Wed links

Wednesday Links:

Cap'n Smith is talking about N. Iraq. I don't get out that way, so if you're interested, see what he has to say.

If you're interested in Western Iraq, Michael Totten is out there. Greyhawk and I put him on a bird just a few days ago. Nothing yet, but keep an eye on his site.

Slate magazine: helping you conceal murder since 2007.

Knox and Sollecito were on the right track: Bleach contains sodium hypochlorite, an extremely corrosive chemical that can break the hydrogen bonds between DNA base pairs and thus degrade or "denature" a DNA sample. In fact, bleach is so effective that crime labs use a 10 percent solution (one part commercial bleach to nine parts water) to clean workspaces so that old samples don't contaminate fresh evidence. Likewise, when examining ancient skeletal remains, researchers first douse the remains in diluted bleach to eliminate modern DNA from the surface of bones or teeth.

So, why did Knox and Sollecito's bleaching gambit fail? It's difficult to swab a knife thoroughly. Dried blood can stick to the nooks and crannies in a wood handle, to the serrated edge of a blade, or become lodged in the slit between the blade and the hilt. With help from a Q-tip, it's possible to eliminate most stains, but what's not visible to the naked eye might still be visible to a microscope, and sophisticated crime labs need only about 10 cells to build a DNA profile.

Bleach is perhaps the most effective DNA-remover (though evidently no methodology is failsafe), but it's not the only option. Deoxyribonuclease enzymes, available at biological supply houses, and certain harsh chemicals, like hydrochloric acid, also degrade DNA strands. It's even possible to wipe a knife clean of DNA-laden hair follicles, saliva, and white blood cells with generic soap and warm water. The drawback to this last method is that the tell-tale cells don't just disappear once off the knife. They linger on sponges, in drains, and even in sink traps, where wily investigators search for trace evidence.

I'll frame this with the China query of a few days ago. Free inquiry has its benefits and its hazards; you can be sure China wouldn't let a website post a get-out-of-jail-free kit like this one.

Today's debate topic: We are better off allowing the free distribution of information, including topics of this sort. Defend or refute, as you prefer. I'm a defender, by sentiment; but a proper debate club requires you to do both, regardless of sentiment.

Love is:

...forever strange. A remarkable article from the New York Times tells us about 'love in the time of dementia.'

Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, has a romance with another woman, and the former justice is thrilled — even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the porch swing — because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content.

This actually makes perfect sense to me.

Next It'll Be Text Diplomacy:

State Dept. Tries Blog Diplomacy, reports the Washington Post:

By Walter Pincus

The State Department, departing from traditional public diplomacy techniques, has what it calls a three-person, "digital outreach team" posting entries in Arabic on "influential" Arabic blogs to challenge misrepresentations of the United States and promote moderate views among Islamic youths in the hopes of steering them from terrorism.

The department's bloggers "speak the language and idiom of the region, know the culture reference points and are often able to converse informally and frankly, rather than adopt the usually more formal persona of a U.S. government spokesperson," Duncan MacInnes, of State's Bureau of International Information Programs, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats on Thursday.

"Because blogging tends to be a very informal, chatty way of working," MacInnes said, "it is actually very dangerous to blog." So State has a senior experienced officer, who served in Iraq, acting as supervisor and discussing each posting before it goes up. "We do not make policy," MacInnes added.

The State Department team's approach is to join a blog's conversation, often when it turns to the motivation for U.S. policy toward Iraq, and when others are claiming that the U.S. occupation is meant to help Israel or to secure oil. "Our job is to address that motivation issue and show them that that's not the motivation," MacInnes said.

"You can't just say, 'Well, here's our policy,' and drop it into the blog. You have to have what I call a bridge," MacInnes said. He then described using a sporting or current event or even poetry that would "allow one to get to be in a conversational mode with people."

Even though the State Department employees were not going into hard-core terrorist sites, the worry, MacInnes said, was that after identifying themselves and using their own names, "we would be, in the parlance of the Internet, 'flamed' when we come on" -- meaning their entries would be subjected to intense attacks.

They were not, and there were such posts as, "We don't like your policies but we're sure glad you're here talking to us about it," MacInnes said. As a result, State is expanding the team to six speakers of Arabic, two of Persian and one of Urdu.

