A Ray of Hope in Palestine?

A Ray of Hope in Palestine?

One of the reasons I support the democracy project in the Middle East is the idea that most peoples (broadly speaking), given the chance to choose their leaders, will not elect governments that support terrorism and aggressive war. Another is that, if any voting public does support these things, democracy gives the public a way to stop them when they tire of them. Any war stops when someone's will to fight ends: the Soldiers', the military leadership's, the civilian leadership's, or, in a democracy, the voting public's.

So far, the results in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hopeful in this regard. The depressing counterexample has been the Palestinian Authority. Given the chance to form whatever political parties they pleased, and vote as they liked, the Palestinians threw virtually all their support to Hamas and Fatah, terrorist parties both. Yesterday, James Taranto linked to this story about a new Palestinian party, one that supports Israel's right to exist, and does not demand the "right of return." This party is explicitly Islamic, and may draw support that secular centrists cannot.

I haven't seen much commentary on this yet, and of course this new party hasn't been tried in elections, but I call it a ray of hope.

Some Links

Some Friday Reading:

Steve Dillard, better known here as Feddie of the now-retired Southern Appeal, has a letter in the American Spectator. In it he explains why Fred Thompson is his candidate of choice for 2008. I still prefer Duncan Hunter, but I appreciate the introduction to a candidate I knew little about.

I recall that some of you are young, unmarried men who might be curious about what impresses women. Fuzzybear Lioness answers your question, once and for all.

The new webcomic links include some good reading. I've been going back through the archives of Schlock Mercenary. The 4 August 2000 strip is priceless.

Since we just watched Zulu, you might be interested in several links about the British in the Coalition, and vice-versa.

Zulu

Zulu!

So. What did you think?

I'll start with this: does it make any difference that Hook was really a model soldier? An excellent film that takes unfair liberties with the life of a good man is still a remarkable work of art: but is it a moral act to make such a movie?

Discuss. :) Plus anything else you like.

"Peace" Rally in Portland:

In the comments to a post by BlackFive's Uncle Jimbo, documenting an attack on an Army recruiting center in Milwaulkee, Papa Ray left the following link. It is to some pictures of so-called peace activists burning a US soldier in effigy. Also an American flag.

I don't hold it against anyone that they're opposed to the war, for strategic reasons; I don't hold it against honest Quakers and other pacifists that they find war morally awful. Too, I am sure these idiots are a minority among the people who were demonstrating against the war -- part of that professional class of agitator, I expect.

They're using displays of this sort to try and stir up divisions among Americans, so that some of us will be mad and some of us will feel obligated to defend the behavior. The minute somebody who wouldn't burn a flag or a soldier's effigy pipes up in defense of those who did, rather than see the pro-war crowd claim the moral high ground, that burning becomes a little more acceptable in American society.

Let's not give them that. I'll respect honest differences with decent Americans who oppose the war but love the nation; in return, let's unite in condemning these scum.

Bumperstickers

Bumperstickers:

Dr. Helen has a post on bumper stickers as personality tests. This reminds me of a story.

I once drove my wife's truck into D.C. for a meeting. On the way out of town, a woman on I-66 slammed right into the back of the truck. She wasn't paying any attention at all. It wasn't a hard hit, so I climbed out and glanced down at the bumper to see if it was hurt. No obvious damage.

That done, I walked back to the other car -- a nice Lexus SUV filled with nervous, well-dressed, overweight people -- and inquired as to whether anyone was hurt.

"What?" the lady driving asked, with fear-filled eyes.

It seemed odd to me that they were so visibly frightened by a minor accident, but I put it down to adrenaline. "Is anyone hurt?" I repeated.

"No! No!" she said.

"Then let's just forget about it," I told her with a smile, and turned around to walk back to the truck.

As I was doing so, I noticed the bumper sticker my wife, in a moment of oddball humor, had plastered right across the back:

KEEP HONKING -- I'M RELOADING.

