might someday elect an authoritarian leader and wrote safeguards into the Constitution, including powers granted to two other branches of government designed to be a check on a president who would bend and break laws to serve his own ends. And they enacted a set of rights — most crucially the First Amendment — for citizens to assemble, speak and protest against the words and actions of their leader.

Glad to know that the central importance of free speech has been re-discovered. It wasn't very long ago they were sounding pretty sour about the idea of speech lacking government oversight and regulation. 

Let the memes begin

Whew

First he dodged a bullet, and then we did.

NOTE: This post was actually written by Texan99. See discussion. 

Probably Not, Though

Dad29 sent me this clip of Tucker Carlson talking about nuclear power as demonic. 

I think he is clearly correct that spiritual things are of central importance, and probably out to sea on his conclusions about exactly how that works. For example, at one point he says that the reason we're getting hit with more hurricanes is probably abortion. Even some climate-change supporters don't agree that we are in fact getting hit with more or stronger hurricanes on average, but let's leave that. I looked into that a bit and found this map of abortion rates by state:

What I notice about that is that, while Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina all are pretty dark, the rest of the hurricane-strike region isn't as much so. Where are the natural disasters hitting New York and Pennsylvania? Probably this theory just doesn't hold water.

Likewise, while it's not quite as easy to explain the invention of nuclear power as it is to explain, say, the invention of the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell), that's only because it was a lengthy process of many discoveries over a long period of time. It's not that we can't give a precise account of which human beings contributed what part, it's just a longer story that most people won't have at the tip of their tongue. 

As I said in the email conversation, too, "Nuclear weapons arguably have provided more peace than almost any human invention; though there have been small wars, and proxy wars, we haven't had a major war in decades. Of course, that could change if people don't start thinking straight. Nuclear energy, meanwhile, has great promise to lift up the human condition. 

"I don't think it's demonic; it is weird, though. All the stuff that happens at the quantum level is. But God made the quanta too."

That doesn't unravel the point that spiritual things are of titanic importance. They are. We should all attend to those matters, in our own homes and communities, first and foremost with those who are closest to us and deserve our time and attention. If we do that, I do believe things will get better where we are, for a while, as long as we keep doing it. 

Alas, Quandarius

The pointless, farcical “pier” to Gaza still managed to cost the life of an American soldier. 

Rmaich- A familiar story

 Found this thread on Twitter analyzing the targeting patterns of Israel in Southern Lebanon, and a couple places stand out- one of them an area/town named Rmaich (or Rmeish).  It resonated with me as yet another story of indomitable hill people just wanting to be left alone.  Fortunately, they've been successful keeping Hezbollah out, much to their benefit.

 

https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1853204103825961360

Gettysburg and Ukraine

Back in August, Ukraine pushed into Kursk to the great excitement of German armor commanders. We rarely discuss that war in this forum, but over at Dad29's place I suggested an analogy.

It's been difficult to make sense of this offensive, and the reporting on it is wildly inconsistent depending on the outlet and which side they support. (This is perfectly normal in a warzone: "fog of war" and all that.)

However, it did occur to me to wonder if this was the Gettysburg Campaign of the Ukraine war. Analogously, both were the first time the defending army went on the offensive and actually invaded the other's territory in the full scale; both of them were principally intended as raids, with psychological effects on the enemy populace a secondary target. Both intend to take pressure off a long-suffering defensive region (northern Virginia/Donbass).

Both are major commitments of remaining maneuver forces, which entail significant opportunity costs. By deploying these forces in the north, Ukraine is risking what might have been important reinforcements. The Confederate government had wanted Lee to reinforce Vicksburg, but he took his forces into the north instead and suffered a strategic loss instead. That allowed Grant to capture Vicksburg and sever the Confederacy, then assume command in the east and press Lee's remaining army for the rest of its days.

I don't claim to know what the facts on the ground are over there; the fog of war is too thick right now. If the historical analogy holds, though, a Ukrainian loss here could spell the beginning of the end.

This week, the Bismarck Cables suggests that, in spite of major new loans guaranteed by stolen repurposed interest payments on stolen frozen Russian wealth, Ukraine needs a major intervention because Russia is taking a lot of territory. Failing very significant escalation by Ukraine and its allies in the West, he says, Russia is likely to prevail. 

I find this significant because the Bismarck Cables has always struck me as one of the more well-informed outlets writing on this topic, and also because it has always had a clear pro-Ukraine stance. Thus, this is an argument against interest rather than the cheerleading of one side or the other that makes up so much of the fog of war.

