Back to the future.

Just keep clicking.

I'm of an age where I only saw this stuff in old magazines. I wonder what it was like to see it all the first time.

I bet James Lileks would like this.

They shot the Donkeys too.

Michael Yon, who proves once again that he is the equal of any reporter working for a 'real' news service, posts this dispatch recounting Iraqi and American forces cleaning up after after Al-Queda has evidently liquidated members of a village near Baqubah.

Congrats Mike

Congrats, Mike!

A happy day for Mike the Marine, who is a new father. Mike is a long-time friend of the Hall, and in fact is the guy who taught me how to install comment code on the blog, back before Blogger had such things. So, all these great discussions we have? They're his doing, in a way.

All the best, Mike, all the best.

Retention Survey

Officer Retention Survey:

This morning, I and a bunch of younger officers had to take a survey sponsored by the Army Research Institute, aimed at job satisfaction for junior officers (junior in rank; some of us are not so junior in age). The results, I'm told, will be out in a month or two. The purpose is to help figure out why so many pre-majors leave the Army, and find ways to convince them not to.

The multiple-choice questions were about what you'd expect. There were many variants on (1) are you afraid to leave the Army because of money? (2) do you learn more from your leaders and peers as opposed to Army-provided training materials? (3) how impressed were you with your most recent supervisor? (4) how impressed are you with your current training? (5) how much do you think the Army really really cares about you and your job? and (6) do you think of yourself as a natural take-charge leader type? There were two questions I didn't like, about whether you'd advise someone else, male or female, to join the Army (insufficient data there). There were also sections on whether you think you owed the Army various things (mostly extra efforts and commitment; I answered mostly "agree" or "strongly agree") and whether the Army owed you various things (mostly personal attention, flexible work hours, recognition, etc.; I answered "disagree" or "strongly disagree" on just about everything except leadership). There were some good questions about your source of commission, whether you were from a military family, and so forth; but in the main the focus was on "What kind of things is the Army giving you?" as opposed to, "What else is the source of your commitment?"

There was a section at the end to write what you pleased about the subject matter of the survey. I put something like this:

I joined the Army to support the war effort. I don't believe the Army should attempt to attract too many selfish officers. A leader who is obsessed with his own pay, education, and benefits is NO INSPIRATION. Such people are poisonous, and I am glad not to have worked for many of them.

Frankly, I can't comprehend anyone who would sign up in wartime for benefits alone, or even mainly for that reason; but I don't think I want to be led by people like that in any event. Some years ago, I read a Wall Street Journal article on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, which suggested that the SDF had a lot of trouble recruiting when their ads emphasized pay and benefits; and did somewhat better when they emphasized the challenges and hardships.

Thoughts?

Congrats, Doc

Congrats, Doc:

Having mentioned Doc Russia in the last post, I should point out that he has completed his internship. At last, he and his beloved wife will be reunited. I've never met the lady, but the little I've seen of her on the blog suggests that he's a very lucky man. I think she and my own wife would like each other a lot.

Another meme

Another Meme:

I have noticed that almost every one of these things that gets to me comes from Cass or FbL. So here's another one.

* Post these rules before we give you the facts.
* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged need to write their own post about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of their post, they choose eight people to tag and list their names.
* Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

As always, I will not be tagging anyone else. Anyone who wants, however, is welcome to play.

Eight random facts (that you don't already know? Hmm):

1) I totalled my first car at the age of sixteen, while trying to take a curve at the top of a Georgia hill faster than... well, more than twice as fast as the speed limit allows. However, now that I'm older, I rarely drive over the speed limit at all.

2) I've lived in the outright wilderness, on the edge of the wilderness, in rural cattle country, in a suburb (Germantown, MD), a small town (Warrenton, VA), a small city (Savannah, GA), a medium-sized city (Atlanta, GA) and an Asian-stytle dense city (Hangzhou, China).

3) I prefer revolvers to semi-automatics, single-actions to double-actions, and knives to firearms. The simpler the thing, the more reliable.

4) I love to cheat at poker -- though not against an unsuspecting opponent, but as part of the game. If you can catch me and accurately explain how it happened, I'll be glad to forfeit the pot. (If you ask me not to cheat at cards, however, I will keep my word not to do so).

