BlackFive points out that Greyhawk of the Mudville Gazette is now a twenty-year man. B5 says all that needs to be said, but I'll repeat it: thank you, Hawk, and Mrs. Hawk.
Grim's Hall
On Manly Virtue:
The argument examines the philosophy of Roosevelt, the author attempting to explain it and then to seek contradictions within it. First, the explanation:
So much of this arises from the reaction of the upper classes to the First World War. Almost everyone knows the poem Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. But the words, from Horace, that he called "The Old Lie" are engraved in stone at Arlington. And not only there.
Today I stopped in Lexington, Virginia, passing through on the way back here. We passed by the Virginia Military Institute, which is one of the finest military colleges in the world, along with West Point, Annapolis, and The Citadel. We stopped, by chance, just in front of Washington and Lee College. There is a memorial there, constructed to honor the students who had died in the First World War. And on a great arch above the memorial, engraved in stone, is the same line.
Is it an old lie, or is it a grim and terrible truth? Through the arch at Washington and Lee is visible the tomb of Robert E. Lee. That tomb lies beneath a chapel named for him but dedicated, as he was, to higher service. It is through such devotion -- only through it -- that what good there is in this world can arise. That was Roosevelt's insight as well.
Roosevelt's explosive devotion was, as the piece explains, the moving force behind a great wave of Progressivism that outweighs anything attempted or envisioned today precisely because there is no similar motivating force. Roosevelt rejected talk of rights, and spoke instead of duties -- another regular theme at Grim's Hall. Modern liberalism talks a great deal about rights, but has little enough concept of duty. We have surely reached the high water mark of this tide with the current movement to restore voting rights to felons, "who have paid their debt to society." No, indeed they have not; that is only a saying.
The debt owed is far greater and more demanding than that, having done wrong, you should endure your sentence. The debt is owed by all citizens. The true debt owed is this: to love and to improve the civilization into which you are born; to defend and sustain the common peace; to preserve the Republic and its freedoms; to suppress rather than to become the unjust; and to uphold the weak.
Roosevelt understood this, and it animated him in great labors to protect the poor, to preserve the land, and to raise the Republic and her principles. A Democrat today, had he the thundering voice of TR, could hammer the Republicans on this question. This recent bankruptcy reform bill is a perfect example. Exploiting people with proven incapacity to handle easy credit is immoral, like selling whiskey to the homeless. We who are not weak have a duty to protect, in at least a minimal fashion, those who are. The government has let down this duty, and allowed immoral behavior to become even more profitable than it was before. And, as with the whiskey to the homeless, this "profit" will create costs for the Republic as well as for the homeless man.
But there is no vocabulary for discussing this among the powerful of the Democratic party. The first error lies here: It wants to speak of the rights of the poor rather than their duties, and so it is incapable of adequately condemning the weakness of those who cannot handle easy credit. It will not do to make assertions that people are poor, and can't be expected to pay their bills. That sounds like an invitation to higher taxes and welfare payouts, rather than a call to restore order so that credit companies do business fairly. The first will not move the heart of much of America; the second would.
This first error gives rise to the second error: they cannot speak of the duties of the rich with any authority if they do not address the unfulfilled duties of the poor, and so they do not do that either. Instead, they appeal to guilt: that you, doing relatively well, ought to feel bad for doing so well while these others are doing badly. But you, presumably, are doing your duty to the Republic, to your family and friends. You are the only actor in this transaction who is doing his part: the debtor is not, the creditor is not, and the politicians certainly are not. You, alone, have no reason to feel bad about this. The appeal to guilt also collapses.
Therefore there are expanding Republican majorities, with the Left scratching its head as to why these common American people don't 'vote their pocketbooks.' There is a one word answer: duty. There is a seven word answer: They feel their duty to the Republic. Roosevelt, understanding that, living it, worked wonders for the Progressives.
So very much comes back to the words: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria... We think of these words, and the feelings they inspire, usually only when pondering the great national questions. They touch them all, however, from the largest to the smallest. The divide in our nation is between those who feel that the words are "the Old Lie," and those who engrave them in stone.
