The Hero's Portion

The Hero's Portion:

I am today instituting an award for excellent service to the Hall. I'm naming it after the ancient tradition of serving the choicest cut of meat at a feast to the hero of the hour. Or three such heroes, in some cases.

"The Champion's Portion at my feast is worth having; let it be given to the best hero in Ulster."

The carving and distribution of the viands began, and when the Champion's Portion was brought forward it was claimed by three chariot-drivers, Laegaire's, Conall's, and Cuchulain's, each on behalf of his master; and when no decision was made by King Conor the three heroes claimed it, each for himself. But Laegaire and Conall united in defying Cuchulain and ridiculing his claim, and a great fight began in the hall, till all men shook for fear; and at last King Conor intervened, before any man had been wounded.

"Put up your swords," he said. "The Champion's Portion at this feast shall be divided among the three.

The first winner of this award is Dellbabe, who took these photos and sent them to me for the enjoyment and enlightenment of our merry band.





I would be happy to issue this award regularly, if others wish to send things to be published that are of interest to our community. Obviously, co-bloggers may assume that they get to eat the Hero's Portion most any day it isn't otherwise awarded, due to their standing commitment and leadership.

Putting the Ale in Female

"Putting the Ale in Female"

Now that's a headline. Thanks, ladies.

Jane Peyton, an author and historian, says the fairer sex are behind the popularity of beer, and have been involved in its production since brewing began between 7,000 and 9,000 years before Christ.

Well, indeed: Hammurabi's Code holds...

If a tavern-keeper (feminine) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water; If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.

Word of the Day

Word of the Day: Vair

"Vair (from Latin varius "variegated") is the heraldic representation of patches of squirrel fur in an alternating pattern of blue and white."

Today I discovered that squirrels had eaten a hole in my coolant line, causing my truck to overheat and suffer several failures on the drive home today. Starting tonight, I am exploring several amusing ways to use squirrel: squirrel sausage, chew toys for the dog, target practice, etc.

Perhaps I'll make myself a vair-lined mantle for the winter.

Hooah, Hood.

Hooah:

Now this is a film with timing.

(H/t: Lars Walker.)

Who Else?

Self-Esteem:

With the coyness of someone revealing a bizarre sexual taste, my patients would often say to me, "Doctor, I think I'm suffering from low self-esteem."

Who else, but Theodore Dalrymple?

One has only to go into a prison, or at least a prison of the kind in which I used to work, to see the most revoltingly high self-esteem among a group of people (the young thugs) who had brought nothing but misery to those around them, largely because they conceived of themselves as so important that they could do no wrong. For them, their whim was law, which was precisely as it should be considering who they were in their own estimate....

The small matter of cleaning one's shoes, for example, is not one of vanity alone, though of course it can be carried on to the point of vanity and even obsession and fetish. It is, rather, a discipline and a small sign that one is prepared to go to some trouble for the good opinion and satisfaction of others. It is a recognition that one lives in a social world. That is why total informality of dress is a sign of advancing egotism.

As always, a veritable mine of useful ways of thinking about the problems of the world. Yet he leaves something out, one of the core problems of 'self-esteemism,' which we can learn by reading the evolutionary psychologist I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Consider 'the imposter syndrome.'

One little known topic that has resonated strongly with female readers is the concept of being a “fraud.” Pinker interviews several women who have succeeded in their fields; in many cases, traditionally male fields. Two themes emerge. First, these women have been encouraged strongly and consistently to rise through the ranks and obtain positions of power. Second, each of these women believes that at any point someone will realize that she is a fraud, an imposter, a sham: that she doesn’t really know what she is doing. To be clear, these women obtained these positions precisely because they do know what they are doing. They fully deserve the promotions they have received, and yet, the lack of confidence not only exists, it is pervasive. Scores of female CEOs, actresses, academics and others admit to feeling that at any point they will be “found out,” “exposed,” or “unmasked.” In the epilogue Pinker describes the massive influx of letters and emails from successful women who feel the same way.

Just as the patient 'coyly relates' their desire to be propped up in their self esteem, the fact is that at some level we recognize when others are doing so. The very fact of having been "encouraged strongly and consistently" means recognizing that you are receiving an advantage that can't be afforded to everyone; teachers, guidance counselors and college admissions officers can't encourage "everyone," let alone "strongly."

That very fact is probably at the root of this phenomenon. Those who have succeeded in the face of constant failure, who have been discouraged and beaten down and have still clawed their way to the top (or at least some comfortable level!) will not doubt that they got there on merit. No one, male or female, gets through Marine Corps Boot Camp feeling like a fraud. The fact of treating people with an eye toward 'building their self-esteem' actually undermines the real thing, which is self-confidence.

"Seemingly Odd"

"Seemingly Odd"

Greg Sargent has the scales fall from his eyes. Almost.

Yesterday I noted the seemingly odd finding by Gallup that more Americans blame Democrats than Republicans or conservatives for the rash of violence that greeted the passage of the reform law.

Now Gallup has released some new numbers that shed a bit of light on this:

Regardless of whether you favored or opposed the health care legislation passed this week, do you think the methods the Democratic leaders in Congress used to get enough votes to pass this legislation — were [they] an abuse of power, or were [they] an appropriate use of power by the party that controls the majority in Congress?

Abuse of power 53%

Appropriate use of power 40%

No opinion 7%

A surprising 58% of independents, too, said Dem tactics constituted an abuse of power.

This suggests, I think, that the claim by Republicans and conservatives that Dems were going to “ram” the bill through Congress via dictatorial fiat really succeeded in riling up people up a great deal — even though Republicans repeatedly used the reconcilation tactic themselves to pass ambitious legislation.

Actually, I doubt that it's so much 'the claim by Republicans and conservatives that...' as it is the actual fact that which is doing the work here. However, at least you've made the big jump: the reason people blame Democrats for the threats of violence is that they don't see the problem as 'Republican rhetoric stirring up violence.'

They see the problem as 'a provocation by Democrats that might justify violence.'

We talked recently about the non-enforcability of the mandate meaning that violence probably isn't justified; and wouldn't have been, anyway, until the mandate went into effect. However, it's worth noticing that this is America's natural and native political tradition. The Founders were revolutionaries -- not in the vague 'this is revolutionary sense in which the term is mostly used today, but in the sense of forming armies and shooting people over political differences.

A wise politician will consider this poll carefully. The survival of the Republic is not guaranteed; adequate abuse will provoke a war. If one is not wanted -- and I surely do not want one, having seen the effects of war on a country -- it is time to start thinking about restoring the proper, Constitutional order. It is time to start thinking about how to restrain the Federal government so that it is not prone to such abuses in the future.

OK that Women are different

Is it OK that Women are Different?

An evolutionary psychologist joins our party.

Thankfully, she goes beyond just differences in performance, assessment, or feelings regarding these differences. In particular, she examines the role testosterone plays in male risk taking (including those amusing Darwin Awards) and the role oxytocin and empathy play in female career choices. It is important to note that this is not the shallow glossing over seen in other books. Pinker is thorough enough to leave this biopsychologist satisfied, but also understandable enough for nonacademics. My brother, who didn’t go to college and shows little interest in biology, lazily picked up the book in my car last week. He read a line about gender differences out loud, and immediately launched into the SSSM explanation; “because that’s what girls are told to do.” Then he read farther. He became quiet. Then he asked to borrow the book when I was done with my “book report.”

Pinker does more than dryly discuss the biology; she provides example after example of women who have succeeded in this “man’s world” and found it wanting. As Pinker explains, let’s move on past the idea that a woman can’t do the same work as a man, and discuss why she may not want to. Any woman who has wondered if her preferences run counter to the feminist cause should pay close attention here; believing that a woman should have every right to pursue the same goals as men is different from believing that every woman should want to.

