I Get Carried Away

I wanted to post a second part to my "Wild Country" post of a couple of days ago, but tonight the inspiration wasn't there. So instead, here's a video of someone doing a cover of George Strait's "Carried Away":



I never get tired of listening to that song.

Destruction & Renewal

Over the weekend I watched a film titled Death Race, featuring British action star Jason Statham. The movie is a remake of a low-budget 1970's post-apocalyptic flick by the same name, which featured David Carradine in the lead role.

Quality-wise, the new film is superior to the original. Statham plays the role of an out-of-work factory laborer who is unjustly framed for the murder of his wife. However, before he had been forced to take a job as a factory worker, Statham's character had once been a professional race-car driver. And at the privately-run island prison where Statham is incarcerated (shades of Escape from New York - crime in American society has become almost uncontrollable), he is recruited by the prison's warden to participate in a deadly racing contest appropriately known as the "Death Race" - viewed by millions on pay-per-view television world-wide. Statham has been told that if he wins the race, he will be freed. But the warden has no intention of following through on her promise.

Overall, I found it to be an enjoyable film - good for sitting down with in front of the television with a big bowl of popcorn. To put it simply, if you like action flicks and don't mind a bit of graphic violence, you'll like the film. If not, don't bother. Also, the ending came off as contrived, but you'll have to view the film yourself to see what I mean.

***

Some blogging-related news: Steve H. Graham has changed the name of his blog from Hog on Ice to Tools of Renewal. The change is reflected in my blogroll. Give him a read, he's quite an interesting guy.

Wild Country

"I was twenty-nine, and I thought my life was over," Chris LaFollette thought to himself as he and his sleeping wife were driving down US-95 in northern Idaho. But my, how things had changed since that depressive thought had crossed his mind five years earlier.

At the time, Chris had been languishing in adjunct hell at a mid-tier university down in southern Texas, unsure if the career he had chosen was the right one, apprehensive about going forward for a Ph.D. in American history after having nearly burnt himself out earning his M.A. But then, in the fall of 2006 he had attended, rather reluctantly, a military history conference in Dallas at the insistence of his friend and former thesis advisor.

A waste of time, Chris had thought at the time - for what were academic conferences other than meetings of other academics wishing to drone on about the fruits of their latest research, which were of interest to few people other than themselves? But looking at the schedule of the upcoming conference, one panel had caught his eye: a panel on the topic of the 1922 Naval Disarmament Treaty between the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy - brokered by President Warren G. Harding. In more ways than one, the treaty that resulted from that diplomatic conference had set the stage for Japan's campaign of expansion in East Asia during the 1930s.

The topic had drawn him to that particular panel, but once there, what caught his eye was one of the panelists - a young assistant professor from the University of Washington named Carlene Gorton, who had recently earned her doctorate at Duke University and, more importantly to Chris at the time, was drop-dead gorgeous.

At a reception that evening, Chris had gone right up to Carlene and introduced himself. Surprising, as he was normally shy around beautiful women. Even more surprisingly, she seemed as taken with him as he with her. By conference's end, they had exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

The courtship that followed was awkward, but Chris and Carlene kept in touch with one another. They even conveniently managed to attend a few more academic events together, including one in Portland during the 2007 Christmas holidays, where - at was only their fourth meeting with one another - Chris had proposed marriage.

What had followed was a blizzard of activity - Chris managing to get his application to the University of Washington's history Ph.D. program just ahead of the deadline, a rocky conclusion to his disappointing tenure at his old institution, and then a small civil ceremony at the Hilton Palacio del Rio along San Antonio's beautiful Riverwalk in June 2008, followed by a blissful honeymoon down in Cozumel.

Now, more than one year later in July 2009, Chris had only one semester of coursework left at UW before his comps. And he and Carlene were still enjoying newlywed euphoria as they spent their summer vacation traveling across western Canada and the Pacific Northwest in a rented Hyundai Entourage minivan.

"I'm a lucky man, no doubt," Chris thought as he and Carlene drove south toward the town of Bonner's Ferry, Idaho.

But then, about twenty miles north of the town, Chris saw something ominous - an enormous cloud of smoke that could mean only one thing: forest fire. Not long thereafter, Chris saw a police barricade in the distance across the road. Drivers were being turned away.

The slowing of the van awoke Carlene, who turned to Chris and asked "What's going on?"

"Trouble," Chris replied.

[...to be continued]

***

I'm not sure what came over me tonight, but this story just popped into my head a few hours ago. I've never before written fiction of any kind.

I had initially planned to write a review of the movie "Death Race," but that will just have to wait until tomorrow.

