Another holiday tradition, this one not even two hundred years old, is the song "Good King Wenceslas":Good King Wenceslas looked out, On the Feast of Stephen,
The good reader will now ask, of course, who this King Wenceslas was. The particularly astute reader will wonder who St. Stephen was, that his Feast directly follows Christmas. Both questions are answered; follow the links, if you like.
When the snow lay round about,
Deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight,
Gathering winter fuel.
Hither, page, and stand by me,
If though know'st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?"
Where and what his dwelling?
Sire, he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
By Saint Agnes' fountain."
Bring me flesh, and bring me wine,
Bring me pine logs hither;
Thou and I will see him dine,
When we bear them thither."
Page and monarch, forth they went,
Forth they went together;
Thro' the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather.
Sire, the night is darker now,
And the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer."
Mark my footsteps, my good page;
Tread thou in them boldly;
Though shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly."
In his master's steps he trod,
Where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
Wealth or rank possesing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
Shall yourself find blessing.
The Feast of Stephen
Waes Hael!
If you missed it yesterday, a Yuletide tradition explained.
Waes Hael! Drinc Hael! Merry Christmas, and a fine Yuletide to you all.
And Since We're Doing King Alfred:
From The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton:
Then Alfred laughed out suddenly,
Like thunder in the spring,
Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,
And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,
And the startled birds went up in streams,
For the laughter of the King.
And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,
In a wild solemnity,
On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,
On one man laughing at himself
Under the greenwood tree--
The giant laughter of Christian men
That roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack's away with his master's lass,
And the miser is banged with all his brass,
The farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick,
Yet end not all in scorning--
Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,
And the clock gone wrong and the world gone right,
That the mummers sing upon Christmas night
And Christmas Day in the morning.
A Christmas Poem
"The Knight Before Christmas"
by Robert L. Sheridan
(which I assume he won't mind me sharing, since he posted it on the internet)
'Twas the knight biforn Christmas, whan al thrugh the castle
Nat a creature was stirring, nat even a vassal;
The gauntlets were hung by the hearth with care,
In fear that the Saxons soon wouldst be ther;
The knights were nestled al snug in their bedst,
Whilst visions of battles dancest in their heeds;
And Guenevere in her silver wimple, and I in my helm,
Hadde joust settled adoun for a long winter's realm,
Whenst outen on the motte ther arose swich a clatter,
I sprang from the bedst to see what wast the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a turncoat,
Tore out the bars and threw them into the moat.
The moon on the breast of the fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to the serfs living below,
Whenst, what to my wandering eyes should appear - much to my chagrin,
But a battering ram, and eight mean lookyng Saxons,
With a leader, whose terror was so widespread,
I knew in a moment it must be King Alfred.
Moore rapid than boiling oil his soldiers they came,
And he yelled, and shouted, and called hem by nempne;
"Now Botolph! now, Clough!, now Fulke and Heaton!
Onst, Hurst! on Ockley! on Ramsden and Waldgrave!
To the edge of the moat! thurgh the moat!
Now bash away, bash away! bash away al!"
Ast Saxon's that er the winds fly,
Whan hem meetest with an obstacle, mounteth to the sly,
So up to the castle-gate the Saxon-mother's-sons they flewest,
With an assortment of weapons, and King Alfred tooest.
And tho, in a instant, I heard by the castle-gate, the horde
The chopping and hacking of each Saxon's sword.
As I drew my sword, and was trilling around,
Downed the castle-gate King Alfred came liketh a hound.
He was dressed all in chain mail, from his feete to his garrote,
And his chain mail was all rusted from coming thrugh the moat;
A sack of pilfered goodst he had flung on his back,
And he looketh lyk a smuggler joust closing his pack.
His eyes -- how they scowled! his warts how dreary!
His cheeks were lyk haymows, his nose lyk quiteth beery!
His troll lite mouth was drawn up like a crossbow,
And the beard of chin was the colour of soot on the snow;
The stump of a small tree he held tighteth in his teethe,
And the roots it hidde his face, it caused me to grief;
He had a rude face and a bigeth belly,
That shooketh, whenst he laughed atte me, lyk a bowlful of jelly,
He was grubby and quite a lump, a right grievous old elf,
And I laughed when I nicked him, in spite of myself;
In a blinketh of an eye, and a thwart of my deeds,
Anon gave me to knoweth I had been sullied;
He spoketh hou a word, but went bak to his thieving,
And took all the gauntlets; which caused me muche peeving,
And laying his sword aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, out the castle-gate he fled -- unopposed;
He sprang to his horse, to his soldiers gave a yell,
And soone they flew -- they covered the grounds well.
But I herde him calleth, ere he rode out of sight,
"Thonke you for the Yuletide Gifts -- you good-knight!"
