No-Bid

No-Bid Contracts:

Goodness, how can this be?

The Defense Department frequently awards no-bid work to small contractors for repairs at military bases under the new economic stimulus law, costing taxpayers millions of dollars more than when businesses compete for the work, according to an Associated Press analysis of 570 such contracts.

Under President Obama's stimulus bill? Not the President Obama who said:

The days of giving government contractors a blank check are over.

And yet his own stimulus plan is supporting such things? Unbelievable.

Oh, and also:

Administration Bridles at Bar on Contractors. “The Obama administration has objected to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill currently before the Senate that would bar the military’s use of contractors to interrogate detainees.”

So much for all that fierce moral urgency of change.

The truth is that no-bid contracts are used mostly where the government is familiar with the service being rendered, and is happy with the way it is being performed. They aren't 'blank checks,' but rather, occasions where past good service is something the government wishes to see continued. They're prepared to pay extra rather than risk an interruption of that service, as would certainly be caused by swapping providers. It's like having a dentist you trust, who raises his rates: if you trust him and like how he has taken care of you, if you can afford it, you might well choose to stay with that dentist you trust rather than swap to a cheaper one. After all, the lowest bidder may have reasons for being able to work so cheaply that you will regret once you're under their drill!

Having seen several "no bid" contracts replaced by bidded contracts in the past, I've never yet seen an occasion where the bidding process didn't result in inferior service rendered. That need not always be the case, but it's no wonder that the "no bid" process is preferred by DOD in many cases.

The Highland Games

The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games:

So it was, this year, fine flags flying amid cloud and rain and sun. If you missed it, I'm sorry: but it will be there next year, be sure of it.

Inequality

Pain and Valor:

The greatest leap of faith at the root of our foundations is the declaration that it is self-evident that all men are created equal. Inequality is the fact:

Inequality is a tricky concept. Typically when people talk about inequality in a political context they have in mind not inequality of virtue or beauty or intelligence, etc., but inequality of material conditions.

Those inequalities are manifest, though, and we cannot deny them. Indeed, they aren't even linked the way we would like to dream that they should be. Wealth and happiness are not linked, nor wealth and virtue, nor intelligence and virtue. Here writes a very wealthy, very unhappy woman:

[I]t’s clear that females are dissatisfied—more and more, divorce seems to be initiated by women. If marriage is the Old World and what lies beyond is the New World, it’s the apparently stable men... who are Old Worlders, and the Girls’ Night Out, questionnaire-completing women who are the questing New Worlders. They most embody what Tocqueville described as America’s “restless temper,” or l’inquiétude du caractère (Interestingly, according to EnlightenNext magazine, some northern European women are reportedly eschewing their progressive northern European male counterparts and dating Muslims, who are more like “real men.”)....

To a certain extent, men today may have more clarity about what it takes to raise children in the modern age. They don’t, for instance, have today’s working mother’s ambivalence and emotional stickiness.

Sickness. Again, the culture of seeing emotional difficulty as a kind of illness, needing medication and 'therapy.' The therapy brings no cure, and the despair grows.

Despair is a mortal sin. That has been forgotten, but it was one of the greatest insights of the old faith.

Cassandra writes:

More and more these days, I think we hide from our own knowledge of what is right because somehow we've decided that morality is too difficult.... But right and wrong haven't changed. It is we who changed.

Have we? I knew my grandfather, and I share his flaws -- and his virtues, if I may be bold enough to say so. Is that not the answer? Does not the lady say:

[I]t’s clear that females are dissatisfied.... Interestingly, according to EnlightenNext magazine, some northern European women are reportedly eschewing their progressive northern European male counterparts and dating Muslims, who are more like “real men.”

Is that not the answer? A virtus is a strength, an excellence: the kind of quality that you find in warriors, heroes, tamers of horses. Women are dissatisfied, she says: and why would they not be, with this crop? She sketches a gentle man who is very far from a gentleman: for as Blackstone says, a gentleman is one "qui arma gerit."

That is, "one who bears arms."....

Blackstone notes, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, that the "arms" in question are heraldic arms -- that is, symbolic ones. Those symbolic arms, however, were the later representation of what was earlier a very real right: the right to bear not only weapons, but armor onto the field. Heraldry describes the shield of a fighter. In the Middle Ages, the sort entitled to such a shield were those with the literal right to bear arms. It is only in these more decadent ages -- in more decadent countries -- that this right has become purely symbolic....

In America, the right to bear arms is secured in the Constitution itself. If you wish to register heraldic arms, the link to the American College of Heraldry is on the right. If you wish to bear literal ones, you have the right to do so. Every American man can be a gentleman.

To do so, though, requires that you constitute yourself a defender of your country and its civilization. It is not enough to say, as did Dutch humanist Oscar van den Boogaard:

"I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

No, that is not a gentleman, though he wears the finest clothes and writes the finest novels, keeps the best society, and has the finest manners. He has only the accidents of a gentleman. He has nothing of its essence.

The essence is to bear arms, in defense of country and civilization. That is the real thing, the root of the tradition. The arms may be symbolic, or they may be actual. The defense must be devout.

That may sit ill with some, but there it is. Honi soit qui mal y pense, goes the motto of the greatest of England's knightly orders.

That motto is normally translated as, "Evil to him who thinks evil of it." A more contemporary translation might rightly be: "To hell with you if you don't like it." Such a declaration is the essence of 'real manhood': a defense of what you love, and a defiance of the world to love it also, or stand aside.

When men are men, women are not dissatisfied. As you love women, then, defend manhood.

In a sense, these women have brought this on themselves: for they have not. Yet their pain is real, and no man ought to like to see a woman in pain.

UPDATE: As I reflect on this, this morning, I can think of several things that work against the concept. There is certainly female infidelity where men are very much men -- the famous "Jody problem" in the military, for example. The men are deployed, and the women are lonely. Here, too, the women are dissatisfied, but it is hardly the fault of the men, who are doing only their duty. (It is certainly the partial fault of one of the men, i.e., Jody.)

The absence of a 'real man' from their life is still the root of the problem, though in these cases the absence is caused by duty, one of the very things that defines a real man. The woman's lack of strength and faithfulness is at least as much at fault in these cases.

And our machines will eat you, too:

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

The Ride Home

The Ride Home:

We have come out of the Wild, having stopped tonight at an inn with an Internet connection.









It was an eventful trip, besides what is pictured here. But I have been gone for too long: I had not known the elk had returned to my mountains.

A Time Beyond the Edge of the Wild:

[W]hen they were landed Sir Tristram set up his pavilion upon the land of Camelot, and there he let hang his shield upon the pavilion. And that same day came two knights of King Arthur's, that one was Sir Ector de Maris, and Sir Morganor. And they touched the shield, and bade him come out of the pavilion for to joust, an he would joust. Ye shall be answered, said Sir Tristram, an ye will tarry a little while.

I shall be gone for a few days. I commend you to my brothers in arms, who keep the Hall as well as I can.

There Will Be No Taxes

There Will Be No New Taxes:

But perhaps a small surcharge may be necessary.

Also, there may be some 'fees.'



And, really, raising the cost of cigarettes is just good for you.

