Here's a movie that's been mentioned time and again in this hall. I'd like to propose that we watch it, this weekend.
It's one of those movies in the clear now, so you can find it for sale on any number of cowboy movie compilations. If you can't find it, though, the whole thing is availabe online (in multiple parts) here.
Who's with me for this one?
UPDATE: Cassidy, you are specially required to join us, assuming you have the power. This is a movie you should see, if you haven't yet.
GHMC Angel
Grim's Hall Movie Club: Angel and the Badman
This just makes me giggle.
I wonder how he really feels.
IT'S NOT CLOSE. YOU FREAKING LOST THE NOMINATION, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?
I wonder how he really feels.
Bthun
Congress and States Rights?
I don't have the background to know for certain what to think about this article on proposed immigration law, which bthun sends. I'm not sure how much Congress is trying to assert new authority, and how much it's extending something it already has the power to do.
Opinion from our friends who have been called to the bar is welcome.
Woohoo
Georgia Revises Handgun Carry Law:
With the governor's signature, a major update to Georgia firearms law has passed. The AJC's coverage is typically horrid, both wrong on the facts and biased against the law even in defeat; but it's an occasion for celebration all the same. (The text of the law is here.)
Two ways in which the article is wrong, for those of you in Georgia:
"Concealed weapons will now be allowed in state — and by extension — local parks."
Wrong: the Georgia Firearms Law permits you to carry openly or concealed.
Also wrong: "...by extension -- local parks." Georgia already has a pre-emption law that forbade localities from passing laws against carrying in local parks. So really, it's just the state parks, historic sites, recreational areas, and wildlife management areas.
Another error, although minor by comparison to these basic errors of fact:
"[The NRA and] GeorgiaCarry.org... argued that holders of concealed weapons permits — who submit to fingerprinting and a criminal background check — are no danger to the public and might even protect the public."
Actually, what we argued was that armed citizens would definitely protect the public.
GeorgiaCarry deserves a lot of credit for working to get this passed, as does the NRA.
The law doesn't take effect until July 1st, 2008, so don't let your eagerness get the better of you. (I'm looking at you, JHD. :)
Now, my next hope for Georgia law: fixing the knife laws, so that anyone with a firearms license may also carry a knife (openly or concealed). It doesn't make a lot of sense to permit the one and not the other.
Patriotism
Patriotism and a Woman:
You should love her because she bore you into the world, and gave you every chance you had as a youth. You should love her because she defended you, nursed you while you were weak, and gave you a chance to grow strong. You should love her without failing because it is your duty, and because no man can hate his mother without destroying a part of himself.
Of course, "patriotism" is from the Latin patria, in turn derived from Pater, which means "Father." Still, it is usual to think of America as being a woman, in part because the name takes a feminine form. Whether you love her as a mother or as a father, however, love her that way.
Protein Wisdom was musing on proper patriotism, yesterday, as expressed by left and right. I think they both have it wrong.
[I]t is fair to infer that Obama tends to attract those who disagree that that “we should be willing to fight for our country whether it is right or wrong,” which seems entirely consistent with Obama’s view of patriotism (and of Israeli nationalism). As Michael Barone would put it, it is the difference between Jacksonians and academics. For the New Left, the idea that disagreements over foreign policy stop at the water’s edge died in Vietnam.Insofar as you want to make a metaphor wherein the country is a woman, both of these concepts are wrong. If America is a woman, she is your mother.
The New Left view can be usefully contrasted with a metaphor Rick Moran has used to describe liberal patriotism:I think it is apparent that some on the right love America in a different way than some on the left. Think of the right’s love of country as that of a young man for a hot young woman. The passion of such love brooks no criticism and in their eyes, the woman can do nothing wrong. They place the woman on a pedestal and fail to see any flaws in her beauty, only perfection.On the other hand, love of country by many liberals is more intellectualized – perhaps the kind of love we might feel for a wife of many years. The white hot passion may be gone and her flaws might drive you up a wall at times. And it is difficult not to dwell on her imperfections. But there is still a deep, abiding affection that allows you to love her despite the many blemishes and defects they see.Alternatively, it could be argued that some on the left (esp. the New Left) treat America like the girlfriend they hold to a standard of perfection and always find wanting, complaining about her to their friends in her presence. And that some on the right love America like their wives, acknowledging her past and present flaws, while recognizing that those flaws might not be corrected overnight, or even in his lifetime. And that most American husbands do not find it useful to publicly take sides in an argument against their wives, even when they might privately do so. Or to dismiss their wives’ concern that there may be an intruder in the house.
It isn’t that most on the left love America any less than those on the right. They simply see a different entity – a tainted but beloved object that has gotten better with age.
It is wonderful — not to mention politically smart — that Obama has started talking more about the greatness of America and its ideals. However, should he be elected president, he will be elected president of the nation as it is, not of its ideals. Obama claims he wants to bring Americans together. If he truly does, he will have to accept that he cannot cavalierly dismiss the views of his fellow citizens anymore than he can dismiss the views of his wife.
You should love her because she bore you into the world, and gave you every chance you had as a youth. You should love her because she defended you, nursed you while you were weak, and gave you a chance to grow strong. You should love her without failing because it is your duty, and because no man can hate his mother without destroying a part of himself.
Of course, "patriotism" is from the Latin patria, in turn derived from Pater, which means "Father." Still, it is usual to think of America as being a woman, in part because the name takes a feminine form. Whether you love her as a mother or as a father, however, love her that way.
Obama was right (this once)
Obama was Right:
Why is it that, five years into the war, the media still have this concept that Iraq is a Saudi Arabia-style desert where nothing grows but oil? The reporter objects to Obama's "pushback" on the issue, claiming that he has reported on Iraq "extensively" and that the claim strikes him as "doubtful."
OK, well, it's still true. Iraq needs agricultural experts, and there's much to be gained from deploying them. Not only does the agricultural industry exist in Iraq, it's the main industry in much of the country. Not only is Mesopotamia fertile, it's fertile enough that -- when it begins to be fully developed again -- it will be a major source of wealth and food in a time when food prices are rising worldwide.
ABCNews takes Obama to task on Iraq. Well, he deserves all he gets on that score, as his Iraq plans demonstrate neither an understanding of the military nor reasonable judgment as concerns the fate of millions of Iraqis or the stability of the region.
Yes, he deserves all he gets... almost.
No sooner did Obama realize his mistake -- and correct himself -- but he immediately made another.Agriculture is indeed tremendously important to Iraq. The Tigris and Euphrates river valleys are very fertile, which is why so many ancient civilizations were rooted in Mesopotamia -- a fact even an ABCNews reporter might have learned in school if he'd been listening. If not, he might have learned it from the US military, which has been talking for quite some time about efforts to set up agricultural unions and coops, chicken and fish farms, help refurbish tractor factories, and so forth.
"We need agricultural specialists in Afghanistan, people who can help them develop other crops than heroin poppies, because the drug trade in Afghanistan is what is driving and financing these terrorist networks. So we need agricultural specialists," he said.
So far, so good.
"But if we are sending them to Baghdad, they're not in Afghanistan," Obama said.
Iraq has many problems, but encouraging farmers to grow food instead of opium poppies isn't one of them. In Iraq, oil fields not poppy fields are a major source of U.S. technical assistance.
Why is it that, five years into the war, the media still have this concept that Iraq is a Saudi Arabia-style desert where nothing grows but oil? The reporter objects to Obama's "pushback" on the issue, claiming that he has reported on Iraq "extensively" and that the claim strikes him as "doubtful."
OK, well, it's still true. Iraq needs agricultural experts, and there's much to be gained from deploying them. Not only does the agricultural industry exist in Iraq, it's the main industry in much of the country. Not only is Mesopotamia fertile, it's fertile enough that -- when it begins to be fully developed again -- it will be a major source of wealth and food in a time when food prices are rising worldwide.
An Reservation To Both Earlier Posts
Regarding Both Earlier Posts:
I'm not sure it's that big a problem, however: because there will also be a large number of 18-year olds coming up behind them who want to get in line for the same generous benefits. While retaining veteran servicemen who have proven excellent is indeed a necessary and important function, that can be done through further incentives for top performers.
It seems to me that we as a nation would greatly benefit if a lot more of our youth passed through the military -- on a volunteer basis, of course. Insofar as this bill would help create that, I'm all for it. We'll work out the deficiencies through more generous pay or other benefits for those who remain in the service -- another thing I'm all for.
So in any event, how does this tie together with the first post of the day?
This bill was the brainchild of Jim Webb, one of the last Southern Democrats, and the author of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. In other words, he's one of the last -- at this point, may be the only -- of the old type of Southern Democrat to occupy a position of leadership in the Senate.
This is the kind of advantage the party could get from listening to people from the South. And it's the kind of advantage the country can get, too: this new GI Bill is good policy, not just good politics.
America would be stronger if the Democratic Party were more the party of the people it claims to be -- of the people, that is, not just "for" the people.
Both of today's posts turn out to be linked, in a way. Greyhawk says that the Obama speech is what he's calling "a telegraphed punch," and that Obama intends to fight for the military vote using the new GI Bill.
That's a telegraphed punch. Obama acknowledges he expects Hillary Clinton to get as much as 80% of the West Virginia primary vote. So he quite wisely turns his focus to his next opponent, and the issue that will ensure the Vietnam veteran loses the military/veteran vote in November - the new GI Bill.Hawk is a big fan of the bill, in part because the SECDEF is so worried about it -- Secretary Gates says that the benefits are so generous that it will be hard to retain servicemen and women past their first term of service, because they'll want to get out and start collecting benefits. That may very well be true.In response, McCain and other Republicans are busy creating "kick me" signs to wear throughout the upcoming political season.
The proposed 21st Century GI Bill would allow soldiers to receive free tuition for college. Obama said it is one of a number of upgrades to GI benefits and healthcare the federal government should provide.In fairness it must be noted that McCain supports a hastily contrived Republican alternative to the Webb bill that offers lower benefits and covers fewer troops - and has no chance of passing in a Democrat-controlled congress. But while he simplifies the issue here, Obama's characterization of McCain's opposition is on the mark."It would provide every returning veteran with a real chance to afford a college education, and it would not harm retention," Obama told about 1,500 people at the Charleston Civic Center. After that, he stopped to shoot a game of pool with a veteran at a South Charleston pub.