Escalations of the type he is advocating are unwise in the extreme. The war has been expensive enough that Russia is unlikely to repeat it. In my opinion we should pursue the peace that can be had. Putin after South Ossetia was likely to repeat his offense; after Crimea, even more so; but the Ukraine war has been ruinous on Russian manpower and war materiel. Letting them keep the majority-ethnic-Russian areas they have seized and held at such cost is not likely to encourage further aggression, but it could allow us to de-escalate in the Middle East especially as well as in Europe. 

Ukraine got out of Kursk about what Lee got out of Pennsylvania, and ultimately expended resources that now can't be used to reinforce lines which are, similarly, starting to collapse. They are still in a happier position. Lee didn't have the option of negotiating a peace that would have allowed the Confederacy to survive in the unconquered territories because, after all, the whole point of the war was to refuse to accept the existence of the Confederacy or the legitimacy of any secession from the Union. Putin has not asked for a similar level of submission from Ukraine, and doesn't have the power to enforce one anyway.

Rather than run the hazard of escalating the war into a direct NATO-Russia force-on-force conflict that could even become a nuclear exchange, we could help offer a peace that while minimally acceptable to Russia also prevents further Ukrainian losses of men and territory. The Kursk gamble did not pay off, but collapse can still be avoided without the need for significant escalation of an already-bloody war.

Poetry and its Criticism

I was headed towards the Joyce Kilmer Forest yesterday in part because I was reflecting on a discussion with family of his most famous poem, "Trees." I assume you are all familiar with it, likely well enough that you can repeat at least the first line without looking. 

A photo of Kilmer's memorial plaque at his forest, which I took on an earlier visit.

Kilmer died heroically at age 31, killed by a German sniper while scouting enemy lines in World War I. He was a devout Catholic, and died young enough that he still felt his faith in the firm certainty of youth. The moment seems to have been central to both his own fame and popularity in his lifetime, and the disdain directed at his work by critics in more recent years. 

The critic John Derbyshire included "Trees" in an audiobook he recorded of great American poems (it doesn't still seem to be available). In his commentary, I recall that he remarked that Kilmer had written the poem as a joke, to mock the overly sincere mode that was popular in much poetry in the age, and found that it became his own most popular work. I don't know what Derbyshire's source is for that claim; the poem seems to me to be quite representative of Kilmer's work. 

Indeed, what people tend to criticize about Kilmer is just those very qualities. His own society, the Philolexian, holds an annual "Bad Poetry" event in his name. The head of that ceremony wrote in 2013 about his mixed feelings on the subject.

Central to both Kilmer’s work and the prevailing disdain of it is his deep Catholicism, to which he converted after his daughter Rose contracted infantile paralysis. Most of his efforts fairly drip with piety... Every year it falls to me as “Avatar” of Philolexian to kick off the Kilmer event by presenting a biographical sketch of the man. By now, I have my routine down pat. After outlining Kilmer’s life and enumerating his poetic sins, I ask, “But was he really bad?” Invariably the audience shouts, “Yes!” And I roar back, “You’re wrong!”

Kilmer, I inform the snarky undergrads, is what George Orwell in his essay on Kipling called a “good bad poet.” After dismissing most of Kipling’s verse as “horribly vulgar,” Orwell concedes it nonetheless is “capable of giving pleasure to people who know what poetry means.” Admit it, Orwell says. Unless you’re “merely a snob and a liar,” you get at least some enjoyment out of something like “Mandalay.” That’s because it’s a good bad poem, which Orwell defines as “a graceful monument to the obvious....

That’s a fair take on much of Kilmer. Yes, he was proof of Oscar Wilde’s pronouncement that “all bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.” But he could still touch certain chords with crude, shameless offerings like “The House With Nobody in It”:

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.

I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;

For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

If you insist on rejecting this admittedly hokey notion utterly, never musing that “only God can make a tree” upon beholding a particularly soaring oak . . . well, take your pick. Are you an Orwellian snob or an Orwellian liar?

I am reminded of our longtime companion Eric Blair (how strange to need to mention him so close to the invocation of Orwell) and his position on the First World War. Namely, he holds that war killed Western Civilization -- that it was a mortal wound to its soul, to which it is still slowly succumbing. 

