Just Random Bad Luck

An article making the rounds considers the case of a Chicago mother whose four children have all been killed in what the article describes as "gun violence." The latest "child" to die was 34 years of age, and had -- the article does not mention this, so you have to scroll to the comments -- a history of some 29 arrests, and gang membership. There is some confusion about whether he was a former or a current member of the Gangster Disciples when he died. The drive-by nature of the shooting suggests gang violence, but no one has been arrested.

The article is similarly circumspect about the other shootings. The first is described as a shooting by "a high-school classmate" "after an argument." The others are just described as having been close together in time.

If only Chicago had some more gun control laws, I guess we are meant to take from the article, this kind of thing would not happen.

Real or fake? Does it matter?

Mark Steyn nails it, as usual:

[T]he secretary of state denied that she’d ever seen the late Ambassador Stevens’s cables about the deteriorating security situation in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office” – and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. . . . 

When a foreign head of state receives the credentials of the senior emissary of the United States, he might carelessly assume that the chap surely has a line of communication back to the government he represents.  For six centuries or so, this has been the minimal requirement for functioning inter-state relations.  But Secretary Clinton has just testified that, in the government of the most powerful nation on earth, there is no reliable means by which a serving ambassador can report to the cabinet minister responsible for foreign policy.  And nobody cares:  What difference does it make? . . . 

Nor was the late Christopher Stevens any old ambassador, but rather Secretary Clinton’s close personal friend “Chris.”  It was all “Chris” this, “Chris” that when Secretary Clinton and President Obama delivered their maudlin eulogies over the flag-draped coffin of their “friend.”  Gosh, you’d think if they were on such intimate terms, “Chris” might have had Hillary’s e-mail address, but apparently not.  He was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends cabling the State Department every hour of the day.

Celebrate Diversity of Religion

Some comments on the Right reacting to this piece are improper.



Says Ed Morrissey: "But to 'thank God for abortion' demonstrates a lack of proper formation in religion … or just a bit of demagoguery intended to put on a fake faith to assume speakership for that contingent of people. If Touré really believes in God, perhaps he should take the time to find out what God says about pretty much the entire arc of behavior that Touré admits in this brief clip[.]" But what the man is saying is that he thanks his god that he was able to kill the child he didn't want so he could have a better life (including the child he eventually did want). There is a long American tradition of religion that advocates for the sacrifice of the unwanted in return for a better life.

How unfair to assume that he was speaking of the Christian God -- or that a claim like this refers to "a fake faith." Something ancient is being worshiped here, though the speaker may not have been taught to recognize his god by its right name.

Revolutions

An interesting article at Cafe Hayek explores the transformational value of human inventions.  What is more revolutionary, indoor plumbing or the Internet?  The commenters muse about living on the cusp on an age in which knowledge is shared worldwide in ways that were unimaginable a few years ago.  Not so far back in my life, I couldn't have guessed what conversations I'd be having daily with people all over the world.

You keep using that word "sacrifice" . . . .

Bookworm Room leaps into the socialized medicine fray again, with a post called "When It Comes to End-of-Life Decisions, the State Does Not Love You."  She's reacting to a revolting piece at Slate arguing that it makes sense to "sacrifice" the life of an infant to save its mother.  Whether or not that trade-off makes sense, The Anchoress points out that it doesn't constitute a "sacrifice."  A sacrifice is one person giving up something valuable for another.  Despite the euphemism employed by medical researchers who "sacrifice" an experimental laboratory animal, the killing of an infant to save the mother is not a sacrifice.  It is a killing that may or may not be justified by harrowing circumstances.  If the infant killed itself to save its mother, that would be a sacrifice.  If the mother died so that her baby could be born, that would be a sacrifice.

This is part and parcel of the confusion I so often complain about, that leads us to describe as "charity" the act of taking someone else's money and putting it to good use.  The confiscation of property may lead to many good things, such as justice, mercy, or efficiency, but it is not charity.  Charity is when one man gives of his own property to help someone else in need.