Welcome aboard.

The First

"The First..."

Shelby Steele posits an explanation for the off-the-cliff style of the current President.

Reagan came into office as a very well-defined man with an unequivocal sense of direction. Agree with him or not, you knew what kind of society he wanted. Mr. Obama, despite his new resolve, remains rather undefined—a president happy to have others write his "transformative" legislation. As the health-care bill and the stimulus package illustrate, scale is functioning as vision. From where does it come?

Well, suppose you were the first black president of the United States and, therefore, also the first black head-of-state in the entire history of Western Civilization. You represent a human first, something entirely new under the sun. There aren't even any myths that speak directly to your circumstance, no allegorical tales of ancient black kings who ruled over white kingdoms.

If anything, you may literally experience yourself as a myth in the making. After all, you embody a heretofore unimaginable transcendence over the old human plagues of tribalism, hatred and ignorance. Standing on ground that no man has stood on before, wouldn't it be understandable if you felt pressured by the grandiosity of your circumstance? Isn't there a special—and impossible—burden on "the first" to do something that lives up to his historical originality?

The concept is that 'the first X' has a kind of obligation to institute massive, historic changes in order to justify their having been 'the first X.' If that's right, it's a solid argument against electing anyone else to the office who could plausibly claim to be 'the first X,' regardless of what X might be.

The alternative that might allow you to support a 'first X' would be if they (like Reagan) articulated a clear vision of what they intended to do, along the lines of: 'As the first X president, I will return our government to the clear Constitutional principles that the Founders intended. Everything I do will be intended to restore the government that Washington would have wanted: the first X president will strive to be just like the first president.'

Heh

NYC Cops Field M-4-16 Submachinegun Assault Rifle Machine Gun Carbines:

The NY Post needs to tighten up its shot group.

Stand clear of the submachine guns.

In an unusual move, a heavily armed NYPD security battalion with enough firepower to wipe out Downtown Brooklyn descended onto the city's subway trains yesterday in response to suicide bombings in Russia that killed dozens of passengers in Moscow's subway.

Bleary-eyed New Yorkers began their work weeks with a morning rush hour that featured city cops in full military gear, including helmets, goggles, body armor, sidearms and M16 assault rifles.

'Submachinegun M-16 assault rifles.' Right.

The photographer must have asked, because in the slideshow captions they get so close...

An armed officer on the Counter Assault Team carries an M-4 Colt Carbine machine gun on the No. 6 train.

So close.

As for wiping out downtown Brooklyn, maybe so. I was going to remind everyone of the great line from Casablanca: "There are parts of New York I wouldn't advise you to invade..." But I was there not that long ago, and I'm not sure it still qualifies.

Plutarch's Lives

I've had to go back and read a bit of this, and so I'll beg indulgence on the tardiness of it.

Most often these days any published Plutarch seems to be merely chunks of his original work--for instance, my first experience was a Penguin classic called "Fall of the Roman Republic" which had all the relevant Roman lives for the 1st century BC. But none of the Greek lives, much less the comparisons. This is sad, as it obscures Plutarch's purpose a great deal. However, I was able to find a print copy of the complete lives that Barnes & Noble has recently issued as part of it's "Library of Essential Reading".

Now, I am traditional in that I prefer my books in hand, rather than online, but in the spirit of the times, the internet has become the world's library. So I have found online a complete transcription of the Lives here. (Send Mr. Thayer a thank you note--He seems to have retyped rather than scanned the text--quite an undertaking.)

Obviously the next thing to do was to pick which lives to read (and feel free to read them all). I had at least one life in mind and but then considered several others, but finally went back with my first thought.

So, we will read the pair of Alcibiades (Greek, 5th century BC) and Coriolanus (Roman 5th century BC). Make sure you read the comparison as well.

And if agreeable, we'll commence with some sort of discussion next Monday. And if people really like it, well read some more.

Philosophers

What do Philosophers Believe?

For those of you who follow modern philosophical debates, a survey of where philosophers shake out on cetain famous questions.

When asked which dead philosopher they most identified with, a clear winner emerged, with 21% of the votes: David Hume, the 18th-century thinker, historian, sceptic and agnostic who was a close friend of the economist Adam Smith. Aristotle, Kant and Wittgenstein took second, third and fourth places. The next six spots went to philosophers from the 20th century, most recently Donald Davidson, an American who died in 2003. Plato made 13th place and Socrates limped in at 21st.

Of the three topics that Immanuel Kant once said were the proper subjects of metaphysics – namely God, freedom and immortality – the survey covers only the first two, perhaps because these days life is too short to bother with immortality. Free will gets a thumbs-up: only 12% of philosophers think that people’s lives are predestined. But God gets the thumbs-down: nearly three-quarters accept or lean towards atheism. This is only to be expected. Even in America, which is unusually religious for a rich country, the top echelons of those who think for a living tend to be unbelievers. A survey of the members of America’s elite National Academy of Sciences in 1998 found that only 7% believed in God....

Some 82% of the respondents accept or are inclined towards “non-sceptical realism” about the external world, which means they believe both that physical objects exist independently of the minds that perceive them, and that we can be said to know of their existence. Some 4.8%, though, are inclined to deny that we have certain knowledge of the existence of physical objects, and 4.2% accept or lean towards “idealism”, which is the theory that matter somehow depends on mind. As for the status of so-called “abstract” objects, such as numbers, the most popular view (scoring 39%, narrowly ahead of its closest rival) is “Platonism”, according to which abstract objects have a real existence independently of our minds.

By a fairly narrow margin, today’s philosophers believe that judgments of artistic value are not merely matters of individual taste: 41% said aesthetic values are objective, 34% say subjective, and a quarter gave some other answer. They were not asked directly whether moral values are objective, but the responses to related questions suggest that most philosophers believe they are. Some 56% incline towards “moral realism”, which has no precise definition but implies that ethical questions have objectively right (and wrong) answers, and nearly two-thirds endorsed moral “cognitivism”, which suggests that they believe there are moral facts or truths.

Zenobia

Zenobia:

Rather than let the book club lapse, here is another online reading you might do quickly. You don't have to read all of the Monk's tale; we'll focus on Zenobia.

ZENOBIA, of Palmyrie the queen,
As write Persians of her nobless,
So worthy was in armes, and so keen,
That no wight passed her in hardiness,
Nor in lineage, nor other gentleness.* *noble qualities
Of the king's blood of Perse* is she descended; *Persia
I say not that she hadde most fairness,
But of her shape she might not he amended.

From her childhood I finde that she fled
Office of woman, and to woods she went,
And many a wilde harte's blood she shed
With arrows broad that she against them sent;
She was so swift, that she anon them hent.* *caught
And when that she was older, she would kill
Lions, leopards, and beares all to-rent,* *torn to pieces
And in her armes wield them at her will.

She durst the wilde beastes' dennes seek,
And runnen in the mountains all the night,
And sleep under a bush; and she could eke
Wrestle by very force and very might
With any young man, were he ne'er so wight;* *active, nimble
There mighte nothing in her armes stond.
She kept her maidenhood from every wight,
To no man deigned she for to be bond.

But at the last her friendes have her married
To Odenate, a prince of that country;
All were it so, that she them longe tarried.
And ye shall understande how that he
Hadde such fantasies as hadde she;
But natheless, when they were knit in fere,* *together
They liv'd in joy, and in felicity,
For each of them had other lefe* and dear. *loved

Save one thing, that she never would assent,
By no way, that he shoulde by her lie
But ones, for it was her plain intent
To have a child, the world to multiply;
And all so soon as that she might espy
That she was not with childe by that deed,
Then would she suffer him do his fantasy
Eftsoon,* and not but ones, *out of dread.* *again *without doubt*

And if she were with child at thilke* cast, *that
No more should he playe thilke game
Till fully forty dayes were past;
Then would she once suffer him do the same.
All* were this Odenatus wild or tame, *whether
He got no more of her; for thus she said,
It was to wives lechery and shame
In other case* if that men with them play'd. on other terms

Two sones, by this Odenate had she,
The which she kept in virtue and lettrure.* *learning
But now unto our tale turne we;
I say, so worshipful a creature,
And wise therewith, and large* with measure,** *bountiful **moderation
So penible* in the war, and courteous eke, *laborious
Nor more labour might in war endure,
Was none, though all this worlde men should seek.

