Lent

A good Ash Wednesday to those of you who celebrate it. Now begins Lent, a long season of suffering from attempts to be even slightly better.

The Quest for the Sangrail began on Pentecost, and I won’t question the liturgical appropriateness of that: Sir Thomas Malory was much more deeply embedded in the Catholic world than almost anyone living today. It occurs to me, though, that it well fits our American approach of Mardi Gras — the appearance of the Sangrail and the Feast associated with it — followed by Lent. The Quest was a time of great trial and suffering, when the best knights of the world tried to live up to the fullness of their faith’s demands. All suffered; most died. Three succeeded in some measure. 

Good luck. 

Consensus II

The Opinion section of the Washington Post is up to 100% noncompliance and rejection of Bezos' guidance. I wonder if he can find a buyer for a newspaper whose authors refuse to accept editorial guidance from the owners? Maybe he can get pennies on the dollar for his investment from someone who is also in alignment with that viewpoint, and doesn't want it to change. 

His problem, I guess. 

Consensus

For years it has seemed that nearly every contentious issue in U.S. politics polls at 50/50. I wondered whether that meant parties were deliberately skating close to the edge, or even whether voters and poll respondents were responding entirely at random, a coin-toss. How could a country stay divided on a knife edge on so many controversies for so many years?

I still don't have any idea, but lately there appears to have been a preference cascade. The talk of 80/20 issues may have been exaggerated, but suddenly a GOP that seemed unable to break though on any issue is garnering poll responses in the 60- and 70-percent range. Even last night's quasi-SOTU speech had an astounding impact. CBS, of all outlets, reports that with an audience composed of about half Republicans and half a mix of Democrats and Independents, President Trump won over 3/4 of his viewers. Results were similarly impressive on a range of hot-button issues from immigation to government waste to tariffs to the expulsion of Rep. Green from the chamber.

Grim's Red Seasoning

Some years ago I developed a chili powder recipe using datil pepper. 

This week I was reflecting that, with just a touch of salt, it would make a good seasoning like Tony Chachere's creole seasoning, but bolder even than their bold. So I added just a bit of salt, and now you can use it to season your food -- once it's salty enough, it's seasoned enough as well.

Grim's Red Seasoning

1 oz. ground New Mexican Red Pepper  (or, alternatively, guajillo molida works well too).

1 heaping tsp. cumin 

1 level tsp. Mexican oregano 

1 tsp. ground Scotch Bonnet, Datil, -or- Habanero pepper (your choice of one, not all three, but the Datil works very well here; level to heaping tsp as you prefer) 

1/2 tsp garlic powder 

1 tsp. salt

UPDATE:

My wife made me eggs and cheese-jalapeño grits for breakfast. A little of this seasoning added a lot of delicious flavor. 

The Lord Is a Man of War

I don't plan to post systematically on God Is a Man of War, but as I find interesting things I may put them here. The beginning of the book refers to the following victory song, which is quite striking.

Exodus 15:1-18

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,
“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
    the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song,
    and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a man of war;
    the Lord is his name.

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea;
    and his picked officers are sunk in the Red Sea.
The floods cover them;
    they went down into the depths like a stone.
Thy right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,
    thy right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.
In the greatness of thy majesty thou overthrowest thy adversaries;
    thou sendest forth thy fury, it consumes them like stubble.
At the blast of thy nostrils the waters piled up,
    the floods stood up in a heap;
    the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.
The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,
    I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.
    I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’
Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them;
    they sank as lead in the mighty waters.

“Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods?
    Who is like thee, majestic in holiness,
    terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
Thou didst stretch out thy right hand,
    the earth swallowed them.

“Thou hast led in thy steadfast love the people whom thou hast redeemed,
    thou hast guided them by thy strength to thy holy abode.
The peoples have heard, they tremble;
    pangs have seized on the inhabitants of Philistia.
Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
    the leaders of Moab, trembling seizes them;
    all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
Terror and dread fall upon them;
    because of the greatness of thy arm, they are as still as a stone,
till thy people, O Lord, pass by,
    till the people pass by whom thou hast purchased.
Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them on thy own mountain,
    the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thy abode,
    the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.
The Lord will reign for ever and ever.”

The themes of salvation of the slave and destruction of the army of the enslavers echo down the millennia, along with the theme of steadfast love for His people.

It is interesting here that God Himself destroys the Egyptian army. This sort of violence in the Old Testament never really bothered me. I feel sorry for Charioteer First Class Snuffy who was just trying to pay off his new personal hot rod chariot at the low low rate of 20% APR and have a few brews on the weekend with his army pay, but wiping out an army set on re-enslaving a people doesn't seem terribly unjust. I'm sure, though, my specific concerns will be addressed further on in the book.

Fighting Man

 What other kind of man is there? 

Prayer and Fasting

The Sunday before Lent begins is Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox Church. It is a day to ask everyone for their forgiveness for any offenses we may have committed against them in the past year, and a day where we also forgive everyone who has offended against us.

Ramadan began March 1st, the Eastern Church's Great Lent begins tomorrow, and Western Lent begins Wednesday. It seems that a couple billion of us will all be fasting and praying for the next month, then some of us for a bit longer. It is always a blessing to me when Eastern Pascha and Western Easter fall on the same day. Since most Christians in the US belong to the Western churches, it puts me out of synch with my Western brothers and sisters when it doesn't.

For the East, the fast is from meat, fish, dairy, and alcohol, from tomorrow until Pascha. However, in the tradition of feast days which fall on fast days, alcohol is allowed on the Sabbath and Lord's Day each week. It was suggested in services today that we also fast from controversies this Lent, and that seems a particularly good addition this year.

I have decided to read two books during this season. Some of the violence in the Old Testament has troubled me for decades, so maybe Fr Stephen De Young's short God Is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament will help me at least understand it. As I love poetry, I think poet and professor Donald Sheehan's The Shield of Psalmic Prayer: Reflections on Translating, Interpreting, and Praying the Psalter will be a good balancing influence after the study of ancient wars.

There is a great deal to pray for this year. In addition to America's attempt to renew itself, which is by no means guaranteed to succeed, there are the conflicts involving Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, and many other tribulations around the world that we don't hear as much of. And then there are our civic leaders and warriors and clergy and faithful, the sick, the old, the newborn, the catechumens, the lost, the travelers by sea and land and air, and personal prayers as well.

And so, in the short time before Great Lent begins, I ask all of you for your forgiveness for any offenses I may have committed against you this past year, and I ask your prayers for me, all of you who pray. I look forward to hearing about everyone's Lenten journey, all who care to share it.

And this, too

Victor David Hanson:

Ten bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up

1. Zelenskyy does not grasp—or deliberately ignores—the bitter truth: those with whom he feels most affinity (Western globalists, the American Left, the Europeans) have little power in 2025 to help him. And those with whom he obviously does not like or seeks to embarrass (cf. his Scranton, Penn. campaign-like visit in September 2024) alone have the power to save him. For his own sake, I hope he is not being “briefed” by the Obama-Clinton-Biden gang to confront Trump, given their interests are not really Ukraine’s as they feign.

2. Zelenskyy acts as if his agendas and ours are identical. So, he keeps insisting that he is fighting for us despite our two-ocean-distance that he mocks. We do have many shared interests with Ukraine, but not all by any means: Trump wants to “reset” with Russia and triangulate it against China. He seeks to avoid a 1962 DEFCON 2-like crisis over a proxy showdown in proximity to a nuclear rival. And he sincerely wants to end the deadlocked Stalingrad slaughterhouse for everyone’s sake.

3. The Europeans (and Canada) are now talking loudly of a new muscular antithesis, independent of the U.S. Promises, promises—given that would require Europeans to prune back their social welfare state, frack, use nuclear, stop the green obsessions, and spend 3-5 percent of their GDP on defense. The U.S. does not just pay 16 percent of NATO’s budget but also puts up with asymmetrical tariffs that result in a European Union trade surplus of $160 billion, plays the world cop patrolling sea-lanes and deterring terrorists and rogues states that otherwise might interrupt Europe’s commercial networks abroad, as well as de facto including Europe under a nuclear umbrella of 6,500 nukes.

