Japanese Cuirass and helmet

For your information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haramaki

Confess

Confess:

One of the hardest things to get smart people to do, whether philosophers or scientists, is to confess the hard limits to our knowledge. One thing well beyond the limits is what is called 'the hard problem' of consciousness: that is, why does it feel like we're conscious at all?

If we don't call it a miracle, it's not clear what else we might call it.

[H]ere we are, a gaudy efflorescence of consciousness, staggeringly improbable in light of everything we know about the reality that contains us.

There are physicists and philosophers who would correct me. They would say that if there are an infinite number of universes, as in theory there could be, then creatures like us would be very likely to emerge at some time in one of them. But to say this is only to state the fact of our improbability in other terms....

The universe passed through its unimaginable first moment, first year, first billion years, wresting itself from whatever state of nonexistence, inflating, contorting, resolving into space and matter, bursting into light. Matter condenses, stars live out their generations. Then, very late, there is added to the universe of being a shaped stick or stone, a jug, a cuneiform tablet. They appear on a tiny, teetering, lopsided planet, and they demand wholly new vocabularies of description for reality at every scale. What but the energies of the universe could be expressed in the Great Wall of China, the St. Matthew Passion? For our purposes, there is nothing else. Yet language that would have been fully adequate to describe the ages before the appearance of the first artifact would have had to be enlarged by concepts like agency and intention, words like “creation,” that would query the great universe itself. Might not the human brain, that most complex object known to exist in the universe, have undergone a qualitative change as well? If my metaphor only suggests the possibility that our species is more than an optimized ape, that something terrible and glorious befell us—if this is merely another fable, it might at least encourage an imagination of humankind large enough to acknowledge some small fragment of the mystery we are.

The thing about the hard problem isn't that we don't know how to answer it. The important thing is that we can't even put firm brackets around what an answer would look like.

Back from the Land of the Dead

Back from the Land of the Dead:

I have returned from my short journey to California. Southern California has a particular beauty, which can help explain why there seem to be so very many people there. Some highlights from the trip included getting to sit with some Hollywood Marine recruits on the flight out, who were just on their way to boot camp; it was a pleasure to talk with them. In addition, I had one afternoon for looking across the bay at Coronado, and for driving past Miramar.

Now, as DB says, back to your regular programming.

Robin Hood, History Channel

I'm watching a wonderful History Channel show on Robin Hood. Ridley Scott, Russell Crow, and various historians are all in it. I particularly like the actual timeline they keep showing of when the name "Robin Hood" first began to appear in written documents. They say he was mentioned in oral history for about 100-200 years before his name was recorded in documents. He also had a big presense in various ballads, all way before his name ever was written anywhere.  Somewhere around 1460 a guy who has come to be known as Robin Hood existed.

Of course, I can still recite the entire song from the Disney version and I recall having a massive crush on the fox (read: cartoon) version of Robin Hood. Never was into Errol Flynn. I will enjoy seeing Russell Crow be him.

Robin Hood and Little John running through the forest, laughing back and forth at what the other one has to say; reminising this and that, and having such a good time; ooodalolly ooodalolly, golly what a day!

Don't worry, gang, Grim comes back soon and will be restoring the usual program.

Paintings of Knights at The Met (Saints Maurice and George)

Half Armor with Plates

Saber with Emeralds

I'm having a girly-girl fit.  All you guys will groan, I'm sure. Yes, it's only a ceremonial saber, but it's so pretty.

Isn't it wonderful?

And while I'm at it...

Great Riots of US History

Great Riots of US History:

Todd Jensen writes to point us to his piece on ten great (or terrible) riots of American history. It's a short piece, but with description and video from the more recent of these shortlived uprisings.

Old door, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Faustina

For your info:

http://www.roman-empire.net/highpoint/hadrian-index.html

I just had to know, so I looked up Hadrian, and searched for Faustina within those results, and got this:

As Hadrian died shortly after and Antoninus Pius assumed the throne, Marcus soon shared in the work of the high office. Antoninus sought for Marcus to gain experience for the role he would one day have to play. And with time, both seemed to have shared true sympathy and affection for each other, like father and son. As these bonds grew stronger Marcus Aurelius broke off his engagement to Ceionia Fabia and instead became engaged to Antoninus' daughter Annia Galeria Faustina (Faustina the Younger)in AD 139.  An engagement which should lead to marriage in AD 145.