The Bookworm post is well worth reading in its entirety, not just for this point about euphemisms and the mental confusion they generate, but for its treatment of euthanasia, and the broader problem of who will make the best choices about scarce medical resources.  She describes a time when she believed a beneficent state would make better choices about expensive end-of-life care than money-grubbing family members.  She failed to take into account the inevitable shrinking of prosperity and resources under a socialist system, and the need to compare apples to apples:  the question is not whether a flush socialist state will be more merciful than a cash-strapped family, but whether, in cash-strapped situations, the most mercy will be found in people who know and love the patient, or in bureaucrats who are total strangers.

No system of economics or government eliminates the problem of making hard choices about limited resources.  Some systems create more prosperity than others, but we will always bump up against the wall of what can be done for one problem without robbing resources available to solve another.  The question is:  what system solves the conflicts in a way we can live with?

Tourist maps

I like the "mountains in the other direction!"

H/t Bookworm Room.

Women in combat

I find this account incredibly persuasive even though every fiber of my being wants to argue against it.

A British Son of Liberty

In the comments to a recent post at BLACKFIVE, a gentleman posted a link to a song by a British singer that references the Sons of Liberty. The only name he mentions in the song is Watt Tyler, though, so he's reaching a lot further back than the famous Sons -- 1381, in fact.



Musically it isn't much of a song, but the lyrics are encouraging.

House of Eratosthenes

Some good stuff on House of Eratosthenes this morning.  On Hillary Clinton's strange testimony this week:

We have our Secretary of State . . . reminding us that the whole point is to find out what happened, and therefore “what does it matter” . . . what the h--- happened.  Sheer nonsense.

And on the weird treatment of science in political disputes:

But it bears repeating, science has nothing to do at all with what we “must” do.  Science is all about what is.  One steps outside of the domain of science, usually slamming the door behind him, and forgetting the key, the minute one starts pondering the thing-to-do.  With the climate change deal, a lot of people tend to forget that. 

[I]n classical times “science” was used to describe a process, and in more recent times it is used to describe an orthodoxy of institutionalized beliefs, and a coterie of elites maintaining them. 

. . . 

Time after time, I see lefties “proving” that they deserve to be the one Alpha Dog of the pack — and not taking the trouble to prove much of anything else.  They start babbling pure nonsense.  Like “It’s our job to find out what happened here so it never happens again, and what difference does it make who did this thing we’re trying to prevent from ever happening again, or why they did it.”  Arguing about security procedures and climate science . . . the way Arctic wolves would, if they could talk.

Maybe we have a Constitution after all

A federal appeals court has found that when the Constitution says the President can make recess appointments, that means he actually has to wait until a recess to do it.  He can't just act during what feels like a recess to him, on the ground that the appointment is really important and Republicans aren't being nice to him.

Conan, Master of Arts

A helpful article from McSweeny's medical journal entitled, "FAQ: The 'Snake Fight' Portion of Your Thesis Defense."

Q: Do I have to kill the snake?
A: University guidelines state that you have to “defeat” the snake. There are many ways to accomplish this. Lots of students choose to wrestle the snake. Some construct decoys and elaborate traps to confuse and then ensnare the snake. One student brought a flute and played a song to lull the snake to sleep. Then he threw the snake out a window.

Q: Does everyone fight the same snake?
A: No. You will fight one of the many snakes that are kept on campus by the facilities department.

Q: Are the snakes big?
A: We have lots of different snakes. The quality of your work determines which snake you will fight. The better your thesis is, the smaller the snake will be.

...

Q: So then couldn’t you just fight a snake in lieu of actually writing a thesis?
A: Technically, yes. But in that case the snake would be very big. Very big, indeed.

Oh, so that's what happened.