Caritas in Veritate

Caritas in Veritate:

If you are interested in the Pope's new encyclical, you can read it here. There have been a number of reactions, including Southern Appeal, The Anchoress, , Father John Zuhlsdorf, and First Things (keep scrolling).

Although I am not a Catholic, I am increasingly convinced that they are the main serious thinkers on these matters extant today. This current Pope is particularly impressive.

Logos

Logos:

Since we have been discussing aesthetics and ethics, this debate on sacred music and chant is highly appropriate. This may set the tone for what follows:

"It is only natural that the worship of God is to be expressed in song. ...praise cannot be reduced to the 'language of this world,' stripped of all balance, rhythm, and harmony. The word of God and man's response to it ....is not the reflection of an 'ordinary' conversation. As soon as the word becomes identified with the contents of its message, it calls for order (rhythm) and melos (arrangements of pitch), i.e., a musical form. In this way, the perfect word, the fully developed word, most always has the nature of song."--quoting Drillock

A reflection of this thought is easily available to anyone familiar with good poetry reading, and is further reinforced by the knowledge that epic poetry such as The Odyssey was always sung....

The old heroic poetry was of a different character from the 13th century hymns and chants, in that it was composed at the moment of the performance. The act of writing it down adds a solidity that was not present in the ancient poems, which were performed live by poets who took their audience's tastes and mood into account, extending or shortening segments accordingly. (See Albert Lord's The Singer of Tales.)

That said, there is an excellent point here -- one that Joe and I were discussing the other day. The more binding poetic forms create a power that isn't present in everyday language. It is, indeed, the natural language for prayer and sacred meanings. The Ynglinga Saga states that Odin spoke everything in rhyme, so that his words gave the form to the poetry of the skalds who followed him.

The greatest poem of the 20th Century, The Ballad of the White Horse, has three forms -- or rather, one basic form, and two extended versions. Usually the longest is used to draw out the mind along an image, so that a stanza of the second-longest can follow to seal the image in the mind.

A bronzed man, with a bird's bright eye,
And a strong bird's beak and brow,
His skin was brown like buried gold,
And of certain of his sires was told
That they came in the shining ship of old,
With Caesar in the prow.

His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine.

I often think of those lines when Eric stands forth to proclaim the glory that was Rome: and honor him for it.

The words convey a meaning, and the meaning a purpose. That is what words are for.

"One ....would have to add that 'word' in the biblical sense (and also the Greek sense) is more than language and speech, namely, creative reality [In Hebrew, 'dabar'].... For "word" in the sense of the Bible is more than "text," and understanding reaches further than the banal understanding of what is immediately clear to everyone.

"Word," in other words, is logos. It is more than the written word: it is the reason for the words.

Silence is not broken for no cause. Not by God.

Boom

A Mon Seul Desir:

I set out to find the song -- I've been listening to a lot of early music this week -- but the tapestry is at least as noteworthy.

Officers of the Court

Officers of the Court -

Grim is occasionally fond of recounting a tale of John Randolph. A guest is coming to dinner; Mr. Randolph is not prepared to receive him; he opens the door to the guest and says, "Sir, I am not home"; the guest leaves, without attempting to say in any way that Mr. Randolph is being less than truthful. Only Grim tells it with more elegance and fewer semicolons.

In my first job out of law school (a judicial clerkship), I learned that on some matters, a lawyer could make an assertion as an "officer of the court," and in the absence of a dispute, this would be accepted as true. As with the Virginia gentry standard, this assumption was made without any regard to the attorney's actual reputation for truth or untruth. I don't doubt it arises from the same source: when class was far more a reality than now, lawyers were gentlemen by birth, and treated as such. (In British courts, lawyers are still wearing robes and wigs in court - for no better reason I know than that gentlemen once dressed that way.)

I've got a case now, away from my home station, in which I think the other side's staff judge advocate has an office policy that creates a legal issue (and I'm not saying what the policy is, nor the issue, nor even where it is). In my brief to the judge, I simply asserted that opposing counsel told me about the policy, and went on to what I think the issue is. In response, the other side didn't say, "Yes, we do that," or "No, we don't," but simply said, "Joseph W. isn't producing any witnesses to our conversation, so he can't prove what he says."

Don't fear for me - I've got ways of proving it, all right, even if the old doctrine doesn't apply here (and I'm not going to stand on it, anyway). I'm not claiming the profession has fallen to new depths, either - courtroom duels used to lead to actual duels, a couple of centuries back, when the advocates didn't remember how to separate the personal from the professional (a longstanding issue in our profession). One of us two lawyers is about to learn something. I mention it simply because some here might be interested in the standard, and this is what brought it to my mind.

In googling the Randolph story, I ran across a lengthy Vanderbilt law review article on the subject of social norms and the legal profession, with a long section on honor and shame, but time does not permit me to study it right now.

(Let me say also - I am not going to be using this weblog to do advocacy on the public for my cases; and whoever catches me doing it is free to deal me a mighty thwack.)

Independence Day

Independence Day:

A merry, and free, one to all of you.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it....

Schlock

Catching Up:

One of the things I've been catching up on since getting back is Schlock Mercenary. This one has a certain high quality.

Trotto

Trotto:

Eric often tells me, and rightly, that we live in an age in which the great things are there for those who have an ear. Here is one who has.

Get Some, Marines

The Taliban's No Good, Very Bad Day:

Get some, Marines. Our hearts are with you.

Detritus

Alchemy:

One thing that strikes me on returning to America is how much garbage is on sale. Every city and town is covered with malls and shopping centers. Some of this stuff is more expensive than other stuff, but oddly, almost none of it is actually of high quality. The expensive stuff at the high-dollar mall in Atlanta is better than the cheap stuff at the truck stop, but it still isn't of the best quality.

It's not just that you can buy a better hat than you can buy at the mall; it's that the hat is so much better than what they sell that it's not in the same class. If you need a hat, then, you'd not go to any of these stores -- not malls, not truck stops, not shopping centers, not any place where you can buy things in person. You'd order it online or by mail from a craftsman.

You see people in these stores shopping with great intensity -- women in particular. I don't wonder at the teenagers or the twenty-somethings buying clothes, because presumably they are still establishing a wardrobe. However, you see women far older than that shopping with the same intensity. They must have closets full of clothes already.

I occasionally buy new clothes, when old ones wear out. That doesn't seem to be the reason they are buying these clothes, though; and in any event, the clothes are of the same low-quality as everything else. You can buy well-made dresses and tailored suits, but not here; and if you want rugged work clothes for knocking around in, these are not for that either.

What they appear to be doing is not searching for clothes, but searching for meaning. They are searching for a way to look that will make them feel a certain way. It is as if they think that looking and feeling a different way might make them actually be what they want.

The clothes need to be cheap and disposable, because the feelings change so quickly -- tomorrow she may need a different feeling, another skirt. The expensive ones are merely targeted at a wealthier market: for that market, they are just as disposable.

That is why they buy so many clothes, and why the clothes are so poorly made. The thing being bought is not the physical object at all. They are only talismans, like the hair of a frog. The real thing desired is the spell they want to work: the transformation, for a moment, into something else.