His position is plausible. You can see in the poetry of the era before the war a great civilizational confidence. All sides rode to war on horseback, with at least some of their more famous units dressed gaily in ancestral armor or bright uniforms that recalled the Napoleonic era. Four years later, the aristocracy of all their nations was broken and destroyed; we recall Tolkien, who fought at the Somme, noting that all of the friends of his youth were dead.

Another position on Kilmer is possible: that his poetry is simply good precisely because it manages to bring all things under the eye of the sacred and divine. If a young woman were writing poetry today under the influence of some Guru, it would be thought a mark of her talents if she could find the sacred in ordinary things -- so long as she did so in the light of an Eastern religion, perhaps after her daily yoga flow session. Given that limited change of context, I can imagine such a poet enjoying real popularity among LitCrit circles, perhaps appearing on Oprah or being invited to Goop. 

It may be that Kilmer seems naive to those born after the great wound of World War I. Yet he was writing after suffering his own great wound, the paralysis and slow death of his beloved daughter. It was that context that brought him to devotion and daily prayer, to the determination to see all things -- yes, even New Jersey transit -- through eyes that reflected on their sacred nature. 

We have discussed here in other contexts the argument from Augustine and Avicenna and Aquinas that, indeed, all things that exist must be at least somewhat good because their existence is sustained by a God who is perfectly so. They were greater thinkers than most, drawing on arguments from ancient thinkers at least as great as themselves, Plato and Aristotle and Plotinus. The position isn't obviously wrong: far from it. It is defended by rank upon rank of reason and argument marshalled by the finest minds in human history.

The disdain and mockery strike me, at last, as a septic corruption likely arising from the great psychic wound. They consider themselves to be sophisticated and not naive, because they can entertain the bitter fruits of despair. It may be the greater art to retain instead the awe, to remain capable of seeing the sacred, the true, and the beautiful. 

Elfdalian

What has been considered a dialect in central Sweden, the form “Elfdalian” is now recognized as a distinct Nordic language. 

Elfdalian is traditionally spoken in a small part of the region of Dalarna, known as Älvdalen in Swedish and Övdaln in Elfdalian. But using linguistic and archeological data, including runes, Elfdalian experts have tracked the language back to the last phase of ancient Nordic – spoken across Scandinavia between the sixth and eighth centuries...

While runes had became obsolete in most of Sweden as early as the 14th century, there is evidence of runes being used in Älvdalen as late as 1909, making it the last place in the world where they were used.

A Lucky Day

I saw two bears today from the back of my motorcycle, and by sunset two bull elk fighting and wrestling with their antlers. I didn’t get pictures because I was riding at both times, but it was lucky even to see them. 

Today I rode out intending to go to the Joyce Kilmer forest in the Slickrock Wilderness, but true to name it was occluded with rain clouds as I approached the Nantahala gorge. So instead I turned West and crossed into Tennessee by Deal’s Gap, more famously known as the Tail of the Dragon. It was a good test for the new bike. I’m sure it is capable of even more, once I have had time to get used to it. 

On the Tennessee side it was warm and still much in autumn color. 

By the Little Tennessee River.

From Foothills Parkway in the west section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

More from the parkway.

Gatlinburg, to fuel myself and the bike.

Above Newfound Gap. 

A good day in the saddle. 

Remember...

SLM

Haywood Heroes

The Borrowed Band singing a Haggard tune. The big flag is hanging off a fire pike run through the ladder of Waynesville Tower 1. 

It is a free concert, but they’re selling stuff to benefit the local fire/rescue service. I bought this silicone pint mug.

Several fire-themed businesses are supporting the event.

It turned into a pretty afternoon for the event, November notwithstanding. There are a bunch of benefit concerts around this Saturday. I came to this one, but several other ones sounded good as well. 

My November Guest

A poem by Robert Frost.  

My sorrow, when she’s here with me, 

     Thinks these dark days of autumn rain 

Are beautiful as days can be; 

She loves the bare, the withered tree; 

     She walks the sodden pasture lane. 

Her pleasure will not let me stay. 

     She talks and I am fain to list: 

She’s glad the birds are gone away, 

She’s glad her simple worsted grey 

     Is silver now with clinging mist. 

The desolate, deserted trees, 

     The faded earth, the heavy sky, 

The beauties she so truly sees, 

She thinks I have no eye for these, 

     And vexes me for reason why. 

Not yesterday I learned to know 

     The love of bare November days 

Before the coming of the snow, 

But it were vain to tell her so, 

     And they are better for her praise.