To prove that it, too, can plug into the modern media world, the Pentagon's Central Command has a blogging operation at its headquarters. Its Joint Forces Command also has the capability and has even written a brochure on how to do it. "It's an area we're moving into," Navy Capt. Hal Pittman, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for joint communications, told the House panel. He added that Central Command may not be using its own Arabic or Farsi speakers, but rather contract personnel. "We're sharing with State and trying to, you know, better our knowledge on how to do it."

The State-Defense communications approach is also turning to a more sophisticated message, one that moves away from trying to change perceptions of the United States, focusing instead on the self-perceptions of its target audiences. "Our core message must outline an alternative future that is more attractive than the bleak future offered by the terrorists," said Michael Doran, deputy assistant secretary of defense for support of public diplomacy.

Another step they described to the House panel, in what they called "counterterrorism communications," is having a greater awareness of the impact of what U.S. speakers are saying. "When we say 'Islamo-fascism,' whether the term has a meaning or not, what they hear is 'war on Islam,' okay -- 'attacking my religion,' " MacInnes said.

He described the phrase as "a verbal equivalent of poking a stick in somebody's eye . . . and [Osama] bin Laden has been very good at taking our words and turning them around to his advantage by saying, 'See, they're actually at war with Islam.' "

President Bush has not used the phrase recently.

National security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus pores over the speeches, reports, transcripts and other documents that flood Washington and every week uncovers the fine print that rarely makes headlines -- but should.

Soon, every cell phone in Baghdad will start receiving: US <3 U!

Milmatters

Military Matters:

EagleSpeak has a great post:

The last warship from World War II came home Tuesday to the United States.

Of more contemporary interest, a piece on security engagement with potential partner nations.

When it comes to security cooperation, however, there will always be a tension between balancing military readiness with security cooperation. Most argue that readiness is the most important priority. But, if adequately funded and properly executed, security cooperation activities may build partners and prevent conflicts. Investing early in shaping activities may avoid exponentially larger expenditures later.

Sub-regional partnerships are a wise idea, in my reading: we can get a lot out of them. They came in for a brief mention in a fairly harsh critique of our government's functioning that I penned.

CF

Cf.

From The American business magazine, on 'the China model,' this week:

The CPC is replacing old-style communist values with nationalism and a form of Confucianism, in a manner that echoes the "Asian values" espoused by the leaders who brought Southeast Asian countries through their rapid modernization process in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and elsewhere. But at the same time, in its public rhetoric, the party is stressing continuity and is assiduously ensuring that its own version of history remains correct. Historian Xia Chun-tao, 43, vice director of the Deng Xiaoping Thought Research Center, one of China’s core ideological think tanks, says, "It’s very natural for historians to have different views on events. But there is only one correct and accurate interpretation, and only one explanation that is closest to the truth." The key issues, he says, are “quite clearly defined” and not susceptible to debate. "There is a pool of clear water and there’s no need to stir up this water. Doing so can only cause disturbance in people’s minds."

From John Derbyshire's tour of Hangzhou, 2001:

Some political scientist — I forget who — has coined the phrase "pre-critical society" for those cultures that have not attained the ability to look objectively at themselves and their history. Fifty years of Party-line government and "thought control" have left China stuck firmly in the pre-critical stage of intellectual development.

This unhappy little fact was brought home to me at the mausoleum of Yue Fei in Hangzhou. Yue Fei is a national hero. He lived in the early twelfth century, a time of great crisis for the Chinese nation. The Song dynasty (960-1279: it was, by the way, arguably the most progressive and creative of China's 24 imperial dynasties) was under assault by the savage Jin barbarians of the far north. Yue Fei was commander of the Chinese armies fighting against the Jin. He won many brilliant victories against them, and was hugely popular with his troops and with the common people. At the court of the Song emperor, however, there was a faction that wanted to make peace with the Jin, and cede to them the large area of North China they had conquered. This faction was led by a senior official named Qin Hui. Yue Fei, of course, wanted to fight on, to regain the lost territories. Qin Hui, however, had the emperor's ear. He arranged a frame-up of Yue Fei, who was recalled to the capital and executed. North China was ceded to the Jin (and the dynasty is thereafter known as the Southern Song, with its capital at Hangzhou).

