Chesterton wrote that many people seemed to feel that any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with: for example, that it produced such meek people (like monks), but also that it produced such warlike people (such as Richard the Lionheart). It was at once an unmanning religion, and a religion that had filled the world with blood.
So, here is a list of sticks that we won't be using to beat our ideological opponents in the White House:
1) 'All Male' sports games. Yes, it's true that 'relationships are formed' at these games, and that those relationships have effects beyond the arena of sports.
It's also true that everyone likes some people and doesn't like others. They enjoy spending time with some kinds of folks, and not with other kinds. Finally, it's true that being forced to spend time with people you don't really like won't improve your view of them.
If he doesn't like you enough to invite you along, you're better off with "no relationship" to him than the kind of "relationship" that will develop if he's forced to take you along to satisfy his critics. Your choice isn't between being ignored and being 'one of the boys.' It's between being ignored and being hated. Life's just unfair that way.
Don't feel bad. He wouldn't like me either.
2) "Date Night" with his wife. The US military asks some of its fine soldiers to leave their families for as long as fifteen months -- but not four years. The Presidency is a marathon, and personal feelings about the occupant aside, he'll need his wife.
3) Playing a lot of golf. Honestly, why is anyone on the right upset about this? Play golf every day, if you want. The more golf he plays, the fewer hours he's spending pushing his legislative agenda on us. We should be trying to find him new and exciting places to play.
I know that a lot of the criticism is coming from the perspective of his dithering on Afghanistan, but that's really a separate issue. If he were spending more time in the office, he wouldn't be spending it on Afghanistan, because he isn't particularly interested in Afghanistan. That's not to say he doesn't care about the people involved, just that he doesn't really care about the outcome of the war. He's not really even sure what he wants to accomplish there, and is trying to find any way he can just to make the issue go away so he can concentrate on what he really wants to do. No, he'd be spending those extra hours on health care: that's where his mind is focused.
Aside from that, though, the thing is -- this happens every Presidency. Remember the early stories about Bush, and how many 'vacations' he took? And by the end of it, his hair was white.
Things I'm Prepared To Overlook
Cass is running a military demotivator contest for VALOUR-IT week. Here are my two entries.
"Embracing the Suck" Category:
"Interservice Snark" Category:
And remember: donate Team Marine Corps!
Third Position on Afghan
I normally don't post here about stuff I write for BLACKFIVE, as the purposes of the blogs are very different. However, since this is VALOUR-IT week, some additional military content is probably called for by the occasion.
Speaking of VALOUR-IT, Cassandra's father has promised to match ten $100 contributions. I don't know if any of you has a hundred bucks to spare, with economic times being hard for everyone and unlikely to improve any time soon; but it's a very kind offer, and I wanted you to be aware of it in case you happened to have the means and the wish to contribute.
OK
Our friend Lars Walker reminds us that we have just passed the day that in 1881 saw the most famous gunfight in American history. I've written about the subject several times in the past (and offered additional asides, like this one), so I won't test your patience with another version of the story. I will, however, give you a sense of the glorious treatment the man received in the 1950s:
"The West it was lawless, but one man was flawless, and his is the story you'll hear. Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp, brave courageous and bold! Long live his fame, and long live his glory, and long may his story be told!"
Sound too shrill? Remember this study:
Many years ago, a team of researchers at the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota decided to put [a theory that religion was linked to mental illness] to the test. They studied certain fringe religious groups, such as fundamentalist Baptists, Pentecostalists and the snake-handlers of West Virginia, to see if they showed the particular type of psychopathology associated with mental illness. Members of mainstream Protestant churches from a similar social and financial background provided a good control group for comparison. Some of the wilder fundamentalists prayed with what can only be described as great and transcendental ecstasy, but there was no obvious sign of any particular psychopathology among most of the people studied. After further analysis, however, there appeared a tendency to what can only be described as mental instability in one particular group. The study was blinded, so that most of the research team involved with questionnaires did not have access to the final data. When they were asked which group they thought would show the most disturbed psychopathology, the whole team identified the snake-handlers. But when the data were revealed, the reverse was true: there was more mental illness among the conventional Protestant churchgoers - the "extrinsically" religious - than among the fervently committed.The control group were the psycopaths. Interesting fact, I think: it is important to dare to believe, and enough to let that belief move you. It seems to purify. It matters that we have a vision of the right in the part of our heart that heeds myth, even if we can see the ways the truth fell short in the part of our minds that does reason.