Her rich array it mighte not be told,
As well in vessel as in her clothing:
She was all clad in pierrie* and in gold, *jewellery
And eke she *lefte not,* for no hunting, *did not neglect*
To have of sundry tongues full knowing,
When that she leisure had, and for t'intend* *apply
To learne bookes was all her liking,
How she in virtue might her life dispend.

And, shortly of this story for to treat,
So doughty was her husband and eke she,
That they conquered many regnes great
In th'Orient, with many a fair city
Appertinent unto the majesty
Of Rome, and with strong hande held them fast,
Nor ever might their foemen do* them flee, *make
Aye while that Odenatus' dayes last'.

Her battles, whoso list them for to read,
Against Sapor the king, and other mo',
And how that all this process fell in deed,
Why she conquer'd, and what title thereto,
And after of her mischief* and her woe, *misfortune
How that she was besieged and y-take,
Let him unto my master Petrarch go,
That writes enough of this, I undertake.

When Odenate was dead, she mightily
The regne held, and with her proper hand
Against her foes she fought so cruelly,
That there n'as* king nor prince in all that land, *was not
That was not glad, if be that grace fand
That she would not upon his land warray;* *make war
With her they maden alliance by bond,
To be in peace, and let her ride and play.

The emperor of Rome, Claudius,
Nor, him before, the Roman Gallien,
Durste never be so courageous,
Nor no Armenian, nor Egyptien,
Nor Syrian, nor no Arabien,
Within the fielde durste with her fight,
Lest that she would them with her handes slen,* *slay
Or with her meinie* putte them to flight. *troops

In kinges' habit went her sones two,
As heires of their father's regnes all;
And Heremanno and Timolao
Their names were, as Persians them call
But aye Fortune hath in her honey gall;
This mighty queene may no while endure;
Fortune out of her regne made her fall
To wretchedness and to misadventure.

Aurelian, when that the governance
Of Rome came into his handes tway,
He shope* upon this queen to do vengeance; *prepared
And with his legions he took his way
Toward Zenobie, and, shortly for to say,
He made her flee, and at the last her hent,* *took
And fetter'd her, and eke her children tway,
And won the land, and home to Rome he went.

Amonges other thinges that he wan,
Her car, that was with gold wrought and pierrie,* *jewels
This greate Roman, this Aurelian
Hath with him led, for that men should it see.
Before in his triumphe walked she
With gilte chains upon her neck hanging;
Crowned she was, as after* her degree, *according to
And full of pierrie her clothing.

Alas, Fortune! she that whilom was
Dreadful to kinges and to emperours,
Now galeth* all the people on her, alas! *yelleth
And she that *helmed was in starke stowres,* *wore a helmet in
And won by force townes strong and tow'rs, obstinate battles*
Shall on her head now wear a vitremite;
And she that bare the sceptre full of flow'rs
Shall bear a distaff.

I expect that T99 at least shall bear her sympathy; though she did more than many men -- indeed, more than most!

Palm Sunday: Jesus was a Horseman

Palm Sunday: Jesus was a Horseman!

Meeting my good friend Eric (who owes us some Plutarch readings) halfway on the subject of Holy Week, here's a more direct reading -- but one that still pertains to the values of heroes and tamers of horses. From the Gospel of Mark:

1 And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, 2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him. 3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither. 4 And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met; and they loose him.

5 And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? 6 And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him. 8 And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way.

9 And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: 10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.

Atheism.com would draw your attention to certain points:

Why is Jesus using an *unridden colt? There doesn’t appear to be anything in the Jewish scriptures which requires the use of such an animal; moreover, it’s completely implausible that Jesus would be experienced enough in handling horses that he could safely ride an unbroken colt like this. It would have posed a danger not only for his safety, but also for his image as he attempts a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Indeed, try it sometime, and see how well you sit an unbroken colt.

And yet the Gospels are clear: Jesus did it, and with ease. Perhaps that is reason not to believe... and perhaps it is otherwise. Because if we do believe that he did it, as the Gospel of Luke also recounts, we have to account Jesus to be a tremendous horseman: a better one than any man of his background ought to be.

If you wanted to give a sign, to a people who knew about riding horses, traveling on an unbroken colt would hardly be the least impressive thing you could invent. Remember that the heroes of the Iliad were often known as "breakers of horses," because it was so perilous that a hero might be proud to do it and do it well; here rode a man who didn't have to break them.

Axe Phebus Aureo:

A song of love; a translation into English is here.

Love God and Honor Women

A Message To Young Knights:

As we are about to begin Holy Week, here is a message from a swordsman and a master of his craft. It concerns education, and how young men should train themselves.

“Young knights, learn to love God and Honor women. Be chivalrous and learn the art that your honor will increase in war. Wrestle well, skillfully wield spear, sword, and dagger in a manful way.”

- Master Sigmund Ringeck, fencing master to the Duke of Bavaria, c.1430

Steyn on board

Steyn Joins Convention Call:

I always feel better when Mark Steyn sees things in the same way that seems right to me:

Even Obama hasn’t yet asked the CBO to cost out, say, what happens to the price of oil when the Straits of Hormuz are under a de facto Iranian nuclear umbrella — as they will be soon, because the former global hyperpower, which now gets mad over a few hundred housing units in Jerusalem, is blasé and insouciant about the wilder shores of the mullahs’ dreams. Or suppose, as seems to be happening, the Sino-Iranian alliance were to result in a reorientation of global oil relationships, or the Russo-Iranian friendship bloomed to such a degree that, between Moscow’s control of Europe’s gas supply and Teheran’s new role as Middle Eastern superpower, the economy of the entire developed world becomes dependent on an alliance profoundly hostile to it.

Which is to say that right now the future lies somewhere between the certainty of decline and the probability of catastrophe. What can stop it? Not a lot. But now that your “pro-life” Democratic congressman has sold out, you might want to quit calling Washington and try your state capital. If the Commerce Clause can legitimize the “individual mandate,” then there is no republic, not in any meaningful sense. If you don’t like the sound of that, maybe it’s time for a constitutional convention.

It is time.

Knight Commander, Physics, Priest

A Knight Commander:

The scientist who discovered the quark gives an interview:

[I]n 1979, Polkinghorne surprised many with the announcement that he planned to become an Anglican priest. Author of numerous books and articles, Polkinghorne is a Knight Commander of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), and the 2002 recipient of the Templeton Prize. He is founder of the International Society for Science and Religion and of the Society of Ordained Scientists.

This is an interview I think many of you will enjoy reading.

Tea Party led by women

The Face of the Tea Party:

...is female, says Politico.

"Many of the tea party’s most influential grass-roots and national leaders are women, and a new poll released this week by Quinnipiac University suggests that women might make up a majority of the movement as well."

What a shock: that a movement calling itself 'the tea party' should be led by women.

At what point did this tremendous insight settle in upon your consciousness?

Women or not, they're right. Are you sure you would prefer the masculine sounding equivalent? It's called "the Revolutionary War."

Planxty Connor

Planxty Connor:

A merry piece, for a Friday evening.

Planxty Connor - The Harp Cons...

UPDATE: ...and another, from the same album.

Canción a dos tiples - Al Ayre...