This incident is regarded as an outrage by all patriotic Chinese, and seems even to have aroused strong feelings at the time. The following emperor had Yue Fei posthumously rehabilitated. The great warrior was re-buried in a grand mausoleum, which is now a popular tourist spot. Statues of Qin Hui, of his wife (who was involved in some way I have forgotten), and two of Yue Fei's subordinates who had co-operated in the frame-up were set in front of the tomb, all in a kneeling position — kneeling humbly before the patriot they had wronged. It used to be the custom for visitors to the mausolem to spit on the statue of Qin Hui. This has now been forbidden, however, and when I saw it, the statue was spittle-free. (The only surface area of its size anywhere in China of which this could be said.)

Strolling around the pleasant grounds of the mausoleum, I wondered aloud to Rosie — who can be taken here as a sort of lay figure, a representative well-educated thirty-something mainland Chinese — whether any bold historian had tried to make a name for himself by arguing a revisionist view of the Yue Fei incident, showing that Qin Hui was right and Yue Fei really a dangerous plotter.

Rosie was scandalized by this notion. "If anyone wrote such a thing, his statue would be put next to Qin Hui's for people to spit on." I persisted, with all the usual arguments about the difficulty of getting to the bottom of historical matters. President Kennedy was shot less than forty years ago. We have film footage of the event, and independent judicial inquiries have been carried out at vast expense, yet people are still arguing about what happened. Are we quite sure we have all the facts about a palace intrigue of nine hundred years ago?

Rosie wouldn't hear of it. Yue Fei was a great national hero, she sniffed. Qin Hui was a contemptible traitor, who sold himself and his country for cash. "Everybody knows." No use to point out (though I did anyway, from sheer force of habit) that until quite recently, "everybody knew" that the sun revolved around the earth, but that careful inquiry had showed this not to be the case. No use: I had hit the Wall.

This failure to develop a properly critical attitude to one's culture and history is a natural consequence of despotic government, with all its grisly apparatus of propaganda and intimidation. At any give time there is only one correct "line" in a despotism. To present any alternative version of things is at least anti-social, and may be seen as treasonous.

Yet Qin Hui must have been a man of great intelligence and ability. He had risen to the highest rank in government via stiff competitive examinations, and no doubt had survived many savage and complex court intrigues. Are we really to suppose that he would have no arguments to bring to his defense? After all, in any conflict there is a peace faction and a war faction, and the peace faction is sometimes right. King Alfred made peace with the Danes and ceded half of England to them: he is revered as the savior of his nation. And powerful, popular generals sometimes do have designs on the throne — most disastrously, in Chinese history, An Lu-shan, whose rebellion in the middle of the eighth century wrecked the Tang dynasty.

My wife and I lived in Hangzhou for a while. I can confirm the truth of the story about the statues.

Today's question: does this make for a stronger or a weaker society? We have a few national heroes left: Martin Luther King, Jr., being a clear example. We haven't got any national traitors that we are all willing to agree to scorn. Is that a strength or a weakness for our culture, compared to China's? Why do you say so?

Theory of Everything

Every Surfer Thinks He Knows the Secret of Everything:

This one, though, actually might have a read on it. I don't know enough mathematics to evaluate the claim that E8 construction could explain reality; perhaps one of you would like a try at it?

I will say, however, that "Holy Crap! That's it!" is a pretty good Modern English translation of Archimedes' "Eureka!"

Some Items

Some Items:

First of all, it's time for one of our periodic discussions among the various co-bloggers. We do this occasionally for various reasons. One of the items on the agenda this time will be getting someone to keep an email list, so I don't have to keep asking for everyone's emails, which I always lose before the next time I need them. :)

Second, let me thank Cassandra for providing this link, which I hadn't seen before. It's majestic. The last line is, of course, Gandalf's.

Third, I have gotten a lot of requests to do stuff lately. I'm sorry that I'm very busy and don't have the time I would like, as all of these things are worthy causes. Here are two of them, which I present only because they are in the last day or so's email, and I don't have to go searching for them.

OSD is running an "America supports you" text messaging thing.



Miss Ladybug is running an AnySoldier support project.

Sadly, the Project VALOUR-IT fundraiser, which I normally am glad to assist, is over already.

Thursday Lyrics

For bthun.

Been there, done that. Twice now.

This learned opinion notwithstanding, may I offer a few words that have restored my perspective on more than one occasion through years of raising two fine, but very different young men?