Wyatt Earp is mentioned on that page too, as it happens -- in an old post about something Peggy Noonan once wrote. You can find it if you're curious.
How Bad?
* By 2050, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (health care for the poor) will consume nearly the entire federal budget....and look at the scale on the two big ones:
* By 2082, Medicare spending alone will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
* By 2020, in addition to payroll taxes and premiums, Social Security and Medicare will require more than one in four federal income tax dollars.Don't worry, though. The CBO thinks we can handle it if we roughly triple marginal tax rates -- assuming that corporations and the rich don't decide they'd prefer to live in Trinidad or something; and assuming that they continue to be able to produce new jobs and keep the economy afloat with, say, a sixth of their current profits. I'd say "the government can just provide us with jobs" except, of course, that they won't have any money left: anyone not working for the Social Security Administration, Medicare, or the IRS will pretty much be out of work, including the entire Armed Forces and Federal police agencies. Well, except the ones that go after tax cheats -- we'll have to find a way to fund them somehow.
* By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, the programs will require nearly half of all income tax dollars.
*By 2060, they will require nearly three out of four income tax dollars.
What Plan?
The administration uses a strange sort of pincer attack in pushing its agenda. On the one hand, for example, the Obama administration has offered nothing concrete in terms of actual health care legislation:
...“I called him,” said Stupak. “I called the president--had a discussion with the president. And I read exactly what you just said. And he said: ‘What it says is “under my plan”’—meaning the president’s plan. And I said: ‘With all due respect, sir, you do not have a plan. The only plan we have out is the House plan.’ So, I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what.”This lack-of-concreteness has been used on several occasions by defenders of the President. When we talk about things we'd like not to see in any plan -- I've seen this tactic fielded on Afghanistan, too, where the President also has no plan -- we're told that any objections are 'lies about my plan' or 'chasing pink elephants' because the President has written no plan. So that's pincer one: you can't attack my plan, because there's nothing to attack.
Pincer two: ...and the time for debate is over.
So, you can't attack the plan because it doesn't exist yet. And we can't debate what the plan shouldn't include, because the time for debate is over. We must adopt my plan that doesn't exist right now!
It's almost clever, since it really does make it hard to debate the President on anything. Of course, the flaw in the plan is that someone else becomes the voice of your ideas.
UPDATE: Or possibly there just is no plan for anything at all.... (h/t InstaPundit.)
Air Force != Foxhole
The great atheist has some kind words for his debate partners, particularly in the South.
I have discovered that the so-called Christian right is much less monolithic, and very much more polite and hospitable, than I would once have thought, or than most liberals believe.He hasn't changed his mind; but who expected he would? Good lad, though. However, he makes one odd remark in defense of 'secularism':
And don't tell me that warfare increases faith and that there are no unbelievers in foxholes: Only recently I was invited to a very spirited meeting of the freethinkers' group at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., where there has been a revolt against on-campus proselytizing by biblical-literalist instructors.I'm sure you were, sir; but the Air Force has what to do with foxholes?
VALOUR-IT Challenge
Cassandra has asked me to join her effort to raise funds for the Marine Corps team in the VALOUR-IT challenge. I warned her that I doubted my contribution would be that impressive, since I imagine all of you already read her own site, and she is much more charming and likely to persuade you all to part with cash. Nevertheless, she insisted, and it is a highly noble and worthy effort.
I imagine that you are all quite familiar with VALOUR-IT at this point, but in case any of you are not, it stands for "Voice Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops." The effort began when a military officer named Chuck Ziegenfuss suffered injuries from an IED in Iraq. His sense of disconnection from family and friends, at a very hard moment of his life, sparked the idea of trying to find a way to connect injured troops with those who love them. Because hands may be bandaged or too injured to use, voice-activated software on laptops allows these troops to email family and keep up with them from their hospital bed, which may be far from home.
Chuck says today:
This means that for the 238,000,000 American Citizens out there who've never served a day in uniform, today's freedom costs you only $.004. That's less than half a cent apiece. That tiny amount would net VALOUR-IT over $1 million, and fund over 1000 laptops. It would give us the purchasing power to make real deals with computer companies (Dell, HP, etc.) If however, you'd like to contribute more than your Fair Share (TM), that is always welcome, since as we all know, there's something like 100 million deadbeats and dole-takers out thereI'm sure there's more than a hundred million deadbeats and dole-takers, but also that none of you are among them.