A few days back, speaking of a former President, I wrote: "Courtesy and chivalry are important components of the manly virtue of honor[.]" I see today that the New Criterion has a piece on Theodore Roosevelt. The author frets -- that is the only word for it -- that Rooseveltian manliness is gone from the national character.
"Somehow America in the twentieth century went from the explosion of assertive manliness that was TR to the sensitive males of our time who shall be and deserve to be nameless," he says at the beginning of the piece; at the end, "And Teddy Roosevelt was more a philosopher than he knew. His advocacy of manliness reflects the difficulties of pragmatism and tells us something about our situation today. We have abandoned—not reason for manliness like the pragmatists, nor manliness for reason like their tender-minded opponents—but both reason and manliness. We want progress without a rational justification and without the manliness needed to supply the lack of a justification."
It seems to me he misses an obvious parallel with a more modern President:
A New Yorker by birth, he went to the Wild West, and became a Westerner by deliberate intent, or sheer will-power. He became a cowboy by impressing the other cowboys....Surely that reminds you of someone of more recent vintage?
The argument examines the philosophy of Roosevelt, the author attempting to explain it and then to seek contradictions within it. First, the explanation:
Roosevelt had his own, brazenly exclusive moralism; he liked being "in cowboy land" because it enabled him to "get into the mind and soul of the average American of the right type." His democracy satisfies not merely the average American but one of the right type. “Life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living.”I suspect a lot of this fretting comes from the author's position as a professor at Harvard. We've talked about this recently, but there are other things to say.
So much of this arises from the reaction of the upper classes to the First World War. Almost everyone knows the poem Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. But the words, from Horace, that he called "The Old Lie" are engraved in stone at Arlington. And not only there.
Today I stopped in Lexington, Virginia, passing through on the way back here. We passed by the Virginia Military Institute, which is one of the finest military colleges in the world, along with West Point, Annapolis, and The Citadel. We stopped, by chance, just in front of Washington and Lee College. There is a memorial there, constructed to honor the students who had died in the First World War. And on a great arch above the memorial, engraved in stone, is the same line.
Is it an old lie, or is it a grim and terrible truth? Through the arch at Washington and Lee is visible the tomb of Robert E. Lee. That tomb lies beneath a chapel named for him but dedicated, as he was, to higher service. It is through such devotion -- only through it -- that what good there is in this world can arise. That was Roosevelt's insight as well.
Roosevelt's explosive devotion was, as the piece explains, the moving force behind a great wave of Progressivism that outweighs anything attempted or envisioned today precisely because there is no similar motivating force. Roosevelt rejected talk of rights, and spoke instead of duties -- another regular theme at Grim's Hall. Modern liberalism talks a great deal about rights, but has little enough concept of duty. We have surely reached the high water mark of this tide with the current movement to restore voting rights to felons, "who have paid their debt to society." No, indeed they have not; that is only a saying.
The debt owed is far greater and more demanding than that, having done wrong, you should endure your sentence. The debt is owed by all citizens. The true debt owed is this: to love and to improve the civilization into which you are born; to defend and sustain the common peace; to preserve the Republic and its freedoms; to suppress rather than to become the unjust; and to uphold the weak.
Roosevelt understood this, and it animated him in great labors to protect the poor, to preserve the land, and to raise the Republic and her principles. A Democrat today, had he the thundering voice of TR, could hammer the Republicans on this question. This recent bankruptcy reform bill is a perfect example. Exploiting people with proven incapacity to handle easy credit is immoral, like selling whiskey to the homeless. We who are not weak have a duty to protect, in at least a minimal fashion, those who are. The government has let down this duty, and allowed immoral behavior to become even more profitable than it was before. And, as with the whiskey to the homeless, this "profit" will create costs for the Republic as well as for the homeless man.