The Illinois Democrat said McCain, whom he added he greatly respects as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, doesn't like the new plan.
"He is one of the few senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it's too generous," Obama said. "I couldn't disagree more.
"At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue the American dream."
I'm not sure it's that big a problem, however: because there will also be a large number of 18-year olds coming up behind them who want to get in line for the same generous benefits. While retaining veteran servicemen who have proven excellent is indeed a necessary and important function, that can be done through further incentives for top performers.
It seems to me that we as a nation would greatly benefit if a lot more of our youth passed through the military -- on a volunteer basis, of course. Insofar as this bill would help create that, I'm all for it. We'll work out the deficiencies through more generous pay or other benefits for those who remain in the service -- another thing I'm all for.
So in any event, how does this tie together with the first post of the day?
This bill was the brainchild of Jim Webb, one of the last Southern Democrats, and the author of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. In other words, he's one of the last -- at this point, may be the only -- of the old type of Southern Democrat to occupy a position of leadership in the Senate.
This is the kind of advantage the party could get from listening to people from the South. And it's the kind of advantage the country can get, too: this new GI Bill is good policy, not just good politics.
America would be stronger if the Democratic Party were more the party of the people it claims to be -- of the people, that is, not just "for" the people.
Obama hits boomers
Obama Hates Hippies:
Woof. TalkLeft notices Obama trying to say something nice about Vietnam Veterans, and chiding those who didn't honor their service. Which, ah, includes almost every one of his intellectual supporters:
In other words, Obama intends to battle the war-hero McCain by throwing us under the bus... Everybody will be lying under the bus, which sounds like it may be the size of a 747 before we're through with this election.Hey, don't worry, man. You fought for him, you believed in him. He'll fight for you too, right?
Swing States
Swing States:
But capitalism's real rewards aren't for the smartest, but for those who take the greatest risks. Many of these lose everything. For those who have little to gain otherwise, the risk of losing everything isn't so great -- which is why most millionaires never finished college.
For those who can do quite well, thank you, without taking those risks -- well, a reasonable appreciation of the risks suggests taking the sure but more modest gains, such as you might get with a career as a lawyer or a college professor. Being smart people, they tend to understand the risk/profit calculation, and do just that.
And then they watch people less well educated, and maybe not so smart, rush past them into wealth and power. The wealth buys access to politicial leaders, and with access comes policy preferences. And these smart folks start to get mad. They start to hate the system that preferences risk-takers over intelligent, careful, stable people. And they want to "fix" the system to raise themselves, and enshrine their class -- the class of the intellectuals -- over the others.
These people are the leaders of the modern Democratic Party. They make common cause with the poor because it's useful, but they have little idea what the problems of the poor actually are. They get what understanding they have through "listening tours" and similar things. These folks -- the ones Jeffrey was calling "the best and brightest" -- believe their intelligence and education makes them the natural leaders of mankind. They want to fix society so that they are in fact the actual leaders of mankind -- and, in return, they'll do kind things for us when they get there.
Which will be paid for through taxes. On those damn businessmen, the idiots. They never deserved all that money -- it's not right someone so stupid should have it.
The problem is that these leaders really don't understand the other half of their coalition -- more than half, in fact, since they produce the majority of the votes. The Obama critique of Pennsylvania voters ("bitter," "cling to religion and guns") arises from this basic belief: we are the natural leaders, and if we give the poor the right set of services, they will keep us in power. There is no real connection with these voters: the intellectuals are in no way part of the class that empowers them.
The Republican leaders, at least, can draw on a class of people they understand -- because they belong to it, and arise from it. Democratic leaders miss these opportunities, even in their best years, because they really don't understand the people they want to vote for them.
Consider this:
Democrats from the South, including myself, have been trying to talk the intellectual class out of this nonsense for years. I have a postgraduate degree, but I have also been poor in the South: we got by on $15,000 a year at one point. I'm part of one of the classes you want to vote for you, have been part of the other, and have cultural reasons to continue to think of myself as a Democrat even though the party refuses to listen to anything I say, and is led by people who despise my home.
Such argument hasn't worked -- the South has factored less and less in the calculus of the Democratic leadership in every election cycle. They consider the South unredeemable, mired in cultural issues they can't understand or engage; and so write off a third of the Senate in even the most friendly election year.
So again this year, as West Virginia makes clear what its preferences are -- following Florida and Arkansas, and in the face of Ohio working-class voters' clear warnings -- the intellectuals will be picking their favorite instead.
Does that mean McCain wins in November? No, but it means he has a fighting chance. I'm glad about that, because he's a better candidate than either Clinton or Obama -- especially Obama. Of course, if you really listened to the people you want to vote for you, you'd have better candidates, too.
West Virginia is voting today. According to Wikipedia, it's one of the three "swing states" in the South (assuming one counts WV, FL or Arkansas as "Southern" -- a point that might be debated).
In West Virginia the Democratic Party still enjoys a numerical advantage in registered voters. It looks like Sen. Clinton will be getting a lopsided number of those voters on her side -- something better than a thirty-point margin. Of the other two "Southern" swing states, Florida and Arkansas, Clinton won 70-26 in Arkansas, and won Florida under the odd circumstances of which we are all aware.
However, Clinton is increasingly unlikely to be the nominee.
So it looks like this will not be the year that the Democratic Party tries to reform its message in a way that will appeal to Southerners. In a way, that makes sense: the public mood for change has never been higher. 2006 was also a "change" election -- the Democrats won every single educational grouping, for example, as well as both males and females.
So why are we doing it all again? Amusingly, the answer is that the Democrats have been so incompetent.
The Democratic Congress has been so worthless, voters currently blame all problems on Bush and the Republicans -- who, in spite of not controlling Congress these last two years, seem to be the only ones who ever get their way on anything in government. This probably explains the Communist Party USA's demand to "end right-wing control of Congress." The Speaker of the House from San Francisco is so incompetent that she can't get Rep. Obey or her other fellow party members to line up with her, so it's the "right wing's" fault: they actually manage to vote together some of the time.
As a result, this change election is about changing out Republicans for Democrats in the minds of most of the electorate. It's about making the same change as in 2006 all over again, "but harder this time." If we do it hard enough, even these idiots might be able to pass a damn law once in a while.
Well, OK. Rational or not, that does suggest a Democratic victory in November. On the other hand, a victory can be broad or narrow; and given the supermajorities needed for real change (e.g., cloture votes in the Senate, which require 60 Senators), a broad change would be the thing to go for.
Instead, however, the Democratic party seems to want to push for the candidate least acceptable to swing state voters, and not just in the South: Ohio prefers Clinton to McCain to Obama.
So what? The overall trends are so negative for McCain and Republicans in general, why not get while the getting is good?
I think the answer has to do with the nature of the Democratic Party's constituency. Recent elections have shown that Republicans do best among those with high school educations, some college, and those with college degrees. Those who did not finish high school and those who have postgraduate degrees tend to prefer Democrats by large margins.
What do the two groups, highest and lowest, have in common? One thing: the sense that the system doesn't work for them. This makes sense for lower-education voters: they really do tend to be on the bottom, socially and economically. Whether it's their fault or the system's fault, or some combination of the two, it is easy to see why they would resent living in a system where people like them drift downward.
But why do the most highly-educated people favor Democrats? The problem was explained, and predicted, by economist Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s.
Marx believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its enemies (the proletariat), whom capitalism had purportedly exploited. Marx relished the prospect. Schumpeter believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its successes. Capitalism would spawn, he believed, a large intellectual class that made its living by attacking the very bourgeois system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class's existence. And unlike Marx, Schumpeter did not relish the destruction of capitalism. He wrote: "If a doctor predicts that his patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it."The problem is resentment. Schumpeter taught that the capitalist system would create such wealth that a large class of people could make a living doing nothing but thinking and writing; and many of the smartest people of society would drift into that class.
But capitalism's real rewards aren't for the smartest, but for those who take the greatest risks. Many of these lose everything. For those who have little to gain otherwise, the risk of losing everything isn't so great -- which is why most millionaires never finished college.
For those who can do quite well, thank you, without taking those risks -- well, a reasonable appreciation of the risks suggests taking the sure but more modest gains, such as you might get with a career as a lawyer or a college professor. Being smart people, they tend to understand the risk/profit calculation, and do just that.
And then they watch people less well educated, and maybe not so smart, rush past them into wealth and power. The wealth buys access to politicial leaders, and with access comes policy preferences. And these smart folks start to get mad. They start to hate the system that preferences risk-takers over intelligent, careful, stable people. And they want to "fix" the system to raise themselves, and enshrine their class -- the class of the intellectuals -- over the others.
These people are the leaders of the modern Democratic Party. They make common cause with the poor because it's useful, but they have little idea what the problems of the poor actually are. They get what understanding they have through "listening tours" and similar things. These folks -- the ones Jeffrey was calling "the best and brightest" -- believe their intelligence and education makes them the natural leaders of mankind. They want to fix society so that they are in fact the actual leaders of mankind -- and, in return, they'll do kind things for us when they get there.
Which will be paid for through taxes. On those damn businessmen, the idiots. They never deserved all that money -- it's not right someone so stupid should have it.
The problem is that these leaders really don't understand the other half of their coalition -- more than half, in fact, since they produce the majority of the votes. The Obama critique of Pennsylvania voters ("bitter," "cling to religion and guns") arises from this basic belief: we are the natural leaders, and if we give the poor the right set of services, they will keep us in power. There is no real connection with these voters: the intellectuals are in no way part of the class that empowers them.
The Republican leaders, at least, can draw on a class of people they understand -- because they belong to it, and arise from it. Democratic leaders miss these opportunities, even in their best years, because they really don't understand the people they want to vote for them.
Consider this:
Psychologists David Sears and Donald Kinder, as well as others, found that this racial resentment was the single most important factor -- more important than even conservative ideology or political partisanship -- in explaining strong opposition to a host of government programs that either directly or indirectly benefited minorities. Of course, that doesn't mean there couldn't be principled conservative opposition to government-guaranteed equal employment or urban aid. But, according to the political psychologists, racial resentment played the largest role in fueling public skepticism.Do Republicans carry out psychology exams on the middle class to figure out what prejudices they might have? Do they then say, at the end, "But the problem is, we still don't know what this means in the real world"?