Faustina would bear him no fewer than 14 children during their 31 years of marriage. But only one son and four daughters were to outlive their father.

In AD 139 Marcus Aurelius was officially made caesar, junior emperor to Antoninus, and in AD 140, at the age of only 18, he was made consul for the first time.

Also of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faustina_the_Younger

Never listen to gossip!

Travels

Travels:

I'm traveling this week.



While DB continues to entertain us with Met photos, I may have less to say than usual.

Nubuck armor

I may turn this into an almost daily piece from The Met. Any objections? Or should I cool it already?

What do you suppose the little hook is for above? To hold the helmet in place?

I'm grouping these pieces together only because of the reconstructed look using the nubuck. Historians will recoil, I'm sure.

hehe -- lookin' a little Texas (above).

Getting down to brass tacks (above).

Here is a great link about the history of armor, its use, and various related links. You can search by time period and region. I highly recommend the informational links at The Met, as well as the artwork and artifacts.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm

Disclaimer to the Hall:
I am learning about this stuff as I go along; maybe in ten years you'll get an essay or two that wraps the pretty pictures and the historical aspect together. Since I grew up with the porcelain tea set and not the faux weapons, I'm not inclined to already know about this stuff. However, my best friend and I did always raid her brother's room, since his stuff was cooler. After all, we did not have "equipment" or "ammunition" and his endless array of neat things like little hard plastic backpacks (for when we were going on a mission) that could be packed with fake coiled ropes, "rations," and a spare rifle outshone our many plastic shoes, boas, and various outfits in which to change our dolls. Inevitably, he had to lower himself to dealing with us, and we'd make up one side and he the other. We'd always win.

This amuses me no end:



Yup, along with British and French troops, that's a company of US Infantry, marching in Red Square. Part of the 65th anniversary celebrations of the victory over Nazi Germany. The US, British and French troops were invited by the Russian Government to participate this year, for the first time ever.

But other Russians aren't so happy:

Author Alexander Prokhanov, editor in chief of the nationalist Zavtra daily, called the appearance of U.S. servicemen in Red Square a national humiliation.

"The fact that American troops are trampling underfoot the cobblestones of Red Square is a huge shame and humiliation for Russia," Prokhanov said. "Thus they are celebrating their final victory not in World War II but in the Cold War."

Heh.

(via perfunction)

Amor Caritas

To go with Grim's beautiful poem...

Lady of Flowers

Lady of Flowers:

O Lady of Flowers, May is your hour;
The world fills with color, deepens in hue,
Trees grow with green, vines tower,
Bulbs of winter now blossom for you.
We broke beds in November, marked with stone,
Fires of winter we lay by in mirth,
The white ash on beds shone
‘Til April rain turned ash to earth,
We planted while our son would sing;
For You love flowers, and we you;
Worked, we, to thunder of spring;
The soft shoots of the plantings grew.
The sunlight of May at first break of day
Embraces your love in fullest display.

Medieval ladies quiz

Happy Mother's Day. Don't forget the ladies.

"The Inquisition"

How serendipitous is question #10?

Toast

Making Toast:

I wish this book had never been written, because it is the account of an unbearable sorrow, and I wish it had never befallen Roger Rosenblatt. On December 8, 2007, his daughter, Amy Rosenblatt Solomon, thirty-eight years old, the mother of three children, a pediatrician, collapsed at home in Bethesda and died. Rosenblatt and his wife... immediately left their home on Long Island and drove to their mutilated family. When one of his little grandchildren asked how long he is staying, Rosenblatt replied, "Forever."

That was a reply worthy of a man.

