While these acts are probably not related, the Charleston shooting occurred alongside another shooting at a historically black church in Memphis. Meanwhile, a third church in Ferguson, MO, with ties to the explosive police shooting last year was burned to the ground. The KKK is suspected.
It would be good to take a moment, if the opportunity presents itself, to express a sense of brotherhood to our fellow Christians. The talk in the media focuses so much on what divides us, but this far more important thing connects us. American politics, the questions of race, these are passing matters. The eternal truth is brotherhood. It is important to make that clear in an hour in which many must be feeling fear.
Too Late For Uncle Mike
Not that the rule would cover him anyway. He was a Marine, and encountered the stuff more by having it dropped on him in reconnaissance than otherwise.
Ending years of wait, the government agreed Thursday to provide millions of dollars in disability benefits to as many as 2,100 Air Force reservists and active-duty forces exposed to Agent Orange residue on airplanes used in the Vietnam War.After he went blind, he lost heart. I remember him fondly.
The Spirit of the Age
Mollie Hemingway:
[I]f Lew is right that our currency is supposed to express our values and capture the spirit of our age, a man as good as Hamilton has absolutely no business being on the currency. George Washington definitely doesn’t. Heck, we should replace them all.She has some suggestions, but they're mostly for effect. Her basic point is made there -- and perhaps she's right. With quantitative easing, the money isn't worth anything anymore. We are just trading on the fact that international markets haven't worked out a solid alternative yet. The people aren't virtuous, as a republic needed them to be. Why shouldn't the paper reflect the people, or for that matter, why shouldn't the symbols on the face of the currency better reflect its true value?
Security!
Like thousands and thousands of Americans, I've filled out an SF-86, the Questionnaire for National Security Positions. In order to let the government determine if it can trust me, I trusted them with vast quantities of private personal information. This included not only responses to 127 pages of questions, but personal interviews with security officers, not only for me and my wife but for many people I've known everywhere I'd lived to the date of the adjudication of the clearance. The file, in other words, is as complete a set of information about me as you could hope to procure, given that it was created with my complete cooperation and with a very thorough background investigation.
How nice to know that the government took such good care with my trust.
How nice to know that the government took such good care with my trust.
The Fix
A surprise vote on that TPP fast track bill was called last night, just after news of the Charleston shooting began to flood TV news and social media networks. Fast track was approved by the House while no one was watching.
The Charleston Matter
It is a great sorrow to learn that decent people, brother and sister Christians engaged in Bible study, were murdered by a strange and paranoid figure while at their peaceful and religious work. At times like these, I prefer to look for those who behaved well in the face of danger. During the Sikh temple murders it was Satwant Singh Kaleka, a 65-year-old hero who charged the gunman with the only weapon the law permitted him: a butter knife that reduced his kirpan to a symbol rather than a practical tool for fighting evil. During the Aurora shooting, it was the gallant men who lay down their lives to protect their wives and girlfriends. Such men must be welcomed to heaven by heralding angels.
Today there are no such good stories, except for the work of the policemen who tracked down and captured the murderer. It is being remarked, unfairly, that the fact that they took him alive is proof that cops are racists. Rather, it is their duty when it is reasonably possible. They should be praised for doing their duty against a young man of proven danger.
Today there are no such good stories, except for the work of the policemen who tracked down and captured the murderer. It is being remarked, unfairly, that the fact that they took him alive is proof that cops are racists. Rather, it is their duty when it is reasonably possible. They should be praised for doing their duty against a young man of proven danger.
SCOTUS, Texas, and the Confederate Flag
This ruling makes sense to me. The Confederate Flag is, inter alia, a symbol of rebellion against Federal power. Even as a heritage symbol, which is how the Sons of Confederate Veterans want to use it, displaying it aligns one with the historical cause of rejecting the Federal government outright where it overstepped the community's understanding of its constitutional bounds. The Federal courts' extraordinary power over every aspect of American life follows directly from the defeat of that cause and the consequent Reconstruction's 14th Amendment.
So when the SoCV went forward with a lawsuit claiming the right to force the government to accept the symbol, of course the courts are bound to reject that. The liberal wing of the court was united here, joined by Justice Thomas. The article mentions that he is 'the court's only African-American' in a way that suggests this was a causal factor, but Thomas is surely correct as an originalist. The purpose of the Reconstruction amendments was to suppress just this particular political expression. For, as von Clausewitz reminds us, war is only politics by other means.
So when the SoCV went forward with a lawsuit claiming the right to force the government to accept the symbol, of course the courts are bound to reject that. The liberal wing of the court was united here, joined by Justice Thomas. The article mentions that he is 'the court's only African-American' in a way that suggests this was a causal factor, but Thomas is surely correct as an originalist. The purpose of the Reconstruction amendments was to suppress just this particular political expression. For, as von Clausewitz reminds us, war is only politics by other means.
Where Are The Ice Giants?