National Treasure (updated w/ photo)

It is not often that I give a glimpse into my personal life, aside from my political opinions and career struggles. But today is an exception. Those of you who follow me on Facebook may recall that a few weeks ago I mentioned spending a Friday evening at an art gallery in downtown San Antonio. On that night, an exhibit featuring the work of woodcarver Enrique Rendon opened to the general public.

Mr. Rendon is an old family friend. My mother and his eldest daughter have been best friends since they were in grade-school together in the 1950s. However, Rendon has been a woodcarver for much longer, ever since he was a young boy growing up in Mexico (and later, my birthplace of Laredo, Texas) during the 1920s and 1930s. He is 91 years of age. As with most artists, his craft was more of a hobby throughout his life - he having spent most of his adulthood working as a mechanic at the now-defunct Kelly Air Force Base here in San Antonio.

Yesterday, on December 26, 2008, the San Antonio Express-News ran an article on Mr. Rendon and his ongoing art exhibition, which ends on January 5, 2009. Here is a snippet:

Carving wood has been the 91-year-old artist's passion since he learned the craft in Trabajos Manueles, or handwork class, in [Nuevo] Laredo [Tamaulipas, Mexico] at the age of 12. He favors San Domingo mahogany for its richness and durability, but he's just as at ease using wood found in lumberyards or trash bins. And even in his spare time or waiting at appointments, he's known to whittle a small animal from bark or a block of wood.

Rendon's first official exhibition comes 79 years after he produced his first piece in middle school.

The retrospective, titled "The Woodcarving of Enrique Rendon," is on display at Rendon Photography & Fine Art at 733 S. Alamo St. by appointment through Jan. 5. His son, photographer and gallery owner Al Rendon, is sponsoring the exhibit to celebrate Rendon's vision and work, which spans the Alamo City and beyond. Family members and former customers lent many of the pieces being shown.

Al Rendon, a former Express-News freelance photographer, says there isn't an official count of his father's work, but he estimates the number to be in the thousands."This is when he was at the top of his game," says Al Rendon, standing in his gallery among several elaborate pieces his father carved throughout his career. "Nobody makes stuff like this anymore."

One of the pieces on display is a woodcarving of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, carved by Mr. Rendon for my mother and father back in 1985. Mr. Rendon's son is correct, by the way. Woodcarving is a dying art form these days. The pieces I saw on display were magnificent, including such items as a carved wooden pantry door, ornate picture frames, figurines, and even the wooden stock of a .22 rifle. I consider myself privileged to know such a fine, skilled artist.

***

In other news, since Moxie has publicly announced her presence on Twitter, I will do the same. You all can find me here. See you there.

***

Update:

I've added a photo of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse carving that my mother and father own.

Lone Star Bolsheviks

While most normal Texans are spending the Christmas season celebrating with friends and family, there are those who even then cannot resist the temptation to curb the freedom to which we, by birthright, are entitled.

Of whom am I speaking? Specifically, Texas state Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) and state Rep. Myra Crownover (R-Denton), who have announced plans to file legislation in their respective chambers during the upcoming legislative session to institute a total ban on smoking in indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants. According to the Associated press article:

Crownover and Ellis filed the same proposal in 2007. A watered-down version passed the House, but the Senate proposal stalled in committee. Since then, Dallas and Corpus Christi have strengthened smoke-free laws, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation has made a statewide ban its top priority in Texas.

The proposed statewide law would not take precedence over stricter city ordinances. Austin, El Paso and Houston are among the Texas cities that have also passed comprehensive bans against smoking in the workplace.

What do the no-smoking Stalinists use to justify their drive to "save" Texans from the Demon Tobaccy? Why the same debunked Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study which blames three thousand deaths per year on Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). Writing for FoxNews.com, Steven Milloy of the Cato Institute notes that ten years ago, the federal courts took a dim view of the EPA's shoddy methodology in that study:

The tobacco industry challenged the EPA in court. A federal judge vacated the EPA's main conclusions stating that,"EPA disregarded information and made findings on selective information; ... deviated from its [standard procedures]; failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; and left significant questions without answers. EPA's conduct left substantial holes in the administrative records."

The ruling should have been a devastating blow to the hysteria surrounding secondhand smoke, except that it came more than five years after the EPA issued its report. The anti-tobacco industry exploited that time to convert the EPA's secondhand smoke junk science into conventional wisdom.

And such is still the case as of 2008. Facts don't matter, only feelings - as the election of Barack Obama has shown. Was fighting the Cold War worth it? I ask because it seems that we were only fighting Communism abroad so as to impose it at home.