The answers also revealed which groups within society continued to harbor racial resentment. With the help of Harvard doctoral student Scott Winship, I looked at the levels of racial resentment in ANES data from 1988, 1992, and 2000 (the questions were omitted in 1996). What Winship and I found was that resentment was highest among males rather than females, the middle class rather than the wealthy or poor, those lacking a college degree, those who worked in skilled or semi-skilled blue collar jobs or as laborers, and residents of small towns in the Midwest and South. Does that profile sound familiar? It's more or less a description of the white working-class voters who have spurned Obama and with whom John Kerry and Al Gore had trouble. The only groups that didn't evince racial animosity toward blacks were voters with post-graduate degrees and, of course, African Americans....
But the problem with implicit association tests--or tests that use subliminal cues--is deciding what they mean in the real world.
Democrats from the South, including myself, have been trying to talk the intellectual class out of this nonsense for years. I have a postgraduate degree, but I have also been poor in the South: we got by on $15,000 a year at one point. I'm part of one of the classes you want to vote for you, have been part of the other, and have cultural reasons to continue to think of myself as a Democrat even though the party refuses to listen to anything I say, and is led by people who despise my home.
Such argument hasn't worked -- the South has factored less and less in the calculus of the Democratic leadership in every election cycle. They consider the South unredeemable, mired in cultural issues they can't understand or engage; and so write off a third of the Senate in even the most friendly election year.
So again this year, as West Virginia makes clear what its preferences are -- following Florida and Arkansas, and in the face of Ohio working-class voters' clear warnings -- the intellectuals will be picking their favorite instead.
Does that mean McCain wins in November? No, but it means he has a fighting chance. I'm glad about that, because he's a better candidate than either Clinton or Obama -- especially Obama. Of course, if you really listened to the people you want to vote for you, you'd have better candidates, too.
Coyote
On Coyote:
I've been curious about the interest in dangerous coyotes shown by InstaPundit and the Chicago Boyz. We have coyotes here, and I can tell you that if you're concerned about them, one of the best defenses is to have a horse. Horses love to stomp coyotes.
The general point they are trying to make -- that many wild animals we normally haven't worried about become dangerous if we stop being dangerous -- is well-taken. Coyotes are a nuisance anyway, so much so that Georgia regulations permit taking them in the day or at night; with big game weapons if you're hunting big game, and small-game weapons otherwise; with no limit; using electronic or other kinds of calls; using traps or firearms; etc. If you read through the document, you'll find they are exempted from every kind of protection that is normally afforded to animals.
In some states, coyotes have a bounty on them. And, too, you can sell the hides if they're good -- I've heard of people getting as much as $40 for a coyote hide, though mostly they're worth a lot less, and some of them are worth nothing.
In spite of all that, I've never shot one. I think I have an attitude about dangerous wildlife somewhere between the "hippies" the Chicago Boyz point to, and the "put the fear of God into them" attitude that InstaPundit seems to be favoring (if I'm understanding him correctly -- his brevity could be misleading, but I gather that he believes it is important to shoot cougars and coyote in order to keep them afraid of people). I tend to agree with the hippies that these animals are an ornament of nature, and one I would rather have around me than not. I find a world without wild animals, all of which are potentially dangerous, sterile and sad. (This will surprise no one who remembers my killing time in Iraq stalking hyenas with a camera.)
On the other hand, I and my family always go armed in part to be prepared for animal encounters, like this one with a bear when I was out swimming with what was then a very young boy. We've taken the trouble to learn how to interpret their behavior. We maintain food and garbage discipline, to avoid luring them into conflict, and so forth.
I think the proper attitude toward life runs in this direction: not to eliminate dangers, but to be dangerous enough yourself that you needn't fear to encounter them. Then you may have the beauty of the bear, without watching one carry off your children.
Life of the Mind
Life of the Mind:
Returning to a fairly classic theme for Grim's Hall, a post on the military and the life of the mind. It references two roundtables from last week, one on the Minerva project, and the other on military advances in regenerative medicine.
Mother's Day
Mother's Day:
Happy Mother's Day to all -- those of you who are mothers, and those of you who have mothers.
If you have a television, you may wish to watch the America's Favorite Mom thing tonight. Soldiers' Angels founder Patti Patton-Bader was a semi-finalist. It would be wonderful if she had won.
CPUSA 2008
A Pro-Obama Argument:
Bthun points out that we've been unfair, in printing endorsements of Obama only when they come from foreign terrorists. So here is another view, from Americans who stand ready to support him.
The record turnout in the Democratic Presidential primary races shows that millions of voters, including millions of new voters, are using this election to bring about real change. We wholeheartedly agree with them.I think that is pretty representative of the argument as I've seen it framed.
While we do not endorse any particular candidates, we do endorse and join in the anti-Bush/anti-right wing sentiments that are driving so many people to activism.
The fact that the Democratic frontrunners are an African American and a woman speaks volumes on how far the country has come. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has attracted large numbers of supporters, especially women. Other Democratic contenders presented some excellent proposals to reverse the devastation caused by the Bush administration’s policies.
Barack Obama’s campaign has so far generated the most excitement, attracted the most votes, most volunteers and the most money. We think the basic reason for this is that his campaign has the clearest message of unity and progressive change, while having a real possibility for victory in November.
As we see it, however, this battle is bigger than the Democrats and Republicans, even though those parties are the main electoral vehicle for most voters today. Our approach is to focus on issues and movements that are influencing candidates and parties.
We will work with others to defeat the Republican nominee and to end right-wing control of the new Congress.
The activism growing out of this election will help guarantee a progressive mandate no matter who is elected.
Lost Bearings
Yeah, His Bearings are Lost:
Its recent recommendations on Iraq aren't half-bad, unlike the "leave at any costs" philosophy so much of our Left here at home has. It has significantly more faith in the UN than I have, but it also is not hostile to the use of US power. It interacts with the US military, and in fact, the ICG rep gave a Hooah speech of sorts to female officers on the occasion of Women's History Month.
(And who was that speaker? Why, Jane Arraf, who was CNN's Baghdad Bureau Chief when they covered up for Saddam. Just who I'd go to for an honest appraisal of the situation in Iraq. But she's 'in the club,' so everything is always forgiven. Anyway, as I said, the specific recommendations aren't bad, so in spite of my distaste for her, she obviously did her job this time.)
What does that mean? It looks to me like Obama's lack of loyalty and courage has burned him again. Once again, he's thrown someone who has helped him and believed in him under the bus, because he's afraid of the conflict. This time, it was someone he really needed -- the weakest area of his candidacy, aside from his personal flaws, is his unspeakably bad foreign policy.
This is the third time, if you count this guy and also Samantha Power -- a smart and informed woman. Whatever disagreements I've had with her on policy and concept don't arise from her being ill informed: they're just honest disagreements about the best way to do things, and the most important things to do.
This guy from the ICG probably knew far more about the structure and function of the US military, and its recent history, than Obama does himself. Obama should have explained to his supporters that working for ICG is a qualification for a left-leaning Administration, not a disqualification. This is exactly the kind of person they should want to have on board: someone who is in favor of engagement, as Obama is, but isn't hostile to the US military and in fact has some understanding of its function and role in the world.
I suppose if he gets elected, he can hire them back on anyway. Maybe they'll understand about the knife in the back.
I don't, though. Loyalty and honor matter in a man, and this obsessive fear of conflict does not bode well for any potential President. He won't fight, not even for his friends and supporters.
Today's headline: "Barack Obama Sacks Advisor over Talks With Hamas."
OK, McCain wins this round big time.
But this isn't a point-keeping blog, and we already know who we're voting for. So let's tell the whole story, and see what the deeper truth at work here is.
Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.I know of the ICG. It's an organization of the type of the United Nations -- that is, it was founded as an element of Anglosphere influence in the world. Just as we were the primary influence in the UN's formation, so too was the US and UK responsible for the ICG. It is still mostly dominated by Anglosphere "internationalists," the folks who believe that the US military has an important role to play in the world -- under UN leadership, directed by the Security Council, with input from the EU and other allies.
“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.
Its recent recommendations on Iraq aren't half-bad, unlike the "leave at any costs" philosophy so much of our Left here at home has. It has significantly more faith in the UN than I have, but it also is not hostile to the use of US power. It interacts with the US military, and in fact, the ICG rep gave a Hooah speech of sorts to female officers on the occasion of Women's History Month.
(And who was that speaker? Why, Jane Arraf, who was CNN's Baghdad Bureau Chief when they covered up for Saddam. Just who I'd go to for an honest appraisal of the situation in Iraq. But she's 'in the club,' so everything is always forgiven. Anyway, as I said, the specific recommendations aren't bad, so in spite of my distaste for her, she obviously did her job this time.)
What does that mean? It looks to me like Obama's lack of loyalty and courage has burned him again. Once again, he's thrown someone who has helped him and believed in him under the bus, because he's afraid of the conflict. This time, it was someone he really needed -- the weakest area of his candidacy, aside from his personal flaws, is his unspeakably bad foreign policy.
This is the third time, if you count this guy and also Samantha Power -- a smart and informed woman. Whatever disagreements I've had with her on policy and concept don't arise from her being ill informed: they're just honest disagreements about the best way to do things, and the most important things to do.
This guy from the ICG probably knew far more about the structure and function of the US military, and its recent history, than Obama does himself. Obama should have explained to his supporters that working for ICG is a qualification for a left-leaning Administration, not a disqualification. This is exactly the kind of person they should want to have on board: someone who is in favor of engagement, as Obama is, but isn't hostile to the US military and in fact has some understanding of its function and role in the world.
I suppose if he gets elected, he can hire them back on anyway. Maybe they'll understand about the knife in the back.
I don't, though. Loyalty and honor matter in a man, and this obsessive fear of conflict does not bode well for any potential President. He won't fight, not even for his friends and supporters.
"Civilization is hard work."
-Commentor TmjUtah on Jeff Goldstein's explanation of why people should try to figure out what other people mean when they say something, and why this is would be a useful thing for judges to be able to do.