Something like 25,000 Service members have been wounded in combat. Of those, most were wounds to extremities. They've given their contribution, how about you?
I don't want any donations based on guilt or pity, you can keep that money. If you have any money in the kitty designated as "Worthy cause to Help a wounded service member" that money is welcome.
But honestly, the most important thing you can do is reach out to the 237,999,998 Americans who don't read this blog.
If you wish to find more inspiration, read of the love of a Marine Rifleman (but I repeat myself) and his woman, who wants you to know how proud she is.
North Korea
Travelogues to North Korea are always interesting:
We went to endless museums and parks but were sternly instructed not to speak to any locals. We took meals at restaurants where we were the only customers, and the food seemed to come from the same Western-facsimile kitchen: bread with swirls, bland fried flounder, mayonnaise-based salad served in a martini glass. Finally my mother, weary of the utter weirdness of the place, told our tour guide in Korean that we needed to try some real North Korean food.That's just amazing to think about.
It was indeed announced one day that for lunch we would have a traditional clam bulgogi, clam barbecue. The bus took us to a gorgeous area in the mountains, complete with a waterfall and a tranquil pool. People were already there having their own picnic on the sandy beach. Our picnic was set up on a rocky ledge on the other side, but the water was irresistible in the heat, and some of us gravitated there. Oddly, our handlers said nothing, even though normally they were alert as sheepdogs to anyone wandering off and earlier in the day an unauthorized photo incident caused upset all around.
To get to the beach, you walked a path where a young boy sat painting a picture of the waterfall — it was almost too picturesque. The locals had spread out a feast of kimchi, bulgogi, mounds of fat purple grapes, cold bottles of beer. Soon some of the picnickers were cheerily exhorting us to join them, even picking up food with chopsticks and depositing it straightaway in people’s mouths. Beer was poured; songs were sung. It was the first time I’d seen North Koreans smile wide, toothy grins.
After a while the tour guide sauntered over and reminded us that we weren’t supposed to talk to locals. She didn’t sound convinced of her own words. I suddenly started to see everything anew. Why were the picnickers here in the middle of the workday? Why was their food, those perfect pyramids of fruit, untouched before they pulled us over? Even the boy; I peered at his easel as I walked back and saw he was using a kind of paint-by-numbers kit.
Agincourt
This article is almost useless except that it points you in the direction of the controversy. If it causes you to be curious, you now know to go find something better on the subject.
One side of the controversy is 'traditional' historians, represented by a single figure who bases his numbers 'on chronicles he considers to be broadly accurate.' A reporter should tell the reader which chronicles he means, and why he thinks they are accurate, since the whole point of the article is that other historians are suggesting revised numbers. It wouldn't take more than a couple of sentences to sketch the position. The revisionist side gets that kind of a sketch -- the reporter cites the types of evidence they are considering, along with a few of their reasons. The piece is as one-sided as the Times' political analysis. Is the Times so anti-tradition that it just assumes that the traditionalists are always wrong, in history as in politics, in academics as in culture?
The Times reporter does find it interesting that "a new science of military history" is making revisions to current Army doctrine. I don't know what he means by 'a new science of military history,' since military history is neither new (anyone heard of Thucydides?) nor a science. History is one of the liberal arts; nor should anyone who cares about history wish to clump it in with such "disciplines" as sociology or the other so-called "social sciences." Better to be an honest art than a fake science!
I'm glad to say that the Army got better advice from its experts than the Times manages to produce here:
The Hundred Years’ War never made it into the [US Army COIN] field manual — the name itself may have served as a deterrent — but after sounding numerous cautions on the vast differences in time, technology and political aims, historians working in the area say that there are some uncanny parallels with contemporary foreign conflicts.The Hundred Years War wasn't a counterinsurgency; it was the clash of two early states. A key fact of the war, unlike modern conflicts, was the power of fortification. Whereas today it is nearly impossible for an enemy army to fortify itself so as to be impossible to attack, the technology of the period made it quite possible to build an impregnable castle. Even cities could be fortified to such a degree that they could stand off an army for weeks or months.
For one thing, by the time Henry landed near the mouth of the Seine on Aug. 14, 1415, and began a rather uninspiring siege of a town called Harfleur, France was on the verge of a civil war, with factions called the Burgundians and the Armagnacs at loggerheads. Henry would eventually forge an alliance with the Burgundians, who in today’s terms would become his “local security forces” in Normandy, and he cultivated the support of local merchants and clerics, all practices that would have been heartily endorsed by the counterinsurgency manual.