God's Battalions

God's Battalions:

Castle Kerak

Lars Walker has a review of an interesting book up for us to consider.

"This excerpt from page 232 of Rodney Stark's God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, is characteristic of his approach to his subject. He takes a hard look at the bulk of recent historiography on the Crusades, and finds most of it shamefully biased. He identifies four great lies that have become common wisdom in recent decades..."

I wouldn't agree that Saladin receives 'undeserved' praise; he had all the chivalric virtues, including prowess in battle. Have you heard of the time he saw Richard afoot, and sent him two Arab horses as a gift before he would receive him in battle? Or the time that he lay seige to Castle Kerak, and learned of a wedding party being held within? He asked -- so the story says -- to know the wing of the castle in which the party was being held, and directed his catapults to bombard only the others. The bride is reported to have sent him some of the wedding cake.

Are those stories true? History records them; but perhaps we should ask whether we're doing myth or history. If they aren't true, they should be.

Why We Must Eliminate Entitlements

Why We Must Cut or Eliminate Federal Entitlements:

Cassandra has an argument, backed as her arguments often are with charts and numbers, that is worth reading through. She's right, of course; though it's easy for me to say so, since you've heard me talk about the disaster of pensions and entitlements for years. It's been clear for nearly four years that the Federal government did not merit any confidence that it might fix the problem.

My ideas on solutions have changed in those years, though, and particularly now I am certain that a state-led constitutional convention is the right way forward. It is the one thing we can do quickly -- everything else requires two election cycles even to get started on seriously, as we'd need supermajorities in Congress at least. Even then, it is doubtful that Congress would really cut Federal power back to something close to the original vision of the Founders.

The states, however, have every reason to wish to do so. Their budgets are being destroyed by a rampaging Federal political class. They have nothing to lose by rebalancing power away from the Federal government and toward themselves, and indeed, very much to gain by doing so. Furthermore, as the Balanced Budget Amendment got 32 states to sign on to asking for it, and as this crisis will be far worse for state budgets and independence, it ought to be fairly easy to get the 34 states required to call such a convention.

I've said this a few times recently, and I hate to beat long on the same drum. Still, it seems right to me; and if you agree, you might wish to take it up with your state representatives, or any political organizations to which you belong, such as the NRA, or your local Tea Party movement.

Israel

"Obama Refuses to Dine With Jewish Leader"

Actually, that headline from Gateway Pundit minimizes the insult. If he had merely said, "Arrange our schedules so I will not have to dine with the Israeli Prime Minister," it would have been a snub. What he did instead was a blatant refusal of hospitality, while the Prime Minister was a guest in his house.

Benjamin Netanyahu was left to stew in a White House meeting room for over an hour after President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of tense talks to have supper with his family, it emerged on Thursday. The snub marked a fresh low in US-Israeli relations and appeared designed to show Mr Netanyahu how low his stock had fallen in Washington after he refused to back down in a row over Jewish construction in east Jerusalem.

… (Mr. Obama) immediately presented Mr Netanyahu with a list of 13 demands designed both to the end the feud with his administration and to build Palestinian confidence ahead of the resumption of peace talks. Key among those demands was a previously-made call to halt all new settlement construction in east Jerusalem.

When the Israeli prime minister stalled, Mr Obama rose from his seat declaring: “I’m going to the residential wing to have dinner with Michelle and the girls.” As he left, Mr Netanyahu was told to consider the error of his ways. “I’m still around,” Mr Obama is quoted by Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper as having said.

The extent of the insult in refusing to offer food and water is... well, it is one of the deepest insults possible in human society. It is the refusal of hospitality, one of the few values that is universally felt among men. In the Middle East, the insult has especially deep resonance. It is normally done only to those with whom one is planning to kill; in many cultures it is at least a declaration that you don't care if they live or die. Compare with this story:

Saladin invited the king [Guy] to sit beside him, and when Arnat [Raynald] entered in his turn, he seated him next to his king and reminded him of his misdeeds. "How many times have you sworn an oath and violated it? How many times have you signed agreements you have never respected?" Raynald answered through a translator: "Kings have always acted thus. I did nothing more." During this time King Guy was gasping with thirst, his head dangling as though drunk, his face betraying great fright. Saladin spoke reassuring words to him, had cold water brought, and offered it to him. The king drank, then handed what remained to Raynald, who slaked his thirst in turn. The sultan then said to Guy: "You did not ask permission before giving him water. I am therefore not obliged to grant him mercy."...

[Saladin] then advanced before [Reynald], sword in hand, and struck him between the neck and the shoulder-blade.

Saladin was an honorable man, whether friend or foe: it is clear he knew what he was doing, and wanted to ensure everyone understood that he was not violating the ethic. One doubts the President thought that deeply about what he was doing, or has any notion of how men of honor might receive the insult. Nevertheless, the ethic is universal, and he cannot but have known he was doing something terribly wrong to his guest.

Regardless of what he knew, however, the cultures in the Middle East will read this according to their own tradition. It will be taken as an indication that the President refused the Israelis water in his tent; and that is a sign that will have consequences.

Play Dead

"Play Dead, Copper!"

"Good horse."

Mercs v Pirates

Mercs v. Pirates:

Mercs win.

Sigurd the Crusader Invents An Interesting Maneuver:

From the Saga named for him:

King Sigurd then sailed eastward along the coast of Serkland, and came to an island there called Forminterra. There a great many heathen Moors had taken up their dwelling in a cave, and had built a strong stone wall before its mouth. They harried the country all round, and carried all their booty to their cave. King Sigurd landed on this island, and went to the cave; but it lay in a precipice, and there was a high winding path to the stone wall, and the precipice above projected over it. The heathens defended the stone wall, and were not afraid of the Northmen's arms; for they could throw stones, or shoot down upon the Northmen under their feet; neither did the Northmen, under such circumstances, dare to mount up. The heathens took their clothes and other valuable things, carried them out upon the wall, spread them out before the Northmen, shouted, and defied them, and upbraided them as cowards. Then Sigurd fell upon this plan. He had two ship's boats, such as we call barks, drawn up the precipice right above the mouth of the cave; and had thick ropes fastened around the stem, stern, and hull of each. In these boats as many men went as could find room, and then the boats were lowered by the ropes down in front of the mouth of the cave; and the men in the boats shot with stones and missiles into the cave, and the heathens were thus driven from the stone wall.

Then Sigurd with his troops climbed up the precipice to the foot of the stone wall, which they succeeded in breaking down, so that they came into the cave. Now the heathens fled within the stone wall that was built across the cave; on which the king ordered large trees to be brought to the cave, made a great pile in the mouth of it, and set fire to the wood. When the fire and smoke got the upper hand, some of the heathens lost their lives in it; some fled; some fell by the hands of the Northmen; and part were killed, part burned; and the Northmen made the greatest booty they had got on all their expeditions.

The lesson: every place of strength has a weakness. It's only that no one has yet thought of it.

There is always a thing forgotten
When all the world goes well;
A thing forgotten, as long ago
When the gods forgot the mistletoe,
And soundless as an arrow of snow
The arrow of anguish fell.

Bonus question: who knows why 'an arrow of snow' is such an appropriate metaphor in the context of poems about the Vikings?

What is to be done?

What Is To Be Done?

The real provocation here is the part of the law that imposes an individual mandate to purchase a hugely expensive product, with resistance punishable by up to five years in prison. Just to make sure we're clear on this, I'll cite Media Matter's own page, claiming to "debunk" that claim. It's not true that the law will send you to prison for not maintaining 'acceptable' levels of insurance; the law only forces you to pay a fine. It's only if you don't pay the fine that you go to prison. But hey, they add, "Willful failure to pay taxes of any sort can result in civil or criminal penalties." Indeed they can, but that doesn't change the fact that this is something new. We have now brought the 'willful failure' to purchase a private product from an insurance corporation into the realm of things we will resolve through punitive taxes, and prison time if you resist the tax.