Gotta Love the Corps

Gotta Love the Marine Corps:

Apparently the USMC and the UFC have decided that they'd be good for each other; you've probably seen the new Marine recruting ads. What I hadn't seen until this evening is the USMC's supplementary material: MMA fighers invited to Marine Corps martial arts training.

They never had a chance, of course. 'You're going to die in this situation. Your job is just to take one guy out, so your buddy coming behind you has one fewer to fight.'

That's not the mindset of a competition fighter. There was no way they were going to be able to make the shift in time. Uncertain, they hesitate, and are lost.

Lessons

Lessons:

Strange things are being taught in school...

Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said the action taken by the school on Wednesday was warranted if their objective was to maintain the security and safety of the other students.

"Was there a danger of a fight between the students celebrating Cinco de Mayo and the students wearing the American T-shirts? If there was a threat, then their action was ethical," Hanson said.

"The decisions regarding student dress are always difficult for school authorities and it is possible that any particular dress, including the American flag, could under circumstances be threatening," Hanson said. "But when the students' rights are at stake, the school authorities clearly should try to find some way to protect those rights and at the same time defuse the situation."

Got it? If freedom of expression is faced with the threat of illegal violence, freedom should be curtailed.

Note also that this guy is supposedly an expert on ethics. So now it's ethical to give into violent mobs.

The Tea Party has gotten beaten up for the past year for embodying a threat of violence that doesn't actually exist.

The lesson we are getting is that maybe it should.

That is true only if you mean by "should" that the market is structured to provide incentives for that kind of behavior. Ethics goes well beyond market oriented behavior; though it is a truism to say that 'incentives work.'

The Tea Party movement isn't going to resort to violence, purely and only because of the ethics of its members. If they ever capture power and leadership, however, they'll have a lot of problems to solve that are coming from these failures of leadership we see so often today. From local school boards to the Federal government in the face of Iran and others: cowardice rules, bullies are bowed down before, and the wicked dance. This is their hour.

This is Why I Hate Pop Music

This Is Why:

...I hate nearly all modern music.



Hat tip: Chuck Z.

It's like musicians forgot how to write music; and in response, the people forgot how to listen to music.

More Armor from The Met, fluted Italian sunburst styled.

What I think is funny is that the sign says it's a rare example of Italian armor, and that it has pictures etched on it of the Blessed Mother. As a person of half Italian descent, there is nothing rare about an Italian with a picture of the Blessed Mother either on his person, in his car, and certainly pictured in his house numerous times. In fact, my thought when I saw this was - here's their version of tattoos!

Variations of R.2

Variations of Diego Ortiz's Recercada Segunda:

Here are three variations on a piece written by sixteenth century Spanish musician, composer and choirmaster, Diego Ortiz.



This version is played at very high tempo, with a recorder. The pipe adds a lively air to the piece; taken together with the change in tempo, it's almost a different song.



Here's a variation with a crumhorn, which has much the sound of a giant kazoo. There's also a tambourine, and a harpsichord instead of the strings.



An interesting piece, and strong enough to handle the variations well.

We Know That You're Absolutely Correct

"We Know That You're Absolutely Correct"

The lady speaks on religion and the Founding. The trick here -- the magic trick, the illusion -- is the fact that there is no other faith but that which came out of the European, Christian tradition that is compatible with this particular kind of pluralism. America is a 'Christian nation' even if it is not: only Christianity, in 1776, could have considered a principle like anti-Establishmentarianism.

There is one clear competitor: China once knew a similar principle: it would permit Buddhists or Taoists or whatever other traditions of religion arose. Obviously that principle failed during the Maoist period. It seems to be reasserting itself now.

Still, Chinese pluralism was not in any sense at the root of the Founding; it is a similar tradition, but an entirely unrelated one. Our respect for its wisdom does not require us to set aside the fact that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual business of founding this nation, or establishing its fundamental principles.

Mother's Day Poetry

Mother's Day Poetry:

So. This weekend is Mother's Day. All of you have mothers. Many of you have wives who are the mothers of your children.

Let's have a contest. Best sonnet in honor of a mother, yours or your children's, wins... well, the honor of the hall and a chance to win the Hero's Portion. My own entry won't count, so I can honestly judge them.

