Someone Worth Reading

Howdy All,

Popping in to suggest a blogger for the sidebar: Chris Roach's man-sized target.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet Chris while at a blog get-together with Chester (Adventures of Chester) and learned of his blog. Since then, he's been a daily read; it speaks ill of me for not suggesting him sooner-- but hey, I got to it before the end of the year.

FCVFD

More Fire Department Fun:

Today I went with my father to take the antique ladder truck on a run, which is necessary to keeping it in good working order. It's a beautiful 1930s model with mahogany ladders that are probably worth more than the truck itself. We drove it over to a local park where my son Beowulf was playing, and then the boy got to ride around on the old ladder truck. What a lucky, happy boy.

I was driving the pickup trailing the thing, to keep people from getting too close to it. My father was driving the ladder truck. When we got to the park, there was a guy there flying a remote-control airplane, which was buzzing merrily around the park's airspace.

A 1930's firetruck will turn heads, and it did indeed turn the head of the "pilot" running his airplane. As we pulled around the circumference of the park, he watched the old truck with such devotion that he forgot all about his little airplane.

That wee plane slammed right into one of the big light-poles used to illuminate one of the baseball fields. Wham! It flew apart into three pieces.

The guy quickly ran over and collected the pieces, threw them in his truck, and drove away rapidly. I saw the park workers over there a bit later, and I wonder if they'll now have to replace any of the big lights that were up on that pole.

Well, these things happen.

Camp Kat

Camp Katrina Knocks a Homer:

Yep, the Specialist is absolutely correct about this:

From a recent AP article highlighting the escalating wars over illegal downloading:

It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court....

So let me get this straight: it's perfectly alright for the music recording industry to peek inside a computer without a warrant to look for downloaded songs, but it's a federal crime for President Bush to monitor phone calls to try to save American lives?

That seems to be the position some are adopting. I don't see how the RIAA can't be admitting to something equivalent to breaking-and-entering in this business. How can we say that the government, where we have representation, is bound in this area -- but it's perfectly all right for a hostile corporate concern to charge right in? Nothing against corporations, but the government works for me, at least in theory. The RIAA doesn't, not even in theory.

IO

IO:

Greyhawk explains information operations:

I have a gun. You have a gun. I can talk you into setting that gun down, or I can shoot you.

I say we give peace a chance.

That's about the size of it. Meanwhile, Bill Roggio explains why what he's doing isn't IO, and why al Qaeda's efforts to influence the debate aren't equivalent to military IO anyway. Hint: they're mostly doing it by killing people, rather than placing stories.

Mao

The Chairman:

On the campus of Zhejiang University, there is a giant golden statue of Chairman Mao, his arm raised as if in benediction over China's budding young scholars. I remember looking at it in astonishment; but of course it has to exist. China is not ready to deal with the truth about the man.

MilBlogger GI Korea quotes an article from the University of California at Berkeley, which considers the 112th birthday of the Chairman.

“He is written in the constitution as the guiding force for China,” she says, “and it is also illegal to oppose Mao.” She says because Beijing withholds the truth about Mao, younger generations who did not live under him have no other choice than to accept a distorted view of the leader. “The regime is determined to perpetuate the myth of Mao,” Chang says.

Simon's rebuttal, cited above under "the truth," points out that the benefits China now enjoys come exclusively from those areas in which it has been undoing Mao's work. It also includes an editorial comment on which I'd like to further comment:

Leaders like President Hu Jintao copied Mao, he said, travelling to villages in the countryside [Where else would villages be? - Ed.], and emphasised MAo's achievements in making China strong"

"Countryside" is a word I actually had a lot of trouble conveying in China. I worked hard with my students to give them an understanding that I was not from a city. "Then you are from a village," they said. "No, not from a village," I said. "I lived out away from any villages or towns or cities, in the land that was being used for raising cattle and timber." We went around on this for quite a while until they finally decided on the appropriate word in Mandarin to describe the setup. Then, they all nodded with understanding and went on their way.

I checked the word against my Chinese-English dictionary when I got home. It translated as, "Wasteland." In a sense, this neatly captures the Chinese worldview. The city is the center of the landscape, with villages existing to support it. The countryside which is not used to support the city is wasted.

In the larger scale, that same view holds China as properly the center of the world, with tributary states existing to support it. What is not part of that system is also wasted: barbarian.

Xinhua has a roundup from within China of appropriately devout pieces. This includes a reader comments section of a sort: unlike on a Western blog, it is plainly only selected reader comments. Still, this one got through:

Whoever enables the Chinese people to have enough to eat, people will remember him.