I suspect that was a lot funnier with a little brunette driving, instead of me. :)

New Links II

New Links:

Karrde has sent me his list of links, and I've re-re-fixed FbL's link to Project VALOUR-IT. With this newest set of links, I'm starting to think we may need to break out a separate section of links to online comics. Maybe I should dig up the link to Foamy the Squirrel...

Daniel

Howdy All,

I thought I would share a picture of the family as, even in a virtual hall, it's nice to know who your 'speaking' with.

Shelly, myself, Kaitlin, Emily, & Barrett

Decreased Violence. Moral Progress?

Decreased Violence. Moral Progress?

Division of Labour quotes from and links to a New Republic article (full article requires subscription) by Steven Pinker (I don't mean to subscribe but I'll see if I can find the print article this evening). The subject is a decrease in violence documented by "recent studies" - which I also mean to look for and look at when time allows. Right now I just wanted to provide the links to readers here.

This is obviously interesting in light of the opinion, shared by Grim and Daniel, that moral progress has not occurred and is not even possible. Something has changed our civilization from one in which cat-burning and bull-baiting were popular sports, into our own; something has changed slavery from a universal custom to a universal crime; something has changed our expectations of Soldiers, from predators to protectors. Perhaps these writings will improve our understanding of what that is.

This is interesting on the first half, of whether moral progress has occurred. The second half, of whether it can, will I think become moot as we learn to remake the species. But that is another story.

New Links

New Links:

Note please that the websites for Soldiers Angels and Project VALOUR-IT have changed. The sidebar has been updated with the correct information (under "Support the Troops").

Also, Joe's favorites section is now available. Karrde still hasn't sent me his. :)

Yep

Charcoal-Grilled Steaks:

Not just my menu from yesterday (plus Guinness, of course, given the holiday), but also the topic of a humorous article by Daniel Clark. I'm not familiar with the gentleman, but I will have to read more of his stuff.

The latest point of emphasis in the global warming movement is that cattle farming endangers the planet by producing too much methane. So now, steaks and hamburgers are classified as instruments of destruction, along with large vehicles, lawn mowers, and charcoal grills. It can't be much longer before cowboy movies, cigars and hockey are held to be enemies of the earth as well....

Wouldn't it be more plausible if a few items like styling gel, latte makers and tofu were said to destroy the planet as well?

The author has some valid points to make about the coalition-structure of the modern protest industry. There are quite a few people now making their livings doing this, and have been since the anti-free trade protests of the 1990s.

Thus, the global warming movement seeks to repress guyhood in order to perpetuate itself. If a guy is shown a picture of a sad-looking polar bear adrift on an ice floe, his first thought will be something like, "I've heard that bear steaks are tough, but maybe if you marinated them in beer, they'd turn out all right." At that point, the alarmists' emotional ploy is foiled.

Oddly enough, I've never eaten bear steaks. I think it may be one of the few edible animals I haven't eaten, either here or in China.

I like my elk steaks, and my venison, marinated in beer, fresh garlic, and hot pepper (cayenne or something simliar). If it's really tough, get a hotter pepper -- the acids break down the muscle fiber, but most of the "heat" of the pepper will cook out.

Wars of the Roses Trilogy at ASF

Wars of the Roses at ASF

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival has decided to show, all in one season, Shakespeare's plays dealing with the Wars of the Roses.

The problem this presents is simple enough - Richard III, the last play in the series, is one of Shakespeare's most popular; Henry VI, Part I is one of his worst and least popular (Joan of Arc is the villain). But showing Richard III by itself is dramatically incomplete, because the main characters all appeared in the previous two plays, and are continually making reference to them. Laurence Olivier's movie solved the problem by lifting a few speeches from Henry VI, Part III and simplifying the plot somewhat. The ASF solution was to collapse the first three plays into two, which they call "Henry VI, Part A" and "Henry VI, Part B." This evening, Mrs. W. and I went to see "Part B." It starts roughly in Act IV of Part II. There is some cutting and simplifying, but the best speeches are all there and the events make sense as presented.