A mother, perhaps more than anyone else, puts so much of herself into her children. They represent her life's work. And so, when they grow up, it can be difficult to let them go, to know when that work is truly finished, to be at peace with what she has done and allow her children to venture forth and make their own mistakes, fall down, pick themselves back up, do things she wouldn't do herself, repeat all the dumb things she did (and warned them about repeatedly). This helped me to remember that while as a parent you never stop caring, more likely than not (as it says in one of those other mass culture poems that contains more than a grain of truth) no doubt my little universe will continue to unfold exactly as it should, even without my expert guidance :p


Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

...life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is strong and secure.

So as it says somewhere in the Bible, rejoice in a job well done knowing you have been a good and faithful son father. And hopefully in the fullness of time, a grandfather.

And congratulations!

Death

Against the Death of the West:

A famed author pronounces the final decline; but his reviewer points out that the fact of that very man's existence is reason for hope.

Admission to the Barzun-Trilling seminar, as it was known, entailed an interview with the two professors, which took place in Trilling’s Hamilton Hall office. This turned out to be genial, indeed conducted with a tone that suggested that in some sense we were equals, gentlemen and professionals, and serious about goals the three of us shared.

In that first interview I gained a distinct sense that what they wanted were seminar participants who not only would teach but had it in mind to write in a serious way, and to the extent possible be engaged in focused and shaping activity: No Waste Landers; no Bartleby the Scriveners; no William Steig figures curled up in protective boxes of sensibility.

So, amid decline, are new seeds planted.

Iran Nukes Forbidden?

Iran Nukes Forbidden?

I'd love to see a fuller explanation of the reasons behind this ruling, which is on IRNA here. Ayatollah Kashani says:

Islam bans shedding blood of nations; on the same ground, production of nuclear bomb and even thinking on its production are forbidden from Islamic point of view.

This is one of those times when I want to know why he says so. What's the justification for a ruling that even thinking of producing nuclear weapons is haram? I have no doubt that would be a fascinating conversation, one I'd like to have.

Loyalty a Factor in Heroism

From the AP: Breaking news from before any of us were born (to include the Wandering Jew, if he reads this weblog) -

Loyalty a Factor in Heroism

...then again, some lessons can't be stated (and internalized, and acted upon) too often.

Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day:

As every year, the Birthday is followed by Veteran's Day. All the best to all of you who have served in uniform, and thank you for all you have done.

A Good Review:

Dalrymple gets a positive review here. He has a way of turning a phrase, so as to both praise the person of, yet totally dissent from the view of, an ideological opponent:

[J. S. Mill] was inclined to suppose, as many thinkers are, that most people either were or could become with sufficient education, like himself. In a way this does him honor, for he modestly supposed also that his own gifts were neither great nor exceptional, but this led him to imagine what is not very probable, that there would come a time when most people would be as deeply concerned with the moral foundations of human conduct as he. This in turn suggests that his knowledge of human beings in walks of life different from his own was not very extensive.

That's a brutal charge -- 'Mill was too ignorant of humanity to write about human nature' -- but delivered in a manner befitting a gentleman. We'd do well to emulate that courtesy.

Birthday

Happy Birthday:

All the best to the USMC on its birthday. One of you Marines raise a glass in honor of the Corps for me.

Gilbert & Sullivan & Death

Gilbert and Sullivan and Death (additional Friday lyrics):

I had some good (if spooky) responses to my request for contemporary songs about death - Cassandra's reference to "old favorites" turned my mind back to my longtime love for Gilbert & Sullivan. I hadn't thought about this before, but death is a theme in many of their jokes and almost all of their musical comedies (Patience and Trial By Jury are the exceptions that come to mind). So, much of The Mikado's plot is driven by the Emperor's crazy law that imposes the death penalty for flirting (leading to my favorite pun in the series: "Flirting is capital!...It is capital!") - and Ruddigore is, I'm convinced, the funniest ghost story ever written (the name led to one of Gilbert's wittier exchanges - partway through the run, an acquaintance asked:

Acq: How's Bloodygore going?
Gilbert: Ruddigore.
Acq: Well, it's all the same, you know.
Gilbert: Is it? Then I suppose if I say I admire your ruddy complexion, it's the same as saying I like your bloody cheek! Well, it isn't - and I don't!

I read it here.) I don't know whether this is part of the plays' staying power or not, but so it is. Many of their songs are on this general theme. There's everything from this bit of bravado in The Yeomen of the Guard -- (sung by Colonel Fairfax, falsely accused of sorcery and expecting to be executed):

Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
Though fourscore years he give,
Yet one would pray to live
Another moon.
What kind of plaint have I
Who perish in July?
I might have had to die
Perchance in June.