Another
Another offers Christmas greetings--an Iraqi:
You see, Jesus (Issa in our language), is not only important to Christians, he (PBU) is also very important to us. Faith is a mystic experience: First there was Feeling, then was the Word and then was the World. In the Bible somewhere it says that Jesus said to his disciples that if they had even an atom of real faith they could move a mountain (Please help in locating the exact quote). This is the mystic essence of faith; anybody with sufficient faith can accomplish miracles. And true faith is a kind of ecstasy, a kind of elation; getting drunk with the heavenly wine.
The Pope
If you would like to read his homily, you can do so on the Vatican's official site. The closing verse includes this, which strikes me as magnificient:
O Holy Night, so long awaited, which has united God and man for ever! You rekindle our hope. You fill us with ecstatic wonder. You assure us of the triumph of love over hatred, of life over death.For this reason we remain absorbed in prayer.
Reuters
Reuters is a famously biased news service. Tonight's example is from the Pope's Midnight Mass at the Vatican:
"You come to bring us peace. You are our peace," he said in a homily that was mostly of religious content, recalling the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.Mostly religious content, you say. On Christmas. From the Pope. Honestly.
Waes Hael!
We have been enjoying the Yuletide, but for many of us, the only real days of rest are Christmas itself, and perhaps the day after. For some of us, there are no days of rest. This year that is especially true for those defenders of our country, who in a desperate time guard against those who would murder our weakest. I salute my brothers in arms.
This is a time to renew our devotion to old traditions, both Christian and Heathen, as they together make up the Order of the West. Here are some thoughts on Pagan Yule traditions:
For the Vikings, the yule log was an integral part of their celebration of the solstice, the julfest; on the log they would carve runes representing unwanted traits (such as ill fortune or poor honor) that they wanted the gods to take from them.Waes Hael! We know the phrase thanks to Geoffrey of Monmoth's Historia Regum Britanniae. Geoffrey attributed it to the Anglo-Saxons Hengst, Horsa, and Hengst's beautiful daughter Rowen, who caught the eye of Vortigern. That Vortigern is the same one you may have heard about, who according to Arthurian legend invited the Saxons to Britian, and then lost it to them.Wassail comes from the Old English words waes hael, which means "be well," "be hale," or "good health." A strong, hot drink (usually a mixture of ale, honey, and spices) would be put in a large bowl, and the host would lift it and greet his companions with "waes hael," to which they would reply "drinc hael," which meant "drink and be well." Over the centuries some non-alcoholic versions of wassail evolved.
The connection of the phrase "Waes Hael!" to Arthur continued into the 19th century. This is odd in a way, as Arthur was the enemy of the Saxons, and spoke Cymric or Latin. Still, poets who had read Geoffrey of Monmouth in their education put "Waes Hael" with Arthur, and Arthur with England. Thus Robert S. Hawker's "KING ARTHUR'S WAES-HAEL" which begins:
Waes-hael for knight and dame!The proper answer to "Waes Hael!" was "Drinc Hael!" Sir Walter Scott knew that, and used the device in Ivanhoe in the encounter between Friar Tuck and a disguised King Richard Lionheart:
O! merry be their dole;
Drink-hael! in Jesu's name
We fill the tawny bowl;
But cover down the curving crest,
Mould of the orient lady's breast.
The hermit only replied by a grin; and returning to the hutch, he"Waes Hael" became "wassail!" in the Middle English, and there were a number of wassailing ceremonies practiced by the English. The word also became associated with several kinds of festive drinks, often mulled wine or hot, spiced ale. I myself recommend a touch of nutmeg and ginger in a good ale as a suitable wassail. You may heat it if you like--I prefer mine cold. Hot, spiced cider is a good alternative.
produced a leathern bottle, which might contain about four
quarts. He also brought forth two large drinking cups, made out
of the horn of the urus, and hooped with silver. Having made
this goodly provision for washing down the supper, he seemed to
think no farther ceremonious scruple necessary on his part; but
filling both cups, and saying, in the Saxon fashion, "'Waes
hael', Sir Sluggish Knight!" he emptied his own at a draught."'Drink hael', Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst!" answered the warrior,
and did his host reason in a similar brimmer.
Waes Hael! Drinc Hael! Merry Christmas, and a fine Yuletide to you all. Let us gather in our halls and drink like men, to celebrate love and kinship, warmth, and the company of the brave.
Oof!
From The Command Post, which I finally got around to adding to my blogroll:
Part of discussion over Iraq between U.S. Ambassador in Egypt David Welch and some Al-Ahram Weekly journalists, as reported via FrontPage Magazine :Nevine Khalil: And what if there is democracy in the region and the people decide to elect governments that are not friendly to the US? What would you do about that?Welch: You mean like France?