Anyone who wants to complain about the rise of violent rhetoric among opponents of the law should recognize that the law is what first threatened violence. Throwing people into prison is violence. Extracting money from people under threat of throwing them into prison is violence. It was this law that decided to make "health care" into the kind of issue that we resolve, not with the market by other free private decisions, but through violence and threats of violence.

Health care has never been that kind of issue in America before. Until this law is repealed we have an era in which Americans are under actual physical threat over how they purchase insurance, or make decisions about the care of their family members.

The fact that the police and the courts are 'lawful violence' and resistance is not lawful is a reasonable point to make. It's worth remembering, when making that point, that the American tradition is laid on the idea that we have a right to revolt against tyrannical authority. The British Army was also 'lawful violence,' and the Stamp Act was far less provocation than this.

Indeed, I haven't quite finished describing just how provocative this really is. The fact that the individual mandate is enforcable by arrest and prison time is only part of the issue. The other part is that the mandate has been set so high that most American families will only be able to afford it through Federal subsidies. That means two things:

1) Taking a handout from the government will no longer be a matter for those who are down on their luck, to be done only for as long as absolutely necessary to get back on your feet. It will be the normal condition for American families. From now on, most of us will be dependent on a government handout -- because the government has mandated that we be dependent. That redefines the basic nature of the relationship between government "charity" and what was supposed to be a free and independent People.

2) Because of this dependence, we will be subject to whatever conditions the government puts on the aid. You can compare the experience of buying food with your own cash versus buying food with food stamps: suddenly, you're not really free just to get what you want. You have to submit to the approval of a distant government bureaucracy, which will tell you whether what you want is acceptable or not.

This mandate and that approval are at the core of the 'cost bending' aspects of this bill: in other words, they are indispensable to the whole idea of HCR as it has been put forward. The reason that this allegedly will not break the budget is that everyone will have to buy insurance at this massively expensive level, and that we'll be able to establish 'comparative effectiveness boards' to deny treatments to Americans that the government decides are too expensive.

Put in the most basic terms, the average American family is being told that they will be required to be a ward of the state, and that refusal to comply will result in fines, or arrest and up to five years in prison. Compliance, however, will mean that the decisions about what medical treatments are open to their families will be made by the government, no longer by the family.

What would Patrick Henry have said about that?

This is not a call for violence by me, nor is it a suggestion that violence is legitimate at this time. There are several years in which to rectify this error before that part of the law goes into effect. All I mean to say here is that the American tradition clearly endorses violence against far less tyrannical exercises of power than this. If we get to the point that people are really being threatened with arrest over this mandate, then the government will be the one threatening violence. If that draws a violent response from the citizenry, that may be a legitimate response according to our political tradition.

I think it's important to understand that, especially for those on the pro-HCR side. If you put people in this position, it won't do to complain that they are wicked for resorting to violence. They will reply that you ought not to complain about violence being introduced to the debate, as you introduced it. And they will feel legitimate in using violence against you; nor is it clear that they are wrong, given America's particular political tradition.

This is not the limit of the provocation, by the way; it's only the worst of the provocation. The law is provocative in requiring states to completely rewrite a huge percentage of their budgets in spite of a majority of states not wishing to do so. There are many other things people might complain about as well. Yet it is this imposition of a mandate, backed with the threat of prison, that makes this law an act of tyranny that might give the People a legitimate cause to revolt against Federal authority.

Now, what ought to be done instead of violence:

The best thing is for this to be resolved quickly, and through peaceful and constitutional means. The best way for that to happen is through state government action. The states should call for a constitutional convention to reinforce the restraints on the Federal government's power.

At a minimum, we should act to ensure that the commerce clause is restored to its originalist notion; and that we specify that neither Congress nor the executive branch may pass any laws, nor spend any money, in pursuit of any power not specifically delegated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

I might suggest that the states consider additional rebalancing provisions, such as repeal of the 17th Amendment. Another very good idea would be to reinforce the originalist position that only the Congress may craft laws and regulations; a lot of that has been done by Federal executive agencies, under Congressional delegation of authority. The SCOTUS used to view such delegation as unconstitutional, and indeed it is not constitutional on an orginalist view; it may be worth re-banning the practice in order to ensure that the Federal government is returned to its intended, proper, constitutional limits.

Many of you are effectively without a voice at the Federal level, given that the opposition party has been reduced to ineffectiveness and wings of the Democratic party have proven submissive. However, your state governments still are under your control to a much greater degree. As they are also the place where action can be most effectively located, I suggest we begin here.

If the 2010 elections produce a Congress that is more balanced and responsive to the people, there may be some limited things that can be done as well. However, it is unlikely that repeal can be effected at the Federal level until 2013. The states are in play even right now. That is where we should focus, and the place where a peaceful and lawful resolution can be most readily created.

It is important for pro-HCR people to realize that they have provoked a potential legitimate revolt, I said above; it is important for anti-HCR people to realize the same thing. If we do not find a way to resolve this peacefully and through politics, there may be serious consequences. Those of us who are devoted to the survival and success of the Republic ought to make action a priority in the coming years, before this mandate goes into effect. It is a dangerous provocation, and one that is likely to produce very bad results if the Federal government tries to enforce it.

The brakes come off

The Brakes Come Off:

I'm sure many of you might like to discuss the passage of the health care bill in the House last night. I've been on a pretty even keel about this all along, simply because I can't see any way in which this thing lasts long enough to create the fundamental change in American society that Mark Steyn sees. The fact is that, pre-HCR, we had somewhere around $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. We've been a train racing down the mountain to Insolvency Gorge; all the HCR bill does is tear off what were already stressed and failing brakes.

From my perspective, then, all this means is that we get to the crash faster. The important questions have always been what we'd do after the crash, since it was clear these last few years that neither party in Washington intended to be the ones who avoided the crash.

However, if you really want to avoid it, take heart! The best thing that could have happened to you has happened. If the Stupak faction had held firm, yesterday would have been the end of HCR. We'd have a good six months of history to take people's minds off the attempt. Now, with the court cases that are certain to happen, and the possibility of the states demanding its repeal, it'll continue to be headline news every night. People will still be focused on it come Election Day, and the Tea Party movement -- which might be the one chance for those who'd really like to avoid seeing the nation crash into the aforementioned gorge -- will be strengthened by mounting populist outrage, and the states' need for a political force to help them repeal this before it destroys them.

We may even get to see a Constitutional Convention forced by the states. The Balanced Budget Amendment got 32 of the required 34 states to sign its petition; this bill creates even more pressure on the state governments than any previous act of Congress. A "reasserting the 10th Amendment" petition might well get the required 34 states, if the challenges to this bill fail in Federal court.

It's encouraging that there is a political movement forming around the idea of holding Congress to Art. 1 Sect. 8 and the 10th Amendment, just when one is needed. And it's good that this movement is now almost guaranteed to build in size and power before the elections, instead of fading away. It needs to continue to build and hold its power through at least 2012 to achieve the real effects that we need to save the country; but if it doesn't, we'll get those effects anyway. They'll just come through fire, instead, when the government can no longer pretend it will or can keep its word.

Pretty symbolic that the US lost its AAA bond rating in the same news cycle as the passage of this beast, eh? Would you loan this government money?

Horace's Epistles

Grim's Hall Book Club: Horace's Epistles

We'll be looking at Plutarch soon. Since we had no assigned reading for this week, though, let's take a look at something we can glance over today. I'm thinking we might usefully discuss a few of Horace's letters, specifically, the first, fifth, and sixth of the letters from his first book.