4. Zelenskyy must know that all of the once deal-stopping issues to peace have been de facto settled: Ukraine is now better armed than most NATO nations, but will not be in NATO; and no president has or will ever supply Ukraine with the armed wherewithal to take back the Donbass and Crimea. So, the only two issues are a) how far will Putin be willing to withdraw to his 2022 borders and b) how will he be deterred? The first is answered by a commercial sector/tripwire, joint Ukrainian-US-Europe resource development corridor in Eastern Ukraine, coupled with a Korea-like DMZ; the second by the fact that Putin unlike his 2008 and 2014 invasions has now lost a million dead and wounded to a Ukraine that will remain thusly armed.

5. What are Zelenskyy’s alternatives without much U.S. help—wait for a return of the Democrats to the White House in four years? Hope for a rearmed Europe? Pray for a Democratic House and a 3rd Vindman-like engineered Trump impeachment? Or swallow his pride, return to the White House, sign the rare-earth minerals deal, invite in the Euros (are they seriously willing to patrol a DMZ?), and hope Trump can warn Putin, as he did successfully between 2017-21, not to dare try it again?

6. If there is a cease fire, a commercial deal, a Euro ground presence, and influx of Western companies into Ukraine, would there be elections? And if so, would Zelenskyy and his party win? And if not, would there be a successor transparent government that would reveal exactly where all the Western financial aid money went?

7. Zelenskyy might see a model in Netanyahu. The Biden Administration was far harder on him than Trump is on Ukraine: suspending arms shipments, demanding cease-fires, prodding for a wartime, bipartisan cabinet, hammering Israel on collateral damage—none of which Westerners have demanded of Zelenskyy. Yet Netanyahu managed a hostile Biden, kept Israel close to its patron, and when visiting was gracious to his host. Netanyahu certainly would never before the global media have interrupted, and berated a host and patron president in the White House.

8. If Ukraine has alienated the U.S. what then is its strategic victory plan? Wait around for more Euros? Hold off an increasingly invigorated Russian military? Cede more territory? What, then, exactly are Zelenskyy’s cards he seems to think are a winning hand?

9. If one views carefully all the 50-minute tape, most of it was going quite well—until Zelenskyy started correcting Vance firstly, and Trump secondly. By Ukraine-splaining to his hosts, and by his gestures, tone, and interruptions, he made it clear that he assumed that Trump was just more of the same compliant, clueless moneybags Biden waxen effigy. And that was naïve for such a supposedly worldly leader.

10. March 2025 is not March 2022, after the heroic saving of Kyiv—but three years and 1.5 million dead and wounded later. Zelenskyy is no longer the international heartthrob with the glamorous entourage. He has postponed elections, outlawed opposition media and parties, suspended habeas corpus and walked out of negotiations when he had an even hand in Spring 2022 and apparently even now when he does not in Spring 2025.

Quo vadis, Volodymyr?

That's about it

Bonchie sums it up on X:

Overnight, the discussion has shifted from "Trump ambushed Zelensky" to "Yeah, Zelensky was rude, but so what?" Progress, I guess.

But that still misses the point. Zelensky's interjection to make clear he has no intention of negotiating a ceasefire is what blew up the deal.

I don't want to see Ukrained overrun, but if Zelenskyy won't negotiate a ceasefire that calls for Russia keeping the eastern territories and Crimea, then I guess he'd better roll the dice with whatever virtue-signaling European or Europhile countries are willing to get serious with money and men.

Exactly What I Wanted!

Now that’s marketing. 

Anabasis XX: Diplomacy

Today we've had quite a display of how diplomacy can lead to an honest and forthright exchange of views, rather than the 'formalized lying in formal wear' that we more usually observe from the professionals. 

The Myriad have a great example for us in today's reading of how diplomacy was done right in the old days. I'm going to quote more of the text than usual because it is a short section that is very charming.

After this, whilst waiting, they lived partly on supplies from the market, partly on the fruit of raids into Paphlagonia. The Paphlagonians, on their side, showed much skill in kidnapping stragglers, wherever they could lay hands on them, and in the night time tried to do mischief to those whose quarters were at a distance from the camp. The result was that their relations to one another were exceedingly hostile, so much so that Corylas, who was the chief of Paphlagonia at that date, sent ambassadors to the Hellenes, bearing horses and fine apparel, and charged with a proposal on the part of Corylas to make terms with the Hellenes on the principle of mutual forbearance from injuries. The generals replied that they would consult with the army about the matter. 

This is a promising start to peace talks. Both sides are hurting to a greater or lesser degree, so both sides are motivated to consider a peace proposal. The army has a problem it needs to solve -- adequate supplies -- and their enemies have a problem they need to solve -- not being subject to raids. There's an obvious solution: provide tribute on a temporary basis until the Myriad leaves the area in return for a cessation of raiding. The generals have instituted a democracy, however, in which the officers are subject to the discipline of the enlisted as well as vice-versa (if you read through the conflicts in yesterday's reading, you'll have seen some generals being fined by vote of the assembled army for one reason and another). So this proposed treaty is a matter the army will vote upon as well.

And in the best Ancient Greek style, they do it following a symposium held with the embassy. Notice that, unlike with the Persians, the Greeks respect the truce and cause no harm to those who are under their hospitality. 

[T]hey gave them a hospitable reception, to which they invited certain members of the army whose claims were obvious. They sacrificed some of the captive cattle and other sacrificial beasts, and with these they furnished forth a sufficiently festal entertainment, and reclining on their truckle beds, fell to eating and drinking out of beakers made of horn which they happened to find in the country.

But as soon as the libation was ended and they had sung the hymn, up got first some Thracians, who performed a dance under arms to the sound of a pipe, leaping high into the air with much nimbleness, and brandishing their swords [in a theatrical dance common to that country]... 

After this some Aenianians and Magnesians got up and fell to dancing the Carpaea, as it is called, under arms. This was the manner of the dance: one man lays aside his arms and proceeds to drive a yoke of oxen, and while he drives he sows, turning him about frequently, as though he were afraid of something; up comes a cattle-lifter, and no sooner does the ploughman catch sight of him afar, than he snatches up his arms and confronts him. They fight in front of his team, and all in rhythm to the sound of the pipe. At last the robber binds the countryman and drives off the team. Or sometimes the cattle-driver binds the robber, and then he puts him under the yoke beside the oxen, with his two hands tied behind his back, and off he drives....

After this a Mysian came in with a light shield in either hand and danced, at one time going through a pantomime, as if he were dealing with two assailants at once; at another plying his shields as if to face a single foe, and then again he would whirl about and throw somersaults, keeping the shields in his hands, so that it was a beautiful spectacle. Last of all he danced the Persian dance, clashing the shields together, crouching down on one knee and springing up again from earth; and all this he did in measured time to the sound of the flute. After him the Mantineans stepped upon the stage, and some other Arcadians also stood up; they had accoutred themselves in all their warlike finery. They marched with measured tread, pipes playing, to the tune of the 'warrior's march'; the notes of the paean rose, lightly their limbs moved in dance, as in solemn procession to the holy gods. The Paphlagonians looked upon it as something truly strange that all these dances should be under arms; and the Mysians, seeing their astonishment persuaded one of the Arcadians who had got a dancing girl to let him introduce her, which he did after dressing her up magnificently and giving her a light shield. When, lithe of limb, she danced the Pyrrhic, loud clapping followed; and the Paphlagonians asked, "If these women fought by their side in battle?" to which they answered, "To be sure, it was the women who routed the great King, and drove him out of camp." So ended the night.

The next day the army accepts the peace proposal, and the embassy returns home. The Ten Thousand remain there until they feel that enough ships have been gathered, and then they take to the sea to sail away from this country (probably to the vast relief of the inhabitants). They sail to Sinope, which receives them with gifts especially of food, that being the clear lesson on how to make and keep peace with the army. 