Cold November Rain

Two rock ballads, unusual fare for the Hall, both employing grey November skies and rains to talk about death. The first one was about a woman who killed herself because she contracted HIV, which these days is treatable and may soon be preventable. In her day it was a death sentence. AVI was just talking about that. She was a real woman; her rage at God and suicide both are terrible to remark on these feast days pointed at the dead. 

The second one, also from the early 90s, is a power ballad by Guns & Roses with a murky plot in which a young woman marries, dies, and is mourned over the course of a lengthy guitar piece.

It is chilly today, and grey, and rainy. November came in true to form. 

The Feast of All Saints

The first of November has been the date for this feast since Pope Gregory III, though the feast itself is older than that. The National World War I Museum notes the significance of both this feast day and tomorrow's, the Feast of All Souls, especially in those areas of Europe where that war was fought. Ironically the armistice ending that war did not come until the 11th of November, which here is now Veteran's Day; those wishing to honor the departed had to wait a little longer to enjoy the safety and peace that would enable them to build monuments to the dead.

Holding Breath

The stock market is way up, but hiring is way down. One supposes that is because investors believe things are going to get better, but they're waiting to be sure of it before taking on the significant costs entailed by hiring employees.

Richard Fernandez helpfully recasts the current moment in mythic terms.

They say there are only two kinds of stories: ones that begin with a man leaving on a journey and ones that start with a stranger riding into town. But there is a third type: one about a man who goes on a journey and returns four years later with a bunch of formidable-looking strangers.

In that genre, the townsfolk know the significance of these arrivals and understand the meaning of the sudden burst of activity down at the Hall, the heightened vigilance, the preparations for defense. They cast anxious glances at the calendar, reckoning the time 'til Nov. 5, when they expect things to come to a head. Instinctively they gather into groups, the loners staring out of windows, wondering....

The people of the town doubted that the newly arrived strangers fully comprehended the power of the Hall and understood its monstrous strength and resilience. Could they know that it could be razed to the ground yet recover the instant they left? Did they suspect that many a man who believed himself the site’s new master would awake at night to find themselves covered with vines sprung overnight from the ground and borne whence they were never seen again? November 5 would be their doom.

But that is the appeal of stories involving men who leave on journeys and return as strangers with mysterious companions. They have been somewhere and perhaps returned with knowledge that the townsfolk and maybe even people in the Hall do not know. Or else why would they have returned?

Much of what he says in the full piece explains why it's almost impossible to believe that the system will accept a defeat; all of its powers will be used in the interest of self-preservation. It is vast, it is rich, it is powerful, and it has deep roots among power structures themselves old. These include the governments of most of the major cities, where voting has been corrupt at least since Tammany Hall, and probably since voting started.

The power structure's only weakness is that part of its self-preservation entails maintaining the illusion among its supporters that it has been freely chosen. That illusion remains in effect. The Washington Post this week did a survey of supporters from both sides, and finds that it is the Democrats who would be troubled more if they lost, but also the Democrats who believe the result will be fair. 

Trump supporters don't expect the election to be fair, so they won't be as surprised -- or as hurt -- if the result allows their opponents to remain in power. They'll know they've been cheated, not rejected. Because the illusion of consent has been retained among the supporters of the power structure, losing would create a psychic effect of rejection of their model by America itself.

The system could defend itself more powerfully by discarding the illusion, and like Egypt just openly stating that only certain candidates will be allowed to win. That would do away with the challenge, but also a major source of the system's power -- somewhat like destroying the Ring unmade Sauron and his challenge to the freedom of the age, but also destroyed the work of the Three and the ability of the world to sustain magical things like elves. The system seems to think of its challenger as being Sauron-like in evil, given their choices of analogies for him. Will they destroy the Ring to stop him? The loss of this illusion would protect the powerful, but they would retain only a shadow of their power, only what they could hold onto by naked force and coercion.

Can the system be defeated? Is the need to retain the illusion strong enough to limit the amount of cheating to an amount that can be overcome? We will find out in a week or so.

Do bots program her teleprompter?

It's bad enough that she doesn't seem to have a thought in her head, but what about her puppetmasters? "Let's move forward and find out where we are" ranks with "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it." Sensing that she might be losing the crowd, Harris reverted to her reliable applause line, "You know, like abortion!"

Look Thy Last Upon October

Always my favorite month, October this year was beautiful and exciting. I’m grateful to have lived through it. 

All-Hallows Eve pumpkin, carved by my wife.