5) On the advice of Doc Russia, about two years I took up smoking cigars -- though fewer than one a month, on average. I prefer the Indian Tabacc Company's Cameroon Legend. That is to say, I almost never smoke, but once in a while on a quiet evening, with the whiporwill singing in the trees, a smoke can be a great pleasure.

6) I love to cook. I've written about cooking outdoors, but I like to cook inside as well. I most often make bread, beer, steaks and chilis, barbecued ribs (Texas style, with a dry rub but no sauce), pizza from scratch, fire-grilled vegetables marinated in olive oil, and a wide variety of Mexican-style foods. Also, chuck-wagon cookery: biscuits, beans, bacon, and beef.

7) I also love to sing. I can sing a lot of different songs, but most of them fall into one of three categories: Irish songs, cowboy songs, and patriotic songs.

8) My favorite sport is Professional Bull-Riding. I myself, however, only ride horses (although some of them are as nearly as big as the bulls), and not in the rodeo. We didn't have rodeo in Georgia when I was a kid, though it's all over the place now. I think, if I'd grown up with it, I'd have been a steer-wrestler. As it is, though, I've never learned to do more with a horse than teach it to ride trails and cross-country, and to use them for working. I can teach a dog to do just about anything, but as a horse trainer, those are my limits.

Fri Lyrics

Friday Lyrics:

I'm not sure why on Friday, but it's a habit of Cassidy's. And why not?

When I woke up I was all alone
With a broken heart and a ticket home.
And I ask you now, tell me what would you do
If her hair was black and her eyes were blue?
'Cause I've travelled around,
I've been all over this world,
Boys, I ain't never seen nothin' like a Galway girl.

Dangerous Old Men

Dangerous Old Men:

Looks like the work on improving our social harmony is proceeding apace. Let's look at some examples from just the last week.

You probably saw the 72-year-old former Marine beat down the pickpocket. There is video of that one, so it got a lot of attention.

But did you see the Vietnam-era Paratrooper who took out a far more dangerous thug? A crazed White Supremacist who had already killed a man, armed with a gun and a knife, tried to rob the sandwich shop our former soldier was in. Airborne!

And then, this story from Kim's site:

One gunman is dead and another is in critical condition after they tried to rob a sandwich store and were shot by an armed customer Wednesday night, authorities said.

Donicio Arrindell, 22, of North Lauderdale, and Fredrick Gadson, 21, of Fort Lauderdale, entered a Subway restaurant at 1949 N. Pine Island Rd. and demanded money at gunpoint about 11:17 p.m., said Detective Robert Rettig, a police spokesman.

They then attempted to rob the lone customer, John Lovell, 71, of Plantation, by forcing him into the restroom, but Lovell, who was legally armed, pulled his gun and fired, police said....

A man who said he was a friend of Lovell's described him as a "quiet Clint Eastwood-type you don't want to mess with."

"They just happened to pick on the wrong guy at the wrong time," said Wesley White of Yulee in north Florida. White said he's known Lovell for 19 years.

Lovell is a former Marine who was a member of the helicopter detail that transported Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, White said. He also was a former Pan Am and Delta airline pilot who worked out regularly and was in good condition, White said.

"He's also one heck of a shot," White, 50, said.

This is a good start. Lots more like this, if you please.

Reading Faces.

Virginia Postrel has a post on the 1930's photogragher-to-the-stars George Hurrel.

Postrel says:

...Not even the most gifted photographer can create charisma with only lights and a retouching pencil. Hurrell didn’t invent Joan Crawford’s drive or Jean Harlow’s sexuality. Rather, he encouraged the stars to reveal their innerselves to his lens. Then he intensified their defining qualities, while creating mystery with light and shadow.

True enough for clearly defined personas as Crawford and Harlow (though, as the article goes on to explain, less so for Garbo). But I'm skeptical at how reliably something as genetically determined as facial appearance can reveal character. Maybe we want to believe we can see character in a good portrait, because that would suggest we can accurately judge character from the faces we see every day.

Still, there's something to seeing a person's character in their face, I think.

Just take a look at a mug shot sometime.

This article also made me remember something I stumbled across, here. Yes, Kim, that last photo does show just that.

More of Hurrell's photo's can be seen (and even bought!) here. Check out Norma. Whoa.