A forester in Denmark uncovers the weapons of giants among his pine trees.
The axe heads measure 12 inches (30 centimeters) in length and each one weighs two pounds. Dating revealed they were made sometime during the 16th century BC, making them one of the oldest weapons of their kind discovered in Denmark. They are twice as heavy as axe heads usually are, suggesting that the men who wielded them must have been giant in stature.A good reminder, as we approach 2016, of what we ought to look for in a leader.
Why teach Shakespeare?
Micro-Aggression
I prefer aggression per se, myself, but apparently this is a big deal:
Well, why shouldn't it be? It's private money, after all. I'm sure we're all OK with the idea of private actors -- corporations and their hiring managers, for example -- acting on their preference for supporting the advancement of the right sex. Or if we are not, why not? It's their money, after all, whether paid out as scholarships or salaries.
My favorite is “gender plays no part in who we hire,” a policy feminists have spent decades demanding from American businesses only to dismiss it now as aggressively sexist, a self-delusion promoted by the corporate world to disguise their bias against women.By coincidence I received in my email while off on vacation an advertisement for this scholarship. "This scholarship is available only to women," the tenured (and female) faculty member wrote to the email list without any apparent sense of discomfort.
Well, why shouldn't it be? It's private money, after all. I'm sure we're all OK with the idea of private actors -- corporations and their hiring managers, for example -- acting on their preference for supporting the advancement of the right sex. Or if we are not, why not? It's their money, after all, whether paid out as scholarships or salaries.
God and Gold
A meditation on St. Augustine's wrestling with a problem most modern Christian and Jewish thinkers prefer to avoid. Can you trade earthly gold for heavenly? What does it take to do so?
The Judgment of Grim
So this week I saw a grizzly in Yellowstone. People said he was around, so I searched out the track -- grizzly bears often leave a clear track where they walk back and forth between their favorite feeding areas -- and followed it. He was sleeping on top of his kill, an American Bison, by a small pond. I'm pretty sure this was a reasonable thing to do, in spite of the fact that everyone I've discussed it with thinks it was crazy. The land lay in such a way that there were only a few places he could be that were out of sight, and I approached with what I think was sufficient caution to make sure I didn't get close enough to those places to provoke an encounter. I wouldn't want to hurt a bear, and if it went the other way and he killed me the Rangers would shoot him. Thus, while I really wanted to see him, I approached it in a way that would ensure his safety.
I also crossed a glacier at 10,400 feet and free climbed some rock chimneys without rope or safety gear. This, I learned later, is strongly not recommended by the park rangers. Once again, though, I think I knew what I was doing, and it was awesome.
Thought about Sly when we crossed into Montana. That was really beautiful, but the Grand Tetons are my new favorite place in the world. More, it surprises me to say, even than Georgia.
Crowd-sourcing jobs
Amazon is considering adopting the Uber model, by signing up local workers to deliver packages they volunteer for via smartphone.
Named storms
Something's coming on shore now that's been dignified with the name "Bill." If you look at this Wind Map, it suggests a dramatic event over our heads (we're just about directly south of the left-hand edge of the "H" in "Houston"), but actually so far it's a bust even as far as rain goes. The west side of a tropical pattern is usually the dry side, but maybe it will dump something more on us later as it pulls northwest through Texas. It seems that North Texas and Oklahoma are in for another drenching, and it will be quite wet all the way up the Gulf Coast to the east of us.
Much as we would love to see another hard rain fill the pond all the rest of the way up, we can't complain about this year's extraordinary rainfall total to date, which is as much as we might expect in an entire ordinary year, around 30 inches. Our rainwater cistern has been topped off for months; lakes and aquifers are being replenished all over the state. But it's a good time to take rising rivers very seriously.
Update: OK, not that much yesterday, but we've had 5.5 inches of rain today with power outages. Now that's more like it!
Much as we would love to see another hard rain fill the pond all the rest of the way up, we can't complain about this year's extraordinary rainfall total to date, which is as much as we might expect in an entire ordinary year, around 30 inches. Our rainwater cistern has been topped off for months; lakes and aquifers are being replenished all over the state. But it's a good time to take rising rivers very seriously.
Update: OK, not that much yesterday, but we've had 5.5 inches of rain today with power outages. Now that's more like it!
Popcorn
This stuff doesn't need any comment.
Well, maybe it does. Here's a good one:
To say that a particularly psychology is abnormal or disordered does not imply it should be an object of hatred or hostility. I believe we need more tolerance for the abnormal and for those outside the mainstream—call it freak lib—and I would note that part of the reason the left has to insist so stridently that Jenner is normal, and demand that everyone agree, is because they are the ones who have no real concept of freedom for those outside the social consensus.
Hope in Detroit
I was wondering the other day how NRA approval sorted out by race. Today HotAir reports that "54 percent of blacks now see gun ownership as a good thing, something more likely to protect than harm. That’s up from 29 percent just two years ago."
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