My mother’s little dog, Tubby.

UPDATE: 

The pumpkin seizes control of a fire truck.

Headed for the Harbor

Newspaper of Record

Headline: “Biden Calls On Deplorable Garbage Nazis To Tone Down The Rhetoric."

That ship has sailed, I believe. 

More on Communication in an Emergency

A couple of weeks ago I posted my thoughts about various means of communication in an emergency. Before that, I had posted about Thomas Witherspoon, a ham radio operator in Swannanoa, NC, whose mountain community was caught in Hurricane Helene.

Witherspoon has a new post up where he discusses his own community's plan to prepare for communication in future emergencies. He discusses some options I did not, including Meshtastic and PLMRS, and explains why his community settled on GMRS. He explains it all better than I can, so check it out over there if you're interested.

He has also continued posting on the recovery there and has one link that will take you to all of his recovery posts.

In the comments in my original post, Janet (who knows a lot more about this than I do) said in the next few years our normal cell phones will be capable of satellite communication, so all of this will be easier when that rolls out. Until then, I still think satellite communications are best if you can afford it, and GMRS is probably the best cheap radio option when the cell phones are down, unless you want to study for and take the ham test, and maybe even then depending on where you live. For comparison, the Garmin InReach is about $400 with a $15 / month subscription. Residential Starlink is $349 for the equipment and $120 / month subscription. GMRS handheld radios start at $15-20 each and require a $35 license (but do not require a test) renewable every 10 years.

If you want to look for GMRS repeaters to see what's around you, you can go to https://mygmrs.com/.

If you want to look for ham radio repeaters, check out https://repeaterbook.com/.

All of that said, the ham radio technician license is pretty easy. If you are at all interested, it's worth getting the license and trying it out. If you would like recommendations about how to study for it or have questions about it, feel free to ask in the comments.

Outlawed Tunes on Outlawed Pipes

I’m happy with my birthday present. Today I mounted Cobra pipes on it. 

These pipes are illegal except for racetrack use in California, but here in the mountains of Western North Carolina the opinions of California legislators are a source of great humor. 

A Brutal Ad

This ad is oddly framed, because it's mostly a return to Tulsi Gabbard's initial criticism of Harris: that she was evil as proven by her actions as a prosecutor. That's what most of the ad is about, and most of the voices you hear are female: her own, or those of a woman whose life she ruined or a daughter of a mother whose life she ruined. 

Why, then, does the ad begin and end framed as a masculine complaint against Harris? It's a three minute ad, but only the first 15 seconds and the last seventeen seconds are about the frame. Discarding the frame entirely, the ad remains devastating and compelling -- in her own words she tells you what her intentions are, and her victims spell out what it meant to them that she behaved as a prosecutor exactly the way she says she did. 

"As men and protectors of women and children," it closes, "you are simply a risk we are not willing to take." 

Sisters

The work continues.

When Father Richard Sutter, a former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger Infantry Officer, summoned a handful of his strong-backed St. Gabriel Catholic Church parishioners for what he called a recon mission to Swannanoa, North Carolina, a community devastated by Hurricane Helene, we did not hesitate.

Once there, we were surprised to learn that the earlier-arriving boots on the ground were not boots at all, but sandals, and small ones at that. Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity were already at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, our designated rally point, by the time we gents had arrived in town.

I was aware of the Missionaries of Charity and their service to the poorest of the poor. But I’d never seen them in action, and certainly never expected to do so two hours from my home. The strength of the hurricane notwithstanding, theirs was a masterclass display of the most powerful force in the universe: love.

The author doesn’t intend this as a comment on gender or gender roles, but it’s interesting to see that come out in a natural way. The important thing, though, is the work of helping people.

UPDATE: A video from the NC DOT showing work they're doing to 'put the river back so we'll have a place to rebuild the road.'

Satire/serious?

Powerline's Week in Pictures featured this headline, which I assumed was a joke: "New Study Reveals That People Who Make Good Decisions Have an Unfair Advantage." No, it's a real article title, but I will say that the point is not necessarily that making good decisions is itself an unfair advantage. The authors appear to be arguing that white supremacy unfairly endows the wrong kind of people with a magical power of making good decisions, and in that sense the healthy results of the good decisions are an unearned benefit. The argument still gets a high Lame-O-Meter rating from yours truly, but it's not quite as absurd as the headline implied.