I do recommend the production to those in striking distance of Montgomery - I would not cross the country to see it. Most of the performers pull it off. The costumes are a little strange (in particular, when fighting, the characters wear very obvious "white" and "red rose" emblems on their breasts). As of March 18, tickets are still available to all three plays (to talk to the box office, you'd think the productions were all packed; but we saw plenty of empty seats). I strongly recommend against attending the "bard talk" half an hour before the show; it contains very little to help a newcomer understand the play, the tone is condescending, and, worse, has a jolly-you-along flavor that detracts from the tragedy.

17 Mar

Happy St. Patrick's Day:

I've a post at BlackFive on the subject of an old song.

Ides of March

The Ides of March:

Today was my grandfather's birthday. He's been gone for quite a while now, long enough that I'm not really sure which birthday it would have been for him -- somewhere in the nineties. I'm going to put on his old Stetson, and repost a piece on the glory of Westerns from back in 2004. You'll see why.

Times change. The cowboy doesn't. While our culture might sell out; the cowboy stays true to his values (and his horse). Rock stars, rap stars, movie stars come and go--loudly. The cowboy remains--quietly. When our children watch the Twin Towers crumble on CNN, they worry for our security, our future, our very foundation. The cowboy represents that foundation, that self-reliance, survival instinct, and integrity. We know that he'll ride out of that dusty ruin and survive, and with the grace of God he'll get the cattle to Amarillo. There's a little bit of him in every American. That's why we need him.
John Fusco, Screenwriter; Hidalgo

My father liked to watch Westerns when I was a boy. He was a big television watcher when he was home, which was only on the weekends. His job had him up and gone before the sun rose, and the only time of the year you'd see him before sunset was the summer -- because the day was longer in the summertime. On the weekend, though, he'd be at home, working at home and car repair, and serving as a volunteer fireman, instead of doing his regular job.

He would usually find some time on Sunday afternoon to watch some television. The TV was always on when he was home, and it would usually show one of three things: a football game, a NASCAR race, or a Western movie. These were dependable features.

I had no time for Westerns -- I very much preferred Star Wars movies, more progressive, not mired in the past. We lived out on the edge of civilization, it seemed, although I knew that there was more civilization if you just kept going: run far enough from Atlanta and you'll hit Chattanooga. But there was a large swath of country that lay out beyond the uttermost suburb where you'd find cattle country and timberland. North Georgia ground isn't very good, so other forms of farming don't work well. But you can raise cattle, and you can raise short needle pine for pulpwood. This all felt very far from the action, to a boy; I recognized Luke Skywalker's complaint about being on the planet farthest from the bright center of things, and greatly admired Han Solo.

So, I would usually leave my father to his Westerns. I still spent a fair amount of time with him when he was home, though, helping him work on the cars and with other tasks around the property. He spent a lot of that time telling stories, one right after another. Almost all of them were about growing up with my grandfather, who had run a body shop and service station for long haul truckers on I-75. In the imagination of youth, it sounded a great deal like Mos Eisley: there was a cantina filled with dangerous, armed men where my young father sometimes had to go to get and carry back family friends, and which produced occasional fights and drawn guns. Hot rods as finely tuned as any starfighters had occupied my father's free time as a young man. Freightliners paused there to gas up, seeming like smugglers, hauling over their limit, often running on amphetamines as much as gasoline. High stakes poker games ran in the back, while mechanics fixed up the rigs in the bays.

In the center of it all was my grandfather, a great and heroic figure, always armed with his revolver, so fearsome that none of the dangerous men who occupied the fringes of the story ever dared to trouble him. This part of the story I knew to be perfectly realistic, for I'd met the man myself. He had no exact Star Wars comparison. Star Wars would have been a different movie with "Jack T." in it. He was big, and strong, and fearless, hard-drinking but not controlled by the whisky, dangerous but kindhearted to the weak. He took care of his family and his friends, kept the peace among those who were passing through, and ran off the ones who wouldn't abide by his rules.