Some Help He Could Do Without
A publication has stepped forward to defend Howard Dean from the attacks of the "mainstream" press. I'm sure he will be grateful to his new best friend: The World Socialist Web Site.
How does that go again? "Better Dead than Red?" Nothing says "I am too part of the mainstream!" like a few kind words from the World Socialist.
Change of Command
USCENTCOM has appointed a new ground commander in Afghaninstan, Lt. General David Barno. Barno, who was inducted into the Army Ranger Hall of Fame back in 1994, when he was a Lt. Colonel, seems like a good choice for the position and illustrates just how deep the talent pool is.
Gen. Barno says that his major effort is going to be improving security in the south and east, which includes Zabul province--readers of Grim's Hall have been following the situation in Zabul for months. It will be interesting to see what tactics he brings to the field. I wish him luck. We've had some successes there in the past, and I've been under the impression that we've been letting the Taliban gather in Zabul so we don't have to hunt them in Pakistan, destabilizing that state. However, the recent Operation Avelanche didn't meet with great success at all.
NBS
For political, this week, "The Politics of the Lord of the Rings". For non-political, this piece.
Speaking of International Law
It's worth recognizing that there is more than one Law on offer:
Members of the Islamic Fiqh Academy, who concluded their seven-day deliberations in Makkah yesterday, emphasized the need to remove the conditions that breed terrorism and extremism by implementing Shariah.Worldwide Sha'ria is certainly being advocated by quite a few fellows as a competing model to whatever the EU will finally settle upon, if indeed they ever can settle. In fact, Sha'ria is a stronger candiate, as it is already an established system of law. Would this count as a "fair trial under international supervision"? I don't see why not.
Of course, those of us who would prefer to continue being consulted about the laws that govern us can support neither option. Sha'ria can't be changed by mortal man; and "international law" EU style creates foreign arbiters to overrule you. The Classical Liberal must fight both systems with whatever weapons fall to hand.
UPDATE: Apparently the USS Clueless has been on this theme too. I should get over there more often.
Some Misconceptions
I think it's about time that we pointed out a few problems with the prevailing theory of international law. Consider this statement by Saddam's daughter:
"Of course I don't think he would receive a fair trial" under the current regime, she said. "The interim government is not recognised by anyone in the Arab world.That is flatly not true. No one anywhere has a right to a trial under international supervision--and they never have. From the dawn of human history, justice has been local. It may be that we will someday build a system in which "a fair trial under international supervision" is indeed a right, although from a US perspective, this would be a step backwards. The "international community" is noted for having far less fair trials than we have already; adding an observer from Zimbabwe, or even Denmark, would not improve the situation.
"I want a fair trial under international supervision... This is a legitimate right of any human being," she said.
Regardless, it must be recognized by "international law" advocates that what they are demanding is new. It represents a massive cessation of national authority--indeed, in many cases, of local authority. Most crimes in the USA, for example, are prosecuted by state governments and not the Federal government. One simply cannot assert that there is a "human right" here, when no such right has ever belonged to any human. If you want to build this system, you must first build an actual argument for why we should desire it. So far, I've not seen anything that would convince me that it was a good idea.
Another misconception, thanks to Michael Moore:
Thank God Saddam is finally back in American hands! He must have really missed us. Man, he sure looked bad! But, at least he got a free dental exam today. That's something most Americans can't get.Again, this is flatly untrue. Saddam killed, at minimum, 300,000 Iraqis. Some put the number as high as a million.
Any American who wants a free dental exam can get it by killing just one American citizen. In fact, he can get free dental and health care, as well as free room and board, for his whole remaining life. So you see, Mr. Moore, Americans don't have to work nearly as hard as Saddam for these benefits; they can get them for an afternoon's work, rather than the work of three decades. Just lucky, I guess.
"Mr. Dean"
I have never particularly liked the way that the top four or five US newspapers take it upon themselves to determine what constitutes "mainstream." The NY Times and the Washington Post are particularly frequent offenders. The reason it bothers me is this: All major newspapers are, for economic reasons, located in major cities. Major cities are, as we know from recent elections, the reform-liberal bastions of this country. The reason there are "blue states" at all is because of the cities located in the blue states. Attempting to gauge the "mainstream" from the heart of Washington, D.C., or Manhattan, is an act sure to fail.
However, for the above reason, it is almost always rightists who are declared Outside The Mainstream. Today, the Post made a declaration to the left. The same bias that causes centrist right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh to be put 'outside the mainstream' (which is laughable, given that his audience of American citizens far surpasses the Post's subscription base. You may not like him or agree with him, but by the clear evidence of his following he is at least as 'mainstream American' as the Post, and any argument to the contrary is self-delusion) suggests that anyone the Post finds out of the mainstream on the left is going to be pretty far left indeed.