Here's the crux:

[T]hose who make good decisions tend to enter a virtuous cycle: good decisions lead to better outcomes, which in turn provide more opportunities and resources to make even better decisions in the future. This compounding effect also leverages white supremacy to result in an ever widening gap between those who make consistently good choices and those who do not.

The idea is that people make bad decisions because they lack the opportunities and resources to make good ones. One example might be starting a savings account early in life and benefiting from the power of compound interest.

I'm afraid the argument leaves me unmoved. Granted, the more money you have in youth, the easier it would seem to be to set some of it aside as savings. Honestly, though, it's not a pattern I've ever detected in real life. Whether people live within their income appears to be remarkably untethered to whatever their income happens to be. Some people are dirt poor and manage to make ends meet and set aside money for a rainy day; my Depression-Era parents were a good example. Others are rich as Croesus and consistently overspend. It's not a question of how much you earn but of your ability to see reality clearly and control your own impulses: if you can't afford it, you can't afford it, no matter what you think you deserve to be able to afford.

World War... VII?

Since people stopped keeping track after II, it's hard to say how many more such conflicts have occurred; the GWOT was supposed to have been IV, as I recall from twenty years ago. The current conflict is at least six.

That the current conflict is a world war became crystal clear this week when the WSJ printed proof that Russia has been providing targeting solutions to the Houthis. Such solutions have been used for attacks on shipping, allowing the almost-closing of the Red Sea global supply route. The Houthis have been presented as chiefly an Iranian proxy, and indeed they are also that; but they have also been carrying on a Russian effort to punish the rest of the world for supporting the war in Ukraine. 

And indeed, such a move by Russia is entirely fair play within the rules (such as they are) of warfighting. It isn't even aggression, but reprisal: the United States has been providing targeting solutions to Ukraine that have allowed damaging attacks on ships offshore (and many other targets). The United States and NATO countries have also been providing weapons to Ukraine, though these come with restrictions on just how far the strikes with those weapons are allowed to penetrate. 

We could see an end to this war starting this week, if everything goes right. As this podcast linked by AVI notes, the Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Israel demonstrated a capacity to cause damage that Israel cannot prevent even with US efforts. Last night's strikes by Israeli F-35s demonstrated a parallel capacity that Iran cannot stop. Both parties stopped short of damaging their opponents' energy sector -- Israel has only a handful of major power plants; Iran's oil and gas fields, its shipping ports, and also its nuclear technology facilities are likewise vulnerable. Both sides now know their opponent can hurt them fatally if it decides to do so; both sides also know that doing so will not disable the enemy's reprisal blow, as the time delay between suffering the damage and dying will not prevent the counterstrike from occurring. They are both heavily incentivized to stop fighting, according to the once-doubtful logic of Mutually Assured Destruction. 

Especially if the election here brings about a regime that will seek peace in Ukraine on terms at least minimally acceptable to Russia, the closing of that theater will also reduce pressure on the Middle East. The Houthi could lose their capability to effectively close the Red Sea; weapons shipments to Hamas and Hezbollah could be reduced; the proxies themselves are badly degraded already. The war could close with minimal Russian gains in Ukraine balanced by massive strategic losses in manpower and equipment, with Iran's proxy war network exhausted for years, and Israel relatively secure but newly chastened about its ability to escalate without consequences. 

Peace is at hand. Maybe; bad decisions by anyone could tip the scales towards another round of escalation instead. That could be ruinous as only World Wars can be, especially since the China/Taiwan theater hasn't tipped into action yet. One cannot hope in the wisdom of elected officials, nor in the unelected ones; but perhaps we might hope, at least, that their sensitivity to pain will suffice. 

Voices of sanity

Mark Halperin has been getting good press today. I found this YouTube broadcast featuring Mr. Halperin and a campaign pro from each party, with time set aside for viewers' questions. There are annoying signal glitches with one of the pros, but the information that gets through is interesting and delivered civilly. Around the 29:00 mark, the public comments give some excellent insight into what motivates people to choose a candidate. The first speaker is a libertarian who is disenchanted with the Democratic party, sat out the last two presidential elections, and now has concluded she must vote for Trump. The next speaker is a strident Harris supporter who can't articulate what's good about Harris and is obsessed with outrage over Trump. Halperin works hard to keep the discussions on track, very gently attempting to steer the conversation back to particulars rather than extended venting.

The dominant concern is that Harris will not reveal her policy.

I'm seeing a lot of commentators begin to emphasize the need to prepare for one's candidate to lose next month, no matter which candidate each of us supports.