But there is no vocabulary for discussing this among the powerful of the Democratic party. The first error lies here: It wants to speak of the rights of the poor rather than their duties, and so it is incapable of adequately condemning the weakness of those who cannot handle easy credit. It will not do to make assertions that people are poor, and can't be expected to pay their bills. That sounds like an invitation to higher taxes and welfare payouts, rather than a call to restore order so that credit companies do business fairly. The first will not move the heart of much of America; the second would.
This first error gives rise to the second error: they cannot speak of the duties of the rich with any authority if they do not address the unfulfilled duties of the poor, and so they do not do that either. Instead, they appeal to guilt: that you, doing relatively well, ought to feel bad for doing so well while these others are doing badly. But you, presumably, are doing your duty to the Republic, to your family and friends. You are the only actor in this transaction who is doing his part: the debtor is not, the creditor is not, and the politicians certainly are not. You, alone, have no reason to feel bad about this. The appeal to guilt also collapses.
Therefore there are expanding Republican majorities, with the Left scratching its head as to why these common American people don't 'vote their pocketbooks.' There is a one word answer: duty. There is a seven word answer: They feel their duty to the Republic. Roosevelt, understanding that, living it, worked wonders for the Progressives.
So very much comes back to the words: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria... We think of these words, and the feelings they inspire, usually only when pondering the great national questions. They touch them all, however, from the largest to the smallest. The divide in our nation is between those who feel that the words are "the Old Lie," and those who engrave them in stone.
Indiana Printing & Publishing Co.
Welcome Home:
I'm home. This weekend marks the first time I've ever been snowed off the road. About the time we reached the southern gap of the George Washington National Forest, the weather got so bad that there was no point in trying to continue. We ended up spending a late night at a hotel in West Virginia. The roads were clearer this morning, however, and we made the passage across the Alleghenys this morning. More on that later.
There are other homecomings this week, and while heading out I encountered one of them. I flew out with three soldiers returning from Iraq. I got to talking with them because our flight was delayed for an hour. Two were Sergeants, and the other was a Specialist.
The conversation started because I asked the older of the two sergeants about his unit heraldry. I knew the 1st Cav insignia, but not the subordinate unit insignia. I haven't been able to locate it at the Institute of Heraldry, but it is very similar to the Indiana STARC. It's apparently attached to the 1st Cav, providing aviation support. They were on a long trip home, with many stops: but this was the last.
The other sergeant came over when he saw me with his companion, and he brought a great big cardboard box with him. He nodded to my hat, and said, "Let me show you my Stetson." He had lovingly packaged the thing in plastic, built the hatbox for it, and carried it to Iraq and back separate from the rest of his gear.
You can always tell a real American man because of the love he shows for his John B. Stetson hat.
We finally got underway. Because the US Army is so very generous, these fellows were seated all the way in the back for their flight home. As a consequence, I got off the plane in Indiana before they did. I knew that the old Sarge would have family waiting, because he'd had a teddy bear tied to the outside of his bag, but they had more family than I expected.
Their whole unit, from their Major down, had come out to greet them at the airport.
We're getting close to the 17th of March, when I expect that a number of you will be out somewhere hoisting a pint or two. Most likely, there will be a band playing traditional Irish music. If they're taking requests, have them play "Gary Owen." Drink one of those pints to the good lads of 1st Cavalry, who take care of their own.
On the High Road
I'm going to be travelling for the next few days. I'm not sure how much access to a computer I will have, as I'll be enjoying the beautiful (frigid, icy and snow-bound) scenery of our nation's highways. Fortunately, I'll have my 4x4, my faithful wife and a firearm, so with any luck we'll be back in good order by the end of the weekend.
In the meantime, visit some of the links on the sidebar. And maybe Eric and Daniel will take it upon themselves to keep you entertained while I'm gone.
And don't forget Eat An Animal for PETA Day. For the first one, I invented a dish called "PETA Pie," which goes something like this:
2 squirrels, skinned and butchered
1 pound ground wild turkey breast
Venison sausage to taste
3 strips bacon
1 double-crust pie shell (either frozen or, preferably, fresh-made with cracked Red wheat flour.)