There they are met by Cheirisophus, who had gone to his friend the admiral to get ships for the army. Well, he didn't bring them ships or anything else except fine words and a promise of future pay once they are in closer proximity. 

The army pauses for a few days after a further sailing voyage and considers a change in leadership, switching to a single general with overall command instead of several who command different sections. This is with a view toward swift action to seize a fitting prize before they reach Hellas, because they don't want to come home almost empty-handed (although given what they have been through, coming home at all is quite a prize). 

Xenophon is asked to assume the supreme command -- he tells us -- but decides not to do so following a sacrifice to Zeus in his role as the King. He is offered the command but refuses it, first on the grounds that there is a Spartan there and Spartans have proven themselves the best soldiers (i.e. in the recent Peloponnesian War). When that is not accepted, he admits that he held a sacrifice and received a vision that told him he shouldn't take the command. This argument is accepted by all. 

So instead they choose Cheirisophus, who at least has a promise of employment for them. He says they will sail on to Heraclea. Now, "Heraclea" is a city name derived from the highly popular hero Heracles, and as such is about as common a city name in the era as "Alexandria" will soon become or as "Jackson" or "Jefferson" or "Franklin" are in America. Fortunately the text mentions the legend about the mouth of Hades being reputedly near the town, so we can be sure which of the many Heracleas is intended. 

I-40 to Reopen Tomorrow

It's just going to be one lane in each direction at first, but it will accommodate standard size-and-weight tractor trailers. That will be huge for the trucking industry, which has been having to route as far north as I-81 north of Johnson City, or as far south as I-285 north of Atlanta, for loads that required interstate transit. Traversing the mountain roads with a semi is out of the question in most of this country: they're just old mule trails that have curves too tight for a big truck to make. Every now and then some cowboy tries to bring a semi across US 129, "the Tail of the Dragon," and that goes about as well as you'd imagine.

Local roads have a similar problem. I mentioned NC 107 the other day; semis run down that one, but it's a near thing sometimes if you meet one. For a long time Dollar General's navigation software was routing its trucks across NC 281 up here. The VFD would have to help them back up, sometimes for miles, to get back to a road they could retreat upon successfully. These roads were built by mules, for mules.

A Pro-Trump Washington Post Opinion?

Trump dealt Russia a 'devastating blow' with mineral deal, may have effectively ended the war.

Strange thing to see in the Washington Post of all places. It's not a ridiculous argument, although the diplomatic dishonesty being engaged to smooth the peace deal in Ukraine is astonishing to watch.

UPDATE: The Post is back to its usual self today. Just a passing fever. 

Lead opinion: Donald Trump's rapidly spreading authoritarianism is the real threat to personal liberties and free markets. (Technically satisfies Bezos' order that Post opinion backs personal liberties and free markets.)

Editorial Board: Do Canada and Mexico deserve Trump tariffs? (Answer: No.)

Second op-ed: 'Tech bro Maoists' are torching the country that made them rich. (Graphic of Elon with a chainsaw).

Latest columns: 5/7 explicitly anti-Trump, 2 neutral.

I'd say that looks like open revolt against the boss.

Whitehouse Road (with Sturgill Simpson)

Some impressive guitar work by a man who could fill the Ryman easily by himself, but chose to show up as a guest at Tyler Childers' show. 

Anabasis XIX

When last we left the Ten Thousand, they were pushing their way south along the Black Sea. They had initially found a Greek city along the coast, because the Greeks like the Anglo-Saxons or the Norse-Celtic kingdoms of Norðreyjar and Suðreyjar was a thalassocracy (a word that we have from the Greeks: Xenophon's near-contemporary Herodotus used it to explain the Minoan empire). As they push southwest, they fight their way through non-Greek peoples, but eventually reach another Greek state along the coast, Sinope. This one serves as a protector for some non-Greeks that the Ten Thousand initially encounter in terms of mutual hostility. A detachment from the Greek state arrives to negotiate terms for the army's visit. The discourse between these Greeks and the Ten Thousand becomes notably more diplomatic and friendly as the Greeks realize just how powerful the Ten Thousand would be if they decided to fight.

Xenophon considers whether it might just be sensible to found a city with the Ten Thousand as its citizens; we have talked here about how they are a sort of Republic in any case, a Republic on the march. Were they to settle and take some promising country, they could defend it and support themselves in a sufficient way exactly as other states like Sparta were doing in the same period. Xenophon commissions a sacrifice and oracular reading to understand whether or not this is as promising an idea as he thinks it might be, and receives the prophecy that someone will betray him soon.

The efficacy of this prophecy turns out to be a small wonder, as the oracle himself was alarmed by the idea of city-founding and immediately betrays Xenophon by spreading rumors about his designs. This sets off a series of hearings within the army as some internal tensions that have been building in periods of danger now have a moment of peace in which they can be brought forward and resolved. Xenophon is able to convince the army that his intention in consulting the oracle was merely to decide whether the idea was promising enough to bring forward to the group, rather than an attempt to make decisions behind their backs. Some additional internal dramatics get worked out in this period, which I find less compelling than other matters and so will leave as an exercise for interested readers. 

By the way, if you follow the link "Ten Thousand" you will learn that the Ancient Greeks had a specific word for this quantity, which is the root of our word "myriad." For us that word implies a very large but nonspecific number, but for the Greeks it was a specific figure that was written: "M". Thus, in Greek the name of the army that we give in English as "the Ten Thousand" is properly "The Myriad." 

It's a more evocative term. You can easily imagine the effect on a city state of discovering that the Myriad had suddenly materialized in their vicinity, as the citizens of Sinope did, with demands they wished to make about access to markets and resources. They bring silver and would prefer to buy, and might want to charter shipping or else purchase larger supplies for a further march; but they are perilous, numerous, and disciplined.

Revival

When I hear the word “Revival,” I think of the literal camps that dotted North Georgia when I was young. They were semi permanent buildings, sheds of wood or corrugated steel, which in the summer season sprang into revival meetings — summer while the crops grew between planting and harvest, and it was too hot in Georgia to do anything but pray anyway. 

Those were Protestant, but this band has taken a name that suggests at least a strong tie to the Catholic tradition. The endorsement of bourbon as part of the solution is more comfortable for Catholics than it is for Baptists anyway. 

Upper Bearwallow Falls

Gorges State Park, North Carolina. 

This is waterfall country. The Blue Ridge Escarpment coincides here with the Eastern Continental Divide and also an alpine rain forest where warm air moving northeast from the Gulf of Mexico hits its first real mountains. 

There are so many waterfalls here that no one knows how many there are. There are so many that no one knows how many there are even just inside Gorges State Park. 

There are so many waterfalls here that when I bought my house, after we had closed, at the very last meeting where the former owners were turning over the keys, they mentioned in passing that there was a waterfall here on the property. "There is a waterfall on the property" never even came up in the listing, in the sales meetings, in the negotiations, just kind of at the end as an aside they pointed out that we now owned one. 

On NC 107 north of Cashiers there is a beautiful one that is only visible from the road when the leaves are off the trees. It's tall and long, divides into two sections and then comes back together for a single broad fall down a rock face. Anywhere else they'd have built a park just to look at it. Here, there's not even a pull-off along the highway so you can stop to view the thing. 

Aid Exceptions

During the discussion of USAID, I mentioned that my experience with their work in the southern Philippines was broadly positive. I thought we might miss their contributions to counterinsurgency. 

Fifteen years ago when I was in the Southern Philippines, USAID had just built a water treatment plant for a local community on one of the islands where some Islamist groups were trying to recruit. (Abu Sayyaf was the more problematic one, but also Jemaah Islamiyah and the local crew, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or 'MILF' as they amusingly chose to be called.) They also funded the local schools and, importantly, provided the textbooks to those schools -- textbooks that described the American influence otherwise than as a Great Satan, but pointed out helpful things that came to everyone in the area from the relationship. 