You've got a couple of days. Let's see what you can do. If you really don't like sonnets, I will certainly also accept Viking/Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry. But you'd better know what you're doing, because I'll know if you're faking it. ;)

Viking Longspears

Viking Longspears:

Via our friend Lars Walker's blog, this:



Note that the shield, hung over the shoulder, is of use even if you make no effort to articulate it. You may find that helpful to understanding a few passages of Medieval writing on war, if you are inclined to them.

Lars also has an interesting piece on the economics of the duel. This is much in accord with Louis L'amour's commentary on why it was right to shoot a man who called you a liar, in the West.

Chopper II

Chopper, Part Two:

Since you folks liked the first post, here's another one I liked somewhat.



"Journalists! Like those two bloody poor blokes down in the mine! 400 F'ing journalists standing around... if half those journalists brought a f'ing shovel, they would have been out weeks earlier."

(STILL NOT safe. But a good point.)

Highlights Game

How many items can you spot and name?

Chopper Reed

"Chopper" Read:

A commenter at BlackFive mentioned this to me:



(NOT safe; language warning!)

"You're f'ing spot on, Devan."

Interesting thing about this comedy spot; it's based on a real guy. "Chopper Read" is a real guy. This guy:



You know, I kind of like that guy.

I made a comment a while back that the USA is actually a police state.

People disagreed with me.

Watch this:



Still think we aren't living in a police state?

(Reason via Instapundit)

The Greater Insurgency

The Greater Insurgency:

There are two reasons peoples wage war on each other. The first is over what we might call matters of engineering; the second is over what we might call matters of identity.

The first kind are disputes over things like water rights, land, etc. Engineering disputes are easy to resolve in theory, though they may be impossible to resolve in practice: that is why they are 'engineering' disputes. The question is whether you can (and can afford to) craft and build a solution that allows an acceptable distribution of whatever is being fought over. Wealth, power, whatever: the only reason people are fighting is because they want more than what they have. If we can craft a better way to use and arrange access to what we have, we can often put an end to the conflict.

The second type of war is nearly impossible to solve, because it touches not mere practical goods, but matters of the human heart.

The AP describes the Times Square bomber as a man whose life seemed to unravel; but that is to take the passive voice. The truth is that he unraveled it. He had every success that a young man in Pakistan is taught to seek: he obtained an H1-B visa, giving him access to the opportunity to compete for wealth and work in the world's richest market. He obtained an advanced education, including an MBA. He had a nice home in the suburbs, a family, and even U.S. citizenship. He had it all: tens of millions in India and Pakistan are working and dreaming of what he got.

He let it go, choosing instead to return to Pakistan, seek out the training camps of the Jihad, to learn to build bombs and try to destroy the land that gave him such wealth, success, and stability.

This is not the first time. Remember Zacarias Moussaoui:

He holds a master's degree in International Business from South Bank University in London, having enrolled in 1993 and graduated in 1995.

These are the people that al Qaeda sought out, and that radicals today still seek. They have the education and passports to move freely in the West. They are almost untouchable. Yet they are unsatisfied with the life of the West, hate it in their hearts, and long for something else.

Insofar as we do not understand just what it is they want, we won't be able to begin to address this problem. So here is a sketch: what they want is the story. They want the heroic epic. They want to be a hero fighting for God, in a clash of good against evil.

That is a conflict of identity. There is no engineering solution: you cannot give them greater access to wealth or resources, because they are already throwing away wealth and resources that are the very dream of millions and tens of millions. It is a question of who they want to be: it is a question of a fury at the core of the being, that comes from failing to be a man you can yourself respect.

Deficit commission & Constitution

The Anti-Constitution Faction:

News today comes that the left is planning to use the President's anti-deficit commission to push for amnesty for illegals. Let's remember why this is 'the President's' commission, and not the Senate's:

Obama's version of the commission is a weak substitute for what he really wanted: a panel created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

The weaker version of the panel doesn't have any such requirement; its recommendations do not automatically force a vote. That was what the President wanted.