Update I:

Check out this "Penn & Teller" video about the second-hand smoke fraud (content warning):



Update II:

Anti-American playwright Harold Pinter kicked the bucket on Christmas Eve. If he thought America was an unpleasant place to live, I doubt he's liking his current accommodations.

On This Christmas Day

Christmas Day is finally here. One thing I love about the Christmas season is the great music - much of it immortalized by such singers and musicians as Perry Como, Carmen Cavallaro, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, and countless others. One song in particular never fails to bring a smile to my face: a rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy" by Bing Crosby and David Bowie, recorded in 1977.

Here's a bit of background on the Bing/Bowie duet from The Washington Post:

One of the most successful duets in Christmas music history -- and surely the weirdest -- might never have happened if it weren't for some last-minute musical surgery. David Bowie thought "The Little Drummer Boy" was all wrong for him. So when the producers of Bing Crosby's Christmas TV special asked Bowie to sing it in 1977, he refused.

Just hours before he was supposed to go before the cameras, though, a team of composers and writers frantically retooled the song. They added another melody and new lyrics as a counterpoint to all those pah-rumpa-pum-pums and called it "Peace on Earth." Bowie liked it. More important, Bowie sang it.

The result was an epic, and epically bizarre, recording in which David Bowie, the androgynous Ziggy Stardust, joined in song with none other than Mr. "White Christmas" himself, Bing Crosby.

You can read the rest of the story here. Meanwhile, here's the song:



Pretty thing, ain't it?

A Poem for Christmas

Charlotte from South Africa, a long-time reader of this blog and fellow commenter from Cathy's World, sent me this beautiful poem a few days ago:

For the Fallen
by Laurence Binyon

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches on the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

What a wonderful way to remember our missing loved ones this Christmas season.

Horse Baloney

This past Saturday, The New York Times ran one of the stupidest op-eds I've come across in quite some time, and considering the source, that's really saying something. In an article titled "How to Win Islam Over," a couple of academic elitist twits named Olivier Roy and Justin Vaisse criticized Barack Obama's plan to call a conference of Muslim leaders from around the world to make it clear to them that there is no war between the Islamic world and the Western world. What problem do Roy and Vaisse have with that? In their own words, their problem is not with the conference itself, as with the idea behind it:

This idea of trying to reconcile Islam and the West is well intentioned, of course. But the premise is wrong.

How so?

Such an initiative would reinforce the all-too-accepted but false notion that “Islam” and “the West” are distinct entities with utterly different values. Those who want to promote dialogue and peace between “civilizations” or “cultures” concede at least one crucial point to those who, like Osama bin Laden, promote a clash of civilizations: that separate civilizations do exist. They seek to reverse the polarity, replacing hostility with sympathy, but they are still following Osama bin Laden’s narrative.

Ah, but of course. Roy and Vaisse are upset that Obama (unwittingly, no doubt) has violated one of the core beliefs of Transnational Progressives (or Tranzis, for short) the world over: the notion that differences actually do exist between the many peoples, civilizations and cultures of mankind. You see, to such bubble-headed, "we-are-the-world," arugula-munching, trail-mix eating, Eddie Bauer-shopping, Indigo Girls-listening, marijuana-smoking, Toyota Prius-driving, Rachel Maddow-watching, NPR-worshipping bourgeois-bohemians, all nation-states, national identities, and variants thereof are "arbitrary" while their "we are one" kumbaya internationalism is "authentic." As Dirty Harry would say, "Yeah."

Those familiar with the ideological battles of the historical profession will recognize this as a rehashing of the battle between Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" and Edward Said's "Orientalism" theses. Roy and Vaisse side with the latter, urging Obama to try to become the first "post-civilizational" president, to help us understand that there really are no differences between the Islamic and Western worlds. However, they do realize that the struggle ahead will be difficult:

This will be an uphill battle, since this view of a monolithic, dangerous Islam has gained wide acceptance. Whether we’re talking about civil war in Iraq, insurgency in Afghanistan, unrest in Kashmir, conflict in Israel-Palestine, nuclear ambitions in Iran, rebellion in the Philippines or urban violence in France, people routinely — but wrongly — single out Islam as the explanation, rather than nationalism or separatism, political ambitions or social ills. This in turn reinforces the idea of a global struggle.

Such an admission is akin to Sir Edmund Hillary admitting that Mt. Everest was one hell of a hill to climb. After all, that pesky little thing called reality keeps getting in the way, doesn't it?

After including more paeans to ridiculous left-wing globalist assumptions, Roy and Vaisse finally get to the heart of the matter:

If the idea of a Muslim summit meeting should be dropped as soon as possible, then what should Mr. Obama do? No more — but also no less — than carrying out the ambitious program he put forward during the campaign: closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, withdrawing from Iraq, banning torture, pushing for peace in the Middle East and so forth. These are not in any sense concessions to “Islam,” but on the contrary a reassertion that American values are universal and do not suffer any kind of double standard, and that they could be shared by atheists, Christians, Muslims and others.