We spoke a while ago about the use of aesthetics to renew society. If you can capture the aesthetic in music and art, you can renew the world: but if you can then capture it also in clothes, you might be able to reach this entire group of people.

This also solves the funding issue, as large cultural movements require vast sums of money.

Now what we need is the poet, the artist, and the designer. What is the vision of beauty that they might chase, long enough for us to begin to introduce them to these better ways? For beauty underlies everything -- it is the vision of beauty that you follow that defines you.

It is also there -- in the consistent pursuit of a vision -- that the real transformation is possible. These pieces of poorly-made fluff have a power, if they are linked to a vision that can make you chase it far enough. A man who chases questing beasts, or fairy maids, will often find himself in elfland. So it is with other visions, if you dare to chase them far enough.

What, then, is the vision? Or are there several? What would move you in the right direction, and might move others? It is important to think about this, because it is the starting place.

Russian Pagans

Paganus:

The Latin word from which we derive "pagan" means something like 'of the countryside' or 'rural.' There are a few left:

More than 50 worshippers gathered in a sacred grove on a hot June afternoon outside the village of Marisola. The crowd, mostly women dressed in national costumes and colorful headscarves, stood on a glade opposite a spruce where men were busy conducting prayers.

The congregation kneeled while the men under the spruce, dressed in suits, white felt hats and linen towels cast over their shoulders, said prayers in a low, monotone murmur.

They prayed to Osh Kughu Yumo -- Mari for "Great White God" -- who was being revered that day as Agavairem, which means both deity of creative energy and the feast marking the end of spring labor.

The women lined up in the grass in front of piles of thick homemade pancakes, white cheese, dumplings and brown kvas, the fermented rye drink. Pots and kitchenware were adorned with burning candles, as was a makeshift table in front of the spruce.

This is not one of the "neopagan" faiths that have cropped up since the 19th century. Those were inspired by the Romantic movement in literature and music, which sought to infuse meaning into life through soaring emotion. This one is simply an old way, that has survived in a very rural region.

The Christian priests in the area have tried to sort out their own thoughts on the relationship between the faiths. The Russian Orthodox priest says he lets them come to church, and even be baptized, but believes they are lost souls who cannot be saved. The Lutheran they interviewed said that the problem wasn't that they weren't Christian, but that they weren't Russian: "Many Mari do not want to go the Orthodox church because it is perceived as quintessentially Russian. We, however, can offer worship in their own language."

Yet it is the poet they interviewed who spoke best, as poets will.

"You should not put too much significance in this," Dudina explained. "Our people have lived with the Russian church for generations, but our faith is older."

Christianity, she said, had not entered Mari rites, but rather the rites had entered Christianity. "There are so many pagan traditions in Christianity. Look at the Christmas tree," she said.

I remember another poet who felt that way:

He kept the Roman order,
He made the Christian sign;
But his eyes grew often blind and bright,
And the sea that rose in the rocks at night
Rose to his head like wine.

He made the sign of the cross of God,
He knew the Roman prayer,
But he had unreason in his heart
Because of the gods that were.

Even they that walked on the high cliffs,
High as the clouds were then,
Gods of unbearable beauty,
That broke the hearts of men.

And whether in seat or saddle,
Whether with frown or smile,
Whether at feast or fight was he,
He heard the noise of a nameless sea
On an undiscovered isle.

DEVO + Neil Young.



Yeah. I didn't believe it either.

Cuts

Cuts:

So I'm learning what's been going on back here in the states while I've been gone. I see we're discussing health care:

President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.

That has a very familiar ring to it. It's precisely the government's plan for Social Security, Medicare, and Federal pensions:

Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.

Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities.

So why don't we change to the corporate-style accounting method?

The White House and the Congressional Budget Office oppose the change, arguing that the programs are not true liabilities because government can cancel or cut them.

That article was originally published in 2007, so this is not new. The government's standing position is that the "national debt" problem is not a serious issue, because they can always simply decide not to pay. No one can make them.

So, having paid ruinous FICA taxes and income taxes all your life, many of you will soon reach retirement to discover that the government has defrauded you. Only it's not fraud, you see, because they make the rules. The new rules will say it's OK that they break their word.

That's not new, but this is:

Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers' amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk's desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.

It's longstanding practice for Congressmen to vote for bills they haven't read. This is the first time, though, that I've heard of them voting for one that actually can't be read.

Back when "Campaign Finance Reform" was on the table, the Congress wrote a bill that both parties agreed was at least partially unconstitutional; the President signed it into law, although he also agreed that it was not constitutional. Both branches deferred to the SCOTUS to work out which parts were (and weren't) actually constitutional, rather than doing their duty themselves. SCOTUS, in turn, deferred to the legislature and the President.

All three branches set aside their duty, and so we obtained new restrictions on the freedom of speech, and political speech: the one kind of speech the Founders were most interested to protect.

Now the House is repeating the error, voting for a law that it hasn't read, because it can't be read. Someday people will go to prison for violating the new regulations and restrictions in this bill: they will be deprived of their homes, their families, and their liberty.

When they get to court, why can't they say that they were deprived of their right to due process? If the police or the prosecutor had been as inconsiderate of their duty as Congress is being, we would throw such a case out of court.

Isn't the writing of the law a part of the process? Are there not, therefore, minimum standards for the officials entrusted to exercise that power?

A New Adventure

A New Adventure:

One of the luckiest men in the world has proven his luck again. He deserves it, though -- I hope you all will stop by to give him your very best.

Crusader's Return

"The Crusader's Return"

1.
HIGH DEEDS achieved of knightly fame,
From Palestine the champion came;
The cross upon his shoulders borne,
Battle and blast had dimm’d and torn.
Each dint upon his batter’d shield
Was token of a foughten field;
And thus, beneath his lady’s bower,
He sung as fell the twilight hour:—


2.
“Joy to the fair!—thy knight behold,
Return’d from yonder land of gold;
No wealth he brings, nor wealth can need,
Save his good arms and battle-steed
His spurs, to dash against a foe,
His lance and sword to lay him low;
Such all the trophies of his toil,
Such—and the hope of Tekla’s smile!


3.
“Joy to the fair! whose constant knight
Her favour fired to feats of might;
Unnoted shall she not remain,
Where meet the bright and noble train;
Minstrel shall sing and herald tell—
‘Mark yonder maid of beauty well,
’Tis she for whose bright eyes were won
The listed field at Askalon!


4.
“‘Note well her smile!—it edged the blade
Which fifty wives to widows made,
When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,
Iconium’s turban’d Soldan fell.
Seest thou her locks, whose sunny glow
Half shows, half shades, her neck of snow?
Twines not of them one golden thread,
But for its sake a Paynim bled.’


5.
“Joy to the fair!—my name unknown,
Each deed, and all its praise thine own
Then, oh! unbar this churlish gate,
The night dew falls, the hour is late.
Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,
I feel the north breeze chill as death;
Let grateful love quell maiden shame,
And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.”

From Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott.

"And within a while it dawned."

Camel Dressage

Some Cavalry Videos:

Bthun sends a couple of remarkable videos. You knew that the great desert tribes had sometimes ridden to war, not on horses, but on camels. Would you like to see a camel who has been trained in the cavalry's arts?