They had relationships throughout the limited local government even in that remote corner of the world. They knew people who could get things done. And, most likely, they provided a cover for clandestine operations and officers as necessary to target the radical Islamist groups using the area.

Our new Secretary of State, Rubio, agrees with that opinion. He exempted the Philippines and Taiwan from the aid freeze after review. It sounds like he is chiefly interested in the Chinese-backed insurgency (the Maoists are indeed quite dangerous and a form of power projection by the PRC).

“Governor”

I don’t know that it’s a good thing that the President thinks he’s a comedian, but we are where we are. 

A Balmy Day

I rode down into Brevard today, where it was nearly fifty and sunny. Up at Owen’s Gap, well above the continental divide, it was still chilly. 

Anabasis XVIII

When last we left the Ten Thousand, they had come home to the Greek world -- at least to a Greek city on the Black Sea that they used as a base for raiding back into the countryside they had recently traversed. The locals made them welcome.

Nevertheless the army of Ten Thousand -- a new census shows that it is now 14% smaller than that, at 8,600, after the snow the the fighting and some illnesses -- is too large for this city's market to supply for long. They need a plan for how to sustain themselves beyond just raiding the mountainous countryside, where supplies exist but will also run out.

At a meeting of the army, they understandably decide -- exactly as infantry thousands of years later can relate -- that they have marched as much as they really prefer to do.

The first speaker was Antileon of Thurii. He rose and said: "For my part, sirs, I am weary by this time of getting kit together and packing up for a start, of walking and running and carrying heavy arms, and of tramping along in line, or mounting guard, and doing battle. The sole desire I now have is to cease from all these pains, and for the future, since here we have the sea before us, to sail on and on, 'stretched out in sleep,' like Odysseus, and so to find myself in Hellas." When they heard these remarks, the soldiers showed their approval with loud cries of "well said," and then another spoke to the same effect, and then another, and indeed all present. Then Cheirisophus got up and said: "I have a friend, sirs, who, as good hap will have it, is now high admiral, Anaxibius. If you like to send me to him, I think I can safely promise to return with some men-of-war and other vessels which will carry us. All you have to do, if you are really minded to go home by sea, is to wait here till I come. I will be back ere long." The soldiers were delighted at these words, and voted that Cheirisophus should set sail on his mission without delay.

Xenophon speaks and gets the army to adopt several sensible resolutions about the raiding: the securing of the camp, the provision for reinforcements in case a raiding party gets overwhelmed, and so forth. He also suggests letting the nearby Greek governments know they might want to march the rest of the way, in case the ship idea doesn't work out, and that those local governments might want to fix up the roads to speed the hungry army on its way. The army is not pleased with the latter suggestion, but Xenophon is wise enough to send to the local governments anyway -- and they are wise enough to see the wisdom of fixing the roads so the army can get quickly out of their territory.

So when, sure enough, Cheirisophus' idea doesn't work out, the army tries to buy or source ships of its own. They end up only with one, which they can put support units on but not nearly the whole body of troops. Thus, a march is in the offing after all. 

They sell all the slaves they had taken -- I think sadly upon the 'beloved' Kurdish women (and boys) that Xenophon mentioned being smuggled along, although perhaps some of them really were beloved and remained with the army. We have noticed their piety and its efficacy; it should be noted here that they set aside a portion of the profits from the slave sale to Apollo and Artemis of the Ephesians. We learn that Xenophon gave a sum to be managed also by the priests of Apollo, which they used for a long time but later returned to him. A surprising fact mentioned in passing is that Xenophon later bought an estate and lived peacefully in this country that the Ten Thousand ravaged later during his time of exile from Sparta. 

Then the army starts marching west towards Hellas, their ship following offshore with the support troops, those above forty years' age, the sick, and noncombatants. They march upon nicely repaired roads at first, because of the wisdom of local city fathers in wanting to speed them along. 

There is then some very stiff fighting as they force their way through non-Greek lands again. At times they are able to win allies among the local populations, just as we did in Iraq: even within a tribe, let alone a people, you can usually find minor cousins who would prefer to be the major cousins. Some tough wars against fortified positions that are heavily guarded ensue, the Greeks pulling through thanks again to what Xenophon describes as divine intervention: a fire breaks out, inspiring the Greeks' use of additional fires they set on purpose. 

The Minority

The extremely Asheville Citizen Times (not a typo) is trumpeting this piece on how to resist Trump’s administration. Did you know that less than 32% of eligible voters voted for Trump in last year’s election? Sure, a clean majority of those who voted chose to vote for him; but if we assume that everyone who didn’t vote also preferred not to have Trump over Biden/Harris, that gives us a strong supermajority of eligible voters who didn’t endorse Trump. 

Once you have made that leap of logic, the rest is easy!

Zeitgeist

The comments sections for various NYT puzzles gives me a daily peek into a certain demographic's hot takes on the political stories of the day. On quiet days, people discuss the puzzles. Every few days there's a little desultory virtue-signaling about the sad state of affairs in the U.S., with commiseration from the world-wide audience.

Predictably, they've been riled up this week over the cruel and inexplicable budget cuts that are separating U.S. federal workers from jobs they rightfully own for life. They're just slashing blindly! They're not even commissioning half-billion-dollar efficiency studies that will last for years and be studied for years longer! But today there's an unprecedented flood of outrage over the very concept of workers having to state in a few simple words what they accomplished during the past week. They're lying awake stewing over it; they're trying to decide whether they should refuse to answer out of principle. They can't imagine who this upstart is who is demanding to know what they do that even they consider of any value. How could this childish clown possibly comprehend the subtle worth of their efforts, even if they could bring themselves to jot them down?

On Twitter, someone working on a DOGE-associated task posted a tongue-in-cheek inquiry about how he would begin in describing the incredible progress of his last week. Musk responded that he'd be fine, and that in any case DOGE was setting a low bar: he really hoped primarily to identify a small group that could respond in comprehensible English demonstrating a grasp of the point of the inquiry.

In many online venues, most of what I read is bemoaning the sad fate of federal workers with mortgages they can barely handle. They don't even bother explaining what they're doing that anyone would miss. Why is my job important? Because of my paycheck, of course.

Medieval Trade Routes

This map of Medieval trade routes is very detailed and interesting. It also may be of interest to compare with the route of the Ten Thousand, as its mention of mountain passes gives a pretty good indication of how they probably traveled. They are currently in Trebizond, near the center of the map on the Black Sea. They probably came through Baghesh Pass, and fought the last battle that was detailed at Zigana Pass.

Anabasis Interlude III: James' Remarks

James posted some insightful remarks at his blog, to which I would like to draw your attention and some of which I would like to discuss further.

One [thing that stood out for him] is how important sacrifices and studying omens was in their activity. At one point they delay action for an almost disastrously long time because the omens weren't favorable. The recorded speeches emphasize how important it is to be honest, because the gods hated evil oathbreakers. 

In yesterday's post I mentioned this insight, and added that what really impresses me is the efficacy of these religious practices. Anabasis is a prose work and a kind of public history, but it does contain a lot of Ancient Greek ritual. I am impressed by their apparent efficacy.

There is something about the process itself that may be effective. They’re praying to Zeus and Heracles and Apollo, whom very few today believe are real; but it works. There’s something about the process, and maybe it’s in the ritual or the attitude of prayer or of gratitude, that seems effective. 

Or it could be that, somehow, their understanding of virtue "tuned" their prayers to the right listeners, in a way we wouldn't understand. Jewish, Indian and Chinese history also contain various -- quite varied, actually -- methods of communing with the divine, and all of them have at times produced good results. That's strange given how different their metaphysical claims ultimately are, especially the Hindu and Buddhist claims about the basic reality that differ quite widely from either the Ancient Greek or Christian ones.

Major decisions have to be voted on by the soldiers, not just the generals--who can be similarly gotten rid of. I don't mean to disparage Xenophon, but that brought to mind the not entirely dissimilar democracy on pirate ships. (I don't know if privateers, who'd be more like mercenaries, were run along lines similar to pirates.)