That's right, dear readers, it's the "nuclear freeze" movement all over again! Why, if we just showed those misunderstood Islamic radicals - and "the world" - what nice, lovable people we Americans are by laying down our arms, terrorism would just disappear and peace would break out everywhere.

Please. Such nonsense does not in any way constitute a reasonable political or historical analysis of the modern world. It is wishful thinking of the type that is so idiotic, it only could have come from a college campus. As for what is truly arbitrary between globalism and nationalism, Tom Kratman said it best in the afterword to Carnifex:

I'm not convinced that the cosmopolitan notion of arbitrariness holds any water at all. It seems to me that the accident, the one truly arbitrary factor, is being born. Given that, it is no accident that a particular person is born to a particular culture and gene pool, that one is of a particular family.Unless people are purely fungible, and perhaps completely malleable, it is no accident that one is a product of those two factors. Really, one cannot be anything but a product of them. It is not accident, neither is it arbitrary, to like or dislike, to trust or distrust, based on genuine, natural similarities, acceptance of similar values, a common gene pool and a common culture.

What is really arbitrary, then, is the notion that mankind can exist without nation-states, which have proven to be the most stable, effective sociopolitical arrangement throughout human history. Deep down inside, the Tranzis know this, but they persist in their fantasies regardless, aware that the very existence of the nation-state is what will always prevent the realization of their Utopian schemes.

In & Out

Moxie's been in the weeds lately, and I know how she feels. I was giving finals late last week and earlier this week, after which I had to do grading. The grading was completed late Tuesday night, but for the last two days I've been in a generally idle mode, contemplating the dreadful semester that just came to an end and wondering what the future might hold once this academic year is over next May. Make no mistake, I'll be more than happy to leave my current university. If finances weren't an issue, I'd leave right now.

But no matter. Vacation time is here, Christmas is less than a week away, and I'm going to enjoy my three weeks of freedom. The liars, backstabbers, Marxist elitists, and other lowlifes of academe will just have to wait until next month.

***

Earlier today I got involved in a discussion at another website over the increasing nanny-statization of America, visible with growing restrictions on tobacco, food products, and even wacky warning labels telling people not to eat cat toys or play with chainsaws.

Toward the end of each year, major papers and news magazines publish their "in and out" lists - noting what is and is not trendy. Nowadays, freedom is definitely out.

When I lived in Montana back in the '90s, I could buy a carton of cigarettes at the grocery store just as easily as I could buy a loaf of bread. But when I was back there in '07, it had changed: the cartons were being kept under lock and key and ID had to be shown, just like in most other places, even Texas.

One may point out that tobacco is an age-restricted substance and that high prices may be cause for keeping the product under lock and key, but then why is the same not done with many alcoholic beverages or even caffeine-based products? I submit that the shakedown of the tobacco companies in the late '90s, along with all of the binding restrictions imposed upon their product, were done for one reason and one reason only: to hurt an industry vital to several politically conservative southern states. That's it.

When it comes to high tobacco prices, the government is the culprit by artificially raising those prices via an array of burdensome taxes. But some may wonder why they should care - if they don't smoke or live in a tobacco-producing part of the country, what does the shakedown matter to them? Well ask yourself this: if the nanny-staters use the government to go after one group, then what is to prevent them from going after another? You may not care if the nanny-staters go after tobacco because you don't smoke or are not adversely effected by decreased tobacco sales, but what about when they go after something you do like? They will, believe me.

To too many Americans freedom is just another word, while the false security offered by the state appears to be the answer to their dreams. Benjamin Franklin had some sharp words on that matter, as you'll recall. These days, it seems few are listening.

I'd Really Love to See You Tonight

Last week I put up a post about Dan Seals, formerly of the '70s pop group England Dan & John Ford Coley. Here is a video of England Dan & John Ford Coley's hit single from 1976, "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight":



I've also learned that since last summer, Dan Seals (who is now 60) has been receiving treatment for lymphoma at the M.D. Anderson Center in Houston. Here's hoping he has a good recovery, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Fine & Dandy

This week, this dreadful fall semester finally comes to an end. I have finals to give on Monday and Tuesday, after which I am off for three weeks. I wish I could say I'm now in the Christmas spirit, but that is not the case. Between dealing with back-stabbing colleagues and missing my late brother, it's been hard to feel joyful during what should be a festive time of year. Rather than feeling fine and dandy, it's looking like this will be a hard candy Christmas.