It helps some if you read Goldstein out loud to yourself as you go along.
-Commentor TmjUtah on Jeff Goldstein's explanation of why people should try to figure out what other people mean when they say something, and why this is would be a useful thing for judges to be able to do.
It helps some if you read Goldstein out loud to yourself as you go along.
O, Generous Prince:
Apparently Daniel thought I was in peril of jail for violating the law against having a house without Tabasco Sauce (I'm sure there must be a law about that somewhere). Either that, or he owns stock in the McIlhenny Company.
For what to my wondering eyes should appear today but the UPS truck, with a great big giant package. My wife says, "It's for you. What did you order?" I didn't order anything.
Nevertheless, behold:
Eight bottles of Tabasco's finest recipes.
Many thanks, Daniel, my friend. I promise to use them all.
Oh, My
Oh, My:
And I thought evil defense contractors were bad:
In a speech in 1971, Vice-President Spiro Agnew accused CBS News of disseminating "deceptive, self-serving propaganda". He quoted from reports by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Special Subcommittee on Investigations of the House Commerce Committee. These reports mentioned a CBS documentary called "Project Nassau",an effort to depose the Francois Duvalier regime in Haiti. "The House Subcommittee found that CBS had, in effect, financially subsidized a planned 1966 invasion of Haiti in order to make a documentary on the event."Slow news week? Commission a war!
Obama accuses
Obama Accuses:
"...a Hamas adviser's apparent affinity for Obama. The adviser, Ahmed Yousef, said in a recent interview: 'We like Obama and hope that he will win the election.'"
Wouldn't want the fact that actual terrorists endorse you to interfere with the debate.
We wouldn't want any name calling.
For him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don't need name-calling in this debate.Comments like what?
"...a Hamas adviser's apparent affinity for Obama. The adviser, Ahmed Yousef, said in a recent interview: 'We like Obama and hope that he will win the election.'"
Wouldn't want the fact that actual terrorists endorse you to interfere with the debate.
WITCHES, CLOWNS & SIRENS, OH MY!
WITCHES, CLOWNS & SIRENS, OH MY!
Apparently Code Pink is having some trouble attracting participants to their ongoing protest in front of the Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Office. So much so that they have enlisted (pun intentional) the help of practitioners of the dark arts to foil Marine Corps recruitment and end the war. Read the article here.
"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.
I am sure that wisdom is the last thing that will be imparted by this parade of horribles. Nevertheless, I look forward to the final score in this contest:
United States Marine Corps 1
Witches 0
Apparently Code Pink is having some trouble attracting participants to their ongoing protest in front of the Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Office. So much so that they have enlisted (pun intentional) the help of practitioners of the dark arts to foil Marine Corps recruitment and end the war. Read the article here.
"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.
I am sure that wisdom is the last thing that will be imparted by this parade of horribles. Nevertheless, I look forward to the final score in this contest:
United States Marine Corps 1
Witches 0
RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES UNDER ATTACK
RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES UNDER ATTACK
Feddie over at Southern Appeal has an informative post concerning Sen. Grassley’s assault on our First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom. The word needs to get out about this abuse of government power.
Feddie over at Southern Appeal has an informative post concerning Sen. Grassley’s assault on our First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom. The word needs to get out about this abuse of government power.
Who makes that now?
Listen:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
I'm sure you'll like this:
How about this:
Or this:
Or this:
Can't forget this:
So I say lots of people are making that now. Most of those clips have dragged the music out of the movie, but I think that's similar to playing the overture there without the rest of the opera.
But let's consider Wagner again: Listen to Tannhauser, and you're listening to 1845.
Let's go back a bit:
That's 1724. And I'm going to make a wild ass guess and say Wagner never heard that. But you just did. (Maybe Wagner did hear that, but I betting not because I don't think anyone was playing the Viola de Gamba in 1845 in Germany, in a style of music written a century earlier, in France, for a French King.)
And why did you hear that? Its the technology.
Let's go back another 100 years:
I wonder if Wagner ever heard Monteverdi. Anybody know if Monteverdi got performed in mid 19th century Germany?
And go back even earlier:
I'm sure Wagner never heard that. But now we have.
Now watch these guys mash it up:
Looks pretty fearless too. I wonder what they've heard that influenced and inspired them and how they heard it--and who are they going to inspire someday? Sure, it isn't Wagner, but hell, he was a genius. I bet if Wagner was alive today he'd be making films.
Its the technology part everybody misses here. Its part of the problem with 'classical' music in the 20th century. The original article walked right past it:
Through the technology, everything old is new again. There is so much of it, that one could not listen to it all. And because we are all different, we can now follow our different likes. And through the technology, we don't have to go to an opera house to listen to Piercello play Tannhauser. We can record him and listen to him while typing our blog posts.
So what's been lost? Its not so much lost as it is found. We as listeners have access to all styles of music from all history now. And other cultures too. All because of the technology.
UPDATE:
Grim asks "Where are the geniuses like Wagner now?" Which is a fair question (although I'd not call it a "problem" per se).
I don't have a answer, only a hunch. And that hunch is that those geniuses are out there, but they're doing something else. What? well, what ever they want to. The time and place that Wagner grew up in was a more circumscribed culture than was now exists in nearly any Western country Maybe any country. Perhaps he's playing on his xbox right now. I'm not sure.
As to what happened in the 20th century--well, there were close to 100 million people killed off before their time, and who knows what they would have done. Those thread were snipped. One cannot know what would have happened.
Also, musical tastes and forms have changed. Wagner was writing for an orchestra, which is just one kind of musical form. When Piercello gets back, perhaps he can give us some idea of how that has changed over the years.
Or take Jordi Savall, the guy in that video you so liked. He's not composing anything new, he's reviving old stuff. he maybe arranging it, and intrepreting it, but its not really the creation of "new" music, the way it would be if he say, wrote an new opera about the Reconquista or something, even if was in the style of Monteverdi. And that idea there, the revival of the old--especially in terms of music developed in the last century, and to my observation that was new. Before, the old went out style and stayed that way, for the most part.
I googled this phrase: "revival of ancient music" and look what popped up:
WASHINGTON LIKES OLD TUNES.; A Revival of Ancient Strauss Music Due to Mrs. McKinley. (Open the .pdf file) That was in 1899, and Strauss' "Blue Danube" is described as "Ancient". (And notice that the Marine band was chucking Tannhauser aside to play Blue Danube). The New York Times thought it was noteworthy enough to comment on it. Think about that for a minute.
And if this wikipedia article on Early Music Revival is anywhere near accurate, although it started in the 19th century, it seems to have taken off with the advent of recording, and is described as 'fully underway' in the 1950's. When you could record anything you'd ever want to record. To reiterate: this had to have an effect on 'new' music.
Listen:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
I'm sure you'll like this:
How about this:
Or this:
Or this:
Can't forget this:
So I say lots of people are making that now. Most of those clips have dragged the music out of the movie, but I think that's similar to playing the overture there without the rest of the opera.
But let's consider Wagner again: Listen to Tannhauser, and you're listening to 1845.
Let's go back a bit:
That's 1724. And I'm going to make a wild ass guess and say Wagner never heard that. But you just did. (Maybe Wagner did hear that, but I betting not because I don't think anyone was playing the Viola de Gamba in 1845 in Germany, in a style of music written a century earlier, in France, for a French King.)
And why did you hear that? Its the technology.
Let's go back another 100 years:
I wonder if Wagner ever heard Monteverdi. Anybody know if Monteverdi got performed in mid 19th century Germany?
And go back even earlier:
I'm sure Wagner never heard that. But now we have.
Now watch these guys mash it up:
Looks pretty fearless too. I wonder what they've heard that influenced and inspired them and how they heard it--and who are they going to inspire someday? Sure, it isn't Wagner, but hell, he was a genius. I bet if Wagner was alive today he'd be making films.
Its the technology part everybody misses here. Its part of the problem with 'classical' music in the 20th century. The original article walked right past it:
We all know that the invention of recorded sound around 1900 made possible an extraordinary dissemination of the riches of the classical repertoire – largely composed for the rich and powerful – to the mass of ordinary people. On the gramophone, the radio, television and, subliminally and hence more powerfully, through the movies, the classical sound in all its variants (even the supposedly rebarbative confections of the Second Viennese School) has insinuated itself into the culture at large. Never before have so many people listened to, or liked, so-called classical music. Yet this extraordinary triumph has culminated in a malaise, a feeling, widespread in the musical profession and elsewhere, that classical music is in crisis and that things have never been so bad. Classical music feels abandoned, left behind as history has moved on, sulking in its tent as the real cultural action happens somewhere else.(emphasis mine)
Through the technology, everything old is new again. There is so much of it, that one could not listen to it all. And because we are all different, we can now follow our different likes. And through the technology, we don't have to go to an opera house to listen to Piercello play Tannhauser. We can record him and listen to him while typing our blog posts.
So what's been lost? Its not so much lost as it is found. We as listeners have access to all styles of music from all history now. And other cultures too. All because of the technology.
UPDATE:
Grim asks "Where are the geniuses like Wagner now?" Which is a fair question (although I'd not call it a "problem" per se).
I don't have a answer, only a hunch. And that hunch is that those geniuses are out there, but they're doing something else. What? well, what ever they want to. The time and place that Wagner grew up in was a more circumscribed culture than was now exists in nearly any Western country Maybe any country. Perhaps he's playing on his xbox right now. I'm not sure.
As to what happened in the 20th century--well, there were close to 100 million people killed off before their time, and who knows what they would have done. Those thread were snipped. One cannot know what would have happened.
Also, musical tastes and forms have changed. Wagner was writing for an orchestra, which is just one kind of musical form. When Piercello gets back, perhaps he can give us some idea of how that has changed over the years.
Or take Jordi Savall, the guy in that video you so liked. He's not composing anything new, he's reviving old stuff. he maybe arranging it, and intrepreting it, but its not really the creation of "new" music, the way it would be if he say, wrote an new opera about the Reconquista or something, even if was in the style of Monteverdi. And that idea there, the revival of the old--especially in terms of music developed in the last century, and to my observation that was new. Before, the old went out style and stayed that way, for the most part.