So who is it? Why, Dr. Dean:
Yet there are important differences between the Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean, and the other five. In his speech Monday, Mr. Dean alone portrayed the recruiting of allies for Iraq as a means to "relieve the burden on the U.S." -- that is, to quickly draw down American forces. Only he omitted democracy from his goals for Iraq and the Middle East. And only Mr. Dean made the extraordinary argument that the capture of Saddam Hussein "has not made Americans safer."If this is a radical position when viewed from the center-left, how is it when viewed from the center-right, i.e., from everywhere in America not in a major city? Remember that Dean has to win 70% of US states if he captures no Southern states, which it is likely that he will not. As I argued earlier, Dean actually looks less radical on domestic issues, and could be a real contender for the victory if this were not wartime. It is, though, and a very large number of Americans care about the war more than every other political issue put together.
Mr. Dean's carefully prepared speech was described as a move toward the center, but in key ways it shifted him farther from the mainstream. A year ago Mr. Dean told a television audience that "there's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies," but last weekend he declared that "I never said Saddam was a danger to the United States." Mr. Dean has at times argued that the United States must remain engaged to bring democracy to Iraq, yet the word is conspicuously omitted from the formula of "stable self-government" he now proposes. The former Vermont governor has compiled a disturbing record of misstatements and contradictions on foreign policy; maybe he will shift yet again, this time toward more responsible positions.
Mr. Dean's exceptionalism, however, is not limited to Iraq. It can be found in his support for limiting the overseas deployments of the National Guard -- a potentially radical change in the U.S. defense posture -- and in his readiness to yield to the demands of North Korea's brutal communist dictatorship, which, he told The Post's Glenn Kessler, "ought to be able to enter the community of nations." Mr. Dean says he would end all funding for missile defense, a program supported by the Clinton administration, and also has broken with Mr. Clinton's successful trade policies, embracing protectionism. Sadly, on trade his position is shared by every Democratic candidate except Mr. Lieberman (and Ms. Clinton).
It is Mr. Dean's position on Iraq, however, that would be hardest to defend in a general election campaign. Many will agree with the candidate that "the administration launched the war in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help and at unbelievable cost." But most Americans understand Saddam Hussein for what he was: a brutal dictator who stockpiled and used weapons of mass destruction, who plotted to seize oil supplies on which the United States depends, who hated the United States and once sought to assassinate a former president; whose continuing hold on power forced thousands of American troops to remain in the Persian Gulf region for a decade; who even in the months before his overthrow signed a deal to buy North Korean missiles he could have aimed at U.S. bases. The argument that this tyrant was not a danger to the United States is not just unfounded but ludicrous.
Mr. Dean may be arguing Saddam Hussein's insignificance in part because he is unwilling to make a commitment to Iraq's future.
FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Documents Tie Saddam to 'Mohammed's Army'
No news on whether the Atta memo is genuine or not, although it looks fuzzy. However, there is news on Saddam's terrorist connections. It's from FOX, so take it as you will.
Telegraph | News | Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam
The Iraqi Governing Council has apparently chosen today to release a statement that they have uncovered proof that 9/11 attacker Atta was trained by Iraqi agents.
Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.That's very handy. Even handier:
The handwritten memo, a copy of which has been obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad.
In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy".
The second part of the memo, which is headed "Niger Shipment", contains a report about an unspecified shipment - believed to be uranium - that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.That's maybe too handy. If this document proves to be a forgery, well, it wouldn't surprise me. On the other hand, if it pans out, it's a kind Christmas gift from the IGC.
Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he said. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
UPDATE: The Age has some additional details about the memo's physical properties. The news report is called "Atta linked to Baghdad in dubious document," which captures the sad fact that this is a shockingly neat package to get everything we wish we could know for certain about Iraq and al Qaeda: that the links were real and functional, that 9/11 involved direct training from the Iraqi Mukhabarat and Abu Nidal, and even that the Niger shipment was real and aided by Qaeda agents. It'd be really nice if all of this panned out--and I have always believed the first part, that the links were real and functional, and been open to evidence on the second part, about 9/11--but what are the odds of finding it all written up in one neat document?
Written in the neat, precise hand of Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and one of the few named in the US Government's pack of cards of most-wanted Iraqis not to have been apprehended, the personal memo to Saddam is signed by Habbush in distinctive green ink.Well, good luck to the CIA analysts who will be sifting these details in the next little while--assuming this is news to them. It's always possible they've had this memo for quite a while.
Saddam Hussein Captured by U.S. Troops (washingtonpost.com)
Saddam Hussein Captured by 4th ID and USSOCOM! And in Tikrit, too. I'll be taking that shipment of Italian wine, McKnight.