About the only thing that keeps me going at work these days is my love of history. I have no particular love of academic politics, obviously, nor of teaching. But I have to do what I have to do in order to earn a living.

But on the matter of history, there has been a rumor floating around that according to the "Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848," Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from the Union. That is not true. For one thing, there is no "Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848" and furthermore, the Constitution says nothing regarding secession. Legally, secession is a gray area.

Texas was admitted to the United States as this country's twenty-eighth state on December 29, 1845 when President James K. Polk signed the Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States. The Joint Resolution, however, did have this unusual provision attached to it:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution; and such states as may be formed out of the territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise Line, shall be admitted into the Union, with or without slavery, as the people of each State, asking admission shall desire; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of said territory, north of said Missouri Compromise Line, slavery, or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited.

It is also rumored that of all the state flags, only that of Texas can legally be flown at the same height as the flag of the United States of America. But that too is false.

Nonetheless, as I've said before on this blog, it would not displease me at all to see my native land once again become an independent republic.

Dude, Where's My Planet?

Late this afternoon, I saw the latest sci-fi blockbuster to hit the silver screen: The Day the Earth Stood Still - a remake of an earlier film by the same name from 1951. The original 1951 film was quite heavy-handed in its peacenik ideology - what the world needs now is love, sweet, love, says the alien emissary "Klaatu," or you all will be destroyed.

The new version, featuring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, is no less preachy. Except this time, the screenplay could have been written by Al Gore. Now instead of threatening to spread the vice of war beyond Earth, humanity is on the verge of rendering Earth uninhabitable via environmental destruction. And that, explains Klaatu, is not acceptable to the advanced civilizations of the galaxy because Earth is supposedly one of the few planets around capable of sustaining life.

The human protagonists of the film live in a typically politically correct arrangement - a single-parent (female) multiracial household, the heroic mom being played by Jennifer Connelly, a Honda Civic-driving professor of exobiology living in New York. Kathy Bates plays the Secretary of Defense.

The plot is predictable and the environmental doom-saying is accepted as gospel, just as it is by the mainstream media and millions of brain-dead Americans. This film is just as much of a waste of celluloid as was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, which had a similarly ridiculous environmentalist message. It would be nice if Hollywood screenwriters weren't so beholden to their ridiculous leftist assumptions, but hoping for that situation to change is like expecting the tuna to vote for Long John Silver.

Hard Times

As the scandal over Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) continues to unfold, it's becoming more and more difficult to believe that Barack Obama's hands are completely clean in the matter. Obama is someone whose political career was created by the Chicago machine - he came up in the political world surrounded by crooks of varying types - and now were supposed to believe that he is a saint among sinners. Right.

Now it turns out that Obama's incoming White House Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emanuel, may have been the "Obama advisor" named in the criminal complaint against Gov. Blagojevich. But of course, the mainstream media will continue to slobber over their incoming President-elect, refusing to believe that their secular messiah may be anything less than the savior of all mankind.

Is anyone really surprised by this? We elect the presidential candidate of what is essentially the Party of Corruption - the Democrats - and then are shocked to see that members of the incoming administration revert to form? It's reminiscent of the parable of the scorpion and the frog, where the frog is surprised that when he gives the scorpion a ride across the river, the scorpion stings him.

Much of the American electorate has just descended into insanity, doing the same thing multiple times (electing Democrats) and expecting a different result. Enjoy your new Democratic government, America. You deserve it.

Katrina Nation

In the December 15, 2008 issue of National Review, Mark Steyn writes [no link because the article is not available online] of the possible danger of something called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack being carried out against the United States by a hostile foreign power. Perhaps one that has only recently acquired nuclear weapons technology and the ability to deliver them. Perhaps Iran.

Steyn cites a recent article in The Wall Street Journal by Brian T. Kennedy of the Claremont Institute, who explains how the attack could occur:

Let us say the freighter ship launches a nuclear-armed Shahab-3 missile off the coast of the U.S. and the missile explodes 300 miles over Chicago. The nuclear detonation in space creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Gamma rays from the explosion, through the Compton Effect, generate three classes of disruptive electromagnetic pulses, which permanently destroy consumer electronics, the electronics in some automobiles and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S. All of our lights, refrigerators, water-pumping stations, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication and no ability to provide food and water to 300 million Americans.

This is what is referred to as an EMP attack, and such an attack would effectively throw America back technologically into the early 19th century.

It is S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series come to life. And though, unlike in Stirling's tale, a recovery could take place, it would take years and the country would never be the same. In Kennedy's words, such an attack "might mean the end of the United States and most likely the Free World."