That's something you won't see every time you go to the horse show. And it's real, which I doubt is true of this variation:



The other one he sent doesn't embed, but some of you -- especially a certain person I know who loves Rocky Mountain horses -- will enjoy this.

Vrroom

Vrroom:

Mark Steyn notes the political success of fascists in Europe:

[I]n the western half of Continental Europe, politics evolved to the point where almost any issue worth talking about was ruled beyond the bounds of polite society. In good times, it doesn’t matter so much. But in bad times, if the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones....

On the day of the European elections, the Toronto Sun’s Lorrie Goldstein responded to my observations about his recent column accusing Tamilphobic Canadians of racism. “I wish,” sighed Mr. Goldstein, “Steyn would spend more time disagreeing with what racists say and less time defending their right to say it.” But that’s kind of a crowded market for a pundit to get a piece of the action in. I mean, Canada surely doesn’t need one more delicate flower shrieking “Racism!” at every affront to the multiculti pieties. That hypersensitivity is what’s helped deliver more and more of the European vote to “fringe” parties. You want to talk about immigration? Whoa, racist! Crime? Racist! Welfare? Racist! Islam? Racistracistdoubleracist!!! Nya-nya, can’t hear you with my two anti-racist thumbs in my ears!

Already, the European political class is congratulating itself at holding the tide of neo-nationalism to the low double-digits.

We do it a little differently in America. Remember Prohibition? How about when our betters decided that there was no legitimate dissent from the 55 mph speed limit:

[T]he newly imposed 55 mph speed limit was actually slower than the quickest average speeds of point-to-point travels of Erwin George "Cannon Ball" Baker in the first half of the 20th century. In 1933, Baker drove coast to coast in a Graham-Paige model 57 Blue Streak 8, averaging greater than 50 mph, setting a 53 hour 30 minute record that stood for nearly 40 years. If this could be done by a single man driving on bad roads and through villages, a team of two or more experienced (and even professional race) drivers, driving a modern car on safer and wider intersection-free highways that bypass towns, should be able to do it quicker without taking unacceptable risks apart from getting a speeding ticket, by cruising at 90 to 100 mph.

Another motivation was the fun involved, which showed in the tongue-in-cheek reports in Car and Driver and other auto publications worldwide.

The initial cross-country run was accomplished by Yates's son Brock Jr., Smith, and friend Jim Williams beginning on May 3, 1971. The first running was done in a 1971 Dodge Custom Sportsman van, called the "Moon Trash II". The race was run four more times, on November 15, 1971; November 13, 1972; April 23, 1975; and April 1, 1979. The most remarkable effort certainly was by American racing legend and winner of the 1967 24 hours of Le Mans, Dan Gurney, winning the second run in a Ferrari Daytona. Dan himself put it best, saying: "At no time did we exceed 175 mph."

The natural American response to tyranny is defiance. The tyranny of the "delicate flowers" -- and indeed, they are capable of tyranny! -- is best met with a sort of joyous defiance.

Steyn is a master of it. We'll need more of that spirit in the years to come.

Tolk?

"Tolk"?

A list of reasons someone likes Tolkien:

3) The Watcher in the Water

Dude. That totally was cool. I mean, say what you like about him, Tolk gives good monster.

Hm.

Subcreation and the old Northern heroism (subdivided betweens reason 1 and 2) are indeed good reasons to admire the work, however.

Men & Women & Work

Men & Women At Work:

Cassandra has a good post today on women and the workplace. Her aside in the comments is also an interesting conjecture:

Men's wages have stagnated over the past generation, while women entered the work force for the first time.

Coincidence? I wonder.

I think there may be two things going on here:

1. A man who has a wife at home FT caring for home and family is freed up to focus his time and attention on his job. He also, as the lone wage earner, has more pressure to succeed.

2. Suddenly flooding the market with workers who don't negotiate for their salaries may well have had a depressing effect on the incomes of men.

I recall an earlier post at VC discussed the claim that women don't negotiate for salary, on average. (I am sure, however, that our friend Texas99 is a vigorous exception to the rule. :)

In any event, as Paul Ibrahim points out, it's no surprise given the difference in men's brains:

Being male, Caplan writes, “has 15.7% of the effect of a Ph.D. in economics[.]”

It's science.

Bitter

Bitter:

So, the APA has come up with yet another way in which you might be crazy. Last time it was something to do with spending too much time on internet games, but now you might be bitter.

No one could accuse the American Psychiatric Association of missing a strain of sourness in the country, or of failing to capitalize on its diagnostic potential. Having floated "Apathy Disorder" as a trial balloon, to see if it might garner enough support for inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the world's diagnostic bible of mental illnesses, the organization has generated untold amounts of publicity and incredulity this week by debating at its convention whether bitterness should become a bona fide mental disorder.

I yield to none in my disdain for this whole branch of pseudoscience; but just as I was warming up to this article exposing the weakness of the evidentiary claims, it took an odd turn.

Now I grant that there's a lot of anger and bitterness out there. Part of it, I'd wager, is targeted appropriately at a Republican administration that managed in eight years to bring a largely healthy economy to its knees.

I'm sorry, what?

Do we need to give additional reasons for bitterness at that outcome? The Bush administration managed to lead the country into a protracted, illegal war, based on trumped-up evidence; ignored memos that said the country faced credible terrorist threats; locked up large numbers of suspects afterwards without trial or due process; lied to its citizens about the widespread use of torture; eliminated every sensible, necessary check on financial regulation to prevent a fiscal meltdown; mocked the facts of climate change; and dithered as Hurricane Katrina devastated a large city.

What were we talking about, again?

Heaven knows, there are reasons enough to be bitter about the untold number of opportunities squandered, the problems that have escalated in their place, and the crises now with us that were once entirely avoidable.

But when justified anger at such incompetence is discussed as a sign of mental illness, it's borderline insulting[.]

Oh... kay.

The author turns out to be a professor of literature -- which is an academic discipline at least more rigorous than psychology -- and an author. The book he wrote was called Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.

I am struck by the comparison with Ms. Warner's article, which we discussed below. In her case, it was not "shyness" but "anxiety" that defined her experience with life.

There is something going on here. I wouldn't suggest it was a "mental illness," not just because I wouldn't want to be insulting, but because I don't believe that it is. The only "mental illness" I believe actually exist are the ones with physical, observable causes, which can be corrected. That's an illness, and part of the proper field of medicine. What we're talking about here is not illness, with a medical solution, but something else.

What we're talking about here is not part of the mind, but of the psyche -- which, so many have forgotten, is not the mind but the soul. These are people who have lived lives of remarkable peace and plenty, in a land now ruled by their preferred and chosen officials and policies, and who yet find themselves ruled by fear, by shyness, and by anxiety; and therefore by a kind of seething anger, which is the natural compliment of fear.

What is needed is not a diagnosis, nor a drug. It's a way of learning to live boldly; and a way of embracing joy, even if destruction lays overhead. "Take thou, and strike! The time for casting away is yet far off."

It is your hour. I am managing to enjoy it; why shouldn't you?