Fry bacon; crumble and reserve grease. Brown all other meats; drain. Fill pie crust with meats, crumbled bacon & bacon grease. Spice to taste, including vegetables if you must. Cover with pie crust top; crimp and brush with any remaining bacon grease. Cut three slits in the top of the pie for steam. Bake at 425 degrees until contents are bubbling through the slits at the top.
Enjoy!
MSNBC - Interview: 'People Are More Hopeful'
On Courtesy:some most of the policies the Clintons pursued while in office. When they were in office, I had very strong negative opinions about them, too.
With time to reflect, though, I have to say that Bill Clinton was a far better man than I thought he was. I retain a perfectly negative opinion of much of his staff, especially Ms. Reno. I know, too, that many of my readers retain a wholly negative opinion of Clinton himself.
Still, I can't help but feel a certain kinship with a poker-playing Southerner who feels it is important to give up the bed to an older gentleman, and who would never think of waking that gentleman out of his sleep halfway through the night in order to improve his own comfort. It is even more impressive when remembering that Clinton is himself a heart patient who nearly died only months ago.
Courtesy and chivalry are important components of the manly virtue of honor, and they impress me when I see them. The fact that there is so much to disagree about, the fact that I was sometimes horrified by certain actions the man took as President, the unfair and tenditious speeches he gave in favor of the recent Democratic presidential candidate, these things remain.
I think we must, though, remember the new facts too: his boldly pro-American words when speaking abroad to anti-American audiences; this kindness to an old gentleman. I salute the man for what he has done well. It is the sort of thing that means a great deal to me, too.
I'm sure you all saw this interview with former President Bush, since Drudge linked to it. The same thing that interested him interests me:
I'll give you one example of the courtesy he showed me. There is one bedroom on that plane -- a government 757. There's a kind of VIP bedroom with its own bathroom. Then the next room has two tables and eight seats. He decided ahead of time that we want President Bush to have the front room, which was heaven for me, because if I don't stretch out, lie flat, I really hurt my body these days -- spoiled -- so anyway, he was going to have the other room. Well, he got in there and he wanted to play cards at night, and the next morning I got up and stuck my head in and I found him sound asleep on the floor of the plane. We could have switched places, each getting half a night on the bed, but he deferred to me. That was a very courteous thing, very thoughtful, and that meant a great deal to me.I have very strong, negative opinions about
With time to reflect, though, I have to say that Bill Clinton was a far better man than I thought he was. I retain a perfectly negative opinion of much of his staff, especially Ms. Reno. I know, too, that many of my readers retain a wholly negative opinion of Clinton himself.
Still, I can't help but feel a certain kinship with a poker-playing Southerner who feels it is important to give up the bed to an older gentleman, and who would never think of waking that gentleman out of his sleep halfway through the night in order to improve his own comfort. It is even more impressive when remembering that Clinton is himself a heart patient who nearly died only months ago.
Courtesy and chivalry are important components of the manly virtue of honor, and they impress me when I see them. The fact that there is so much to disagree about, the fact that I was sometimes horrified by certain actions the man took as President, the unfair and tenditious speeches he gave in favor of the recent Democratic presidential candidate, these things remain.
I think we must, though, remember the new facts too: his boldly pro-American words when speaking abroad to anti-American audiences; this kindness to an old gentleman. I salute the man for what he has done well. It is the sort of thing that means a great deal to me, too.
Michael Ledeen on Peter Malchin on National Review Online
Eulogy for the Invisible Man:
Zvika, as he was known. Ledeen isn't a big influence of mine, but I thought this was a well-written and insightful portrayal of one of the 20th century's master spies.
The Spectator.co.uk
A Companion Piece:
Once you've read Doc Russia's piece, below, you might try Mark Steyn's latest:
I hope if ever I find myself one of the unfortunate subjects of a totalitarian dictatorship, that it's Bush and the Republicans who take up my cause rather than the Left.Cuba Libre. It's not just a cocktail.