Busy

Long Pause:

I know I haven't said anything here since Sunday. I have said things elsewhere; but not on the front page. I'll link back to a few of them.

I've been badgering people to study some military science. This is not a new proposition for us, as longtime readers will recall.

Although today I feel a bit bad about it, given Reid's statement on Republican obstructionism.

Senate Republicans delayed debate on Iraq for weeks… “For weeks, Republican leaders have used procedural maneuvers to delay a debate over Iraq” (The New York Times, 03/27/07)

…and 480 soldiers have lost their lives since the President’s failed surge strategy began. (Department of Defense Casualty Reports)

My customary reserve on this matter is hereby exhausted. Twelve days into the surge, a high-risk fight in which our soldiers are daring valiant things... and this piece of rhetoric is thought worthy of a minor appearance in a complaint over Senatorial maneuvers.

There are no civil words to convey my feelings about this. The man lies in his throat. Those of you who know me well enough will understand what I mean.

On a happier note, the RCT-6 email project was successful, reaching the full six thousand requested emails. That is good; that is fit.

Finally, one of my earlier pieces has apparently drawn Matthew Yglesias fans to attack an old piece I wrote on the South and Western High Culture. I've been as generous as I prefer to be, until the last answer, which was based on the foolish assertion that the American South has no more link to Western culture than to the Mongols. Seriously.

If that was your point, forgive my saying so, it is without value.

I believe one of your fellows has already mentioned Mark Twain's disgusts with his homeland. One of the particular features of that disgust was his hatred of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and Tennyson's Idylls of the King. He was furious to find New Orleans enchanted, as he said, by it:

"Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single might checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the world in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms of religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; with the sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham guads, and sham chivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society."

So you may have Mark Twain, and his cynical opinions; I myself credit him a great writer, but do not wish to emulate his deep personal misery. But if you will have him and his critique, you must also have its foundations. The tie between the South and the great British writers of the 19th century was the tie between themselves and the Medieval order of chivalry; and the tie to that is the tie to Aquinas, and past him, to Aristotle and Jerusalem.

You are free, as Twain, to scorn it. But there it lies.

Regular readers will realize that Sir Walter Scott's collected works appear on the sidebar; Twain's do not. I am a Southerner, and a proud one; but first, a man of the West.

TX Links

Texas Links:

Miss Ladybug went to a baseball game designed to honor the military. Sounds like a pleasant few hours in good company.

A discussion at the Commissar's reminded me of the old Confederate Air Force. There has been a slight name change -- apparently senses of humor are in short supply these days -- but the organization still does some fine work.

Communism = Evil

Communism is Evil:

The Geek is perfectly right, of course:

Enlightened Americans know better, and would no sooner wear a Communist Star than a Nazi Swastika. And yet, Cameron Diaz had to go all the way to Peru for someone to call her on it.

The refusal to look Communism in the face is not limited to America's, er, self-declared elite. A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece on Communist symbolism, based on having lived in China. The Chinese are not ready to face the truth about Mao, or Communism, either.

On the other hand, it is true that Lenin was a master in certain disciplines.

Don't bring a gun to a knife fight.

Or, if you do, make sure you know how to use the gun.

This guy evidently did not.

An armed robber is hospitalized after employees at a West Virginia pizzeria stabbed him several times.

Hat tip: Don Surber.

Congress ! America

A Congress That Has No Use for America:

For example, even the Speaker of the House can't tell a Canadian uniform from an American one.

Another example: Congressional staffers hate Americans, whether those who dare to tour the capital, or those who oppose their favored policies.

That crisis point is getting close. The political class deserves what is coming. The rest of us must prepare, that what follows the crisis upholds the values and traditions of our great American way.

The Collapse

The Collapse:

Almost a year ago, I wrote a long piece called "Time for a Change." Cassandra spent a week responding to it (starting here). It began:

I was talking to my dear friend Sovay tonight, and as always, talking with her helped to shake things loose that I haven't been able to put into words before. We were talking about the Foley situation, and I heard myself saying something I realize I believe: I have lost all confidence in the Federal institutions governing our country, with the sole exception of the military.

Today, America has arrived to the same place:

Consider the latest Gallup Poll, which finds only 14 percent of the American people have "a great deal of" confidence in Congress or "quite a lot," compared to 19 percent a year ago. That is lowest confidence rating Gallup has ever recorded for Congress since the survey firm began measuring public confidence in major American institutions in 1973.