Guns and budgets

From Instapundit, quoting a friend:

If Republicans want to stop gun control legislation in the US Senate all they have to do is attach a budget to it and Harry Reid will ensure it never comes up for a vote.

Harbingers

Paul A. Rahe addresses a question about whether there is a non-Marxist literature on what occasions revolutions (he misses Hannah Arendt). Are there leading indicators that suggest a revolution may be coming?

One key indicator is that those with access to the levers of power within the ruling order cease to believe in the religion or ideology that legitimizes the regime. Another is that their underlings also gradually abandon the beliefs that render respectable the rule of their masters.

For some reason, he goes on to talk about China.

Mourning at the Morning of the World

There is much to mourn at this hour. We watch the nation fall ever farther from the moral life that formed it, and informed it at its darkest hours.

Since I am quoting Dunsany, though, it is worth remembering that he was an ally of the ancient things. The ancient things renew.

THE RETURN OF SONG

"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And
looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and
far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger
than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking
larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing
and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were
wild ships swimming in music.

"What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods.

"Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming
back to the gods returning the gift of song."

"A whole world dead!" I said.

"Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are
not for ever; only song is immortal."

"Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon."

And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods.

"The Assignation"

A very short story by Lord Dunsany, one of the greats of his age.

Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid adventurers, passed the poet by.

And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of perishable things.

And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening.

And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to her: "Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the byways you have not foreborne to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I have toiled for you and dreamed of you and you mock me and pass me by."

And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in departing she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had not smiled before, and, almost speaking in a whisper, said:

"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse in a hundred years."

But read on, for "Charon," and the story of the Sphinx and Time.

The communal fire

Last night we tried something so obviously wonderful that now I can't understand why we haven't been doing it all our lives.  We brought home a bag of unshucked oysters, had a bunch of neighbors over, and spent the evening around a fire pit grilling the oysters, shucking them, and eating them with a variety of condiments my husband whipped up yesterday morning.  (The lime-chili-cilantro sauce has to be tried to be believed.)

The oysters came fresh from the local bay.  Unshucked, they cost a small fraction of what we're used to:  $30 buys a 100-lb bag (more than 300 oysters), while a gallon of shucked oysters (perhaps 100) is fetching $54 these days.  Shucking is a breeze when the oyster has been grilled.  When the shell pops open a fraction, you know the oyster is done.

The free-standing metal fire pit, a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law, is a welcome addition to our patio.  Besides providing a fine focus for a friendly outdoor party at this pleasant time of year, it let us burn up some deadfall wood and produce ashes that we'll use in the garden.  And of course we had s'mores.

Lime Chili Cilantro Sauce

6 large garlic cloves, minced
3 TB fresh cilantro, minced
4 green onions, minced
1/3 cup Asian chili paste
2 TB sugar
1/2 tsp lime zest, minced
1/3 cup lime juice, freshly squeezed
1/3 cup Vietnamese fish sauce
1-1/2 TB pickled ginger, minced

If you're starting with raw shucked oysters, you can spoon this sauce over them before grilling, and you can add the reserved oyster liquor to the sauce.  For grilling in the shells, we just cooked and opened the oysters, then let the guests spoon a little sauce over the top.  It's good on all kinds of things, not just oysters.  Its explosive flavor is a crowd pleaser.

A Delightful Interlude

If you are among the people who occasionally receive presents from me, do not follow these links because you'll ruin some upcoming surprises.

For the rest of you, is this not perfect?

I like this one, too. Also this one.

And one for Eric Blair.

Another Perspective on Violence and Guns

It's injudiciously phrased, so take that as a warning, but consider this article.

67% of firearm murders took place in the country’s 50 largest metro areas. The 62 cities in those metro areas have a firearm murder rate of 9.7, more than twice the national average. Among teenagers the firearm murder rate is 14.6 or almost three times the national average.

Those are the crowded cities... with the most restrictive gun control laws and the highest crime rates. And many of them have been run by Democrats and their political machines for almost as long as they have been broken.