I always wanted to grow up to be just like him. He was the best man I'd ever heard of or met, so I thought as a boy.

Of course you've realized by now what kind of movie features a man like that.

You never know, with stories, exactly how much is an expression of the great archetypes. A lot has been written about Star Wars archetypes: Han Solo the pirate, Obi-Wan the Wizard, Luke as the Young Hero. The most resonant fiction is built on these archetypes, which speak to the depths of the human heart.

It happens with true stories too, though. Jack T. was the Sheriff, or the Marshall; but the Sheriff in the Western is also the King. Like all of these archetypes, he can be good or bad. The Bad King is a tyrant. The Good King keeps order in the world, upholds and cares for the weak, looks out for the poor, drives off the vicious. He has the power to punish and to pardon, which is seen in every Western: the bandit is run off or killed, but the harmless town drunk is endlessly forgiven and helped in his times of particular adversity.

The world can be violent and cruel, filled both with lawful and the lawbreakers. But the stories tell us that it can also be a good place, a happy place, if there is a good King. If this is the story of the Western, it is also the story of the Beowulf, whose time as king is peaceful in spite even of the existence of dragons. His death brings wild mourning, and the folk expect both death and slavery to follow, even though the dragon was slain.

Americans don't want Kings, but we still need the man even if we don't want the office. We want a free-born man, chosen by his equals rather than by his birth -- and in this, it happens that we are following precisely in the footsteps of the Geats, whose kings were elected by the folk.

I inherited my grandfather's Stetson after he died. I wear it often, when I don't wear my own. I carry a revolver, legally and licensed in several states. I find, when I have time that I don't have to spend working, that there's little I want more than to settle in with a good Western. In this, I am just like many Americans, apparently including Doc. We are seeing in our own way the same, ancient things:

It was decidedly cool for Houston, a harbinger for the frost that would set in that night. Anyway, I was walking along in the cool of the evening with a Justin cowboy hat on my head, and Alice on my hip, when I looked up and I saw a most amazing sunset. It was all gold and burning over the rooftops. Little broad streaks of copper and gold clouds fixed high above in a sea of ultramarine blue, while I was drowned beneath in a cool breeze. It was just gorgeous. I paused from my errand for a minute, awed by a beauty that must have awed man in discrete moments throughout the ages, from ancient Greece to a greek eatery in modern Texas.

In the end, I suppose I did turn out to be just like my grandfather. I'm old enough now to know that he wasn't exactly the man who was painted for me. Having become him, I can see only too clearly some of the flaws he must have borne, which now I bear.

Also, I realize -- not quite too late -- that Jack T. was not the best man I've ever known. My father is. I wanted to be like his father not because his father was better than him, but because his father was the man he most respected and admired in the world. All I wanted was for him to respect and admire me just like that.

If the stories proved not to be completely accurate, they were nevertheless perfectly true. I may not always succeed at being a good man, but I know how. I know how to be a good man because my father told me. He told me about his father. Now I have a son, and I have to tell him. Nothing can capture the value of this gift, or the weight of this duty. I have heard only too often the laments of those who did not receive what I was given, who do not know how to pass on what I must.

The Western is our national epic. It is the way in which Americans, the ones who still remember how, pass on the eternal truths to the next generation.

Happy birthday.

Doc

In Which Doc Russia Wonders if he is a Coward:

I simply can't see it, but he seems concerned. As far as I can tell, Doc is a good man and a brave one. No doubt he is honest, however, about the reasons for his fears. I gather he and I are roughly of an age; Daniel and Eric, here, I think are as well. It is natural to have volunteered and done little enough -- myself less than any of you, due to being medical'd out straightaway -- and now watch these young Marines serving three and four tours, and wonder.