The other day I found myself, for the umpteenth time, driving in Vermont behind a Kerry/Edwards supporter whose vehicle also bore the slogan FREE TIBET. It must be great to be the guy with the printing contract for the FREE TIBET stickers. Not so good to be the guy back in Tibet wondering when the freeing thereof will actually get under way...
If Rumsfeld were to say, "Free Tibet? Jiminy, what a swell idea! The Third Infantry Division go in on Thursday," the bumper-sticker crowd would be aghast. But for those of us on the arrogant unilateralist side of things, that's not how it works. FREE AFGHANISTAN? Done. FREE IRAQ? Done.
bloodletting.blog-city.com
"The Death Throes of Hope"
Doc Russia has a post you really ought to read. Brace yourself, first.
"Big Dwarf Rodeo": Reverend Horton Heat: Compilation Albums: Where In The Hell Did You Go With My Toothbrush?
Blues:
The mother-in-law is sick, so the wife and boy are off visiting them this last little while. As I was telling Sovay yesterday, when I happened to have a chance to talk to her for a few minutes, the experience has been enlightening.
As a youngster, I always thought I was a loner by nature. Turns out, that's not quite true. I don't have much use for people, and am happy going whole days without speaking to anyone or seeing anyone -- except my family, which extends to my closest friends. So, turns out I'm not a loner but a family man. I just want to locate my family way out away from the rest of humanity.
In the meantime, life around here is a bit like the Rev. Horton Heat song, "Where In The H*** Did You Go With My Toothbrush?" The house seems suddenly and surprisingly empty, but the unpaid bills keep turning up in the mail.
No reason any of you should care about that. Still, since there's nobody else around to listen to my stories, you're stuck with it.
Belmont Club
Indonesia at the Belmont Club
Wretchard has a thorough piece on reactions to the Bashir sentence. Those interested in the Southeast Asian front will find it worth reading.
TODAYonline
More Fun From PACOM
I'll bet Admiral Fargo is glad to be retiring:
Tensions in the Sulawesi Sea rose a notch yesterday when three Indonesian warships moved into the waters to bolster Jakarta's claim to the potentially-oil-rich area over which they are in dispute with Malaysia.Well, what's three little warships? Or four, or...
Meanwhile, across Indonesia, students and workers protested against diesel fuel price hikes in massive street rallies, describing the move to raise prices a mark of government arrogance. Their anger rose further when plans for transport fare increases were announced in Jakarta.
All too soon, it seemed, the goodwill generated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's recent visit to Malaysia, where Malaysian Prime Minster Abdullah Badawi warmly feted him, was fast evaporating.
The warships were now patrolling the disputed area off the coast of Malaysia's Sabah state and the Indonesia's East Kalimantan province, Navy spokesman First Admiral Abdul Maliki Yusuf told AFP.Then there's a little excursion into some reporting on oil prices, which news you probably saw on today's Drudge. The one marked OPEC: Prices Could Hit $80. That's the kind of thing that will inconvenience a lot of Americans, but it can drive poorer states to the brink of resource war.
A fourth ship was on its way, Adm Yusuf said, adding that the navy was also considering sending a submarine to the area.
Two Nomad maritime aircraft to conduct reconnaissance for possible incursions into Indonesian territory, including airspace violations by foreign aircraft, had also been deployed, Lt Col Guntur Wahyudi, a spokesman for Indonesia's Eastern Fleet told dpa.
MC WWII
Leathernecks:
I had occasion last night to play poker with a World War II Marine.
There isn't much to say about it, even thought I thought it was a remarkable experience. The fellow is now nearly eighty, and still a good poker player though he had a bad night. As a consequence, I also had a bad night -- I was damned if I was going to leave the table having made money off a World War II Marine. I ended up playing to lose until he left for the evening. I won my stake back on the last few hands, but I barely came out better than even for the evening.
I asked if he was a Marine because he was, nearly sixty years after having left the Corps, still wearing a cap with the USMC emblem on it. He allowed that he was, and said nothing more about it. Others at the table filled me in on his record with enthusiasm, but he only growled about it and insisted that somebody cut the #$@!ing cards.