I googled this phrase: "revival of ancient music" and look what popped up:
WASHINGTON LIKES OLD TUNES.; A Revival of Ancient Strauss Music Due to Mrs. McKinley. (Open the .pdf file) That was in 1899, and Strauss' "Blue Danube" is described as "Ancient". (And notice that the Marine band was chucking Tannhauser aside to play Blue Danube). The New York Times thought it was noteworthy enough to comment on it. Think about that for a minute.
And if this wikipedia article on Early Music Revival is anywhere near accurate, although it started in the 19th century, it seems to have taken off with the advent of recording, and is described as 'fully underway' in the 1950's. When you could record anything you'd ever want to record. To reiterate: this had to have an effect on 'new' music.
Rio Bravo
Fierce River:
In the case of Dude, it's drink, and in the case of Walter Brennan's character "Stumpy," it's age and a crippled leg. Chance tells him he can't come to the final confrontation because he'd have to 'move, and move fast.' "You give me a reason," Stumpy admits. The next thing you know, there he is anyway with a shotgun and a bunch of extra shells -- and showing up unexpected, cuts off an enemy flanking maneuver that would have been dangerous for the companions.
The movie is really about a particular kind of friendship, the frith we've talked about here from time to time. As Doc Russia put it:
We've all got our weaknesses and flaws -- I know I have mine. That's one reason it's important to forgive each other when we are broken, to help each other stay strong, and to stand by our friends.
A man who won't do that is no man at all.
A man who will and does is part of a fierce river, rio bravo, that can slowly carve its image in the world. Such an image, based on friendship and freedom, ferocity and forgiveness: like a mighty river, it adds beauty to creation.
Dissent Magazine praises John Wayne (hat tip, Arts & Letters Daily):
Let me offer my own overstatement: If I were asked to choose a film that would justify the idea of America, it would be Rio Bravo.One of the best elements of Rio Bravo is the way that people of good heart find ways to contribute to the defense in spite of their limitations. In the case of the young gunfighter, oddly, it's his sense of caution that is his primary limitation -- he has to get over the idea that he shouldn't get involved in trouble he doesn't have to.
In the case of Dude, it's drink, and in the case of Walter Brennan's character "Stumpy," it's age and a crippled leg. Chance tells him he can't come to the final confrontation because he'd have to 'move, and move fast.' "You give me a reason," Stumpy admits. The next thing you know, there he is anyway with a shotgun and a bunch of extra shells -- and showing up unexpected, cuts off an enemy flanking maneuver that would have been dangerous for the companions.
The movie is really about a particular kind of friendship, the frith we've talked about here from time to time. As Doc Russia put it:
We hold our ground,That's one reason I find myself experiencing genuine disgust and anger at Obama's turning his back on the man who gave him his start, and helped him become a success in Chicago and beyond. The Reverend has his problems, and there's much in what he says to be angry about. But, whatever his weakness, he knows how to fight for what he believes in. When Obama was ready to fight for him too -- not to agree with wrong ideas, but simply to affirm that they were friends and that it mattered -- I was impressed. When he turned his back on a man who had long supported him, I find I got genuinely angry about it. That is no way for a man to act to those who have been his friends.
We stick to our guns,
and we stand by our friends.
We've all got our weaknesses and flaws -- I know I have mine. That's one reason it's important to forgive each other when we are broken, to help each other stay strong, and to stand by our friends.
A man who won't do that is no man at all.
A man who will and does is part of a fierce river, rio bravo, that can slowly carve its image in the world. Such an image, based on friendship and freedom, ferocity and forgiveness: like a mighty river, it adds beauty to creation.
Wagner
On Power:
For listen to this, once:
Theodore Roosevelt, who has been quoted here often lately, once said of America's frontiersmen that they were "a grim, stern people, strong and simple, powerful for good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core."
That phrase, "powerful for good and evil," is the thing that underlies what is at work here. Our ancestors had a power that we have almost lost, a strength that has almost gone out of the world.
Here, in this last century, is where heroes and demons fought. This was the weapon that fell broken from their hands. It lies before us. We have turned from it in fear: but there it rests, for the one strong and brave enough to forge it new.
Do you let a wry mouth turn you aside from that? Wagner did not hide from such things: neither from demons nor broken swords. Cynicism, an affliction with irony, they are shelters for the fearful. Here is the real thing: joy and fury, love and fire, with no looking away. That is the thing we have almost lost.
It is not too late.
If you take it, strike for the good.
UPDATE: To my very great pleasure, I learn that we have a musician among us who has just performed this piece. He offers an insightful comment that I would like to encourage you to read.
Thank you sir, both for the comment, and for your work.
What is power?
Recently, The London Times wrote on orchestral music, and the difficulties that touched it in the 20th century. Our Eric would say that it never got over World War I; it certainly never got over World War II.
When it came to the great contest of the 1914–18 war, German propagandists like Thomas Mann characterized it as a conflict between the Kultur of Germans and the Zivilisation of their French-led opponents; between, in musical terms, the deep, metaphysical character of the German tradition, and the superficial joie de vivre of the French.So fell angels.
The price paid for classical music’s proximity to power was heavy, and the central chapters of Ross’s book lay bare the moral somersaults composers turned, the degradation into which they sank. The cultural theory which the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century had inherited from the nineteenth gave artists a dangerous potency, the all too useful capacity to become, in Stalin’s words, “engineers of human souls”. Stalin’s amateur interest in classical music – he reputedly owned ninety-three opera recordings, writing critical remarks on his record sleeves – did nothing to protect composers like Prokofiev and Shostakovich from the cultural policy of a regime which saw no role for anything that smacked of autonomous art. Shostakovich’s output veered between the cryptic privacy of his chamber music, the crassness of his patriotic cantatas and songs, and the still-contested “irony” of the major public works. Ross’s analysis of the possibility of irony in music is at one and the same time sceptical and appreciative. “To talk about musical irony”, he writes, “we first have to agree what the music appears to be saying, and then we have to agree on what the music is really saying. This is invariably difficult to do.” His concluding advice is that one should “stay alert to multiple levels of meaning”, making Shostakovich’s symphonies, the Fifth or even the supposedly propagandistic Seventh, “rich experience[s]”. The consequence of Ross’s superbly nuanced historical accounts of both Prokofiev’s and Shostakovich’s music is to send one back to the music with new ears.
In any aspirant totalitarian regime, cultural producers like musicians have to be overseen, goaded, persecuted and petted. Hitler’s Germany was different only in that a musical vision of politics was uniquely central to the nightmare that was played out in the Reich between 1933 and 1945. It wasn’t that music was too important not to be politicized, more that politics was music in another form; “Politics aspired to the condition of music, not vice versa”, as Ross puts it. The threatening rhetoric of Hitler’s coded language about the Jews from the Kroll Opera speech of 1939 on the eve of war, and the speeches from the period of the exterminations themselves, are drenched in Wagner, and Ross acutely picks out the references to Parsifal in the Führer’s tirades.... For Ross, the Nazi infatuation with music is the crux of his story.
For listen to this, once:
Theodore Roosevelt, who has been quoted here often lately, once said of America's frontiersmen that they were "a grim, stern people, strong and simple, powerful for good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core."
That phrase, "powerful for good and evil," is the thing that underlies what is at work here. Our ancestors had a power that we have almost lost, a strength that has almost gone out of the world.
Here, in this last century, is where heroes and demons fought. This was the weapon that fell broken from their hands. It lies before us. We have turned from it in fear: but there it rests, for the one strong and brave enough to forge it new.
Do you let a wry mouth turn you aside from that? Wagner did not hide from such things: neither from demons nor broken swords. Cynicism, an affliction with irony, they are shelters for the fearful. Here is the real thing: joy and fury, love and fire, with no looking away. That is the thing we have almost lost.
It is not too late.
If you take it, strike for the good.
UPDATE: To my very great pleasure, I learn that we have a musician among us who has just performed this piece. He offers an insightful comment that I would like to encourage you to read.
Thank you sir, both for the comment, and for your work.
I Don't Know How That Could Have Happened:
Really, though, this goes straight to yesterday's complaint against him. He won't fight, not even for those who will fight for him. Hillary Clinton's snide remark -- "Why can't he close the deal?" -- turns out to be an insightful critique.
He won't fight for it. He won't fight at all. Yet he wants to be President in a time of war.
So you saw this New York Magazine article by a journalist worrying about the Obama bubble:
If Obama is deemed to be an effete, out-of-touch yuppie, then the effete-yuppie media Establishment that’s embraced him must be equally oblivious and/or indifferent to the sentiments of the common folk.Is it possible? Well, let's see how the journalist himself describes Obama's appeal:
Born on the very cusp of the baby boom and Generation X, he’s both oldish and youngish. And as a skinny, athletic, gentle-seeming, virtually metrosexual man, he nearly splits the difference on gender as well.With appeal like that, I don't know how those yokels could possibly think him effete.
Really, though, this goes straight to yesterday's complaint against him. He won't fight, not even for those who will fight for him. Hillary Clinton's snide remark -- "Why can't he close the deal?" -- turns out to be an insightful critique.
He won't fight for it. He won't fight at all. Yet he wants to be President in a time of war.
1968
1968:
From several, including Christopher Hitchens:
I vanished to Cuba and spent a hot summer in a camp in the province of Pinar del RÃo, where sixty-eighters of every stripe had forgathered, ostensibly to plant coffee but mostly to drink it (and rum) and to discuss new horizons of revolution. Cuba was torn between grim austerity for its people and flamboyant hedonism for its revolutionaries, and one’s elementary socialist principles managed to register the gross injustice[.]Woof. That's an admission to shake the roof.
Wright II
The Reverend Mr. Wright:
If he calls God to damn America for putting black men in prison, we may debate whether it is America or the community that permits and defends rampant criminality among its members that is more likely to draw down the curse of Heaven. Yet there is no doubt he is trying to raise up his community, and believes that the broader America would likewise be improved by his suggestions. He may be wrong, but he is not motivated by a secret desire to hurt the nation.
In this, he compares well with Code Pink, and with Michelle Obama -- 'For the first time in my life, I am proud of my country.' These people are the ones that Chesterton would call "without rhetoric, traitors." They do not love the thing they chastise, save in the moment it submits to them. That is not supernatural loyalty: it is not the loyalty of the patriot.