Congress is far from alone in suffering plummeting confidence ratings. The presidency dropped from 33 percent to 25 percent and the Supreme Court from 40 percent to 34 percent. The "fourth branch" of government, the mainstream media, also has declining public confidence ratings. Television news dropped from 31 percent to 23 percent, while newspapers were down to 22 percent, compared to 30 percent a year ago.

The highest confidence levels were for the military at 69 percent[.]

Last year, I said I thought we needed a Constitutional convention. I still think we do. It might be worth reviewing the old piece, though, to see if a year's thinking yields additional ideas. If anyone would like to discuss it, so would I.

Rodeo Song

Rodeo Song:

Cause you were World Saddle Bronc Champion
Back in Nineteen and Forty-Six
Pass the Hat, boys... he's gone.

We gonna carve him a marker
With classic spur links
So they'll know, here lies the great
Jerry Ambler.

From "Jerry Ambler," by Ian Tyson with Gord Maxwell and Gord Matthews.

Bloodspite remembers a childhood hero. Here lies the great Jim Shoulders, "The Babe Ruth of Rodeo," cowboy and minister.

Racism

More on Racism:

Today I was looking at the Georgia tourist board page, and noticed something odd: there appear to be no photos of black people, even in the photos of south and central Georgia, which are heavily black in their populations. The sole exception I've found is the page on Civil Rights history; otherwise, not one page I've looked at, whether it shows single people or group shots, includes any blacks at all.

Not even the photo from Underground Atlanta. I mean, this isn't an accident. That must have taken some doing.

I presume this is a marketing decision, as I was telling Cassandra earlier today, because there are also no photos of fat or unattractive people (which would also take some doing at Underground). I presume they think that means that most people with money to spend on a vacation in America won't want to see any black (or fat) people.

That says something about the continuing relevance of "unconscious racism," lest the last post be taken as dismissing the concept. Of course it exists; it just seems to me that a man ought to be judged by his actions, not his desires.

Racism

Tyranny, Racism, and Anti-Racism:

An interesting point from Reflecting Light, on the dangers posed by anti-racism when it becomes an overriding concern. Without endorsing the evils of racism, freedom demands a certain amount of just leaving people alone -- even when they are wrong; or even when they're right, but only because they take time to think about it:

Candidates are asked to put images of black and white faces into categories of "good/positive" and "bad/negative" using arrow keys on the keyboard. By getting them to respond to prompts as quickly as possible, the test aims to side-step what is known as "cognitive control" - the brief, but significant time lapse needed to give an "acceptable" answer rather than an instinctive or "honest" one. The programme then automatically calculates a "response-index" that indicates a level of racial bias.

The test is being developed at London Metropolitan University and is aimed at the public sector and multinational companies. Its developers say it is harder to deceive than many of the psychometric tests used to gauge personality type. The test was condemned last night as a potential "Kafkaesque nightmare" where individuals are penalised for thoughts in their deep subconscious.

The blogger notes that the test is designed to be made available to employers. "In other words," he says, "you can be rejected for employment because of ideas you've never expressed, and that you don't even know you have." But isn't it the keenest expression of virtue to do right in spite of having a drive to do wrong?

Robert Conquest, the great historian of the incalculable damage inflicted on humanity by the Communist and Nazi regimes, has pointed out that these disasters arose not primarily from inherent social problems, but from solutions — solutions that hardened into ideologies, then one-party states based on those ideologies, then into tyranny.

This is something that ought to be considered carefully. Someone who has chosen consciously to do the right thing ought not to be punished, for some deep but unacted-upon impulse. This should be true for racism, for alcoholism, or for a drive to spend the rent on gambling. If what you do is right, that ought to be more than enough.

H/t: Roach.

DBB

The Dangerous Book for Boys:

Glenn Reynolds was recently taken to task by someone or other for having referenced The Dangerous Book for Boys 'a disturbing 17 times.' I found a copy at a bookstore down in Atlanta today, and picked it up to look it over.

I bought it. Anybody who thinks it is 'disturbing' to talk a lot about this book either hasn't seen it, or doesn't have any idea what a boy needs to know to become a good young man.