Water Maids

Water Maids:

SO THEY RODE till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. Lo! said Merlin, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that they saw a damosel going upon the lake. What damosel is that? said Arthur. That is the Lady of the Lake, said Merlin; and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on earth, and richly beseen; and this damosel will come to you anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword.

Anon withal came the damosel unto Arthur, and saluted him, and he her again. Damosel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur, king, said the damosel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. Well! said the damosel, go ye into yonder barge, and row yourself to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask my gift when I see my time.

Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur

Then bore this brine-wolf, when bottom she touched,
the lord of rings to the lair she haunted
whiles vainly he strove, though his valor held,
weapon to wield against wondrous monsters
that sore beset him; sea-beasts many
tried with fierce tusks to tear his mail,
and swarmed on the stranger. But soon he marked
he was now in some hall, he knew not which,
where water never could work him harm,
nor through the roof could reach him ever
fangs of the flood. Firelight he saw,
beams of a blaze that brightly shone.
Then the warrior was ware of that wolf-of-the-deep,
mere-wife monstrous....

'MID the battle-gear saw he a blade triumphant,
old-sword of Eotens, with edge of proof,
warriors' heirloom, weapon unmatched,
-- save only 'twas more than other men
to bandy-of-battle could bear at all --
as the giants had wrought it, ready and keen.
Seized then its chain-hilt the Scyldings' chieftain,
bold and battle-grim, brandished the sword,
reckless of life, and so wrathfully smote
that it gripped her neck and grasped her hard,
her bone-rings breaking[.]

The Beowulf

Then from the yelling Northmen
Driven splintering on him ran
Full seven spears, and the seventh
Was never made by man.

Seven spears, and the seventh
Was wrought as the faerie blades,
And given to Elf the minstrel
By the monstrous water-maids;

By them that dwell where luridly
Lost waters of the Rhine
Move among roots of nations,
Being sunken for a sign.

Under all graves they murmur,
They murmur and rebel,
Down to the buried kingdoms creep,
And like a lost rain roar and weep
O’er the red heavens of hell.

Thrice drowned was Elf the minstrel,
And washed as dead on sand;
And the third time men found him
The spear was in his hand.

Seven spears went about Eldred,
Like stays about a mast;
But there was sorrow by the sea
For the driving of the last.

Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

'And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,
Who knows a subtler magic than his own--
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword,
Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist
Of incense curled about her, and her face
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom;
But there was heard among the holy hymns
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells
Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.

'There likewise I beheld Excalibur
Before him at his crowning borne, the sword
That rose from out the bosom of the lake,
And Arthur rowed across and took it--rich
With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,
Bewildering heart and eye--the blade so bright
That men are blinded by it--on one side,
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,
"Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see,
And written in the speech ye speak yourself,
"Cast me away!" And sad was Arthur's face
Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,
"Take thou and strike! the time to cast away
Is yet far-off."

Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King

Fear

Fear and Hate:

So this was written even as John Bolton ponders an Israeli strike on Iran.

This brief survey demonstrates why Israel's military option against Iran's nuclear program is so unattractive, but also why failing to act is even worse. All these scenarios become infinitely more dangerous once Iran has deliverable nuclear weapons....

On the other hand, the Obama administration's increased pressure on Israel concerning the "two-state solution" and West Bank settlements demonstrates Israel's growing distance from Washington. Although there is no profit now in complaining that Israel should have struck during the Bush years, the missed opportunity is palpable. For the remainder of Mr. Obama's term, uncertainty about his administration's support for Israel will continue to dog Israeli governments and complicate their calculations.

Israel is afraid, of a great many things. How reasonable are their fears? Iran is a place proven to be of great capacity for calculation, one that has succeeded in waging war with America on two fronts without actually incurring retaliation. They have been killing us here for quite some time, but aside from rough words from our generals, they have nothing to fear. Certainly our President seems unlikely to endorse any such course as Mr. Bolton suggests, and how they will cross Iraq's airspace without our consent is something they will need to ponder.

Does such a state as Iran really intend to develop nuclear weapons, only and solely to cast away its life in fire? Frankly, it's hard for me to believe, in spite of the suicide bombers they send forth. The truth is that few of the people who orchestrate suicide bombings ever think to carry a bomb themselves. Normally they leave that to others, even at the end of their lives when you would think there was little to lose. They are manipulators, not brave men themselves.

A man can be both wicked and brave, of course: and some of these cap a wretched life with a death meant as an insult to the world. We saw such an attempt this week at the Holocaust Museum, which is tied to this story both by the form of attack -- a suicide, that failed -- and by its target.

Here was an old man who saw every belief in which he had put faith held to ridicule and then discarded. Here was his attempt to draw your eye, just once before he finally died, and to underline what he believed in such a way as you could not ignore it.

Well, a man who is ready to die for his beliefs will be heard. We have heard, and now let him pass from us.

Still, it has frightened. It has frightened some people badly. Cassandra mocks one of them; but while her arguments (Ms. Warner's) are just as bad as Cassandra says, I think we should respond otherwise.

Ms. Warner is easily frightened; she is apparently the author of a book called Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. I recall her too from this column:

She writes about attending a McCain-Palin rally in Virginia. She confesses that she intended to go as a joke, and to mock the attendees -- but she ends up being taken by the kindness of the strangers, their hopes for Gov. Palin, and the evident joy of their lives. It scares the hell out of her.

No, it wasn’t funny, my morning with the hockey and the soccer moms, the homeschooling moms and the book club moms, the joyful moms who brought their children to see history in the making and spun them on the lawn, dancing, when music played. It was sobering. It was serious. It was an education.... For those of us who can’t tap into those yearnings, it seems the Palin faithful are blind[.]

Yet she went on in very much the right spirit, recognizing the blinders of ideology and wanting to see past them.

Today's piece was... not of that spirit. Still, remember that now she is frightened not by joyful mothers dancing with their children, but by a hateful killer who has wrought with death a fearful sign.

So we ought to be kind, and recognize that we are looking at panic from a woman who confesses herself to be given to anxiety. Her fear has become hate, but it does not always lie on her so strongly. She has moments, when the fear is on her less, that she tries to do right.

So say to her: Be at peace, lady. We are not your enemy. No arms of ours will be used against you. They might well be used in your defense.

This man has done the last harm he will do to the world. Don't make of him more than he was.

If you must fear, there are real dangers in the world. Fear Iran, perhaps, but we have no power there: it is the hour of another. Yet if called to the task, you know we will come.

Two For Today

Battles Lost and Losing:

The American Knife and Tool Institute (AKTI) finds itself, today, in a difficult position. It wants to draw your eye to a sweeping power grab by the Federal government to regulate even the pocketknife you might normally carry -- by redefining it as a switchblade, even though it has no switch.

Yet it is hard to get people to see that this is a serious danger; after all, it is an arcane rule-change, not a legislative process; and it is by a portion of the government that has no normal reason to be of concern to Americans, namely the Customs service; and anyway, it's so obvious that my knife is not a switchblade, how could I possibly be concerned about it?