Wright seems to love and to fight for what he loves, and good for him. I'll meet a man like him in the midst of the field any time he likes, and break lances with him honestly.
The Reverend Mr. Wright is such a man, and the more I hear from him, the more I like him. Barack Obama is a coward for abandoning him, after sitting in his pews for twenty years while the crowd answered "Amen!" at the call from the pulpit. If he sat there and yelled "Amen" with them, he is the more a coward for running now: and if he did not, he is the more a coward for not calling out his opposition all along.
No coward is fit to be President. But that is almost a minor matter compared to the betrayal of Wright by Obama. What a thin, weak, worthless coward, to run from a man in whose shadow he so long hid, and who so long nutured him! Wright is a vibrant man, a fighter, a man I might respect. Obama has proven himself in this matter the worst sort of creature, without loyalty, without courage, without heart. Give me a man like the Reverend Mr. Wright; and never one like Obama.
The first time Obama spoke about his preacher of twenty years' standing, I said that I was impressed by one thing: that he did not disavow the man. That took courage, and showed a certain decency of character. The worst and most damning thing about Obama's more recent statements is that they show the Reverend Mr. Wright was right about him: he is doing "what politicians do."
That's too bad, because choosing between the pair of them, I like Wright a lot better.
I don't like his ideas, but I don't have to like the ideas to like the man. There are several things about him to like. He was a Marine, and served also in the Navy. He speaks his mind, straight and honest. Honesty is a virtue, even when you're honestly wrong. By God, tell me what you think! We can sort out whether you're right or not, as long as you're ready for the fight.
For example, his ideas about blacks having different brain functions than whites? That's a genuine scientific theory: we can actually test it, and if it's wrong, we can prove it's wrong. There's no dishonor in being wrong about a question of science. Tell us what you think might be true, based on your experience, and let's put it to the test.
I mention his being a former Marine and Navy sailor. I have a cause for mentioning it, which is based in Chesterton:
And what is the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what is the matter with the candid friend? There we strike the rock of real life and immutable human nature.Wright is not that kind of man. He does love the thing he chastises. He has fought to defend it, and can likewise fight to reform it. If he believes 9/11 is America's "chickens coming home to roost," that is a proposition we can debate -- but he offers it as a man who has not flinched from serving America.
I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back -- his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course) of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly.... But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him is, I think, what I have suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it....
The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men, but that he does not love what he chastises -- he has not this primary and supernatural loyalty to things.
If he calls God to damn America for putting black men in prison, we may debate whether it is America or the community that permits and defends rampant criminality among its members that is more likely to draw down the curse of Heaven. Yet there is no doubt he is trying to raise up his community, and believes that the broader America would likewise be improved by his suggestions. He may be wrong, but he is not motivated by a secret desire to hurt the nation.
In this, he compares well with Code Pink, and with Michelle Obama -- 'For the first time in my life, I am proud of my country.' These people are the ones that Chesterton would call "without rhetoric, traitors." They do not love the thing they chastise, save in the moment it submits to them. That is not supernatural loyalty: it is not the loyalty of the patriot.
Wright seems to love and to fight for what he loves, and good for him. I'll meet a man like him in the midst of the field any time he likes, and break lances with him honestly.
The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the dayGive me a man who will speak his mind honestly, and fight for what he loves! God save his soul, whatever becomes of his body -- or his ideas.
They ride and race with fifty spears to break and bar my way
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers
As merry as the ancient sun, and fighting like the flowers!
How white their steel! How bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave
Yea, I will bless them as they bend, and love them where they lie
When upon their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky
That hour when death is like a light, and blood is as a rose -
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I will love my foes!
The Reverend Mr. Wright is such a man, and the more I hear from him, the more I like him. Barack Obama is a coward for abandoning him, after sitting in his pews for twenty years while the crowd answered "Amen!" at the call from the pulpit. If he sat there and yelled "Amen" with them, he is the more a coward for running now: and if he did not, he is the more a coward for not calling out his opposition all along.
No coward is fit to be President. But that is almost a minor matter compared to the betrayal of Wright by Obama. What a thin, weak, worthless coward, to run from a man in whose shadow he so long hid, and who so long nutured him! Wright is a vibrant man, a fighter, a man I might respect. Obama has proven himself in this matter the worst sort of creature, without loyalty, without courage, without heart. Give me a man like the Reverend Mr. Wright; and never one like Obama.
Confer
Cf.:
I believe that the point of education is to build careful, rational, insightful minds; and to give those minds the background knowledge to understand the world and address its problems. The building blocks of education are logic, mathematics and critical thinking: to which capacities are added history, philosophy, literature and a clear understanding of the scientific method. You should have a brain that works rationally, and a clear understanding of the history of the world and the West, the debt you owe to those who came before, and the duty you have to preserve those gains for the generations to come. If you have that, you have an education.
If you got something else out of college, I'm sorry for you. It is not, however, too late to learn on your own.
Cassandra writes about suing your students:
The New Criterion published a piece by Roger Kimball called, "What was a Liberal Education?" It makes a useful companion piece.Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. "My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful," she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. "They'd argue with your ideas." This caused "subversiveness," a principle English professors usually favor.Quelle horreur! Can one imagine anything more unprecedented or alarming to a progressive eco-feminist than a classroom full of American college students arguing about ideas? Unless, perhaps, it is the prospect of a classroom full of young people Questioning Authority?
Clearly the dominant patriarchal hegemony is rife with rigid, authoritarians threatened by anyone who challenges their ideas.
I believe that the point of education is to build careful, rational, insightful minds; and to give those minds the background knowledge to understand the world and address its problems. The building blocks of education are logic, mathematics and critical thinking: to which capacities are added history, philosophy, literature and a clear understanding of the scientific method. You should have a brain that works rationally, and a clear understanding of the history of the world and the West, the debt you owe to those who came before, and the duty you have to preserve those gains for the generations to come. If you have that, you have an education.
If you got something else out of college, I'm sorry for you. It is not, however, too late to learn on your own.
Dining in the Wilderness
Dining on the Road:
What struck me most about the reviews was how often they mention the children. A couple of the reviewers had children of their own, and brought them along; but all the reviews mention that, man, there are a lot of children here. I guess I've been to about half the restaurants on the list at one time or another, and a couple of them multiple times, but I don't remember being struck by the presence of children. One wonders what these poor folk would do if they were required to eat in a McDonald's or Chick-Fil-A, complete with plastic playground.
We don't do a lot of eating in restaurants, both for health reasons and because -- with a little practice -- you can make better food than you can buy in a restaurant. But especially on cross-country road trips, we do eat in chain restaurants by the highway. Here's my recommendations for any hipsters who may find themselves forced out on the road:
1) The Texas Roadhouse: good chili, good burgers, good steaks. Not so good beer, but if you're driving, you're not drinking.
2) Longhorn: The Texas Cheese Fries are good. Their take on taquitos are good. The steaks are fine. The beer selection is better, so if you've reached the end of your trip and have a hotel to hand, stop here for the last meal of the day.
3) Cracker Barrel: Beans and greens, sweet tea anywhere in the USA. Their biscuits and cornbread vary by region, which is interesting -- you'll get sweet cornbread and drop biscuits in some places, and proper biscuits and salty cornbread in more civilized regions. Warm fires in the winter, and checkers.
4) Ruby Tuesday's: Used to be better. However, the buffalo burgers are still OK. I like buffalo meat better than beef, and around the Hall, that's what we keep on hand.
5) Applebee's: The only one of these restaurants reviewed by the Times. I can't think of any of their food I really care about one way or the other; but somehow, whenever we go there, we seem to have a good time.
Two kinds of food that no nationwide highway chain knows how to make well: barbecue, and pizza. If you want a good meal of either one of those, you'll have to ask the locals what's all right where you are.
The New York Times apparently believes that it constitutes a great adventure to eat in a chain restaurant. Places like Chilis, Outback Steakhouse, and the Olive Garden are written about as if the reporters were amateur anthropologists writing from a 19th-century expedition to Polynesia:
You go out the back of the sprawling Westchester mall and across a narrow street lighted by the dull glow of a Crowne Plaza Hotel and there it is, a ground-floor box sandwiched between entrance ramps to the parking garage for the smaller Westchester Pavilion mall....Exciting stuff, no doubt, when you are the sort of person who nurses a beer for 45 minutes, and is willing to admit it in public.
On a recent Saturday night, a companion and I threaded our way through the crowded holding pen beside the host’s station. Table for two? The teenagers staffing the post slid their eyes down the long list of names as though working a particularly difficult problem on an AP statistics test. “Ummm, 70 to 75 minutes,” one finally said. I’m not sure what was more unnerving, the length of the wait or the precision of the estimate.
We were handed one of those coasterlike disks that light up when your table has been called. There were no seats in the bar or waiting area, of course. They had long been snared by people who appeared to have taken up semipermanent residence and were perhaps even having their mail forwarded.
We tried the hotel bar across the street. Would the beeper signal reach? One nursed beer later, only 45 minutes had passed, but as we wandered back to within reach of the restaurant door, the beeper erupted in a mini-Vegas light show.
What struck me most about the reviews was how often they mention the children. A couple of the reviewers had children of their own, and brought them along; but all the reviews mention that, man, there are a lot of children here. I guess I've been to about half the restaurants on the list at one time or another, and a couple of them multiple times, but I don't remember being struck by the presence of children. One wonders what these poor folk would do if they were required to eat in a McDonald's or Chick-Fil-A, complete with plastic playground.
We don't do a lot of eating in restaurants, both for health reasons and because -- with a little practice -- you can make better food than you can buy in a restaurant. But especially on cross-country road trips, we do eat in chain restaurants by the highway. Here's my recommendations for any hipsters who may find themselves forced out on the road:
1) The Texas Roadhouse: good chili, good burgers, good steaks. Not so good beer, but if you're driving, you're not drinking.
2) Longhorn: The Texas Cheese Fries are good. Their take on taquitos are good. The steaks are fine. The beer selection is better, so if you've reached the end of your trip and have a hotel to hand, stop here for the last meal of the day.