In the first letter, he declares his devotion to the study of virtue:

It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free from folly.

Yet in the fifth letter, he declares to his guest his readiness to pursue folly in his expression of the virtue of hospitality:

We shall have free liberty to prolong the summer evening with friendly conversation. To what purpose have I fortune, if I may not use it? He that is sparing out of regard to his heir, and too niggardly, is next neighbor to a madman. I will begin to drink and scatter flowers, and I will endure even to be accounted foolish. What does not wine freely drunken enterprise? It discloses secrets; commands our hopes to be ratified; pushes the dastard on to the fight; removes the pressure from troubled minds; teaches the arts. Whom have not plentiful cups made eloquent?

In the sixth letter, he further complicates the picture:

Let the wise man bear the name of fool, the just of unjust; if he pursue virtue itself beyond proper bounds.... Lucullus, as they say, being asked if he could lend a hundred cloaks for the stage, “How can I so many?” said he: “yet I will see, and send as many as I have;” a little after he writes that he had five thousand cloaks in his house; they might take part of them, or all. It is a scanty house, where there are not many things superfluous, and which escape the owner’s notice, and are the gain of pilfering slaves.

In resolving these apparent conflicts we come to understand what Horace really meant. How should they be resolved?

Famous Castles

Some Interesting Photos of Castles:

I'd not encountered "ODDEE" before, so I'm not sure what this website is really about or where it's coming from. Still, they had an interesting short piece on famous and fascinating castles. There was also a reader-submitted list that is at least as good as the original piece.

The castles go from the most elaborate designs made without a serious purpose for defense, to the small, pragmatic fortified "Schloss" of a German raubritter.



Of particular interest is Marienburg, or "Mary's Castle," built by the Teutonic Order out of bricks instead of stone. The other one that caught my eye was the Hunyad Castle, where Vlad the Impaler was imprisoned. It is probably the most fearsome looking of the fortifications, having the look of a serious fighting position that was decorated entirely as an afterthought.

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day:

Remember, tonight of all nights, that God loves a good fight, as long as it's fought with a good heart.

The Wild Colonial Boy - The Cl...

So we loosed a bloomin' volley,
An' we made the beggars cut,
An' when our pouch was emptied out.
We used the bloomin' butt,
Ho! My!
Don't yer come anigh,
When Tommy is a playin' with the baynit an' the butt.
--Barrack Room Ballad.

Lieutenant James Adamson was awarded the Military Cross after killing two insurgents during close quarter combat in Helmand's notorious "Green Zone".

The 24-year-old officer, a member of the 5th battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, revealed that he shouted "have some of this" before shooting dead a gunman who had just emerged from a maize field.

Seconds later and out of ammunition, the lieutenant leapt over a river bank and killed a second insurgent machine-gunner with a single thrust of his bayonet in the man's chest.

Traditionalist.

Richard Fernandez: The Age of Faith:

We talk about America and China competing for influence in Africa, but the Belmont Club points out that we thereby miss the real story.

In a process largely unnoticed in the West, billions of people in Asia and Africa have swapped out their indigenous faiths for either Christianity or Islam. And to an even greater astonishment of Western intellectuals most have chosen Christianity. Now the equalization of numbers has caused a fault line to appear through the Third World at about the tenth degree of latitude where the two aggregations face each other “at daggers drawn”.

The word “Christian”, associated in the 19th and 20th centuries with the missionary enterprises of Europe, has now come to mean something different in political terms. Today Christianity is a religion of the Third World. Europeans have largely converted to some soft and watered-down variation of the West’s only indigenous creed, Marxism, as represented by John Lennon’s “Imagine” song. Christianity can no longer be associated largely with the West. Ex oriente lux a phrase which once described the belief that all great world religions rose in the East is now truer than ever. With Marxism shrinking to the margins of the Guardian, the monotheisms have reclaimed the field....

The US is more deeply Christian than Europe, but a large percentage of its ruling class belongs to the "Imagine" religion instead.

Still, the real disadvantage here goes to China. China cannot market itself to Muslims in Africa as the competitor to America. To the degree that Africa is Christian, it will not look to China for leadership -- though there are millions of Chinese Christians, the state is in theory opposed to the faith. Muslims will not look to China for leadership either: worse than Christianity for Islam is polytheism (e.g., Chinese folk religion, certain variations of Buddhism) or the rejection of god (e.g, scientific atheism, other variations of Buddhism).

We may yet see the right in America build a unity on Christian grounds, and so adapt itself to the increasing percentage of Americans who are coming from the Catholicism of Latin America. If we do, America's leadership position within Africa -- and as a potential source of admiration for Chinese Christians -- will increase.

Grim's Hall Book Club: Franklin/Wife of Bath's Tale

Grim's Hall Book Club: The Fraklin's Tale and The Wife of Bath's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

We looked at The Franklin's Tale and The Wife of Bath's Tale as well this week.

I wanted to include these because there was so much interest in Chaucer associated with our discussion about the descriptions of women in The Knight's Tale and The Miller's Tale. One of the things that you may not know about Chaucer unless you read the whole of The Canterbury Tales is that he chases the questions of men and women all the way around, trying to view them from every side. So, you have loyal wives and disloyal wives; you have devoted husbands and scoundrels; you have tales of courtly love, and ribald stories; you view it from the perspective of the Church, and from very earthy perspectives.

The Wife of Bath's Tale shows some signs of being among Chaucer's favorites. For one thing, he gives her an extraordinary prologue! It's as long as some of the tales by itself, and contains a remarkable number of well developed theological arguments. It also includes some ribald "advice" on how to chew up a husband who gives you trouble, although it advises also that you accord with one in peace once he stops trying to boss you around. That last bit of advice is the most important, and makes up the subject of the actual story.

The story is Arthurian, and treats the question of "What women want most." What it proves that they want most is sovereignty: in Chaucer's version of this story, over their men as well as themselves. This is not the only version of this story, however, and in many versions it is simply to be sovereign over themselves.

Since we all read Cassandra as well, I'd like to mention this piece, which was a guest post at the blog of the lady who wrote the 'frigid wife' piece she cited earlier this week. The man who wrote the guest post took his lady up on the challenge to read some romance novels, which would explore the same question -- "What do women want?" He discovers that what they want is men who are "tall," who "can't be bald," who "move in without invitation and touch" (though noting that only the hero is welcome to do this! The same quality that makes the hero more attractive makes the villain wicked and hateful), be "preternaturally competent and successful at everything," "Have money," etc. But then he gets to this one:

2. Let her rescue herself.

This surprised me. I was under the impression that the hero’s role in romances was to rescue the heroine. But in all of these books the heroine has the most significant role in her own triumph over adversity.

Ah, well, that's the real trick, isn't it? The male figure in this story isn't the hero. He's the love interest. The damsel in distress is still the damsel; but the difference between a story written by a man and a story written by a woman is that in the women-written romances, the woman rescues herself.

What is the man for, then? He's the love interest. That's all, really; love is important enough that he doesn't need to do more than love and be loved.

The Wife of Bath's Tale puts the lady in the role of the rescuer, even of the knight. In learning to serve her and be guided by her, the knight -- it is usually Sir Gawain, in this tale, though Chaucer doesn't name him -- finds a lady love who is both beautiful to him and faithful, though at first he took her to be rather otherwise.

In The Franklin's Tale, we have a story with some resonance today: it is the story of a military wife whose husband is deployed, and who finds herself being pursued by a young squire who develops an ardent fascination with her. She is loyal to her husband and true, but finds herself responding to his flirtation with a playful promise she takes to be impossible. The squire arranges to have a wizard and illusionist make the impossible appear to come true, and then reminds the lady of her promise to give her love to him.