In Mao's "Great Leap Forward," as this sympathetic treatment recounts, some twenty-five million people starved. Even the authors of that piece must conclude that:

After the death of Mao and the start of Chinese economic reform under Deng Xiaoping the tendency within the Chinese government was to see the Great Leap Forward as a major economic disaster and to attribute it to the cult of personality under Mao Zedong and to regard it as one of the serious errors he made after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

One hopes the commenting "netizen" is aware of this history, and his "praise" is therefore ironic.

ACLU/Reasonable

Reasonable Men:

Southern Appeal considers analysis of a decision that came out of the Sixth Circuit court. It's another "Ten Commandments" case, and the language is both unusual and rather harsh:

In an interesting decision from the 6th Circuit, the Court did not accept the ACLU's argument that the First Amendment requires separation of Church and State. Specifically, the Court affirmed the posting of the Ten Commandments in the Mercer County Court house. Some quotes of interest:

"Our concern is that of the reasonable person. And the ACLU, an organization whose mission is 'to ensure that . . . the government [is kept] out of the religion business,' does not embody the reasonable person."

"We will not presume endorsement from the mere display of the Ten Commandments. If the reasonable observer perceived all government references to the Deity as endorsements, then many of our Nation's cherished traditions would be unconstitutional, including the Declaration of Independence and the national motto. Fortunately, the reasonable person is not a hyper-sensitive plaintiff."

I think that's right, not only from a legal but from a historical perspective. The ACLU is advocating a position that belonged, properly, to Jefferson and a few others -- which is to say, it is an honorable position deeply rooted in American history. On the other hand, it was a minority position among the Founders, many of whom were deeply religious and felt a need to be guided by and to express their faith in their work.

The reading of the First Amendment as requiring the separation of church and state doesn't come from the intention of the First Amendment, which was written to prevent the establishment of an official state church to which one would have to swear oaths, such as existed in England and Ireland. It's reasonably clear from a historical perspective that "the Founders," if they could be summoned from the grave and asked to rule on the matter, would not ratify a "separation of church and state" reading. Jefferson would advocate it, as he did advocate it (at least, presuming that nothing in the next world had changed his opinion on the subject). Most of his contemporaries, including Washington, would not (again, presuming the same thing).

I don't think the ACLU is unreasonable to advocate for Jefferson's position. While they may not be acting as "reasonable observers" of history or public opinion, they are certainly reasonably reading the existing precedents.

However, the alternative reading is also not unreasonable -- far from it. A reasonable observer would have to read the history of the First as expressing very strong support for this position. Consider the weight of history, and the continuance of public opinion in support of that reading from the Founding to the present day. It seems right to say that such a broad and ancient current will but naturally cut a channel: a line of thinking so broad and old will find a way to express itself. I suspect the law will make room for it, sooner or later.

Christmas Humor

Christmas Humor:

A surprising piece of Christmas-related humor can be found at Captain's Quarters.

It's an excellent example of understated, tongue-in-cheek humor.

Ghost stories

Ghost Stories:

Christmas isn't usually the time for ghost stories, excepting of course the one called Spiritus Sancti in the Latin. Nevertheless, I'll beg your indulgence to convey a story my father just told me which is -- in its important parts -- entirely true.

Many years ago, a pair of young boys were killed here in Forsyth County. It was a terrible murder, the details of which I will not relate. In those days, there was a great deal of overlap between the Sheriff's department and the Volunteer Fire Department, both in terms of work and in terms of the men who did the work. Both always showed up at car wrecks, for example, and fires, and a lot of the deputies were also volunteers. For that reason, they didn't always keep clear lines of separation between what was technically "Fire Department" property, and what was property of the sheriff. This is how the records of the investigation of the murder ended up in the attic of Station #4.

We fast forward here to the current day. There's a young fireman who shall remain nameless here, who while brave enough to fight fires nevertheless has a thing about ghosts. Station #4 is now a manned station with paid firemen, not just the volunteers of thirty years ago. These guys have a lot of time on their hands, and that includes time to prowl through the attic and find the records. They young fireman begins to get creeped out that the gruesome records and photos are in the building where he sleeps while on shift.

Well, naturally the older firemen begin to relate -- that is to say, invent -- tales of the ghosts of these two young boys, who are supposedly in the attic. And then, having that time on their hands, they start thinking of ways to make it worse for the kid than just telling him stories. One of them rigs the drop-ceiling panels with a line, so that he can pull on it in a hidden location and cause the ceiling tiles to jump around when the kid is alone in a room. Naturally, he freaks out; and naturally, 'no one believes him' when he conveys the story.