Once a Marine, always a Marine.
It made me remember that it was time to change the charity linked behind the Leatherneck Tartan at the top right of the blog. I've set it to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. Those of you in a giving mood, etc.
The Courier-Mail: Cleric Bashir gets 2� years [03mar05]
Bakar Bashir:
Well, he didn't walk. Not exactly. The death-penalty prosecution, in the most important terror trial in Asia, did manage to find a charge that pinned 2 1/2 years on the fellow. He was, however, cleared of most of the charges.
The trial is telling. At the end, supporters from the Indonesian Holy Warrior's Council (Majelis Mujahedeen Indonesia) cried aloud, dominating the courtroom and the streets beyond. "Allah Akbar!
The judges, meanwhile, immediately vacated the court, and vanished behind the protection of the state.
signandsight
Sign & Sight
By which they mean English.
That is the name of a new website, devoted to European thinking. It is to be published in English, which Arts & Letters Daily describes as 'the only pan-European language.'
Curiously, S&S has an article on just that topic: Manifesto. It begins with the death of a famous French writer, who hated the French press, but loved the German one. So, he stipulated that his final work could only be published in France after it had been published in Germany:
What happened was nothing. Several months after Bourdieu's death, Suhrkamp published "Esquisse pour une auto-analyse" as a slim volume. Utter silence. The German media failed to understand this as a scoop, a text that was awaited elsewhere, a gift from Bourdieu to what he considered a qualified German public. Months later the press published a few obligatory reviews. The French didn't bat an eyelid. While a small excerpt had provoked a scandal only a few months before, the full text went unnoticed. No one in the French media reads the German papers thoroughly, and no scouts are keeping track of cultural trends in Germany. Only when the volume was published in France did the usual brouhaha begin.The author of this piece asks, "Is there a Europe beyond milk quotas?" If the cultures are that disconnected and disinterested, to what degree is there a Europe at all? Not only are the cultures disconnected, but their understanding of core symbols is often reversed:
The Bourdieu effect is not uncommon. When Jürgen Habermas launched his "Core Europe" initiative, no one joined the debate. Who outside the Netherlands had heard of Theo van Gogh before he was murdered? And when everybody in Paris was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the city's liberation in August last year, no one was aware of what was happening in Warsaw at the same time. While a few streets in Paris were being named after members of the communist resistance, whose valour is indisputable, Warsaw was fixated on the enduring memory of Stalin's icy smile as he watched Hitler bomb the Polish resistance into the ground. The end of liberation.The piece then turns to the case for, and against, English; and by extension, for and against America. It's an interesting read, but it finishes with this conclusion: "Let's talk European!"
By which they mean English.
Mudville Gazette
Chains:
The Mudville Gazette has a photo essay on the breaking of chains. De Oppresso Liber.
Al Basrah.net invites US military men to break their own chains:
If you are united states military personnel and a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq, don’t wait any longer! As soon as you get back to America, pack your bags and head north.What are the advantages of desertion? There's a list:
You can go to the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. for more information however, in order to make a clean escape, it is recommended that you tell as few people as possible of your plans and just make a break for the boarder.
When you arrive in Canada, head for the first government building you see, and tell them that you are in the united states military and that you would like to seek asylum in Canada.
CANADA IS THE CLEAR CHOICE AND THIS IS WHY:So really, we're all on the same side here. We just want to free people. Just some of us are vicious about it.
CANADA OFFERS:
* HIGH QUALITY OF LIFE. YOUR LIFE IN CANADA WILL BE JUST AS FUN AND EXCITING AS IT IS IN THE UNITED STATES; WITHOUT ALL THE HEADACHE!
* CANADIAN COLLEGES ARE TOP NOTCH AND THEY ARE FREE! NO INFLATED COST OF TUITION OR BOOKS - LIKE IN THE UNITED STATES.