Some were, and some weren't; a lot of privateers in the Golden Age of Piracy were pirates sometimes and privateers other times, like Henry Morgan or Stede Bonnet. Morgan ran his crew like a pirate, but Bonnet paid his crew wages rather than plunder (and also paid for the construction of his ship). Other privateers were businessmen who were in the service of a country to which they were loyal all the time, particularly American privateers. There was a joint stock company or a wealthy man who outfitted the vessel, hired a captain, and ran it like a business. 

However, the analogy between pirates and Greek soldiers is not novel. 

When we are going to talk about pirates, well, we already are: most of those early Vikings were in fact pirates, and not kings in their own land. We will return to how little a distinction there is between piracy and "legitimate government" in a while, but the concept was not new even then: no less than St. Augustine relates a story about a pirate captured by Alexander the Great, who asked the pirate how he dared molest peaceful shipping. The pirate asked him, "How dare you molest the whole world?"

It is a much fairer point than people admit. If we look at our own American notions of legitimacy in government, the pirates look far more legitimate than the kings: they made compacts to which the people who joined those compacts actually gave their consent. Iceland's government looks like the only one that we would find legitimate on anything like the American model; even Scotland's doesn't have the legitimacy of the Declaration of Arbroath until 1320, much later.

Xenophon's army started as a force of mercenaries, and after the death of their employer they became an unemployed force who initially just tried to see if one of the Persians would like to hire them instead. After the deaths of their generals through Persian treachery, however, they became something else. 

The Ten Thousand are at this point in the story a kind of marching Republic. They elected their leaders and could replace them; and they no longer serve any higher authority but themselves. Their purpose is indeed like a nation's purpose: to protect their citizenry against the dangers of the world, while keeping each other as free as possible. 

Now that they have returned to a Hellenic city, they have to decide what to do. At first they continue to act like a Republic, waging war against the neighbors who had chosen to wage war against them during their passage. (How much wiser the Macrones' decision to trade with them and help them pass looks now!) 

They are no longer in the Wild, or what was the Wild to them. They have to now figure out how to come to terms with their society of Hellenic fellows. The city they came to gave them gifts and let them use it as a base for raiding, but in time they will need to do something else. They could dissolve and all sail home, keeping such money and slaves as they took on the march. Or they could retain this power that they built by coming together and building mutual trust and camaraderie. They have loyalty to each other now, which as James notes they didn't at first. That's powerful too.

The SECDEF Speaks

Mr. Hines dropped this address in the comments below, but it's aimed directly at American citizens so I wanted to put it on the front page.

History Rhymes

At first I thought he was talking about the origins of the Republican Party, which sort of was founded by refugees from the Whig and the Democratic-Republican Party who dissented from slavery. I realized, however, that he means the current party. 

He's right, too: Trump was a Democrat most of his life, donated a lot to the Clintons (enough to buy his sister a Federal judgeship from Bill). Tulsi was a Democrat until like November. RFK? Who could be more of a Democrat than a scion of the Kennedy family? 

I'm also perfectly OK with dismantling the government. Er, "as we've known it for a century or more." Or, you know, maybe even more than that. 

Without Joe the Key Guy, how will we face the future?

If the state-sponsored press wants to excel at propaganda, I'd think they'd avoid phrases like this when trying to generate panic over the loss of essential federal personnel:

the institutional knowledge needed to rescue visitors from locked restrooms

Are there a lot of people who lock themselves into restrooms at national parks? Should Congress look into special funding for this national emergency? Does it require critical institutional knowledge to go get the keys out of Joe's office and avoid having to blow a hole in the wall before some tourist starves to death in the toilet?

It reminds me of this classic from Duffle Blog.

Thermonuclear Deregulation

Reason has mostly been unhappy with the new administration, but they like this EO really well.

Gotta love it

It's a little like the Kash Patel inverted-universe story, but oddly more satisfying: a maverick anti-fraud junior bureaucrat temporarily snags the top seat at the Social Security Administration after being targeted for termination when he cooperated with DOGE.

It's like Richard the Lion-Hearted reappearing and rewarding Robin Hood.

Anabasis XVII

The next day they march down off the mountain from which they saw the sea, and ten parasangs later reach the river that is the border between the Macrones and the land of the Scythians. (You can see this on yesterday's map: the Macrones' land is labeled due west of the blue circle, and the 'Scythini' south of it.) The army finds itself trapped between the rugged mountains and a river, which they must cross, and a thick forest on the other side. 

They begin trying to cut down trees in order to make a road for themselves, but they are soon set upon by an army of Macrones. These are poorly and very lightly armed, wicker shields and spears and stones that they are throwing rather than the clever slings with lead bullets that the Persians were using. One of the Greek peltasts comes to Xenophon and explains that he was originally from this country before being made a slave by the Athenians, and later winning his freedom as a soldier; he thinks he can talk with them. Xenophon assents, and so the peltast goes to them and asks why they are attacking the Greek Army. The Macrones reply that they have come to resist the invasion of their country; the Greeks explain that they don't really intend an invasion, but instead are returning from one and just want to get back to Hellas. 

The Macrones are quite delighted by this news, and once they have exchanged pledges and tokens guaranteeing it, immediately throw themselves into the road-building. What could be better than a good road for a potential enemy and hungry army to leave upon? Speaking of the hungry army aspect, the Macrones have the good sense to sell food to the Greeks, creating an impromptu market for them to spend some of their Persian silver.

The Macrones escort them across their land to the border of the land of the Colchians, thought to be ancestors of the modern Georgians, who are drawn up in battle array and intend to fight. Once again the generals led by Xenophon reorder their army into a new battle order in deference to the mountainous terrain. For this advance over uneven and ascending ground, they form a series of columns by company out of the heavy infantry, with the light infantry and skirmishers as supporting divisions. (The 'companies' are about 100 men, per Xenophon; the divisions are about six hundred men each.)

Now, you should know enough by this point to understand what is about to happen. The flower of the Persian army could not stand up to these hoplites drawn up in battle array and on the advance. These proto-Georgians make an actual attempt to resist, but they are pulled apart trying to contain the Greek companies and their center gives way. Much as happened at the Civil War-era Battle of Chickamauga, this hole is advanced into somewhat by mistake and chance, with a light division finding itself punching through easily and a heavy company following behind them. The broken Colchian army flees when it realizes that it has been split and penetrated, and the Greeks have seized the high ground. 

The Greeks capture some supplies and find themselves also amongst a lot of honey beehives that belonged to the locals. The honey for some reason makes them sick, and they spend a day of vomiting and other illnesses that would make you think that you had come upon them in a condition of military defeat; but the next day nobody had died of it, so they march on.

Another seven parasangs and they find themselves at the sea!

[They]reached the sea at Trapezus, a populous Hellenic city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans, in the territory of the Colchians. Here they halted about thirty days in the villages of the Colchians, which they used as a base of operations to ravage the whole territory of Colchis. The men of Trapezus supplied the army with a market, entertained them, and gave them, as gifts of hospitality, oxen and wheat and wine. Further, they negotiated with them in behalf of their neighbours the Colchians, who dwelt in the plain for the most part, and from this folk also came gifts of hospitality in the shape of cattle. And now the Hellenes made preparation for the sacrifice which they had vowed, and a sufficient number of cattle came in for them to offer thank-offerings for safe guidance to Zeus the Saviour, and to Heracles, and to the other gods, according to their vows.

James mentioned the frequency of the prayer and the oracles in his post on this subject; I want to point out, at least as Xenophon reports it, their efficacy. Now, if their prayers hadn't been answered we might not have the book to go by, so to some degree this is like the 'what are the odds of Earth existing with such a perfect balance of conditions for life?' questions. (The answer is that the odds are 1, given that we're here talking about it.) Yet I am struck by how effective their devotions and prayers turned out to be; even Xenophon's dodgy request to the Oracle of Delphi somehow aligned with him coming through this adventure. 