The lady's response is virtuous: she considers, but rejects, suicide, and instead confesses everything to her husband so they may think about the matter together. The knight who is her husband takes her honor to be as important as his own, and says that she must keep her word having given it. In spite of the sorrow and pain he feels, and the shame this will bring on him, he counsels her to be as bound by her word as he would be by his own.

She goes to do this, but is so upset by it that the squire is moved by her pain and love for her husband to release her from her vow. The wizard, in return, is moved by the squire's mercy, and releases the young man from his debt. The tale ends:

"Masters, this question would I ask you now:
Which was most generous, do you think, and how.
Pray tell me this before you farther wend.
I can no more, my tale is at an end."

It's a good question. Is the knight the most generous, to put his lady's honor at the level of his own? Is the lady the most generous, to have loved her husband so much as to trust him with her sorrow? Is the squire the most generous, to lay aside his claim on the lady in honor of the truth of her heart? Or is it the illusionist, who has a legitimate claim on the squire that the squire brought on himself by wickedness, but who lets it go when he sees the squire abandoning his evil?

Nelson Lee

Grim's Hall Book Club: Nelson Lee's Three Years Among the Comanches:

Quite a story! The most memorable scene for me is the shipwreck, early in the tale, where Lee describes hanging from the mast and watching the swirling waters below. What was the part that sticks with you?

The question attending Lee's book is whether or not it is legitimate. It would be welcome, in a sense, to suppose that it wasn't: then we could dismiss the various cruelties, especially toward babies, as being simple legends. Indeed, one of the oddities is the cruelty toward babies; we see that with tales about the Comanches, but normally frontier stories suggest that the Indians kept captured children and raised them, even if they slaughtered adults or traded them as slaves.

So is it legitimate? The Handbook of Texas, Online, says:

Of this probably spurious classic work, Walter Prescott Webb stated that "there is no better description of the life of the Texas Rangers than that of Nelson Lee." The book has since been a source for several writers about Comanche culture. But in 1982 anthropologist Melburn D. Thurman called Lee's account of Comanche ceremonies "blatantly erroneous" and demonstrated that Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel's discussion of the "Comanche" Green Corn Ceremony in The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains (1952) employed questionable data from Lee's book. Though noted Indian scholars have long identified the Comanches as a nonsedentary and therefore nonagricultural people, Lee narrated to his New York editors that Comanches planted corn, beans, and tobacco. Other wildly erroneous claims abound. Lee said that the Comanches wrote hieroglyphics on tree bark; built villages with central squares, streets, and houses of important men located on the squares; and resolved irreconcilable differences between two adversaries by lashing them together with a cord and requiring them to fight to the death. Accordingly, Thurman and other specialists of Plains Indians disputed Lee's captivity claims and, by extension, other claims he makes concerning his exploits.

I'm left admiring the quality of the tale, but I think we have to believe that some of the wilder stories were put in to make it salable.

Yet the Rangers have always liked this book, and still like it, as evidenced by the fact that it's posted on their website. What do you think?

Star Wars in Old Norse

Tattúínárdœla saga:

Via Lars Walker, a highly unusual saga in Old Norse:

After this killing, for which Anakinn’s owner (and implied father) refuses to pay compensation, Anakinn’s mother, an enslaved Irish princess, foresees a great future for Anakinn as a “jeði” (the exact provenance of this word is unknown but perhaps represents an intentionally humorous Irish mispronunciation of “goði”). This compels Anakinn to recite his first verse:

Þat mælti mín móðir,
at mér skyldi kaupa
fley ok fagrar árar
fara á brott með jeðum,
standa upp í stafni,
stýra dýrum xwingi,
halda svá til hafnar,
hǫggva mann ok annan.

There are quite a few more posts on the blog, with most of the text being in the Old Norse. It's a fairly plausible bit, actually: the dialogue is just what the sagas should contain.

Honor is Absent

The Absence of Honor:

Perhaps Dan Riehl qualifies as a "conservative blogger" in some sense, but not in any sense that matters to me. If you're willing to dispense with the idea of not calling for the death of the injured wives and children of your political foes, you've already walked away from everything I ever wanted to conserve.

In his comments section, Riehl justifies himself: "I've been watching you high-minded twirps get your lunch money stolen by the Left for years."

That's not true: who won the fight on Iraq, and on holding out in Iraq long enough for the good to come? It was those who fought with honor, and who by honor won the victory both here and in Iraq itself. We sometimes fought hard, against our foes; we didn't wage war on their wives and children.

Yes, the opposition does; we've seen just such war waged on then-Governor Palin and her children. Perhaps in part due to such tactics, Obama won an election. That happens; you can't win 'em all. Neither Obama nor his allies nor his policies will last more than a brief season -- if he manages to enact any policies at all. His ideas were exhausted when he arrived, and they have already been broken by the change in economic fortune. These policies are in rapid retreat across the world. This is the end of the age of his kind; you will soon see the last of them, whatever you do.

Lots of the commenters reference Alinsky in support of Riehl's tactic. That's mere power worship, to say that it worked once, and therefore we "must" follow to compete. We need not. What will win the next election is the economy and the cancer of Federal spending promises; all the Alinsky tactics in the world will not save the candidate on the wrong side of that issue.

Alinsky dedicated his work to Lucifer. Take him at his word, and take his word as a signpost as to where his road may take you. The Devil is granted an hour now and then, but that doesn't mean he's won the war, or that it's time to change your flag. Do what is right, and have faith.

WTF? Jefferson

I'm Sorry, But This Is A Really Strange Thing To Do:

The Texas Board of Education drops Thomas Jefferson from its early modern political philosophy (folded into "social studies," in high school). They add in his place John Calvin, Blackstone, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Now, obviously the point of this is to play down the importance of the Enlightenment, and to restore the position of certain religious thinkers, and of the powerful heritage of traditional British law. That's OK: we are probably at the right moment to rethink the Enlightenment's place in our heritage, and to perhaps revise downward its importance somewhat.

However, if you were going to do that, wouldn't you get rid of one of the other Enlightenment thinkers, given that you're teaching students who live in the United States of America? Does a citizen of the United States and the great state of Texas really need to know more about Charles de Montesquieu's thinking than he knows about Thomas Jefferson's? Really?

Dangerous Work

Dangerous Work:

Via Arts & Letters Daily, a story about working in the Arctic.

If something happens, and you leave your vehicle, you will not be rescued in time. You do not leave the road; to leave the road is to die. You are given an orange safety vest, so they can find your body, in case you don’t listen.

The road is usually a frozen river. To break through the ice and fall into the river is yet another way to die. Sometimes the road is the frozen-over Arctic Ocean. When you break through that ice, you sink. They say it’s the air bubbles in your decomposing body that cause it to float, and in the sub-freezing water of the Arctic Ocean, human bodies don’t decompose. If you fall into the Arctic Ocean, your corpse may be well-preserved, but no one will risk a life, or expend the cost, to retrieve it.

Suppose you do fall in. By the time you reach the surface, the hole you fell into may have frozen over already. If you can punch through ice with lungs full of 35° water, maybe you deserve to live, but then you’re soaking wet in subzero temperatures, and you will spend your last few conscious minutes too delirious with hypothermia to be thankful that your next of kin will have something to bury.

Once, I asked a guy who’d worked up there for twenty-five years if he’d known of anyone who’d fallen through the ice and lived. He could think of only two.... [one] rescued driver immediately went to the bar, where he wasted no time telling his story. A number of his listeners didn’t believe him and even took umbrage with the tale, at which point, the rescued driver became aggrieved, and a fight broke out. Less than twelve hours after he was submerged beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean — a situation that no one in recent history had ever survived — the rescued driver was nearly beaten to death in a dingy bar. He was taken back to the same hospital he had just left, and this time, he was there for two months.