The day before the next night when he's due to sleep over on shift, these same guys go and get some of that fire-hydrant paint that glows in the dark. They put a light coat around certain parts of the roof and attic entrances. During the day, it blends in fine with the regular paint, but after the lights are turned off, there's an eerie glow about the entry to the attic...

Oh, my. I haven't laughed so hard in months. All I can say is, I hope their good deeds as firemen make up for what they're doing to that poor kid.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

We come together
  once a year
Family and friends
  gather to hear
The story of a
  child's birth.

Born to a teenage
  woman in an
Ancient town. Her
  new husband a man
Gone there to enroll
  for tax-census.

A busy inn, no place
  of privacy for
The business of birth.
  no place? after
A moment's thought,
  they enter the stable.

The travails and joys
  of birth have been
Told thousands of times
  by thousands of women.
Yet this birth was fraught
  with secret import.

Tales of angels, tales
  of special signs
In the heavens. strange
  visitors with fine
Gifts in this little
  hamlet of Judea.

A surprising life and a
  shocking death await
This little baby boy.
  this day we meet,
To honor the baby who
  changed the world.

JMB salaries

No Christmas Bonus, I Guess:

The Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh pays monthly salaries, according to this report from the Independent of Bangladesh. That's pretty good for a banned organization that is allegedly being hunted high and low by the authorities. You'd think they'd divide spoils when they could.

It makes one wonder if there's anything to the statements of the opposition parties, led by the Awami League, that JMB is in league with the government. Two of the three parties involved in the coalition are Islamic. On the other hand, the Awami League are communists. Based on my experience looking over such things, I'd have to say that it's hard to choose whether to prefer the word of an Islamic political party, or a communist political party. The most likely condition is that both are outright deceiving you.

Fortunately, our own political parties adhere to far higher standards... well, at least, some of their members do. Some of them, even most of the time.

Christmas

Merry Christmas:

Time for a long winter's nap for me, it being just about midnight. To be the shortest days of the year, these have been some lengthy days for me, which explains the light posting. I hope you're all enjoying your Yuletide.

Breath

America Holds Her Breath:

It seems that way, on Christmas Eve. This has been a most eventful trip. I've had work to do, plenty of it -- more even than usual, when "usual" is plenty. In addition to that, which I've tried to get done by morning and night, there's been family and visiting and many adventures. I mentioned the adventure of the crossbow, but not the wizard of broad brimmed hats (a gentleman of eighty, one of the last sixteen independent hatmakers in America; he cleaned and repaired my grandfather's Stetson and dated it to the mid-1940s based on the bash and the leather in the hatband). Nor did I mention rescuing the maiden (a young lady of five winters' age, who had managed to lodge herself knees-under-chin in a metal trash can. No, I don't know how). There have been other things too, which have filled both day and night.

I hope you're all having a wonderful time. Good luck to you all, and all you hold dear.

Xbow

Life Gets Worse:

Uncle Steve just dropped by on his way down to Florida, and gave the boy an early Christmas gift: a crossbow. As a consequence, I have learned today that a German Shepherd dog can jump sideways if called upon to do so.

Patriot Wall

I Agree With Jimbo:

These guys are doing great work. This is just what we needed to deal with Fred Phelps et al -- a group of patriotic bikers to act as a shield.

Furn

At Last:

A furniture design after my own heart. I assumed at first that the "safe bedside table" would be a bedside table with a built-in safe, which would also be cool for the same purpose.

Post for Wife

A Post for my Wife:

The next time you get around to reading the blog, I think you'll enjoy this link.

Mother

A Belle's Weather:

It's been a while since I mentioned my mother. The last time was in regard to the 2004 election, when I was very surprised to learn that she was going to be a Bush voter: a self-described liberal feminist and deeply anti-war by sentiment, the sort of person who openly worries that America has become the great tyrant of the world, nevertheless she understood that John Kerry could not be trusted on national defense. I posited at the time that, if Kerry had lost my mother, he had lost a lot of people who ought to have been Democrat voters in 2004. Indeed, I remain sure that a Democrat who could be taken seriously on defense -- Lieberman, perhaps, since Zell wouldn't run -- would have easily won.

I talked to her last night about the NSA spying business. What's it about? It's about the NSA spying, without warrants, on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists. "That's what I want the President to do!" she said, quite emphatically.