Thus, one of the reason we so often find exhausted English armies having to fight superior French numbers is that the English were required to deal with these fortifications. One tactic was the long siege, during which your forces in the field grew weaker while the enemy elswhere could prepare an army to bring against you. Another tactic was the chevauchee, a brutal march through the countryside, burning and laying waste to such a degree that the French could no longer afford to remain behind their walls. The chevauchee in particular looks nothing like modern COIN methods; intentionally laying waste to the countryside in order to bring the enemy to battle is the perfect opposite of what the US Army manual advises.
Leaving that aside, though, it is true that the two campaigns both featured allies and attempts to persuade those with money or power to support your side. They both also featured violence and death, so I suppose that really, the two conflicts were exactly the same.
Other than that, though, the article is fine.
UPDATE: Actually, re-reading the article, it's still not fine. Re: "...after sounding numerous cautions on the vast differences in time, technology and political aims, historians working in the area say that there are some uncanny parallels..."
Apparently the author decided he wasn't interested in what the historians actually wanted to say, which was the part about numerous cautions on vast differences in time, technology, and political aims. Rather, he wanted to impose a story that there were "uncanny parallels" with today in order to make the piece interesting for average readers and not just history buffs. He elides past everything useful they actually said -- probably including some of the very issues raised above -- in order to get to the slight parallel that they finally admitted to after the "numerous cautions."
Ugh.
Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern
Since I got away with the last language warning (and why not? It's my place; but I do try to make it comfortable for everyone) I'm going to post this video. It's of a favorite song of mine, live from Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Georgia; and this version of the song isn't very good, to be honest. The story that starts it, though, is worth the price of admission.
It's set in East Nashville, which is an interesting place, if you've been there.
Lions Ate Him
Dad29 has a picture of a pretty little cat who was seen up his way.
It happens that we've had quite a few mountain lion sightings down in my neck of the woods lately. Georgia's seen a large growth over the last thirty years in its urban regions, where city folk from around the country have been moving in search of jobs and sunshine. As a result, there was something of a panic when the local news reported a "lion" in Gainesville, Georgia.
Back when Gainesville was known by its original name -- "Mule Camp Springs" -- people wouldn't have been so shocked to learn that lions were about. As for the experts who 'don't believe there are any native big cats to Georgia,' I don't know where they got that concept (although the boys in Elijay think the state government just doesn't want to admit to them being there, because that would trigger Federal protections for them). The historical records of Forsyth County, Georgia, show that one of the original white settlers in the area was a woman who strangled a mountain lion with her bare hands. Anybody who doubts that is welcome to drop by the fairgrounds in Cumming, Georgia, where the records are on display. In those days, you had to get permission from the Cherokee nation if you were non-Cherokee and wanted to live in the area. They didn't deny her, and who would?
At any rate, the big cats are sure enough native. They just haven't been quite as public for a while. That's changing everywhere, though, isn't it? And good that it is: we could use a few more predators to eat some of our surplus city-folk help ensure the white-tailed deer population remains healthy and free of sickness.
Wow
So, you know that "pay czar"? Well...
The pre-weekend information dump included an announcement by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department that the federal government proposes to extend its control over pay packages beyond financial institutions which received bailout funds.Of course, areas where the government sets salaries tend to do quite well for themselves, as the trend is always to higher pay and gold-plated bonuses. Wouldn't you like a GS job?
According to the press release, the government proposes to monitor and, if need be, veto pay packages at any banking institution subject to federal regulation...
This is an earth-shattering development in the annals of government control, yet because the information was released on a Friday, it has received little press attention relative to its importance.
One can understand the bargain made where a company receives federal funds to stay in business. By accepting the funds, which must be repaid, a measure of corporate and shareholder freedom was sacrificed.
But to base government control of salaries on mere regulatory jurisdiction would give the government control over much of the economy, essentially any business involved in interstate commerce. This is the harm which many of us feared from the Trojan horse of the bailouts.
Why not regulate law professor salaries (horrors!)? After all, educational institutions are tax-exempt and thereby receive a de facto federal benefit.
Or doctors? Particularly if Obamacare passes, there will be a federal interest in making sure doctors have the right financial incentives.
Or lawyers? At least those who are admitted to practice in federal courts. There is a federal interest in making sure that the federal resources used to fund the courts are not wasted.