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit -
Nay, count it not a whit,
Man is well done with it!
Soon as he's born
He should all means essay
To put the plague away.
And I, war-worn,
Poor captured fugitive
My life most gladly give --
I might have had to live
Another morn.

(the four-beat lines and rhyme-sceme make it seem "cutesy" when you read it - but Sullivan gave it a slow, martial tune that gives it dignity and fits the character) - to some really hilarious pieces, some of the best in the two plays they wrote after their infamous break-up. In The Grand Duke, Ernest Dummkopf lost a "Statutory Duel" - he and his opponent drew cards; he drew the low card and lost; so under the laws of the duchy he was legally dead. Which leads to this exchange between him and his fiancee (who's been shunning him):

Ernest: If the light of love’s lingering ember has faded in gloom,
You cannot neglect, O remember, a voice from the tomb!
That stern supernatural diction
Should act as a solemn restriction,
Although by a mere legal fiction
A voice from the tomb!

Julia: I own that that utterance chills me – it withers my bloom!
With awful emotion it thrills me – that voice from the tomb!
Oh, spectre, won’t anything lay thee?
Though pained to deny or gainsay thee,
In this case I cannot obey thee,
Thou voice from the tomb!
So, spectre, appalling, I bid you good day –
Perhaps you’ll be calling when passing this way?
Your bogeydom scorning, and all your love-lorning,
I bid you good morning, I bid you good day.
Good morning, good morning, good morning, good day!

...the tempo is upbeat and prevents the joke from going stale; the last five lines are like a fast waltz. If the Ultimate Reality is going to catch us, whatever we do, why not have a little fun with it? It's perfectly healthy, seems to me.

Friday Lyrics

Joseph asked for contemporary songs about death. Since today is Friday, may I offer an old favorite:

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There’s always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There’s vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack
It don’t make no difference
Escaping one last time
It’s easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

Ap horse cutting buffalo

Cutting Buffalo:

Here's a video my wife thought you'd enjoy.



The cool thing is that the horse is doing all the work. The rider, as the voice-over explains, doesn't know how to cut the buffalo herd. But the horse does.

What Love Is

I still recall the dress I wore to my first dance. It was black with wild roses – pink ones - on it. The empire waistline tied in the back with grosgrain ribbon and the deep, square neckline was trimmed with white lace. My date gave me the most beautiful corsage: pink sweetheart roses and baby’s breath.

I kept the ticket and the corsage for years on a bookshelf in my bedroom. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because it seemed the sort of thing that should be remembered. I don’t think I missed a dance in school and I kept each corsage I was given; even the ugly ones.

Not every boy who asked me out was as adept as that first young man at matching flowers to my outfit and personality. But that didn’t matter. To tell the truth I never really liked corsages, even in high school. They were awkward and clunky and the pins had a nasty way of poking you in the shoulder when you tried to dance or stood up on your tip-toes for that long anticipated good night kiss. But they were tangible reminders that a young man had taken pains to please me, just as I had gone to a great deal of trouble to look nice for him, to make his evening pleasant. Memorable.

And so I kept them, every one. All my yesterdays, pressed between the leaves of my mind like wildflowers from some long forgotten ramble down a country road on a summer’s day. As they slowly faded in their allotted spaces on my bookshelf, they somehow managed to retain traces of their former loveliness; giving off sweet memories of being courted, cherished, of feeling - for the space of few moonlit hours - like a princess in a fairy tale.

Thus it is with some sadness that I wonder: what on earth do today’s would be princesses have to look forward to?

Last month, a boy asked my 16-year-old daughter to his school's homecoming dance. She agreed to go, bought a new dress and made a hairdresser appointment.

The boy never bought tickets to the dance. Neither did his friends. They decided that attending homecoming wouldn't be cool, and instead planned to just dress up that night, go out for dinner and then hang out with their dates at someone's house.
My daughter was disappointed, as were her girlfriends. They would have loved to have been taken to the dance, to show off their dresses, to see and be seen.

At 6 p.m. on the night of the boycotted dance, about a dozen of these girls and their dates gathered in one boy's backyard so a mob of parents could photograph them. I found it dispiriting. My heart went out to those girls -- all dressed up with no place to go.

I live in suburban Detroit, but this phenomenon is playing out elsewhere in the country, too -- a telling example of the indifference with which young people today view dating, chivalry and romance.