It could be that prayer per se is good for the soul. Hundreds of years before Christ, they preyed to Zeus whom they knew and it seems to have worked. But then one thinks of the Aztecs and their blood magic and human sacrifice, and perhaps it's not quite as simple as that. 

Vance in Germany

I expect you saw coverage of VP Vance's speech in Germany, and maybe read the transcript. Foreign Policy, which is not a fan of Vance or the current administration but does like the international elite, quotes a German response.

Another official had far stronger words. “It was total bullshit. We don’t know what planet he is on,” the official said. “At least when we met Keith Kellogg, we could talk geopolitics,” they added, referring to Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine. “With Vance, we can’t even agree what a democracy is.”

That last sentence, at least, appears to be accurate. They definitely don't agree on what a democracy is, or should be, or what force it ought to have if voters want things like Brexit. I've been observing the EU from afar for a long time, as we all have, and I'm not sure I understand what they think the function of the democratic aspects of their governance ought to be. They keep holding elections, but they definitely don't seem to let them get in the way of doing what the elite thinks is right. 

Update on Social Security

In the prior post, I noted that a large potential set of suspect payments had been discovered, and that a reconciliation of the numbers was needed. The head of the Social Security Administration has now given a statement on the topic.

“These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek said, while expressing confidence in the audits conducted by DOGE, which Trump has tasked with uncovering any fraud, waste, and abuse in government spending.

“I am confident that with DOGE’s help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people,” Dudek said.

It may be that the final figures after reconciliation aren't as gigantic as their potential to be is before we go through that process. It's good to see them cooperating with the inquiry, and committed to squaring things up.

On "Who Goes Nazi?"

AVI is revisiting the famous essay, which we have discussed before in this space as well: Tex had a post about it in 2010, and I had one in 2015 (i.e. both during the Obama years, before the Trump period).

It's a good essay. As I indicated in 2015, "Mr. H" is the one that sounds to me most like myself; the one who "has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant" because "this is his country, and he knows it"; whose "ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since," as did mine. He is both intellectual and practical, and one of two men in the room who will certainly pick up a gun to fight if necessary.

While it's worth considering all this from time to time, it's interesting to see it come up in the present moment. There's a lot of talk about Trump supporters being fascists, even Nazis, but it is mostly ridiculous. Fascists believe in the state as the absolute center of human life, the definer of all values in the post-religious age, with which all churches and families must align, and nothing can be allowed to oppose. The centrality of the state is total:  as Mussolini put it, "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."

A movement built around slashing the government so that it exercises less control over individuals and families is certainly not fascist in any sense of the word. 

The current SECDEF is proposing to cut the military budget by ~40%(!!!).* This is not the rising militarism associated with Nazi Germany or Fascist Anywhere. Pushback from within the Republican party is that there's no way it will happen, not because they have designs on conquest but because Congress won't agree to spend that much less.

The Trump administration has also got another sense of meaning and rightness that isn't just state dictates. Rightly or wrongly, they interpret sex according to nature, and want the state to comply with that external natural order. 

There may be fascists in America somewhere, but they aren't at the Daytona 500. 

Trump's ideas may be ill-advised or outright wrong in some places -- the Gaza plan is madness, for example. They may be ill-executed by the team of outsiders and amateurs he's putting together even when they're good ideas. What they are doing may cause unintended harms as well as the intended goods of debt reduction and a more sustainable government structure. There are lots of fair criticisms to raise and entertain. 

But fascism? Nazi? Completely ridiculous. 

* SECDEF Hegseth clarified the next day that he is proposing to reassign 8% of the annual budget each year for five years. He does not anticipate cutting it by 8% each year for five years as reported by CNN at the link.

Anabasis XVI

Out of the snowy mountains, the Greek army finds pleasant villages for a while; but then they come into a hard country where their provisions fail. In this country, the land of the Taochians, men have seen enough raiding armies that they have no pleasant villages. In the manner that would later become true of the Scottish Borders, where English raiders were constantly riding in -- or the English borders, where Scottish reivers were constantly riding in! -- the people of this land had fortified their homes, and were in the habit of keeping their provisions behind stone walls. The Army finds nothing to purchase or plunder, and soon are out of food. 

I have circled in blue the land of the Taochians.

Finally Cheirisophus, commanding the vanguard, just attacks one of the fortified places because he needs the food. The Greeks are driven back by a hail of stones, until at last the whole army has come up before the walls. Once Xenophon and the rear guard are there, the two generals consult and determine that the stones are survivable in the heavy armor, and once they are expended there are too few behind the walls to put up any effective further defense. Therefore, they begin passing an area to draw the fire with the clear plan of making their enemies run out of ammunition. 

It turns out to be a fun game.

Callimachus hit upon a pretty contrivance--he ran forward from the tree under which he was posted two or three paces, and as soon as the stones came whizzing, he retired easily, but at each excursion more than ten wagon-loads of rocks were expended. Agasias, seeing how Callimachus was amusing himself, and the whole army looking on as spectators, was seized with the fear that he might miss his chance of being first to run the gauntlet of the enemy's fire and get into the place. So, without a word of summons to his neighbour, Aristonymous, or to Eurylochus of Lusia, both comrades of his, or to any one else, off he set on his own account, and passed the whole detachment. But Callimachus, seeing him tearing past, caught hold of his shield by the rim, and in the meantime Aristonymous the Methydrian ran past both, and after him Eurylochus of Lusia; for they were one and all aspirants to valour, and in that high pursuit, each was the eager rival of the rest. So in this strife of honour, the three of them took the fortress, and when they had once rushed in, not a stone more was hurled from overhead.

The fun stops when they gain the fortress, however. Expecting the severe treatment that has caused them to adopt such a hard way of life, the women atop the fortress hurl their infants to their deaths, and then leap to their own. The men of the fortress follow suit. One Greek officer, Aeneas the Stymphalian, tries to grab one of the men to keep him from suicide, but the man wraps him up and carries him off the cliff down to the crags below, killing them both. 

They recover a large flock of sheep from this endeavor, as well as cattle and asses. This is helpfully mobile food for an army, and the prize that it turns out the people were defending with their lives. 

The army has come through the worst of the mountains now, as you can see from the map. They gain a guide at the next city, who promises them that he can lead them to the sea. The land he takes them through is undergoing a war of its own, and they end up having some skirmishes with forces arrayed to fight another set of invades. 

Yet on the fifth day, when Xenophon and the rearguard hear shouting before them as the army climbs atop a mountain, it is not as he first thinks the sound of combat. The Greeks are shouting with joy. 

"THE SEA! THE SEA!"

[W]hen they had reached the summit, then indeed they fell to embracing one another--generals and officers and all--and the tears trickled down their cheeks. And on a sudden, some one, whoever it was, having passed down the order, the soldiers began bringing stones and erecting a great cairn, whereon they dedicated a host of untanned skins, and staves, and captured wicker shields, and with his own hand the guide hacked the shields to pieces, inviting the rest to follow his example. After this the Hellenes dismissed the guide with a present raised from the common store, to wit, a horse, a silver bowl, a Persian dress, and ten darics; but what he most begged to have were their rings, and of these he got several from the soldiers.

The sight of the sea is one of the most memorable parts of the Anabasis. These men, hardened now by difficulty, war, and the terror of seeing true horrors, are filled with joy to tears. They have not reached the sea, but they can for a moment see it, and they know for certain now how much further they have to go until they can hope to find ships for home. 

Anabasis XV

The army continues quickly after its success of the last chapter, but finds it is pushing through very deep snow in the Armenian mountains. This is a new peril -- very different from the sands of Arabia, or the dry mountains of Kurdistan. They lose quite a few men and beasts in the snow, and have to abandon others who are snowblind or who lose their toes to frostbite. They learn that the shoes they have been making not of leather but the rawhide of recently slain animals, to replace their good shoes now worn, are partly to blame; and that they must remove the shoes at night to avoid having the rawhide freeze to their feet.