3) Cracker Barrel: Beans and greens, sweet tea anywhere in the USA. Their biscuits and cornbread vary by region, which is interesting -- you'll get sweet cornbread and drop biscuits in some places, and proper biscuits and salty cornbread in more civilized regions. Warm fires in the winter, and checkers.
4) Ruby Tuesday's: Used to be better. However, the buffalo burgers are still OK. I like buffalo meat better than beef, and around the Hall, that's what we keep on hand.
5) Applebee's: The only one of these restaurants reviewed by the Times. I can't think of any of their food I really care about one way or the other; but somehow, whenever we go there, we seem to have a good time.
Two kinds of food that no nationwide highway chain knows how to make well: barbecue, and pizza. If you want a good meal of either one of those, you'll have to ask the locals what's all right where you are.
Roosevelt on Boyhood
Theodore Roosevelt on Boyhood:
Discuss.
There is more to that piece from Theodore Roosevelt quoted below, in the post on sportsmanship. It makes for good reading, especially as he considers the usefulness, and limitations, of college and sports on making the whole man.
Another piece he wrote considers boyhood. At a time when we hare having debates about what kind of boys, and men, we want in our society, it is worth taking in what the Old Lion had to say.
Here's the start:
OF COURSE what we have a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. Now, the chances are strong that he won't be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud.There's so much that is right with that, beginning with the fist phrase: "Of course what we have a right to expect of the American boy...."
Discuss.
"Is it possible for the Democrats to nominate a bigger assclown?"
-Tom Maguire, of Just One Minute, having a Lo-Pan moment.
Now to Tom's question, the answer is probably yes--C'mon, its the Democrats, but Maguire notes something I've seen myself elsewhere--referring to McCain as a son of privilege. Look for more of that as the campaign continues.
-Tom Maguire, of Just One Minute, having a Lo-Pan moment.
Now to Tom's question, the answer is probably yes--C'mon, its the Democrats, but Maguire notes something I've seen myself elsewhere--referring to McCain as a son of privilege. Look for more of that as the campaign continues.
A Sandwich
A Sandwich:
Janne88 writes to refer us to a recipe that ought to make you hungry, just looking at it.
I don't think I have any Tabasco around the house, but I suspect you can substitute your favorite. This is mine, if you're curious.
UPDATE: Behold.
I didn't wait to go to the store, so there were some revisions to the recipe. I didn't have the ground steak she advised, so I used buffalo meat. I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce, so I used my wife's A-1 steak sauce cut with Coors beer (a very good cooking beer). I substituted El Yucateco habanero sauce for Tabasco sauce. I also didn't have the right kind of rolls; but these whole wheat rolls worked just fine.
It's majestic.
The Community of Saints
The Community of Saints:
Now we add in our friend Dad29, commenting on a different topic: how the Pope's embrace of the American separation of church and state means.
That has not always been the case, and it is not only religion that makes it work now. It is also America. These two separate systems, political and spiritual, come together to make real what neither has been able to do alone.
The Belmont Club joins our old friend Baldilocks in exploring the concept of the communio sanctorum:
The Communion of Saints (in Latin, communio sanctorum) is the spiritual union of all Christians living and the dead, those on earth, in heaven and, in Catholic belief, in purgatory. ...Baldilocks had said, referring to the Reverend Mr. Wright controversy:
The earliest known use of this term to refer to the belief in a mystical bond uniting both the living and the dead in a confirmed hope and love is by Saint Nicetas of Remesiana (ca. 335–414); the term has since then played a central role in formulations of the Christian creed.
The term is included in the Apostles' Creed, a major profession of the Christian faith whose current form was settled in the eighth century, but which originated from not long after the year 100, the basic statement of the Church's faith.
Yes, our ancestors in this country and our kinsmen across the water fought to be just as Christian as other Christians—as Christian as our brothers who are white. And many of the latter stood for us and side-by-side with us—not because of us primarily but because of the One Who is Primary. Has that particular battle been won? I say yes, though the war continues. But Wright not only continues to fight the battle, he willfully misunderstands the nature of the War and identity of the Enemy. And by doing that, he becomes the tool of the Enemy. That’s his choice, but not mine and not that of those who focus on the Redemption offered by Christ instead of getting upon the Cross themselves.The Belmont Club's response, finally, is to simply to repeat the Creed's on words: "I believe in the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, forever and ever. Amen."
To quote myself, there is no “black church.” There is only the Church.
Now we add in our friend Dad29, commenting on a different topic: how the Pope's embrace of the American separation of church and state means.
It's interesting to see the effect of that fact. A political campaign allegedly premised on reconciliation has proved bitterly divisive, even within its own party. Yet outside of politics, even reacting against those politics, people of good heart are reaffirming that they believe in that community.At the very deepest level, his apparently pro-U.N. speech turned out to be a stunning endorsement of the United States’ understanding of religion in the public sphere, and the need to apply that understanding to international dialogue.In the past, Rome has looked askance at the American formulation, and had never come close to endorsing it. But B-16 noticed something: it works, and works very well. The formulation has served to keep 'religion' in the square, not to suppress it.
That has not always been the case, and it is not only religion that makes it work now. It is also America. These two separate systems, political and spiritual, come together to make real what neither has been able to do alone.
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship:
From Sly, this beautiful tale of the joyous spirit of the game:
And then the senior did something she had never done before -- even in batting practice. The career .153 hitter smashed the next pitch over the center field fence for an apparent three-run home run.This, however, was not to be.
The exuberant former high school point guard sprinted to first. As she reached the bag, she looked up to watch the ball clear the fence and missed first base. Six feet past the bag, she stopped abruptly to return and touch it. But something gave in her right knee; she collapsed on the base path.
"I was in a lot of pain," she told The Oregonian on Tuesday. "Our first-base coach was telling me I had to crawl back to first base. 'I can't touch you,' she said, 'or you'll be out. I can't help you.' "
Tucholsky, to the horror of teammates and spectators, crawled through the dirt and the pain back to first.
Western coach Pam Knox rushed onto the field and talked to the umpires near the pitcher's mound. The umpires said Knox could place a substitute runner at first. Tucholsky would be credited with a single and two RBIs, but her home run would be erased.
Mallory Holtman is the greatest softball player in Central Washington history. Normally when the conference's all-time home run leader steps up to the plate, Pam Knox and other conference coaches grimace.Thereby they granted their opponents an advantage in the contest, and won a greater victory.
But on senior day, the first baseman volunteered a simple, selfless solution to her opponents' dilemma: What if the Central Washington players carried Tucholsky around the bases?
The umpires said nothing in the rule book precluded help from the opposition. Holtman asked her teammate junior shortstop and honors program student Liz Wallace of Florence, Mont., to lend a hand. The teammates walked over and picked up Tucholsky and resumed the home-run walk, pausing at each base to allow Tucholsky to touch the bag with her uninjured leg.
"We started laughing when we touched second base," Holtman said. "I said, 'I wonder what this must look like to other people.' "
Holtman got her answer when they arrived at home plate. She looked up and saw the entire Western Oregon team in tears.
"My whole team was crying," Tucholsky said. "Everybody in the stands was crying. My coach was crying. It touched a lot of people."
Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character. It is true, of course, that a genius may, on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical strength may overcome weakness, even though the puny body may have in it the heart of a lion.Here are some young ladies who understood that, and got it right.But, in the long run, in the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against that assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities, which we group together under the name of character.... If rowing or foot-ball or base-ball is treated as the end of life by any considerable section of a community, then that community shows itself to be in an unhealthy condition. If treated as it should be — that is, as good, healthy play — it is of great benefit, not only to the body, but in its effect upon character.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Two historical pieces
Two Men of History:
First, via Kim du Toit, a genuine British adventurer.
A tall man, handsome and weather-beaten, wipes the blood of a giant scorpion from his hands and squints into the middle distance as he ponders his latest quest for sacred artefacts.Second, via Greyhawk, the world's oldest milblogger.
He could be the ultimate Hollywood hero — living a life packed full of excitement and peril, usually with a beautiful young woman on his arm.
He uncovers lost civilisations, is hailed as a god by grateful villagers, snatches priceless Christian treasures from under Nazi noses and begins revolutions. And his name will now be linked for ever with a mysterious crystal skull...
Born in August 1887 in Awsworth Notts, to Henry and Sarah Lamin. Elder Sisters Catherine (Kate) and Agnes (Annie) and Elder brother John (Jack). Educated at Awsworth Board School, just outside Ilkeston, Derbyshire, England.
This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written.
Another whiner
Another Whiner On the South:
My father, a good lad from Tennessee, asked me for a copy for his birthday. It's always been a favorite of his. I sent it to him. So there.
If this is the ne plus ultra of your complaints against the South, is it too much to ask that you shut the @#$#@ up?
I mean, I'll be glad when we never hear another song written in the 1960s or 1970s that wasn't sung by Johnny Cash. "Classic" is a term not properly given to rock music, which was never meant to last longer than milk, and which retains about the same odor past its expiration date.
But that's not a regional complaint. And I'm as Southern as it gets.
UPDATE: And ya'll just tell me what's wrong with this bit of wisdom:
And if you don't like that one, how about this one, from the former Lieutenant Governor of the Great State of Georgia, Zell Miller?
Sweet Mercy. Is this what it has come to?
This thought, which has been recurring to me regularly over the years as I've watched the Southernization of our national politics at the hands of the GOP and its evangelical base, surfaced again when I read a New York Times story today. The article was about an "American Idol" contestant--apparently quite talented--who was eliminated after she sang the title song from "Jesus Christ Superstar." When it debuted 38 years ago, the rock opera was considered controversial for its rather arch portrayal of a doubt-wracked, very human Jesus, but the music was so good and the lyrics so clever that it quickly became a huge hit. In the delicate balance of forces that have always defined American tastes--nativism and yahooism versus eagerness for the new and openness to innovation--art, or at least high craft, it seemed, had triumphed. But our national common denominator of taste is so altered today that the blasphemous dimension of "Jesus Christ Superstar" now trumps the artistic part. And somehow, no one is surprised.Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. "Jesus Christ, Superstar?"
My father, a good lad from Tennessee, asked me for a copy for his birthday. It's always been a favorite of his. I sent it to him. So there.
If this is the ne plus ultra of your complaints against the South, is it too much to ask that you shut the @#$#@ up?