Studies, of course, show more young people skipping romantic relationships in favor of "hooking up." As teens socialize in packs, forgo one-on-one dating and trade sex nonchalantly, it is no stretch to find that boys are asking girls to homecoming and not bothering to take them there.

When I was a young girl I recall hearing a song by Peggy Lee on my transistor radio.

“Back in the day”, as my boys are fond of saying with rolled eyes, you couldn’t just summon up a tune any time you felt like it. We didn’t have iPods, playlists, or personal CD players. When it came to that special song that made you dizzy with delight, you were at the mercy of the DJ down at the radio station. You had to wait, sometimes for what seemed like ages, for your favorite song to come onto the airwaves and thrill you to the very marrow of your bones. That’s what made it special: rarity, and the knowledge that you couldn’t hear it any time you wanted to. If you were really, really crazy about a song you might save up and buy the 45, or even the LP. But that took a while. And in the meantime there was the agony of suspense.

I wonder, sometimes, if that is what is missing from modern relationships: the ache of wanting; the knowledge that someone isn’t there just for the taking, the thrill of finally gaining your heart's desire after long uncertainty, a series of delays? Of knowing you might never have had them at all? What happens to our sense of wonder when we take everything for granted, when we are never deprived, when we never take pains?

When nothing is special anymore?

There is something to be said for anticipation. I carried my little transistor radio everywhere, glued to my shell-like ear. I must have known the words to a million songs by heart – I repeated them over and over in my head while waiting for the next time my favorite song would come over the airwaves. I still do. Who does that now? The song was called, “Is that all there is?”

I hated that song with a passion, even then. It asked that question - “Is that all there is?” - about love. It was too cynical and worldly wise for me then and it still is today, forty-odd years later, because no matter how long you walk this earth, you never stop discovering the unending wonder of loving other people, and you never quite do come to know all there is to know about life.

Never.

I know that in my bones. There are a million kinds of love, and to me the saddest thing on earth is the cynic who asks, “Is that all there is?” because she has never experienced the delight to be found in pleasing others; who says “Let’s not bother…” celebrating special occasions because he has never been denied anything (and so sees every new experience through a lens of dreary sameness), who doesn’t understand that hooking up or casual sex, though amusing, can never be anything but pale substitutes for what happens when two people really love each other, when making someone else’s heart race a mile a minute is just as satisfying as feeling the earth move yourself. And sometimes more.

I wonder if these children will recognize (or would they be bored by) the quiet, peaceful Sunday morning comfortableness that sneaks up on you when you’ve been together for half a lifetime? When you fit neatly together as though you had been made for each other? That doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of living, and sometimes years of ups and downs that I sometimes wonder if they will have the patience to wait for?

Love takes many forms. Love is having the faith and the courage to let go when your children need to strike out on their own. Love means trusting in their judgment (and your own long stewardship); it means recognizing that they are no longer babies, but young adults. It means releasing them gently, lovingly, gracefully; though every fiber screams they aren’t ready yet – that they aren’t listening to you, that they will screw things up if you don’t keep a hand on the old tiller. It means not saying “I told you so”, when you did. Again. And again. It means biting your lip, and your tongue, a lot. It means giving them the space to grow, as you did once. Love means standing a bit apart when they come home, though you long to crowd them with questions as you did when they were small; waiting for them to come to you. Loving it when they finally do.

Even though it took years. Boys are a slow crop.

Love means taking pride in the achievements of your friends, sharing their every day triumphs and tribulations, both great and small. Taking satisfaction in their talent, not knowing whether to laugh or cry when one of them writes something so poignant it could have been plucked from the pages of your own life:

Pre-deployment briefs.

Right before Lancelot went on his latest trip, he reminded me that the Dark Prince was coming home on Friday. I must have had a blank look on my face because he then reminded me why: Dark Prince's pre-deployment brief the following day. A brief that I would have to attend with my son without my husband.

Looking back, I'm now of the opinion that my husband planned to be out of town so as to avoid the whole nightmare....

For starters, my son is not very skilled in the social graces. Some might even assume that he was raised by wolves. Arriving at the brief, it began.

"Mom, I have to go talk to someone."
Me: "Oh, okay, I'll be right here."

This, in case you didn't know, is his way of avoiding even the admittance that he has a mom (let alone introducing her).

Nope, not the Dark Prince, he was hatched from an egg.