The story about walking to the Post Office is amazing, too. The description of the place as resembling the Moon reminds me of FOB Hammer; and indeed, it suggests that someday we really will go places like the moon, or Mars, to live and work. We already do.

Cooking with Cast Iron:

Instapundit links this enthusiastic chef on cast iron cooking.

Here at the Hall, I cook with little else. I have a few stainless steel pots that I use for things like warming sauces, but any serious cooking is done on black iron. I use it for roasts, steaks, etc., as everyone else does; but it also works extremely well for quesadillas and grilled sandwiches, any sort of frying, chili or stew, and so forth.

A recent discovery: cast iron works even better than having a pizza stone for baking deliciously crisp pizza crusts. Make your pie up in a skillet, and bake it in the skillet. It comes out perfect every time. You don't even have to oil the skillet -- just toss a bit of corn meal in the bottom so nothing sticks.

Pairings

Pairings:

Pairing one:

Gallup: more and more Americans think Global Warming is exaggerated.

TWS: A five page report on Climate Change fraud and error.

Pairing two:

In Kentucky, if you don't vote for 'revenue enhancement', your district doesn't get school money.

In Kansas City, bankruptcy concerns close half of the schools.

Death of Euro

The Death of the Euro:

The Economist has a five page article on the troubles in Europe. They call for a limited bailout, coupled with new regulatory powers that would keep Greece-type situations from recurring.

Arts & Letters Daily interprets the article thus: "The Euro is finished."

That's not what the article says; but it may very well be the truth. Arts & Letters Daily adds this and this to its reasoning.

Funny Dowd

The Funniest Thing She's Ever Written:

From Maureen Dowd, on her trip to Saudi Arabia:

Couldn’t Mecca, I asked the royals, be opened to non-Muslims during the off-season?

The problem with her being a print journalist is that there were consequently no cameras in the room. That would have been something to see.

Hooah!

Hooah!

Bill Whittle, in rare form -- as he might be, speaking of one of his own.

My brother Steve is a year younger than me. Right around age 13 Stevie used to take a tent, his dog and a shotgun and hitchhike from our home in South Florida out into the Everglades. He’d usually be gone or two or three days. Did my mom worry about him? Yes she did, but on some level I guess she preferred to raise an independent boy who was living his life to the fullest rather than perpetually trying to defend a life-long infant.

A few months ago I heard in passing that Steve had been on his way to work one morning when he passed a car that was on fire with the driver still inside. He pulled over, grabbed his crowbar, smashed the window and with the help of another passing citizen pulled her out and saved her life. He never thought to mention this to me.

Now that's the kind of boy a man could be proud to raise.

Correcting the Ill-Mannered

Correcting the Ill-Mannered:

I was visiting beautiful Athens, Georgia, today; and after I finished my business there I went to get some coffee. On approach to the coffee shop I noticed a homeless man sitting at one of the tables -- homeless, but with enough wealth to buy a cup of coffee, and therefore with every right to occupy one of their seats for a while.

Just as I was passing by, someone in a nearby car leaned on their horn in displeasure. As they stopped, the homeless man yelled out: "This ain't New York City!"

"Hear, hear," I said, and we exchanged a smile as I went to get my coffee.

So, I put it to you: is this a wonderful thing about America, where even the homeless may buy dignity for the price of a cup of coffee, and chide the wealthy for their rudeness? Or is it a wonderful thing about the South, where being downtrodden does not mean that you will suffer poor manners?

I suppose it could be both.

The Holmgang

The Holmgang:

Our friend Lars Walker has finished his series on the history of the Holmgang. You might wish to read through the three-part series:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

I do have one mild comment, wherein my understanding differs from our learned friend: Germanic society had both "duels" and "judicial combats." The duel -- whereby two men settle an affair of honor -- was known in every such culture except, oddly, the Anglo-Saxons (see Henry Charles Lea, The Duel and the Oath, p. 111 & 115). The judicial combat was to settle the truth of criminal charges: also called "the ordeal of battle" (or "wager of battle), it was a final appeal to arms in cases where a man felt he was being handled unjustly by the law -- or in cases too serious for the swearing of oaths by even the most honorable men to be considered adequate evidence.

I'll quote Lea on the Holmgang, simply because it will amuse some of you to see one of my earlier namesakes fare poorly in the test. (Not the earliest Grim, however!)

Among the heathen Norsemen, indeed, the holm-gang, or single combat, was so universal an arbiter that it was recognized as conferring a right where none pre-existed. Any athelete, who confided in his strength and dexterity with his weapons, could acquire property by simply challenging its owner to surrender his land or fight for it. When Iceland, for instance, was in process of settlement, Kraku Hreidar sailed thither, and on sighting land invoked Thor to assign him a tract of ground which he would forthwith acquire by duel. He was shipwrecked on reaching the shore, and was hospitably received by a compatriot named Havard, with whom he passed the winter. In the spring he declared his purpose of challenging Sæmund Sudureyska for a sufficient holding, but Havard dissuaded him, arguing that this mode of acquiring property rarely prospered in the end, and Eirek of Goddolom succeded in quieting him by giving him land enough. Others of these hardy sea-rovers were not so amenable to reason as Kraku. When Hallkell came to Iceland and passed the winter with his brother Ketel-biorn, the latter offered him land on which to settle, but Hallkell disdained so peaceful a proposition, and preferred to summon a neighbor named Grim to surrender his property or meet him in the holm-gang. Grim accepted the defiance, was slain, and Hallkell was duly installed as his heir.

This section goes on for about half a page, offering additional evidence; Mr. Walker alludes to it in his part three, where he speaks of a class of professional duelists who had so prospered. However, this was not the judicial use of combat: no one here was accused of a crime, or proving his innocence by ordeal of battle. In all cases, these fights were about settling a private dispute, not a public or criminal matter.

Snowmelt, Cherokee National Forest

Snowmelt, Cherokee National Forest:

Thor's Hall on Gun Mags

Thor's Hall on Gun Magazines:

It's not just gun rags that do this:

HOW GUN MAGAZINES WRITE ARTICLES

Instruction From The Editor To The Journalist:

Frangible Arms just bought a four page color ad in our next issue. They sent us their latest offering, the CQB MK-V Tactical Destroyer. I told Fred to take it out to the range to test. He’ll have the data for you tomorrow.

Feedback From Technician Fred:

The pistol is a crude copy of the World War II Japanese Nambu type 14 pistol, except it’s made from unfinished zinc castings. The grips are pressed cardboard. The barrel is unrifled pipe. There are file marks all over the gun, inside and out.

Only 10 rounds of 8mm ammunition were supplied. Based on previous experience with a genuine Nambu, I set up a target two feet down range. I managed to cram four rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. I taped the magazine in place, bolted the pistol into a machine rest, got behind a barricade, and pulled the trigger with 20 feet of 550 cord. I was unable to measure the trigger pull because my fish scale tops out at 32 pounds. On the third try, the pistol fired. From outline of the holes, I think the barrel, frame, magazine, trigger and recoil spring blew through the target. The remaining parts scattered over the landscape.

I sent the machine rest back to the factory to see if they can fix it, and we need to replace the shooting bench for the nice people who own the range. I’ll be off for the rest of the day. My ears are still ringing. I need a drink.

Article Produced By The Journalist:

The CQB MK-V Tactical Destroyer is arguably the deadliest pistol in the world. Based on a combat proven military design, but constructed almost entirely of space age alloy, it features a remarkable barrel design engineered to produce a cone of fire, a feature much valued by Special Forces world wide. The Destroyer shows clear evidence of extensive hand fitting. The weapon disassembles rapidly without tools. At a reasonable combat distance, I put five holes in the target faster than I would have thought possible. This is the pistol to have if you want to end a gunfight at all costs. The gun is a keeper, and I find myself unable to send it back.