* HEALTH CARE IN CANADA IS FREE! NO MORE HAVING TO PUT YOUR LIFE IN DANGER TO HAVE MEDICAL COVERAGE!
* THE PEOPLE IN CANADA ARE NICE - NOT VICIOUS LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES!
ONCE YOU MOVE TO CANADA, YOU WILL NEVER WANT TO GO ANYWHERE ELSE AGAIN.
Pacific Currents: Gore draws Chinese to animal parks
Chinese Animal Parks:
The chief attraction? Daily Cockfights, noon and three.
There are some photos from HangZhou here, which look enough like mine that I won't bother to upload the things.
Via the Best of the Web today, I saw this article on Chinese animal parks:
While some of these visitors may be animal lovers, they have not paid $7 apiece merely to drive around and admire the huge felines lounging about in their snowy compounds.But there is an innate sort of fairness at work:
They are here to see some action. But first, they must pay.
"You can buy a domesticated chicken for 40 yuan ($4.80) or for 100 yuan ($12.10) you can buy a wild one, which flies," the driver announces. "The effect is much different; it's exceptionally thrilling."
In their hourlong tour of this park, tourists will watch ravenous tigers chasing down live chickens, sheep and cows. Feathers will be plucked and limbs torn by the 300-pound cats while the tourists gasp, scream, cheer and recoil at the carnage.
Like many new industries in China, this one grew quickly without government oversight. Several people have been mauled to death at parks.Well, sometimes:
One park put a turtle in a glass box and allowed people to throw coins at it so they could try to hit its shell. At another, a tiger's head was chained down so that children could climb on its back for photos.This all reminds me of my time in China. In the city of HangZhou, once capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, there is a place called "the HangZhou Bird's Paradise."
A few parks even allow visitors to pay extra to watch a live horse get devoured by lions and tigers.
The chief attraction? Daily Cockfights, noon and three.
There are some photos from HangZhou here, which look enough like mine that I won't bother to upload the things.
Times Online - Sunday Times
The March of Science:
Yeah, okay. But I'm still planning on eating one now and then.
The Blue Bus is calling us...: Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 110
Car Bombs & The Fourth Generation:
Car bombs can't be controlled by restricting access to explosives; the ones in Iraq often use tank or artillery shells just because there were so many weapons depots in Iraq, but it's just as easy to make them out of common household or farm chemicals. For the same reasons -- power and access to explosives -- they have been the most popular weapons for serious terrorists. The IRA's long-argued-over surrender of its guns is purely symbolic; the successes of the movement have been won with bombs, not guns.
There isn't a good way of countering these things. The standard way is to create checkpoints where you can stop and search every vehicle that passes, but these are so manpower intensive that you can't set up very many. As a consequence, the best you can usually do is to set them up randomly in the hope of catching the car bomber by surprise. Even then, a suicide car bomber will probably just detonate at the checkpoint, still managing to kill quite a few people. It is possible that in the future, technology solutions may arise to aid these problems: robots to man checkpoints, chemical sniffers to search cars (though again, the wide variety of potential explosives hampers the effort to develop such sniffers).
The other option is to erect barriers and create no-vehicle zones. There are some notable side benefits to doing so -- they create pleasant areas for families and children, a kind of "main street" feel for small-business friendly districts, etc.
However, their size is limited by pratical considerations (e.g., how do you get food to restaurants/grocery stores in these zones? Well, you have to carry it in, which you can only do over so much distance; therefore, the zone can only be so big). They end up being practical for small popular concentrations, such as small towns, but not for large cities (imagine trying to subdivide Manhattan into a series of no-vehicle zones). However, large cities are where they are needed most, b/c of the population concentration that makes it easiest to kill lots of people there.
The logical consequence is the finality of a trend that started fifty years ago: the death of big American cities. America is large enough, and rich, enough to redistribute its population into a series of no-vehicle exurb-style towns if the business becomes important. There is some indication that Americans would prefer that lifestyle anyway, and it's consistent with the service-based economy and increasing telecommunication. In fact, life in or near such a zone could be relatively more pleasant than in current, vehicle-based suburbs.