Well, on another topic, were you concerned about the EMTALA? Neither was I. In fact, I don't recall having ever heard of it until today, when I read this piece by GruntDoc, at the recommendation of Doc Russia. He is explaining why doctors are doing so little to try and stop ObamaCare, even though it will plainly destroy both their ability to make a living and also lead to government rationing.

When the monstrosity of EMTALA was enshrined the battle against universal health care was lost. How is the argument even made that we do not have universal care now? And how can one argue that there is a problem with access? I have not been able, ever, to turn a patient away from the ER.

You can be a murderer, an illegal alien, or a John Doe, pick up the phone, call 911, and get all your care (up to and including all manner of surgery) right away at the ER and never pay a dime. Why in God's name would we physicians, as a group, have any other belief than that the battle is lost and was lost some time ago.

Also, even though we have swallowed the bitter pill of universal care (without any legislative disincentive to abuse the system having survived scrutiny) our feeble attempts to bring even a small amount of sensibility to our tort system have been crushed in their infancy by the legal community, most often the American Trial Lawyers Association (and their willing accomplices in the congress).... [W]e are not allowed to deduct the cost of this free care we give away, conservative estimates place it at $150k per year per Emergency Physician, and we are taxed in the highest bracket.

The lawyers and lawmakers are strangling us all. It's gotten to where it is more than a full-time job just to keep track of the new regulations that the government is constantly dreaming up to impose on our lives. If you spent all day every day doing just that and nothing else, you still would need to hire help.

Chastity

Chastity:

Along the way to defining 'right drinking,' Scruton imagines what he calls "true chastity" for an analogy. This is a concept worth considering entirely separately from the concept of right drinking, though (perhaps because of my own continued 'chastity' from both drink and other things, occasioned by General Order #1) the analogy between a temporary abstinence from sex and from drink seems reasonable to me.

What he argues is that chastity is best taught (to those who are not priests) as a way of whetting the appetite, so that you may enjoy the deepest and fullest experience of the thing when the time is right. Sex is not something to be avoided, but rather, something that is best when it is joined to love and to commitment.

That is what true chastity consists in, and it provides one of the deep arguments in favour of marriage or, at least, in favour of the constraint upon sexual appetite that is offered by love, that it makes sexual enjoyment into a personally fulfilling habit.

Chastity in this light becomes, not an avoidance of something that is pleasurable, but a means of deepening the experience. In this way it is placed in the realm appealing to those who want to "live best, and love deepest" -- in a word, it becomes romantic.

That suggests Scruton has hit the truth of the thing.

Vine and Virtue

Virtue and Vine:

Roger Scruton has a piece on the virtue of drinking. He is aiming at the Aristotlean balance between vice ("vicious drinking") and avoidance (which he probably improperly renders as 'Puritanism').

If alcohol causes drunkenness, they think, then the sole moral question concerns whether you should drink it at all, and if so how much. The idea that the moral question concerns how you drink it, in what company and in what state of mind, is one that is entirely foreign to their way of understanding the human condition.

This puritan legacy can be seen in many aspects of British and American society. And what is most interesting to the anthropologist is the ease with which puritan outrage can be displaced from one topic to another and the equal ease with which the thing formerly disapproved of can be overnight exonerated from all taint of sin. This has been particularly evident in the case of sex. Our parents and grandparents were concerned — and rightly concerned — that young people should look on sex as a temptation to be resisted. However, they did not see chastity as a preparation for sexual enjoyment: in their eyes it was precisely the enjoyment that was wrong. As a result, they made no real distinction between virtuous and vicious desire. The whole subject was taboo and the only answer to the question of sexual urges was "Don't!" The old idea of chastity as a form of temperance eluded them. Yet what Aristotle said about anger (by way of elucidating the virtue of praotes or "gentleness") applies equally to sex. For Aristotle it is not right to avoid anger absolutely. It is necessary rather to acquire the right habit — in other words, to school oneself into feeling the right amount of anger towards the right person, on the right occasion and for the right length of time.

What is the right balance for the consumption of alcohol? He invites you to consider:

The practice of buying rounds in the pub is one of the great cultural achievements of the English. It enables people with little money of their own to make generous gestures, without the risk of being ruined by them. It enables each person to distinguish himself from his neighbours and to portray his individuality in his choice of drink, and it causes affection progressively to mount in the circle of drinkers, by giving each in turn the character of a warm and hospitable friend. In a way it is a moral improvement on the Greek symposium, where the host alone appeared in the character of the giver, and also on the common room and the country house. The round of drinks enables even the speechless and the downtrodden briefly to receive the thanks, the appreciation and the honour of their neighbours....

When people sit down together in a public place — a place where none of them is sovereign but each of them at home — and when those people pass the evening together, sipping drinks in which the spirit of place is stored and amplified, maybe smoking or taking snuff and in any case willingly exchanging the dubious benefits of longevity for the certain joys of friendship, they rehearse in their souls the original act of settlement, the act that set our species on the path of civilisation, and which endowed us with the order of neighbourhood and the rule of law.

Although there is some rather playful anthropology at work in the piece, it's hard to argue with that particular note. I look forward to having the occasion to enjoy such companionship, once I have left behind a land and a life that is dry in both the physical and metaphorical senses of the term.

Scruton quotes a few poets in his discourse. There are many good ones! Among my favorites is this stanza of Chesterton's:

Feast on wine or fast on water
And your honour shall stand sure,
God Almighty's son and daughter
He the valiant, she the pure;
If an angel out of heaven
Brings you other things to drink,
Thank him for his kind attentions,
Go and pour them down the sink.

So, to day is June 6th.

65 years ago today, a whole lot of American, British, Canadian, and French soldiers stormed Fortress Europe.

General Eisenhower called it a 'great crusade'. It probably was.

He'd probably get into big trouble using those words these days, though.

Scratch four flattops!

So, today is June 4. I have read that the Japanese intended to rename Midway "The Glorious Month of June" after they captured it.

Things don't always work out the way they were planned, which is a lesson that apparently has to be learnt over and over again.

The US Navy won that battle, but it was not a sure thing. Battles never are.

If people out there want to 'read more about it' (assuming they have not already) I will heartily recommend Jonathan Parshall's and Anthony Tully's "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" which is an absolutely amazing piece of historical writing, dissecting the battle from mostly the Japanese perspective. You will not think about the battle same way again after reading this book, I will guarantee that.

But today, let us remember Admiral Fletcher and the brave crews of the USS Yorktown, USS Enterprise and USS Hornet and all the rest. For as long as there is a US Navy, we will remember their deeds this day.

On Prostitution:

Cassandra, that delightful woman, has once again deleted a discussion thread just as I was beginning to enjoy it. :)

We had settled the issue of shooting abortion doctors to my satisfaction, but I hadn't had time to engage the prostitution question at all. I left it alone initially because it doesn't strike me as being all that hard or troubling. I suppose, though, that I might explain why; and since I can't do it there, we may as well discuss it here.

I think Cassandra had the largest part of it in her appeal to human dignity: that it is wrong to let people be treated as commodities. Why is it wrong? Aristotle said that there are some people who are natural slaves, and as I get older, I think that's really true: but not chattel slaves. I mean that I think he was right to say that there are some people who really just want to be taken care of, and are willing to do whatever they're told in return for not having to worry. They will trade whatever they must, including freedom, including their dignity, to obtain whatever such promise of 'I will care for you' that they can find.