Obama won every major city in the election, except for Jacksonville and Salt Lake City. And the higher the death rate, the bigger his victory.

He won New Orleans by 80 to 17 where the murder rate is ten times higher than the national average. He won Detroit, where the murder rate of 53 per 100,000 people is the second highest in the country and twice as high as any country in the world, including the Congo and South Africa. He won it 73 to 26. And then he celebrated his victory in Chicago where the murder rate is three times the statewide average....

In 2006, the 54% of the population living in those 50 metro areas was responsible for 67% of armed killings nationwide. Those are disproportionate numbers especially when you consider that for the people living in most of those cities walking into a store and legally buying a gun is all but impossible.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

You've probably read about the latest report on the dangers of right-wing terrorism to come out of the US Federal Government, in this case the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the disclaimer on the report, which states that the opinions are the author's only, and not those of the government, the DOD, etc. Fair enough!

That said, The Atlantic would like you to know that the report shows that there is a rising scale of domestic right-wing terrorism. They highlight the report's findings that "in the 1990s the average number of attacks per year was 70.1, the average number of attacks per year in the first 11 years of the twenty-first century was 307.5, a rise of more than 400%."

OK, again, fair enough. Apparently there is a rising tide of violence from right wing groups. However, I have a question about the composition of the groups described as violent.

Two of the three divisions the author proposes aren't very controversial. He mentions racist groups such as the KKK, and "Christian Identity" groups such as the Aryan Nations. These two divisions seem to be responsible for the rising tide of violence.

But then there is a third division in the report, a so-called "anti-federalist" movement. Here's the description of them.

Violence derived from the modern anti-federalist movement appeared in full force only in the early to mid-1990s and is interested in undermining the influence, legitimacy and effective sovereignty of the federal government and its proxy organizations. The anti-federalist rationale is multifaceted, and includes the beliefs that the American political system and its proxies were hijacked by external forces interested in promoting a “New World Order” (NWO) in which the United States will be absorbed into the United Nations or another version of global government. They also espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.

Now that sounds to me like he's talking about Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirators, and indeed it turns out that he begins the main part of his report by talking about McVeigh.

However, it seems strange to bring this up as if it were a living movement. If we're talking about the 'violence derived from the anti-federalist movement only appearing in the early-to-mid 1990s,' then we are talking about the period when the violence from such groups was minimal and statistically insignificant. More than that, we're saying that this minimal, statistically insignificant period of violence represents the high point of violence from this group.

Now, on the other hand, since 2010 there has been a very loud, viable anti-federalist movement called the TEA Party. But it doesn't advocate the violent overthrow of anything. It doesn't direct violence toward law enforcement, or anyone else. It doesn't go on about any 'New World Order.' It does, however, "espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights [and] support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government."

In other words, insofar as you want to talk about the KKK and racist skinheads, there's no problem. If those groups are increasingly violent and dangerous, we can talk about how to address that problem.

If you want to use this report to paint the loudest and most effective political opposition to the President and Democratic Senate as terrorists, however, people are right to be disturbed. It is not at all clear to me that it is appropriate to suggest that there is anything like an "anti-federalist" movement that embraces both the TEA Party and the late and un-lamented Timothy McVeigh. I think, in fact, it is a dangerous sort of slander, at a time when the government is asserting "anti-terrorist" powers that are undefined and subject to no clear limits.

Two from Brandywine Books

Lars Walker tells the story of being robbed at gunpoint as a young man.

Phil provides a link to an interesting disquisition on the order of the intellectual life. It occurs to me that you can replace 'intellectual life' with 'military life' or almost any other sort of life and find that the same four points hold.

1. Recognize the Intellectual Life as a Calling.
2. Submit Your Intellectual Pursuits to Truth.
3. Understand the Intellectual Life Requires Considerable Discipline.
4. Remember the Goal of the Intellectual Life is Virtuous Character.

Something to consider!