Eventually they come to a set of mountain villages that have adapted to the snow in interesting ways. They have built homes that are underground, with entrances like wells that broaden out as you descend. They also dig passages for their animals, who live underground in these homes with them. And they have great bowls filled with all manner of edible grains, floated in barleywine that has become quite strong. They pull out the grains to eat, and drink the strong beer, to keep themselves through the winter. They are not delighted by the arrival of the Greeks, but do not resist them and indeed make them welcome for a short time. 

Xenophon takes the headman* of one of the villages as a guide, promising that his family will not be troubled in return for his good service. Yet the Greeks also take his young son along, a babe, clearly as a hostage for his good behavior even though Xenophon never uses the term. In fact, during the next passage through the snow another of the Greek generals grows cross because the headman has not lead them to more villages, and strikes him. The headman flees, abandoning his son. The Greeks at least proved fond of the boy, and took care of him.

They come then upon a contested mountain pass, and seize it by a clever maneuver. They have some other local guides they have captured, and those young men help them find goat and sheep paths to grounds above the enemy army. They light fires once they have seized the high ground, so that the enemy below knows they have been outflanked. When the main army pushes up against them, and the flankers push down, the enemy -- now unnamed, because the Greeks no longer really know whom they are fighting -- readily gives way in the face of disciplined attack. 

* If you want to hear what "headman" sounds like in Greek, there's a great scene in The Thirteenth Warrior (1999) in which the Arabic-speaking characters try various languages in order to identify who is in charge of the Viking encampment. One of them is ἡγεμών, "hēgemṓn," or 'headman.' This is not actually the word Xenophon uses; he gives άρχοντας, which is usually translated as "archon" or ‘ruler’. But at least you can get a sense of what it might be like to try to sort out who is in charge in various languages, one of which is Greek.

The one that works in the movie is Latin, “noster Rex,” or ‘our King.’

Ambiguities of Language

I notice that there is a significant usage of ambiguous terms going on in this NYT story about the resignation of the Social Security head in protest of DOGE. There is a very careful construction at work in deploying these terms in this way.

The resignation of Michelle King, the acting commissioner, is the latest abrupt departure of a senior federal official who refused to provide Mr. Musk’s lieutenants with access to closely held data. Mr. Musk’s team has been embedding with agencies across the federal government and seeking access to private data as part of what it has said is an effort to root out fraud and waste. [Emphasis added.]

"Private" data? It's clearly not private, because it is owned by the government. It is thus, to use another ambiguous term that is at least as just, public information. 

But it isn't really public-public, just as it isn't really private-private. It's akin to the copies of your emails that Google or Yahoo owns, and which they can freely choose to share with the FBI if they are asked. They don't need your permission, and you have no legal expectation of privacy. Here, the government owns this copy of the information, which DOGE has lawful authority to access. 

Which brings us to "breach."

“S.S.A. has comprehensive medical records of people who have applied for disability benefits,” said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a group that promotes the expansion of Social Security. “It has our bank information, our earnings records, the names and ages of our children, and much more.”

Warning about the risks of Mr. Musk's team accessing the data, Ms. Altman added, “There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is.” [Emphasis added.]

It's not a "breach" in any normal sense of the term; it's just a government agency with oversight powers accessing the records of another agency over which it has oversight responsibilities. They're not stealing the information. They're not 'breaching security.' They are part of the security; this is their job.

Now the use of 'private' was in the Times' own voice; here they are simply quoting someone who said something they liked even better. It's misleading and without context, which makes it even better for them because the point of the article is to lead the reader in a particular direction.

Class Warfare in the USA

I don't quite buy this argument, but there is something to be said for doing a class-based analysis of the present moment. I think he has the classes wrong. His opening statement is to the effect that it's a war between factions of the elite, in which the working class is powerless. 

It might strike some as odd: The new president of the United States won the election by rallying the working class against the establishment swamp, yet he has placed at the helm of his assault on the elite-controlled Deep State none other than the richest man in the world. But this is only a paradox if you grant a couple of assumptions that the above description presupposes: that the “working class” is actually represented at all in our political system, and that anyone but the “elite” is involved in the power struggles within it. Understanding what’s really happening in the second Trump administration requires disabusing ourselves of both of these notions. What we’re seeing is the latest battle in a long war between two factions of the American elite. The working class are just extras on the set—moral props in a struggle that has nothing to do with them. 

It's definitely true that neither Trump nor Musk are nor ever have been 'working class.' However, they are both outliers from their economic class, and in any case individuals and not classes. The story the author wants to tell is about an elite that is divided into two factions by whether they possess more cultural or more economic capital.

Generally speaking, members of the elite are relatively affluent in both economic and cultural capital. But the composition of one’s portfolio matters. Within the ruling class, Bourdieu regards those who are far richer in cultural capital than economic capital as structurally subordinate—in his words, “the dominated fractions of the dominant class.” Those with the inverse mix—who are rich in money but don’t necessarily boast the most illustrious educational credentials—are the dominant fraction of the dominant class. 

So the story is that Trump represents the dominant fraction of the dominant class, as does Musk; and they are striving to further subordinate the faction that is defined by its cultural capital, e.g. education and cultural knowledge. These are the two classes, the rich wanting more freedom from regulation, and the educated wanting comfortable government jobs programs. 

The problem for me is Weber's insight that the bureaucracy constitutes its own class with its own class interests that diverge from the rest of the citizenry -- even from the 'class' they were drawn from. And it has its own power, too: far from being subordinate, that Administrative class functionally deposed the last President and governed without him exactly as they wished. They ran the police, they ran the military, they ran the government from stem to stern. Even though the government includes many 'working class' men -- soldiers and police officers usually are, for example -- they were led by a class whose interests did not align with theirs, or indeed with any other citizens'. 

It's true that we are finding out that USAID and other mechanisms established something like a 'jobs program' that itself pursued political ends from outside the government. Wealthy networked NGOs and activist groups molded politics in the precise interests of the Administrative class. Because it paid their comfortable salaries, the Administrative class aligned that part of 'those far richer in cultural capital than economic capital' with itself. There is no doubt, however, that the Administrative class was dominant: it set their agenda in its own interest. DOGE is effectively severing that tie, which may in time lead to those two factions drifting apart.

Meanwhile, the rich part of that class seems often to align itself with the Administrative class, just because they end up subject to its powers. Facebook was all about joining in on unconstitutional Administrative efforts towards backdoor censorship, as was Twitter until Musk bought it. All the big corporations were lining up in favor of Wokeness until Bud Light crossed -- well, it crossed the working class. That was really the first blow, Bud Light's loss of its majestic stature and wealth brought about by working people refusing to drink the stuff any more. They too are why Trump got elected in numbers to big to 'fortify.' 

So I don't think this analysis is quite right, but I do think it's a useful exercise to examine what classes there are and try to sort out how they are trying to influence the game. The working class has not proven powerless, and the elite isn't quite divided up the way the author thinks. It is worth thinking about, though.

Two Charts on US Population

Sourced from Wikipedia.

Sourced from the Social Security Administration, according to Elon Musk.

Some reconciliation of these numbers needs to occur. The obvious place to start is verifying Musk's figures are accurate, and the Social Security Administration does in fact have these figures. If that's right, then there's a significant delta that needs to be figured out.

Review: Knightriders

So I don't know how I never heard of this movie before last week, because it seems like the kind of thing that somebody should have suggested to me before now. Knightriders is a 1981 film about a group of medieval re-enactors who joust on motorcycles instead of horses, which is as close as you could easily come to the way I spent the 1990s-2010s aside from the trips abroad. We did Scottish Highland Games instead of Renaissance Fairs, but it was just a big bunch of bikers teaching people how to use historic weaponry on the weekends in our spare time. The movie should have come up.

It never did. It took the algorithm to find it for me, giving me an AI-generated review of the thing. It stars Ed Harris, who is a great actor and wasn't bad here. The plot is less Excalibur than Roger Corman, although Excalibur is probably why this movie didn't become very famous. It was also 1981, and swallowed up all the attention for Arthurian-themed moviegoers.