Enthusiasm isn't my usual thing, so let me just say: this book is the best book for boys that I've ever read, and better than I thought any such book could be. It has very nearly everything: how to make a paper airplane. How to talk to girls. Short descriptions of several of the world's greatest battles, with illustrations of unit positions. How to identify common insects. The Declaration of Independence, with a proper reference to the Declaration of Arbroath and a history of Robert the Bruce. How to build a treehouse. Three sections on proper grammar (the introduction to the first reads, quite rightly, 'It is suprising how satisfying it can be to know right from wrong'). "A Short History of Artillery." An introduction to Shakespeare.

How to build a bow an arrow from scratch; how to hunt, kill, clean and cook a rabbit; and how to tan its hide.

Scipio Africanus. Land Navigation. How to play poker, and calculate the odds.

Seventeen times? A hundred times would not be too often.

UPDATE: Miss Ladybug has another book for younger boys.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day:

It hasn't been a great one here; but that is part of fatherhood, too.

Dad29 links to a unpopular speaker, quoting another -- apparently the only person ever thrown off the Oprah show. Here's what he said:

There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs.

OK, that's explosive. It manages to link the two most dangerous topics in America -- race and sex -- in a way that both endorses an unpopular viewpoint, and asserts that there is no other good alternative.

Let me repost, in honor of Father's Day and in the hope of relocating the discussion to firmer ground, an old post called "Social Harmony."

I was reading an article the other day, in the local newspaper, about an elderly Korean gentleman who has moved into town and opened a martial arts studio. He chastened the reporter who had come to interview him not to suggest that the martial arts were 'all about fighting.' "No!" he said. "The purpose is social harmony."

That is exactly right. The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem.

But do we not try to discipline and guide the others? If we catch them at their menace, don't we put them into prisons or programs where they are monitored, disciplined, and exposed to "rehabilitation"? The rates of recidivism are such that we can't say that these programs are successful at all, unless the person being "rehabilitated" wants and chooses to be. And this is the other half of the answer: the discipline and guidance must be voluntarily accepted. The Marine enlists; the criminal must likewise choose to accept what is offered.

The Eastern martial arts provide an experience very much like that of Boot Camp. The Master, like the Drill Instructor, is a disciplined man of great personal prowess. He is an exemplar. He asks nothing of you he can't, or won't, do himself--and there are very many things he can and will do that are beyond you, though you have all the help of youth and strength. It is on this ground that acceptance of discipline is won. It is the ground of admiration, and what wins the admiration of these young men is martial prowess.

Everyone who was once a young man will understand what I mean. Who could look forward, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, to a life of obedience, dressed in suits or uniforms, sitting or standing behind a desk? How were you to respect or care about the laws, or the wishes, of men who had accepted such a life? The difficulty is compounded in poor communities, where the jobs undertaken are often menial. How can you respect your father if your father is a servant? Would you not be accepting a place twice as low as his? Would you not rather take up the sword, and cut yourself a new place? Meekness in the old men of the community unmakes the social order: it encourages rebellion from the young.

The traditional martial arts tend to teach young men to undertake flashy and impressive, but not terribly effective, fighting techniques. Only as you grow older do the masters of the art teach you the real secrets--the subtle, quick, physically simple ways in which the human body can be destroyed. In this way, the old retain their power over the young--although they lack the speed and strength, they have in discipline in training more than enough to maintain the order. Social harmony is maintained in the dojo: the young revere the old, and seek to emulate them. Your father may be a servant, but he is still a warrior--and a more dangerous one than you. The father, being past that age in which biology makes us vicious, guides the son or neighbor to protect society rather than to rend it. It is not particularly different in the military.

If we would have a stable society, we must have dangerous old men. This means that, if you are yourself on your way to becoming an old man, you have a duty to society to begin your preparations. The martial arts are not the only road--my own grandfather did it through a simple combination of physical strength, personal discipline, and an accustomed habit of going armed about his business. There was never a more impressive figure--or, at least, there was never a boy more impressed than was I.

The martial virtues are exactly the ones needed. By a happy coincidence, having a society whose members adhere to and encourage those virtues makes us freer as well--we need fewer police, fewer courts, fewer prisons, fewer laws, and fewer lawyers. This is what Aristotle meant when he said that the virtues of the man are reflected in the society. Politics and ethics are naturally joined.

Happy Father's Day.