It won't work for nations whose economic base is manufacturing, however, where there has to be concentration of manpower in zones easy to reach by transportation. Technology solutions will have to serve there; but, of course, these relatively poorer nations are the least well-suited to developing those solutions.
It's things like this that have spurred me to teach the military science classes online. It isn't enough to be horrified; you have to go the next step, and realize that these things are probably going to come to America sooner or later. Many military scientists think that in "Fourth Generation" warfare, the distinction between civilian and military will largely disappear: the enemy will attack civilian targets so often that it will no longer be possible to rely on professional forces -- military or police -- as the primary defense of targets.
In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between "civilian" and "military" may disappear.The car bomb (or VBIED/SVBIED, in military-lingo) is by far the most deadly weapon in the hands of modern insurgents -- in Iraq or otherwise. Unless they get their hands on radiological / nuclear material, that will probably remain true; and even the radiological material is most effective when combined with a car bomb.
Car bombs can't be controlled by restricting access to explosives; the ones in Iraq often use tank or artillery shells just because there were so many weapons depots in Iraq, but it's just as easy to make them out of common household or farm chemicals. For the same reasons -- power and access to explosives -- they have been the most popular weapons for serious terrorists. The IRA's long-argued-over surrender of its guns is purely symbolic; the successes of the movement have been won with bombs, not guns.
There isn't a good way of countering these things. The standard way is to create checkpoints where you can stop and search every vehicle that passes, but these are so manpower intensive that you can't set up very many. As a consequence, the best you can usually do is to set them up randomly in the hope of catching the car bomber by surprise. Even then, a suicide car bomber will probably just detonate at the checkpoint, still managing to kill quite a few people. It is possible that in the future, technology solutions may arise to aid these problems: robots to man checkpoints, chemical sniffers to search cars (though again, the wide variety of potential explosives hampers the effort to develop such sniffers).
The other option is to erect barriers and create no-vehicle zones. There are some notable side benefits to doing so -- they create pleasant areas for families and children, a kind of "main street" feel for small-business friendly districts, etc.
However, their size is limited by pratical considerations (e.g., how do you get food to restaurants/grocery stores in these zones? Well, you have to carry it in, which you can only do over so much distance; therefore, the zone can only be so big). They end up being practical for small popular concentrations, such as small towns, but not for large cities (imagine trying to subdivide Manhattan into a series of no-vehicle zones). However, large cities are where they are needed most, b/c of the population concentration that makes it easiest to kill lots of people there.
The logical consequence is the finality of a trend that started fifty years ago: the death of big American cities. America is large enough, and rich, enough to redistribute its population into a series of no-vehicle exurb-style towns if the business becomes important. There is some indication that Americans would prefer that lifestyle anyway, and it's consistent with the service-based economy and increasing telecommunication. In fact, life in or near such a zone could be relatively more pleasant than in current, vehicle-based suburbs.
It won't work for nations whose economic base is manufacturing, however, where there has to be concentration of manpower in zones easy to reach by transportation. Technology solutions will have to serve there; but, of course, these relatively poorer nations are the least well-suited to developing those solutions.
From the Halls to the Shores
Reviews:
Mike the Marine has some movie reviews for you:
Regardless of all that, "Gung Ho!" is a film for the ages. It lets us see what America saw during a time of crisis sixty years ago. It clues us into the mindset required to win a war. And it lets us know just how far the Hollywood elites have removed themselves from their country in the sixty years since.Sometime Grim's Hall poster Daniel has book reviews.
And Doc Russia has (in addition to his take on the Tyler shooting) a few firearm reviews.
There you go: performance art, literature, and physical education. We aim for the well rounded man here at Grim's Hall.
BLACKFIVE
And a Little Child...
BlackFive links to this column from the Tennessean. The land of Davy Crockett continues to produce men who volunteer their services in the cause of liberty. That, we expect. But what shall we say to these children of Mesopotamia?
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