Or truck drivers? They use roads built with federal highway funds (with a touch of stimulus funds thrown in).... And the list could go on and on.
Abortion Kills More
Today featured some news that has had me wondering.
Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.That doesn't hold for the general population, wherein heart disease alone kills more than abortion. Still, it reminded me of a comment douglas made on the recent evolution post. He wrote:
Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.
[Life span statistics for the middle ages] tend to be a bit misleading, as the infant mortality and childhood disease mortality rates were so much higher, it drives the curve down aggressively. If you made it to twenty five, you had good odds of living to at least sixty or better.That's right, of course; but I wonder what it would do to our "life span" statistics if we included the aborted as if they were really people.
We ought to do so, shouldn't we? A major part of the rationale for abortion-on-demand is that it allows us to focus resources on the woman and her "wanted" children, rather than on "unwanted" ones who would burden the system. ("Every child a wanted child," the slogan goes.) Thus, by eliminating these people at age zero, we're focusing more "health care" resources on the remnant. By excluding the aborted from the calculation, we're masking that cost from our understanding of where our culture really stands. The aborted child is helping to 'pay the freight' for the rest of us, because all the resources she would have used are free to be applied to the rest of us.
(An aside -- this is, I suppose, the opposite of Mrs. Palin's death panels. Here you have pushed the life-or-death decision making wholly onto a single individual, with the government taking a completely-hands-off approach. I've argued with regard to the 'death panels' that it's better if families make these decisions than if government does, deciding with love how to balance these difficult cost-to-benefit choices at the end of life. At the beginning of life, though, these statistics make clear that hundreds of thousands of would-be mothers a year stand ready to eliminate a child they ought to love, but don't "want." I suppose we should figure that into our discussion for the end-of-life too: why wouldn't people who choose 'lifestyle' over 'baby' also choose 'lifestyle' over 'grandma'? In some cases, it could be that government death panels could be grandma's only hope!)
To return to the point, however: I lack the mathematical skill to cruch the numbers with precision, but I think it would be interesting. What is America's life expectancy, calculated to account for those we choose to deny life as well as those we choose to support?
Rockwell, II
On the subject of Norman Rockwell, Bthun noted this piece as "still relevant":
Well now. True enough.
But since we're on the topic, I like this one:
Is there any one of us who can't instantly sympathize with this fine young lady? She's been physically pounded, and now is suffering the anger of authority; but look at that smile.
It pulls the punch a bit to have painted this scene with a girl, but it works very well with a boy, too. Every one of us can remember the glow of having stood up for yourself, fought the good fight, and the pleasure of standing off Those On High with the simple knowledge, in your heart, that you were right.
I hope we can all recall it, anyway. If there are any of you who can't, try it sometime.
It's quasi-political too, these days, because of the current lawsuit-driven frenzy among authorities to think of fighting among young children as a 'serious problem.' It's not, of course; it's the normal behavior of children across ten thousand years. They need to learn how and when to fight, and how and when not to fight; they need to learn to be just as well as strong and brave.
Like the parents afraid to spank lest they be called awful, though, the schools afraid to be sued have surrendered their rightful authority in the face of fear. They are protecting themselves instead of doing what is right for the children who need their guidance and care. There's no good can come of it.
On a second topic, RCL cites another fine Irish ballad.
I've normally heard this piece played more up-tempo, which strikes me as more suitable for the material (although it may be just that I'm used to it being done that way).
But since we're on the subject of virile Celtic tunes, how about this song from the Scots?
"I can drink and no be drunken; I can fight and no be slain! I can lay with another man's lass, and still be welcome to me own!"
Now that's a boast. I'd have to say, and with a smile: prove it.
C4C2
Get ready to see a new crash in this 'recovering' market:
First-time homebuyers and investors are snapping up those homes and taking advantage of low mortgage rates. These buyers can also take advantage of a tax credit of 10 percent of the sales price, up to $8,000, if the sale is completed by the end of November.Home sales are spiking because of the closing window for the tax credit, as the article rightly notes, not because the market has 'touched bottom.' If housing prices are likely to fall another 11%, but you can get a 10% tax credit (up to eight grand), you're very close to buying at the true bottom of the market. If they fall 20% more, you're buying near the bottom, but it's still possibly worth doing if you plan to hold the home for several years. If you were in the market for a first home anyway, this is the time to buy: December is too late, because your home effectively costs eight grand more.