Love means thanking God for them when they aggravate you, and when they make you laugh, when they lift you up. What would we do without friends? They make the sun come out when all the world seems grey and cloudy. They say things that make you cry. And laugh out loud. Sometimes in the same breath:

A house isn't a home until you can write "I love you" in the dust. I just ask that you don't date it.

I like that. But for a military wife home can never be a place, really, or a time. Times change, and even the people we meet are often far less constant than they appear to be. But somehow, friends are a gleaming thread running through the hopelessly tangled skein of our lives. Pull on it, and everything suddenly slips into place effortlessly; all the snarled knots come untied. They know, without our having to tell them, certain things about us. We share, not everything – because no two people share everything – but the important things. A friend will be there to celebrate quietly with you those moments that mean something to you. And that can make all the difference, for then you carry home inside of you wherever you may roam.

Because home, you see, is the people you care about. A home is love.

I am sitting here in Georgia with The Burrito in my lap. He is one week old. My son’s house is full of light, and warmth, and love. The Burrito is mostly full of milk. His eyes are very heavy and he is making comical faces as he falls asleep in my arms. Across the room, my son is talking quietly to his wife. I like watching him with her. He loves her very much. I am thinking of what I will write to my husband in the morning. The scene around me is proof that families do evolve – they have so much more than we did, starting out. But then they are a good ten years older than we were when we had our first child. I am also thinking of ten years ago, when I was convinced the man across the room from me was a complete bonehead and wasn’t listening to a word his mother had to say.

He is a fine young man, a good father, and an even better husband. I am proud.

And The Burrito totally rules.

Singing About Death

Singing About Death -

Reading one of Mark Steyn's recent articles - including a little rant on pop lyrics - I was thinking about songs of death, specifically songs about how we do and should respond to the reality of death (even when it seems far off). Some of my favorite classical songs are arrangements of A.E. Houseman's A Shropshire Lad on this very theme (my favorite arrangements are by George Butterworth) - numbers 2, 23, and 27 are especially moving in Butterworth's arrangements.

I didn't much listen to pop songs of any kind until the last few years and my pop-culture IQ is very low. I had it in mind to post here and ask whether anything good on those themes had been written in the last decade or two. Before I could write the post, I picked up this on the radio. Is there something else any of you would recommend?

Iraq, By The Numbers

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

To all those who said the “surge” in U.S. forces in Iraq was doomed to fail, a look at the latest results should be instructive, if not humbling.

Start with American military casualties. For October (36 Americans killed in action), they were the lowest for any month since February 2004, more than three years ago.

U.S. casualties have now declined for five consecutive months even as American forces press the fight against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq terrorists and move out of their mega-bases to operate from security outposts in Iraqi neighborhoods.

Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno reported the following arms captures: “Over 37,000 pounds of explosives, a thousand gallons of nitric acid used to make homemade explosives, over 2,000 artillery rounds and over 500 rockets, 136 assembled explosively formed penetrator IEDs (improvised explosive devices), along with 359 copper discs used to make more EFPs, and hundreds of rifles, grenades, anti-tank weapons and suicide vests.” Odierno attributed these arms captures largely to tips from local Iraqi civilians.

Iraqi civilian deaths are down more than 60 percent since their peak last December, from 3,000 that month to just over 700 in October.

The incidence of mass-casualty terrorist attacks (truck bombs, car bombs and the like) in Iraq's capital city is down 75 percent in recent months.

Overall, the declining numbers of terrorist attacks and security incidents represent, as Gen. Odierno noted, “the longest continuous decline in attacks on record.”

Yet another thing you won't hear about on the evening news, because it doesn't fit the narrative, is that for the first time since the war started there were five days in October when not a single Coalition forces service member was killed as a result of hostile action. But you see, we wouldn't want to take notice of such developments prematurely. They might result in outbreaks of irrational exuberance.

As the San Diego Tribune author points out, progress on the political front in Iraq is still not where we'd like it to be, but in an insecure environment sectarian reconciliation was never even a possibility. Advocates of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq have used the absence of hope as their primary argument for abandoning the Iraqis to their tormentors. The success of the Surge, following on the dramatic turnaround in Anbar province this Spring, makes this the second time they've been wrong.

But more importantly, the opinions of average Americans - those who vote, and those who make up those all-important opinion polls used to drive public sentiment on the war - are based on what they see and hear in their newspapers and on the nightly news. Perhaps it is time for us to wake up and ask ourselves who has a vested interest in consistently portraying things as worse than they are, and to what end?