I mean, I'll be glad when we never hear another song written in the 1960s or 1970s that wasn't sung by Johnny Cash. "Classic" is a term not properly given to rock music, which was never meant to last longer than milk, and which retains about the same odor past its expiration date.
But that's not a regional complaint. And I'm as Southern as it gets.
UPDATE: And ya'll just tell me what's wrong with this bit of wisdom:
And if you don't like that one, how about this one, from the former Lieutenant Governor of the Great State of Georgia, Zell Miller?
New Iceland
New Guinea Iceland:
Another thing that is true is the rule that our Daniel was referencing below:
An interesting piece from The New Yorker about the rules of honor in New Guinea's "payback culture." The term is an unfortunate choice, because it gives a modern flavor to what is really an ancient feud. It is ruled by ideas of honor, though. (By a quirk of fate, the tribesman's name is Daniel, much like our own companion whose ethical ideals are not without harmony here.)
On one occasion, I asked Daniel whether there are any rules that limit how one may kill enemies. He said, “In a night raid in which we sneak into an enemy village and surround the hut of a targeted enemy individual, we can tear down the hut to force the enemy to come out so that we can kill him. But it’s not acceptable to set fire to the hut and burn him to death.” I then asked, “Is it acceptable for six of you surrounding a hut to attack and kill a single outnumbered enemy?” Daniel answered, “Yes, that’s considered fair, because it’s already extremely dangerous for us to penetrate enemy territory, where we are greatly outnumbered.”These are sometimes honored in the breach.
[T]he quest of a Tudawhe friend of mine, Kariniga, to avenge the killing of his father and many other relatives by the Daribi tribe culminated when Kariniga and his surviving relatives marched through the jungle at night to surround the Daribi village just before dawn, set fire to the huts, and speared the sleepy occupants as they stumbled out.This was true elsewhere: "We shall have to boast of something else than that Njal has been burnt in his house," says Flosi, "for there is no glory in that."
Another thing that is true is the rule that our Daniel was referencing below:
“If you die in a fight, you will be considered a hero, and people will remember you for a long time,” he said. “But if you die of a disease you will be remembered for only a day or a few weeks, and then you will be forgotten.” Daniel was proud both of the aggressiveness displayed by all the warring clans of his Nipa tribe and of their faultless recall of debts and grievances. He likened Nipa people to “light elephants”: “They remember what happened thirty years ago, and their words continue to float in the air. The way that we come to understand things in life is by telling stories, like the stories I am telling you now, and like all the stories that grandfathers tell their grandchildren about their relatives who must be avenged.But read all the way through, for a remarkable tale of an unavenged murder in the anthropologist's own family. "I came to appreciate the terrible personal price that law-abiding citizens pay for leaving vengeance to the state," he writes, contrasting the Western system of government with the old way.
Memento Mori
Memento Mori:
My sister recommended this gallery of the dead. The photos came from a hospice, and were taken in pairs: one before, and one after death.
The photos are respectful, but the accompanying text hides nothing of the horror -- and, sometimes, the peace -- of dying. What sorts of things give peace? What sort of man and woman can die well, and what sort dies hard? Confer the experience of those who have religious faith with those who are famed for their personal strength at that hour when personal strength fails.
A memory of death is keenly important to also remembering to live a good life, now, while you have the chance. This concept has a long and high history not only in the West, but also among the Samurai of Japan.
Lord Tennyson wrote, of the knight Geraint and his lady Enid:
And there he kept the justice of the KingThat is a phrase we do not often hear: "He crowned a happy life with a fair death." It is a good concept, and a meaningful one. It is wise to think, now, not only of the fact that you have to die, but of how you want to die.
So vigorously yet mildly, that all hearts
Applauded, and the spiteful whisper died:
And being ever foremost in the chase,
And victor at the tilt and tournament,
They called him the great Prince and man of men.
But Enid, whom her ladies loved to call
Enid the Fair, a grateful people named
Enid the Good; and in their halls arose
The cry of children, Enids and Geraints
Of times to be; nor did he doubt her more,
But rested in her fealty, till he crowned
A happy life with a fair death, and fell
Against the heathen of the Northern Sea
In battle, fighting for the blameless King.
The King Who Comes Again
The King Who Sleeps:
So long as that is true, there remains hope for Britain.
In our talk about England and Saint George, Joel wrote:
A nation that will so publicly sacrifice their heroes and legends to mollify an implacable minority will go submissively to the gallows when that same minority becomes the majority.It is for that reason I mention a new theory of King Arthur, locating him and his court in Lincoln:
Broughton-based Dr Leahy (61) said: "Following the withdrawal of the Romans in the early fourth century, Lindsey was a nation in its own right with its own kings and bishops.The point here is not that Lincolnshire is, or is not, likely to have been the site of Camelot. It is that the English still care: that their scholars and archaeologists still wonder and search for Avalon, and the books they write still sell.
"Excavations and metal detecting have shown how rich and exciting the kingdom was.
"We have decorated metalwork, some of which is of outstanding artistry, as shown in the book."
Dr Leahy, who retired last March as the keeper of local archaeology at North Lincolnshire Museum, believes King Arthur, who led the Celtic resistance against Saxon invaders, fought many of his battles in the Kingdom of Lindsey at Brigg.
"An eighth century account of King Arthur's battles states four of them were in Linnuis - which is likely to have been Lindsey," he said.
"If I had to bet on where these battles were, I would put my money on Brigg which, controlling the crossing of the Ancholme, was of great strategic importance."
A former foundry engineer, Dr Leahy - who now works as a part-time consultant for the British Museum - accepts many Arthurian experts will find his claim 'remarkable'.
But, he added: "The legends of King Arthur in their original form describe not a man but a military situation where the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons faced each other.
"This is true more of Lindsey than anywhere else.
"There is good evidence that in Lindsey the local Romano-British authorities managed to stay in control when the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
"Lincoln kept its original name, and there are no early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries near the city.
"For an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Lindsey has produced an amazing amount of Welsh-type metalwork."
So long as that is true, there remains hope for Britain.
2 + 2 = Blue
2 + 2 = Blue
Pizza hut fires a deliveryman for defending himself from armed robbery. Turns out, they don't like that he was carrying a gun. From the comments:
[We] discussed this last night in an adult ed college class, in Des Moines. The mostly female, liberal group thought Pizza Hut was right, for all the stupid reasons unarmed people usually do. Too dangerous, why did he have to shoot multiple times, etc, etc. But here’s the strange part. They all agreed that if the crook has shot and killed an unarmed Pizza Hut delivery driver, the driver’s family should sue Pizza Hut because the driver was not protected.Let's all pause to ponder the majesty of that thinking.
The Danes are Right
The Danes Weigh In:
...and once again, we see that beer points the way to wisdom.
Pron MWOW
Maintaining Our Pron Rating:
Since we remain banned at Camp Victory as a pornography site, I feel obligated to maintain our status. Naturally, being mostly virtuous myself, I am obligated to turn to certain wives for some aid in this regard. If you appreciate their aid, by all means buy their album.
Now: "Come Roll Me Away" by the Merry Wives of Windsor.
I met with a soldier whose sword was so longThere's quite a bit more, if you like that sort of thing -- and if you don't, I'm not sure why you're here, given our pron status. At any rate, I trust there won't be any complaints from the distaff side.
When I first did unsheathe it, I burst into song!
We battled for hours, up there in the flowers;
But then came the dawn, and I rolled him away!
I met with a sailor who'd just come from sea
Sure the list in his mast sure did fill me with glee;
Starboard and port for and that was well store'd
But then came the dawn, and I rolled him away!
Come roll me, come roll me, come roll me away!
For a toss in the furs, or a romp in the hay!
I can roll any man, at least three times a day!
So dear laddies, come roll me away!
...
I met with a tinker who fixed all the locks,
His tools were so fine that I opened my box,
And he fixed my tick-tock with his glorious... hammer?
But then came the dawn, and I rolled him away!
Come roll me, come roll me, come roll me away!
For a toss in the furs, or a romp in the hay!
I can roll any man, at least three times a day!
So dear laddies, come roll me away!
St George! For Merry England
St. George for Merry England!
Gateway Pundit warns us that England has canceled the St. George's Day Parade, which would have featured 1,500 schoolchildren who'd made little flags to carry, out of fear of Muslim riots. He posts this graphic (now that I think of it, I believe that graph from a couple of posts down was also his, originally):
There was apparently some streetfighting in 2001, when a Muslim was stabbed by a National Front member. That one bad act touched off a riot in the Muslim neighborhoods that injured 300 policemen.
The English are naturally being careful here. They have seen this sort of thing before, in their neighbor Ireland. For years there were regular riots on many a 12th of July, because of the celebration of the Battle of the Boyne, where William of Orange and his Protestant army defeated the Stewarts, and the Irish Catholics who made up the majority of the population. The similarity with St. George, insofar as it exists, would appear to be this:
The saint became an English hero during the crusades against the Muslim armies that captured Jerusalem in the 11th century. An apparition of George is said to have appeared to the crusader army at the Battle of Antioch in 1098.So this is part of efforts to avoid increasing tensions between Englishman and Muslim, by avoiding any symbolism with even the most tangential association with violence or discord. It's sad for the schoolchildren, but recognizing that there are a small number of bad actors in their community, the English are sacrificing as a group in order to protect the feelings of their neighbors. Of course, the Muslim community has been equally circumspect.
Conservative opposition spokesman David Davis said slogans such as "Massacre those who insult Islam" and "Europe you will pay, your 9/11 will come" amounted to incitement to murder and that police should take a "no tolerance" approach to them.Oh, right.
Happy San Jacinto Day!
April 21, 1836
General Sam Houston led 800 Texans against 1400 Mexicans. In the 15-20 minute battle the Texans killed 630, wounded 200, and took the remainder prisoner. We lost only 9, with 30 wounded.
We gained our vengeance for the Alamo and Goliad and we secured our freedom as a Sovereign Republic.
General Sam Houston led 800 Texans against 1400 Mexicans. In the 15-20 minute battle the Texans killed 630, wounded 200, and took the remainder prisoner. We lost only 9, with 30 wounded.
We gained our vengeance for the Alamo and Goliad and we secured our freedom as a Sovereign Republic.
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