Kennedy furthermore states that we have the technology to create an effective missile-defense system to negate such a threat. Though the Bush administration has markedly improved our nations home missile defense, it exists only in a very rudimentary form. The incoming Obama administration seems disinclined to take the matter seriously, adhering to the shop-worn leftist argument from the 1980s that missile-defense systems are needlessly provocative and financially wasteful.

Mark Steyn believes that the real reason for such reluctance is this:

This is the Katrina nation: our inclination is to ignore the warnings, wait for it to happen, and then blame the government for not doing more. That last part will prove a little more difficult after an EMP attack.

However, at a time when there is much hand-wringing about the "next Great Depression" and Obama Claus (Moxie's term, must give credit where it is due) promises to save us all with a Twenty-First Century New Deal, worries about a Global War on Terror and nuclear proliferation amongst our enemies are passé. This the era of "Hope," Change," and "Yes We Can!"

In March 2009, a novel by William Forstchen, One Second After, will be released. It is supposed to be a story of what happens to the United States after an EMP attack, and from the preliminary descriptions of the novel, the story is not a pleasant one. Will Forstchen's nightmarish vision become reality? I "hope" not.

Wisdom Reconsidered

What is wisdom? When contemplating that question, consider what James Day Hodgson had to say. Here's a verse of Hodgson's senryu along with his commentary:

Fine words may translate
Readily to an alien tongue,
But not to wisdom.

The world of diplomacy is almost shamefully glutted with eloquence. Words may please or inspire for the moment. Their flavor and point may even surmount translation. But to move them off page or podium into the heart and mind is another matter.

Food for thought, particularly in these times.

One in Every Crowd

Yesterday marked the sixty-seventh anniversary of the of the Imperial Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor. On the following day, December 8, 1941, the U.S. Senate and House passed a joint resolution declaring war on the Empire of Japan. The vote was almost unanimous. Who voted against it? One person: Representative Jeanette Rankin, a Republican from the 1st Congressional District of Montana.

Who was Jeanette Rankin? She was a native of Missoula, Montana (as it happens, my father's hometown) who earned a BS in Biology from the University of Montana in 1902 but later became a social worker and political activist, gaining women in Montana the right to vote in 1914. In 1916, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana's 2nd Congressional District as a member of the Republican Party. On April 6, 1917, she was one of fifty representatives to vote against America's entry into World War I.

Rankin's opposition to America's entry into that war, along with her passionate social activism and pacifism, did not sit to well with Montana voters in 1918. She gave up running for re-election to the House to pursue the GOP nomination for the Senate. She lost in the primaries and served out the rest of her House term until early 1919.

She stayed away from elective politics for the next two decades, but kept up with her social activism by helping found the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's League for International Peace.

In 1940, Rankin returned to elective politics, running on an anti-war platform, capturing the GOP nomination for Montana's 1st Congressional District and winning the general election that fall. After her vote against entry into World War II. Rankin's popularity back home plummeted, so much so that she did not even seek re-election in 1942.

In later years, when asked why she voted the way she did, she claimed that as a woman and a pacifist she could not support war. Essentially, that is the problem I've always had with pacifism. Robert Heinlein put it best when he once wrote of pacifism's foolishness, saying that to declare you "weren't gonna study war no more" or asking "what if they gave a war and nobody came?" was akin to accepting and legitimizing those who choose to do evil against their fellow man.

Jeanette Rankin may have been well-intentioned, but we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.

I'm thankful that throughout our nation's history, most of our leaders have shown more common sense.

Addicted

Here is a video of the classic country tune "Addicted" written and performed by Dan Seals - yes, the same Dan Seals who was once a member of the '70s pop duo "England Dan and John Ford Coley." After the duo broke up, Dan Seals went on to have a very successful country music career in the 1980s with such hits as "Bop," "In San Antone," "God Must Be a Cowboy At Heart," "The Healing Kind," "Everything That Glitters is Not Gold," among many others. Singing alongside Dan Seals in the video is Cheryl Wheeler.



Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Christianophobia

On Friday, a friend of mine over at Facebook sent me a link to this story (content warning) about the recent decision by the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill to not put up Christmas trees at its two main libraries this year. Why did the university choose to do so? According to the Charlotte Observer:

Michalak's [Sarah Michalak, the associate provost for university libraries] decision followed several years of queries and complaints from library employees and patrons bothered by the Christian display, Michalak said this week.

Michalak said that banishing the Christmas displays was not an easy decision but that she asked around to library colleagues at Duke, N.C. State and elsewhere and found no other one where Christmas trees were displayed.