Would we have done as well, had circumstances been different, and war come in our time instead of theirs? I think the only honest answer is: I hope so. Indeed, to speak for Doc Russia, I believe so. I have no doubt of it. It is natural, though, to wonder.

UPDATE: A response to an early comment from Joe (excerpt in italics) is perhaps more useful than the original post. I trust that Doc won't take offense at my using him as a subject for philosophical inquiry; it is not meant unkindly. Insofar as he joins John Wayne and Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps he'll take it as I mean it: a recognition that I think his character is worthy of study as a useful example.

"I'm not entirely clear why that bothers him. This relates to your most excellent post on John Wayne. A brave man doesn't do things "because he is brave" -- that seems literally impossible to me -- and certainly shouldn't do them to "show that he is courageous." He does things for other reasons; but his bravery shows up in how he deals with fear and danger."

That's Aristotelian -- if you fear no danger, according to Aristotle, you're not practicing the virtue of bravery but a vice that arises from an excess of bravery (just as cowardice is the vice of having an insufficient amount of bravery). This was one of two kinds of vice he thought could arise from an excess of courage, the other being rashness:

"[H]e would be a sort of madman or insensible person if he feared nothing, neither earthquakes nor the waves, as they say the Celts do not; while the man who exceeds in confidence about what really is terrible is rash."

I'll argue that there is a sort of sacred madness at work here, of the sort also practiced by the beserker in other places and times, and which I think Doc can speak to somewhat, as you may find if you read his piece on 'the Machine.' It's something I can attest to as well -- many of us can. It isn't the normal virtue, and perhaps Aristotle is right to say it is a sort of madness. But there it is.

This is why I say I am sure Doc is no coward -- I can see from his writing that he has lived both the virtue you describe, and the madness Aristotle did. He is not apt to have forgotten either.

What I think he has is that sense of shame that arises from (as someone once said) realizing that you are limited -- there are two different things you should be doing, but you can do only one. Though you may succeed at the one you choose, that can't help but feel like failure. Indeed, you do fail one of the two duties; but you would have failed one or the other.

The Elks in Montana

The Elks in Montana:

A longtime milblog reader wrote me to ask for some help getting the word out about a war memorial his Elks lodge is building. BlackFive was kind enough to put up a post about it, which you can see here. The multimedia parts of it were a bit beyond me -- I only just figured out how to post pictures.

It's good to see the soldiers being honored in this way. Have a look.

On Consciousness:

The American Scholar has a piece in defiance of science.

While I was sitting one night with a poet friend watching a great opera performed in a tent under arc lights, the poet took my arm and pointed silently. Far up, blundering out of the night, a huge Cecropia moth swept past from light to light over the posturings of the actors. “He doesn’t know,” my friend whispered excitedly. “He’s passing through an alien universe brightly lit but invisible to him. He’s in another play; he doesn’t see us. He doesn’t know. Maybe it’s happening right now to us."

There's a lot more.

The Beautiful Eighth:

I'm starting to think the Eighth district down here in Georgia must be a fine place full of good people. My brother Southern Democrat Jim Marshall turns up again, this time on a MyDD hit list.

That's got to be a comfortable place for a Georgian to sit. I see Congressman John Barrow is on the list too, from the 12th. He didn't stand up against the "nonbinding resolution," but Jim did.

These boys are making me proud. It's good to know you're not alone in holding the line. There are a few of us left, damn few -- but a few.

Movietime.

Ok, its apparently my turn to pick a film. Although I think Joseph was angling for Conan the Barbarian, Conan is pretty much a fantasy, and really can't be taken that seriously, however much it is enjoyable. Plus, the the review that J.W. linked to pretty much sums up the movie, to point that it almost isn't worth watching.

Instead, I'm actually going to pick Zulu, the movie that dramatizes the action at Rourke's Drift, during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. This is one of those films you of which you can honestly say "They don't make them like that anymore."