As a nation consecrated to liberty, and therefore to dignity, we should always oppose such a mindset. The American way is surely to call people to lift up their eyes and their hearts, and to claim the dignity and liberty that come from self-reliance.

Too, and more, the Western tradition is unique in the world in its value of women. Perhaps the single greatest difference between our culture and the Middle East's, or China's, is not the difference in Christianity or Islam or Confucian social principles. Rather, the greatest and most obvious difference is the development of the culture of high respect of women by men that characterized the nobility and knightly classes of the High Middle Ages, and which came to characterize the whole of the aristocracy, gentry, and eventually the middle classes over the next centuries. Though never universal, the ethic of chivalry was rightly described in the introduction to the works of Chretien de Troyes as the cult of the West.

So far as we know he was the first to create in the vulgar tongues a vast court, where men and women lived in conformity with the rules of courtesy, where the truth was told, where generosity was open-handed, where the weak and the innocent were protected by men who dedicated themselves to the cult of honour and to the quest of a spotless reputation. Honour and love combined to engage the attention of this society; these were its religion in a far more real sense than was that of the Church.

We have discussed this topic before, at length: I am thinking especially of here and here, for example -- anyone who wishes to engage the discussion anew may wish to familiarize themselves with the debate, as several of us have fairly hardened positions on some of these issues.

One of those discussions was on the occasion of Governor Palin's run for office, pondering what it would be like to have a woman who could be loved from afar -- in the sense of the poetic tradition of which Chretien was a part -- in our national consciousness.

Alas, we never found out because it was decided instead that we should all hate and despise her. It was not enough to edit her interviews, but to frame her inexperience on the national stage so that it appeared to be idiocy. Having done this on national "news," the same networks let loose their comedians to hammer it home. So effectively was scorn and mockery deployed against her -- even after she was a good sport about it, showing up on Saturday Night Live in some clever self-parody, and extending to Tina Fey the offer of free babysitting -- that the tactic now seems to be acceptable toward any conservative woman.

This is not only about women, mind you, but about men as well. The audience for these poems about love and honor were not children: these were no nursery rhymes. They were stories for a fighting class, who embraced life in the knowledge that they might not long enjoy it. It is a poetry of urgency: how to live best, how to love deepest.

A man who knows how to love has no reason to care about prostitution; what use is it? What he wants is a love to guide his dreams and his steps, and to lift him up for his short span into the highest realm for men.

To be such a man is to want such women. Where will you find them, if you let them be scorned?

Heraldry, IV:

I mentioned 2/1 Armor had just returned home to Germany. Here is some of the heraldry they left behind.







Sadly, the last one requires this note: three soldiers from the 47th FSB died overnight in Germany. Having so long suppressed their hearts to better prepare for the dangers of war, they were overcome by the sudden joy of liberty. All of us who were once young men know that there were times when we did as recklessly, as it is the way of young men; only fate spares us to mourn. Requiéscant in pace.

For Grim:

Storm that fort!

Looks like the Russians remember too.

Heraldry III

Heraldry III:

This one's for Eric.







I think that heraldry is a lot like poetry: the best of it comes from the most strict traditions. It is in testing yourself against the form that you push your limits.

Heraldry, Part II: Task Force Dragon

At various times, units of different sizes have held the distinction of being "task forces" here. "Task Force" can mean one of several things -- "Task Force Troy" is the counter-IED unit, for example -- but when assigned to a combat arms unit it denotes which level of command is considered the "ground owning" unit. When I was in Iraq the first time, it was with "Task Force Marne," a division-sized element commaned by the 3rd Infantry Division headquarters.

As you can see from the heraldry below, "Task Force Dragon" was a brigade-sized element (the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division). They have since left Iraq; the current "Task Force Dragon" is a battalion-sized element (1-63 Combined Arms Battalion, also part of 1st ID). That means the battalion owns the land, and the brigade and division commands support the battalion commander's efforts.



The motto, "Bellate Impavide," is "Fight Lustily!" or "Wage War Fearlessly!" Here is a milblogger from that unit, on their long-awaited final day in theater.

Here are two more from that period:





It is good to remember.

Heraldry, I

Heraldy, Part I:

One of the things I admire about the US Army is its devotion to the traditions of heraldry. The US Army's College of Heraldry has made a few "innovations," which is too bad -- I wonder if the 4th Infantry Division knows that the diamond-shaped shield is traditionally reserved for women? -- but on the whole it has preserved an ancient and noble custom.

The base where I am currently has had a lot of units pass through it. I took a longer than usual walk to the DFAC today in order to capture some of the better heraldry. I'll post a short series as I have time.



I like this example because it shows the classical heraldry as well as a more interpretive form. It also has the heraldry of the 1st Armor Division ("Old Ironsides"), to which TF Ram belongs.

North Korea Tests Second Nuclear Device, Fires Short-Range Missiles

Korea made its second test of a nuclear explosive on Monday and declared it was more destructive than the first, an advance that is likely to embolden Kim Jong Il's regime in rebuffing calls by the U.S. and others to halt its weapons program.

The country also launched three short-range missiles, including one from the same site from which it fired a long-range missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean seven weeks ago.

It never quite starts where you expect it to.

Right now, it seems Iran is the focus of the Obama administration's nuclear worries.

East wind, rain.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution, Kyodo news agency said on Monday, weeks after a North Korean missile launch.

In 1941, the Roosevelt administration expected, that if war broke out, the Japanese would attack the Philipines first.

People don't always do what you expect them to.

Oh, and happy Memorial Day to all.

Game Theory:

Let's play a game.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”…

The industry says that the proposals will force banks to issue fewer credit cards at greater cost to the current cardholders.

You’re already helping to pay off deadbeats’ homes. Why not help free them up to rack up some more credit-card debt too?

I gather the theory is that people who work hard will continue to work hard, even though they are now benefitting much less and paying the freight for people who don't. Yet we know from game theory that sometimes ultimatums get rejected:

The ultimatum game is a game often played in economic experiments in which two players interact to decide how to divide a sum of money that is given to them. The first player proposes how to divide the sum between the two players, and the second player can either accept or reject this proposal. If the second player rejects, neither player receives anything. If the second player accepts, the money is split according to the proposal. The game is played only once so that reciprocation is not an issue....

In many cultures, people offer "fair" (i.e., 50:50) splits, and offers of less than 20% are often rejected. Research on monozygotic and dizygotic twins has shown that individual variation in reactions to unfair offers is partly genetic.

To say that this arrangement is at least "partly genetic" is a way of returning to the concept of "natural law." Humans in many cultures will flatly reject an unfair split of free resources: A and B are both getting something for nothing, but B would rather get nothing at all than get only 19% while A takes 81%.

That's in a case where A is dividing spoils which are free to both parties -- neither one has any ownership of the spoils until they are divided. In the current case, A is proposing to take property that belongs to B and divide it between them. Because A controls the political branches, he is in charge of setting the terms of the division.