Aside from the fact that a UNC Chapel Hill library is a public facility, Michalak said, libraries are places where information from all corners of the world and all belief systems is offered without judgment. Displaying one particular religion's symbols is antithetical to that philosophy, she said.

“We strive in our collection to have a wide variety of ideas,” she said. “It doesn't seem right to celebrate one particular set of customs.”

What a load of nonsense. UNC's action is reminiscent of a similarly stupid decision that a university here in San Antonio made a short while back. The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW), one of three Catholic universities in town, had the "crusader" - knight atop a horse dressed in full battle-armor with a lance - as its official mascot. But as you might well imagine, some professional agitators complained that the mascot was "offensive" to international students ("foreign" being a dirty word these days) - particularly those who hail from predominantly Islamic nations. After all, weren't the real crusaders greedy Western imperialists attacking peace-loving Muslims in the Holy Land? Well, actually they weren't, but don't tell that to the dunderheads who wrote the screenplay to Kingdom of Heaven.

Anyway, the administration of UIW caved and changed the team's mascot to the cardinal. How generic.

And as if that isn't enough, the same professional protesters from time-to-time threaten to bring suit against the municipal government to stop the City Council from opening each session with a prayer. Next, they'll probably try to change the name of the city to Good Person Antonio - "San" being Spanish for "Saint" after all. Can't go on offending any non-Christian San Antonians, can we?

Idiots.

Canada's Crisis...and Ours

This week, Canada's three opposition parties - the Liberal, New Democratic, and Bloc Quebecois parties - announced their plan to form a coalition and oust Prime Minister Steven Harper's minority Conservative government. "Minority Conservative government" you ask? Here's a very rough description of how Canada's government works: if one of the political parties prevails in an election with a plurality, but not a majority (as the Conservatives did back in October), they can form a government and govern so long as it is not successfully challenged by a vote of no confidence. If a government loses a vote of no confidence, then the government must either resign in favor of a new government or request to dissolve the current parliament and call a new general election.

Following the announcement by the Liberal, New Democratic, and Bloc Quebecois parties to oust the Conservatives by way of a vote of no confidence and create a new coalition government, Stephen Harper successfully appealed to the Governor-General of Canada (the representative of Canada's sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II) for a suspension of Parliament. According to al-Reuters:

Harper's request for suspension was unprecedented. No prime minister had asked for Parliament to be suspended to avoid a confidence vote in the House of Commons.

Such a vote had been set for Monday and the Conservatives almost certainly would have lost it, and faced the possibility of being replaced by a coalition of opposition parties.

In the meantime, Harper and his fellow Conservatives have voiced their displeasure at the attempted maneuver by the opposition parties, claiming that their attempt to oust the Conservatives is fundamentally anti-democratic and a ham-handed attempt to invalidate the results of the October 2008 election. Polls show that many Canadians agree with Harper:

An Ekos opinion poll taken as the crisis reached its peak showed the Conservatives had shot up in popularity to 44 percent, enough to get a parliamentary majority if an election were held today, up from the 37.6 percent they received in the October 14 vote.

Liberal support dropped to 24.1 percent from 26.2 percent, the New Democrats fell to 14.5 percent from 18.2 percent and the Bloc edged down to 9.2 percent from 10.0 percent.

The poll, released late on Thursday by CBC television, covered 2,536 respondents from December 2-3 and carried a 1.9 point margin of error, 19 times out of 20.

If the opposition parties' gambit is successful, then by all means a new general election should be called. In any democracy, the people should decide the make-up of the government, not politicians making back-room deals.

All of which brings me to ask this question: why does the left have such a problem with democracy these days? Since Al Gore's election shenanigans of 2000, Democratic candidates have engaged in multiple attempts - sometimes successful - win elections by subterfuge. In addition to the aforementioned Bush-Gore election, I also recall Sen Tim Johnson's questionable victory in South Dakota back in 2002, Christine Gregoire's fraudulent overturning of the 2004 gubernatorial election results in the state of Washington, and now Al Franken's attempt to overturn Sen. Norm Coleman's re-election victory in Minnesota.

Yet, is always the left that screams bloody murder when their candidates do not win. Remember all the ridiculous Diebold conspiracy theories that followed Bush's victories in 2000 and 2004? But such is the nature of "good" tyrants - the ends justify the means because their motives are supposedly pure. Hopefully the would-be hippie Caesars will have real checks placed upon their power with the 2010 elections, but I can't help but share in Tom Kratman's concern that this past election may be the last fair one we may see for a while. For left-wing parties and activists, political power is virtually crack cocaine, and they won't give it up easily.

American Beauty

I'm feeling wiped right now because on Tuesday evening I finally finished putting up my outside Christmas lights. I thought I had accomplished the task back on Saturday, but one of the strings subsequently shorted out. So out came the ladder again and I removed the old string and replaced it with a new. On to the Christmas tree in a few days.