When made in 1964, the British Empire was barely a memory. There were enough people who actually knew the various Victoria Cross winners from this action to get miffed at some of the dramatic license take with the characters.

When I first saw this movie as a child, I was very much impressed, not just by the story, but by the movie's treatment of both the British Soldiers and the Zulus. Plus, the production was great, what with the solid acting, great costumes and John Barry's soundtrack. Although you are obviously supposed to root for the British, the Zulus are not treated badly, though the story necessarily keeps them at a distance. There is definitely some sympathy for them.

The movie does contain what I'd call a "post Imperial" subtext running through it. See if you can pick up on this.

As an added feature, I'm adding a "Read more about it" section. The links are to very good works on the Zulus and the 1879 war.

The Washing of the Spears
Brave Men's Blood

The movie should be commonly available. Look for the widescreen format. It must have been quite impressive on the wide screen.

The Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch:

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a new batch of horses:

One of them in particular, named Sherlock, really does not like to have his feet messed with. Even now that he has shoes on, you have to rope him three different ways to clean his back feet, and he still tries to get you.

They were at one point or another broken to riding, but, ah, not all of it stuck with them all the way down to Georgia. We train horses both for Western trail riding and various English sports, and so we have several trainers who work with the animals. Our top dressage trainer got bucked right off the new mare last week, which is always hilarious as long as nobody really gets hurt.

It's getting to be a little less hilarious as time goes along. That trainer I mentioned got thrown again by one of the others, and I got bucked off one that spooked because of a dump truck. He dumped me the small of my back, right on a big chunk of quartz. After eight or ten X-rays, the doctor decided nothing was broken, but he mentioned that this was somewhat surprising under the circumstances. This is the other reason I mentioned for not blogging much last week -- I was busy taking opiates.

The thing is that these are all draft crosses. They're tall and very heavy, every one of them at least sixteen hands and 1200-1400 pounds. When they start to buck, it's almost more like bullriding than bronco riding. Getting these horses rebroken to saddle is proving to be exciting.

Here's the one I was riding today, whose name is Delaney.



Doesn't he look like a sweetheart? And he'd better behave like one, too, because he's a little bit big:



The dog's name is Penny. She really is a sweetheart.

Shadow Wolves

Shadow Wolves in Afghanistan:

You may have seen this story from the Australian, which notes that US Customs' band of Native American trackers, the Shadow Wolves, is being sent to hunt al Qaeda:

An elite group of Native American trackers is joining the hunt for terrorists crossing Afghanistan's borders.
The unit, the Shadow Wolves, was recruited from several tribes, including the Navajo, Sioux, Lakota and Apache. It is being sent to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to pass on ancestral sign-reading skills to local border units.
In recent years, members of the Shadow Wolves have mainly tracked smugglers along the US border with Mexico.

But the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan and the US military's failure to hunt down Osama bin Laden - still at large on his 50th birthday on Saturday - has prompted the Pentagon to requisition them.

US Defence Secretary Robert M.Gates said last month: "If I were Osama bin Laden, I'd keep looking over my shoulder."

The Pentagon has been alarmed at the ease with which Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters have been slipping in and out of Afghanistan. Defence officials are convinced their movements can be curtailed by the Shadow Wolves.

The unit has earned international respect for its tracking skills in the Arizona desert. It was founded in the early 1970s to curb the flow of marijuana into the US from Mexico and has since tracked people-smugglers across hundreds of square kilometres of the Tohono O'odham tribal reservation, southwest of Tucson.

Harold Thompson, a Navajo Indian, and Gary Ortega, from the Tohono reservation, are experts at "cutting sign", the traditional Indian method of finding and following minute clues from a barren landscape. They can detect twigs snapped by passing humans or hair snagged on a branch and tell how long a sliver of food may have lain in the dirt.

Ahe'ee, gentlemen. Good hunting.