The tax credit is so important to some buyers that they are adding a clause to their contracts, allowing them to back out if the sale doesn't close by Nov. 30. However, economists note that bargain-priced foreclosures and low mortgage rates are making a big contribution to the sales boom.
"We think the housing market has touched bottom and it is now only a matter of time until home prices stabilize — something that we anticipate to occur in late 2010," wrote Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank.
What that means is that everyone who might buy a house in the next year is scrambling to do it now. Home sales will crater on 1 December 2009, and remain in the crater for the forseeable future. Just like auto sales following the end of "Cash for Clunkers," all this Federal money is just buying an artificial spike in the market -- it's not doing anything to spur real recovery, it's just making people who wanted to buy do it now instead of two months from now.
Of course, another thing spurring home buyers is the weakening dollar, and the administration's dangerously inflationary policy. If you have X dollars to buy a house and you do it now, you get X dollars worth of house, plus eight thousand dollars. If you wait two months, you get roughly X dollars worth of house. If you wait for the expected 11% drop in prices, however, you have to wonder if the inflation will kick in and make your X dollars worth only X-divided-by-something. Since the housing market may be near its bottom, getting out of 'cash' and into real estate might make some economic sense.
The Illusion of Clean Hands
We once discussed it; but here is a fine example of how it distorts the mind and the sense of justice:
A stunned shopper bought a chicken from Preston's Asda store only to find its head still attached. Helen Kirby, 27, of Thistlecroft in Ingol, was horrified to discover it tucked under the body of the bird.... Bosses at Asda have apologised to Miss Kirby and confirmed they have given her £100 and a new vacuum cleaner in compensation.Seeing the face of the animal you killed for dinner is worth a hundred pounds sterling, and a new vacuum cleaner? How can anyone so far removed from the reality of the world they inhabit trust anything their heart tells them? How can it be an honest guide?
Rockwell
Once a shorthand for 'the American Way,' many of the paintings of Norman Rockwell have become less relevant as time has passed. Of "the Four Freedoms," only "Freedom of Speech" remains powerful, The Wall Street Journal explains:
"Freedom of speech and expression" and "freedom of worship" are, of course, from the Bill of Rights. But the other two—"freedom from want" and "freedom from fear," which the president defines as "a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point . . . that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor" — are Roosevelt's, or perhaps his wife Eleanor's, utopian wishes for universal rights that were to become part of the United Nations Charter.OK, but the best Rockwell paintings were barely political at all. Not that political lessons couldn't be drawn from them. For example, my favorite of his works has always been "The Runaway."
As a superb illustrator who used the familiar world of his viewers to tell them stories with messages that touched their hearts, Rockwell said in his autobiography that he had difficulty conceptualizing the abstract, and internationalist, Four Freedoms, especially the negative rights of "want" and "fear": "I never liked 'Freedom from Fear' or, for that matter, 'Freedom from Want,'" he wrote. "Neither of them," Rockwell thought, "had any wallop." He was right.
"Freedom From Want" depicts a homey Thanksgiving dinner; it's more about what we have than what we want, surplus rather than scarcity. In "Freedom Fom Fear," a mother tucks in her children while her husband holds a newspaper with headlines reading "Bombings" and "Horror." This reference to the war is so specific that it conveys little about fear or Roosevelt's plan for universal disarmament. Rockwell just could not get his hands around these airy abstractions.
And, although he was proud of "Freedom of Worship," his depiction of spectral close-up faces and hands raised in prayer is bland, without any real message about religious freedom—again, no wallop. This is because faith, like the absence of fear and the absence of want, is essentially private, something personal, intangible and unpicturable.
In "Freedom of Speech," however, Rockwell found a subject that is active and public, a subject he could grasp and shape into his greatest painting forging traditional American illustration into a powerful and enduring work of art.
That captures the difference between a "Peace Officer" and a "Law Enforcement Officer." If I were in charge of the training of the police, I'd set aside a whole day of the course to reflect on that painting and write essays about how it defines your duty.
Global Horse Culture
A nifty blog I hadn't seen before is Global Horse Culture, which is interested in the many ways that man and horse interact. There's a lot there. For example:
Thai Cowboy bars.
Japanese Horseshoes.
What do you pull with a 48 Belgian hitch? Anything you want to, of course.
John Wayne did his own stunts, but if you need a good horse stunt today, the horse does it.
I appreciate the author's hard work on putting together such an interesting collection.