Since she says so, I must hold that the matter is settled as a political question. If you've lost my mother, you cannot win on this ground.

Iraq Election Results

Iraq Election Results:

InstaPundit has several links to some early hand-wringing over the Iraqi Election results. I'm disinclined to it myself. Publius in particular feels that a worsened civil war is likely.

Well, perhaps it is. It seems more likely to me, however, that Iraq's tribal factions will prefer an alternative to war if one can be found. The early American process seemed to teeter at all times on the brink of collapse, and yet managed time and again to achieve breakthrough compromises at the last minute. In the second American Constitutional process, which we normally call Reconstruction, again there were rejectionists and people who threatened violence at every turn. Eventually, the constitutional process absorbed them -- and through it, they won enough concessions to satisfy them. I have long felt that Reconstruction was the best model for understanding the situation in Iraq, and I still think so.

I suspect that we will see a similar process at work here, the hot rhetoric notwithstanding: anyone who has ever watched haggling in the traditional fashion knows that the rhetoric can get very hot indeed, and yet both parties know from the start of the transaction that the one fellow is going to buy what the other is selling.

The Sunnis will bargain hard for the things they want and can't get through simple votes, because they are a minority. Yet they have been bargaining all along, using violence and insurgency. The political process, though turbulent, is nevertheless an improvement.

Indeed, the fact that the religious parties did well is a good sign even though it is worrying some observers. It means that they have a stake in the process, and even the biggest stake. While pushing for changes to the Iraqi constitution, they yet now must be defenders of the basic constitutional order. This is particularly true for the Sunnis, who have heretofore been the chief insurgents. As a political faction, they can wield the power of a protected minority in order to win compromises from the central government. The local control of their tribal homelands is assured, so what they are bargaining for is "extras" they would like. Like the Redemptionists of the American South, that local control is their main desire. They wish to protect their way of life as they see it.

If they abandon the constitution and go back to insurgency as a primary means, they could easily end up losing that control. Just as the South of 1878 had no desire to return to military occupation, so the Sunnis will not wish to see a return of major counterinsurgency operations in their cities. It cannot serve them; they will not wish to see Iraqi Army units, commanded by a Shi'ite government, occupying their cities. They know that the Marines were very gentle by comparison. Thus they will pull back from the brink. However hot the rhetoric gets, and in spite of the occasional "night riding," they will stand behind the shield the political process offers them. Therefore that process will take hold, in spite of and because of the suspicions and aspirations of the factions.

Christmas Presents

Christmas Presents:

For five years, ever since we moved to China, from time to time my wife would look frantic and go searching through all our things. We left a lot of stuff behind us when we left, donated to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. We left in a bit of a hurry, what with graduate examinations and final papers. There was a lot of confusion. I'm still not sure exactly what we left behind, except that it included a fifth of Jameson Irish Whiskey, as a gift to the charity workers who came to take it away. They deserve gifts too -- perhaps more than most.

These last few years, though, every six months or so she'd tear through everything we owned as if looking one more time would change things. Her Girl Scout patch jacket was what she missed the most; and her father's jacket that he'd given her, which he'd worn in World War II. Her cashmire scarf, which was her grandmother's. All lost. Looking again never changed anything, and I never knew why she did. It just meant two days in tears for her, every time.

Tonight I went up into my father's attic, to gather up the Christmas decorations and bring them down again. He'd have done it himself, but recently he decided he couldn't make the climb on the ladder. No matter. I was here to do it.

Up in one distant, dusty corner I found two bags marked "Jackets." My wife is crying again tonight, but it's OK this time.

Merry Christmas.

Travel

Holiday Travel:

Yesterday, I spent more than eleven hours making a trip from Virginia to Georgia. The actual flight from the one place to the other was smooth and easy, and took an hour and a half. The rest of the time? It was spent fighting traffic to the airport, fighting traffic from the airport, getting through security, and standing in lines. It takes almost ten times as long to get to and from the flight as to take the flight.

The TSA guys were great, don't get me wrong. The operation is really shaping up -- which it should be, since it's been four years since 9/11 increased security procedures. Still, they deserve credit. They did their best to get people through quickly, they were polite, and several of them spent some time making faces and laughing with little Beowulf. I really appreciate their professionalism and good cheer.

I'll be down in Georgia for two weeks (the traditional Yuletide of Twelve Days, plus travel). I'm still working my regular job, of course, because operations never stop. Still, if any of you are passing through North Georgia, let me know.