Today, I'd like to consider another bit of verse from James Day Hodgson's American Senryu:

The exciting thought
That beauty is possible
Sustains us all.

Beauty can take many forms. An attractive woman, a breathtaking painting, a toe-tapping tune, a well-written story, or a Senate race where the Democratic candidate gets stomped like a roach at a clog dance.

Gotta love it.

I Was Lousy at Math, a Failed Historian....

So goes the very first line of what has long been my favorite country music song: "Carlene" by Phil Vassar. For many years, Phil Vassar was a successful songwriter working in Nashville when in 2000 he released his first, self-titled album. "Carlene" was the first release off of that album, and I instantly fell in love with it. At a youthful 25 years of age, I had just entered graduate school and was beginning to get my first taste of life in the brutal world of academia.

I bring this up because on Monday I posted a rather down-beat comment at Steve H. Graham's blog. Steve was talking about Kim du Toit's retirement from blogging, to which I replied:

That’s sad. I was never what you would call a regular reader of Kim du Toit, but I would drop by from time to time and read his postings.

Blogging is my lifeline to sanity these days - it’s helping me through some difficult times. At this point I couldn’t imagine giving it up.

Those who are regular readers of this blog know what I am talking about. Back on November 18 I alluded to career trouble I was having, and am still having. Going to work and having the metaphorical stuffing kicked out of you on a daily basis is not exactly conducive to one's mental health, but I am fortunate to have a community of online friends that I've compiled over the years to offer support and a much-needed distraction from such unpleasant realities.

That being said, in the coming months when I get around to announcing my next career move, many of you will probably think I've lost the plot. But I can be rather stubborn - my instinct over time has tended toward picking myself up off of the ground and going back for more.

For the first time that I can recall, I've thus far been unable to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Usually I get excited when I put up the lights outside of my house and work on the Christmas tree. Over the weekend, I put the outside lights up but then discovered that one of the strings was malfunctioning. I have yet to replace it. And the artificial tree I was going to put up was missing part of the stand, so it kept falling over. When it rains, it pours.

Anyway, I apologize for the pity party. No doubt as the remainder of this dreadful semester draws to an end and my three week-long vacation gets underway, I will be feeling more cheerful. In the meantime, here's a YouTube video of Phil Vassar performing "Carlene." What a great tune.

Shall Not Fall!

Last week I finished reading The Last Centurion by John Ringo. You all may recall that he showed up in the comments to this post over a week ago. A great novel I thought, and as a life-long suburbanite, I learned more about farming than I ever knew before. Farming, you ask? More about that later.

Taking place from 2019 to 2021, The Last Centurion centers around a U.S. Army officer known simply as "Bandit Six," who at the novel's beginning is the commander of a battalion abandoned in Iran. By novel's end, he has become known as "the Last Centurion," promising that his Rome, unlike the Rome of antiquity, shall not fall. The novel, however, covers far more ground than Bandit Six's Middle East adventure (which plays out like a twenty-first century version of Xenophon's Anabasis). Along the way, Ringo treats his readers to well-reasoned, if blunt, arguments on such issues as Hurricane Katrina, global warming, liberal kumbaya foreign policy, and the stupidity of the government nationalization of industry, among other issues.

This is all occurring against the background of an America in serious decline. The United States is first struck with an airborne, human equivalent of the avian flu, which sweeps through the population with deadly consequences. With the exception of New York City, major urban areas are hardest hit, and on average the blue states - having less of a tendency toward "voluntary associations" than the red - suffer more greatly due to the dependence of their populations on governmental largess. At the same time, there is also a serious meteorological cooling trend underway causing a reduction in arable farmland.

To the latter crisis, President Warrick (constantly referred to by Bandit Six as "the Bitch") responds by nationalizing farms across the country and staffing them with urbanites who know nothing about how a productive farm works. At this point, Bandit Six is back home from the Middle East and is working in the Pentagon, trying to provide helpful advice (he is the son of a farmer with a degree in a related field) to those rookie farmers willing to listen. And then there is the matter of many of this country's cities having come under the rule of gangster-type warlords by the time Bandit Six returns - a problem that Warrick is more unwilling than unable to address. Again, it is left to Bandit Six and his centurions to handle the problem.

Give this book a read. I guarantee you will enjoy it, if for no other reason than basking in the "voice" of the narrator (Bandit Six), whose tone reminded me a lot of the blogger Ace of Spades.

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Also, my fellow blogger Moxie is in the market for a shotgun. Please go over and give her some advice. She'll appreciate it!