Why? Allegedly because of concern that the Congress will otherwise avoid tackling the tough issues that we need to tackle in order to bring down the deficit. We see the immediate expansive view of that power, though: given 'an inch' to tackle this pressing problem, they immediately want to assume the power to pass laws addressing anything at all.

The idea of a limited Federal government apparently does not compute! T99 comments:

Some liberals have difficulty with the idea that government should have a limited role. They assume that everyone must choose between supporting an all-encompassing role or a non-existent one. Anything else strikes them as hypocritical.

What is lost is the idea that there are rules about what the Federal government can or can't do: it has a defined role. Within that role it is free to act, but there are specified limits: there is nothing hypocritical about praising an action within that range, and condemning as intrusive another action that defies the lawful limits of authority. As Cassandra's post points out, limited government advocates can easily support a Federal role in the case of the BP oil spill: it's in the Constitution.

... conservatives understand that maritime affairs traditionally are within the purview of federal jurisdiction, see Article I, Section 10 and Article III, Section 2 of the document known as the United States Constitution.

In a wide and diverse society like this one, where people have divergent values and backgrounds, clear Constitutional limits can inspire trust that would otherwise be lacking. The Federal government would be far more trusted, admired and respected if -- instead of chafing at limits on its power -- it was careful to demonstrate specific Constitutional authority for its every action, and showed clear deference to the limits imposed upon it.

The Tenth Amendment holds that powers not delegated to the Federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people. If a tragedy comes up that the Federal government legitimately cannot address, a state-based government response is therefore always possible. The Federal government might even assist the states at their request, and following their lead: but it would need to set aside its claim to power and authority, and merely help as directed.

Such a government, humble and obedient to the permanent will of the people as expressed and codified by our Constitution, would have both wide and deep support. A government that looks for every opportunity to bypass any limits on its power and authority is rightly regarded with suspicion.

MKH on the Bomber

MKH on the Bomber Theories:

My favorite part of this quote is not the part that everyone has been mocking -- you know, the bit about 'the health care bill or something.' No, my favorite line was this one:

"It looks like an amateurish job done by at least one person," he told Couric.

I'm glad we can rule out nobody from our list of suspects, then.

Other good news today: apparently training to build bombs at a Pakistani jihad camp teaches you absolutely nothing about how to build an effective bomb. This bomb was a remarkable joke: the wrong kind of fertilizer, unmodified by any of the things that make fertilizer more explosive, with propane canisters that are designed not to explode, involving an initiation mechanism that was entirely inappropriate.

Greek Weapons

More fun from The Met:

The Narrative

Controlling the Narrative:

Or, not.

The ferocious oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening President Barack Obama’s reputation for competence, just as surely as it endangers the Gulf ecosystem.

Majority supports Arizona on immigration law -- actually, in spite of the President personally attacking the state and its citizens, 51% think the law "is about right" and another 9% thinks it "doesn't go far enough." That's 60% in support of these or stronger measures. 36% think it goes too far.

Meanwhile, the Post has "storylines to watch" from today's elections. That's an interesting concept, but it's true: we all craft stories all the time. Storytelling is one of the arts, and arts are what makes us human: the fact that we make art wherever we go, and use it to define meaning and answer questions for ourselves that other kinds of creatures never ask.

Sometimes that gets missed; but it's true all the same. So of course we have "narratives" and "storylines" in politics -- even in things as disconnected as an oil rig here, and a special election there. To some degree these things all converge in the White House, but only because we have decided to tell the story that way. If we had made a different decision, an age ago, the White House would not now be in a position to consolidate so much power. They can because we have come to tell stories that make them the reflex point for all these disconnected things; and if they are to be held responsible, isn't it easy to argue that they obviously therefore must be allotted the power to control whatever events for which they're being held responsible?

That's worth thinking about. We should tell a different kind of story: about how this or that event should be considered on its own terms; and if we mention the White House, it should be to underline the fact that the affair is none of their business. Unless, of course, it's a delegated Article II power -- in which case, it certainly is.