There's a connection, though: the sword from the more famous movie ended up in the hands of an outlaw biker who changed his name legally to Arthur Pendragon. That's exactly the sort of thing the hero of Knightriders would have done.

In the end he walks into a schoolhouse and surrenders his sword to a boy who'd come to him earlier in the film, right in front of the teacher and everything. Nobody says anything against it. 

I think it's an interesting meditation on what would have happened in Le Morte Darthur if Arthur had just accepted events instead of contesting them: surrendering his throne to Mordred, his wife to Lancelot, his sword to the next heir. If Arthur had simply accepted that his time had come and let go, wouldn't it all have been better?

Maybe. That's the hard part, though, isn't it? 

 “There likewise I beheld Excalibur

  Before him at his crowning borne, the sword

  That rose from out the bosom of the lake,

  And Arthur rowed across and took it—rich

  With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,

  Bewildering heart and eye—the blade so bright

  That men are blinded by it—on one side,

  Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,

  ‘Take me,’ but turn the blade and ye shall see,

  And written in the speech ye speak yourself,

  ‘Cast me away!’  And sad was Arthur’s face

  Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,

  ‘Take thou and strike! the time to cast away

  Is yet far-off.’  So this great brand the king

  Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.”

Anabasis XIV

The Greeks find the broad river between the land of the Kurds and Armenia to be too deep to cross while it is contested. They stay for more than a day, the Kurds having taken over their better camp behind them, trapped between two enemy forces with a river to cross. 

Xenophon has a dream of being held in iron fetters that fall away. He relates this the next morning, and just about the time he finishes some young men come up all excited. They tell him that they've seen some old women washing clothes further down the river, and that they thought the river therefore must be safe to cross at that location. They stripped naked and crossed with only their daggers, and found that at no point was the river so deep as their crotch. Xenophon and his companions are delighted and pour libations, and determine to cross the river in two divisions, the vanguard taking the opposing shore, the baggage train passing between, and the rearguard -- commanded by Xenophon -- crossing at the end to hold off the Kurdish assault.

This works more or less well, as the enemies on the opposing side once again don't really want to fight. The Kurds really do and do their best to kill as many Greeks as possible on their way out, but the strategy is sound and it brings the Greeks out of Kurdistan at last.

On the far side of the river they march for a few days until they are confronted by a large army. The army's commander, a local grandee, says he wants to let them march through if they will do so without burning the land -- although they may take supplies if needed. The Greeks agree to this, but once again it turns out that keeping your word is not a virtue much respected by these denizens of the Near East. The Greeks are used to this by now, and keep careful watch for betrayal; when it happens, they storm and capture the camp of the grandee, plundering it for its goods. 

Armored MMA

What fun! I enjoyed historical European martial arts among several other kinds, and was our university co-president for ARMA for some years. I would have liked doing this even a few years ago. 

Imagination Time

Al Sharpton has a hypothetical for you.

UPDATE: More imagination. 

The most generous interpretation of her remarks is that she thinks the Nazis were allowed free speech by Weimar and that’s how they got into power. That isn’t true either, however. The Weimar Republic censored hate speech and particularly anti-Semitic speech. The Nazis came to power in spite of censorship, not because of a lack of it. 

Shane vs. High Noon

Althouse has an amusing reply to a Maureen Dowd column that notes, in passing, that the headline writers don't know the difference between Shane and High Noon. We do here! Both of those films have featured regularly in commentary for the decades that the Hall has been in action.

Here are a few relevant pieces for old time's sake. 

And here's a celebration of Jack Palance, the anti-hero of Shane, on the occasion of his passing.

Wild World of Sports

Donald Trump became the first sitting President to attend a Super Bowl in person, and apparently did a flyover of the Daytona 500 as well. Both the football and the NASCAR crowds seemed to appreciate him.

Meanwhile in Canada, Justin Trudeau attended the USA/Canada match of the "4 Nations Tournament" (the other two are Finland and Sweden). The crowd booed the US National Anthem, and perhaps consequently there were three fistfights between opposing hockey players in the first nine seconds of the game. The USA won 3-1, and will play the winner of the other two nations in the final.

It's not that weird for big sporting spectacles to end up tying in with politics, in the manner of Roman emperors attending the games at the Coliseum. Is it a healthy way to let off some of the stress and steam? Maybe.

Anabasis XIII: Towards the Kurds

Watching the Persian forces burn their own villages, the Greeks are encouraged a bit: this seems like a confession by their enemies that they cannot control the Greek force. The problem that they face is nevertheless that there are mountains on one side of them, and the Tigris on the other, and they don't really know where they are. 

They are presented with an innovative solution for crossing the Tigris using the skins of some of the animals they have captured to create a pontoon bridge. This is considered but rejected because of the enemy cavalry on the far side, which will surely not allow the engineering project.

Thus they go forth in an unexpected direction to plunder and collect prisoners, whom they interrogate about the surrounding country. In this way they learn which way the various roads go, and also that if they proceed north they will come into the country of the Kurds. They go in that direction, and the Persians apparently cease pursuing them as they pass out of country controlled by the King of Persia, and also because they don't want to tangle with the Kurds themselves.

Now I want to say some kind words about the Kurds while we are on the topic. They are a fierce mountain people, and as you can see an ancient one. They have had a difficult existence all their long history, being subjected to the empires of Persians, Greeks, Turks, and others all the long time. Yet I have found them to be a forthright and honest people. The ones I knew in Iraq were brave men and had no second thoughts about speaking their minds. One time in a tribal conclave where several Arab sheikhs were present voicing their concerns and desires to us, a Kurdish police chief who had authority over the area simply turned to us and said, "You know they are lying about everything, don't you?" It is my opinion that the Kurds should prosper and receive the freedom to form a nation that has so long been denied them by circumstance: because it would require part of Syria and part of Iraq and part of Iran and part of Turkey, they are constantly denied. We would be wise and to help them overcome this difficulty and create a homeland, however much it annoyed our 'allies' in Turkey.

But I digress. The subject is not the Kurds of today, but the Kurds of thousands of years ago.

The Greeks cross a mountain range and plunder a set of Kurdish villages, which are abandoned because of the surprise with which the Greeks came upon them. The Greeks capture quite a bit of food, and choose to abandon the weaker of their baggage animals at this time. In the hope of not making enemies of the Kurds, who might be friendly since the Persians hated them, the Greeks only take food and not brazen kitchenware or other goods. (Slaves taken by the raid are 'confiscated' by the generals, I assume to be set free since they don't wish to march with extra mouths or offend the Kurds: but Xenophon mentions that a few good looking women 'or boys' are taken in spite of this effort. This boy-attraction is one of the features of ancient Greece that is less admirable than others.) 

They march on through storm and attacks. The Kurds roll stones down the mountains onto them and assail them fiercely. The Greeks torture prisoners taken and kill one outright, because he won't tell them how to find the right road. The next guy decides to talk, emphasizing that the guy they killed didn't want to tell them the truth because he had a daughter who lived down that way. An honorable death, then; he was doing what a father might do. The Greeks at this point are waging plain war on the country with limited concession. You would not want them coming upon your daughter either. 

They send a detachment of light infantry to march fast and seize a difficult passage that their new guide warns them they won't be able to get through if they don't control it in advance. This advance unit doesn't know the terrain, though, and takes only part of what is needed. There is a hard fight to get through the heights that ended up still being commanded by the Kurds. The Greeks capture a Kurdish village with great stores of wine among other things; it is to their credit as a disciplined force that they do not become so drunk that they are disabled by hangovers. Also to their credit, they release their guide and let him return freely home. 

The next day is another hard fight, with the Kurds using the high ground effectively against them. They march from village to village, bivouacking in each by night and plundering it. In this way they maintain their logistics through the mountains to the next plain. They reckon up that the Kurds had cost them more in their rough guerilla attacks than the Persians had with their formal armies. For a moment the Greeks think they might be at last free: but then horsemen show up, this time from the Armenian kingdom. 

UPDATE: I rewrote this section for greater clarity about whom the Greeks were fighting in particular episodes.