B, however, still has an option available, as the Randians keep reminding us. Doc Russia explores the question in depth.

It's still a good game. Many of us may have a lot more time to enjoy life, in the near future.

Cannibals!

One of the interesting sections from the paper we've been discussing is the Turkish view of the Franks as cannibals:

Other Muslim accounts note that the Franks not only killed civilians, but they tortured them to extort treasure and even ate them. According to Maalouf, Christian sources confirm that the Franks boiled and grilled adults as well as children so they could eat them. The local population quickly spread word of the atrocities that the Franks committed against the population of Ma’arrat. These stories reinforced the already prevalent image of the Franks as subhuman and further vilified them. What enemy could be worse, even in medieval times, than cannibals?

“They [Franks] aroused a mixture of fear and contempt, quite understandable on the part of an Arab nation which, while far superior in culture, had lost all combative spirit. The Turks would never forget the cannibalism of the Occidentals. Throughout their epic literature, the Franj are invariably described as anthropophagi.” Muslims equate the conduct of the Franks during this siege to their true nature and eventually used this example to igncooperation between rival princes and emirs. In the near term, the conduct of the Franks benefited their campaign. In the long term, their conduct would eventually contribute to the loss of the war.

That reminds me of Sir Walter Scott's introduction to his Crusader novel, The Talisman. It's too long to quote in full, but treats Richard the Lionheart's alleged cannibalism:

"The swarte vis [Black face] when the king seeth,
His black beard and white teeth,
How his lippes grinned wide,
'What devil is this?' the king cried,
And 'gan to laugh as he were wode.
'What! is Saracen's flesh thus good?
That never erst I nought wist!
By God's death and his uprist,
Shall we never die for default,
While we may in any assault,
Slee Saracens, the flesh may take,
And seethen and roasten and do hem bake,
[And] Gnawen her flesh to the bones!
Now I have it proved once,
For hunger ere I be wo,
I and my folk shall eat mo!"'

Sir Walter has an explanation for how he believes the rumor arose. It all reminds me of Roman Polanski's Pirates, in which the starving captain is trying to catch his last-remaining crewman to eat. The crewman scales the mast of their little boat, and as the captain is chopping down that mast, yells down:

"Cannibalism is a mortal sin! You will burn in hellfire!"

The captain pauses for a moment to consider that, and answers:

"What about Confession? What do you think Confession's for?"

Chop, chop.

Crusade

Crusaders:

I know the officer who wrote this. Good man.

Enjoy this, Grim!

That was a good king!



via American Digest, who brings up in his own way, my point about technology and entertainment, but muses why poetry isn't what it used to be. Interesting read, that.

Monkeysuits and Manners.

The guys over at Instapunk have an interesting post concerning the recent White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Since class warfare has been initiated, I'm prepared to defend the unpopular position of, well, class. Since it's been entirely forgotten by all sides. Just not by me.It interests me that conservatives are struggling with why they were offended by the White House Correspondents Dinner last night. On the one hand, they know they were offended by Wanda Sykes's monologue and by the fact that Obama laughed at it. On the other, they think they're trying to be fair, trying to put it into perspective, not getting all bent out of shape by it because Ann Coulter is mean too, etc. Oh, and yeah, they're above it all somehow. Or just plain tone-deaf. Which?

It is an interesting read, and at the end, they note something about GWB that I knew all along.

Obama's War.

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2009 – Citing the need for new thinking and new ideas in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has recommended President Barack Obama nominate Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the new commander of NATO and U.S. forces there.

Gates announced at a Pentagon news conference today that he has requested the resignation of Army Gen. David McKiernan, currently the commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal currently serves as the director of the Joint Staff.“I believe that our mission [in Afghanistan] requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders,” Gates told reporters. “Today, we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership is needed.”

Gates also announced his recommendation for Army Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, Gates’ senior military advisor, for a new position under McChrystal as deputy commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan.

From some other people I've looked at around the blogosphere, this seems to be the triumph of the COIN officers over the "Conventional" officers. Or something like that. Or maybe not.

Time will tell.

McKiernan was fired though. You don't 'ask' people to resign. Even I know that.

AL Daily

Well, Now:

Here's an interesting -- if unproven -- theory:

[T]he painter Vincent van Gogh did not slice off his left ear in a fit of madness and drunkenness in Arles in December 1888. His ear was severed by a sword wielded by his friend, the painter, Paul Gauguin, in a drunken row over a woman called Rachel and the true nature of art.

It's remarkable how big a difference that one detail would make in our understanding of the man.

Madness

Madness:

The Independent writes:

[W]hat, if anything, could possibly link minds that gave the world the theory of relativity, great surreal art, iconic comedy, and songs about surfing?

According to new research, psychosis could be the answer.... "There is now a feeling that these traits have survived because they have some adaptive value. To be mildly manic depressive or mildly schizophrenic brings a flexibility of thought, an openness, and risk-taking behaviour, which does have some adaptive value in creativity. The price paid for having those traits is that some will have mental illness."

Research is providing support for the idea that creative people are more likely to have traits associated with mental illness. One study found that the incidence of mood disorders, suicide and institutionalisation to be 20 times higher among major British and Irish poets in the 200 years up to 1800. Other studies have shown that psychiatric patients perform better in tests of abstract thinking.

Wise research, I suppose, to have discovered a fact that any slight student of archaeology or anthropology could have told them. Madness is not only adaptive but widely sought by those societies living at lower levels of technology, whose lives are more keenly balanced between survival and destruction. It is the rare society that did not have some form of mystical vision-seeking, based on suffering or drugs designed to take the mind out of its normal function.

In the West, this took the form of the cults that used ergot beverages, which have been discovered sealed in jars of the greatest antiquity.

A mild madness is merely a way of seeing reality differently. Give a man an alphanumeric string to remember: 24E7Y21P93Q. Then give him a word of the same length: BACCHANALIA. The mind can hold the one only with care and repeated effort: the other it seizes at once.

For a mild autistic, however, the two things may be equally easy to remember. That means that, if we could control that particular form of madness, we could access that function when we needed it. There is really no reason the one set of data should be easier to remember than the other; it is just the way the brain normally works. The brain could work otherwise. What is wanted is the ability to control it, and apply the talent we need.

Likewise, other forms of madness may drop walls to perception. Sometimes these walls are very useful: it can be helpful not to realize how dangerous it is, for example, to drive a car. Dropping that particular wall, as happens sometimes to those who suffer severe car wrecks, can be disabling in normal life. It is best that we can't normally understand just how perilous it is to push a heavy piece of metal to a speed of sixty miles an hour. Yet there may be times when such perceptions are useful, if they can be had for a while. If you could show your teenage son a vision of the thing for just a moment, it might save many a fine young life.

Creativity and madness are surely linked. That means there is a price: if we have bred to have a certain number of Einsteins, we have also bred to have a certain number of gibbering madmen who suffer and can not help themselves. More control is needed, which perhaps will come with greater understanding of the physical mechanisms of the brain.

Models based on an assumption that "normality" is a goal to be striven for, however, are not helpful. What is wanted is not a "normal" mind. What is wanted is the right mind, at the right moment.